AN: Chapter title: Promotions and Celebrations Part 9
With Karin properly situated in a room in his ever-rising tower, Naruto and Sasuke chose to meet. Both had also come to the mutual agreement that they no longer desired to remain dressed as they had been across the day. While they didn't wear their armor in its place, both had tossed the Flak Jackets they had been wearing all day onto the table between them. For now, the two sat in a comfortable silence. Both had, for the most part, disarmed themselves before meeting back up. Both only carried their sword at their side and the knife both wore sheathed across their backs.
Neither of the two even considered breaking it.
Not only did the two have a rather large amount of work to catch up on, having missed it piling up across the day they had spend out thanks to their promotions and what followed, but the two didn't have much to say to the other. Neither would admit it but the day had been somewhat exhausting, the meeting with the Hokage and Daimyo, the headaches dealing with a man like Kaien would produce having been on their minds for a while now.
The reports from the Fifth's Primus Pilus that were mainly directed to the Legate, daily reports concerning the gradual growth of the others as they worked to follow the order from their Caesar, and the reports from the three Cohorts outside the Land of Fire, things were as normal as they could be after the invasion.
Sasuke took note of the progress of Caesar's fleet in the Land of Waves, Kaiza's chosen shipbuilders proving themselves to be worthy of working on such a project. Tazuna was proving adept as well, his experience in construction likely aiding the Legion in moving ahead of schedule.
Naruto looked over a report from the Second's Primus Pilus, his reports listing far fewer encounters in recent weeks. Scouts reported the majority of the prior camps had seemingly been abandoned, had continued forward to the border he intended to reestablish. The Fourth's was much the same, reiterating the reports he had been given by the Second and showing the progress his Legionnaires continued to make on reconstruction.
The Uzumaki rose an eyebrow at the report from his Praefectus Castrorum, the normal deluge of information from the Praetorians and their observations filtered through him. From the looks of things, he would need to speak with Hinata again and soon. The girl was arousing suspicion if she continued to devote herself to nothing but his order, would need to have her desire to please him tempered.
He made a note of it on the report, began writing out a swift reply for the Praefectus Castrorum.
In a blink, Sasuke was rising from his seat with his eyes turning red while reaching for the knife on his back. Naruto's eyes burned from blue to red, crimson Chakra spread like a fire around him as he went to his own blade as he rose.
Whoever dared to breach his tower would be-
Sasuke's arm was stopped at the elbow, the blade not even halfway out of the sheath, Naruto finding his hand and the sword it had meant to draw slammed back down. It took a further moment for the two to take in the intruder to Caesar's tower.
Jiraiya held up a hand in greeting, released the Uchiha's arm and patted him on the head instead.
"Hey there Naruto." The Toad Sage had a grin on his face as he made his introduction. "Nice moves but you could do with a little more speed, maybe keep a weapon up your sleeve next time. Keep one in your sandal if you really ever want to catch somebody off guard." The white haired Shinobi patted the Uchiha on his shoulder as he walked past him. He spared a glance to the scrolls and papers spread around the table the two had been sitting at. "Huh, looks like a mini-Hokage Office in here." He chuckled. "Already getting for the old man's job? Aren't you ambitious."
'Just like your old man.' The old Shinobi couldn't help but compare the two every time he had the chance to meet Naruto Uzumaki.
He was so much like his father he couldn't help it.
If the kid ever decided to wear a jacket, he may just call him Minato by mistake.
"How…How did you get in here?" Naruto stared at the Toad Sage as his alarm gave way to shock. "There's…" He looked to his Legate, found the Uchiha staring at the Sannin in much the same way he was. "There had to be at least a hundred of my Legionnaires between the door and here. My Praetorians watch all day and night!"
"Never underestimate the power and prestige of the man known as the one and only Toad Sage!" Jiraiya laughed as he crossed his arms, moved his head in such a way to whip his hair around behind him. "I'd have to be losing my touch to get caught sneaking into any building."
"But how?" Naruto only found himself repeating his question, unable to grasp what had just happened. "That still doesn't make sense!"
Sasuke was still seemingly trapped in a state of simply staring at the Toad Sage.
"If you're so curious about it, we'll have plenty of time for you to learn from the master of espionage." Jiraiya laughed once more. "You'll be leaving with me tomorrow morning so get ready. We're hitting the road at dawn."
"What?" Naruto shook his head. "When was this decided? Who decided it?"
"Just now by the one and only Toad Sage." Jiraiya patted him on the back. "Don't worry, we'll only be gone for a few weeks, maybe a month or two if I'm rustier than I think I am at this. We're going off to find my teammate, Tsunade of the Senju Clan. The Hokage wants her back in the village and now's the best time."
"Yes…I can understand that but why do I need to go?" Naruto looked to Sasuke, the Uchiha blinking himself out of his stupor it seemed.
The Sharingan that had appeared in his eyes at the intrusion was all but worthless, the Uchiha unable to focus even with the Kekkei Genkai active. The appearance of Jiraiya, how easily he had breached their security, was simply he couldn't understand.
"Trust me, it'll be fine. Consider it you're first mission as a new Chunin, a pretty important one that may just fast track you to Jonin. You know, I can always put in a good word for you with the Hokage." Jiraiya grinned as he waved off Naruto's concerns, could see them as jitters of taking on such an important mission like this, traveling with such an important person as him. "Anyway, there's one more thing I wanted to come here for." He reached into his sleeve, tapped a band he wore on his arm to unseal the scroll the Hokage had given him. "This is something you've long deserved to have."
"What is it?" Naruto could recognize the familiar red swirl keeping the scroll closed, accepted it with a certain wariness. His blue eyes flickered between the aged scroll in his hand and the man who had delivered it.
"It's a message from Kushina Uzumaki to her son." Jiraiya nodded to it as Naruto looked to it in shock, looking at it as a child having a tangible gift from the parent he had never known. "I can assure you that it's never been opened." The older Shinobi's smile turned sad, somber. "I'll leave you to it. Just remember to be up bright and early tomorrow morning, I'll be waiting at the main gates but if you're not there, I'm coming to drag you out of bed. We've got quite the road trip ahead of us, no time to mess around sleeping."
With his message and the scroll he had been entrusted with delivered, Jiraiya waved his goodbye.
"See you soon Naruto." He vanished in a burst of speed, a cloud of smoke already dissipating where he had once stood.
Naruto stared at the aged scroll in his hand, the marks of time on the paper but nothing seemed to have damaged whatever message laid within.
Sasuke found himself stumbling in his step towards the door before he found his stride.
"Wait." Naruto noticed what was happening, could guess with his Legate intended to do. He didn't need him going out and chewing out the Praetorians and Legionnaires outside, none of them were likely aware in the slightest about the Toad Sage's visit. "We'll address that later." He stared once more to the scroll in his hand.
He set it down on the table next to him.
"For now, we have to…prepare for my absence." He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes. "For however long I am away, we must prepare for it." He glanced around the room, tried to spot a clock of some kind to no avail. He sighed. "I'm sure we don't have much time to do so. And we need a clock in here."
"I'll be sure to put it on my new to-do list Caesar." There was an unfamiliar bite to Sasuke's words as he returned to the table, searched for a blank paper in front of him. He found it and quickly began his work. "The movement to the Hidden Sand won't happen until we're ready but the Daimyo is expecting an escort from me around the village and to the capital. We'd have to plan for the Legion to run without either of us while we have the time."
"That's almost impossible. As much as I trust the Primus Pilus of my Legion, they can be short-sighted at times. Without either of us to issue commands, I don't see much they undertake ending well. They're just as likely to overreach the moment we're both gone as they are to follow our commands when we're here." Naruto found a paper of his own, began writing down anything that came to mind. "I'll have my Praetorians with me of course so they'll be able to establish antennas and the like as we go but communication will lag the further we go away from the village. Each relay will need to be guarded, be maintained, for however long we remain away. And then they might as well be dismantled, designed only for use in the short term I don't even know if we'll remain in the Land of Fire or not. We could wander into the Land of Wind for all I know." The Uzumaki wanted to bang his head on something. "Dammit, I didn't see this coming."
"What are we going to do then?" Sasuke stopped writing, tried to think up a solution of some kind. "Even if I'm back, if I don't know where you are, there's nothing I can do. You'll need to be kept informed of any major developments, anything can happen while you're away and your Legionnaires will look to you, not me, for guidance."
"That is a problem we will need to remedy." Naruto sighed. "Perhaps I can leave my Praetorians here then? I'll call for the First's reserves to be my guard while I'm out and leave them to your hand."
"They won't like it but I'll find a way to distract them before I leave." Sasuke wrote down such an idea. "What of the rest of your Cohorts?"
"Neither the Third or the Second and the Fourth need our direct intervention at the moment." Naruto sketched out a rough circle, listed his three Cohorts outside the village as outside of it. "The First will continue to guard the border and patrol the Land of Fire, the Fifth is still in no fighting shape, and the Sixth continues to aid the village." He listed them within the circle as he spoke. "Fuck." He let his head fall, drew the eyes of his Legate. "And we're going to need to grab a few hundred Legionnaires from at least three of them because of what I said to that moron the Fire Daimyo today. He's expecting at least a thousand. And we're going to have to do that tonight!"
"Fuck." Sasuke found himself echoing Naruto, outright dropped into his seat a moment later. "How are we going to do all this in…" Sasuke made a futile search for a clock. "We do need more clocks."
"We have maybe six, seven hours to do all of this. And that's only if neither of us gets any sleep tonight." Naruto stepped away from the table, found himself pacing back and forth on his side. "There has to be a way to do this."
"Karin as well." Naruto froze mid-step as Sasuke spoke, turned his full attention to the Uchiha. "I can deal with any attempts by the Hidden Grass while I'm here but…Asuma and Kiba weren't wrong. It's a diplomatic incident at minimum and…"
Naruto's eyes widened. "…if I'm away, they'll try to take her."
"Exactly." Sasuke closed his eyes, wanted to curse again but held it in. Cursing their situation wouldn't do anything at all. "I can't take her with me with the Daimyo, I don't even know what would happen if he discovered what she could do. I don't consider myself weak but the Daimyo's samurai would assuredly outnumber me ten to one. I'd be killed before I could get her away."
"We seem to have one problem after another." Naruto dragged a hand up and through his hair. "First that idiot the Daimyo and it's only gotten worse from there." Naruto shook his head. "No, I refuse to allow Karin to be hurt. She will not be hurt. I'll assign my Praetorians to her instead, will have any bastards who come for her face my guard."
"Diplomatic…" Sasuke was speaking to himself instead of listening to Naruto.
He was dimly doing so but his thoughts were mainly occupied by something else.
"Yes. I won't have a guard but I'll have the fucking Toad Sage with me. She'll be safe here with them while you're gone and you'll be back before me. It'll all work out. I won't have my Legion but I can fight for myself. I have nothing to worry about. But what if the Hokage intervenes? What if Silver Fang uses this chance to strike?" Naruto was no longer thinking clearly.
He was moving through worst case scenario after worst case scenario.
The idea that his family could be hurt while he was away, could be taken back to the place that had already caused her so much pain, was a nightmare to him.
"I refuse to lose here so soon after finding her. I won't lose her, lose any of my family. Especially not to trash like those dogs."
His thoughts turned to the problem at hand.
He was mindless to the red that took hold of his eyes.
"Diplomatic…" In a normal situation, Sasuke didn't believe an idea as mad as he had brewing in his mind could work but there was always the possibility. Their situation was poor and, at times, madness could be the answer.
Sasuke stared at nothing in front of him, his mind elsewhere.
"Yes. I think I have an idea." At Sasuke's words, Naruto turned his focus to him.
He seemed able to snap out of his own spiral.
"What?" Naruto found himself all ears.
"A diplomatic incident. We may have caused this one but we can force them to do the same if they try to retrieve her."
"How? If neither of us are here, they'll have the advantage."
"Our recruitment may be the key. We'll have to expand it, create a new position."
"You've lost me."
"Just trust me on this Caesar. I'm sure it'll work."
Naruto didn't hesitate.
"Never doubt that you have it." He nodded his head. "I trust you to, as long as I am gone, to act in my stead. My Legion is yours to command like always."
"Thank you Caesar. You won't regret this. I will fix this. I promise you that."