A/N: Back again with another chapter, hope you enjoy.

Poke.

"Stop it."

Poke poke.

"Stop it."

Poke.

Catching Arya's fingers in his hand, Naruto gave a half-hearted glare down at the pouting girl.

"Teach me."

"No."

Poke.

"Teach me."

"No," he said, grabbing her other hand.

"Teach me!" she demanded, kicking him in the shin.

"NO," he replied, completely and totally calm. She kicked him in the exact same spot.

"GRAAH! SANSA! COME TAKE YOUR SISTER OFF MY HANDS!" he roared, startling the entire procession.

The trip back down from Winterfell was now in its fourth week and being surrounded on all sides by soldiers and nobles was wearing on his nerves. Arya's constant attempts to annoy him into teaching her sword fighting wasn't helping. Even now, rather than being even the slightest bit apologetic, she was looking up at him with an expression that bordered on insolence.

"You're teaching Sansa! Why not me?! You said you would!"

"I said I would teach you in FIVE months FOUR months ago, Arya!" he growled in a tone that would make the toughest soldiers think twice before attacking.

She kicked him again.

"OW! Knock it off!"

"Arya, stop pestering Naruto," Sansa said amusedly. Years ago her little sister acting like this would have sent her into a scathing diatribe about how 'proper ladies' were supposed to act. Now, it was just funny to watch the strongest man in the world get overpowered by a pouting nine-year old. "Here, come with me. I'll show you some basics."

The brown-haired girl brightened immediately, and they both walked away.

Naruto's eye twitched.

Running his hand through his hair with a sigh, he started off towards Ned's tent. He could always get a laugh from hanging around the Warden of the North, even if it was only seeing his reaction when he looked in the mirror to find his hair dyed orange.

He grinned; the most stoic men were always the best pranking targets.

Pulling open the tent flap, he raised an eyebrow when he couldn't see his friend. "Oi, Jory, where's Ned?"

The captain of Ned's personal guard, who was standing outside the tent, jerked his head. "Lord Stark and the King are having lunch in the field south of the inn."

"Cool. Thanks Jory!" he said as he walked away.

In the mean time, Naruto idly thought about Robert's behavior so far.

He seemed to be taking less of an interest in wine and women at the last few inns they'd stopped at, which was good news in Naruto's book. Cersei had certainly been surprised, when, in one incident, rather than pulling a serving girl into his lap and giving her a drunken kiss, he'd thanked her demurely and sipped his drink.

The evil-eye promising a lot of pain Naruto had directed at him during that moment might have had something to do with it.

But overall, things were looking up.

He approached the pair, giving a small grin at the thought of what they might be talking about.

Something serious, probably.

"-great big tits you could bury your face in!"

He walked into a tree.

Ned and Robert both looked up to see Naruto trudging over, rubbing his head and cursing wildly. A wave of his hand had a tree sprouting from the ground in perfect imitation of a chair, which he sunk into grouchily.

"Having troubles, boy?" Robert asked, both amused and unnerved by what he'd just seen.

"Don't ask."

Ned, far more used to Naruto's strange powers, simply chuckled. "My daughters been getting on your nerves again?"

"I get no respect from youngsters, these days," he muttered, sighing. "Anyway, you were saying something about tits?"

Robert brightened immediately as they got into one of his favorite subjects. "Ah, yes! What was that girl's name again? Becca?"

"Bessie," Ned corrected.

Naruto goggled at him. "Some parent actually named their kid Bessie?!"

The other two chuckled, and a relaxed atmosphere settled over the table.

A few guards, looking over the spectacle, realized that these three, despite any difference in status or opinion, were still good friends.

Sitting in comfortable silence and taken the occasional (or, in Robert's case, frequent) bite to eat, they merely sat, content with the absence of words. The King of the whos-its was content to continue eating, while Ned looked off into the distance with a half-smile on his face as Naruto sank down into his tree and closed his eye.

However, it didn't take long for Robert to become tense again.

"What's eating you?" Naruto asked without opening his eye.

Without responding, he reached into his tunic and pulled a folded piece of parchment, handing it to Ned, who's brow furrowed as he read.

"Daenerys Targaryen has wed some Dothraki horse-lord, what of it? Should we send her a wedding gift?"

"A knife, perhaps, a good sharp one. And a bold man to wield it."

Naruto's face remained expressionless.

"She's little more than a child." Ned protested.

"Aye, and sooner or later that child will open her legs and start breeding," Robert said harshly.

"Tell me we're not speaking of this."

"Oh, it's unspeakable to you? What her father did to your family, that was unspeakable! What Rhaegar Targaryen did to your sister, the woman I loved!"

With fire flashing in his eyes, Robert stared at his oldest friend. "I'll kill every Targaryen I get my hands on!"

"Nope."

Both men blinked, then turned their heads to the third member of the group, who was smiling, relaxed.

"W-what do you mean, no?" Robert demanded.

"Terribly sorry, your Highness, I seem to have been unclear, somehow," the blond replied, settling into his chair. "You won't be killing any Targaryen. Ever."

Ned idly noticed a few of the lords and ladies of the procession starting to come over the hill, including the Queen.

Then Robert's shock turned to anger.

"Who are you to give orders to me?" he roared, standing up. "This is not a matter that concerns you, boy!"

"Lives of innocent people do concern me, Robert," Naruto replied. "Especially when it's one of my friends who is going to end them."

"Are you telling me that you intend to allow dragonspawn to walk free after what they did!?"

And then came the fist.

Robert didn't even see it coming. One minute he was talking, the next he was on his back holding a bleeding nose, while a smiling Naruto stood over him, his eye darkening.

A second passed, and the first of the Kingsguard got over his shock and drew his sword. Running forward with a shout, he raised his sword, preparing to cleave the blond's head in half.

Naruto smiled. He turned his head slightly, just enough to catch the man's eyes. The Kingsguard, Meryn Trant, stopped in his tracks. Then, to the horror of those watching, he began to shudder violently as bubbles began to froth at the corners of his mouth. He pitched over backward in a dead faint, his sword falling from his grip. The rest of the soldiers drew their swords, muttering nervously and waiting for another to go first.

Before any of them could move, Naruto began to speak.

"Y'know, recently I've realized something," he said softly. "I've been too isolated. Everyone down south has been getting away with too much. I chose to hang out with Ned cause he's honest, but I should have faced all the bad instead of running away from it. I try to operate by leaving those in power to their own devices, because generally, people can take care of themselves." He sighed, pulling a hand through his hair. "But I can see now that my decision was a mistake."

Queen Cersei heard her fellow blond speaking, and stopped to listen, worried.

Naruto, for his part, lost his smile and began to glare down at Robert, who was still trying to staunch his bleeding nose.

"For a while, I've been concerned with some of the things I've heard from that god-awful shithole you call a city," he said, frowning. "At least five million gold dragons in debt, the King constantly in his own room surrounded by drinks and whores, while constantly ignoring three kids he helped put on this earth."

Rubbing his forehead with a growl, Naruto opened his eye, which was now visibly darkening. "Damn it Robert, I went up to the North for a vacation! Not so I could come back a few years later and find out that the problems have multiplied while I was gone! We had this damn conversation barely four weeks ago!" Leaning down next to the bleeding Baratheon, Naruto stared straight into Robert's eyes, his voice becoming steadily louder and angrier. "Consider this an intervention, as well as your last warning. If I hear you haven't been taking better care of your kingdom and yourself, if I find out you've been sleeping with anyone who isn't your wife, if I even think that you might be going after the Targaryen children, I'll fucking kill you!"

He turned on his heel and stormed away, walking up the hill, heedless of the fearful looks the guards were giving him.

As he went passed her, Cersei called out: "Naruto!"

He stopped and cast a glance over his shoulder. "Sorry, milady," he said, before looking straight ahead. "But right now, I need to go punch something."

Crouching slightly, Naruto jumped, the ground cratering where his feet left it. It took a few seconds for the Queen to see him to disappear among the trees.

Cersei looked down at her husband, who was being helped to his feet by the Stark patriarch.

"I told you, Robert. If you keep provoking Naruto, he'll eventually take things into his own hands. Now more than ever, you need to swallow your pride."

"I don't need to do anything," the bleeding King growled in impotent rage, turning his back on his friend.

"That sort of attitude is exactly the problem," Ned said sharply. "For once, I have to agree with him. Like it or not, your lack of action is what's causing this."

"So what would you have me do, Ned?" Robert shouted, turning back and glaring down at Ned.

The Warden of the North and Hand of the King looked up at his oldest friend steadily. "Rule."

"FUCK!"

A few birds were startled out of their trees at the sudden yell, as well as the loud boom that reverberated through the forest.

Naruto stormed through the woods, smashing apart any tree that was in his way.

"DAMN IT!" he roared, a subtle shockwave emanating from his body, picking up debris from the forest floor and flinging it away from his heavily breathing form.

He sat down heavily on the ground, pressing his palms to his head and trying to cool the energy running beneath the surface of his skin, begging to be unleashed.

For a while, he stayed there, simply listening as the sounds of the forest slowly returned. He sat in the grass for a long while, feeling the sun beginning to bear down on the back of his neck. A small wind was blowing in from the north, carrying a light chill along with it. He could hear water, running over rocks. A stream nearby.

"What the hell am I moping around for?" he growled to himself, before standing up.

A little while later, he came upon a narrow river only a few meters wide. Crouching, he splashed his face with some water, then perked up as he heard voices.

"Arya, use your arms. Mycah, move your legs."

Downstream and across the river, Sansa was carefully critiquing Arya and her friends' performance in the mock sword battle they were attempting. Their movements were rough, but both had a fair amount of talent already.

"Ah, Lady Sansa! I was looking for you!"

She turned around and saw the Crown Prince, Joffrey Baratheon, slowly walking towards them, an ever-present smirk on his face. She struggled to conceal her sudden flash of concern.

Curtsying as Arya and Mycah stopped their practice, she forced a smile. "My Prince."

"I've been looking for you," he said. "I was wondering if you had gotten lost."

"No, my Prince, I've merely been enjoying the fresh air. It is much warmer in the South than I'm used to," she said, keeping a pleasant smile on her face. He suddenly had a distasteful expression on his face.

"Yes, the North is far too frigid for my liking. Can't imagine why anyone would want to live there." She carefully stopped any hint of the annoyance from showing at his statement

He looked around her to see the two other people standing there, and took special notice of the boy holding the practice sword. "And what is going on here?"

"W-we were just practicin', milord!" the stocky redhead stuttered.

"He's the butcher's boy and my friend," Arya proclaimed, glaring at Joffrey.

"A butcher's boy who wants to be a knight?" the Prince grinned, his eyes glittering, as he pulled out his sword out.

"My Prince, perhaps this isn't-" Sansa began, only to be interrupted.

"Oh, nonsense!" Joffrey laughed, pressing the blade against Mycah's cheek. "I won't hurt him. Much."

Blood started show from the cut, but before Arya could move, her direwolf leaped past her and buried her teeth into Joffrey's arm, causing him to drop the sword with a screech.

As Arya tried to pull Nymeria off of the Prince, Mycah turned to run.

Before he could make it two feet, he ran into Naruto.

For a second, the air was filled with nothing but Joffrey's yells of pain as Sansa, then Arya caught sight of the blond, who's usual smile was gone.

Bringing a thumb and finger from his right hand to his mouth, he whistled sharply, causing the direwolf to release it's hold on Joffrey's arm and back away, tail between its legs.

Looking around, Naruto held a hand to his head and sighed. Case in motherfucking point.

Idly pressing a glowing hand against Mycah's cheek to close the wound, he watched impassively as the Prince's pain turned into anger.

Fumbling around for his sword, Joffrey glared hatefully at the direwolf who'd attacked him and raised his sword to slice off the monster's head.

Before he could move, a hand of steel closed around his wrist, and he was wrenched around to face one of the most feared warriors in the Seven Kingdoms.

His faced changed from rage to one of abject horror.

"Y'know, so far I've had a pretty bad day," Naruto growled. "I've been spent weeks surrounded by morons, I'm going to a place that literally smells like shit, I've had to lecture a drunken man-child on how a kingdom works, and now I find a little punk who I met a few years ago, doing the exact thing I told him not to do."

Looking up from said punk who was struggling to keep control of his bowels, he looked at Sansa.

"Take Arya and Mycah back to camp. Joffrey and I need to... have a chat."

The red haired girl swallowed, then took Arya's hand and motioned for Mycah to follow her, Nymeria following a few steps behind

And the two blonds were left alone.

For a while, Naruto simply stared down at Joffrey, who was pale and sweaty(at least, more than usual), and was subtly trying to escape the hand still circling his wrist.

"I've done too many monologues today, so I'll try to keep it simple for you," Naruto said, not budging an millimeter. "You can't keep doing this. Your death will come early if you try."

"W-what do you mean?" Joffrey stuttered, and Naruto's eye hardened.

"The problem with you is that you like pain far too much. The last king who had that kind of mindset got stabbed in the back by the very person who was supposed to protect him."

Joffrey drew himself up, and was still shorter than Naruto by half a foot, so settled for bluster. "Y-you think you can threaten me! I am-"

Naruto, eye darkening, slapped Joffrey upside the head. "I'm EDUCATING you, you little prick! I'm saying that this path your on knows nothing but bloodshed, and it'll probably end with someone spilling yours!"

Wrapping a glowing hand around Joffrey's arm where the bite marks were still bleeding, the ninja froze him with a glare. "You will be civil towards everyone you meet on this trip, or I'll know the reason why!"

Naruto let the Prince go and stormed away, leaving the boy to fall to his knees, holding his arm. Joffrey stayed there for a long time.

Then he looked through the torn clothes at his now unmarked skin.

Reappearing in front of a simple log cabin, Naruto opened the door and walked inside, still fuming.

Coming into the living room, his hand blurred and caught the kitchen knife that had been thrown from his blind side without even looking.

"Elbow was out of alignment," he grumbled. "Makes the blade hit slightly off target."

Ashara Dayne paled significantly at the realization that she'd just tried to kill one of her best friends.

"Gods, Naruto, I-I'm sorry!" she stammered.

He shrugged. "Cause you tried to kill someone who entered without permission? I'd be pretty damn hypocritical if I got mad at you because you did the exact thing I've been training you for."

"B-but, I just..."

He smiled, tension easing off his frame as he walked over and took her hands in his. "It's okay, Ashara. I'm fine, and I really should have knocked anyway. I was just thinking of other things."

She gave a half-smile as he walked over to the bed, lay down and closed his eye.

Only to open it again, when he felt a weight settle over him.

Ashara looked down at him with a sultry smile as she shifted her body over his, her arms above his shoulders, her legs on either side of his torso.

"Sounds like you had a rough day," she whispered as she brought her head down to brush her lips against his neck.

"You have no idea," he groaned, bringing his hands to rest on her hips, feeling her smooth skin through the silk clothes.

"Well then, perhaps you could use some... distraction," she said, leaning back until she was sitting on his lap, feeling his interest between her legs.

Naruto grinned and flipped Ashara over until he above her, staring into her gorgeous purple eyes and giving her a roguish grin. "Well, alright then."

Hm. Well then.

Another chapter, complete.

Hope you enjoyed it.