AN: This chapter marks the start of something new I actually decided to do while editing later chapters where in the scene break bits I just added a small bit of text adding the the previous section. I'm not really sure why exactly but I thought it was just fun to do so I came back through all the chapters until this one and added it, I'm not sure if I'll add them to the chapters that are already posted but we'll have to wait and see.

Chapter Title: Animals Caged and Thoughts Escaping through the mouth
Arc 4 Part 5

Naruto was giving a speech about not giving up and always pushing forward when I dropped down and unlocked Koyuki's cell before walking over to his, he had fried himself on the bars of the jail cell he was in.

I think his speech got to Koyuki or the obvious betrayal she was planning involved fooling Naruto into thinking she believed him which was odd, considering as far as I could tell she genuinely started to believe in what he was saying. When I followed her into the main throne room earlier though- that old bastard made a deal with her to get the crystal back so then she could be left alone and sent back the land of fire to do movies and forget this.

The biggest thing since getting inside the castle though was that I was confused as to how easy it was for me to slip around the place and do as I wanted, I had a run in with that big guy that had the metal arm when I was scouting around. I punched a hole through his head with the kunai on the wire I had prepared, I had kept myself from reacting and we were far enough out of the way that I didn't expect anyone to find him so after that I had headed straight to the cells.

Leaving me where I was now looking at the unconscious Naruto and the depressed and very surprised princess who was at a loss for words.

"Yasuke at your service my lady." I started with a bow and a smile, I turned around when I heard Naruto making noise on the ground. With a sigh I pulled my scarf back up over my face and made a 'shush' gesture as I heard footsteps and talking coming from down the walkway.

The two guys that came through went to open Naruto's cell and I dropped down behind them driving the wired kunai into them as I pushed their bodies down the large gape next to the walkway. Naruto was properly awake now and seemed to be surprised that I was already here after I opened the door he grabbed Koyuki and we started running to an elevator. Taking it up we arrived on a bridge that crossed into the main building where I stopped the two and handed the princess another very convincing fake hex crystal.

"Wait… why do you have this? Shouldn't Kakashi have it?" She asked confused, only to take a step back as a ninja landed near us and Naruto went at him.

"Nah, I swiped it from him when he wasn't paying attention, plus I've been acting as your guard since we left the boat, it wasn't like I was going to keep the real thing that far from you at all times." I turned in time to see sensei hand Naruto his pouch back after revealing himself.

Kakashi winked at us with a smile.

"Good to see you're able to handle yourself Takezou- or should I say Yasuke?" what an ass.

"Let's get going, old man."

Kiba and Sakura busted onto the scene and we all started heading through the castle towards where I had seen the throne room. We were walking into a dark room and standing around when the lights flicked on and the two shinobi we kept running into, they both looked mad, not to mention Doto who was sitting on his throne like a god above us.

The room was large and could easily fit a house or two in it, the staircase that led up to the platform where the throne was enormous.

Koyuki ran forward and I caught her jacket stopping her.

"Well done Koyuki!" her uncle announced as I did so.

"Let go of the princess Leaf Ninja." The woman with pink hair stated as Kakashi stepped forward with the rest of team seven except Naruto who was confused.

"I don't know, I've been finding it hard to let go of her recently, something about being Yasuke her samurai." I joked out loud smiling and before we knew what had happened Kakashi had already Raikiri'ed the violet haired guy while Akamaru and Kiba thrashed the pink haired woman in a surprise attack. Amongst the confusion I slipped the real hex crystal onto Naruto, Sensei had given it to me when we were following Koyuki into the throneroom.

"What! What're you doing Koyuki!" her uncle growled angrily as I continued to play Yasuke to her Nobunaga, I was a glorified samurai for her at this point, maybe I just wanted to help her more than I realized I wanted to.

Maybe watching someone so Nihilistic got to my heart or soul, she was pretty as well sure, but I think her little philosophical rants about giving up reminded me of something- so I wanted to change her mind maybe.

Doto tore his clothing off revealing a heavy set of chakra armour as he charged forward batting Naruto away as he attempted to punch the older man, Doto reached me and I managed to wrap the kunai and wire around his wrist. I took a note out of Sasuke's book and set them on fire as I tried to wrap it around his body, I pulled out a small vial of oil that I threw on him that caused him to go up in flames.

Wings erupted out from the armour and blew away most of the fire, an explosion caught everyone off guard as Doto grabbed the princess and launched himself off out of the hole in the roof. I didn't get a chance to wrap another Kunai around his limbs but did see Naruto land one as he tore off after them into the sky leaving us to escape the crumbling building as it all fell apart.

We didn't run into anyone else when leaving the building we headed into the forest to start heading towards the glacier.

Ugh. we didn't make it to the spot where the rainbow glacier was until the sun had begun to rise, Naruto rasenganed the damn Doto guy into one of the pillars as the world around us transformed and I heard Koyuki yelling encouragement for Naruto as he did so, calling out something about how he was the strongest ninja she'd met After that though I noticed memories of Koyuki playing above us in this huge projection, it was about her and her father as he discussed the machine we were standing in a massive scale version of.

I landed next to our orange Hokage and the actress princess only to catch the end of what both of them were saying to one another.

"You've got to be kidding me I missed the end of the movie and Naruto stole the girl out from under me." I half joked though I unintentionally said it loud enough for most everyone to hear, which was around the time I realized the film crew caught that whole thing.

Gods Damn it.

"Stole the girl from me' huh? I got the impression you thought she was annoying dude." Kiba walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder with a laugh.

"Yeah but I guess she grew on me" I paused for a moment. "Kinda like a fungi." he laughed even louder as everyone started to converge on where we were, Kakashi went and found Doto's corpse, Sakura healed up most every that needed it except Naruto seeing as he was only exhausted while Kiba and I stood there and watched Koyuki smile like a child at the- well the spring around us I guess. the snow filled lands had become a grassy knoll paradise filled with colourful flowers that I had a hard time believing were there before the snow was removed.

The princess turned to us. "Like a fungi huh?" oh crap.

"This is all yours Takezou, you wanted the girl right?" he laughed at me and began stepping away as she approached and Akamaru barked out happily.

"Uhh… is it too late to say sorry?"

She stopped just in front of me. "Thank you." She bowed deeply and I wasn't really sure what to do.

"I-I i uh..." raising her head Koyuki had a smile on her face.

"Thank you for watching out for me, you didn't have to but once we got off the ship you were always there acting as my guard and it means a lot to me." she moved closer and hugged me which I awkwardly accepted. "Thank you truely Yasuke or Takezou whatever you want to be called." I heard Kiba wolf whistle.

"Um… sure I guess." I backed off as she did and watched as Koyuki went over to the film crew.

Within half an hour though we were on our way back to where the rest of the surviving crew were and we helped with the rest of the filming the directors still wanted to do the rest of the day.

[Break from the cold]

A few days passed and Koyuki took up her mantle as princess, now Daimyo of the land of spring/snow.

Her coronation was a huge affair that Kakashi said we had to stay around for, Kiba kept going on about my girl stealing quote and Naruto was out cold. Sakura had a blast with the festival they were holding for Koyuki. At least that was the impression I got from how giddy and how brightly she was beaming about it all.

The palace we were at for this was like chinese castle from what I remembered of them anyway.

After all that though that left us where we were now, Kiba was stuffing his face with food while Sakura and Kakashi were talking to Koyuki about the generator that was currently keeping the country in a state of spring. I overheard something about keeping it spring forever which I actually disagree with because thats kind of messed up to literally rewrite a countries weather just because you haven't seen spring in it- especially because The Land of Snow was next to Iron and they were both the only places that were year round cold enough for snow to always be in stock.

It was her country now though, so I suppose she'd do as she wished with it.

"Wait, that script?!" I heard sensei cry out loud as he watched and saw was in the princess' hands, I turned and my eyes went wide when I realized that woman was holding one for the Icha Icha series.

Oh no, well… I guess Jiraiya would be happy.

Wait… no that wasn't an Icha Icha book is it? No no it wasn't, it read 'a story from the writer who wrote the acclaimed Icha Icha series' well that was better at least… so it must be like that Gutsy Ninja one right? I remember liking it, maybe I'll check it out. though it was odd phrasing.

"Being an actress and the daimyo should be easy enough to balance!" she said cheerily as she left us to our own devices and Kakashi was having a breakdown over who was about to play the main heroine in his porn novel movie. Probably having not seen what the title of it actually was.

"Oh! Hey Kiba?" I asked him as he joined us again, he handed Akamaru some food as he approached. "Did you get that picture autographed for Naruto? Since he's still in hospital."

"Sure did!" he laughed loudly while sensei continued his mental breakdown.

[Scene was like a movie]

We arrived home about a week after the coronation much to Naruto's disdain as he realized he missed out on seeing Koyuki one more time.

We all actually got a photo with Koyuki that she signed for us, I put mine in a frame and put it far out of my immediate sight on my shelf. She had written a message on it that I had no intention of wanting to see ever again. The fact that I had a damn part of the movie was annoying enough as was. The damn director kept getting my voice lines damn it!

Thats not even mentioning that we each got a photo with her alone and the group one.

Mum was over the moon happy that I was back and dad thought the photo and message was hilarious.

The photo was of all of team seven plus myself and Koyuki crowded around Naruto's hospital bed as he was out asleep, on the right side of the bed was Sakura, Kiba, Akamaru and Kakashi, on the left side I was with Koyuki- I won't say what she wrote on mine though. Ugh. I'd really rather she hadn't said it.

The woman said it to my face before we set off as well so it didn't help.

I was on break for a few weeks now though, the mission went from a B rank to a high class A rank that was nearly an S rank based solely on who became involved in the end of it, so we all got huge payouts not to mention a bonus for each of us seeing as we were going to end up as apart of the next installment of the Princess Gale movies series. Anyway it wasn't like I'd be hurting for money over the next few months at the least.

You want to know how embarrassing this damn movie really was? There were already rumours spreading about the infamous copy-nin, the "orange beast", the "fanged duo", the "deadly pink nurse" and finally the "The Black Samurai" being new characters in the movie, how the hell was I going to live this down?! I know for sure that Shikamaru's teammate- the girl I kept insulting would be on top of this, and my Aunt- oh gods my Aunty Ume would have a field day and they don't even know about what I said while we were there! Fuck!

I've been saying this since we left for the land of snow, but 'today's going to be slow isn't it.'

Another few days after we got got went by and I was sitting with my sister in the living room while she was reading a book out loud, it was nice to not be off for several weeks doing work and non stop moving, being a ninja was tough let alone all the killing I had ended up doing. Dad said my eyes were losing their light and I think I knew what he meant, he was referring to that bright liveliness of them that was normally around, it had been on the decline since the exams where I ended up getting my first kill. I was holding my Hitai-ate and looking the poor thing over, I've had it for a year now and the cloth was already torn and cut up not to mention the cuts on the metal itself.

I should probably get a new one, maybe another bandana?

Hm the bandana design could be cool, I ought to go looking and see if there's more shinobi grade cloth or bandana's for this sort of thing. At that point I should probably look into replacing my long sleeved shirt, the one I wore on the mission got shredded up.

I was drawn from my thoughts when the door to the house opened and I heard the voice of my grandmother call out into the house, I guess they were back then. They had been gone for the last month while trying to salvage what was left of their cottage and forging area, their actual house which was more like a japanese mansion was still fine, from what I understood though they were looking to sell that old place and get a new one built in one of the large properties near where we lived now, like how Ume had her property and Dojo only a block or so away because the plains area we lived in was pretty empty for housing.

"Takezou! I heard you got yourself a part in a movie?" my grandfather- Koutetsu said as he walked in the room, I could smell the fire and metal on both of them.

"Something like that- I suppose I got you some more customers hopefully, I used the new sword whenever the cameras were rolling and the emblem was always facing them." I responded with a sigh.

"We'll need to start getting that new forge up and running then!" He said cheerily with a calloused landing on my head as he ruffled my hair reminding me that I needed to tie it up.

Koutetsu came and sat down across from me and I heard Mum come in from the backyard where she had been in her garden I didn't see where Masamune was or went, before I knew it though, Mum had made up tea for herself and my grandparents and a cup of coffee for myself.

AN: This was another one of the chapters where I definitely look back on it and realized that it ends a fairly rushed like, other than that though you'll have to guess what Koyuki told Takezou, because it won't get mentioned by him.