Chapter Thirty-Three

With Ken consulting on the new security barrier, which would be implemented in various high-risk buildings throughout the village, the schematics for the first were drawn up within a week's time. Ken mostly worked to balance out his additions with the main structure of the seals, which took up most of his time over the week but was finally finished. And as much as he loved his work, it left him exhausted and ready to get back to business as usual.

During that time, Tomoko had taken a few smaller missions to bide her time until their team was to be reunited. She also spent that time getting to know the new Uzumakis without Ken around to act as a buffer. With the new clan head so busy with his mandated project, Tomoko took it upon herself to help train Naruto and Karin in his absence, something Ken was grateful for in the brief times she had seen him between his long work hours and crashing in his bed to rest up for the next day.

Tomoko also took special interest in helping Kaori along with her self-defense. As a woman of slender build, she knew exactly how disadvantaged she would be against most opponents who would be bigger and stronger than her. So she made it her mission to hone the mother Uzumaki as finely as possible, even if the woman might hate her for it.

When Ken's consulting assignment was finally finished, Tomoko insisted that he take a personal day to get back into fighting form — mostly by sleeping that day away and then training in the evening before sleeping again — before they reported in for their next mission.

And this one was a doozy.

"We're going to where, now?" Ken asked in surprise.

"You will be traveling to the Land of Rivers as neutral ground to meet with the Kazekage about a matter regarding the Hidden Sand," Hiruzen explained.

"We have a non-aggression treaty with them, right?" Tomoko asked.

"We do," Lord Hiruzen said with a nod, propping his face upon nested fingers. "And I hope to have that grow into a full-fledged alliance. And this mission you've been given may help that along."

"How so?" Ken asked.

"While Lord Rasa's request was rather vague on that front, only asking for the 'Uzumaki sealmaster'," Hiruzen admitted, "I had Jiraiya look into this a bit before I accepted the request. It seems the Hidden Sand has had a jinchuriki of the One-Tail for several years. According to Jiraiya's reports, the child, for it is the Kazekage's own youngest son who is the vessel, has been unable to control the beast with any consistency.

"Apparently, an event occurred that pushed the boy over the edge and he has become unstable and dangerous to all around him. The shinobi council of the village has encouraged their Kazekage to terminate the child as a failed experiment, and he has apparently set up attempts to do so."

"Wait, what?" Ken asked in shock.

"Why would he do that?!" Tomoko shouted in horror.

"Let me finish," Hiruzen chided. "As I was saying, he has attempted three times to have the boy killed, but he has survived each of them. It is my belief that young Gaara, as he is named, has a very poor seal to contain the One-Tail. And I feel that the Kazekage wants young Ken to have a look and see about improving it." Hiruzen snapped his fingers and an ANBU agent appeared and handed him a large scroll. "Thank you, Ape," he said, to which the ANBU nodded and disappeared.

Hiruzen formed a hand seal that unlocked the scroll and unfurled it to reveal the schematic for a particular containment seal. Ken's eyes widened as he recognized the design. "The Four Symbols Seal," Ken whispered. Two of which would create an Eight Trigrams Style Seal, the exact same form that bound the Nine-Tails within Naruto. Ken looked up at his commander. "Are you certain?"

"I am," Hiruzen replied. "As a show of good faith, I want you to apply the same sealing method that my late successor applied to Naruto. And I request you be upfront with this information. Not only will it certainly contain the One-Tailed Tanuki, it will show that we are serious about an alliance." Hiruzen pushed the scroll toward Ken along with a blank scroll to copy the design, which Ken stated with vigor.

"So what am I to do, Uncle?" Tomoko asked.

"You will act as an escort and further evidence that we are to be trusted," Hiruzen explained. "I am sending a formidable member of my own clan into the belly of the beast, so to speak, and that is a show of trust. In addition, your sensory talents may very well come in useful during the procedure." Tomoko thought that over a bit and nodded in understanding.

It took several minutes for Ken to finish his plan of the seal variant, after which he stored the notes in a seal on his belt and bowed the Hokage. "The party from Suna will arrive in the village acting as a rendezvous in a matter of days," Hiruzen said. "As such, I suggest you get moving as soon as possible."

Both members of Team TAK bowed in respect before making their way out of the administrative building. After returning to their respective homes to pick up supplies and greet their families, they met at the eastern gate of the village and headed off. It would take about a day and a half of hard travel to reach the village in the Land of Rivers they had been directed to. And then came the job of not causing an international incident.

Of all one could say about a shinobi's life, they could never call it boring.

While Team TAK were on their way to the Land of Rivers, Naruto sat with Hinata at the village library. He glanced backward at Karin and Kaori, the mother and daughter working on her homework for the Academy, before he looked back to his project partner.

"So, uh, where should we start?" he asked to break the faint tension.

For obvious reasons, both children had concerns about researching the Land of Lightning and Kumogakure in particular. Between the forces of the Hidden Cloud trying to kidnap Hinata at age three and sparking the Hyuga Affair, their attempt to kidnap Naruto's mother that was thwarted by his still-unnamed father, and their role in the destruction of Uzushio that Cousin Ken had talked about … well, there weren't exactly positive feelings toward the northernmost hidden village from either of them.

Hinata slid her notebook full of neat and tiny handwriting toward him, her finger on one part of the project criteria that Instructor Iruka had outlined for them. "I think we should focus on the land and the people," Hinata whispered. "If we try the history, then we will find-" She cut off as she began to curl inward with dread.

"Okay, yeah, that sounds good," Naruto said, placing an arm over her shoulders and drawing her into a half-hug. "I mean, I probably would have just written 'the Hidden Cloud are a bunch of kidnapping jerks and can jump in a lake'. Your plan is way better, y'know?"

Hinata blushed at the praise and nodded as they got to work. The class had covered the Land of Lighting first in this unit, which wasl lucky for them, and Hinata's neat and thorough notes were a much better help than Naruto's blocky and piecemeal ones. Hinata also suggested they check out some books on geography and the Land of Lightning to add extra information. She reasoned that this would earn them a better grade.

"Okay, so we narrowed it down to famous people, landmarks, and the symbols of the village, right?" Naruto asked, writing down notes for his part of the research.

"We did," Hinata confirmed shyly. "Is there, um, any part of it you would prefer to read about?"

Naruto glanced at Hinata in surprise. "Uh, I dunno. Why?"

"It's just-" Hinata hesitated before taking a breath and powering forward. "It's that you know a lot about the past Hokages. So I thought you might enjoy reading about the Raikages and other famous ninjas of the Hidden Cloud …?"

Naruto blinked and chuckled. "Well, I mean, I mostly read about the Hokages to try and find clues about how they get so good and a lot of the really cool stuff just stuck, y'know? Like, did you know that the Lord First was the only person who could use trees as a weapon? Oh, and the Lord Fourth could actually, literally teleport!"

"Shhh!"

Naruto was broken from his train of thought by a librarian shushing him. Only then did he realize that he'd slowly been getting louder until he's practically been yelling … in a library! He also noticed that the other patrons were glaring at him for shattering the sacred quiet of the building. "Sorry," he whispered loudly before turning back to Hinata. "But when you put it like that," he continued in a lower tone, "yeah, I'd like to learn about famous ninja." He grinned. "Maybe it'll help me defend the village when I become Hokage."

Hinata smiled at those words and thought some more. "So, how about I research landmarks of the country? And then we can both make a list of symbols for the country and research them together?"

"Sounds great, Hinata," Naruto smiled, giving her another side hug before cracking open a book and reading. Hinata's cheeks turned rosy at the continued affection before she took a deep breath and brushed it off to focus on her part.

And as she did, she wondered how they would handle the poster part of the assignment.

At a relatively leisurely pace, it took Team TAK about three days to cross the border of the Land of Rivers and find the small village that would act as their rendezvous point. When they arrived, they were surprised to find said village was tiny, more of a hamlet. It looked to be more of a collection of houses and a half dozen businesses to supply the farms that surrounded it.

Outside the village was a small collection of tents with a flag bearing the kanji for "wind," a clear mark of the Hidden Sand Village. The duo glanced at each other before making their way toward it. As they neared, they were in turn approached by a pair of Sand ANBU, as denoted by their porcelain masks, who stopped them and called for identification. Both Leaf shinobi offered their mission scroll, with the seal of the Hokage, and their registration cards with the shinobi corp. With that, they were waved onward.

One of the ANBU peeked into one of the white, cloth tents and reemerged with presumably a Suna jonin — the cloth turban covering part of his face and striped tattoos on his cheek giving a distinct appearance — and a pair of children.

One was a girl of around twelve, probably a freshly-minted genin judging by the Suna forehead protector around her neck, with sandy blonde hair and teal eyes that were narrowed in suspicion, complimenting her crossed arms. She wore a purple tunic with a tan skirt and mesh armor visible on her calves and forearms over leather boots, as well as a large metal fan on her back.

The other child was a boy about a year younger than the girl with dark hair and eyes that were hard to hide his nervousness. He wore a dark haori over a grey shirt and tan trousers with fingerless gloves and leather boots. But his most distinctive trait was purple face paint that was shaped as a thick line stretching from one ear, over his eyes and bridge of his nose to the other ear, and another thick line from his lower lip to over his chin.

"Ken Uzumaki and Tomoko Sarutobi," the jonin greeted stoically. "Your Hokage sent word of your departure. I am Baki of the Hidden Sand," he offered a hand to shake, which each of the Leaf nin took with noncommittal expressions. "These two," he gestured at the children, "are the Lord Kazekage's eldest children. Temari," the girl nodded, "and Kankuro," to which the boy nodded, too. Tomoko glanced at the ANBU before putting them out of her mind. If they were anything like in the Hidden Leaf, they were to be treated as part of the background.

Ken closed his eyes and took a breath and focused his chakra to open his mind's eye and examine each of the children, searching for any signs of chakra like he had seen mixing with Naruto's. He saw it in neither and allowed his mind's eye to close. He glanced at Tomoko, who subtly shook her head and glanced at one of the tents; she'd had her chakra senses open and had located their objective. "So where is the jinchuriki?" Ken asked. "Neither of these children bears the signs of a Tailed Beast."

Baki blinked at that and then narrowed his eyes. The girl, Temari, put a hand on her war fan and the boy, Kankuro, started to draw a kunai before Baki placed his hands on their shoulders to reel them in. "I suppose I should not underestimate the Leaf's personnel," Baki commented with a narrow smile. "Especially those recommended by their own Kage."

As if on cue, the tent where Tomoko had sensed the jinchuriki opened to reveal two more figures. One was tall and lean, with short and spiky auburn hair and dark eyes, his expression stern and uncompromising. He was dressed in a black jacket with the kanji for "wind" embroidered with gold thread and dark trousers, a metal canister hanging from his belt.

The Fourth Kazekage, Rasa of the Gold Dust.

The other was a child about Naruto's age, who greatly resembled the Kazekage. He had his father's auburn hair styled very similarly and pale skin. His light green eyes had no eyebrows above them, but were surrounded by strange black rings that brought a tanuki to mind, and made both Leaf nin think of Naruto's whisker marks. He was dressed in a short tan poncho, with the top hem bunched up like a scarf, over a black bodysuit tied by a white sash and sandals while a large gourd hung on his back. The most obvious thing, though, was the kanji for "love" carved into the side of his forehead.

"Lord Rasa," Tomoko, as the senior chunin of Team TAK, greeted formally as they both bowed. "And you must be Gaara," she said with a big-sisterly smile she often gave Kato and Naruto. The boy's neutral expression didn't change, though both Leaf nin felt hatred well from within him. That couldn't be good.

"Miss Sarutobi," Rasa replied neutrally. Then he looked at Ken. "And Sir Uzumaki," he greeted with the barest hint of respect. "I was a fresh genin when your village was destroyed. A true loss; you have my sympathies."

Ken raised an eyebrow at the words but nodded in acknowledgement. "The Lord Hokage believed that you wish for me to reinforce young Gaara's seal," Ken said, deciding to get right to the point.

"He believed correctly," Rasa confirmed.

"Mother does not like him, Father," Gaara noted, his tone as deadly calm as his expression. "She wishes for them both to die."

Tomoko blinked in surprise. On one hand, this child of not even ten years had casually wished two total strangers dead. But she had noticed the smallest fluctuations in Lord Rasa's chakra when Gaara mentioned his mother, consistent with both anger and … sadness?

"No, Gaara," Lord Rasa said firmly, his voice harder than stone. "They are here to help you." The corner of the Kazekage's mouth twitched in a faint smile. "Though I think they should be tested for their conviction, first." He took a step back and gestured for his comrades and children to do the same. "Test them, Gaara."

"Test us how?" Tomoko asked warily.

Rather than a verbal reply, the cork in Gaara's gourd popped out and out poured a stream of sand. Gaara's eyes widened and his lips stretched into an unsettling smile as he crossed his arms, and the sand lashed out at Team TAK. Both dodged in seperate directions, Tomoko unsealing her naginata and Ken his black wakizashi. As more tentacles of sand struck at them, Ken batted them aside with the flat of his sword while Tomoko slashed them out of the air with her blade coated in Wind chakra.

Gaara followed up with a wave of sand that attempted to crush them. Tomoko rushed to Ken's side as he unsheathed something he had been working on during the journey: a kunai with a unique sealing tag tied to its pommel ring. He hurled the tagged knife at the wave of sand, which collapsed and swirled like a twister into the sealing tag to be trapped inside and out of Gaara's control. Ken pulled on a leather glove and activated the seal on its palm, one that resonated with a seal carved into the ring of that kunai — an Uzumaki Selective Magnet Seal — that sent it soaring back to Ken's hand to be hidden on his person.

"You didn't think that Lord Hokage sent us in blind, did you?" Tomoko asked, still acting as the mouthpiece of the de facto team.

"Impressive," Rasa noted. "But that's hardly the end of it."

Gaara snarled and stretched his arms forward, his fingers curled into claws. The ground trembled as more sand rose up from beneath them all. Apparently the entourage had prepared the battlefield beforehand. The sand writhed and formed a hail of shuriken that rained down upon them.

But before the barrage of sand shuriken could connect, chakra chains exploded from Ken's back and formed a barricade that dispersed them on contact. "Enough of this," Ken growled. The chains unfurled and plunged into the ground, only to reemerge seconds later and form another barricade, this time around Gaara.

In response, the sand around Gaara had formed a spherical shape, some form of defensive maneuver. But when Ken's chains remained in their barrier formation, the Shield of Sand dispersed and Gaara looked around him with faint curiosity. After several seconds passed, the child asked, "Why aren't you attacking?"

"You won't get out of that, Gaara," Ken said, the words a statement rather than a boast. "And we're here to help you, not hurt you. You're a child. What kind of monsters would hurt a child?"

"Enough," Rasa said. "Release my son, now." The canister at Rasa's hip opened as his eyes darkened and formed black rings much like his son's, and out poured a stream of gold dust. Ken had to work to keep from smiling at the sight of the Fourth Kazekage's famed technique. True, he wasn't sure he could stop him if he attacked, but he'd heard and read about the style and part of him would be thrilled to see it in action. "Can you help my son?" Rasa asked, his voice hard and proud, but his words echoing with near desperation.

"Yes, I can," Ken said, retracting his Adamantine Sealing Chains to release Gaara. "And I will do so by replacing Gaara's seal with one that is more powerful. In fact, it is the very same seal that the late Lord Fourth used to seal the Nine-Tails within our own jinchuriki — my cousin and ward, Naruto." Ken approached with guarded steps, though Rasa's glare seemed to keep Gaara in check. He knelt in front of Gaara to address him on his level. "Gaara, I would like you to show me your seal so that I can figure out how to work with it."

Gaara glanced at his father before scoffing and lifting his shirt to reveal the seal around his navel. The script and sigils appeared in a triangular formation surrounding a circle, and Ken took his time examining it to figure out how it contained the One-Tail and buffered its power against Gaara's psyche and chakra network.

By the time he had finished his initial examination, almost an hour had passed as he double and triple checked the seal — and his eye was twitching unhealthily. "Lord Kazekage, with all due respect," Ken said with measured calm, "you had better hope I never meet the one who made this seal. Because if I do meet them, I will break them in half for passing this abomination off as a containment seal!"

Ken surged to his feet to the surprise of everyone and began pacing and tugging on his hair, ranting at the top of his lungs about "shoddy work" and "dangerous imbalance" and other terms that they all barely understood. After a solid five minutes, Ken stopped himself and took a deep breath to fill his starved lungs and calm his nerves.

"In short, it's a wonder the One-Tailed Tanuki hasn't broken free before now," he surmised.

"But it does that all the time," Kankuro piped up, earning a warning glance from Rasa.

"Excuse me, what?" Tomoko asked. "If the beast broke free, Gaara would be dead. That's how jinchuriki work."

Baki took the initiative on that. "Part of Lord Gaara's condition is that he cannot sleep. When he does, the One-Tail takes control and can rampage across the village. The Lord Kazekage is the only one who can reliably subdue the creature."

"Wow," Ken growled. "Somehow it's even worse than I thought." He took another deep breath and produced his sealing kit. "Well, by the time I'm done, Gaara will be free to sleep to his heart's content." He began laying out materials for the sealing revision. "Okay, first things first, I will need a quiet and shaded place to work with Gaara." The Kazekage offered their tent, the largest in the group. "And to reinforce the sealing," Ken said, offering his jar of chakra-infused ink, "I'll need blood from those who share theirs with Gaara. The blood ties will strengthen the seal."

With almost no hesitation, Temari offered her arm to Ken to draw blood, followed closely by Kankuro. Ken blinked at the willingness of these children to offer their strength to help their village. Or … maybe also their little brother? Ken nodded and carefully lanced a vein in Temari's arm that let blood drain into his sealing ink. When he judged enough was there, he offered a cloth to bind the cut and then did the same with Kankuro. With that done, Ken glanced at Rasa and lifted an eyebrow. Rasa narrowed his eyes in suspicion, clearly unwilling to weaken himself in the presence of foreign shinobi. But he glanced at all of his children — Temari pleading, Kankuro hopeful, and Gaara clearly curious — and offered himself as well. A quick donation and Ken stirred his ink to mix the additions to the concoction.

"Okay," he said, unsealing plans he had revised time and again during their trip, "let's do this."

Over the next eight hours, Ken took up the delicate task of outlining the Eight Trigrams Seal over Gaara's current seal — the "Dual Serpent Binding Method" according to Rasa — and then outlining the Binding Method in erasure ink to dissolve it just as fast as the Uzumaki seal took effect. This was particularly vital, as if the Hidden Sand's seal weakened too fast for the Uzumaki style seal to cover it, it could cause a reaction that would free the Tailed Beast and result in Gaara's death.

When everything was in place, Ken took a quick break to eat some rations and drink a canteen of water before preparing to exchange the seals. When he was as relaxed as he could be after so long of mentally-strenuous work, Ken knelt before Gaara and nodded. "This will probably be unpleasant," he warned, "but you'll feel better after it's done." With that, he flicked through hand seals and poured chakra into the seal to trigger the exchange.

As Ken poured chakra into the matrices, the Uzumaki seal began to glow with blue light as it gained strength and began to draw on the power of the Tailed Beast to fuel itself. In contrast, the Hidden Sand seal began to emit red-orange light as it faded, as if it were being burned away. Gaara groaned as his belly began to ache as if he had a stomach bug and his sand began to flow erratically. Sweat began to drip from Ken's brow as he kept up the chakra input, praying to heaven and his ancestors that he hadn't made some miniscule mistake in the exchange rate.

After several tense minutes, Ken stepped back and collapsed, his chest heaving as he struggled to ease the burning in his lungs. That had been a lot of chakra to use in a very short time! Gaara groaned and rolled on his side before violently coughing up bile. And like a candle snuffing out, the discomfort disappeared. Gaara shuddered and stood on shaky legs, oriented away from everyone else, as he adjusted to the new seal and its foreign way of interacting with his chakra network.

"Gaara?" Temari asked, Kankuro standing just behind her. "Are you okay?"

Gaara turned to face them all, his expression back to normal, but … somehow not as cold as before. "She's gone," Gaara said. "I can no longer hear Mother's voice."

"That proves it," Ken said as he rose to his feet, Tomoko offering a hand as he settled himself. "That voice you heard was Shukaku. And I have a feeling that not having it screaming in your head will be helpful."

"And perhaps Lord Gaara will be able to sleep," Baki noted.

Rasa's face hardened and he flicked through hand seals for a genjutsu that knocked its victims unconscious. Gaara's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed to the tent floor.

Baki gasped and forced the children behind him, his eyes wide with borderline panic, while Rasa unfurled his gold dust, his eyes again darkening and forming "tanuki" rings. Tomoko, reacting more to the tension of the others, moved in front of Ken and brought her naginata to bear.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and Gaara simply remained asleep, his breathing even and even peaceful.

"I can't believe it," Baki whispered. "It's a miracle."

"That's what they always say about Uzumaki seal work," Ken commented.

Chapter Thirty-Three. This was very fun to write!

*Rasa's comment about being a genin during the Fall of Uzushio is a guess. Let's face it: the timeline of Naruto is a vague and convoluted mess.

*The shoddy seal is my own headcanon as to why Gaara had such trouble with Shukaku's influence. Shukaku is supposed to be relatively weaker than Kurama, and yet he could influence his host so much? I don't know how else to explain it. The seal's title and design are my own creation, as we never got a canon description of his seal.

*The idea of adding blood of a relative to strengthen a seal is my own addition. Sealing seems to be a rather esoteric art even among ninja, and I thought it was a cool touch.

As always, I hope you all liked it! Leave a review! And may your own projects be fun and fabulous!