Wussssssssup

How you all doin?

Shout out to bankai777 (probably),Kodos94 (thank you very much, man), stevenfreer87, Spark681, Dancingrage (thanks for reading, dude!), lord 7th (I try my best, thank you), GamerX568, TheKing91, Lt Juan Rico, TheAussieRogue, biginferno (I'm curious. Go ahead, man), kingnarutoxqueenkushina, Dawood Saqlain, Raven097, Banjo the Fox (it was a phase. Thanks for your review!) and saiyan prince1. Your all fantastic people :D

I have plenty of stories I'm writing that I haven't published. I'm the kind of person that's swamped with ideas and until I put them down they won't go away. If I personally like the idea then I write a few chapters then wait for the chance to post it. This story has been on my computer since early January (believe it or not) and I've had so much doubt in it for the longest time, which is why I haven't published till now. Another reason is cuz I was already writing a story you guys enjoyed.

I'm thinking of posting one-shots every once in a while, so expect them.

I appreciate the positive reviews of the first chapter. Let's see if you like the second.

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 2

Despite being a girl that knew how to outwardly suppress her emotions, Sueki's forehead crinkled worriedly and she grabbed her teacher by the back of his featureless black cloak and tried to pull him back but the stronger ninja held strong, his left hand clenched on the shirt of a downed man and his right hand balled into a tight fist. The man lying on the ground that Naruto was holding hacked painfully from his no doubt fractured ribs and his broken nose pulsed with fresh blood, pouring down his partially shattered jaw and onto the wooden floor.

Naruto pulled the man up by his shirt and bashed his bruised fist against the other man's head, cracking him down to the ground, but Naruto wasn't satisfied as he lifted the man up again slightly, ready to break open the drunks head.

Sueki cried. "Sensei, no."

"Gimme me a minute," crack! The whole bar was in chaos and if there weren't bodies littered on the floor then the other patrons were either fleeing from the general vicinity of the insane ninja or were cowering under their tables. Naruto's blue eyes were dark and the intimidating beastly grin on his half mask finally scared the downed man into the sweet bliss of unconsciousness.

"Your drunk-"

Naruto growled lowly and swiped his hand back, pushing the white haired girl away from him and readying another blow. "I'm not drunk," crack! "I can't get drunk."

Sueki knew this very well, of her master's fast metabolism and his continuously active cells, but she unfailingly went back to him and this time wrapped her arms around his abdomen from behind and pulled him back with all her might. This couldn't compare to the blondes strength and his right arm twitched to drive his elbow backwards, into her temple so that she could just leave him to vent out his frustration. But even in his blind rage he couldn't do that, only releasing his grip on the man's shirt and holding down the urge to spit on him. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, exhaling slowly again. Sueki pressed closer and pushed her face into his back, between his shoulder blades, and closed her eyes as well. Naruto heard her voice, muffled from his cloak and her mask, and she whispered. "…Let's get out of here…before Kiri ninjas arrive."

There was a thick silence after her silent words and the excruciatingly sober former shinobi of Ame rubbed his forehead. "…Fine." he gave the man on the floor a parting kick to his ribs and mumbled. "I was done here anyway."

The night had started like how every night for the past three months had started; with Naruto leaving the shared apartment they had in Hidden Mist and stumbling into any bar that hadn't banned him to waste away his night, drowning his soul in self-loathing and alcohol. Sueki knew there would be a blow back from leaving Ame, leaving their childhood friends, but she never anticipated for it to take this much of a toll on her sensei.

She could see it in his vacant blue eyes, between each swallow of sake and rum; the emptiness and the purposelessness that wallowed in his dead orbs like silt at the bottom of a pond pool, muddying those formerly crystal clear and cheerful cerulean eyes. The void of life that had taken the place of direction and the daily settling depression and personal disgust at what used to be his life and what his life was now.

Naruto was lost.

The hollow pain he should have felt after losing his parents, after losing his childhood, after losing Yahiko, after losing the one thing that kept him together for all those years since then…

Naruto was lost.

He didn't know what to do with himself and thinking of the life he had left behind was akin to torment, remembering the extents he would go through to ensure his friends were safe and content. Recalling how his parents promised, every night they tucked him into bed, that they would be there for him forever. Orochimaru too made that promise and he too left for Konoha without looking back, not hearing his student heart shatter at another precious person leaving him.

Night after night he would hope that his kidneys would finally give out and allow him to feel some sort of agony, hoping for even the littlest reprieve into the stupor brought upon by alcohol so that he would leave the world behind for the moment and forget his worries, but there was no drink strong enough to put him down, so he took out his anger at yet another failure at getting drunk on anyone that was near him, barring Sueki, who he would skirt around to get around the warzone that was the bar, never once taking off his mask but always somehow finishing his drinks.

Day after day he would sit on a chair by the window and stare out at the thick white mist of the village.

Unmoving, cold, like he was an uninhabited shell, rigid and imperceptibly breathing. While Sueki briefly left the apartment to hunt for food and money, usually by bringing back Kiri missing ninjas and using the bounty to fuel her teachers nightly bar hopping and binge drinking.

She knew he would feel lost and he became violent to find any kind of feeling to fill the place his motivation used to be.

Yet, she refused to leave him.

Naruto didn't abandon her during her darkest time and she was not going to abandon him either.

The little boy huffed and his legs visibly shook under the combined weight of both of his female friends.

Sueki had her arms around his neck, forcing her face under his chin with her eyes clenched shut. The boy was carrying her in his arms and the other girl on his back, a tiny, seven year old Konan, mutely tightened her arms around his belly from behind and hooked her ankles at his front.

The Darkness born child staggered, Konan on his back and Sueki in his arms, and it was still faster than with them walking on their feet.

Naruto struggled for air with each step and his bare feet, mud stained feet, felt closer and closer to slipping with each movement and yet he fought on. His arms hugged the young girl closer to him and Konan moved slightly on his back, closing her hands into fists on his belly and gathering his shirt in her small hands.

He wheezed and his mother briefly flashed through his mind, so quick anyone else would have noticed and the boy shivered, suppressing his tears. Her bright smile and her radiant blonde hair, her impeccable grace and her unshakable stance on life; no matter what happened and what she went through she always found a reason to smile, if it was only to lift her mood or to lift her husband or her sons mood. Tears found their way down Naruto's eyes at the thought of his mother's sunny disposition. It seemed like nothing was going to bring her down; not the civil war in Darkness, not the Shinobi war going on outside and inside of Darkness and not the rampant destruction of property from the Iron country samurai that invaded or when the Iwa arrived. She carried a shimmering smile for her son as she pulled him by his hand, guiding him, and in turn Nagato and Yahiko, after Naruto's father, who stealthily urged them to quicken their pace. Nowhere was safe and yet she smiled.

Naruto grit his teeth as more tears washed down his dirty face, struggling as he moved.

His mother kept repeating something to him, so occasionally that it sounded so much like a mantra. A hurried mantra to keep her precious sons spirit up in spite of the blood soaked rubble their formerly peaceful town had become.

"Su…Sueki…K-Konan…" he whispered, amid the distant cacophony of warfare occurring to his far right. The girls didn't move at his voice. "W-w-we're…we're going to be ok…"

Sueki, wrapping her right arm around her teachers lower back and fit herself under his right arm, guiding him as he listlessly trudged through the misty village. His eyes became a cold, dark blue abyss of vacant darkness, walking without purpose and only directed by his loyal student. She held Naruto close and repeated those very same words he said to them, over and over again, so that they would never completely despair in their situation.

"Sensei…" he didn't move at her voice, as if he had not heard her at all. "We're going to be ok…"

They had pretty much severed their ties to Ame, and their two close friends, and the girl was struggling to make ends meet by working multiple jobs, catching up to ten missing ninjas within the Water country vicinity, specifically around Kiri and they were low ranked, hardly worth anything at all.

It was them now, as it always had been for the past three months.

Naruto just needed some more time to find himself again, she consoled herself.

"We're going to be ok."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The next day was different.

They had been running low on cash and Sueki had already hunted most of the missing shinobi close to Kiriagakure so she had to venture outwards, closer to Lightning country in search of missing shinobi whose bounty could take them through three days relatively comfortably.

She returned back to their humble apartment in the misty warmth of Kiri's suburbs late in the night.

"Sensei, I'm home!" the stoic, red eyed girl called from the door as she opened it. She stopped abruptly when she encountered thick darkness inside the house. Her eyes narrowed instinctively, preparing to defend herself as well as searching for her teacher; she saw a blue glint from the corner of her eyes and her blood red eyes shifted there, where she found a set of crystal blue eyes siting on a chair wedged in the corner of a the room, beside a coffee table with a switched off lamp on it. The only source of light in the depressingly dark room was from the window on the other side of the room, shooting streetlights into the dreary room and giving the person sitting on the chair a vague, dark form. Any other feature was hard to discern, even the face, but the bright blue eyes of the person had Sueki drop her guard and fully turn to him, cocking her head to the side with her eyebrows crinkled in concern. She nodded. "Hey."

Naruto was silent for a moment, simply staring back at her for a long minute before he answered in a very low voice. "…Hey."

Sueki crossed her arms, her large black, featureless cloak moving with her action and showing her silver leggings and her silver gloves peeking out from her sleeves. "So…sitting in the dark huh," she said with a slight joking smirk. "Is this a new thing or…?"

She heard a low hum of laughter from the corner of the room and her teacher sat back, making the couch creak quietly as he did so. "I was…thinking about something..."

Sueki remained at the door, sweeping her eyes around the apartment to confirm that the place was empty besides herself and Naruto. She idly wondered whether it was his bloodline that made him more accustomed to pitch, choking blackness. "About what?"

The blue eyes closed briefly, then reopened. "Why are you still here, Sueki?"

The white haired girl snorted, like the answer was obvious. "Cuz I want to be here." She walked closer to him but stopped when what she thought was his hand flicked up, telling her to stay away. "I'm the student and you're the master. I've still got a lot to learn from you."

"Is that all?" Naruto mumbled to the fourteen year old former Ame jounin Kunoichi. "Konan and Nagato can teach you whatever you want to learn. I don't know anything special I can teach you-"

"C'mon sensei, you know that's not true." She interrupted him, raising a single white eyebrow. "Everything I know is because you taught them to me. Plus…" her expressionless face warmed and a tiny smile curved up on her lips, her crimson eyes deepened familiarly and some colour came to her pale face. "You're a very important person to me."

"More important that Yahiko and Konan and Nagato?" Naruto asked with narrowed, sceptical eyes.

"Like you won't even believe." Sueki answered easily, without pause for thought or reflection. She was glad to see her teacher speaking to her for the first time in months. Words couldn't even begin to describe what Naruto meant to Sueki and the teacher saw this from her eyes. A pale hand reached up from his right and clicked on the lamp on the small table at his side, it was then she noticed that his famous half mask was lying on the table, beside the lamp. Light washed over her teachers face and the girl's eyes widened, she gasped with her hand over her masked mouth, barely stopping herself from stepping back in morbid shock. "Sensei…what happened?"

Naruto clicked the lamp off and she could see his vague figure shrugging carelessly. "I don't know…probably has to do with my dual bloodlines."

Sueki was still trying to get over what she had seen, her master's face. She could only open and close her hidden mouth in horror; the usually composed, stoic teen couldn't hide the surprise in her eyes.

"It's been like that since after we killed Hanzo."

"B-B-But-"

"Yeah, I know. I didn't want you guys to worry so I went to ask Orochimaru if he knew what was happening. I didn't take long in Konoha; he had no idea what was happening but I suspected it had something to do with my bloodlines." He saw the betrayal on her face and his eyes dipped down. "You were still in the hospital-"

"Nagato could have helped…somehow…" she said suddenly, then she jabbed her thumb to her chest and spat. "I could have-no- I can help-"

"Don't." he said with a raised hand, silencing her. "This has nothing to do with my blood." He motioned at his face. "It's been like this for months, so I think it won't get worse."

Sueki cleared all emotions from her face, straightening up. "What now?"

"Do you still want to stay?" his eyes fixed hers and gauged her reply.

"Yes."

The hand still on the switch of the lamp slid down and picked up his half mask, putting it on so that it covered his nose and his mouth and fixing it in place. The same hand switched on the light and Naruto stood up. "As you wish."

He passed her and opened the door; she grabbed his elbow and asked. "Where are you going?"

"We're going to train."

This time her eyes widened with excitement. "Hai, sensei."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The civil war in Hidden Darkness, or Dark country, sparked up about a year after the Second Great Ninja war erupted.

The country had formerly been unconcerned with the massive global war and had closed its borders for any of the conflict to flow in but then the daimyo, a man known to have had a Konoha born father and a Dark country born mother, opened the country's borders for Fire country and began supplying them with able bodied shinobi and their vast generational intellect to assist them in their war efforts. It was small and insignificant at first, only a few ninjas, some solid oak trees and a large basket of pure obsidian iron but then it increased and Fire country demanded more and more from the small nation.

The daimyo caved and allowed the bigger country to influence it.

Dark country was rich with unique bloodline holders that were grouped into seven distinct clans, all of whom were united under Dark country for thousands of years. These clans had subdivisions of their different bloodlines but the single fact was that they were all at peace with each other and had close ties with other clans for an uncountable number of years since the creation of their country. The daimyo was brought out from what was considered a Royal Clan, which was the clan that didn't have any bloodline of note and would have been seen as civilians if they were in any other country. The royal clan had not done anything special in the unification of the seven clans, as they weren't considered a clan back then and thus weren't included in the Seven clans, but the founder of the country, a Dark and Light release user, had appointed the cluster of bloodline-less men and women as the leaders of the country. The reason was unclear but the seven clans went with it out of their deep respect for their founder.

The present daimyo had pretty much sold all of Dark country to Fire country, making the smaller country an unofficial annex of the larger and more influential country, thereby dragging Dark country into the unexplained skirmish of the Second Great Ninja war. He had given virtually everything to Fire country in support of the war, except any clan as a whole, and this left close to nothing for the people of Darkness. Konoha ninjas populated the country and plundered civilian families and clans of what little they had while the daimyo ordered them to do nothing about it.

It was when the daimyo had signed away the deeds of an entire clan, the Kurama clan, did the civil war start.

Forces loyal to the daimyo fought against the rebels, which comprised of the seven-now six-clans. This had gone on for years and Konoha, satisfied with what it had leached out of Darkness, pulled away and did nothing to stop the feuding between the Royal clan and the rebel forces. Darkness was an unsafe place to live, despite the Second Great war ending after Hanzo had been killed by the Four Akatsuki founders, with the backing of the rest of the Akatsuki.

It looked like the war between the Royal clan and the Six clans would go on for years and years to come but, some months after the end of the war, it all came to an end when two ninjas of unbelievable repute arrived in Darkness.

It was no secret that the former Ghost of Ame and his loyal student were born and, for some years, bred in Darkness, just like it was no secret that the Ghost and his student left Ameagakure and disappeared into thin air.

The adoration the Seven clans had for the Ghost was astonishing.

The respect and admiration went beyond logic, and for good reason too; the Ghost was easily a double S rank ninja that had been able to fight Hanzo and the ninjas loyal to the dead Kage for seven hours straight until the current Kage had been able to gather his wits and add his support. It was then he had been dubbed with the moniker of Ghost. Then there was the fact that the Ghost was the one that had trained his high A rank student, a white haired girl with red eyes that they also knew was from Darkness. Add in the fact that the Ghost was not someone to brag of his accomplishments and had been known to get off the pedestal the people of Ame placed him on to help Rain country recover from the ravages of war.

The blonde enigma was a rallying cry for the rebels, despite the Ghost not stepping foot in Darkness, and the Royal clan saw his existence as a threat to their power, as the seventeen year old legend had never been back from Ame to Dark country and yet he had more adoration from the Seven clans than they could have ever hoped for.

Their biggest nightmare was if the Ghost made a return to Dark country.

That nightmare came to reality exactly six months after the conclusion of the Second Great war.

The leader of the rebels, a holder of the rare Mercury release kekkai genkai, fell onto his knees and opened his arms as the terror-inspiring blonde entered the rebel command tent. The man stared up at the teenager with his muddy brown eyes and his guards, five in number, followed suit when they too recognized the person before them. He bowed his head. "Lord Naruto…you have returned!"

Unaware of his popularity in his home country, the blonde, half mask wearing shinobi raised a questioning eyebrow. "Lord?"

He was then filled up on how he had reached such a high status for the people of Darkness; at first the rebellion had been to remove the Royal clan as the leading family but then it expanded to the Seven clans recognizing their northern neighbour, Fire country, as the larger problem. Then news of a single shinobi killing and maiming scores of Konoha ninjas by himself reached them and was immediately tied to Darkness, seeing as they found Naruto and Ketsueki in their birth registries. More and more news came, in spite of the civil war, and, ever so slowly, the people of Dark country began hailing the Ghost of Ame for successfully expelling Konoha ninjas from Ame and helping to end the war. Fire country was despised and was almost directly the cause of the civil war and anyone that could basically bat away the Leaf was a hero in their books.

The Seven clans and the clanless people had resolved to ask the Ghost to come back to their country when their civil war was ended.

Naruto overlooked the man's enthusiastic welcome and the bowed guards and had the leader call for all of the clan heads to assemble as many of their ninjas in front of the tent. When that had been done and he exited the tent to speak to the gathered ninjas, he was forced to face the sheer magnitude of adoration the ninjas and civilians of Darkness had for him.

Hundreds of people were on their knees, their hands over their hearts and their heads bowed in submission. The black cloaked man slowly looked over the multitude before him, astounded by how deep in gratitude they were for him simply being there. He looked at Sueki from the corner of his eyes and saw her tilt her head down towards him, not fully bowing but also offering him her undying loyalty. It was humbling how much they believed in him and it warmed his heart to think that they saw him as a source of strength.

He announced to them that he was going to end the war and bring their country back to normalcy.

They were to focus their attention on expelling Fire country and any other leaching foreign country from their country, which were Earth, Lightning and Waterfall, while the other countries that had not participated or contributed whatsoever in the violence, like River country, Sunagakure, which was their western neighbour, Kiriagakure and Uzushiogakure, were to be left alone.

They would establish a formal alliance with those four places after the war.

Naruto made sure to do his research before entering the rebel camp, like how he knew no self-respecting Dark female would willingly procreate with any of those from the list of 'undesirable countries'. There were Konoha fathered children from women that had not given their consent to their aggressors and no female from Naruto's detailed research wanted anything to do with the father of their children but they would fight tooth and nail keep their children.

The forced removal of the undesirables from their country was set down in history as The Purge, as Darkness was essentially removing all the countries and villages that had done nothing but harm them.

This action alone bolstered the people of the country to unite even more under Naruto, as they no more divided their attention between fighting the Royal clan and defending their people from the undesirables.

This made it faster.

No undesirable was safe.

If they failed to vacate the country then they would be lynched and their bloody or severely burnt carcasses were left on the border for their respective countries to retrieve them, if they wanted. Else their corpses would be used as manure. They did this within the span of three days of the, at first, mass expulsion before it became more methodical and careful so as not to accidently kick out a future ally.

As this was going on, the territory occupied by the Royal clan began to reduce as more and more foreign ninjas were ejected from Darkness. Their influence reduced and their manpower became less and less specialized, ranging from shinobi and samurai of low C rank to mid A rank.

The dense forest within Darkness that served as the border separating them from Fire country, at their north, regained its vitality as the nature chakra that had been lacking in the area due to systematic deforestation returned. Pitch black, soul sucking darkness flooded the forest and animal life steadily restarted as well.

The Royal clan hid away in their only surviving temple, situated close to the Night Forest, as close to Fire country as possible. Formerly, a great number of their forces included foreign ninjas but lately they were all getting brutally murdered by something so quick they couldn't see it coming until their heads rolled.

That was the next part of Naruto's plan.

While Darkness focused on taking care of the undesirables, he and Sueki would handle the Royal clan.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

In Orochimaru's words, Naruto was a living anomaly.

He had two naturally cooperative affinities, one of which was strong enough to be considered a bloodline, and these two affinities combined to form an extremely rare bloodline.

Smoke release itself was not rare, as there was a whole clan in Darkness that could use the kekkai genkai but what made Naruto's rare was that the affinities combined to make his own bloodline weren't Fire and Water affinities, which naturally opposed themselves to form smoke but instead were Lightning and Water, of which his Lightning release was also a bloodline on its own. Normally water and lightning could come together to make deadly results for any receiver but Naruto's lightning clashed against his water to form smoke.

That was something that confused the snake scientist.

At first, the snake Sannin wanted to say that his student had Dark release at the similarities between Naruto's smoke release and dark release but had scratched out that summary at the obvious fact that it wasn't darkness Naruto was expelling but smoke.

There was the hidden mystery of what was happening to his face under his half mask.

Then there was his learning speed and thirst for knowledge. Naruto was neither a prodigy nor a genius but he was a highly adaptive person with a quick to process photographic memory to boot. The Ame orphan had been forced to adapt by his circumstance and so no matter the scenario Orochimaru threw at his student or put him in the boy would only take a few seconds to adjust before he overcame the obstacle. The masked teen could conjure up a hundred plans and ideas to tackle a problem of any kind, whether shinobi or civilian, and yet he didn't have the patented 'Prodigies Look', where it would seem his mind was constantly churning and spinning, thinking deeply and speaking from the soul with the liltingly condescending tone. Naruto's clear blue eyes changed from situation to situation.

To his friends and those he considered family, they held warmth. Joy so pure and welcoming that the receiver had to have the heart of Yami to not succumb to the happiness in his orbs.

To his enemies and those he considered a threat, they held death. Painful, agonizing, excruciating death. No hatred but there was manic excitement at the thought of snuffing out a pest and so his blue eyes would darken and spin slowly, ringed with black and speaking little of the uncontrollable madness they held.

No…Naruto wasn't a prodigy or a genius.

Naruto was a beast.

A phantom.

A spectre.

He was the stuff that made the nightmares of enemy countries like Lightning country. His shadowy rampage as the student of the snake Sannin and after Orochimaru had gone gave chills to any self-respecting human being.

He was the legend parents told their children at night to keep them in line.

He was part of the symbol of hope for all of Ameagakure.

He was the symbol of unity to his home country of Darkness.

Orochimaru didn't know what he had trained until it was too late. Naruto was someone that could make his teacher stop and hesitate.

He was silent.

He was careful.

He was methodical.

He was the Ghost.

Naruto squeezed slightly on the binoculars in his hands and they zoomed in closer on the heavily protected fortress the Royal clan were hiding behind, the very last of their hiding places the Ghost and his student had dismantled. He counted twenty eight ninjas guarding the building and his eyes roved up, catching two sentry posts with three guards per post, making thirty four. He brought the binoculars down from his eyes and pressed his right pointer finger on the ear piece in his ear.

"Can you sense the daimyo inside?"

The sound of static answered him until, "Yes, I can feel the whole clan in there." Sueki pursed her lips and her eyes stayed closed in concentration. "I feel like they have escape tunnels in there, maybe to Konoha."

"They do, ancient families like that have contingencies in case something ever happens to their power."

"Then why are they still in Darkness when they can take the tunnels and hide in, I don't know, Konoha?"

"It's a trap."

"It's a pretty risky trap, sensei," the red eyed girl muttered. "Having all of their family here and present just on the off chance they can get you."

Naruto scoffed and peered through the binoculars again. "No one ever said this daimyo was smart."

"I can sense him but not his wife or son. So he had them escape and the rest of the clan don't notice anything off." the stoic girl shook her head in exasperation. "Over privileged idiots."

Naruto watched the guard rotation for a second, then he sniffed sharply. "Are your senbon ready?"

There was a clipped click on the other side and Sueki hummed, removing a fistful off combat needles and studying the thin red substance inside the needles. "Yeah."

"Take out the two sentries at the top and I'll handle the ones at the bottom; if the alarm goes off then the Royal clan will flee through those tunnels." Maybe. "Confirm your kills."

"Roger."

"Any questions?"

"Just one."

"Hm?"

"Why are we doing this again?" not including the major point that Naruto could murder all the member of the Royal clan and their guards by himself, Sueki couldn't really see the point in ending the Darkness civil war, "except that this is a great way to burn time and maybe teach me a thing or two in assassinating a well-protected family. Other than that, I don't see the reason for doing this."

Naruto dropped his binoculars and stored them into a large storage seal hanging on his lower back by a thin yet strong string crossed over his torso. He flexed his fingers and answered. "My mum always said that no matter the nature or gravity of a problem, a child can and will always return back home…or something like that." his eyes narrowed and he exhaled, a small burst of thick black smoke blasted from his mask. "And, I promised my pa that I'd come back to Dark country, whether the war ended or not." Naruto's father didn't ask his child to make that promise but Naruto, after listening to what had caused the civil war, swore he would return one day. It was going to be a handful now that the people recognized his power; they would most likely want him to stay back after the war. Instinctively, the blonde teacher sensed his masked students green thoughts and chuckled with his eyes curved up in a smile. "What's wrong?"

Underneath her half mask, Sueki frowned, shattering her emotionless mask, and her red eyes squinted with mild annoyance. "Am I not enough for you, sensei?"

A large, nervous drop of sweat grew on the side of Naruto's temple and he felt that he wouldn't say the right thing, so he tactfully did something that usually worked for him on his precious student; a bribe. "I'll give you extra lessons if you collect twenty or more confirmed kills. Extra training if you kill your six sentry targets before I finish my twenty eight on the ground."

This answer made the pale girls eyebrows lower, her frown relax into a small, easy smile. "…Whatever."

"That's the spirit. Are you ready?"

"Ready."

"On three-" amusement danced in his eyes when he saw a flash of red shoot out from Sueki's position, sinking deep into a sentry shinobi's neck. The ninja turned around and swung his fist right into his comrades face, burying his foot in his other comrades stomach, while Sueki repeated her first action of throwing another senbon but this time she switched places with the blood filled needle, appearing on top of a female Konoha sentry in a burst of red chakra, landed on the grown woman's shoulder with her feet framing the Kunoichi's head. The girl flicked two more needles and they impaled the foreheads of the Konoha ninja's two comrades and ended the flurry of attacks by bringing down the stunned ninja she was standing on with a stomp to the centre of her head. Sueki blew out a breath and dusted her plain black cloak daintily, just as the first senbon victim finished crushing the heads of his teammates with his fists.

This happened within twenty seconds.

Meanwhile with Naruto, the same split second the senbon left his student's right hand he disappeared in a small plume of black smoke, fizzling into nonexistence and reappearing before his first victim. He stabbed a kunai deep into the side of the man's head and left again in a burst of smoke, carving out a thick line on the necks of three other ninjas after three consecutive pops of smoke, seemingly from out of nowhere.

Pomf. Pomf. P-p-po-pomf-po-pomf.

Muffled pops echoed in the vacuum of silence around the Royal clan's last hideout and the resulting smoke vacated as quickly as it arrived, whereas a person would crumple onto the ground.

Dead.

Most of their throats slit with the precision only a practised surgeon would know, so as to quickly bleed out the target and end their lives.

It was like looking at death teleporting around the building, except this death could not be seen and was only sensed as the line of blood left their necks. One moment they were looking around and then the next they were on the ground, choking on their blood and vainly gurgling for air.

No one saw anything coming until it had happened and their attacker had moved to his other targets.

The last person to go down only felt a knife slide over his throat, opening up his jugular and sealing his fate. He fell down onto his face and saw a pair of feet clad in black shinobi sandals stop at his head. His eyes began closing in painful slumber as he heard his killer mumble.

"That's…twenty two seconds. I guess you win, Su."

Another pair of feet crunched up close to the first pair, this one wearing dark red sandals and her toenails also painted an almost identical shade of red. The first person visibly leaned back as the second came closer. This one, clearly female, replied. "Cool."

"Alright, let's go kill this guy," Naruto said, stepping around Sueki, away from his dead last victim, and his body broke up into thick black smoke, melting through the infinitesimally small crack from the sealed shut main door. Sueki huffed and scratched her chin, wondering how she was going to get into the building without triggering the alarms. She swore quietly, barely maintaining composure, and swore to herself she would have her teacher show her how he used his Hiden art: Secret Smoke Technique: Body-Smoke Tunnel Transformation, or at least a variation of it that would suit her bloodline. She swore once again and clambered up the wall of the fortified temple to one of the sentry posts on the top, layering her palms and feet with chakra to stick here securely with each upward leap. She landed carefully and removed a single key from the pocket of a dead sentry, using it to jiggle open the trap door on the floor of the sentry post and dropping inside with her crimson red eyes burning with determination.

She was going to have those extra lessons from her dear teacher, even if it killed her.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

By sunrise the next morning, before a gathering of as many as a hundred thousand Darkness citizens that had travelled far and wide two days prior to the attack on the daimyos fortress, it was announced that the Daimyo of Dark country, the head of the Royal clan, had been ousted and the Royal clan in entirety was disbanded, exiled out of the country without any money or resources to their name, as everything they owned, including the clothes off their backs, was seized by the two invading ninjas as they were kicked out of their home.

The Royal clan's estates and properties were rightfully taken back by the people of Darkness and as the very last ex-clan member of the Royal clan fled the country, butt naked, the borders were closed up by high powered seals created by the country's foremost seal masters.

A weeklong celebration ensued and the people of Darkness, as well as the other foreign people from countries Darkness did not despise, joyously celebrated the return of peace to the formerly war torn country, not really minding the locked borders for everyone was simply glad to be alive at the end of the terrible civil war. This seven day party was organized by the rebel leader and the Six clan heads, maintained from going out of control by equally happy ninjas. The day of the ousting and the six subsequent days were made into public holidays, named after the two ninjas that had ended the civil war, though the red eyed student graciously stepped down and gave all the credit to her teacher, for she personally wouldn't have returned if not for him. Fireworks and music could be seen and heard from as far as Sunagakure, their western neighbours and some parts of northern Fire country.

At the end of the weeklong party, as thousands of people reconvened on the location the end of the civil war had been announced, the rebel leader, with the backing of the Six clan heads and the population as a whole, declared Naruto the new Leader of Dark country.

Authors note

Drop a review on what you think of this chapter, would you so graciously. Please, stay safe, wherever you are in the world and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.