Yo!

Suuuuuper short chapter this week, sorry about that. Work killed my creative drive, and along with League's MSI going on, I was just way too distracted to find time to work on this regularly.

Still, I wanted to get a chapter out, and wrap up the first major arc.

Without further ado, let's get into it!

Chapter 9: Extradition

Naruto awoke with a start, bumping his head against the windowsill above him, and groaning into his hands.

It felt appropriate, given that just about every part of his body hurt.

It wasn't quite as bad as it had been, he could vaguely remember the intense, searing pain he'd experienced. The worst of it was clearly behind him, as he was already feeling better, but he still had to wince as he thought about it.

Especially since he didn't really know what happened.

The last thing I can remember, Naruto thought, scratching his chin. Is… that evil looking fox.

From them on, he had flashes; bits and pieces of memories, but nothing concrete.

He looked around him and found himself in the sitting room of Tsunami and Tazuna's home. He saw Sasuke and his teacher Kakashi laid down around him, the older man snoring away in his sleep.

He reached over to shake one of them awake, but had his hand stopped by another, gripping his wrist in an assertive, but not overly forceful way.

"You shouldn't disturb them; they need their rest."

Naruto looked over towards the voice, and found the same girl (Boy, Naruto had to remind himself, He's a boy) that he'd met in the woods a few days back. He was dressed a bit differently, gone was the pink dress of before, replaced by a green coat.

A green coat that looked suspiciously familiar.

"Hey, wait a second!" Naruto shouted out, completely forgetting about being quiet for his friends' sake. "You're that guy who attacked us!"

The boy blushed embarrassedly, rubbing the back of his neck, and mumbling a small apology into the floor. Naruto caught it, just barely, and felt a bit better about the whole thing. He didn't really care that he'd almost died, couldn't really muster the energy to, at the moment.

He felt a bit weird, like the itching and clawing that had always been in his stomach was a bit stronger.

The beast's presence, for the first time in his life, felt just a bit too strong to ignore.

Naruto didn't dwell on that, though. He wasn't much for dwelling at all, and so just like the fact that the boy in front of him, who was currently muttering nervously into the floor, had tried to kill him, Naruto was planning on ignoring the Monster inside him as well. It had always worked against the people in the shopping district, after all, so it had to work here, as well.

"I… I'm very sorry about that, Naruto." The boy, whose name he was pretty sure was Haku, bowed deeply as he said it, presenting a humbling figure that seemed to war with the silent killer they'd met earlier. "I- that is to say, Mr. Zabuza, was dead set on eliminating you all. I tried to go for nonlethal strikes on the two of you, but when you jumped in front of-"

"Meh, it's fine."

The ice ninja blinked once, twice, and then smiled. It seemed to be a happy smile, but there was still a twinge of sadness to it that left Naruto a bit sad.

"I hope you don't mind me saying this, Naruto," The boy's smile brightened just a bit, and he seemed to laugh a bit as he spoke. "But you are a bit odd."

"Yeah, I know." He smiled back at the boy, before he looked back towards his friends, frowning slightly. "What… happened to me?"

A knock at the door broke him out of his thoughts, and he saw Sakura leaning against the wall, smiling at the two of them. She'd clearly heard what he'd said, however, because her expression was a bit strained, a bit tired, like she'd known this was coming, but still didn't want to deal with it.

To his surprise, it wasn't just her. Zabuza Momochi, their enemy and a dangerous Jonin level opponent, stood right behind her, making his way into the room with a careful step. He seemed almost nervous around Naruto, even though the boy knew it wasn't quite that extreme. He was being careful.

Whatever it was he'd done, the people around him were taking no chances.

"I think," The assassin of the Mist started, sitting down in the corner of the room, with clear view of the doorway, his student, and Naruto. "I'd probably be the best to explain this, in lieu of your Sensei's absence."

The blonde-haired boy swallowed, sat a bit straighter, and prepared himself.

/-/

When it was all over, Naruto didn't really know what to feel.

So, this black marking on my chest holds the Nine-Tails?

Naruto briefly ran his hand over it. It didn't seem much different from the rest of him, but now that he knew it held a monster inside, it seemed almost cold to the touch

"What should I do now?" He spoke up, not really sure what else to say. At times like these, it seemed like Sasuke or one of the girls would always have an answer.

"Right now," Zabuza spoke up, sighing exasperatedly and moving over to his student. "Haku here wants to go with you all, and I'm inclined to follow his whims, so we'll be taking your teacher's generous offer to come to the Leaf Village with you."

Those two? In the Leaf Village?

Naruto wasn't sure how to feel about that. He knew it was just their jobs that had made them enemies, but even still, they'd tried to murder an innocent man for money.

Could they really be trusted so easily?

"You seem to be doubting Kakashi's decision." The assassin spoke up, chuckling lightly as he said it. "Rest assured that he made his choice with no other options available. We know your secret, so we're an extreme danger to Konoha. There are a lot of people who would love to know the identity of the Leaf's Jinchuuriki, and some would kill for that kind of information."

He swallowed on nothing, trying to remain calm.

People will come after me?

They'd be after the Nine-Tails, but even still, he imagined he'd be getting mixed up in an awful lot of those things as well, given that the Nine-Tails was sealed inside him. He swayed, trying his best to retain his balance.

A hand on his shoulder steadied him, and he looked up to see Haku giving him a worried expression.

"Do not worry, Naruto, we aren't planning on selling your secret." The ice user smiled at him, and Naruto felt a bit of his worries disappear.

This boy wasn't the masked man they'd met on that bridge, at least not inside his heart. He was caring, and nice, even if his words did carry with them a small chill like a snowy day.

"Well, Haku won't sell you out, so I won't." Zabuza spoke up, grumbling into the floor a second later. "Could've made a couple million yen, but whatever, not like it's a big deal or anything."

"Ah, you're awake!"

Everyone in the room turned to the sound of the voice, to see Tazuna stood with a bowl of water in one arm, and several washcloths slung across his shoulder.

"Hey, Old man! Good to see you!" Naruto shouted back, smiling a bit despite his opinion of the guy. He hadn't particularly liked him, even as they got to know him more, but he definitely hadn't wanted to see the man killed.

"I just came in to swap the cloths on these guys." The bridge builder walked over to Kakashi and Sasuke, taking the sweaty clothes off of their foreheads and replacing them with new ones. Naruto thought that this was perhaps a bit gross but chose not to comment. Once he had finished, Tazuna turned towards the rest of them and asked. "So, what are you all planning on doing?"

Naruto looked towards the only adult in the room, and Zabuza sighed again, having to relay the same story he'd just given.

"We're going to travel back with these guys to their village, try and do more than scrape by. We'll probably head out in a day or two once these two recover." He pointed down towards the sleeping duo on Team 7.

"Hah, well, we owe you all one, so stay as long as you like." Tazuna practically skipped out of the room, guffawing at something Inari said to him on the other side.

Naruto himself smiled, seeing that the people who lived in this house, in this country, were recovering. They were talking, laughing, and crying with one another. They were healing through what they'd experienced.

Sasuke had often called him 'perceptive at the worst of times', and he didn't think he'd ever heard something quite so funny when the boy had first told him that. But that perceptiveness was just experience. He'd been around his best friend a lot, and he got used to the sorts of cues that meant that the boy was feeling crappy, or remembering something, or plotting vengeance. It wasn't that hard to spot, honestly, his friend wasn't exactly subtle.

Still, he originally got that knowledge from his own experience. He knew what it felt like to be isolated, and alone, and feel like you just wanted everything to be over. He knew how horrible that felt, and he knew that he didn't want anyone, no matter how mean, or terrible, or evil they were, to ever have to feel like that.

"Alright, Naruto," Sakura spoke up, pointing a finger at him with an assertive expression. "You need to get some rest too, I don't care if your body heals really fast, your mind doesn't."

"Aw, come on, Sakura!" He whined. "I don't wanna'!"

"Get!" She practically dragged him into one of the futons set on the ground, pulling up the blanket around him, and sighing. "Honestly, what the hell am I going to do with you all?"

Naruto laughed, his face crinkling as he shook lightly in place.

He was shocked to find that his body practically melted into his bedding, and he was asleep before he knew what hit him.

/-/

"Yo, Kid."

A startling voice brought him into that headspace, and he found himself ankle-deep in water once more. He sat up, looking with a determined expression at the beast that sat a way's away from him, behind metal bars a meter or more thick.

"Nine-Tails." Naruto spoke up, gazing angrily into the piercing red eyes that stared back at him.

"Heh, that's right, they told you all about me." The creature laughed again, seemingly finding this very funny. "So, kid, whaddya' think?"

He thought surprisingly little, actually. He didn't really know what so say to an ancient fox demon that tried to annihilate his entire village. Instead, he huffed loudly, turning away from the beast in the cage, ignoring it.

The monsters barking laughter made him scowl, and he turned back towards the creature to see it resting it's head against the cage floor once again, highly amused.

"Ah, man, you really are a kid." The creatures face went serious a second later, though, as he seemingly thought out loud. "Still, that other one's a kid too... but those eyes… they remind me of him."

Naruto wasn't quite sure what to say, and just when he was about to shout out, he found the creature looking back at him again, face an amused snarl.

"Still, I must admit that for a non-Uchiha, that Mangekyou Sharingan had some incredible power." The Nine-Tails ran his claw down one of the iron bars, creating a horrid scratching sound that seemed to echo off the walls. "Well, whatever. Congratulations, brat, you seemed to have survived my plan to take your body."

Naruto felt he'd be forgiven for not thanking the beast in front of him, instead standing on guard, waiting for an attack that didn't come.

"Well, you'd best be off, I have things to do, and what not." The monster raised it's lips in a cruel imitation of a smile.

And a second later, he snapped awake.

/-/

They'd left two days later, just enough time for Kakashi to wake up.

Naruto hadn't expected his teacher to be so out of it, it had only taken some light bed rest for him to recover from using his Sharingan the first time, but apparently this Mangekyou or whatever it was called was a bit more powerful than Naruto had thought it'd be.

They traveled as far as they could before the man had collapsed, asking for just a bit of a break. The rest of them weren't having it, and Zabuza resigned to carry the man the rest of the way. His brute strength from wielding his massive sword seemed to come in extra handy, because he carried the man with no difficulty at all.

By the time they made it back to the leaf village a few days later, they were all of them a bit exhausted. Not the least of which was Sasuke, who was still recovering from overusing his eyes, but found himself not wanting to slow their formation down. Naruto could relate to that, even if he did wish his friend would be a little more forthcoming with how he was feeling.

The guards at the gate were understandably worried about their new arrivals, but Zabuza simply told them to get an Anbu guard for them if they were so worried, and the two people who watched the gate agreed, calling in support.

A while later, 4 Anbu, wearing masks of different animals, descended upon them, literally melting out of the shadows. Naruto himself felt a bit nervous, but the assassin of the mist didn't even flinch, instead merely handing his broken blade to one of the masked ninja, who took it without saying anything. He kept his ninja tools, but none of them seemed to mind.

Their trip to the Hokage's office was a quiet one, without interruption. Kakashi and Sasuke had both come as well, though not without Sakura's resistance, telling them time and time again that just her and Naruto would be fine, and that they should get some rest.

"Well," Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage and veritable God of Shinobi spoke quietly, eyebrows a bit raised as he took a long draw out of his pipe. "I can't say that this was what I expected."

"This is an outrage!" Another older man, with black, unkempt hair and bandages covering the right half of his face, spoke out, stamping his cane onto the ground. "To bring an enemy infiltrator into the heart of this village!"

"Calm yourself, Danzo." The Third Hokage was somehow still smiling despite those accusations, looking just as crafty in Naruto's eyes as the Nine-Tailed Fox itself. "We should hear what they have to say before we make any wild claims, shouldn't we?"

"Wild claims!?"

"Now, what is it that brought you two into our village. If I'm not mistaken, you are Zabuza Momochi, rogue ninja of the Mist village." The old man took another draw of his pipe, and Naruto started to think that he was doing it just to worry them all. "For what reason, exactly, are you requesting sanctuary in our village, and for what reason should we offer it to you?"

A simple set of questions, and ones that carried massive weight behind them. Answer wrong, and it was possible that the two in front of him, people that he'd actually grown to like quite a lot in the last few days, would be hunted down and killed by his own village.

"As for the reason behind my request, I simply wished to stop scraping the bottom of the barrel for missions and money." Zabuza spoke calmly, and if it was forced, Naruto couldn't tell at all. "I also wished for a much safer environment for my… pupil."

Haku sat a little bit straighter, not nearly as calm as his master was. That really wasn't his fault, normally the Third Hokage had this air about him that could calm you down, but the man sat beside him, grinding his teeth angrily and glaring at them all, kind of cancelled that out.

Despite this, Naruto thought he caught a faint smile on the Old man's face, as he looked back and forth between Zabuza and Haku. He clearly saw that which the assassin of the mist tried to hide, his affection for the boy sat beside him.

"Well, you've answered one of my friends questions," The other man, Danzo, spoke up, looking down at the duo with terrible disdain. "But why should we allow you into our village? What do you have to offer?"

"There are three things I have to offer. The first is our silence. We have seen firsthand the power of the Jinchuuriki of the Leaf Village," Both of the older men in the room stilled. "And we would like to keep his secret safe."

"Secondly, I am a senior ninja, with skills beyond many others in this business, and I am also a defector from one of your most famous enemies."

"Meaning?" Danzo spoke, eyeing the man suspiciously, but looking at him with a small grain of curiosity, and dare Naruto say it…

Greed.

"Meaning that, thirdly, I have information on the Mist village, tactical information, personnel information, and I also carry with me the Executioner's Blade, one of the Seven Blades of the Mist village."

The old men's eye's widened, and they looked towards each other. They shared with themselves a private conversation, with small gestures and looks. A moment later, they turned towards the two newcomers, before the Third Hokage smiled.

"We would accept your proposal, provided that you immediately share this information with us."

"That would work." Zabuza bowed slightly, clearly trying a bit to butter up the Third Hokage, and Danzo. Both of them caught it, but chose to either ignore it, or were fine with it entirely.

"Then if you would, these four will escort you to the Intelligence Corps, I will not ask you to divulge everything today, as I imagine that would take quite some time, but we will be having you meet with them a few times a week, until you have exhausted your information." Danzo spoke assertively, standing with some effort, and cracking his cane onto the ground once more.

Instantly, four ninja appeared beside him, kneeling on one leg. They stood, turned towards the assassin of the mist, and gestured for the man to follow. All five of them disappeared with a flash a second later.

"I would ask you, Team 7, to please escort this boy, along with these two," Lord Third pointed to Haku, along with Kakashi and Sasuke. "To the Leaf's hospital. All three of you carry hefty wounds, even if some of you are trying desperately to hide that fact from me."

Their teacher coughed into his hand, and the Old man smiled amusedly, before making to stand as well, effectively dismissing them all.

They left in a hurry, Naruto especially. Something within him, primal, but not the beast in his chest, told him to get as far away from that man, Danzo, as he could.

He was not to be trusted.

/-/

Hiruzen chuckled lightly as the door to his office closed, and he was left in silence with his old friend.

"It seems those kids are quite afraid of you."

"Fear of the unknown will do them will, it will ground them." Danzo turned towards him, eyes narrowed in slight annoyance. "It would do you well, too, Old friend."

"Oh? You seemed to be fine with taking those two in once they offered information."

"Yes, once they offered information, I was fine with taking it from them, but I still believe that once we have it, we should eliminate them." Danzo stepped towards the door, making slow, confident strides, despite his age. "It is always best to deal with a potential threat before it can become one."

"It is best to deal with a threat once it has become one." Hiruzen spoke. "Never before."

His old friend gave a dry laugh, with no mirth to it.

"You trust far too easily."

"You do not trust enough."

The man in front of him turned back to him, an apathetic expression all that remained on his features.

"We have had this conversation far too many times, I do not wish to repeat the past over and over again."

"Then perhaps you would do well to say something new one of these times." Hiruzen smiled as he said it, knowing it would annoy the old codger.

"No, Hiruzen." Danzo spoke, "If I said something new, then you would not have someone to contest your idealistic viewpoint. You'd run off with your little utopian mindset and get every one of us killed."

Danzo turned fully to face him, his single exposed eye reflecting the evening sun behind them.

"It is important that the both of us exist. You must operate in the light, and I in the shadow. That is how it must be, how it must always be."

Hiruzen guffawed, practically dropping his pipe.

"It mustn't always be this way, my friend." He spoke a bit louder than he normally would, passion worming it's way into his voice. "A time will come when we are long gone from this world, and this village will still stand, prouder than it did when we ruled it."

Danzo did not speak again, merely sighing, walking out of the door. As he was about to shut it completely. He seemed to remember something a second later, and turned back around.

"Have you gotten into contact with Jiraiya?"

Hiruzen smiled, laughing a bit as he thought of his best, and worst student.

"Yes," he spoke up, eyes glinting once more in the evening sun.

"He's on his way."

End Chapter 9

Well, there we go.

Danzo enters the playing field much earlier than he does in canon, but we know from flashbacks and other materials that he's been acting in the leaf since Hiruzen took office, so I figured it'd be appropriate for him to show himself with important matters like the Jinchuuriki.

Right now, I've got nothing much else to add, so I figure I'll just end this off here.

Next week will return to the regular chapter length, so look forward to that.

See you all then!