Take Two Round Two

by Third Fang

What do you get when you cross several interdimensional god like beings, raw boredom, a world of Naruto that went wrong, several years worth of off screen training, common sense, insanity, humor, sarcasm, the Log, explosions, plot, and overall chaos? Apparently a lot of headache medicine for Tsunade. May the Games Begin. Sequel to Yet Again With A Little Extra Help.

44. Chapter 43

Chapter Forty Three: God Fucking Damn It

I don't own Naruto, any of its characters, or any references in this story. If I did, horrible things would happen. Neither do I own any other anime that I reference. I do own all OC's and new Jutsu in the story as well as every ounce of pure awesome spawned by this.

o. o. o.

"… From what I've heard, several of you have encountered Madara Uchiha before, right? Abnormally strong? Makes you question your own strength? Absurd powers?"

Naruto's question after almost half a minute of quiet contemplation caught the bulk of his audience by surprise.

"That is correct. In addition to those here from Kiri and Kumo, I believe that the Third Hokage and Tsuchikage have also encountered the man. Does he have any relevance to what you have to say?" Mei replied, her mask completely unreadable.

"Not in the slightest."

Ay's eyebrow twitched, though he was hardly the only one irritated by the blasé reply. "Then why on earth did you bring him up at all brat?"

Naruto closed his eyes and sighed. "If you had to go to a bunch of fresh genin, or academy students, and try to get them to truly and realistically grasp just how absurd his capabilities were with just a simple lesson… do you think you could do it?"

The room was dead quiet as his question echoed unanswered in the chambers.

"That's what I'm trying to do right now. So, please bear with me when I ask you to be patient while I go through this mess."

"You consider us academy students in this analogy?" Onoki frowned.

"Up to seasoned Genin, yeah." Naruto nodded.

"And what do you rank yourself in this then?" Tsunade crossed her arms, curious.

"Seasoned Chunin. Considered for promotion to a low ranked Special Jonin at best." Nobody missed the bitter smile on the blonde's face.

"And the Oogakari?" Gaara threw a curveball that suddenly had nearly everyone's rapt attention.

Naruto let out a dry laugh and pointed up to the ceiling. "… To put it lightly, they're Madara's Madara. Even monsters like the Priest and Kaguya would consider them untouchable. They're the kind of bullshit that, if you saw it firsthand, you'd turn and walk away because it was simply too much to even bother trying to make sense of and pray that you forgot it as soon as possible or else you'd drive yourself mad every time you closed your eyes."

"A lovely ball of fluff boy. You expect us to believe that nonsense?" Ay scoffed, though he noticed that he was one of the few that wasn't somewhat sold on Naruto's warning.

The teen licked his lips and sighed, leaning back against the chair, closing his eyes. "… In the previous timeline, I was an idiot. Clueless, shit for skills, loud, and annoying. Hell, I failed the academy graduating exam three times in a row. I was put on Team Seven, just like this time, where I drove everyone mad with my shouting and incompetence. The only thing I had going for me was my huge reserves, ability to bullshit with shadow clones, and blind optimism. We had the mission in Wave. Despite being completely out of our depths, we managed to come out alive, though Zabuza and Haku died in the process. Then came the Chunin exams, and everything went to hell. Orochimaru's invasion wasn't a success, I managed to stop Gaara from rampaging in the village and actually made him my friend. But Gramps died in his fight against Orochimaru, and the snake got away."

The room was dead quiet as Naruto recalled this other world that several of them recalled.

"During the exam, Orochimaru tagged Sasuke with a Cursed Seal, and Sasuke became even more of a power hungry asshole. The seal fucked him over even more than he already was, and then due to shit luck, Itachi showed up to double down on the mental trauma. Itachi's idea of being a good brother is as fucked up as the Uchiha clan history in general."

Everyone turned to look at Itachi skeptically, but nobody anything.

"Anyways, I got Grandma Tsunade with Ero-senin… Jiraiya. She became the Hokage, Sasuke got worse, things happened, and Sasuke ran off to Orochimaru for power. We tried to get him back but, well, Konoha's forces were down since the invasion. The group sent to get him back was... lacking compared to Orochimaru's elite personal guard, and we failed. How none of us died was honestly nothing short of dumb luck and good timing on Gaara's part. Technically speaking, I actually did die twice over fighting Sasuke and would have been put down in the Valley of the End if it wasn't for the fox."

Kankuro and Temari glanced at their sibling, but the latter had no intention of adding to the story just yet.

Naruto took in a deep breath and sighed. "Akatsuki had made a couple small moves by that point. Ero-senin knew they were after the Biju. Orochimaru wanted to use Sasuke for some immortality bullshit jutsu, but apparently both of their plans were on hold for a few years. So I went out for that time training. Didn't learn much. Mostly refined what little I knew and cleaned up my basics. Like I said, I was a fucking IDIOT that time around. Most of the actual new stuff was just focusing on chakra output control for bigger attacks, normal and biju."

"Jiraiya…" Tsunade couldn't help but sigh under her breath, knowing that more than a few people were looking at her and Hiruzen skeptically.

"Anyways, I came back just before Gaara got caught by Akatsuki. From what I understand, Shukaku was the third Biju they had by then. It was only by pure luck that he survived that mess."

"How?" Mei finally spoke up. "I thought that Jinchuriki die when their Biju are extracted."

"Elder Chiyo was present at the time, as the missing nin Sasori is her grandson, and wanted to deal with him personally." Gaara elaborated. "Using an experimental medical jutsu, she managed to bring me back to life at the cost of her own. It's a debt that I have yet to repay."

Nor is it a debt that the old bint lets him forget.

"Sasori had a grudge against Orochimaru and let us know of a rendezvous with a spy he had in Orochimaru's camp in some last moment whim." Naruto continued. "So we went, and surprise surprise, it was a trap. Admittedly for Sasori, but we fell for it regardless. Shit went down. We found Sasuke, and he kicked our asses. And they all escaped because they wanted us to take out more of Akatsuki. Oh, and Sasuke was an even bigger prick at that point."

"Naruto, you don't have to keep bringing up Sasuke's personality. We get it." Tsunade rolled her eyes.

"Woman after all the bullshit he put us through I will say it as much as I damn well please." Naruto held his ground firmly.

"Just keep going. Brat."

"Fine." He huffed. "Anyways, after that shitshow, Hidan and Kakuzu started causing problems around the Land of Fire. I had just started doing wind elemental training using Shadow Clones to speed things up, and Baa-chan had started hunting down Akatsuki. Long story short, Asuma Sarutobi got killed fighting the bastards the first round. Shikamaru Nara took it personally, and second time around both of the fuckers were put down permanently. One by me, the other by Shikamaru."

"Hoh? Shikamaru Nara… the Black Deer of Konoha?" Onoki rubbed his chin curiously. "If this is true, then it's little wonder why that brat got his current reputation. Word is he's put down quite a number of missing nin over the past few years. He has few jutsu, but everyone seems to bring up his intellect and ability to pick apart his enemies before they make their first move."

"Heh. Yeah. Shikamaru's damn scary when he wants to be. Even back then. He works best in groups, but he's reliable either way." Naruto smiled bitterly. "Akatsuki had grabbed a few more Biju. I think they had around six of them by that point. Then we heard rumors that Orochimaru had been killed by Sasuke."

"You're joking." Ay flat tone stated how much he believed that.

"Orochimaru's current body was failing him. His immortality jutsu was more of an imperfect possession, body jacking one. But before he could pull it off, Sasuke killed him. Anyways, Sasuke went around Orochimaru's old bases and got a squad of his own, and went off to do what he intended for in the first place."

Naruto looked straight at Itachi.

"Revenge."

"The Uchiha Massacre." Mei instantly came to the right conclusion as she looked at the man famous for killing his own clan.

"It needed to be done. One way or another." Itachi emotionlessly accepted the circumstances that led to his death. "I was dying regardless. I had a rare affliction that could only be cured by someone of Tsunade's caliber. Even with Akatsuki's resources, it was a service I was unable, nor willing, to obtain. Truthfully, I still have trouble believing that it was treated in this timeline."

"You wanted him to kill you?" Onoki frowned. "You'd be happy with him being satisfied with a lie while the ones responsible for orchestrating this mess were still out and about? How on earth did you consider such a reckless plan a good idea?"

"That's what I said." Naruto threw his hands up in the air in frustration, only to hiss in pain.

"Naruto." Tsunade warned in an irritated tone.

"I know. I know. My mistake." He winced, slowly lowering his arms.

Itachi shook his head and decided to tell his side of those events. "I used the battle with my brother to unlock his Mangekyou Sharingan. Just before I died, I implanted a suggestion into his eyes. If he ever saw the Masked Uchiha's eyes, he'd instantly use Amaterasu to kill the monster… or at least, it should have killed him."

"Oh no. an Uchiha's super convoluted plan made behind everyone's backs without anyone's input didn't work. What a surprise. Who could have ever seen this coming?" Naruto deadpanned.

This time Itachi did show a twinge of irritation as he stared at the blonde with his Sharingan, but faltered a moment later when he noticed literally everyone else staring at him with unflattering stares of their own.

"Actually, speaking of convoluted plans, that reminds me…" The blonde trailed off. "Right before you and Sasuke duked it out, we were looking for the jerk and ran into a ton of interference, including some from you. During the fight I remember you crammed one of your crows down my throat for some reason in the middle of one of your illusions. Crows and genjutsu are your thing, but even I can tell that molesting people like that isn't your normal way of doing things. What was up with that?"

Itachi's annoyed expression held for a few moments before he let out a rare sigh of reluctance. "If you must know, I had embedded that crow with Shisui's eye. It was a failsafe in case my attempts to calm down Sasuke weren't enough and he didn't return to Konoha after my death. Had the masked Uchiha used my remains to make Sasuke stronger, and had he tricked Sasuke into attacking Konoha, then the crow would react to my remains and come out. I had preset Shisui's eye to use Kotoamatsukami on the bearer of my remains to "Protect Konoha" as a final gambit."

The room was dead silent.

"…"

"…"

"… I am so glad Sasuke isn't in this room. Because I'm pretty sure we'd have to stop him from murdering you if he heard that… again." Naruto stared at Itachi with so little emotion that even the Uchiha was impressed.

"No wonder the Uchiha fell apart if this is what they considered a genius." Onoki grimaced.

"It certainly does not paint a pleasant picture." Mei was of the same mind as the Tsuchikage.

"You'd have me simply leave my brother vulnerable to the man that's run rampant for almost a century?" For once, Itachi seemed to be genuinely confused at the reactions he was getting from everyone in the room.

"Itachi, your brand of love and care for your brother involves mind fucking him, lying to him, severely traumatizing him, letting him spend almost half a decade with a mad scientist that screams "pedophile", and then mind fucking him again twice over. And not once telling him the real reason why." As he listed Itachi's list of horrible life choices, Naruto's head seemed to grow ominously in front of the Uchiha while the latter seemed to shrink. "When I'm the one being mouthpiece of common sense and decency, you know you've fucked up something fierce."

"That poor little emo duck. And I thought what bro and I had was fucked." Bee muttered out loud.

Yugito did a double take. Bee had actually admitted that his relationship with the Raikage was off... while ignoring that he was the reason their relationship was beyond bizarre.

"Okay. Okay. We're just, we're going to move on. But I think we can all agree, that purposefully mind fucking someone, repeatedly, is a very stupid thing. Right? And that Itachi needs to go through some extreme mandatory therapy before he is even allowed to consider having a family of his own?" Naruto asked around hopefully.

Itachi took offense to that second part.

"Are you speaking from experience? You're not exactly stable yourself." Mei skeptically noted.

"I'm mentally scarred as a byproduct. Even the Oogakari don't purposefully mind fuck people as a means to address their problems… not the ones they like anyways."

"Mhm." Judging from the Mizukage's tone and flat stare, she didn't believe him. "Regardless, continue."

Naruto sighed. "Anyways, after the Brothers Uchiha disaster, Ero-senin, I mean Jiraiya, headed off to Amegakure since he heard rumors saying that's where the leader of Akatsuki was. And they were right. He fought Nagato, or Pain as he called himself, and well, died. But not before figuring out some of Rinnegan's tricks and sending the elder toads back to Konoha so we could prepare."

"Sensei was a powerful opponent." Konan admitted to the room. There was only the slightest hint of remorse as she spoke with an otherwise blank expression. "Without any prior information and while within enemy territory, he still managed to defeat myself and half of Pain's bodies by himself. Truthfully, outside of Tobi, Nagato had not had so much trouble against any individual enemy since obtaining the full might of the Rinnegan."

"Didn't you kill Hanzo of the Salamander? That man was one of the most powerful shinobi to ever come outside of the Five Nations." Onoki questioned skeptically. Nobody caught the momentary flinch on Mifune's face at Hanzo's mention.

"Hanzo had degraded as a warrior and as a human being during his tenure as the leader of Ame. After the Second Shinobi War he started to rely more on tricks, forces, and politics than his own abilities. By the time we usurped him he was no longer the imposing monster that you remember." Konan shook her head.

"… A pity." Mifune muttered under his breath.

"So, we got word about Ero-senin. And… it sucked." Naruto sighed deeply. "He was the one that taught me the most back then. We were, close." He shook his head. "Regardless, we figured out his message, and I went off to Myobokuzan for sage training for a few months. By then, Akatsuki had grabbed the last of the Biju other than me… and for some stupid reason Sasuke joined them. He was actually the one that took down Bee."

"Is that so?" The Raikage scowled.

"It be so, bro. Don't let your top blow." Bee chided. He had already told his brother about his loss to Sasuke before. The Raikage just didn't want to be reminded of it. Or believe it happened.

"We were as thrilled to hear it as much as you. Up until that point, we had managed to keep Sasuke out of the Bingo books simply because he didn't do anything seriously wrong outside of running away from Konoha and resisting arrest." Naruto blandly met the man's accusing glare, unimpressed by the large man's attempt to intimidate him.

Tsunade mentally snorted. It was more complicated than that. People had made it to the book for less. Sasuke was also an Uchiha and a student of Orochimaru. Crime wise, his record was minor, but he still had done more than enough to have a sizable bounty. She had to call in a fair number of favors to keep that ungrateful fool out of the books for as long as she had.

"So, while I was gone, Nagato and Konan went to Konoha to get me to finish their collection, and long story short, by the time I learned what was happening, Konoha was a giant hole in the ground. He took on the entirety of Konohagakure with just Konan at his side and won. The Rinnegan is seriously no joke."

"Could have fooled me considering how quickly you put him down during the invasion." Onoki muttered, glancing at the supposed "non joke" eyeballs sitting in front of Konan.

"The only reason it looked easy was because I took advantage of every bit of knowledge I had on how Nagato fought from the first time around. Plus a couple of weaknesses that he didn't know he had. Then I exploited them as hard and fast as possible before he could react." Naruto shook his head. "Honestly? They were niche openings that I'm pretty sure only a handful of people could manage to use at most. I didn't even come up with the ones I used in Iwa until after a few months of brainstorming in this timeline."

"So you're claiming you lost in the supposed previous one?" Mei probed. She wasn't the only one curious as to what Naruto would say next. Even Konan was visibly showing interest.

Naruto grimaced. "Yes and no. I did manage to master Sage Mode while away, and I did pretty well for a while, but Nagato did beat me. Twice at that. Second time was when I lost my cool and almost let the fox loose. Remember how dad mentioned how his chakra was meant as a backup? Well guess how I learned I was a Kage's kid."

The room was silent.

"Wait, you mean you didn't know you were the Yondaime's son until then?" Shibuki balked, and he wasn't the only one that was surprised or mildly disgusted. "But, how? You look almost exactly like him! There's barely anyone in the elemental nations with that hair color."

Gaara had known but had wisely kept quiet. Between the fact that Jinchuriki were usually related to one of their village's Kage, that Suna didn't hide pictures of Minato Namikaze, and Naruto's looks, he had made the connection pretty quickly. He had just assumed that Naruto didn't like talking about it

Hiruzen coughed embarrassed. "It was primarily my fault. Given Naruto's status as a Jinchuriki and what had transpired, I put a gag order on his lineage just to be certain he was safe and uninfluenced by the politics it would bring. Pictures of Minato were restricted in the academy. Due to my over cautious nature and the events of the Kyubi's attack, I was jumping at shadows. It unfortunately led to measures that caused more issues than addressed where Naruto was concerned. Measures that carried over to Tsunade's tenure."

"In my case, while I could have eventually canceled Sensei's orders, I had foolishly left the relevation up to Jiraiya, Naruto's actual Godfather… not that the idiot ever admitted it to Naruto when he was alive. It ultimately devolved into a pathetic game of the most powerful shinobi in the village passing the responsibility because we were too pathetic to do it ourselves." The current Hokage passed the buck shamelessly.

"Wait. Wasn't Kakashi your student?" Zabuza asked Minato skeptically. "Don't tell me he was in on this joke too."

Minato had the decency to grimace and shift uncomfortably on his feet. "You heard how withdrawn he is about Obito? And Sakumo Hatake's story? Well, after the disaster during the Third War, and I became Kage, I had put Kakashi on guard duty with Kushina when we learned she was pregnant. It was working and he was finally opening up again. When she and I died, well, Kakashi decided to spend almost a decade in ANBU…"

"… I'm starting to see why you took after Ghost so quickly." Gaara was looking at his friend in a clearer light. Regardless of how much his other teachers meant to him in the past, ALL of them were constantly and perpetually holding him at arm's length, regardless of what they said.

Only Ghost was ever consistently and truly up front with him.

Only Ghost told him the important details and secrets when it mattered.

Only Ghost actually took his mental wellbeing and health as a person into consideration.

Only Ghost trusted that Naruto could handle the hard truth about himself.

It didn't matter that Ghost was a total asshole. He was the only asshole that actually stuck around and gave Naruto what he needed to grow and mature as a person.

Everyone else was simply too caught up in their own plans and schemes to take Naruto "the person" into account. They only saw Naruto "the shinobi", or Naruto "the jinchruiki", or Naruto, "someone else's problem".

And the end result was the half mummified unstable nutcase sitting in front of everyone.

"I see everyone's stares, I know exactly what you're thinking, and YES, the Oogakari and I have VASTLY increased the budget for Konoha's social services, psychological aid, and human resources so the odds of fuck ups like me and literally everything Uchiha related don't happen again." Naruto deadpanned.

Because if there was anything that the Oogakari were when it came to their own insanity, it was being self-aware about it. Hell, even Crypt knew he was screwed up.

There was a loud collective exhale of relief in the room.

Gaara had implemented some of these programs in Suna over the past few years as well. From what he could tell, they were akin to nearly everything else that the immortals worked on. In complete contrast to their personalities, their results were eerily reasonable and comprehensive.

Honestly, it kinda creeped him out.

"Oh come on. Like you sociopaths haven't screwed up massively like this where you live either." Naruto dryly accused the other villages. "The entire shinobi system is a giant mess that's only just solidifying into something reasonable from the shitshow that was the warring clans era. Nobody just wants to admit it."

"The difference boy, is that our inability to address the welfare of others haven't led to the maiming and ruining of Hidden Villages." Onoki growled dangerously.

Naruto opened his mouth before pausing and thinking for a moment and then shrugging helplessly. "Eh. You've got me there. Guess it's just Konoha's bad luck that all the important people that mattered were born there."

"Care to say that again?" The Tsuchikage slowly began to hover out of his seat. He wasn't the only shinobi that had taken offence to his backhanded statement.

"Naruto, stop annoying everyone to redirect their anger to you." Tsunade sighed, knowing exactly what he was doing. "Konoha, we, have to be held responsible for our shortcomings in the past, intentional, coincidence, or otherwise. It was going to have to be addressed eventually."

"Fine." The blonde huffed and rolled his eyes, ignoring the dirty stares he was getting.

"If you could please finish your story then." Mei frowned.

Naruto shrugged. "Not much left. I came across Nagato's real body instead of the super powered ones he uses to fight, gave him an optimistic friendship speech, which is one of the few things that I could do better then than I can do now, and he… more or less used a suicide jutsu like Chiyo-baba, only it was a jacked up version that brought back everyone he had killed in Konoha. And then he died."

"You're joking." Ay deadpanned. "You talked him into killing himself for your village?"

"It was more complicated than that, and I had no idea he could do it in the first place." Naruto sighed and leaned back in his seat and stared blankly up at the ceiling. "Even now I have trouble believing that it actually happened. We argued about how fucked up this world is, what it's done to us, to others, and where the world was going. Where we wanted it to go. How. Peace. What Ero-senin's goals and dreams were, and what it all meant to us. You know, the usual taboo shit that most veterans scoff and mock others for dwelling on, even though it perpetually haunts them every waking moment of their lives, resulting in perpetual denial and little to no progress being made in society over the years.."

"It almost sounds like you're insinuating something." Tsunade sarcastically noted while many of the others in the room glared at Naruto.

"Who knows?" He continued to absently stare up at the ceiling and scratched his head. "… Really, I guess you could say that my blind stupid optimism was only one major part of the reason why he did it. The other major part… other than the fact that Nagato really wasn't a bad person at heart, was simply because what we have right now, our "shinobi system", fucked us both us so badly that we could consider it in the first place."

His hand moved to lean to the side of his head, propping it up and doing nothing to hide his bitter smile. "It's ironic, isn't it? The thing that killed him, the man that claimed to be god, and tried to make himself a messiah, was pointless hope and the memory of the optimism that he once had for a better world."

"But you yourself admitted how foolish that was when we discussed this during Iwa." Konan frowned, speaking up before anyone, primarily the Tsuchikage or the Raikage could slander Nagato's name any further. "Hoping for the best when dealing with human nature was the height of ignorance. You also claimed that you had a plan to achieve peace this time around. Less savory than one would like, but more palatable than what Akatsuki had intended."

"I did. I do. And I'll talk about it later." Naruto nodded lightly. "Anyways… Nagato died. Auntie Konan brought his body back to Ame. And there was much rejoicing in a giant crater. Or so I was told. I was more or less out cold for the entirety of it. Then a team from Kumo showed up to tell us about the stupid shit that Sasuke did.. The Raikage actually called for the summit to discuss Akatsuki that time…" Naruto paused and looked at Tsunade. "Actually, why was he the first one to call for a summit?"

"He wasn't." Tsunade deadpanned. "Konoha and Suna each tried to call for a summit over the matter several times over the years, but we were rejected for one halfhearted excuse or another. When the Raikage called for one himself, we debated for several days on whether to go at all just to point out his hypocrisy."

"Careful Hokage." Ay growled.

"I have no idea what you're so angry about Raikage." Tsunade absently looked at her nails. "You've done absolutely nothing wrong this time around. Absolutely nothing at all. We've prepared quite well without even considering asking for your aid. Although I do recall bringing up the matter with you a few times before during the usual village negotiations. What was it you said in your reply? Kumo doesn't want or need to bother with Konoha's madness to deal with some meaningless missing Nin?"

The large man slowly began to stand up and spark with lightning.

"Calm down you fool. The slug woman's right." Onoki barked annoyed. "Iwa made the same mistake and look where it got me. This could have easily been you. Pull back your pride and act like a Kage."

"You think I'd lose control over my village as pathetically as you?" Ay snarled.

"Well you lost your jinchuriki as easily as we did if what I'm hearing is correct." Onoki dismissed him without a care in the world. "Last time it was supposedly Konoha. This time it was Iwa. It could just as easily been any of the others if this time travel nonsense is to be believed. Kiri's out of the way on an island and easy to isolate. It would take forever for word of what happened there to get anywhere. And Kumo's the biggest military power out of all of us due to your fanatical hoarding. Getting rid of the greatest threats to a plan isn't exactly a revolutionary strategy."

Gaara didn't take offense at all to being excluded from the example. Suna was the weakest of the five Villages after all. If he was leading Akatsuki and could take out a major Village in a near guaranteed sneak attack, his home would be at the bottom of the list.

"That said." Onoki turned his cold eyes onto Tsunade and Naruto. "I'm not pleased that Iwagkure was the one that was targeted this time."

Naruto held his hands up in defense. "Hey, even we were surprised that Akatsuki went all out on you when they only had one Biju. My guess is that we stonewalled them from the others hard enough that they got desperate."

"We were." Konan shamelessly admitted. "Nagato was getting frustrated by the constant failures. We had been covertly supporting the revolutionaries in Iwa for some time, but after the failure to obtain the Nanabi we concluded that precise strikes would not be enough. That said, Deidara's attempted execution of Hana of the Three Plains in Iwagakure to incite a war with Konoha was a plot that Tobi conjured behind our backs. Oogakari's appearance and performance in the village was not something any of us could have predicted."

"Itachi?" Naruto looked at the Uchiha with a skeptical glance.

"My knowledge of them was nonexistent. I was as surprised as everyone else." The accused spy dismissed any and all unspoken accusations.

"Fascinating." Ay cut in sarcastically. "What happened at the summit?"

"Nothing. It never happened." The teen shrugged helplessly.

That was an answer that most did not expect, and fewer found plesant.

"Never happened?" Mei frowned, not liking the sound of that.

"Yeah well, that party in the crater was the last bit of light in this story, because it all went to hell after that." Naruto closed his eyes as he recalled the chain of disasters that took place after the team of Kumo shinobi left. "Outside of the initial request from Kumo, we never got any of the standard messages regarding the setup for the Summit from anyone. Iron included."

"Is that so." The Samurai behind the teen showed absolutely no emotion outside of a small narrowing of the eyes.

"It is, Mifune-dono." Tsunade backed up Naruto's claim.

"What of the other villages? Not just the great five?" Shibuki questioned.

Naruto shrugged. "Dunno. We kept on getting word of shit happening in other Villages, and the Daimyo in foreign countries getting attacked, but the few spies we could afford to send outside our borders all vanished. Suna was one of the few allies we could reliably get in contact with, but they were just as lost and confused as we were. Everyone started to get nervous and armed up for war. We tried several times to get a hold of, well anyone, but we either got nothing back, a flat rejection at the gates, or our guys just went missing."

He sighed and glanced at the Daimyo in the room. "Shortly after that, we got word that Sasuke attacked the Fire Daimyo's compound with Akatsuki and killed our guest here. Then the asshole came with your head in hand at the front gates and declared our destruction for our "crimes against the Uchiha", and Susanoo'ed our main gates into kindling before saying we had a month left to live like some sketchy story villain and ran off. Then the masked asshole claimed he was Madara just to rub salt in the wounds before vanishing."

"Sounds like a charming young man." Mei dryly retorted. "I'm relieved you've managed to work him into something more presentable."

"You have no idea." It must have been bad judging from how rampantly Naruto's eye was twitching.

Itachi pretended he had absolutely nothing to do with this conversation.

"Humph. For someone to make a fool like you that annoyed, he must have been something special." Onoki chuckled.

"Get on with it. Finish your fantasy boy." Ay was losing his patience again.

"Not much more to tell. We called Gaara for help, set up a last minute army made up of our villages, then the remnants of Akatsuki show up with a fuckton of those white Zetsus as their own army, thirty thousand bare minimum from what I remembered, and we all ended up fighting for the sake of the world and all that. And then that prick Danzo fucked us over at the last moment by screwing with our communications and sabotaging our medic bay. We DID get some surprise last second help from Auntie Konan and Amegakure that put things in our favor for a bit, but we were beaten in the end when that masked asshole summoned that tree giant thing and wiped out the strongest of us out in a single go. Considering Akatsuki used it to hold all the Biju in the first place..."

"Th-thirty thousand?" Shibuki paled.

"Relax. They're all dead thanks to Hidan of all people. Or at least they should be." Gaara soothed everyone's fears. "Although I am still concerned as to where on earth those monsters came from in the first place. And in such huge numbers no less."

"We suspect it has to do with the giant tree summon that turned into Kaguya. What with Zetsu being a plant abomination himself. We'll share our investigations on that matter as well by the end of this meeting." Tsunade provided.

"Since the monster only had one Biju's worth of chakra during the battle of Iwagakure, it makes sense that its power would be significantly less." Mei reasoned, remembering the monster that Tobi had summoned while fighting Kushina. "It could also be the reason why we weren't occupied with an army of those, Zetsu, as well."

"Wait. You said that Danzo betrayed you during the battle?" Onoki looked at Tsunade and Hiruzen incredulously. "If that's true, why on earth did you allow that bastard to live this entire time?"

"For the same reason we didn't kill Sasuke-kun." Hiruzen had the decency to look ashamed and looked away. "I held out hope that he could be a critical asset to our cause this time around. I talked to him frequently. More so after I retired... to the point that he actually tried to kill me a couple of times… halfheartedly of course. Just to keep our skills polished. Haha."

He smiled apologetically at the bad joke that no one found funny. "… He was far too set in his ways to change who he was and what he did. I tried to get him to curb the worst of it. Certain missions that were done far too aggressively before were handled with more care this time. Assassinations avoided. Lives and dignity spared… throw in the Oogakari harassing him every month or so, and I thought that we had managed to curb the worst of his nature. However I suppose I was just fooling myself. Again."

"Orochimaru. Danzo. The Uchiha. The Uzumaki boy. Your senile heart has damned as many as it has saved Hiruzen. You should have stayed retired. Onoki scowled, disappointed in his fellow Third Kage.

"You have no idea how many times I've said that to myself over the past two decades." Hiruzen lamented, who seemed to age another five years in front of everyone.

"So I suppose that you somehow escaped in the end and somehow enlisted Oogakari's aid in order for this time travelling nonsense to have taken place." Mei was all for chastising third Hokage, but she wanted to get to the end of this tale.

Naruto smiled bitterly, while those in the know looked away.

"I suggest everyone prepare themselves to be disappointed and confused. This is the Oogakari we are about to talk about." Tsunade advised with a grimace.

"Damn it. And here I had my hopes up." Onoki wrinkled his nose.

"Just get it over with boy. What happened?" Ay decided to "rip off the bandaid".

Naruto shrugged. "I was captured. They were extracting Kurama from me. I was in some weird mental space state trying to figure out a way to get out. Aaaaand then Ghost showed up totally plastered out of his mind with no idea where he was."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"What." Shibuki asked flatly.

"… The only thing that I hate more than that explanation is the fact that I can believe it and clearly see it happening." Onoki said with literally zero emotion, energy or life in his voice.

"I had been prepared to be underwhelmed and I'm still left disappointed." Mei lamented.

"This is not the first time I've heard this story, and it still pains me to hear this part." Gaara admitted.

"I got plastered when I first heard it." Tsunade agreed.

"You, I can't believe this. Am I surrounded by gullible fools? You actually believe this nonsense?" The Raikage balked at everyone's reactions.

"Normally no, but this is the Oogakari we are talking about." The Mizukage sighed. "They have all long since proven to be beyond capable of utilizing esoteric and irregular arts to disappoint or frustrate anyone they come in contact with. Their competency in nearly everything they do is only matched by how vexing their behavior is. The more astounding their feats, the more likely it is they do something absolutely ridiculous to ruin the moment in the same breath."

She dramatically paused before giving Naruto a cold look. "More so if they are capable of time travel as you claim. Such a peculiar power is obviously dangerous enough to be a concern to us all, even if everything you said up until now was a lie."

Naruto chuckled bitterly, more amused by the accusation than anything. "Then allow me to assuage your concerns, Mizukage. Everything I have stated about the previous timeline is true. Akatsuki had obtained and extracted all the biju except the Kyubi, which they were obtaining when Ghost Oogakari appeared."

Red words and sentences danced and flowed around Naruto like elegant ribbons as he spoke, his eyes calm and steady. "Is there anything you want me to say in Red?"

"Say in Red exactly when you first met the Oogakari." The Mizukage requested.

"I first met Ghost Oogakari in my mindscape in the middle of Akatsuki's extraction process." Naruto complied. "I had never seen, met, or heard of him or the others until that moment. Ghost is the first Oogakari I had met, though they only went by Oogakari later when Scabbard made the name up out of convenience."

"So it was a false name. Should have known. No wonder we couldn't find anything on them." Ay cursed under his breath.

"Wait. Wait. You guys are talking about time travelling and all that crap right?" Shibuki frowned. "And if this Ghost Oogakari is responsible for that, and it happened there with Akatsuki, then how was the rest of his family in on this? Can they time travel too or were they brought with you?"

Naruto laughed at the inquiry as many others in the room gave the Taki leader a double take at the insightful question. "Haha! That is actually a really good question! Good on you. Okay then. To answer your question. Ghost's abilities only affected our reality. The rest of the Oogakari were in another world, and thus his powers didn't affect them.

"Wait." The Raikage's sudden demand cut through the room like a knife. His tone indicated that something had rubbed him the wrong way.

"What is it, Raikage?" Mei asked curiously.

"It's the way the brat's been talking in red." The man frowned. "He claims that he time traveled and that Oogakari's responsible for it, but he avoids saying that. It's always "powers" and "previous timeline". He's avoiding something important."

All eyes turned to Naruto, who in turn… smiled.

It was the kind of smile that promised something unpleasant for those in the room.

"You're right. I do avoid saying that I time traveled in red. Because what happened isn't exactly that." His tone was knowing and bitter, yet almost amused. "I avoided mentioning it because, to be perfectly honest, Ghost's powers scare the living SHIT out of me. More than the rest of the Oogakari's, and trust me, they are all monsters of the highest order. It took me a while to understand just what I had been dealing with, but afterwards… I really was trying to do everyone a favor by not going into the details."

The room was ominously quiet. An ability that scared Naruto that much? The boy that took on that psychotic priest, an army, an alien woman, and a biju in a single day. And yet this one power supposedly trumped all of that?

It was hard to imagine.

"… After what he did to my village, I'd be doing my people a disservice if I left it at that." Onoki's voice echoed in the room, yet he barely spoke above a whisper. He was recalling the man's visit and trying to figure out how the man rendered his village into a crippled state.

"I would also like to know what this supposed ability is." Mei frowned. "If it is responsible for your time travel as you claim, and yet somehow worse, then I would prefer to be prepared for it than not in the future."

"The Hokage and I have been told some of what happened, but we don't know the exact details of Ghost's powers either." Gaara admitted.

"You can't prepare for something on this level." Naruto shook his head tiredly. "No one can. Even the rest of his family take precautions behind the scenes for a worst case scenario."

"We'll be the judge of that. Now stop stalling." Ay looked at Naruto hungrily, as though what the teen would say would finally give him an edge on Ghost.

Naruto sighed and shook his head. He had warned them.

"Ghost Oogakari possesses the progenitor to the omniversal concept of fire. It is a pre-conceptual phenomena that consumes time, space, power, and causality itself without discrimination, restriction, or restraint. There is no limit to the range of his powers or his use of it. Whatever he burns is reduced to a state before it exists. Including events. When he dies, the events surrounding his death are consumed, making literally "nothing" happen and making him effectively immortal. When used on a world, he does not "turn back time" but burns it, reducing history to nothing until he sees fit... If he decides to stop at all."

Naruto looked at everyone's rapidly paling faces as they slowly understood what they were dealing with. "Ghost Oogakari did not save our world. He immolated us all, severing and cauterizing the very existence of our stories and failures on the world with the ease of an afternoon stroll, until he decided to stop and see what we would do on the unseen ashes of what we all had been. All on a casual whim while extremely intoxicated."

Unfortunately, he had to let them know of one more bit of bad news. Something that had been at the back of his mind ever since he learned of it.

"When Ghost burned our world, more monsters on the outside noticed."

The horrifying truth and reminder, that there really was no such thing as a free lunch.

o. o. o.

"Found another one." Sasuke dispelled the genjutsu on a corner of the room to reveal a cache of explosives hidden in plain sight.

"That makes three in this area." Kakashi held up bags containing the other two. "If the info we got from the hypnotized Samurai are right, we're all good here."

"Mmm." The Uchiha rolled his shoulders to loosen his joints. "Since nothing's exploded yet, I'm guessing no one's screwed up so far."

"Now that's just rude. Have faith. They may be from other countries, but everyone here's a professional. Finding a few hidden bombs isn't too difficult with the information we have." Kakashi chastised.

"I was talking about the Summit itself."

"Ah. Hopefully Hinata can keep Naruto's worst habits in line." The cyclops sounded significantly less confident.

"… Is it too late to hope that one of the bombs go off?"

"If you have to ask, then you already have your answer."

"Tch."

"You're the one that actually thought it was a good idea to hope." Kakashi whimsically walked past him.

"Shut up." His surly student followed. "Do you think we're done with this part?"

"I suppose so. Let's see if things get more interesting, shall we?"

Without saying anything else, the pair walked to the center of the facility, a grand empty room with titanic pillars that stretched at least fifty feet high. Sasuke noted that this was where the original tests for the Swordmaster tournament took place years ago.

They weren't the first to arrive.

"Yo." Kakashi waved to a nearby samurai, holding up his bombs. "Our harvest was quite bountiful this season. How about you?"

"The guard found seven charges, all where the information said." The heavily armored man stated.

"Eheheheh. Not bad for samurai. I thought that you noble prudes would have had more trouble with the illusions hiding these silly things." Coming from another entrance, Chiyo and Baki from Suna arrived with five of their own explosives. Baki, the one carrying them all, was doing a good job of not looking uncomfortable..

"We have trained extensively to counter your kind's childish trickery. Finding them was of little issue." The Samurai stoically rebuffed Chiyo's teasing.

"We got a bit of a haul ourselves." Suigetsu came in with Chojuro in tandem, a wide fanged grin on his face. The latter had done most of the work. The swordsman's glasses had special seals that enabled him to see past most illusions.

"It's not cool to boast."

"Especially since we're the ones on fire." Samui and Atsui showed up with an impressive seven charges.

"This isn't a competition. We are here to ensure the security of the summit, not see who can blow themselves up the fastest." The Taki jonin came in last with their own four bombs.

Kakashi and Sasuke knew several people back home that would have taken personal offense to that.

"Are all the explosives accounted for?" The head Samurai asked sternly.

"It appears so." Baki counted and the numbers matched up. For Danzo to sneak in so many explosives showed just how badly he wanted the summit to end in disaster.

"We have a discharge barrier set up in the center here. We will place the explosives there until we can properly dispose of them later." The lead Samurai instructed, nodding to a large sealing array where they had already placed the bombs they found.

"Hoh? And here I thought that you Iron folk avoided anything that isn't sharp and pointy." Suigetsu hummed in curiosity as he walked over to get a better look.

"Suigetsu!" Chojuro hissed nervously.

"I don't see what the big deal is. Diversifying's real hot these days." Atsui chuckled as he tossed his findings into the circle.

"Humph. Brats. All they are good for is running their mouths without thinking. Then again, it does give me something good to laugh at every now and then. The purpose of fools is to entertain the masses after all." Chiyo chuckled while Baki unloaded his findings.

The Taki shinobi wordlessly just joined in with their loads. They clearly had their own thoughts on the matter they didn't want to bring it up.

"Guess it's my turn. Pity Iwa didn't send more people. This could have been a heartwarming international bonding moment." Kakashi walked inside the circle and gave it a good look…

And blinked as the barrier went up with him inside.

"What the?"

The bombs began to glow…

"Everyone get down!" At the Samurai's shout, everyone that hadn't reacted on instinct moved for cover. It was clear that the Samurai hadn't activated the barrier, so there was no guarantee it would contain the blasts.

Within half a second, everyone was behind a pillar.

For a good ten seconds they all braced for an explosion.

At the eleventh second, they realized that no explosion would take place.

Thump.

At the twelfth, three bodies were dropped on the ground near the barrier.

"Whew. That certainly was a close one." The intact Kakashi happily and dramatically wiped his forehead while putting his forehead protector back down.

He was still standing inside the barrier.

The bombs were nowhere to be found.

"Your acting is terrible." Sasuke stood over two unidentified shinobi and a samurai with his sword out, sparking with the lightning chakra he was channeling through his sword.

"What the… Uchiha! Hatake! Explain!" They had to give the Samurai credit, the man recovered quickly.

"These three have been hiding and eyeing us since this morning." Sasuke stepped on the back of one of the shinobi and put his sword next to the man's neck. It was enough incentive to stop the assassin from doing whatever he had been doing "It appears a few rats escaped the mandatory sweep last night."

"And since most barriers are rather simple to tinker with, we thought that it would be best to provide them an ideal opportunity." Kakashi cheerfully explained while reaching back and pulling out a slightly longer than average tanto.

Chiyo's eyes widened. "That's-"

In a flash of white, the barrier holding the copy nin was slashed apart like it wasn't there.

"The White Chakra Saber of Konoha's White Fang." A Taki Shinobi whispered. "I thought it was broken."

"It was. I was young, and well, you know how irresponsible kids can be with valuables." Kakashi casually admitted. "Fortunately I kept the remains, and eventually found a talented blacksmith that could repair it. Kenjutsu isn't my forte, but I'm not completely useless at it either."

The shinobi and samurai there all held back their scathing comments. It was obvious that the man was flaunting the tool as a message that he was more dangerous than what they had assumed.

"Humph. You insufferable brat." Chiyo spat, glaring maliciously at the tool that had taken the lives of her son and daughter in law. "You may have your father's weapon, but you clearly never inherited his humility."

"I think I'm pretty humble. Sasuke?"

"You read porn in public."

"If that's not the sign of an honest and open person, I don't know what is."

"That's hot." Atsui absently noted, only to get jabbed in his side by his sister.

"Not cool."

"What happened to the bombs, Hatake?" The Samurai frowned, noting the lack of explosives and residue where the cyclops once stood.

"Mmm. Let's just say I have a few tricks nobody knows about yet." Kakashi further annoyed everyone there with his unhelpful answer. "I wouldn't worry about the bombs anymore."

Probably some sort of teleportation technique then. The bombs had been detonated, but hopefully somewhere safe. It could be Hiraishin, but there was no point in speculating .

"And the reason why you didn't inform us of this before?" The head Samurai scowled.

Kakashi shrugged helplessly. "Didn't want to risk them setting off the bombs before we found them."

Suigetsu whistled, clearly amused. "This guy's got some balls. You should get some lessons from him Chojuro. You'd man up in no time."

"Suigetsu, not now." The shy swordsman looked around warily, a hand on the large sword on his back. "If we found three spies here, who knows how many others there are."

"Indeed. Speaking of which…" Kakashi whipped out several familiar sealing tags and used them on Sasuke's captives. The Samurai's activated instantly, but the other two didn't react at all. "Hmm. Seems like Danzo's feeling gutsy, using some of his own forces for this one."

"Traitor…" One of the ROOT agents spat before hissing in pain as Sasuke put more weight on their spine.

"As someone that has personal experience with traitors, I find your definition too liberal for my tastes. And I spend time with the Oogakari."

"We should interrogate them." The Taki Jonin advised.

"No point. ROOT agents have seals on them that prevent them from giving out information." Kakashi dismissed. "Konoha can crack them, but it's more trouble than they're worth."

There was one other option available … but it wasn't worth wasting that resource for something like this.

"So then. That just leaves our friend here." Kakashi squat down in front of the samurai. "We just disposed of a fair number of bombs and some Shinobi that really shouldn't be here. Care to tell us if you heard anything interesting that we may have missed?"

The Samurai breathed out heavily as he was released from Danzo's illusion and reluctantly shook his head. "N-No. I was put under weeks ago and told to keep watch and relay information. The bombs I set up were found by the Taki shinobi. Jobs were relayed to me by these two."

"How did you escape the mandatory inspection last night?" His captain looked at him angrily.

"…." Surprisingly, the Samurai managed to somehow look abashed even with his armor on.

"Well?" The soft sound of a sword being loosened from its sheath was deafening.

"I was drunk!" The captive shouted in shame, clearly embarrassed. "I left early yesterday to meet with some friends from the wall guard at a bar nearby. I couldn't break the illusion, so I tried to make myself so drunk that I wouldn't be able to sabotage the Summit. Unfortunately I didn't try hard enough and missed the notice for the mandatory call, my chance to get out of the genjutsu. I only caught word of it later when my handlers found me and gave me a new task. I asked one of the boys to cover for me until I could swap in during the shift change during the early hours. He filled me in on what had happened, but like I said, I couldn't out myself."

"Truly ironic. By trying to prevent a disaster, you almost guaranteed it." Kakashi shook his head in pity. "Still, you did try to fight it. That's more than what most can claim. I commend you for that."

"Commend later." Sasuke scowled. "We made a deep sweep last night, but you still got through, which might be to our favor. Did you see or hear anything we missed?"

"N-no." He shook his head. "There were other plans that I was supposed to be a part of, like staging a revolt and letting Shimura's forces into the facility. However from what I remember most of them were called off. The bombs were the only plan that I know of that they went through with. As far as I could tell, even delaying the Summit without any casualties would be acceptable."

"Which means that there could be more plans afoot. Seriously, making a poor woman work so hard at this age. And they said that Samurai are considerate." Chiyo groaned and turned around. "Come on then. Let's have a look at those frozen abominations you call walls and see if anyone's dead on them yet. Hopefully we can be quick enough for me to avoid pneumonia."

"How on earth did a crabby spitfire old hag like you get here without catching it already?" Atsui balked as he followed the Suna delegation with Samui behind him.

"The fox brat's as convenient as he is annoying. He can control the weather and temperature without even thinking about it. I might have traveled through the snow, but the entire trip was nothing short of pleasantly toasty. Now if a certain useless student of mine would have done this woman a favor and rubbed my corns, I might have actually enjoyed this blasted trip… AND WHO ARE YOU CALLING OLD!?"

WHAM!

"She has a point. We could be compromised. Half of the Samurai in here will do an emergency exam of the outer guards. The rest of us and you shinobi be on guard for any intruders… I grant Hatake temporary leadership of the operation. Shimura's one of Konoha's. No one else here knows how he operates as well as you do."

"I've never led Samurai before, but I'll try to live up to your expectations." Kakashi looked around curiously. "Mist, Waterfall, Iron, and Leaf. Quite a diverse operation we have here."

Sasuke snorted. "Power trip later. If Danzo is dumb enough to show up, I want to make sure that he doesn't screw us over… also dibs."

"Did he just…?" Suigetsu gaped.

"Sasuke, you can't call dibs. The situation's too political and you're too sane to get away with it." Kakashi chastised with very concerning logic before turning to those who had remained. "You guys go ahead. Remaining Samurai, split up between the shinobi by villages. Verify your status over radios every ten minutes. We group and name ourselves by villages. Don't try to take on Danzo alone. Even with the Sharingan you can only put up so much resistance to Kotoamatsukami."

"I'd like to see him try." Judging from the literal sparks radiating off of Sasuke's body, he really did.

Kakashi frowned. "Do you really want to be the one to get in the way of Naruto's plans when he's being serious for once?"

While the others there weren't nearly as familiar with Naruto Uzumaki as Kakashi and Sasuke, they had heard and seen enough to know that there was a much deeper insinuation than what they could assume. Especially if it was enough to cause Sasuke to reluctantly back down so easily..

"Tch. Fine. But if that bastard does show up…"

"You're one of the best options we have to fight him. It would be counterproductive not to let you know."

Sasuke threw off his teacher's attempt at calming him down and turned to walk down a separate hallway. "Stop talking Kakashi. You're terrible at trying to make people feel better. Let's just find these assholes already."

"Fair enough." Kakashi looked at the three prisoners. "Please escort these three to interrogation. I know our Samurai friend was not acting maliciously, however precautions need to be taken. Be careful with the ROOT agents though. They tend to kill themselves if captured. I'm pretty sure Sasuke put them under a Genjutsu to prevent that for the time being."

He did. Otherwise the pair of ROOT agents would have either bitten down on the poison capsules in their false teeth or simply bitten on their tongues by now.

"Understood." Without any further instructions everyone began to split up and head to separate parts of the building to see if anyone had snuck in, save for the small group that headed to the basements where the prison was.

Surprisingly, or not, they didn't find anything.

o. o. o.

"Tobi" glared at the Three Wolves mountain, the location of the Kage Summit. He had planned to infiltrate it during the festivities, if not to find out what was discussed, than to ruin the chance of the Villages coming to some sort of ceasefire, as fleeting as the idea seemed.

But he didn't. He could feel Hashirama's attention on him, even if the blasted wood user was nowhere in sight. Capable sensors were rare. While they didn't have the clarity and perception of the Sharingan, their ability to notice things at the worst possible time was insufferably annoying.

To the side, he saw Kakuzu, who was enjoying the cold as much as he was.

On the outside, the heart thief looked to be the same surly bastard as always.

On the inside though…

"We're leaving. There's no point in staying here."

"Hashirama's still around then?" Kakuzu grunted.

"We'd just be killed or waste resources if we did anything. We need to plan carefully."

"So you say." The pair walked off south. They would hear what would come of the Summit one way or another. Either way, Tobi was sure to despise it.

o. o. o.

"Our operation was compromised."

"… Withdraw all resources in the area. We're leaving Iron."

"Sir?"

Danzo looked at his second in command, an Inuzuka that had lost his partner during the Chunin exams and had been cast out by his family. Loyal, but still somewhat quick to anger despite his conditioning. "You heard what was said. They have a means to cancel out Kotoamatsukami. No doubt they made their moves long before the meeting started. Damn you Itachi."

"Do you believe that they missed some of the charges?"

"It won't matter at this point. Our goal was to kill some of the delegations from the other Villages to sew discord and mistrust. Those inside were instructed to ensure the death of as many critical individuals as possible, or to set off the explosives if they were compromised. The fact that they were captured before setting off the bombs leaves us blind. Sending in anyone else to detonate the remaining charges is a waste of resources."

He should have told them to use the bombs earlier, but he had gotten greedy. What he had learned just from the introduction of the meeting was more than he had expected. Akatsuki attending? Itachi? The Rinnegan? The Daimyo? A seal that could cancel out Kotoamatsukami? It was just the beginning of the Summit, and yet that alone had made his head spin with possibilities and potential. War was fought with information as much as blades.

And then there was all those discussions that took place on the way to Iron…

No. He would cut his losses here. He had not achieved his primary goals, but he had learned enough.

He would have to move quickly. He had a small window of opportunity.

The world was waiting, holding their breaths to see what would come from the summit. And yet, right now he felt that he was one of the few that could breathe perfectly fine.

o. o. o.

"And here we go. We finally get to the real delusions." Ay rolled his eyes.

"It is hard to believe. True or not, I can see why Konoha would refrain from telling anyone of this tale." Mei mused. "While it was spoken in red, I hope you can understand why we are taking this with a grain of salt."

"This is a joke, right? You actually expect us to believe that the Oogakari are some kind of, what, super gods? Super aliens?"

Naruto sighed, knowing that this would be most people's reactions. "Technically speaking, anyone that comes from another reality or world qualifies as an extraterrestrial, so you're kinda right with that latter part. As for gods… well, there're more definitions for the word "God" than there are for "fuck". It's a carelessly used catch all term. There's god, God, GOD, god, God, GOD, god, God, GOD, god, God, GOD, god…"

As Naruto recited variations of a simple and common word, those in the room couldn't help but slowly get a sinking feeling in their stomachs and a chill down their spines. They could somehow tell that each uttering of the word referred to something completely different. Some greater, some lesser, but almost all significant in a way that their instincts could only barely interpret.

Worse was that as he continued to speak, the ominous feelings they were having kept growing significantly.

"And then of course there's those asshole G̶̨̮͕͂ǫ̴̯̳̒͠d̷͎̞͉̓̒́̚s̵͍͍͕̏̕."

At this point his words seemed to stab everyone in their minds and souls.

"The hell was that?!" Shibuki grimaced, grabbing at his head.

"Roughly the halfway point." Naruto deadpanned. "I can only properly pronounce a quarter of the remaining variants that I know of. Another quarter I can eke out by tearing my throat apart, and the rest would knock me on my ass if I heard them without any preparation."

"Enough boy. You've made your point." Onoki, who had been unusually quiet since Naruto's revelation of Ghost's power, finally made himself known. "I'm guessing that the Oogakari are among these, unspoken monsters?"

"More or less. Closer to honorary members, if only by technicality. The Oogakari hate Gods in general. And from what I've seen the feeling's mutual."

"I take it there's an insufferable story behind that too." Ay huffed.

"Yeah. And it ended with Ghost personally massacring so many Gods in pure blind rage that nearly everyone in the business is scared shitless of him. What happened in Iwa was just him being mildly annoyed."

Well, that got dark fast.

"Burning time… so that's how he did it." Onoki muttered. He'd ignore the "mildly annoyed" comment. For now at least.

"Something on your mind, Tsuchikage?" Mei asked.

"When Oogakari came to my village, he was different. Clearly irritated. The powers he showed were abnormal. He was walking against a crowd and bumping into people, yet his pace never changed. He was murdered in front of me at least a dozen times, yet he always appeared unscathed moments later. He went out of his way to prove that it wasn't a genjutsu. Then, when he brutalized my village, it genuinely felt like I had died several times… and yet I was fine later. It was like being stuck in a nightmare where everyone saw and experienced the same things with you. If Uzumaki's claim is right, then it makes sense."

"I don't see what the big deal is. Immortal? What of it?" Ay waved off Ghost's powers. "All we would have to do is seal him away or kill him until he could no longer take it anymore. Every man has his limits."

"And you think you have the brilliant method to push him past said limits that hasn't been outdone by the Oogakari?" Naruto snorted sarcastically while taking out his scroll from earlier and opening it. "Fantasize on your own time, Raikage. We'll be here all day if we dwell on those guys and how fucked up they are."

Stopping on a small sealing array, the teen activated it and took out a very large bottle of expensive alcohol and a large number of glasses.

"Alcohol?" Onoki frowned.

"I have a feeling that it will be necessary for what we are about to discuss. It's going to be one of those conversations. That said, I am feeling generous. This here is some top shelf drink. It's hard to come by, even where I went. I've been assured of its quality."

"Hm? How accommodating." Mei eyed the bottle curiously and noted that she didn't recognize the designs or written language on it.

"You actually expect us to just accept whatever you serve us?" Ay skeptically questioned Naruto's integrity.

"S'up to you. More for Baa-chan if you don't."

"Oi." Tsunade growled.

"You're the functioning alcoholic about to get more good shit. Be happy."

"Hah!" Onoki let out an amused laugh in spite of the growing wary feeling he was getting.

Tsunade's fists tightened to the point that her knuckles popped, but she kept her cool otherwise. She could always maim him later.

That better be some good shit he was handing out.

"Naruto. If we aren't going to discuss the Oogakari, what are we going to cover?" Gaara got them on track again as the floating bottle poured its contents quietly into each floating glass.

"Their organization. The Family."

"The Family?" Mei parroted curiously.

"… I have a ton of nonsense in this scroll. Trinkets. Maps. Bodies. Loads of "evidence" and toys and the like to prove that I've been to places that aren't from the Elemental Nations. However, between chakra and seals and Orochimaru's mad experiments, someone would try to find an excuse to claim that I fabricated it all in house."

Almost everyone in the room refrained from paying the Raikage any mind. Almost.

"So, I'm going another route. Like I said. The Oogakari are top tier monsters. It wouldn't be far off to say they're the rough equivalent of Akatsuki in the multiverse, only they aren't out to screw everyone over. When they make a move, other people notice, and word goes around. Eventually."

Naruto absently stared at the bottle, thinking about all the disasters he had inadvertently brought onto all of them. "That said, they do have prior commitments and have zero interest in micromanaging everything that could go wrong among their friends and contacts. The Family was set up to address the bulk of these, "minor issues", without their input or involvement."

If Naruto had not grimaced at calling himself and the events in the elemental nations "minor issues", he would have gotten more blowback than the irritated silence he got while speaking.

"When I asked Ghost to help us out with going back in time, I didn't put much thought into how it would be done or the potential consequences. How could I? Dimension and time travelling sounded as stupid to me back then as it does to you now. But, I was desperate. I told him flat out that I wasn't going to sell my soul or planet to him in exchange for his help, or anything stupid like that... but Ghost only seemed to care about the "show" we would all give him. But what he didn't mention was that just by "helping" us, our home would be the center of attention of a bunch of monsters and groups nearby that wouldn't be so accommodating."

"You're saying even if we won against Akatsuki and this Masked Uchiha, we would still be potentially damned." Tsunade summarized with a scowl. "They knew this the entire time. Bastards."

"If these monsters are so terrifying, why haven't they shown up yet?" Mifune asked curiously before realizing the answer to his question. "Unless…"

"Yeah. They could tell someone's staked their claim here already. They might not know that the Oogakari specifically are here, but they know that at least for now someone dangerous is. Dangerous enough that it isn't worth the risk of checking it out."

It was like when animals approach the dens of predators. They might not know what's inside, but their instincts and the local warning signs were enough to get the point across.

"Their stay is temporary. That's what you're saying, right?" Onoki read between the lines. "The second we deal with the Uchiha and whatever problems are left for us, we're left to fend for ourselves against these supposed monsters from other worlds."

"Not exactly. If our payment for the time travelling was giving them a show, then our restitution for being exposed to these outside forces is an invitation into their group. A group that will help us deal with the exposure issue." Naruto finished pouring the alcohol, and with a small gesture they all floated out to all the village leaders and Mifune.

Nobody missed that there were two glasses still in front of the teen.

"… Are you sure about this?" Minato broke his long silence and looked at his son warily.

"Need to make a point somehow." His son sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.

"Sure about what?" Mifune asked warily. "Is there something we should be concerned about?"

"Probably." Naruto lamented, still staring at, no, past the ceiling and holding out a hand. "Remember what I said about what I had in my scroll? That someone would have an explanation for it?"

Well. If there was a time to exploit his luck…

Those that knew Naruto well enough developed a sinking feeling in their stomachs and a chill down their spines.

"I'm putting money on nobody doing that with this."

Tsunade looked up at the ceiling, trying to see what he was looking at. "What are-"

Naruto snapped his fingers, and those who were sensors felt just the tiniest change in the chakra around them.

He then pointed up at the ceiling twice. Then down twice.

As if he was gesturing to someone.

Everyone could tell that something wasgoing to happen. They could all feel it to their core.

"Boy. What did you-?" Onoki's question was both cut short and answered simultaneously as his eyes were drawn to the Uzumaki's side.

Or rather, to the fissure in space opening up next to the boy like a twisted and alien like maw. Within seconds, a gap in the air opened up to reveal a black expanse that yielded no light or world behind it.

Then a pale and elegant hand penetrated the void.

That hand was followed by a pale and elegant woman, with ivory white hair and eyes as white as the moon.

"Kaguya Otsutsuki." Tsunade's complexion turned almost as white as their unexpected visitor.

The very atmosphere in the room had changed. There was an alien weight to the woman's existence that seemed to suffocate and steal the strength of everyone there with no effort. It was so foreign that even in a room full of veterans, nobody seemed to be able to move or act freely in her presence.

Almost nobody.

"You continue to be beyond peculiar." Kaguya didn't pay anyone there any mind save for one. Her focus was on Naruto, who didn't seem to be affected by her existence in the slightest.

"I have a peculiar reputation to maintain." The teen smiled genuinely.

"You presume I will not use your moment of weakness to my advantage?" Despite her malicious question, her expression and tone did not hold any emotion in the slightest.

"You can try. But you should be able to tell what your best outcome would be if you even tried such a silly thing." Likewise, Naruto's pleasant tone and demeanor didn't falter at all.

They both pretended to ignore the eyes that were listlessly watching from another part of the world.

As leaders of their respective villages, they could all tell that the pair were having several unspoken words in their flippant conversation. Compliments and insults were being uttered while probing the other for information. However, none of the spectators could tell what either one of them was looking for in the other, nor where their respective interests laid. Without those two key details, much was lost in translation.

And yet, despite all of that, there was a faint spark of something in the woman's eyes as she looked at him. It was as though she was recalling something nostalgic and meaningful.

Slowly and elegantly, she lifted a hand to reach out to him…

"That's enough."

And was stopped by Hinata, who had appeared in front of Naruto ready to fight with her eyes active.

The weight in the room magnified tenfold.

"Hinata, it's fine." Naruto sighed, suspecting something like this might happen.

"But-" Hinata tried to excuse her actions when Kaguya spoke again, distracted but for another reason.

"One of Hamura's." The woman peered at Hinata as if just noticing her existence. Her outstretched hand now went slowly for the girl. "Clearly of lower stock, but… what pristine eyes you have child."

Hinata had not expected Kaguya to treat her not as an enemy, but as something more, intimate, if the alien woman gently reaching out to her was any indication…

"Eh hem."

And then her hand stopped at the sound of Naruto's fake clearing of his throat.

Or rather, that's what it looked like to anyone without enhanced chakra vision or sensory abilities.

To those that did, Kaguya's sudden stop was because the room had quickly and silently been littered with small blade like rifts in space.

"This is…" Ao muttered clearly unnerved, his Byakugan examining the distortions warily.

"…" Itachi merely frowned as his Sharingan slowly spun.

"Zabuza-"

"I know. Don't." Zabuza instructed Haku just loud enough for Mei to hear him. He didn't know what was going on, but he could tell when Naruto was leaning towards doing something violent.

"This is bad. Brother Nine's gettin' mad." Bee grimaced as he spoke to Gyuki.

"Don't be an idiot Bee. Shut up and watch." The Hachibi warned.

All the Kage and veterans didn't say a word. They all knew something was amiss, that the air in the room had changed, but could not discern what was going on just yet.

"… You are quite the greedy one, aren't you?" Kaguya looked up slightly at Naruto with a hint of bemusement in her tone.

Naruto didn't react to her provocation, his eyes never straying from his ancestor's. "Hinata. It's fine."

"But-"

"She knows what will happen if she tries anything. It's fine." His tone brokered no argument. For anyone that knew their relationship, it was clear that Naruto was putting his foot down and reminding her just how far above her he really stood despite how he acted normally. Something he rarely did.

"..." Hinata was conflicted despite his reassuring words, before relenting and standing down.

With Hinata and Kaguya now respecting boundaries, the invisible rifts and blades in the air mended themselves just as quickly, returning the room back to normal and allowing Hinata to slowly return to her place beside Shizune.

"You have some nerve, Uzumaki. Disrespecting mother's power like the ignorant child you are." A black blob with a face stretched from one of Kaguya's sleeves. "She could easily kill you now in your pathetic state. You look barely alive from your last encounter with her."

"Zetsu." Kaguya's single worded admonishment stopped the monster's slowly popped out from the side of her eyes as she looked down on the boy, the chakra he contained, and the changes made to his body. "Those wounds are not from myself or the God's fragment… what have you done to yourself?"

He shrugged. "My body wasn't handling the seven samples well. I had to make some changes."

Her blink was all that betrayed her surprise. "I am astonished you still breathe."

"I learned a few tricks during my travels. It wasn't pleasant, but I'm still here."

"I see." She examined him for a few more seconds before her eyes returned to normal. "It is rare to encounter a reckless child that has survived for so long. You have a bizarre relationship with fortune."

"The harder you work, the luckier you get. And the current culture tends to look favorably on those that actively play the odds as much as possible." Naruto took a small sip from his alcohol, not bothering to pay note to anyone else in the room besides Kaguya.

"So I've been told." Kaguya glanced at her tribute, her indifferent mask still impossible to read.

"I didn't poison it. I don't waste the good stuff." He answered her unspoken curiosity with a languid sigh.

This time she did look slightly annoyed. "I shall assume you were speaking to the other children in this room. It is clear enough that you did not try such a silly trick."

The moment the drink met her tongue, she suppressed a momentary shudder. The taste was exquisite.

But more than that, she half recognized the taste and gentle aroma from the liquor. Fruits and spices of top quality, but more importantly ones that could not have originated from this world.

It was a soft power play. An underlying message that few would hear. He had plans. Resources beyond even her scope of reference. Unlike the majority of the backwater fools on this world, this one was capable and aware of where he stood.

The way his chakra system was rearranged, along with the peculiar chakra formation from the chakra beasts within him… he was closer to the Otsutsuki than the descendants of Hagoromo and Hamura. Instead of a distant descendant, he was more like a cousin.

Her attention lingered on the Rinnegan sitting on the table in front of a peculiar paper woman. And on the Sharingan user standing behind the paper woman. One of Indra's brood. While Indra's eyes had been an oddity, she had never expected to witness a pair become so, enshrouded. It was peculiar.

And elsewhere in the building was… Indra's current incarnation. Had Asura and Indra finally reached a peaceful resolution?

The current Asura had a curious array of interesting guests and trinkets, but now was not the time to bring it up. This version clearly had a shorter temper than the norm. She suspected it was the constant stress he had clearly experienced.

"You expect me to stand?" She asked, noting that there were no spare seats available for her.

"Questions would have been asked if we left a seat out." With a casual wave, Naruto generated another one of those swirling orbs of air from their previous meeting to his side. "I hope the drink will make up for the lack of decorum."

It did. "We shall see." With the grace of someone that did not belong in this world, Kaguya glided across the room and slowly lowered herself into the improvised seating, not all caring about the eyes that were upon her and instead more curious about the drink in her possession.

"Everyone. Please." Naruto smiled pleasantly as he held up his drink in front of him as a mock toast before taking a taste himself. "They aren't going to down themselves."

The leaders in the room did not feel nearly as cheery as he sounded, but to save face they reluctantly mimicked his actions, not once taking their eyes off of their new guest.

What pissed them off even more was that the drink was good. Really good.

"Naruto? Can you please, explain this turn of events?" Tsunade grit through her teeth while trying to resist the chilling feeling in the room just from being near Kaguya. She didn't dare muster her Presence to lessen the effects, lest she draw unwanted attention to herself.

Many of the others in the room were in a similar state as the Hokage. Especially the Jinchuriki, who were all barely managing to keep themselves, and their Biju in check.

"Considering we are about to discuss those that come from other worlds and their impact on ours, I thought it would be appropriate to involve our guest." Naruto was the only one that was comfortable with the situation. "After all, she is both a prime example of such, and the reason why humanity can use chakra after all. Also, as I stated before, any trinket or gift I possess would normally be dismissed as something a shinobi or Oogakari made.. A guest of Kaguya Otsutsuki's caliber is much more difficult to argue against."

"What?" Mei balked. "How is she responsible for us using chakra?"

"Humph. Outside of Hagaromo's teachings, it appears the primitive fools of this world have barely changed in the past thousand years." Kaguya scoffed, more to herself than anyone else. Violent primitive things these humans were. More interested in killing one another than anything else.

Naruto coughed. "If you remember, our guest is the mother of the Sage of Six Paths. Long story short, between the knowledge she passed onto her children, and the World Tree that warped the energy of our world, chakra became a thing that eventually almost anyone could tap into. Hopefully everyone's jinchuriki has spread word on her general story by now?"

"You mean that childlike tale about how she intended to bleed our world dry of chakra until the Sage of Six Paths and his brother stopped her?" Onoki quietly answered before knocking back another sip of the cure. "Yeah, I sat through it. Wasn't exactly a thrilling bedtime story, and left a few questions, but I got to the end."

Judging from the glances that the other leaders gave one another, they were all in a similar boat.

"I do recall you saying a few things on the matter in Iwa." Gaara tentatively brought up a topic that might make matters worse. "You were rather dismissive about world trees in general. And you mentioned that our guest was… a novice, to the activity of draining our world from her actions."

Naruto pretended to ignore Kaguya staring at the side of his head, for once not hiding her thoughts on the matter.

"I've already gone over some of this multiverse bit. Travelling between worlds. The strong guys that can do it. Basic stuff that most people can imagine or get from a fantasy book. World Trees… there's usually two types. One represents and upholds the planet's foundation, and the other is more or less an efficient weed that drains the world of its resources and power into a fruit until said world is a barren lifeless husk no different than an asteroid or moon. These trees don't grow well unless they're planted on worlds with passible levels of resources. Life and energy are ideal for them to grow. Water also helps."

"You're saying that this woman planted one of these supposed alien trees on our planet a millennia ago and everything should be dead by now." Ay bluntly stated. It was sounding more ridiculous the more he listened.

"Normally that's how it goes. These things are like weeds. As a result, a good number of those that travel between worlds, and related organizations, are not fond of them, or those that cultivate them. Anyone that consumes the fruit does obtain a decent amount of power, but only as much as the world that they stole it from. As a result, there's a bit of an insulting saying. "Weed farmers are only as strong as the dirt they ruin"."

"Which is why they would supposedly look for worlds abundant in life." Mei brought her drink to her mouth and glanced at Kaguya over the rim, who paid none of them any mind.

"And a weak populace. Minimal effort. Maximum results." Naruto corrected slightly. "Like I said before though, those that rely on world trees are limited in their growth. They're only as strong as the places they steal from. Too dependent on what they steal and not on personal training. Compared to the other planet busting monsters out there, they're pretty low ranking in comparison."

"Can you give us an idea of what sort of scale you're using?" Gaara asked.

Naruto nodded. "Anything that can easily alter an entire planet is considered "God Class", followed by the ever so imaginative F to S tier rankings. If you can screw with the entire planet but can't break it at a moment's notice, you're an F tier. Anyone that can destroy a planet at whim is E tier. Weed farmers rarely break out of these levels. Actually, most of them are F tier at best.

"And what of the Oogakari?" Ay asked the question that many didn't want to voice.

The teen resisted the urge to grimace and roll his eyes. "They're all high enough that there's no point in comparing them to weed farmers. Like I said before, the Oogakari are all disgusting monsters."

Kaguya elegantly sipped her alcohol before a thought crossed her mind. "What of the patron deity that sponsored that crude priest? I could perceive it was an entity that pervades many realms. What is your insight on the matter?"

He scowled, clearly not at ease with the topic. "Can't make an accurate guess on that monster. Actual Gods are a pain to get good estimates on if they're sticking to the other side of reality. I didn't see enough of the original, but… it was not a minor entity. Something that's familiar with Presence and can effortlessly empower minions to blast past the Presence of someone on my level is no joke. C rank bare minimum. More likely B. Possibly even as high as an A rank if my luck's gone completely down the shitter."

Kaguya nodded, accepting Naruto's answer. She may not know what exactly the system he uses entails, but she had a good idea of what it spanned.

"Speaking of which, what is your supposed level? Are you one of these planet destroying monsters now?" Tsunade half joked while taking a bigger sample of her drink than she probably should have.

"Hell no. I'm on the upper end of the scale below them, the "Holy Class". City to continental landmass range." Naruto snorted dismissively before rolling his shoulders. "Of course, with all this extra biju chakra in me and my body changed, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of eventually making the leap. But it's not going to be anytime soon. Not that I'm eager either way. God classes in general have a pretty shitty reputation."

"Wait. Hold on. If these supposed monsters are so overwhelmingly more powerful than you, if… she, is that much stronger than you, then why exactly aren't you freaking out or worried about being killed right now?" Shibuki asked warily. To be fair, he had a very good point.

"Because he's spouting nothing but nonsense." Ay snorted.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Because, for one matter, our guest isn't a God Class. Not now at least. She may have been at her full power with all the Biju, but at the moment, she's only somewhat stronger than me. And once I recover, well who knows."

The fact that Kaguya didn't dispute or react to his statement all but supported his statement.

Granted, he was speaking about himself in his base state and her with two Biju absorbed, but that was more of a footnote than anything.

"That said, this does lead into the main purpose of the conversation." He continued. "Which is what to do when we have to deal with the monsters, empires, and tactics that are far beyond our ability to handle on our own. And NO…" He cut off the Raikage before the man could speak. "Simply throwing our villages and resources won't do jack against the groups I'm talking about Raikage. Believe it or not, we could get wiped out impossibly easily if someone wanted to. Hell, the smart ones wouldn't even need to waste a single soldier."

"Impossibly easily? I find that hard to believe." Onoki scoffed.

Naruto looked at the Tsuchikage with a dry stare and held up an open hand. "An "injection protocol" is a common tactic where an invading force opens up a dimensional hole no bigger than my hand. Usually in rural and poor areas. They then introduce at least three to five dozen invasive and extremely fertile species loaded with experimental and highly contagious diseases and viruses. Pathogens that require innate knowledge of the home world's environment and fauna to comprehend. No war. No weapons. No soldiers."

The room was dead quiet. The picture he painted was not one that they had experience with, but one they could easily imagine.

"Do this once a week for at least a year, all over the world but especially near the most vital food supplying territories. Within two years the vermin population is noticed and the diseases start getting attention. Within five, famine and pandemic prevention efforts have finally started to go underway, but far too late. Within twenty, all previously established international territories, organizations, and military forces are starved, wasted away, butchered, or imploded as civilization collapses. They wouldn't have to fight a war. They'd simply have to choose between slaughtering what remains of us or simply seeing how many of us are willing to bend over for a bowl of rice and some cough syrup."

And that wasn't getting into the shit shows that these assholes could do with water supplies.

He didn't have to go over how it would end. He was speaking to the leaders of Shinobi after all. They all knew of war and exploiting weakened opponents intimately.

The room was quiet as his audience slowly and painfully digested his words. Save for Kaguya who was savoring the drink in her hands almost pleasantly.

"You didn't honestly think that we had cornered the market when it came to playing dirty, did you?" Hubris was the downfall of many worlds freshly exposed to what was outside their neck of the woods..

Judging from the awkward silence he got as a reply, yes, they did.

He sighed and took another deep sip from his glass. "Let me correct any false assumption you may have. I am not warning of any impending war. War implies that what we will encounter is something we can handle. War implies that it will be two parties facing one another in some capacity. War implies some degree of fairness. What is eventually coming our way isn't a war. It will be a pointless ordeal that will only dictate how long we will last before we are either killed, starved, eaten, enslaved, mutated, enthralled, or whatever unfavorable fate you care to is the situation we are currently facing due to my and Oogakari's actions. War is what I intend to avoid."

"If these outside threats are so impossibly overwhelming, how would our aid be of any use?" Gaara asked, his tone as calm as ever, but his eyes told of another tale.

Naruto smirked, finishing his drink. "Fortunately and conveniently enough, by doing what Shinobi already do: selling our services in exchange for benefits and profit."

"What." Ay eloquently responded, more or less voicing what was on everyone's minds.

"Like I said before, the Oogakari are akin to Akatsuki as far as the Multiversal powers are concerned. Countries. Worlds. Universes. Territory is still territory. Small fights count as much as large ones in many situations. The Oogakari, the Family, have one of the smallest domains out there, but it's common knowledge that only a select number of realities are ever given the chance to join at all. It's a rather unique and rare opportunity we have on our hands."

"You've hyped up the idiots for some time boy, but are the Oogakari as prominent as you claim? And what of these other powers that you have yet to mention. Is it wise to dismiss their potential offers?" Onoki hummed as his wizened mind began to delve into the political ramifications of their position and their potential actions.

"First of all the vast majority of the super powers out there aren't even human, let alone resemble us." Naruto deadpanned, tilting his head to Kaguya. "She's an exception to the rule, not the standard."

The exception merely hummed absentmindedly.

"Many are more plant than flesh, with teeth and stomach acid all over their bodies for easier consumption of those that aren't their species. Or the sort that aren't tangible yet have three brains and in large numbers emit a field that reduces their prey into mindless drones. A good portion are artificial lifeforms, metal or meat, but not naturally organic. I'm sorry to break it to you, but humans don't have the greatest reputation in the greater cosmos. Something about being violent retarded self-centered monkeys that are more likely to blow themselves up a thousand times over than sticking to an agreement for longer than fifty years peacefully even with a kunai to our necks. The few peaceful organizations out there usually avoid making long term deals with our kind."

Naruto's dry tone at that last bit was unnecessary. They all knew deep down he was right. Humans were assholes like that.

"Really, the odds of our random first contact being peaceful or to our favor are so low even I wouldn't take that gamble, mostly because some jackass on our side would likely fuck it up thinking they know better and doom us all. Whatever luck and fortune you think we might have, we flat out struck gold on getting the Oogakari in the first place. Full stop. I'm telling you right now, as far as interdimensional asses to kiss, we're not going to get a cleaner pair of cheeks to suck up to than them."

The teen rummaged through his scroll before taking out a peculiar looking device that appeared to be a metal orb with several odd metal rods and fissures littered all around it. He pressed a button and set it on the ground, and immediately it projected a crystal clear holographic image of their planet in front of everyone.

"Geography lesson everyone. We, and the elemental nations by extension, are here." He pointed to a notably small portion of the world's landmass than some had expected. By some estimation, the shinobi and samurai system encompassed probably at most only a twentieth of the total land visible.

Naruto moved his hands in a way that shrunk their world to the point that their entire solar system was visible. "This is our world with regards to the solar system…"

More shrinking. "This is where we are in our galaxy."

More shrinking. "And this is roughly where our galaxy is in our universe."

Their universe shrunk until it was just a dot. Then Naruto snapped his fingers and the room was littered with countless more dots arranged in a wide rainbow like swath of colors.

"It's normally impossible to express the multiverse in a three dimensional picture, so some liberties were taken with colors in order to account for some of the deficiencies. Still not perfect, but better."

"Hoh?" Kaguya hummed curiously as she inspected the map. "You possess quite a relic child. And if what I see is correct, an accurate one at that."

"You can read it?" He asked with mild curiosity. He had half expected Kaguya's knowledge of the greater multiverse to be limited to their general area.

"Of course." She pointed to a small swath of white and blue near the universe that they supposedly were in. "The Otsutsuki originated from this domain. One can see the trail of realms we have harvested if the diminished vibrancy of colors is an accurate representation." Her fingers then moved into a completely different direction and pointed to the greatest "landmark" on the map. "However, I am more surprised that you have such detail about the great sear."

"Great sear?" Mei frowned as she examined the exceptionally large black blot in the map that looked almost akin to a burn mark with is uneven rough edges.

"It is a void that was rumored to have been burned from reality eras before my time." Kaguya elaborated. Whether she was responding to the Mizukage or just going on was anyone's guess. "Evidence of a God of the highest order gone mad with rage, or so the claim goes. Truthfully, my kin rarely stray far from familiar territory. We only know of it from tales by one of my ancestors who was an irregular vagabond that caused more trouble than solved. A renowned traveler that sought excitement more than power. Unsurprisingly, he vanished at a young age, though not without merits and contributions. Blindly exploring the greater realms is one of the most trying and unsecure prospects there is."

Naruto somehow managed to not tip anyone off that he knew more than he let on. Hyping up the Family was one thing. Telling everyone that Ghost currently held the record for mass multiversal murder in a single go was another.

"And yet this supposed map clearly indicates that someone did just that." Gaara factually noted, still trying to make sense of what he was seeing. "What about these giant empires you spoke of?"

Naruto pressed another button and the colors of the map became more segmented and distinct. A few hundred visible territories were visible to the naked eye. "I won't go into the finer details of every territory here because navigating the greater multiverse is a pain to talk about to newcomers, but I will give you some examples."

He pointed to a rather small smear of orange near where they were and expanded it. Some data came out while in the process. "This lovely span of three trillion-ish universes is run by a corrupted God of heat and incursion. The populations in these realms are naturally inclined to riots, war, and arson. The major governments in these societies that do survive tend to be fascist or communist war machines that constantly plunder their rivals and other worlds for their own benefit. Very much a "join us or die" lot. Their territory doesn't expand because everyone keeps on killing each other, but they don't shrink because anyone that tries to invade just paints a giant target on their foreheads."

He glanced at a bigger blue one. "Oh, I know these guys. Connalishts. They're an empirical municipality. Ghost took me to a few of their worlds. They're… okay, but they're real strict when it comes to their politicking and their rules tend to screw over anyone that doesn't have enough influence. They tend to treat their new worlds pretty harshly in order to see what they can contribute to "the ailments of their comrades". If we joined them, we'd be stuck slogging through a two hundred year trial period before we'd have a hope of functioning independently again. But by then the bulk of our culture and government system would have been sublimated into their own. They're really just one giant ass cult that always hides their terrible decision making behind politics."

Next was a purple blob. "Aaaand this is our first parasitic hivemind that spreads and infects worlds through spores that can slip through the fabrics of spacetime. Yeah, there's a lot of these fuckers. Super common."

Then a red one that was slightly larger than its neighbors. "Who's… oh shit, that's Barney's place! I thought he was somewhere else. Really chill guy, once you get past the whole cannibal tyrant thing. Excellent host."

The next few minutes went by like this, with a large number of "eldritch horror" and "old god" territories being glossed over quickly.

"What of the Oogakari? You said they were prominent enough to have their own territory." Mei interrupted as Naruto was brushing over the eighth sex themed territory, a literal "galactic fuck hole" if the slang he claimed was correct.

"Hm? Them?" With a quick press of a button, the map was littered with random pinprick dots that spanned its entirety like stars. Over it, a sigil consisting of four wings surrounding an opened slit eye was shown. One feathered, one bat like, one of metal, and one stripped down to the bone. "Like I said, they don't have a large number of worlds under their control in comparison. That said, there aren't many groups that have access to as many areas as they do either."

"Hmm. More than I thought there'd be." Onoki leered, not even bothering to try and count how many dots there were. "With how erratic they are, I doubt they'd be able to hold, let alone manage a town, let alone a planet. Or universe. Or whatever."

"That's because they don't."

"Care to clarify that for us?" Tsunade didn't know what exactly Naruto had meant by that, but she had a suspicion that he was leading them to a major selling point that he had planned out long in advanced.

"You honestly think they spend their time micromanaging all these territories and keeping them intact with their personalities?" The teen scoffed. "Baa-chan, these worlds are "their" territory, but more by association than anything. Every one of these places save for a few exceptions are autonomous civilizations that are spoiled rotten. They have access to resources and technologies across the multiverse with as minimal risk as one can get. Like I said, the Oogakari are akin to Akatsuki on a cosmic scale. Very, and I do mean VERY few groups out there knowingly pick a fight with them."

He shrugged in a "what can you do" fashion. "Really, it's not far off to say that the other super powers out there have as much luck dealing with these monsters as we do."

"I still find your claims of their prowess hard to digest." Mei hummed as she examined the map and the unique sigil hovering over the litter of stars. Very briefly, she glanced at Kaguya to see what their esteemed guest's reaction was to Naruto's statement, but as usual the newcomer was completely unreadable. "If this map is accurate, I do see an advantage to joining with them compared to other groups…"

"Trade." Gaara picked up on it instantly, having Suna in a similar position itself.

"Oh, I see." Onoki hummed curiously, looking at the map in a new light. "Yes, that does sweeten the pot considerably, doesn't it?"

"Trade? What are you getting at?" Shibuki asked confused.

"The Oogakari's territory spans the entirety of this map while virtually every other group is centered on a specific area." Tsunade elaborated. "If they possess the means to jump between their territories with minimal issue, and different sections of this bizarre mess hold different resources…"

"Then the Oogakari hold a relentlessly strong grip on trade routes, merchandise, antiquities, resources and otherwise. Not to mention that the variability, versatility, and access to most areas would make their services highly in demand and reliable. Especially if they are as well protected as claimed." Ay clicked his tongue, clearly annoyed. "This has that bastard Scabbard's name written all over it."

Actually, it had been Crypt's idea, back when he was sane. Scab just carried it out .

"You guys got it. They get decent PR by setting up shop in a way that makes them more valuable to keep around than kicking them out. Pretty much what they've been doing here to be honest." Naruto shrugged. "Annoying friends, but with damn good benefits."

"We're not exactly in a pivotal location, but we aren't completely surrounded by other Oogakari points either." Mei hummed as she inspected what their world could provide to the network. A travelling point that didn't stand out under most circumstances, meaning they would get some benefits, but likely wouldn't be the first point of attack. "Though I don't suppose we possess anything of particular value to other worlds, do we?"

"Not really." Naruto shrugged helplessly. "Shinobi of our caliber are a bit of a novelty in most places... That said, chakra is a pretty mutable energy system. A few research groups would be interested in playing around with its capabilities from time to time."

"So?" Ay hummed curiously. "Which one of these flashy lights is the homeworld or universe or whatever of these bastards?"

"None of them." Naruto instantly and evenly answered.

"They must have come from somewhere brat." Onoki scoffed.

Rolling his eyes, the teen pointed to the giant black blotch in the map. "From what I was told, it used to be somewhere around there. And then it wasn't. Universes get wiped out all the time for all sorts of reason. Some collapse under their own steam. Some are destroyed by a God or some asshole having a bad day. Some are wiped out because they are contaminating their neighbors and need to be taken out. Shitty reasons all in all, but that's how it is."

It was the unnaturally emotionless way he spoke that caught everyone's attention. There was clearly more to the topic than he was saying.

"That's how it is? You're making light of some pretty heavy topics, Naruto." Gaara frowned, not liking the way his friend was talking.

It was then that Naruto's expression truly went blank, to the point that there was literally no light in his eyes.

"… Ghost once took me to a planet that was about to be destroyed by a passing asteroid twice the size of the moon. Four billion people gone, just like conspiracy. No greater plan. Just terrible luck. And I couldn't do anything but sit there and watch."

His story wasn't done yet.

"He then took me to a parallel reality where the same exact thing was about to happen. This time, he burned the asteroid away as if it was an afterthought. Four billion people continued their lives as if nothing had happened. All because he felt like it. And I could do nothing but just sit there and watch. We didn't go to that world. We didn't ask for restitutions. We didn't rub it in anyone's faces. A giant rock was just destroyed, and then we went on with the rest of our day."

The room was ominously silent as he continued.

"People die all the time. That is a fact. Trying to save everyone in some vain attempt to force retarded ideals on everyone like a dictator god dressed in rainbows is stupid on a level that even I balk at. I assume that the majority of us have come to accept this. Worlds are no different. Our world, is no different. Their world, was no different. And before anyone asks, it was destroyed roughly a millennia before that "great sear" appeared. I don't know how or why, so don't bother asking me more on that topic."

The room was eerily quiet.

Naruto let out a tired sigh. "However, as leaders of your respective Villages, you have taken it upon yourselves to be responsible for the meaningless lives under your care. You cannot and will not take responsibility for everyone, but you try your hardest for the people you can. Right now, all of us are in a situation where we need to extend that logic and apply that responsibility to our world. The better we work together, if only behind the scenes, the less risks and headaches we will face in the long run. Increased exposure and attention means increased frequency of our world being stuck in events that could ruin it or take it away from us."

All the Kage and village leaders glanced at one another warily, as if trying to take stock of what the others thought of the teen's words and tales.

Kaguya merely sat in her place and watched everything unfold with mild curiosity.

Tsunade took a very deep gulp to help take the edge off of that revelation. Just as she noticed that her glass was empty, the main bottle floated over to her and poured her a new helping.

She noticed that it then went to Onoki whose glass was also empty. As was Mei's, Mifune's, and Konan's. She suspected that the rest of the leaders would be on their second or third glasses soon enough.

"If all this is true, and you intend to have our world participate in this, mercantile lattice, does this mean you also mean to expose the populace to the, variety of people and creatures you spoke of earlier?" Mifune asked, picking his words carefully.

Naruto barked out a bitter laugh so loud that some of his wounds actually reopened. "Ha! Hell no! Are you serious? Humanity as a whole are a bunch of paranoid violent bastards that will look for any reason to lash out at others, and our current culture makes us among the worst at that regard! If we did that our world would fall into self-destructive chaos within hours! Ha!"

Every other human in the room grimaced as Naruto's words hit home.

Kaguya chuckled slightly in amusement, clearly of the same mind as the teen.

"Naruto. Your point?" Tsunade dryly cut in. "You clearly have some sort of solution in mind to address all of these problems that you are tormenting and mocking us with.

"Hm? Oh. Yeah. The point is I'm making a new Hidden Village." It was the careless, almost patronizing way that he responded that made the words stab harder and deeper than they should have.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… Naruto. Can you please elaborate?" Tsunade grit her teeth, her veins beginning to throb in genuine anger. Judging from the looks that some of the other Kage were giving him, she wasn't the only one about to blow a gasket.

"Haaa." Letting out another sigh, he sat up a bit straighter in his seat and finished off his drink before pouring himself a new helping. He had laid the groundwork. Now for the real hard sell.

"It's more of a Hidden Village in name only to be fair. More like a local interdimensional management hub. A neutral zone. An embassy. But even more hidden than the usual shut in home of shinobi. It will have to be. The Village Hidden Nowhere. The Village Hidden in Between. The Nameless Village. I don't care. Its actual name can be decided later."

"So this was his plan the entire time." Onoki leaned forward, his full attention on Naruto now. The fact that he wasn't dismissing it outright wasn't a bad sign, but it wasn't a good one either.

Truthfully, the gnome had been suspicious when the matter of trade had been brought up earlier. Between the Oogakari's setup and Naruto's ranting about trains and economics during the trip to Iron, the boy clearly had some plan that he wanted to establish in the Elemental Nations. One that wasn't as blatantly ludicrous as the tales of multiple universes he was spouting.

In hindsight, that was also reflective of the Oogakari's playbook. Expose and exploit the crazy problem at hand. Then address it with something comically, almost disappointingly mundane, yet extremely effective…

The loudmouthed idiots were always grabbing everyone's attention and doing stupid things. But in the middle of that madness, a network of contacts and connections was established. Something subtle and meticulous enough that nobody would normally associate it with the brash idiots… yet so blatantly simple that once it was noticed it was hard not to see the truth.

His old eyes glanced at the Fire Daimyo, who had been all but mute. It wasn't uncommon for civilians to tune out everything that wasn't an immediate issue, but it was clear that the weakest human in the room was thinking at a hundred miles a minute. Taking in everything and contemplating what he could do with it all.

Another connection. A resource that everybody here would ignore until later… but the truth was just the opposite. The Daimyo were the ones that controlled the money, the people at large.

That cunning little bastard. The Kage Summit may have been his stand to announce his plans, but his primary audience and targets sure as hell wasn't the shinobi. Once the Daimyo hear of what was at stake and the potential payouts, they'd all either be eating out of Uzumaki's hand, or force their forces to do it for them. The announcement to the Kages might as well be a polite formality.

If Naruto noticed Onoki figure him out, he didn't indicate it. "The complex will be where all the friendly, if not diplomatically non-hostile, outside entities will enter and interact with us. Likewise the facility will be the headquarters of those that specialize in interacting and conversing with said bodies. It will have its own force specifically focused and trained to address issues of foreign origin. A secret "foreign affairs" oriented village, so to speak. Less eyes on what's going on in the elemental nations and more on everything from the outside."

A village independent from most international politics with loyalty to no individual country, but with the potential to access enough firepower and resources to take on anyone.

Normally the idea would be the source of worry, concern, fear, and war for obvious reasons. However, if there was any truth in what Naruto said, then it was begrudgingly an idea in the right direction. Leaving all that potential in any country's hands would be a disaster waiting to happen.

Ruffling through his scroll, Naruto withdrew a large number of binders and documents. "This village will likely be the first of its kind. A secret international facility whose primary purpose is to ensure that what comes from the outside stays on the outside unless our rules are followed. However, it will also ensure that no idiot from the inside reaches out for one brain dead reason or another and screws us all over. In order to account for this, the place will be decades, if not centuries ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technology, and we will have to make sure that it stays that way."

"I knew there was a catch." Ay muttered as all the village leaders were each sent a binder. The cover had a cartoonish picture of the Oogakari standing in front of a slew of sky scrapers with balloons around them. In big bold letters read "The Family's Guide to leading worlds into the future while minimizing the odds of someone fucking up".

Underneath the title, in parenthesis, read "That means you".

"Why the disparity in technology?" Gaara frowned as he briefly looked at some of the pages inside and was pleasantly surprised to see a mix of instructions, charts, graphs, elaborate literature, and more crude cartoony pictures. All in all, perfectly in line with what to expect from the Oogakari.

"Because people, humans especially, are idiots." Naruto dryly retorted.

"While none present would object to that statement, some more context would be appreciated." Mei deadpanned.

The teen sighed. "… Left to its own devices, humanity has a bad habit of throwing caution to the wind and abusing whatever's available for easy short term gain over long term harm. Pollution. Disease. With or without chakra. I've seen civilian based worlds destroy their own planets for the dumbest of reasons with weapons that are the equivalent to mass produced Bijudamas. We are a species of careless fuck ups and it only gets worse when tech advances ahead of our ability to control it. This village right here is the keys and safety measures to that. Between that and the alien bullshit, it's going to be too busy to bother with something as retarded as world domination."

"What makes you say that? What's stopping this village from taking over when our guards are down?" Onoki frowned.

"Size, oversight, and capability." Naruto answered instantly. "The amount of manpower and resources needed to properly rule and manage the Elemental Nations, much less the world population, will be far greater than what this village can afford. The requirements for such a wide territory are different as well. Nearly all of the resources going into this project will be home grown, in order to avoid loans and debts from the outside. On top of that, being part of the Family, the Oogakari's organization, means that there will be constant random inspections from other members to make sure nobody is overdoing things. All members sign an unbreakable contract that binds them to their word. The few that do manage to break it… well, the consequences are creative, to put it mildly."

He took a particularly deep gulp of his alcohol and looked blearily at everyone. "That's the official reason, but to be honest? Fuck ruling the world. No way in hell I'm loading myself with that nightmare. Hell, I consider it a public service to smack anyone that wants such a stupid thing upside the head."

The room was dead quiet… Save for Zabuza failing to hold back a snort in the background.

"Seriously, does anyone have any idea what goes into ruling an entire planet? Managing a single country is nothing in comparison. People bitch and moan under the best of times. But to have the entire world under a single flag means that everyone has the same target whenever something goes wrong! And by something, I mean literally everything! Random famine? The government's fault. Murder rate goes up by three deaths in a town? Government. Stubbed your toe? Government. And all that just means it's easier for morons all over the world to gather together and think that they can do it better when they just want someone to take it out on. No way I'm exposing my neck for that shit show. Multiple major governmental bodies is the way to go. It segregates the pissants and localizes the bullshit."

"… Hmm. Crude, but not inaccurate." While everyone else was digesting Naruto's deconstruction of" ruling the world", Kaguya was seriously contemplating his observations and how it related to her own tenure. Maybe if she had set up a similar system to what he proposed she would not have had such a difficult time a thousand years ago….

Naruto waved his own copy of the guide in front of everyone. "This right here? This is the cheat sheet to getting around ALL of those easily avoidable nightmare scenarios. Minimal air pollution so the world population doesn't have to wear masks all the time. Minimal damage to the environment so we don't kill off the bulk of the flora and fauna species in blind attempts for oil and other natural resources. Optimized agricultural and economic strategies based on environment so that there's minimal risk of food shortages or market crashes even on a bad year. Meaning minimized mass population revolts."

"That sounds too good to be true." Mei eyed the document with renewed interest.

"It is. Because the new hidden village will be handling the bulk of what can't be addressed with minor litigation and allocation of resources. The local shinobi villages will be working in tandem with the new village, keeping feelers out for events that seem too out of the ordinary for local minor disturbances. Every year or three or whatever, all participating shinobi villages will send a couple shinobi to the black site for training and indoctrination. Not the elites, but the ones that you believe can handle having their world view being fucked over, and can afford to give up to this new project. An international black ops. Their primary goal will be to keep things sane across the board. Not to serve any individual nation."

"And you believe that you can maintain this façade from the public?" Konan spoke up, breaking her silence. "That you can keep all this a secret from the world?"

"Nope." He grinned bitterly, once more throwing everyone for a loop. "Secrets always get out eventually. Especially in a world like ours. But I do think we can do it long enough to get the general populace used to the idea that "we are not alone" and "friendly aliens are among us" or whatever convenient conspiracy theory we throw out there. If we have… I'd say around thirty to fifty years, we'd be able to suffer a sudden exposure with minimal riots and people burning down government property."

"And if they don't play ball?" Onoki frowned. "Like you said. People are idiots."

Naruto smiled helplessly and turned to Kaguya.

"Easy. I show them a live example of what we've been protecting them from. If you guys are this afraid of our guest here, just imagine how the world would react if I brought forward someone that I couldn't handle?"

o. o. o.

A/N:

Thanks again Ultraroar for betaing.

Sorry for the late post everyone. I actually had this done a few weeks ago, but the second half of this chapter didn't feel right for me so I had to spend some time reworking it to up the quality. Also part of the reason why there's no Omake this time around. Sorry again.

So yeah. Kaguya is in the house. Bit of a twist there. Woman's still alien and crazy, but she knows the pecking order and she isn't completely out of it like in Canon. I stick to my earlier assumptions made way back in the fight, Kaguya's far more lucid now because the World Tree isn't completely awakened inside of her, overwhelming her consciousness and making her hangry for chakra. Well, she's still hangry for chakra, just not rabid wolverine hangry atm. Remember, as stupid as the canon plot is, I've still rarely if ever come across a story where someone takes in the whole world tree in themselves. That shit should mess with anyone that does it, and it messed with Kaguya as well. Or at least, that's the way I'm seeing it.

Going to see some major character development for Naruto here and in the next chapter with how he sees things and his plans. Not just because of his trauma and all that but how he's changed and matured in reality because of it. He's still an immature shit like Ghost, but his plans and goals are another thing entirely.

Seriously though, fuck the Boruto plot. It just… so bad. Minor bits and pieces are good, but plot… so bad.

Oh, and if anyone asks about my power scaling system, I need to rework the Holy Class system and examples a bit. Sorry about that.

Uh, to put things into perspective, if we're talking about Naruto and his storm abilities, S rank would be naturally generating a storm that can encompass the entirety of Asia, A rank would be Brazil, B rank would be around the Japanese islands or Korean peninsula. Going full stop with biju and sage mode chakra, TTRT Naruto was on the upper end of Holy Class B rank, which is still the equivalent of some of the largest monsoons/hurricanes on record in our world, but once he fully recovers, he'll probably be bumped up a rank or two.

In real life news, saw the new Jackass movie, and I have renewed by ability to hate humanity for purely non-political reasons… and I have a new reason to be kosher. Anyone that's seen the movie knows exactly what I mean. Nearly hurled so many times at that part. Ugh. Laughed my ass off for the bulk of the rest though.

And Pokemon Arceus… I got Arceus. My OCD wouldn't leave me alone until I brutalized that game. Fuck trying to catch flying pokmon though. God I just… WHY do they make it so you can't catch them when they're facing you?! It just… so much HATE!

… Maybe this is what I get for catching all those Teddiursa and then bolting when the Ursaring comes after me just because I'm a dick?

Bah. I'll suffer enough once Elden Ring comes out.

Shameless plug for my Pat-eon here: Third Fang.

Shameless plug for my teeshirts:

Tee public website and add one of the following:

/t-shirt/22765065-kill-merlin

/t-shirt/25225790-oogakari-sigil?store_id=817891

Note, the Oogakari sigil on the shirt is the one that used in this chapter for their territory.

Eh, that's all I have right now. Going to do a chapter of GAIWP next and then move back to this. Need to finish up the Riser fight there anyways. Should be a pretty sweet half chapter and shouldn't take me too long to get out. Until then…

REVIEW! WORSHIP THE LOG! KAGUYA WAS WATCHING NARUTO FOR ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE SUMMIT FROM SPACE BECAUSE SHE'S A DIRTY SHAMELESS VOYEUR! AND REVIEW AGAIN!