" Talking "
' Thinking '
Jutsu / Summons / Bijuu
letters / settting / flashback
Disclaimer :- I don't own Naruto. It is owned by Masashi Kishimoto.
Chapter 15. Return to Wave
Hokage's office :-
Tsunade collapsed in her chair and sighed in relief. Dealing with those idiots on the civilian council and those two old fossils Homura and Koharu always tested her patience to the limit. She was only glad that she didn't have to deal with that withered old mummy, Danzo, because in the kind of mood she was in, she would have killed them all if he talked about making her son a weapon or any such nonsense. Tsunade knew that for all of Danzo's spiel about loyalty to Konoha and sacrificing everything for Konoha, he never seemed to do anything of that sort. He only cared about taking actions which helped in his goal to become Hokage. He would do anything and sacrifice anyone to achieve his goal of becoming Hokage. She cursed Sarutobi sensei for sparing the life of that bloody snake Danzo along with sparing Orochimaru. And now that bloody mummy was too well connected to uproot, but she had a plan to take care of that bastard.
Deciding to take her mind of such irritating topics, Tsunade turned her attention to her son.
" Sochi, It will take some time for Shizune to get here, as she is performing an emergency procedure at the hospital. In the meanwhile why don't you tell me how your training has progressed, as I only know about your progress in Taijutsu, as I regularly spar with you."
" Well, kaachan, I am on level 4 of my resistance seals. And I have completed the first stage of nature manipulation exercises for all the five basic elements, though it took a little bit longer for earth and fire. I have started the second stage of nature manipulation exercises for my affinities, and after completing that, I will do the same for fire and earth. I am currently not learning any new ninjutsu, but instead am trying to master and refine the jutsus I already know, so that I can use them at a higher level. And as for Kenjutsu, Yugao sensei says that I can match a high genin in pure Kenjutsu technique, but I can with ease fight mid chunin level opponents with a sword due to my speed and power advantage. And I have progressed to Level 4 of the Fuinjutsu volumes, which consists of the basics of barrier and security seals, which includes methods to detect chakra and motion using seals. And I can now continuously substitute myself with a kunai, twelve times in a row without a break, before it starts taking a toll on me. And Shizune neechan said that I have mastered the Chakra scalpels as well as the Mystic palm jutsu, and said that my poison resistance training is also going very well as my healing factor is apparently making sure that once I am exposed to a poison, it will no longer affect me in the future. As for poison preparation, Shizune neechan has taught me how prepare one Haemotoxin, one cytotoxin, one paralytic agent and one neurotoxin, as well as how to prepare their antidotes." Naruto said, giving his mother a brief synopsis of his progress in his shinobi training.
To say the least, Tsunade was very ecstatic at the progress of her son. Because from what she had seen of his Taijutsu, he was easily chunin level in that, if he released his resistance seals, and from his answer to her question she could tell that he was at about the same level in all the other fields he was interested in. And she was also happy that her son was not being a fool and trying to cram his head full of Ninjutsu, but instead was trying to master those that he knew so that he could use those at a higher level at lesser chakra cost rather than using higher level jutsu which cost a lot more chakra, as although he had a vast amount of chakra, there was no need to waste it in a battle. She knew that Naruto would have been the ideal student for Sarutobi sensei in Ninjutsu, with how fast he had conpleted the first level of the Nature manipulation exercises for all the elements, and his instinctive understanding when it came to Ninjutsu. He was also similar to her sensei in the sense that he was apparently a perfectionist in everything that he did.
"But Shizune neechan also told me that you are the greatest poison expert in the elemental nations, Is it true Kaachan? " Naruto asked.
Tsunade was never one for false modesty, so she just nodded her head in agreement, and said " Yes sochi kun, what Shizune said is true. I was the main reason that Konoha managed to defeat Suna and Kiri in the Second Shinobi war, as I neutralized all their poisons and even poisoned the so called poison experts of those villages, earning me the name of " the Queen of Elixirs ".
"But what most people don't know is Shizune is my equal or better in that field", Tsunade admitted.
" What is Kakashi training you in, sochi? " Tsunade asked.
"Well, he is training me in how to fight multiple enemies at once, and use their advantage in numbers against them, and also on what type of jutsu to use in what situations. He is also training me in how to combat shinobi from various nations, as he has battled against all if them in his career, and is teaching me how to counter the specialities of shinobi of every shinobi village. And he is also training me in tracking, with the help of his dog summons. He is also helping me with creating and maintaining a bigger version of the Rasengan, that I found in my father's scroll called the Oodama Rasengan, but I am having a little trouble with it, as I am not able to control such a large amount of pure chakra moving chaotically inside a shell of chakra, as it seems that my chakra control is still not good enough ", Naruto said.
" I will teach you a few of the more advanced chakra control exercises that I discovered to gain perfect control over my massive chakra reserves, but that will have to wait till your B rank mission is complete", Tsunade said, as chakra control was her speciality and she would definitely help her son improve his chakra control which was currently jounin level, which was very good for someone whose chakra reserves were high kage level, and in her opinion would equal that of her grandfather the Shodaime Hokage in his prime, but her grandfather had perfect control over his massive chakra reserves, which were the highest she had known any person to have, it was even higher than Kisame who was known as the Tailless Bijuu for his massive chakra reserves. And she wanted her son to have perfect chakra control over his massive reserves, which would make him a terror on the battlefield.
Tsunade also planned to start teaching her son the secret to her super strength technique, after getting his chakra control to the required level, as it would make a dangerous combo with his high speed. And while Tsunade would also be teaching it to her apprentice, she really didn't have high hopes for Sakura when it came to combat, as that girl never took initiative to train on her own to expand her combat abilities, and never worked hard to increase her meagre chakra reserves. So while Sakura was gifted when it came to Medical ninjutsu, that definitely didn't extend to her combat ability. And that girl was also not suited for Genjutsu, as while she had an incredible memory, she had next to no creativity, which was essential for a Genjutsu user. All she had going for her was her excellent rote memory and incredible chakra control, but whatever advantage was offered by her near perfect chakra control was offset by her meagre chakra reserves.
Shaking herself out of her musings, Tsunade saw Shizune enter her office, while still in her hospital outfit.
"Ah, you are here, Shizune. Good, good", Tsunade said.
"Sorry Naruto kun, I was delayed at the hospital", Shizune said, as she entered the Hokage's office and found Tsunade and Naruto waiting for her as they chatted with each other.
" Now that I am here, we can get a mission and get going ", Shizune said.
" So what mission would you like to pick? Another C rank mission " , Tsunade asked
" I would like a B ranked mission, Tsunade sama. Naruto has already completed 4 C rank missions in the past month, one of which was upgraded to an A ranked mission. I think he is ready for a B rank mission, and also I would be there incase there are any complications ", Shizune informed Tsunade about her choice of mission as well as her justification for it.
Tsunade thought about it for a moment and replied " if you are sure, then I don't see any reason to deny it ", and looked through the pile of B ranked missions on her desk which were waiting for approval.
" There is a request for help from a bridge builder named Tazuna from Wave Country. He is apparently the new mayor of Wave Country, and is seeking our help in freeing his daughter and grandson from whoever kidnapped them and is blackmailing him to hand over control of Wave country's strategic ports to them, and there is also a request for help from Tori no Kuni.", Tsunade said .
As soon as Tsunade mentioned Tazuna and Wave country, Naruto perked up and immediately said " Kaachan, if you don't mind, we would like to take the mission to Wave country. You see I was already on a mission to Wave country once, and I am familiar with the place as well as the client Tazuna ".
And when asked for clarification by Tsunade and Shizune, Naruto recounted for them the mission details of his first C rank mission with Team 7.
After hearing all the details, Tsunade saw no reason not to send Shizune and Naruto to Wave country, especially when Naruto was already familiar with the area, which could be a very useful advantage.
Seeing as the mission was decided, Tsunade gave them the actual mission details.
" Apparently many people have been kidnapped and not just Tazuna's family, and they have been warned against contacting any shinobi village for help. Apparently the culprit is some person called Gourou, who is apparently the son of that midget Gatou that you mentioned. He apparently took back control of all the erstwhile assets of Gatou persent there and then proceeded to kidnap all these people inorder to scare and threaten the entire population into submission. He apparently also had a lot of thugs and even a few shinobi on his payroll. But there are no details on who the shinobi are. Tazuna sent this request for help, secretly through a fisherman who slipped the security of Gourou. So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to free those hostages, kill Gourou and his goons and secure the ports of Wave country, as well as the new bridge connecting Wave country to Fire Country, which might be used as a staging point to bring across an enemy army I to Konoha, as that part is not at all well protected, and see if you can't set up a military alliance between Wave country and Fire country, so that we can officially station some of our shinobi there as security, preventing such events from happening again in the future as well as securing our borders from our enemies ", Tsunade said.
After listening to all the pertinent information, Shizune ordered Naruto to pack his belongings for a three day mission, and to meet her at their home.
After Naruto had left the office, Tsunade addressed Shizune, and said " Shizune, be careful on this mission. I have a feeling that this Gourou may have the support of some of our enemy nations, as capturing Wave country
would be very useful for them, and without this request for help from them, we would have been unable to do anything about the situation short of declaring war on them and freeing Wave country from this Gourou's clutches. My intuition tells me that this Gourou is just a puppet for either Iwa or Kumo, so please be careful and expect to meet resistance in the form of either Kumo or Iwa shinobi, or shinobi from some minor village which are allied with the above two villages ".
After carefully listening to Tsunade's concerns, Shizune promised to stay cautious and on guard for any escalation in the dangers of the mission and plan accordingly, and then took leave as she headed to the Senju compound to get ready for the mission.
An hour later we find Naruto and Shizune speeding through the dense forests of Fire country , as they headed towards the east coast of Fire country, from where they planned to reach Wave country by sea, as the bridge was apparently under the control of Gourou and even though they could easily take care of any of Gourou's forces that were guarding the bridge to Wave, their primary objective was to rescue all the hostages before engaging the enemy directly, as it may put the life of the hostages at risk, which was not acceptable to them.
So, they planned to sneak into Wave country and conduct reconnaissance on their enemy and find out the location of the hostages and free them, and once that was done, they would be free to engage them in open combat without the fear of inadvertently causing the death of innocent civilians, who might be caught in the conflict.
It took a few hours, but they eventually reached the location on the East Coast of Fire country which was nearest to Wave country.
And once they reached the coast, Shizune addressed Naruto. " Naruto kun, I think it would be best if we rested for a while, as we will have to cross the sea to Wave country in one go, and be ready to fight as soon as we reach Wave, as we may not have time to rest after reaching our destination. We will also need to make sure that we enter Wave country undetected, which might be a little difficult if there are any sensors present among the shinobi supporting Gourou ".
Naruto thought for a while and said , " I might have a way".
"What is it Naruto? " Shizune asked.
" It is a modified barrier seal that I am working on. It makes sure the people inside the barrier are undetectable, as it utilizes Suiton chakra to bend light around the barrier, thereby forming an optical illusion of invisibility, making it impossible to see with the naked eye and it also stops chakra sensors from sensing the chakra of persons inside the barrier, by acting as a a chakra sink, as it absorbs the wave of chakra emitted by a sensor in order to identify other chakra sources by pinging them with a wave of his own chakra like a sonar. But my barrier seal, instead of letting the wave of chakra pinging on it and returning to the sensor, it absorbs the wave of chakra, basically making the user of the seal immune to detection via chakra sensing and also through vision."
" I sense a but coming. What is it Naruto? " Shizune asked.
" Well you see Neechan, I designed this seal to camouflage a stationary target or a small place, and not for two moving persons. So I will need to modify it heavily in order to make use of it. So, I will need a few hours and a lot of my clones to modify it to work in camouflaging and hiding a moving target", Naruto said.
Shizune saw no problems with that and said " No problem, Naruto. But try to complete it as fast as possible, as speed is of the essence in this mission ".
Naruto indicated his assent with a nod, and immediately created ten shadow clones and then he unsealed his sealing supplies and then unsealed a black scroll which consisted the formula of his camouflage seal, and set to work modifying his personal invention with each of his clones working on modifying a part of the seal which they had all copied onto their own blank scrolls.
Shizune looked on in fascination as Naruto and his clones kept working for nearly two and a half hours occasionally arguing among themselves about the modifications and muttering about some sealing formulas that to her soundes like absolute gibberish.
After nearly three hours Shizune was shook out of her empty ponderings as Naruto said to her " Neechan, I have done the best I can given our current situation, but it can be better. We can use it on the move, but I will have to continuously supply chakra to the seal, as we move in order to keep it active, and it is going to take me a lot of chakra, so I wont be able to walk on water while keeping the seal active, so you will have to carry me as we move over the sea to Wave country ".
Shizune just shrugged and said " you did an excellent job, Naruto. And I definitely dont have any problem carrying you, as it wouldn't be much of a problem for a jounin like me, but make sure to deactivate your resistance seals, as we might need to fight as soon as we reach Wave, and you can still fight using Taijutsu and Kenjutsu, even if your chakra reserves are depleted from keeping the seal active for a long time. "
As they prepared to leave for Wave country, Shizune asked a question that had been bugging her for a while " Naruto kun, where did you get the idea for this seal? The concept of using Suiton chakra to make yourself invisible seems familiar ".
"Oh that. I got that idea from reading about the Second Tsuchikage Mu and how he used to make himself invisible using Suiton manipulation. But I am nowhere near proficient enough to do that yet, so I came up with this seal to do that elemental manipulation till I was good enough in using Suiton chakra to do it myself."
Shizune nodded her head in agreement as she praised Naruto's ingenuity with seals, as he recreated the second Tsuchikage's jutsu through just reading about it in a book, even if it was just a makeshift version of it.
And as Naruto dispelled all his clones and painted the finished seal on a blank scroll, using his blood, thereby establishing a link between himself and the Fuinjutsu formula on the scroll, and using himself as the anchor for the portable barrier seal that he had designed and then flashed through fifty six handsigns and slammed his right hand on the scroll, and whispered out aloud,
Uzumaki Fuinjutsu : Null Man Field.
And immediately a bubble of transparent chakra formed around Naruto and Shizune who was standing beside him as she looked at Naruto's Fuinjutsu at work.
Naruto grunted out and swayed slightly as he felt the chakra cost for the activation of the Fuinjutsu. But Shizune steadied him and lifted him in her arms and placed him on her back, as she raced off across the surface of the sea, towards a secret cove that Tazuna had showed Naruto on his previous visit to Wave country.
It took nearly one and a half hour of travelling at mid chunin speed, but Shizune finally reached the secret cove in Wave country all the while she carried Naruto on her back, as he channneled an enormous amount of chakra to maintain the seal barrier around them.
And as they landed on the shore of Wave country, Naruto got down from her back and both of them soon made camp in a densely forested part of the island near the coast, and Naruto secured it by applying the static version of his seal by using six chakra storage seals each filled with the chakra capacity of a jounin that he had preapared beforehand as a precaution. He placed these six tags as anchor points around the camp and activated the barrier, and only then did Naruto release the Null Man seal active around him and Shizune who was very close to him, as the portable seal enclosed only a very small area, nothing more than two people standing close to each other. Naruto flashed through thirty handsigns and slammed it on the ground as he softly intoned ,
Uzumaki Kekkai Jutsu : Presence Nullifying Barrier.
And as soon as the Transparent barrier was setup and activated around their small camp, Naruto released the Null man field seal, and collapsed to the ground in relief as that seal had consumed more than two thirds of his chakra reserves, and that was taking a toll on him, even though he was still physically fully refreshed.
After taking a few minutes to alleviate the strain on him from keeping such a chakra taxing seal for such a long time, Naruto turned towards Shizune who was also taking a few minutes to catch her breath, and said " Neechan, we are now secure for a few hours. "
" Good, Naruto kun. Meanwhile, after you recover your chakra,I want you to send a few of your shadow clones henged as civilians to scout ahead of us and also to try to meet Tazuna the Bridge Builder, so that we can find out more information about what we are facing".
Naruto nodded in assent, and spent the next hour trying to extend the range of his sensing to see if he could sense any enemy shinobi, but his range with his sensing talent was still only a little more than one mile, so he didn't have any luck in that aspect.
Shizune however was a much stronger sensor than Naruto, currently, and she managed to sense a few hundred civilian chakra signatures along with three genin level and one low jounin level chakra signatures three miles from their current location.
After nearly an hour and recovering a half of his chakra reserves, Naruto created three shadow clones and henged them to appear like birds and sent them off to the location where Shizune had sensed the shinobi. The thing about shadow clones that he loved wad that since they were purely non elemental chakra constructs, he could have them transform into any objects within a certain size range, so making them transform into birds and having them spy on enemies was a dead useful skill to have, thought there was the issue of them being sensed by talented sensors, even if they were flying high above them, but thankfully chakra sensors were highly rare, and especially chakra sensors with a long range like the Yondaime were very rare.
Naruto also sent two shadow clones to Tazuna's house to see if there was anyone keeping watch over him and also to see if they could meet with Tazuna and learn some new useful information.
And another three clones were sent to scout the entirety of Wave country and find the location of Gourou and the kind of forces that he has at his disposal.
The Naruto clones disguised as birds slowly made their way to the location that Shizune had sensed. It took them a while to get used to flying as a bird, but they quickly got the hang of it and within a few minutes they swiftly reached their destination.
As they slowly circled it from above, it looked like an abandoned large warehouse. They carefully landed on the roof of the warehouse and took a look around the warehouse to see that there were about twenty thugs acting as guards around the warehouse. They sensed that the shinobi that Shizune had sensed were inside the warehouse.
Seeing that they had the outside of the warehouse covered, three of them entered the warehouse through ventilation shafts on the roof of the warehouse.
They settled on the rafters of the warehouse and looked around to see what looked like mostly children and women being held hostage by around fifty thugs and four shinobi, three of them genin and one jounin, and none of them looked like much. Three of the shinobi, the genins were all genin, but the jounin was a woman. And they were all wearing Kumo hitaiates.
None of the clones were caught, and after retreating to a safe distance from the warehouse, they dispelled, sending back the memories to the original.
The two clones that Naruto had sent to Tazuna's house to spy on Tazuna and see if he was spied upon, found that Naruto's suspicions were true and there were three thugs keeping an eye on Tazuna's house, so the clones decided to meet with Tazuna by hengeing into a mouse and entered the house.
After entering the house they saw the elderly bridge builder looking extremely unkempt, sporting a scraggly beard, and drinking from straight from a bottle of sake. Infact the whole kitchen was littered with empty sake bottles and was reeking from the smell of alcohol.
Deciding to get on with their task and knowing that they had no use for Tazuna in his current drunk state, the clones transformed back to their human form and one of them clamped his hand over Tazuna's mouth to keep him from shouting and another clone carried him to the sink and together they dunked Tazuna's head in water and kept him like that for a few moments before allowing him to come up for air and then repeated the process a few more times.
Tazuna was not sure why someone was waterboarding him as he was trying to drink away his sorrows. He couldn't believe how quickly the fortune of his people had turned. After getting rid of Gato, they had recovered quickly and soon Wave was once again a flourishing economy and trade centre, but seemingly from nowhere Gourou came, claiming to be Gato's son, and kidnapped women and children from every household in Wave, and had killed the Daimyo of Wave, with the backing of two teams of shinobi from Kumo, therefore making Gourou the unofficial Daimyo of Wave. He just hoped that the letter he had sent to Konoha, had reached the Hokage, otherwise they couldn't interfere in Wave, as Gourou and the Kumo shinobi kept boasting about their ingenious plan for the takeover of Wave.
As the person keeping his head underwater finally stopped his actions, Tazuna felt his head clear off the buzz caused by his alcohol drinking binge. He finally turned around to see who interrupted his drinking to see two copies of Naruto.
Tazuna couldn't believe this. Never in his wildest dreams did he think that his desperate gamble would work. But it had somehow worked, as he took in the visage of Naruto in front of him.
One of the clones, the one who had been clamping his hand on Tazuna's mouth, signalled for him not to shout, as he removed his hand.
Tazuna followed the instructions and kept quiet as the clones completely released him.
Seeing as Tazuna was keeping quiet, one of the clones started questioning him, while the other clone kept watch over the house.
" Thank you for coming Naruto. I was not sure that my letter would even reach Konoha ", Tazuna said, interrupting Naruto before he could start his questioning.
The clone raised his hand to silence Tazuna before he could start rambling, ashe didn't seem like he would stop now.
" Tazuna san, it is good to see you too. But now is not the time for pleasantries, we need to know how many people have been kidnapped and how many shinobi we are going to face ", Naruto said in a serious no nonsense voice.
Hearing the seriousness in Naruto's voice, Tazuna replied back with equal seriousness "gaki, there is a hostage from every family. They are all being held in a warehouse a few miles from the secret cove where I smuggled your team to Wave, the last time. There are about a hundred thugs and a shinobi team from Kumo guarding them. But a few women are also being held prisoner at the Daimyo's palace. Gourou has been living in the Daimyo's palace after slaughtering the Daimyo and his entire family. There is another Kumo shinobi team guarding him, along with a few hundred thugs. That is all I know. You have to save them gaki! "
The clone nodded, taking in the information and replied " we are clones. We will dispel and the original will get the memories. And you should make sure that the three thugs watching over your house don't get a clue that you have interacted with anyone, so keep behaving like you have for the past few days. We will first free all the hostages and then we will deal with Gourou and his goons and the Kumo shinobi with them. "
After Tazuna nodded in agreement, both the Naruto clones dispelled themselves, sending the memories back to the original.
The original Naruto blinked once as he received the memories from the clones he had sent out as scouts.
" All the hostages are in a warehouse a few miles from here. The opposition we will face is nearly a hundred goons and four shinobi, all from Kumo and all have lightning affinity, except one genin who has water affinity. But a lot of the goons are inside the warehouse and we might harm the hostages if we engage in combat inside the warehouse. And Gourou is located in the Daimyo's palace, with a few hundred goons and four more Kumo shinobi, two of whom are genin, one is a chunin and one is a jounin. A few of the women hostages are in the Daimyo's palace with Gourou who is apparently using them as entertainment for himself and his goons. But those are mostly young girls", Naruto said, informing Shizune about the information that he had received.
" Good, Naruto ".
" First we will focus on rescuing and securing the hostages. A shadow clone of mine and a few of yours will go to the Daimyo's palace and secure the hostages present there in prisoner transport scrolls for easy transport. While us both will rescue the majority of the hostages in the warehouse." Shizune said.
" But how will we avoid harm to the hostages, as they are also in the warehouse along with the shinobi a nearly fifty goons? " Naruto asked.
" I will use my Dokugiri jutsu ( poison mist) , to release a concentrated sleeping agent into the warehouse after taking care of the goons acting as guards. This will take care of the goons inside the warehouse, and also maybe the genin, and once the shinobi rush outside to escape the poisonous mist, we can take care of them without risking the safety of the hostages", Shizune said, laying out her plan to Naruto.
" We will move under the cover of Darkness. So get ready once it is dark to move towards the warehouse ", Shizune said.
Under the cover of darkness, Naruto and Shizune approached the warehouse all the while suppressing their chakra signature as much as possible.
Naruto took but a second to sense that there were still twenty goons roaming around the boundaries of the warehouse as guards, along with two genins. He could sense that the other genin and the jounin were inside the warehouse.
Naruto flashed through a few handseals and softly stamped on the ground, and in a few moments an earth clone of Naruto emerged from the ground behind each of thr twenty goons at once and slit their throats simultaneously.
The two genin noticed this but before they could react to this Naruto and Shizune suddenly appeared behind them in a burst of pure speed, clamping their mouths shut with their hands and tapped the base of their spines with their respective chakra scalpels, killing them on the spot before they could raise an alarm, as Naruto and Shizune attacked them with such speed that they couldn't even react to attack on them.
After taking care of the guards, Shizune climbed onto the roof of the warehouse and took a deep breath and flashed through handseals as she intoned Ninpo : Dokugiri jutsu, and blew out a cloud of poisonous mist which had the effect of making the target fall asleep in just a little while. And then Naruto used a small wind jutsu to make the poisonous mist spread throughout the warehouse faster.
And then Shizune and Naruto waited near the entrance of the warehouse for anyone who might escape the sleeping effect of the mist.
And as per their expectations no one but the jounin escaped the warehouse.
The female jounin came running out of the warehouse with her sole remaining genin hanging unconscious from where he was leaving from her shoulder.
Shizune didn't allow the Kumo jounin to recover from her panic at seeing all her men fall asleep along with her sole remaining genin inside the warehouse, and immediately set upon her with both her palms glowing slightly with the enhancement of chakra scalpels.
The Kumo kunoichi was not able to hold off Shizune with the added burden of her unconscious genin hanging onto her. And she didn't even feel her life leaving her as Shizune used her chakra scalpel to inflict a blow to her heart, killing the Kumo kunoichi instantly.
And then Shizune immediately twisted and snapped the neck of the remaining genin who was unconscious, as they still had their job to complete and didn't have anywhere to keep the genin prisoner.
And then Shizune and Naruto put on facemasks covering the lower half of their faces with seals on them, which filtered the air they breathed. They set about killing all the goons, as they were easy to distinguish from the hostages who were all women and childrenchildren, and a few rare elderly people.
And then Shizune had a few shadow clones of Naruto clean up the bodies of all the goons and shinobi and use some earth jutsu to bury the bodies in the near woods.
They let the kidnapped people sleep as they would wake up in a few hours and in the meanwhile they could secure the hostages that Naruto and her clones were rescuing from the Daimyo's palace, and then they would go and deal with Gourou and his men and the remaining shinobi. Hopefully they could finish up with their work before the kidnapped people all woke up and started to wonder about what happened.
And a few minutes later, a clone of Shizune and a clone of Naruto arrived at the warehouse and handed over three modified prisoner transportation scrolls to the original Naruto, who opened them to release fifty young women who were obviously prisoners to Gourou and from the looks of it were assaulted by Gourou and his men.
Shizune created a few water clones to soothe and comfort the women they had freed from the Daimyo's palace, and while the water clones of Shizune tried to comfort the rescued women, the original Naruto and Shizune took a moment to go over the memories they had received from their shadow clones that had rescued the women from the Daimyo's palace, and they both went over the layout of the Daimyo's palace.
" There are no more innocent civilians in the Daimyo's palace, as our clones also brought with them the servants as well. So we can use our more destructive justu without worry to take out the enemy shinobi and goons ", Shizune told Naruto.
So, on a signal from Shizune, both of them burst into speed as they raced off to the Daimyo's palace, to finish the rest of their mission.
And as soon as they neared the Daimyo's palace, they found that the palace was on high alert, as it seemed that the rescue of the kidnapped women had been discovered.
Naruto created ten shadow clones and Shizune created fifteen water clones to deal with the goons, as the original Naruto and Shizune raced off to deal with the Kumo shinobi that they could both sense, and Naruto unsealed his sword and channeled wind chakra through the blade of Benihime, increasing its already deadly edge, as he rushed at full speed at one of the genin who was rushing towards him with his sword unsheathed and sparkling with lightning chakra.
Naruto swung his sword at the opposite genin's chest and he blocked it with his lightning enhanced blade, but was surprised to see Naruto's sword cleave his blade in two and then went on to carve into his lungs, killing him instantly before he could recover from the the shock of seeing his sword cleaved in two.
And Naruto suddenly found himself with two swords impaled through his stomach from behind, but he just smirked and exploded , indicating that he was an exploding shadow clone, blowing one of the two remaining Kumo genin to smithereens.
But one genin escaped the explosion with a timely Kawarimi, but as soon as he substituted himself with a log, he found himself with a sword through his throat as Naruto was waiting for him as he had sensed where he was substituting to.
After finishing off the genin, Naruto turned to see how the fight between the jounin was going on and saw that Shizune had him handled, as while he was still fighting with Shizune, he seemed to be poisoned as he was clearly sweating from just this small fight and Naruto could see his legs trembling.
Deciding to finish off the fight Naruto created ten shadow clones and had them rush the Kumo jounin and Shizune jumped back to get some space. The Kumo jounin cleaved through all the shadow clones easily, only for all of them to explode violently, resulting in a massive explosion.
The jounin luckily escaped using a timely Kawarimi, but he didn't completely escape the brunt of the explosion, as he was slightly burnt and was a little disoriented from the explosion, and couldn't do much as Shizune appeared behind him in a burst of speed, and tapped the base of his spine with a chakra scalpel, killing him instantly.
Then Shizune and Naruto entered the grounds of the Daimyo's palace to find that their clones were mopping up the last remaining goons alive after the clones had killed the almost entirety of two hundred goons at Gourou's disposal.
Seeing as their clones had the matter well in hand, Shizune and Naruto went around the palace looking for Gourou, to kill him and end this matter once and for all.
And as they searched the entire palace for Gourou, Naruto and Shizune made sure to kill any thug that they could find who was hising in the palace.
Finally they found Gourou in the Daimyo's office, with his door being guarded by two rogue samurai and six of his goons.
Naruto simply flashed through handsigns and blew out a big fireball as he softly intoned,
Katon : Gokakyuu jutsu.
While a clone adjacent to him took a deep breath and blew out a massive gust of wind as he softly intoned,
Fuuton : Diatoppa.
This wind enhanced fireball burned the goons and the samurai to ashes, as they didn't have anywhere to escape the blazing inferno in the narrow corridor. The intense heat and the explosion caused by the combination jutsu also blew open the heavily fortified door to the Daimyo's office.
After using a water jutsu to put out the fire and making sure that all the guards were dead, Naruto and Shizune entered the Daimyo's office, and immediately ducked under the swords swung at their heads and immediately attacked their opponents who turned out to be another pair of samurai.
Naruto immediately blocked the sword of his opponent with Benihime, and then channeled wind chakra through his sword to cleave through his opponents sword and then taking advantage of the shock of his opponent, Naruto decapitated him with a single stroke of his sword. And then saw that Shizune had also finished with her opponent who laid on the ground dead from Shizune using her chakra scalpel to attack his heart.
After making sure that there were no more surprise guards in the room, Naruto and Shizune looked around but could not find Gourou anywhere in the room. But they used their sensing ability to find him hiding behind in a secret passageway in the office, and Shizune used Tsunade's super strength technique to smash open the wall with a single punch, and then she proceeded to drag him outout kicking and screaming.
It seemed that Gourou was a reasonably tall man, unlike his father who was a midget. He was a heavyset man standing at about 6 feet in height, but he was no match for a trained shinobi like Shizune.
"You damn bitch! I will gave you raped by my men and killed. Let me go! you damn bitch", he shouted at Shizune.
She just smirked at him and said in a sickly sweet voice " you don't seem to be able to grasp the situation you are currently in. All your men are dead. The shinobi that Kumo sent to support your attempted coup are also dead. You are the only one alive, and we are going to hand you over to the people of Wave."
" I am really interested in seeing how they torture you before killing you ", Shizune said sadistically, taking pleasure in the frightened whimpers coming from this pathetic piece of swine who had many of the young women that he had kidnapped raped by himself and his men as entertainment.
As the precariousness of his situation finally dawned on him, Gourou pissed his pants in fear and begged the two shinobi before him. "Please, please save me. I will give my entire fortune to you both. Just please safely escort me to the borders of Wave and I will amke you both some of the richest people in the Elemental nations".
Naruto who was standing behind Gourou, exchanged a smirk with Shizune and said in a serious voice " Neechan, that is a very good offer. We would no longer have to risk our lives for the village, we can retire and live our life in luxury ".
Shizune nooded and said " you are right, Naruto kun. That is indeed a very good offer. I think we should take it ".
Gourou was internally cackling with glee at how gullible these shinobi were. There was no way that he was handing over his father's fortune to them. Once he was safely away from Wave country, he would kill both of them in their sleep and then he would take over some other nation.
But his hopes were dashed as Shizune said " You will sign over all your wealth to us , infact you will make a list of all your assets and legally hand over them all to us, and only then we will safely escort you out of Wave country".
And as Gourou tried to argue, she just said in a steely voice " this is the only deal you are going to get. So take it or leave it ".
Gourou cursed the stupid bitch as she seemed to be too smart to fall for his tricks. But he ultimately decided to comply as he could always earn back the money, but first he had to be alive to do that. He took out a legal paper from the Daimyo's desk and wrote an agreement signing over all his money and all his assets by name to the two shinobi and then stamped the paper with his personal seal belonging to the Chairman of Gato Industries.
As soon as he signed over to them his entire assets, Shizune snapped his neck and said in a sweet and cheerful voice" well, that was the only mercy you were going to get from me. It is much better than what your fate would have been had I handed you over to the citizens of Wave. Consider it a gift from me for all the wealth you have just given us".
"Are we really going to keep all this , Neechan? " Naruto asked Shizune in disbelief, when he looked over all the assets all over the Elemental Nations and money now in their name and saw that it went into hundreds of millions of ryo.
"Ha ha ha. Not at all. We will hand over half of it, mostly the assets to the people of Wave country. And the other half which is in money, we will split between us both. As it is technically spoils of our mission and we are allowed to keep them. So nobody can even complain about it ", Shizune said in a smug voice.
Shizune lifted Gourou's corpse and handed it to Naruto's clone to carry.
" Come on Naruto. After we hand over Gourou's corpse to the villagers, we have to take care of any remaining goons of his and then see about establishing a formal alliance between Wave country and Fire country ", Shizune said as she began walking out of the Daimyo's palace.
It was morning by the time Naruto and Shizune had made sure all the goons of Gourou were dead.
Seeing that, that part of the mission was complete, they headed over to Tazuna's house to inform him that his daughter and grandson were safe and that all the kidnapped people that Gourou had taken as hostages, were safe.
After managing to console Tazuna who was overcome by emotion and kept repeatedly thanking them, Naruto and Shizune along with the help of the villagers managed to get all the kidnapped people back to their homes.
It was evening when all the villagers assembled near the Daimyo's palace, and saw that Gourou was indeed dead.
Shizune addressed the gathering and using chakra to amplify her voice, she loudly announced " Gourou is dead. And half of his assets have been handed over to the people of Wave ". She had written down an agreement in that regard and was waiting to hand it over to the next Daimyo of Wave.
" I will hand it over to the next Daimyo of Wave. It is upto you people to elect him / her. But my opinion is Tazuna, as he is the one who built that massive marvellous bridge to help the people of Wave country, even risking his life in doing so, and he was also the one who managed to send a letter to Konoha asking for help in freeing you people from Gourou, without which we would have been unable to interfere here. Infact he is also your current mayor, so he is already experienced. This is just my opinion, but please think carefully on my words", she said.
Tazuna who was waiting patiently to the side caught her hand and whispered harshly " lady, are you out of your mind? What made you think about suggesting my name for Daimyo. I am an old drunken bridgebuilder." He started panicking at the thought of becoming Daimyo.
Naruto laid a hand on Tazuna's shoulder and squeezed gently, comforting him, as he said "Ojisan, you will do a wonderful job, dont worry. You know what is good for your people as you are already working as mayor for the port town. It is the same job that you are supposed to do for the entire country".
Tazuna calmed down a bit but was still worried, and to his displeasure he was elected as the Daimyo unanimously.
And as soon as he was elected, Shizune proposed to him about a security alliance between Wave country and Konoha, under which Wave would have to pay a small amount in taxes to Konoha and Konoha would inturn be responsible for providing security to Wave country, and so would legally station a few ANBU teams in Wave, preventing situations like Gourou or Gato from happening again. And she also handed over the control of Gourou's non money assets to Tazuna, which he gratefully accepted.
Tazuna was more than happy to sign a security alliance with Konoha, as it would ensure their safety in the future. And also because Konoha had been extremely generous and good to them. It was the first document that he signed and stamped as the Daimyo of Wave.
And in remembrance of this new alliance, Tazuna announced a night of celebration in Wave, with Naruto and Shizune as guests. And Naruto and Shizune were more than happy to agree, as they were in no hurry to return to Wave.
And as the celebration was in full swing, Naruto was suddenly assaulted as a small child crashed into his mid section as he ran at him full pelt, while shouting " Naruto nichan ".
Naruto immediately recognised the child and laughed out aloud as he separated himself from the child and said " well look who is all grown up. How are you Inari? "
" Naruto nichan thank you for saving us. I was brave like you told me to be. I never cried. You can ask my kaachan ", he said pointing to his mother who had also approached Naruto.
" It is good to see you again, Naruto kun. And thank you for saving us from Gourou", she said.
" Oh, the little gaki in orange has definitely grown up. He is now all serious. You have definitely justified our hope and faith in you when we named the bridge after you, Naruto ", Tazuna praised Naruto.
Naruto was shocked and asked " what do you mean, you named the bridge after me? "
" Yes Naruto kun, we named the bridge after you, as the ' Great Naruto Bridge ' ", Tsunami answered.
Naruto was overcome by emotion at the respect shown to him by the people of Wave and he simply bowed at the waist in front of all of them and thanked them sincerely for the great honour they had bestowed upon him.
Naruto spent the rest of the night interacting with Inari and interacting with other little children who seemed to see him as some sort of hero and wanted him to play with them, something which Naruto was very happy to do.
And early next morning, Naruto and Shizune took their leave from the new Daimyo Tazuna and his family, and raced back to Konoha.
Hokage's office :-
Tsunade's face split into a beaming smile as she read the document signifying the new alliance between Konoha and Wave country. The ascension of Tazuna the bridge builder to the post of Daimyo of Wave country was also good news as having a friendly Daimyo in the neighboring nation was always good news.
She looked up to see as Naruto and Shizune gave the oral report regarding the mission details.
Tsunade was happy to hear how easily Naruto and Shizune dealt with the opposition, it filled her with confidence that Naruto would be more than ready for the role he was expected to play in the upcoming Chunin exams in Kumo in three months.
He was already at high chunin level, according to her own personal assessment and the reports of the various people training him. Tsunade really had to appreciate the ingenuity of her granduncle in creating the Shadow clone jutsu, as Naruto had managed to train for nearly a few years in the past four months.
Tsunade was sure that Naruto would be at a solid jounin level in another three months time. She just hoped that her son would be ready for whatever the world would throw at him when his heritage is made public. Although news that Naruto was her adopted son had made the rounds in Konoha as she had seen many civilians who had openly disparaged him in the past had been bowing to him and calling him as Senju sama when they crossed him in the street.
Smiling at the smashing success of the mission, Tsunade addressed Naruto and said "sochi kun, you performed excellently on the mission. You rest for today and return to your training tomorrow. Kakashi is scheduled to return to the village tomorrow, so he can continue your training. "
"Now you can go, " Tsunade said as she got up from her seat and hugged her son and kissed him on the forehead gently and sent him on his way.
Shizune also departed from the Hokage's office and went straight to the Hospital to see if there were any serious cases in need of her attention.
Kumo ( Raikage's office) :-
The Raikage's desk was smashed to pieces as Ay smashed his fist onto his desk in anger.
Mabui just sighed in exasperation and signalled to an ANBU to replace the desk from the stock she had in the Raikage's tower storeroom, to replace the desks which were destroyed by the Raikage in his temper.
Ay didn't even notice his desk being replaced as he ranted in anger " bloody Konoha treehuggers. Always spoiling my plans. Now I can't even try to take back Wave country under our control, as the new Daimyo has entered into an official alliance with Konoha, and if we try anything against him, it will be an official declaration of war against Konoha, something the Lightning Daimyo won't agree at any costs unless we prove to him that Konoha is weak and that we can win against them. "
" And it also seems that Konoha has another Uzumaki, and he has been involved in this Wave country fiasco. Damn Jiraiya and Sarutobi made sure that not even a whisper leaked out that there was another surviving Uzumaki. As if we didn't suffer enough at the hands if that damn red headed menace Kushina. She slaughtered nearly more than a thousand of our shinobi during the Third shinobi war. Now it seems that Konoha has another Uzumaki at their disposal and that boy is most probably Kushina's son."
Ay addressed Darui and said " Darui, if Konoha is openly displaying the Uzumaki then it means he is strong enough to protect himself. Konoha will most probably enter him in the upcoming Chunin exams. I want you to tell our genins to make sure to kill him during the exams, as we cant afford for Konoha to have another Kushina Uzumaki."
" Fighting that woman was a nightmare ", Ay said shuddering in fear, as that woman with her wind chakra enhanced sword, and chakra chains which could restrain a Bijuu was a nightmare for both him and Bee as well to deal with. He just hoped that this new Uzumaki who was most probably her son, was not capable of using those accursed chakra chains as that would mean that Konoha had a way to deal with enemy Jinchuriki easily.
" Raikage sama, should we place this boy in the Bingo Book . We could get lucky and someone else might off him for his bounty ", C asked with a bloodthirsty smile on his face at the thought of killing a Konoha shinobi, especially the Red Death's son.
" That is not a good idea, C" Darui said in his usual cool and laid back tone.
" Iwa has already placed him in the Bingo book as a B ranked threat, and we don't have any additional information on him, not even an image of him, so this will be of no use to us except make the other shinobi nations think that we are afraid of a kid, which is not useful for business. It is best to take care of him during the upcoming Chunin exams ", Darui said, giving his opinion.
" Bro yo bro, Darui makes sense yo! " Bee said giving his opinion.
Ay twitched in irritation at Bee's rapping, but had to grudgingly agree with his brother that Darui made sense.
Gritting his teeth in anger at not being able to do anything immediately, he just dismissed his subordinates and brother and returned to lifting weights in order to vent his frustrations on something.