Fox Fire 6:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters. Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto. This is just a fanfiction written for fun. The only things I claim to own are my imagination and the OCs that appear in the story. Please enjoy.

Chapter 1:

Temari walked briskly up the winding halls of the Hokage building to deliver something to her husband. No one bothered her along the way, some even stepping aside to make room for her in the hall, seeing a woman on a mission.

She knocked on a door and showed herself in before being given permission to enter. "Shikamaru, I brought you a lunch." She held up the parcel in her hand.

Behind a table hidden under stacks of papers and files, Shikamaru lifted his head to see his wife. "Oh. Thanks. I didn't know you made one for me."

Temari set it down on the table on top of the papers. "Sounded like you'd be having another busy day today, so I figured you'd need one."

"Thanks." Shikamaru made sure to show her gratitude otherwise she would be cross with him when he got home. He didn't have time to eat right now but didn't want to make it look like he was shoving it aside. He carefully took it off the pile of papers, knocking a couple off the stack. He set the lunch down beside his clipboard and started to return the fallen papers to the pile.

Grabbing one before it fell off the table, Shikamaru was about to return it to the others when something caught his attention. He brought the paper closer to his face, examining the seal on the envelop. It was a coat of arms he had never seen before.

Temari saw him studying it and brought her face closer to read it. "That's an official-looking seal," she commented. "Must be a request from nobility or some sort of king."

It wasn't uncommon to get mission requests from people in power, but this was a place Shikamaru was unfamiliar with. To satisfy his curiosity, Shikamaru tore it open to take a look.

Shikamaru nearly jumped out of his seat after reading the first line. His heartrate increased as he finished the first paragraph and as he started reading the second, a chill ran down his spine.

"What is it?" Temari asked.

Shikamaru stood up with the letter in hand. "Sorry, I have to get this to the Hokage immediately." Shikamaru brushed past Temari and was out the door in an instant.

Naruto had just finished signing some papers when a few people came in to request changes for the village. It wasn't an official meeting, just people throwing out ideas and hoping the Hokage would consider them. A man with a clipboard approached with a smile to pitch an idea for a commemorative coin with Naruto's face on it, which had Naruto's eye twitching as he smiled nervously.

"You are possibly the most popular Hokage the Leaf has ever had and I think this would be an excellent way to make money. Profiting off popularity is something-"

"I don't know," Naruto told him nervously. "That doesn't seem…"

"Of course, this will only be the first coin that we'll mass produce for the public to get people's interest. After that, we'll release a second and a third of past Hokages. They'll be collector's items. I'm thinking gold. Not real gold, of course. That would take us broke. But faux gold or just painting them to look like gold would do the trick. We'll sell them for a profit which would help fund the village."

"That would help the Leaf make more money without needing to raise taxes, which I'm sure the villagers will appreciate," said the woman behind him.

"We already have trading cards with my face on them," said Naruto. "Do we really need a coin, too?"

"Yours to start. We'll have coins of all the Hokage. What do you say, Seventh?"

Naruto chuckled nervously. "Well, I…"

Another woman shoved her way to the front. "His company's profits have stagnated since last season and are only pitching this idea to stay afloat. At least, that's what he'd tell you, but I've seen their numbers. They're managing fine. They just want to increase their wealth. My idea, on the other hand, will benefit the village, not line my pockets."

The man and woman beside her glared, saying, "Stay out of this. It's still our turn."

"Seventh, at least look at these documents." She waved them towards Naruto, stretching her arm over the two people trying to shove her aside. "It proves equal supply and demand for-"

"The coin will get people's attention and help the village make a profit, not just our company."

"Seventh, as you can see-"

"Seventh, we-"

Shikamaru entered the room, moved to the front of the crowd and started pushing them out the door. "I'm sorry, but the Hokage has urgent business to take care of right now. If it's important, submit it to the front desk and they'll get it to him later. Get out!"

The group called to the Hokage from the threshold, waving their papers in the air for him to see. Their voices were cut off by Shikamaru slamming the door in their faces.

Shikamaru turned around with the letter in his hand. "Naruto, we've got a problem."

"It must be for you to react like that." Naruto was glad that the noise stopped, though. Years ago, he probably would have wanted a coin with his face on it but now that he knew what went into the process, he wasn't so sure. Plus, he didn't want the people thinking it was tacky.

Shikamaru held up the paper. "I just found this among our mission requests. Though, this is more like a demand than a request."

"Let me see that." Naruto took the paper from him but before he could begin reading, Shikamaru went on.

"Remember that mission Boruto and his friends went on a couple months ago to bring you back from the spirit realm?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember the part they mentioned about going to a kingdom by the sea ruled by a king who traded goods with Akio? How a spirit item was discovered in his vault and his right-hand man was transformed into a donkey?"

Naruto grew concerned. "The Kai guy? The one who's been trying to expose the kitsune? Yeah, and?"

Shikamaru pointed to the letter. "It seems his king wants the safe return of both and to deal with the shinobi responsible."

Naruto looked away from the letter. "Responsible? Boruto and his friends weren't the ones who transformed Kai. According to Boruto, Kai ate a bag of rice intended for a spirit which caused him to turn into an animal. It wasn't Boruto's doing."

"Good luck explaining that to the king. I doubt he'd believe us."

"And as far as that item from the vault is concerned, that is a spirit item that's already been returned to the spirit realm. It would be impossible for us to get it back. Even if we could, it's not ours. How it ended up in the vault is beyond me. From what I've heard, Kai resorted to underhanded means to secure what he wanted. He must have gotten it somehow, but…"

"Naruto, the king blames Boruto. According to his letter, he's blaming Leaf shinobi because they showed up and right after they did, both went missing. He says the timing is too perfect and thinks they're responsible."

"Not directly," Naruto argued. "Boruto didn't turn Kai into a donkey. He changed because he took something intended for a spirit."

"But why did that transform him?" asked Shikamaru.

"Spirit things are funny like that. If I had to guess, it was either because Kai took it by force after being told repeatedly not to and that was the rice's way of punishing him, or that would have happened to any human who ate it."

"So someone eating it by accident would have turned into a donkey or some other animal?"

Naruto shrugged. "Again, spirit things are funny. I'm thinking it's more that he took it by force knowing it was meant for someone else and after being told not to. An innocent person might not have been changed, but Kai…"

"Well, either way, the king wants Kai and the object taken from his vault returned immediately."

Naruto looked at the letter in his hand. "We can't do that. The item is in the spirit realm and we cannot get it back. Kai's transformation is beyond our skills to mend. A spirit item or spirit food did this to him. We can't change him back."

Shikamaru nodded with a clenched jaw. "Which brings us to the big issue. You see, according to his letter, if we don't comply…"

Naruto's eyes widened as he scanned that line in the letter. "We'll declare war on the Leaf?!"

Shikamaru nodded again. "He's threatening us."

Naruto looked from the letter to Shikamaru. "He can't do that, can he? I mean, he's not another ninja village. He…"

"It's more common for shinobi to attack other shinobi, but if a civilian population wants to go to war with a shinobi village, they can. They usually don't make it out alive, given our difference in skill."

"We can refuse him," said Naruto. "We won't go to war."

"That won't stop him from attacking us. Unless we want our village destroyed, we'll have to fight back."

Neither of them wanted to ever see another war again. So many innocent people dragged to the front lines of battle. So many lives lost and for what? No one got what they wanted. They survived but no one had more power than when they started and so many others did not make it. They were left to drag themselves home, pick up the pieces and bury their dead.

War was not an option.

But what could they do?

Naruto looked over the letter again. "The Leaf shinobi are just referred to as Leaf shinobi," Naruto observed. "Boruto and his friends are never named. Then he doesn't know it was them."

Shikamaru disagreed. "He might not know their real names, but if he sees their faces, he'll probably know. Boruto mentioned that they went to his throne room to speak with him. He saw them."

"Ok, so he saw them. But without a name, how are we to know what shinobi he's talking about?" Naruto asked with a grin.

Shikamaru caught on immediately. "That could buy us some time. Unless he's able to name the shinobi, we can't bring them forward. We'll need time to round them up and make sure we have the right ones. He'll have to postpone the attack."

"Which is good news."

"But we'll have to notify him, otherwise how will he know? He could take our lack of response as refusal."

"We could say his letter got lost," said Naruto.

Shikamaru scoffed. "I don't think he'll buy that. Even if it were true. This king doesn't sound like a reasonable guy."

Naruto looked at the bottom of the letter. "He wants to meet with us to discuss matters."

"Yup. Saw that."

"Then let's arrange a meeting with this guy. We'll invite him over and once we explain-"

"No, bad idea," Shikamaru interrupted. "Don't bring him here while he's mad and unreasonable. Neutral territory. He probably wouldn't want us going to his land either."

"Then, Shikamaru, arrange this for me. We'll talk to the guy and explain that he's asking too much and it's not worth going to war over."

"Let's hope he listens," Shikamaru muttered under his breath.

Boruto and his friends returned from their mission earlier that day and were enjoying some much-deserved downtime. Since several of their friends were either busy on missions of their own or unavailable, the members of the new Team 7 each spent the rest of the day doing their own things.

With Sakura busy at the hospital, Sarada did the chores her mother couldn't get to, which included preparing dinner. Since Sakura hadn't gotten to the shopping yet, Sarada took it upon herself to do so. She was still tired from the mission, so she decided on a simple meal which wouldn't take long to prepare or shop for. She planned to surprise her mother when she came home that evening with dinner already prepared for her.

Mitsuki didn't have much to do on his own. He wanted to bother Boruto but knew he would be busy with family as he usually was after missions and decided to give him his space. He took a bath then went to do his own shopping. At the store, he saw Sarada reading a list as she moved to the next aisle, shopping as well. He smiled upon seeing her but didn't say anything, grabbing a prepackaged meal from the shelf and moving to the nearest checkout.

Boruto jerked his body to the side, trying to influence the character in his game to move more dramatically than possible on the screen to avoid an attack. He groaned and flopped on the couch cushions in defeat. "This level's hard. How did Shikadai beat this thing?"

Himawari looked over the back of the couch, having been watching him play for the past ten minutes and growing bored when he couldn't beat the level and returned to what she had been doing before. Now she was smiling at her older brother, hoping he would take a break and pay attention to her.

Before she could open her mouth, Boruto looked into the kitchen. "Mom, is dinner ready yet? What are we having?"

"Pork cutlets," answered Hinata. Noticing her other child, she added, "Would you and Himawari like to help set the table? It'll be ready soon."

"Alright." Boruto left his game on the couch and went into the kitchen with his sister to help. He lazily started setting down the plates and soon turned it into a game, challenging Himawari to finish setting her half of the table before he could. He let her win, giggling when she did, smiling at him with pride.

Everyone sat down around the food and began dinner with an empty chair at the head of the table. Boruto ignored it as best he could but it still bothered him that there was an empty plate and chair glaring at him as he ate.

As they chewed their food, the front door opened and Naruto came into the room with a grin. "Hey, you started without me. Aw, sorry I'm late."

Himawari was excited to see Naruto and gave him a big smile and hug, abandoning her food to greet him halfway to his chair. "Mom and I made pork cutlets. I helped with the breading."

"Oh, you did? Mm, looks good."

Boruto didn't get out of his chair but stopped eating long enough to welcome his father home. "You can't blame us for starting without you since we never know when you'll be back."

"Ah, sorry." Naruto sat down in his chair. "Something important came up and I couldn't leave until we settled it."

"Everything's important, you know."

Naruto started filling up his plate, his expression looking more troubled than pleased. "I'll be working late tomorrow and will probably miss dinner. Sorry. I've got a lot of extra work I've got to get done."

Boruto scowled. Though Naruto was giving them a heads-up about his schedule, the fact that he had to bothered him. "Why can't you just put that stuff off until the next day? It can wait, you know."

"Actually, I have to work late tomorrow because I'll be away from the office the next day and can't do it then. That's why."

"Where are you going?" Himawari asked.

Naruto hesitated, but smiled. "Oh, I have a meeting outside the village. It's pretty last minute. I just learned about it today."

"What kind of meeting? Is it with another Kage?"

"Uh, no, a different person. We've never formally met but he'd like to see me." The smile on Naruto's face was forced. Everyone, even Himawari could tell he was troubled by something.

"You're leaving the village to meet with them in private?" Hinata asked, looking concerned.

"Shikamaru's coming, too. I'm not sure how long it will take, but he'll be there. That's why I have to get as much done tomorrow as possible."

Hinata didn't ask anything more about it.

As dinner wrapped up, Naruto said something to Boruto that sparked an argument. "Uh, Boruto… For the next couple of days, I need you to stay in the village. That goes for your friends, too."

"Huh?" he asked, looking in his direction. "But a lot of them are out on missions right now. You saying you're calling them back?"

"No, I mean none of your friends are going to be allowed on missions for the next couple of days. That includes you."

"Why?" he asked. Not because he wanted another mission but because he thought it was unfair for his father to declare such a thing. "Did we do something wrong?"

"No. No," he said but wouldn't look at him directly. "It's just that… with this meeting I have coming up, it might be best if your group just stays in the village until we have things settled. That's all it is."

"But why? If we didn't do anything, why can't we leave the village?"

"Boruto," injected Hinata, "I think your father has good reason to ask this and you should listen."

Boruto tried to understand why this was happening. "Is the village in some sort of danger and that's why you can't have us leave?"

"No, this village isn't in danger at all. That's not what this is," said Naruto.

"Then…" Boruto looked up at him, gaze firmly fixed on his father. "Is there a reason you don't want us to leave?"

"There is a reason, but…"

"Did we do something wrong? Are we in danger? What's the reason?"

Naruto sighed, biting his lip. "It's just… I'm meeting with a new person and we think it's best if we met under certain circumstances."

"Like…?"

"Like not having ninja running around while we're having our meeting," answered Naruto. "It's a security thing. They'll be traveling, I'll be traveling… It's probably not a good idea to have extra people crossing paths with us during this time. They might think you're spies or something. After all, they only agreed to meet with the two of us. If more show up, he might think we lied."

"The world's huge, Dad," argued Boruto. "What are the odds we'll happen by your meeting place? Just give us a mission that sends us in the other direction, you know."

"We don't know how this meeting is going to go."

"Then we are in danger."

"No, we are not."

"Why just us? What about other shinobi?" asked Boruto. "You said only me and my friends. Not the adults. Why? Does this involve us?"

"No, it…"

"Then why can't we go?"

"I just want you to stay in the village for a couple of days. It's not that big of a deal. You've done it before between missions."

"But you're telling me specifically not to which can only mean it involves me and my friends. Why? What's going on?"

"It's a formality, Boruto. Will you stop pestering me with questions?"

Boruto folded his arms. "It sounds like you're hiding something."

"It is a private meeting," Naruto pointed out. "The king wants to meet with me alone."

Boruto raised his brow. "A king?"

Naruto bit his lip. It slipped out.

Boruto leaned closer. "Who's this king?"

Since Boruto wasn't going to drop the subject with so many vague answers, Naruto decided to tell Boruto just enough without revealing what the meeting was actually about. "This king comes from a seaside kingdom."

A lightbulb went off in Boruto's head immediately. "Is this the same king we met before with Kai and everything? That one?"

He nodded. "Same king. He wants to meet with me but it's not about anything you need to be concerned about."

"Then why are you meeting with him and why can't we leave the village?"

"It's because of what you told me and Shikamaru. That mission you went on before at the mountain and then the one you went on when I disappeared. He's seen you twice and both incidents weren't exactly the best of circumstances."

Boruto couldn't argue with that. The first time involved helping the king catch Kai in the act of threatening to kill an innocent prince just to get answers, and the second time involved Kai getting turned into a donkey and Boruto's team fleeing the city with the king's guards chasing them to the lighthouse on the hill. The king probably didn't remember them fondly.

"We didn't want to risk him seeing you, given the history you have. That's why I need you guys to stay in the village until after the meeting is over."

Boruto raised his brow. "That's it?"

"Yeah," Naruto said with the same forced smile on his face. "Can you please just stay in the village for a couple of days? Since you're not on assignment, it should be easy for you. You don't have any business leaving the village, right?"

Boruto frowned and looked away. "I guess so."

Naruto smiled and patted Boruto on the head. "Good. Now let's help your mom with the dishes."

That was what he said, but Boruto didn't believe him. Specifically, the reason Naruto gave for why they couldn't leave the village.

Though it made sense, Boruto knew Naruto wasn't telling him the whole story.

If Naruto didn't think it would be a good idea for them to be seen by the king, it meant that he not only believed it would start something but that it would.

Naruto said that the meeting didn't involve Boruto yet he said being seen by the king wasn't a good idea. Naruto said this was a cautionary situation, but Boruto didn't believe it.

As he lay awake in bed, he mulled over what his father said and what he knew. He concluded that the mission had to involve him, otherwise his father wouldn't have told him to stay in the village. He might have said it was just a precaution, but knowing the king would have an issue seeing Boruto and his friends told him that this could only mean he was involved. Otherwise, he wouldn't have said it.

They had a history. Naruto had never met with this king before. Naruto specifically didn't want Boruto or his friends to leave the village for fear the king would see them. This all pointed to the meeting being about them.

It angered Boruto that Naruto wouldn't share this with him. Why was he keeping this to himself? If it involved him, he had a right to know. He hated being treated like a child.

He had to know what that meeting was about. And since he knew Naruto would be too busy working tomorrow to notice anything else, Boruto decided that would be the perfect time to make his own preparations.