Location: In Konoha

Time- 1 hour before Kakashi's Hearing proceedings

Persona- Naruto Uzumaki

They had been lucky that much was true, after encountering the odd man in Masori's office and being drawn into a fight that none of the other guards had been near enough to come and investigate the scuffle that occurred whilst Naruto and his clones knocked the guy out. Whilst he could obviously use chakra and the academy three, the man's other skills had been as laughable as Naruto's during his pre-Iruka academy times, meaning that Naruto had been able to subdue him easily even with his injuries

"Anything particularly useful Sakura-chan? Masori won't run his main operations from here as it's too exposed and the rest of his clan might find out by accident." Sakura was looking through the reams of information that Naruto's clones brought to her, directing them to read in more detail any bits she wanted after a skim through.

"Well, Masori is receiving bribes or 'gifts' from just about every large shop and store in the main town of Konoha, as well as several other cash and gold deposits that definitely are not going to be on the official files. Your clones are getting details on them now. The problem is that the clan owns so much of Konoha that anything suspicious is buried and almost impossible to find. Hell just on payroll alone Judge Masori has a 'security staff' of over 100 people, most are Genin or academy dropouts like the guy we found here. Seems he has been housing about half of them in the Karakura district out to the east of Konoha for the last five years, judging by the payments for rent and sundries... What is it Naruto?" She had obviously seen his face as dots began to connect in his head.

"Sakura-chan, Karakura district is a warehouse district for ninja equipment and clan gear, there is limited housing there and what there is is very expensive, if he was paying for fifty people to stay there he would be bleeding his clan dry! Does it give an address of some kind?" Sakura looked down at the ledger that she was reading and nodded firmly.

"It gives the address as Masori housing complex B, but isn't that in the main part of Konoha?" One of his clones spoke up at this point, his face screwed up in consternation.

"Yes, and for the last three years it has been used as Judge Masori's personal residence, despite the fact we know he stays out here all year round. That means he is housing his forces in the housing complex most likely free of charge, so what is the rent and other money for?" Naruto hadn't felt this excited since Team 7 had stepped out of the gates on their first C-rank mission. Deception, secrets and intrigue, this is what being a ninja was about!

"Why, it's to fund a secret base off the books of course! Now we just have to go find it and then tell Hokage-Jiji!" Sakura didn't look anywhere near as excited as Naruto did at his new plan, voicing it even as she closed the ledger.

"Naruto, we have enough here to bury Masori for bribery and corruption, Hokage-sama can use this to open a proper investigation into him and his activities. We don't know who else Masori might have on the payroll waiting at this base. Don't turn your fake death into a real one out of pride or a need for adventure." She raised some good points but Naruto knew how to turn the argument on its head.

"Exactly Sakura-chan, we don't know who else Masori or his other partners have bribed, cajoled or threatened into working for them, I doubt this is even remotely close to the entire list. The only reason they haven't already covered this whole thing up is because they think we didn't find out anything whilst we were taking down Gato. If anyone in Jiji's chain of command is with Masori and blows the whistle they will pack up and be gone before we have a chance. I'm not proposing we do it alone of course..." He had a couple of people in mind that he knew he could trust implicitly, but that didn't mean he was looking forwards to seeing them again quite yet, especially given the whole being dead and buried thing. But they had no choice, as it was going to be at best four more hours before Kakashi-sensei blew the whistle on Masori in the courtroom, they had to move and move now.

Summoning a clone, it immediately dismissed itself, passing its message through Konoha to where another clone was waiting, disguised as one of the Hokages bodyguards as he carried out his paperwork for the day.

Time skip: back to present

Persona- Kakashi Hatake

The tribunal had broken for lunch, Choza quickly whisking Kakashi and Shikaku off upstairs, claiming that the Hokage wanted to speak to them about Ninja business when Masori pompously tried to follow them. Entering the circular room that Kakashi knew so well from his sensei's time as well as his time in ANBU, he was surprised to see the third member of the cheat team present along with several members of the T&I division including Anko and Morino Ibiki. The Hokage looked as furious as Kakashi had ever seen him, but luckily the anger seemed to be directed at the papers in front of him rather than at Kakashi, as it had been when he had initially reported Naruto's 'death'. As the door closed behind the trio Sarutobi quickly did a dozen hand signs before slamming them into the desk. Lines of sealing script spread out from the contact point and soon covered every external surface of the office, Minato-sensei's work to help secure the office from eavesdroppers and spies.

"You can come out now Naruto, I trust each of these people implicitly." Kakashi relished the look of confusion on Shikaku's face for a moment whilst Naruto stepped from the shadows of the corner of the office, before the shadow using jounin whirled round to point at Choza accusingly.

"You knew! I wondered why you were so interested in a dead genin's actions." Choza openly chuckled, obviously pleased to have gotten one over on his shrewd team mate, but stopped quickly at a chakra flare from Sarutobi.

"Enough, we have much more important things to discuss right now, why don't you explain what your boss has discovered so far and what stupidity he plans on doing next." The clone looked around nervously before speaking.

"The boss has been investigating Judge Masori for the last couple of days since we got back to Konoha, we found information and witnesses in Wave country that point towards him being implicit in some of Gato's more illegal franchises, including drugs, human and ninja trafficking." There were several sharp looks between the T&I members at this, but the clone didn't pause before continuing onwards. "There was also evidence of Masori having large numbers of people on his payroll, including several ninja, so we knew if we came back to Konoha with news that Masori was up to no good these ninja would 'lose' most of the evidence before it came to light. So we had to shift focus from what we had done in Wave."

"So you decided to fake your death and investigate on your own brat? I assume Hokage-sama knew about this as there was a funeral and everything." It was Anko who had spoken this time and she looked almost as furious as Sarutobi did, glaring at the clone who gulped.

"Hai Anko-San, when we returned Kakashi drugged me with something and I don't really know what happened from there and the boss waking up in the morgue with Jiji stood over him. I assume Kakashi-sensei had explained things as Jiji then helped me investigate where he could and also gave me some pointers to break into the Masori clan compound." Anko looked ready to run over and attack/hug the clone, either action would definitely cause it to disperse. Luckily Sarutobi spoke up before she could, holding up one of the reports in front of him.

"I had an ANBU unit move in after Naruto reported finding information linking Judge Masori to illegal activities, though what Naruto and his team mate found merely scratched the surface. Honestly, whilst I want nothing more than to take every person on this list into custody, there is the distinct possibility that this is not the true depth of corruption embedded into MY village!" Sarutobi looked around before sighing and showing his age truly as a weathered hand came up and kneaded his head for a moment.

"The best way to deal with this is probably to take out Masori and his key players, then we can watch the lower ranks and see who they flock to, who they contact and so on. If there are more people in Konoha that do not have it's best interests in mind, it is better we find out about them now before the chuunin exam. Naruto has moved towards an area in our ninja warehouse district where he suspects there might be... Merchandise being held. Anko and Ibiki you are to go back up whatever rag tag team he managed to pull together before he gets himself actually killed this time. Kakashi, Shikaku and Choza, you are to keep Masori busy, this meeting was about reparations for kubikiribocho and information on Zabuza with water country if he asks about it. I will organise the remainder into teams to go after the key players but you better get going to avoid suspicion."

The five ninja saluted before Ibiki and Anko disappeared in a burst of leaves, hopefully they would get there in time Kakashi silently thought. The last thing they would need in one of Konoha's most sensitive areas was another berserk Naruto like had happened in Wave...

*Flashback*

Persona: Naruto-

They had been on mission now for a week, four days had passed since the deadly encounter with Zabuza and the hunter nin that had finally killed the missing ninja, or so Naruto had thought at the time. There had been no hiding his much faster than normal healing rate, given that most of his more serious injuries had already partially healed by the time they had made it to Tazuna's house that evening. Naruto had tried to act like he had no idea what was going on in regards to his healing when he had been questioned about it, but he had gotten the feeling that Sakura knew he was lying or at least not telling the whole truth.

Kakashi sensei had been out of it due to chakra exhaustion for the first night they had been at the house, so Naruto had spawned as many clones as he could and had them spread out into the surrounding wood land for protection purposes. Whilst he had thought Zabuza had been dealt with, Naruto had detailed security in case this Gato guy would try and send more trouble their way before Kakashi could recover. Then just when Naruto thought the mission couldn't get any more difficult, when Kakashi had woken up their lazy instructor quickly made things go from bad to worse. He managed this with the drawled revelation that Zabuza was still alive, which had a follower that was at least as fast as Zabuza was and to top it all off he probably had the demon brothers back on his side, judging from the lack of response from Konoha to Kakashi's messages.

Luckily, Kakashi-sensei said it would take at least two weeks to heal from the false death state that Zabuza had been placed in, meaning there was time for Kakashi to recover and also to do some training. But for the moment the genin had to concentrate their time on guarding the client and his family, which consisted of a lovely young woman by the name of Tsunami who was Tazuna's daughter, and a bratty little boy called Inari who seemed to have made it his mission to irritate Naruto to the point of snapping with his defeatist attitude and belief that they were all going to die.

Sasuke was currently guarding the bridge builder whilst he was overseeing the operations at the bridge that was the timeline of their mission, Sakura had accompanied Tsunami to the market for some vegetables, which meant that Naruto was left watching over the house, the still recovering Kakashi-sensei and of course the brat. Luckily it was an easy job as all Inari seemed to do was sit in his room moping, whilst Kakashi-sensei was still working on exercises to strengthen his body after the chakra exhaustion he had suffered by fighting Zabuza.

Therefore Naruto had set up a perimeter of clones around the house before setting himself to work on another flaw in his skill set that had been highlighted by the fight with Zabuza, his aim. Whilst a few of the kunai and shuriken he and the clones had thrown were meant to end up in the water, two of them being the clones that had grabbed Zabuza's feet whilst the others were meant to cover up any disturbances caused by the clones return to their original form, more of his shots had ended up missing than hitting the target, which was not good considering they would need all the weapons and advantages they could get when they faced the Demon of the Hidden mist again.

Naruto had been working on it for hours everyday since then, reducing several trees in the woods out behind Tazuna's house to stumps and kindling under the occasional guidance of his teacher, who had now corrected his starting stance, grip, throwing method and finishing posture several times apiece. But it was working so Naruto couldn't complain too much as another one of his kunai hit the tree he had been aiming for. It was off to the left and down a bit of the cross he had been aiming for, but considering some of the previous efforts Naruto could live with what he had for now.

Having returned to the house now Naruto had been about to go upstairs and check on the brat when the memories of one of his perimeter clones rushed into his mind. It took him a few moments to rummage through the memories he had received and therefore was not caught overly off guard when a heavily winded and haggard Tsunami rushed in through the front door, tears pouring down the young mother's face as she gasped out a sentence that had Naruto's blood run cold in his veins.

"Gato's men came, tried to take me, Sakura held them off..." Naruto was moving before Tsunami had even finished saying Gato's name, her terrified state made it clear that he could not afford to wait for Sasuke to return with Tazuna or even trying to come up with a plan with Kakashi, if Sakura was fighting Gato's men then time was a precious commodity that he could not afford to waste. In a bound that cracked the floorboards he was past the woman and out of the house, ignoring Kakashi's calls for him to stop, following Tsunamis tracks away from the entrance and into the woods. The tracks were easily distinguishable from the others leading to and from the home by the elongated stride and depth of the footprints, one of Tsunami's sandals left stuck in the mud adding to the sense of urgency he felt inside.

The trail led through the forest and towards the main village, which made sense given that was where what few groceries still available for sale were brought. It took a few minutes, even at a full on sprint for the trees to faze out and be replaced with the ramshackled streets that epitomised Waves current economic plight, meaning it would have taken Tsunami considerably longer to cover the distance and therefore the chances of this trail being cold already was remarkably high. The trail became harder to follow amongst the much higher traffic on the roads in the village and so Naruto was forced to slow as he reached one of the main shopping sectors of the village, the lack of people on the streets as good a sign that something bad was happening as Tsunami's words.

Unable to easily discern Tsunami's movements amongst the mud and dirt, Naruto decided not to waste time and instead formed the hand seal for kage bushin, a dozen clones appearing in a plume of smoke with the same visages of determination on their faces as they split off without a word. They split to cover every exit from the street as Naruto tried to think about where Sakura and Tsunami might have been in the village that would have left them exposed, the markets popping into his head as an obvious target for such an attempted kidnapping. With nothing better to go on than his gut feeling Naruto jumped off in that direction, his hunch proved right several moments later as a set of memories showed one of his clones reaching the area and spying several obvious signs of fighting.

With a hurried spring in his step Naruto quickly reached the area where the fighting had started, a small side alley just off from the market area, kunai blood and broken pieces of market stands showing that Sakura had held whoever the attackers were here for sometime before withdrawing down it away from Tsunami, perfect academy tactics for when you needed to protect a client by yourself. With a flare of chakra Naruto alerted the other clones that he had found something before leaping to the rooftops to follow this new trail, the clones should quickly converge on this point and then be able to follow from there.

It was a surprisingly long trail all things considered, the amount of blood implying that Sakura had either killed or badly wounded at least half a dozen of her attackers, assuming that some of the blood wasn't hers of course. His pride in her performance, which had risen further and further as he followed the path was dashed when he came across a bundle of pink hair, enough to constitute most of if not all of Sakura's long ponytail. Judging by the clean cuts on the strands of the hair Naruto assumed that Sakura's hair had been grabbed in the fight and she had been forced to cut it off in order to get herself free.

Despite this desperate effort it did not seem that the act had done Sakura much good, the signs of fighting coming to a stop around the next corner, more than twenty footprints now moving to and from the site by various different entrances and exits. It was only the lack of a corpse and several frayed strands of rope that assured Naruto that they hadn't just killed his teammate out of hand, but that was not necessarily a good thing for Sakura given the memories Naruto had of the bandit camp he had helped clear before graduation. Whilst resisting the urge to charge after the largest concentration of trails leaving the scene Naruto had to consider his options as best as his emotional state would allow. Sending individual clones down each trail would take too long and risk them being dispelled forcibly before they could alert him, and in Naruto's head the need for subtlety was well and truly gone.

This Gato had made what would undoubtedly be one of many dire mistakes to be made in regards to this mission Naruto thought as hundreds of clones burst into existence around him, three of them quickly bringing out their hastily sketched maps of the area around the village to co-ordinate the search parties that began jumping off as fast as they could. Before this the mission had been just about protecting Tazuna until the bridge had been completed, but now that the man had decided to attack HIS team in such a manner, all bets were off. Naruto would find and rescue Sakura-chan, even if he had to gut every single one of Gato's stooges on this island in order to do it...

The lord of Wave country, before he had been 'retired' by Gato, had been based out of a large but relatively modest manor with walled grounds and gardens about four miles from the main village. It was far enough out of the way to be considered peaceful but close enough that it was easy enough for the servants to get supplies and food from the village easily. It was intended to host the Wave lord, his entourage and any visiting dignitaries or other lords that might be visiting, as well as their servants and followers.

This made the manor a perfect location for the main Gato Industries personnel station in Wave, hosting a good proportion of the mercenaries and thugs that Gato had hired to 'protect his interests in the region.' These two hundred odd men were no fresh warriors looking for experience, each and every one of these mercenaries had several years experience either as a mercenary or in the legions of one of the various Daimyo, unlike the other punks that Gato had installed in the mayor's office and police station in the village who were very obviously cannon fodder to terrify the villagers.

Having cleared those locations before his searching clones had found this place, Naruto watched with interest as his first wave of clones moved in to attack the guards that were deployed on the walls. Unlike in the village where he had taken out the guards without much issue, these guards were alert and ready for combat, engaging the clones that jumped over the walls before the clones were able to overcome them with numbers and speed. Whilst this was happening the noise of conflict had reached the other mercenaries, who had been camped in the grounds of the house, didn't panic or react in an 'every man for himself' mindset. Instead they rushed for shields and weapons, many taking the time bought by the guards sacrifice to throw on armour before forming up into groups, very different from the panic that had descended when his clones had stormed the mayors office turned charnel house less than an hour ago.

The men formed in groups of at least 8 shield people to cover each others flanks and rear, with archers intermixed in the middle of the formations, already taking potshots as his clones began to leap down from the walls towards them. Their fire was precise and accurate, many of the clones having to slow to try and evade the shots that came their way, some not managing to do so as they went up in smoke. Those that did manage to cover the distance instead found themselves confronted with walls of shields and spears wielded by men half again Naruto's size and weight. Whilst his clones were faster than the mercenaries and could use chakra to boost their strength, the mercenaries had coordination and longer reach, as well as their being more of them by the time the archers took their toll.

This uneven contest meant that most of the clones were slaughtered piecemeal, other than a few mercenaries falling to lucky shots or sneak attacks when their guard momentarily dropped. Naruto had to give the mercenaries credit, even when the last clone had fallen they did not drop their guard, obviously noticing the lack of an actual body amongst the clones they had killed. Not that it mattered overly much, Naruto had just been testing the group for their reactions with the first wave, given the obvious skill with their weapons these men were not going to fall easily. From his position atop one of the walls guard towers, Naruto noticed that one of fallen wall guards had a bow and quiver of arrows with him, an idea forming in his head even as he signalled the next group of thirty odd clones to attack over the wall.

This group were more prepared to take on the mercenaries, having used their brother clones to test the mercenaries strategies. This time henges into small animals meant that clones were able to get inside the shield walls before changing back, catching many of the mercenaries by surprise and negating the advantages the men had with their long spears. The clones were able to break up the groups as they took down multiple attackers with their surprise attack and for a moment Naruto thought he had won the fight without needing to get involved any further. But just as the mercenaries were on the verge of breaking up and fleeing the doors to the main manor opened outwards with a heavy thud, more than two dozen extra mercenaries pouring out armed with Naginata and swords to engage the remaining clones.

But it wasn't these men that caught Naruto's attention, it was the half a dozen others who stalked out behind them without hurry or nerves visible in their posture or gait, the first of which slamming a large two handed hammer into the ground before slipping on his armoured gauntlets with a grin on his face. Samurai, or to be more accurate, ronin given their lack of affiliation and less than stellar condition of their armour. Three of them were armed with the traditional samurai sword whilst two of the others had naginata, the one armed with the hammer obviously being the leader as he raised a gauntlet to point at one of the clones that had broken through the mercenaries to charge towards him. With a heavy thunk a pair of blades extended from the gauntlets as the heavyset man moved with impressive speed to deflect the first kunai attacks of the clone with the blades before punching forwards and impaling the clone through the chest on his fist blades, the clone poofing out of existence a moment later.

Whatever plan Naruto would have come up with to deal with these new factors was blown from his mind as a female scream from inside the manor echoed out of one of the open windows in the upper floors. Whether or not it was Sakura that screamed didn't really matter to Naruto as the rage which had previously bubbled in his chest flamed up to consume his entire being, eerie red chakra flaring up to give him a feeling of power and invincibility that was euphoric. With a roar and pull on his chakra hundreds of clones burst into existence around him as he leapt from his vantage point to the grounds of the manner.

Why he was charging forwards against enemies who had proved that they were skilled and deadly was a question that came to mind but Naruto almost felt detached from his body as it wrenched a shield from one of the mercenary corpses to block the wave of arrows that were unleashed in the direction of him and his clone army. The feeling of detachment was heightened as he noted through the blurred and slightly reddened vision with a morbid fascination that the mercenaries arm was still gripped to the shield, wrenched from his shoulder with almost terrifying ease.

As his body skipped and contorted in ways Naruto wouldn't have thought possible to avoid the hail of arrows that his newly appropriated shield couldn't block, Naruto felt a jerk before finding himself in the middle of a now familiar forest looking across at a grinning foxes face that was easily twice as large as he was. The Kyuubi regarded him for a moment longer before jerking it's face away with a snort.

"Just when I thought you wouldn't interest me anymore than you had already done so with your rather foolish attempts at deceit and manipulation brat, you pull this off." The fox's tone was full of veiled contempt but Naruto had no time to play up to the tailed beast's games, something that pervaded through into his voice as he shouted up to the beast.

"What the hell did you do Kyuubi? I was in the middle of a battle there if you didn't notice, and what was with that, I felt like I wasn't in control of my body anymore." The question brought the Kyuubi's gaze very firmly back on Naruto, the fox seeming to consider him seriously for a moment before speaking a little affronted.

"You accuse me of stealing control of your body brat? If I had been involved then we wouldn't be having this conversation, what you have done is manage to pull off one of your annoying clans ancient jutsu. Well actually the blood rage is not really a technique, most people would think it was a disadvantage in this day and age more than anything else, the fact you pulled it off without needing any type of genjutsu or drug help is actually impressive." Naruto was now confused, which wasn't all that hard he knew from experience, what was the fox talking about? The fox seemed to recognise the look on his face and sighed with the finality of someone who was about to dumb something down to a kids level of understanding.

"Listen here brat, do you think that you Uzumaki's managed to survive the time before the blasted Senju got it into his head to found a load of villages for the ninja clans by playing nice and friendly? Large chakra reserves and sealing skills weren't what got them the fear and respect of the elemental nations in the first two shadow wars, a killing frenzy that gave them ridiculous strength and pain tolerance did instead. Just be glad that you should be back to normal before you reach your precious Sakura... Or you might not be, all we can do is wait and see..." The Kyuubi settled itself down on the ground at this point and Naruto knew that it was done talking for the moment, despite the burning questions he had in his chest about the revelations it had just heaped upon him. He had a clan that had been around since before the forming of Konoha? Or was the fox just messing with his head again?

Sakura's return to consciousness had not been simple or painless, every part of her body having complaints about the fight she had just been in. She opened her eyes slowly and given her pounding headache she was quite glad to find herself in a darkened room, though the fact she was very obviously in a cage dampened her already somber mood even further. It wasn't the only cage either, both sides of the room lined with cages, some empty whilst others had one or two people in them. A coughing noise from her left caused Sakura to startle slightly before turning her head to see that it had been the occupant of the next cell which had made the noise. It was a girl, couldn't have been more than a couple of years older than Sakura was, with long brunette hair and a deep scar down her left hand side of her face.

Seeing she had gotten Sakura's attention, the girl smiled weakly before raising her hand through the bars, a small cup of water in her hand an obvious offering that Sakura was in no state to refuse. She crawled over, doing her best not to think about quite what she was crawling through in order to do so, accepting the water and gulping it down in three heavy gulps. As Sakura wiped her mouth with the back of her hand the girl looked at her in an almost awed manner before speaking in an almost awed fashion.

"You must have been quite the difficult opponent kunoichi-san, some of the men that brought you in here looked worse off than you did and there was mention of other casualties." The mention of her captors made Sakura remember the fight that had resulted in her being here, nodding her head distractedly as she cast her mind back. There had been a dozen men originally that had muscled into the market square just after she and Tsunami had arrived, obviously tipped off by one of the villagers or a lookout. Thankfully, the physical training programme that Kakashi had started her on after her defeat to Tenten had paid off even in its early stages, moving faster and more nimbly than the men as she lead them on a merry chase through a few of the side roads whilst Tsunami ran.

Her scrambled recollection of the fight specifics was put to the back of her mind as the noise she had originally thought was the sounds of people training increased in volume and became mingled with shouting and pained cries. Assuming that she hadn't been unconscious for too long, she was still in Wave country and therefore the fighting she could hear was Sasuke-kun and the others coming to rescue her, but she thought it best to ask as she crawled forward to have a look at the cage door lock.

"Where are we? Who are you and what's with these cages?" The girl crawled a little further forward in her own cage, obviously interested in what she was doing given that the gloom in the room probably stopped her from looking at anything else beyond the neighbouring cages. The lock was a large old fashioned one, which was a good thing as it was one of the types they had been shown how to pick in the academy during the second year, meaning she could pick it given the right amount of time. As she reached into her now battle worn and dirty dress Sakura found the hidden seam that her mother had sewn into it for her. Inside it was a simple hairpin, something Sakura was glad for now as she hastily opened the seam whilst half listening to what the girl was saying in reply to her questions.

"No idea what that noise is, not heard anything like it whilst I have been here, but that has only been a couple of weeks. I think they missed me when they moved everyone else out the other day, it was only when they were cleaning out the place that they noticed me, the guard who had been in charge of moving us really got into trouble for that. The man in charge was shouting about dismembering the man and spreading his innards across wave as a warning about incompetence. " Sakura could understand that, even though the clear avoidance of discussion about what happened to 'everyone else' made it clear that this was more than just a detention centre for the Wave country dissidents.

Though if they were still in wave then it was a good thing for Sakura as it meant that it probably was her team coming to rescue her. As she started on the lock, Sakura decided to keep asking questions as any information could be useful if she got out of this cell.

"So you've been here a couple of weeks then? Were you picked up in Wave then?" The girl shook her head hesitantly and seemed unsure whether or not to answer and only spoke up once Sakura had gone back to working on the lock.

"No, I was part of a caravan heading through Hi no Kuni when we were attacked by bandits. I thought I was going to die but they just dragged us off to some camp in the mountains. We were there for a couple of days before they bundled us all into some covered wagons..." The girl quieted, obviously not wanting to think about it any further, which was fine by Sakura as the lock opened with a loud click, signalling her success at this first small stage of her escape. Even as the door swung open Sakura was moving not towards the door to the jail room, which was letting the light from outside shine into the middle of the room almost mockingly, but instead to the girl's cell to begin the process again.

The fighting had died off a bit for a few seconds but then there was a roar that drowned out everything else, Sakura's limited ki experience allowed her to remain conscious this time as opposed to her collapse against Zabuza, though given the ungodly pressure and images of her repeated and grisly demise she couldn't help but wonder if that was a good thing. Doing her best to clear her mind and focus on the lock with her shaking hands, Sakura was glad when the pressure diminished rapidly to a feeling in the back of her mind that she could ignore, if only just.

It still took her considerably longer to pick the lock than it had on her own door as she struggled to settle down her emotions, it was almost five minutes before the final tumbler clicked into place and the door slowly opened outwards towards her. Sakura made out the sound of running outside the jail and forced herself to her feet, doing her best to ignore the pain that her body was only too keen to remind her of as she took a basic ready stance. There was jangling of keys before the door swung open to reveal a tall heavy set man armed with a sword and bleeding heavily from one arm. His eyes fixed on her standing out of her cell and he brandished his sword wildly in her direction.

"You! You made that... that monster come here... Dead, nothing can stop him except killing YOU!" The man was obviously mad, possibly in the throes of a genjutsu or affect by some kind of hallucinogenic drug, but that didn't make Sakura fear for her life any less as he prepared to charge at her, blade at the ready. Luckily his attempted charge was stopped by a sandaled boot to the face courtesy of a now familiar blonde teammate of hers, the sheer force of the flying kick sending the man out of sight down the corridor. Sakura's happiness at seeing him was negated when he turned towards them, clothes in tatters and half a dozen grievious wounds littering his legs and torso, any of which would have downed her in an instant especially the still embedded spear head in his right shoulder. Naruto's face didn't show any pain, in fact it was set in blank mask that seemed entirely out of place for the hyperactive prankster, glassy eyes gazing off just over her shoulder as he took a step forwards.

Whilst Sakura's first instinct was to rush to her wounded friend her subconscious was on edge, something about Naruto screaming danger to her budding ninja senses. Therefore she spoke first, words almost dying on her lips as her intake of breath suddenly had Naruto focus on her with a piercing gaze that quieted even her inner persona.

"Naruto?" Whilst she would have liked to say more her voice caused Naruto to freeze in place before his expression turned into a snarl, hands held like claws as he looked ready to charge her, only to slump a moment later due to the strike to the back of the neck from an exhausted looking Kakashi.

"Not exactly the best time for one of my gaki's to discover a lost bloodline, but I suppose it could have been worse, definitely made rescuing you easier..." As her laid back Sensei tried to downplay the fact Naruto had just tried to attack her and from the sounds of it just taken on a small army by himself, Sakura couldn't help but wonder what had happened to make Naruto act like this...

"So Naruto slaughtered well over three hundred bandits and mercenaries and unlocked some kind of bloodline that made him go into a frenzy, just to rescue his team mate? Against your explicit orders?" Shikaku's words made it clear to those that were in the know that the disobedience of the boy would be returned to at a later date, once the falsehood of his death was revealed anyway. For now Kakashi was just glad he hadn't been required to go into detail regarding the battle outside, the frenzied Naruto had not been clean with its kills and Kakashi would prefer not to go over those memories in detail if he didn't have to. So nodding his head instead Kakashi continued his report.

"Yes he did, though I wouldn't say I had given him any orders that he disobeyed, I didn't have time." Giving Shikaku an eye smile as he dug Naruto out of that little hole he had been in, Kakashi continued with his conclusions of the engagement. "Given the capture of one of our ninja and the risk of torture and interrogation threatening both the mission and any Intel on my team Sakura might have known, Naruto's actions were in my opinion completely justified, not that he remembered anything after falling into that state. Of course given that he had in effect declared war on Gato with his slaughtering of all Gato's mercenaries, the chances of the man deciding to leave the problem to Zabuza any longer seemed very unlikely and I had still heard nothing back regarding the reinforcements I had asked for."

Kakashi let that particular nugget sink in for a moment and saw Masori look distinctly uncomfortable, obviously he had been involved in stopping those messages getting through. Any response from the judges was halted by the sudden appearance of two ANBU in the room, one appearing behind Masori to knock him out with a heavy block to the back of the head. The other ANBU was undoing the restraints that Kakashi had been put in, standard procedure for this kind of hearing just in case the ninja turned out to be a traitor or under a genjutsu.

"Genin Uzumaki had already secured the site by the time the relevant teams were notified Kakashi-taichou, perhaps a little better than had been intended given the fact that even our strike team had not been able to notice anything amiss when they arrived." That sounded just like Naruto, and with the ANBU knocking Masori out that meant the Hokage was starting the next part of the strike. Shikaku coughed before Kakashi could shushin out of the courtroom to go and join in what could become quite the battle, the Nara clan head gesturing back to the chair Kakashi had been sat in.

"The ANBU will have the situation in hand Kakashi, the less our regular forces get involved in the round up the less backlash there will be. Besides, even with Genin Uzumaki not being dead as I had originally been informed, this hearing is into your general conduct on the Wave mission as well which has more than enough questions already for us to go on. I am sure that we can find another ninja to sit in as Masori is... busy with other matters." Despite the relaxed smile on Shikaku's face his tone and general bearing made it clear that things had only gotten slightly less difficult for Kakashi at this point, something that made his eye smile fade that little bit whilst the Nara clan's favourite word popped into his head whilst he sat down once more.

'Troublesome...'

A/N: So… I know some people didn't like the multiple POV's, but tbh that is the only way I can really portray everything that is going on without either missing massive parts of the mission or having massive flashbacks in future in chapters. Hopefully there should only be one last chapter like this and then we can wrap up Wave country as a mission and also the aftermath caused by Naruto and co's investigation. I think I have a couple more surprises left in this mission that people won't have come across before, anyone want to make any guesses as to what Gato might need the captured people for?

In regards to Naruto and his 'bloodline' I think that something like that is far more conceivable as a hereditary bloodline than 'sealing ability' which most fanfics like to stick him with, and it fits a lot better with large chakra reserves and a healing ability. Oh and it's not the F**king Rinnegan which seems to be the only Naruto-canon friendly alternative that doesn't cross Naruto with another Konoha clan. Anyways, rant over, let me know what you think…

One last thing, an idea that popped into my head whilst I was writing this chapter, what if Naruto had killed Sakura in his blood rage before Kakashi managed to knock him out? And that the Sakura that is accompanying him in Konoha is a clone he created when he discovered what he did and had a mental break? I am not going to include it as that is a bit dark for me, but I don't know if anyone might want to take the idea forward?