Silent Night

by Foy the Snooze Button

Not a sound. Not a flicker in the blackness of the void. Ame lost its Ghost and Darkness gained a Leader, a shinobi that the Leaf dares not cross. The People of the Dark, suffering under tyranny and ravaged by a civil war, look up to the Ghost for redemption. The Silent Night will be the one to show the enemies of the Dark the way to the quiet insanity of the void. Leader!Naruto

13. Chapter 13

Wuddup ya'all

GIGANTIC shout out to anthonym3 (haha, yeah, thank you for the review), KakeruPB (correction taken, thank you for that), Banjo the Fox, LordofTerror, Daisuke SSJ (thank you for reviewing!), skfff, Arraia, biginferno, zerkses, Antex-The Legendary Zoroarc (I appreciate it, man. Thanks for the analysis!), 777torn777, lord 7th, DragoFae24, TigrezzTail, TheKing91, OmegaRealism (thanks? Glad you stuck around, man!) and Saiyan prince1 (we'll see…we'll see…). You're all incredible people :)

I haven't yet explained the inner workings of Naruto's Silent Night, and my intention is to push that aside for the time being. If his skin burns off as a consequence of using it then believe me, it would be a very painful existence; he'll be alive, yeah, but it won't be a good. And for those thinking that close to or at the end of this story, Naruto would either die or be crippled by Silent Night; I have a surprise in store. I will not spoil the end any more than that ;)

In this chapter, we will find out more about Dark country. Why you ask? Cuz there's a big time skip coming.

Take note, Dark Citizens are not the only ones that can enrol in the Academies-not forgetting the fact that there are people originally from Suna, Kiri, River or Uzushio that were born in the country. Allies are free to join as well BUT they CANNOT attend classes that involve Dark country's assassination techniques. And allied foreigners cannot become BLAK operatives, even if they have a dual citizenship.

I lost myself while I typing this chapter, so its way over the word limit. Be ready for a long read…

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 13

It was another average morning in the Leader's household.

Naruto opened the door to his shared bedroom and walked out. He was dressed in his shinobi gear of a dark grey short sleeved shirt, black combat pants, black sandals with white soles. The short sleeved shirt showed the black line markings running down his arms and leaking into his fingernails, which was body art that had surfaced on his skin once he fully unlocked his dual bloodlines of Lightning release and Smoke release. Over the Leader's torso was a black flak jacket with a white collar and a large Dark country symbol drawn on his back also in white. All jounin of the country wore the same black and white coloured flak jacket; the chunin only had a different design but not a different colour. On his forehead was a gleaming forehead protector and the ends of the black cloth trailed down to neck.

The man mussed up his shaggy blonde hair and adjusted his half mask as he stepped to his ward's bedroom door; his cerulean eyes gleamed as he knocked on Kushina's door.

"Kushina?" He got no answer. He knocked again and pressed his ear to the door, listening. "Are you ready?"

Kushina ground to a halt from her mad dash into her wardrobe from her bed, her neck snapped to the door and her eyes were frantically wide. The poor girl was still in her underwear. "Uhhh…" she looked about the warzone that was her room; her clothes were strewn around, her bed was in disarray, her things were cluttered everywhere and her wardrobe door was thrown open, letting out the tidal wave of clothes she had inside, some of which were on hangers, some looked to have formerly been folded and others were crumpled beyond recognition.

Naruto knocked again. "Kushina? Are you ok?" he tested the knob. It was locked. He prepared to ram his shoulder into the door. "Kushina?"

The girl leaped over a mountain of dresses and pushed against the door. She squeaked. "In a minute!"

Naruto's eyebrows raised and he released the doorknob. He wasn't a natural sensor, he could sense only consciously and with effort, so as an assassin he had to rely mostly on his five original sensory organs. His eyes narrowed fractionally as he detected the panic in her voice; if she was in danger, he and the girl already had a code to let each other know. "Be down in five minutes, ok?"

"Ok!"

The man shrugged and trooped down the stairs, floating towards the mouth-watering smell of fried bacon and freshly brewed coffee.

Inside the room, Kushina grabbed her hair and looked about, wondering where it had all gone wrong.

She had it all planned out; the clothes she would wear for her 'Day with Lord Naruto', her shoes and the headband her mother said looked cute on her, all arranged from the day before. Then second thoughts hit her as she came out of the shower, she stared at her clothes for a good hour, wondering if they would nice and presentable enough for her crush. She had been awake since five in the morning, thirty whole minutes before Naruto and Sueki had gotten up, and now both of her seniors were downstairs, about to eat breakfast and she was still up in her room, not ready.

Kushina groaned in dismay and her shoulders slumped.

Four minutes later, she ambled down the stair in a dark red and black dress that reached her knees and black shorts underneath with blue sandals. She had a grey bandanna around her neck and her straight red hair looked somewhat dishevelled but still neat.

Naruto looked up with a mouthful of toast and smiled brightly.

"Good morning." Kushina greeted dully and Naruto's mood dimmed a little.

"Something wrong?" Kushina stared down at the plate of bacon Sueki swept before her and she plucked a fork from the side of the plate. "You're not feeling well?"

"No, I'm ok."

Naruto regarded her sceptically. "If you're sick, we can always push this for another day-"

"No!" Kushina exclaimed, even making the vampire and her teacher jump in surprise. The redhead blushed down not her plate and stuffed her mouth with food, muffling. "Too'ay, pleashh." (Today, please)

"Don't talk with your mouth full." Sueki tutted as she returned to the kitchen.

The girl swallowed thickly, forcing the lump of food down her throat. "Sorry."

The blonde Leader wavered in his seat, then he said. "Well…today is gonna be really great, we've got a lot of places to check out. Your mom said she won't be able to come until next year but that doesn't mean we can't have fun without her." Naruto sipped his black coffee and smacked his 'lips', saying. "She will come and see you next year though, for the Entrance Ceremony." Naruto's eyes smiled humorously. "She wants to take lots of pictures."

"Cool." The girl mumbled into her plate, hiding her excitement.

But Naruto saw it and he hummed out a please smile.

Sueki only ate two pieces of toast and drank her lemon tea before she dropped the dishes into the sink. "Those Iwa ninjas are getting braver." Her red eyes flicked to the child on the other end of the table and she said in quiet voice. "I'm going to kill some."

Technically, prodding at their border by foreign, unallied shinobi settlements for surveillance purposes and supposedly not to cause harm fell under the authority of the Defence Corp and until the threat became too violent to contain would the BLAK come in to support, mainly by infiltrating the threatening village and making a statement for the head of said village to command their forces away from Dark territory. Naruto's eyebrows quirked at her statement, because the prodding of Iwa ninjas hadn't resulted in injury or the loss of lives of either their ninjas or their civilians, hence no need to bring in the 'big guns', per say. Killing unallied ninjas skimming their borders was only an extreme command that Naruto alone could make, and he had made that command after the Tsuchikage had sent back his warning letter-to keep the hell away from his border or face hell-without so much as a reply.

"Director Makoto," of the Northern Region's Defence Corp. "Wants my men to send the message over to the Tsuchikage."

DC operatives were to remain within the country unless they had no other option but to leave and the mission was too delicate to give an average jounin squad. BLAK left no room for chance and thus they scarcely, if ever, fell short during such a mission.

Naruto checked Kushina and the girl was too busy scarfing down her bacon to pay attention to them.

"Give me the Tsuchikage's reply tomorrow."

That man was taking Naruto and his country for a bunch of cowards. A simple message to leave his borders was ignored and sent back without comment, an unsaid way of disregarding the authority of the Leader of another nation. Kumo, of all places, had kept just outside of their borders, watching them, but had made not so much as a move on them. The Raikage had responded that if Darkness made the wrong move against his village then he would trample them. Naruto honestly didn't expect that kind of respect from the hot blooded Raikage but he reciprocated by having all his ninjas keep away from the Kumo ninja while at the same time ensuring they didn't break their end of the unofficial non-aggression agreement. This respect had nothing to do with their villages but between both men.

Naruto had once battled the Raikage before, somewhere in Lightning country, and the end result of this earth rattling brawl was the man withdrawing his ninjas from Ame and coercing the Tsuchikage to take his men out as well.

That was a story for another day.

Iwa needed more than a warning letter, it seemed.

"Have fun." Naruto beamed at his student and the woman's eyes sparkled at his approval.

"Alright." she planted a gentle kiss on his cheek and moved to the door. "I'll be back to do the dishes."

"No, no, just enjoy yourself." Naruto said and pinched Sueki's pale cheeks with a laugh. The bashful vampire slapped his hand away from her face and fixed on her plain red half mask.

"I'll be going now."

Naruto bobbed his head, about to go back to his breakfast, then he noticed Kushina's glare following his student and he called her attention. "Hey, Su."

The woman's head peaked back into the dining room. "Yeah?"

"I think Kushina wants a kiss on the cheek too."

"Wha-" Kushina spat out her hot chocolate.

Sueki rolled her eyes and entered the room again, kissing Kushina's cheek as well. "Have fun today."

The girl turned an unrecognizable shade of red and Naruto guffawed.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Five minutes after the BLAK Commander left the house, Naruto and Kushina exited.

The man turned and locked the door, leading the girl through their humble front yard garden and out of the short, black wrought iron fence.

Naruto didn't have any official Leader business to attend to, which was why he wasn't in the white and black Leader's robe and hat, but that didn't mean he didn't have anything he wanted to do that day. Taking Kushina with him-on those unofficial matters-wouldn't stop or hinder him in any way.

He proceeded to walk up the street and Kushina walked behind him.

The masked man looked behind him and decided to teach the girl something.

It was a topic any child that intended to attend the country's school needed to have. Parents and guardians were supposed to impart this knowledge, preferably orally and not written, and thus pass the torch to the future.

Naruto ushered the girl to his side and his right hand flicked up.

"Kurono."

As he spoke, telling her of the founding of the country and the plight it had to go through, the hellish flames that had formed them, he saw a fire grow in the girls purple eyes.

"Kurono is the pride of Dark country." Naruto said, watching as the girl looked at her own hands as she held the horned sign. "It is our unity. It is our stubbornness. It is our shared past and out shared future." He stopped at the end of the road and the girl looked up at him, her eyes hard and charged. "There would be no Darkness without Kurono and there would be no Kurono without Darkness. Lord Yin-Yang did not travel anywhere else before or after Darkness, so not too many people know him. Kurono though is not his legacy but our legacy. The Dark Legacy."

The tall man looked down at the girl with a straight face, watching her flex her horned fingered sign, still staring up at him.

"Kurono is also a promise, kid." his eyes quirked up invisibly. "A promise that no matter how bad things get and no matter how bad things will get, you, me, all of us," he motioned around him, and a few people stopped to listen. "Will make it out stronger than ever."

He jabbed his chest with his free hand. "And if there is ever a time you feel lost and there is no hope left in your heart, Kurono will give you hope and it will give you strength."

The people held up their own Kurono as they listened to their Leader.

The girl looked around in awe, amazed by how much people believed in the power of Kurono.

They beamed at her. Uzumaki, Kiri, Suna, River born in the country.

"Do you feel it?" Naruto asked.

Kushina's head lowered as she felt her chest heat up.

Her purple eyes glazed over as she looked at her own Kurono.

"Hai." She whispered.

"How do you feel?"

She looked up at Naruto and the man's eyes glowed as he saw the small fire that had been in her eyes had turned into a raging bonfire. "I feel…great."

He poked her forehead. "That feeling…the burning in your heart and the storm in your gut…that feeling…is what it feels like to belong in Darkness."

Uzushiogakure was made up entirely of a clan but this feeling was different.

Dark country was made up of seven clans and clanless and this form of unity hadn't ever been seen in any other place. Dark country haven't had any major spats since before the Civil war and it was during the war that Kurono started being used.

Naruto fixed the girl with a look, silent for a good minute as she looked back at him with a fiery gaze, and then he said, dispersing the crowd and leading her towards the north west border entrance, a some miles outside of the capital.

"Your mother wanted me to take you up as my student." Naruto said, even though Tamaki Uzumaki, Kushina's mother, had pleaded for the blonde Leader to personally teach her child while she was in the academy and even after. She had done so in person after the burial of her father and Naruto hadn't yet given her a reply. Kushina didn't need to know that Tamaki had begged him; the woman had said that it had been her little girls dream since she first heard of Naruto. That or marrying him. Tamaki didn't know anyone else that could bring out the latent potential in her daughter, for she wasn't a ninja and her father had passed before Kushina could reach the age he could actively teach her. The Ghost shrugged airily, without a care in the world. "But quite frankly, I don't think you're worth my time."

He saw her heart break and how her whole expression fell to the ground.

The man scratched his chin and hummed, expertly ignoring the girls depression. "You know what?" she looked up, hopeful. "I'll throw one question at you and if you get it right, then I'll take you up as my second student."

Her head blurred as she nodded.

"Why do you want to be my student?"

Her response was immediate. "B-B-Because I-"

Naruto placed his index finger on her mouth, shushing her. "No." Already predicting her fan-girlish answer. "I want you to think really hard about it…and tell me at the end of the day." He removed his finger. "Understand?"

"H-Hai."

She had till the end of the day to come up with a good reason for Naruto to teach her.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Somewhere in the Forbidden Forest

Konohagakure no Sato

A set of beakers shattered against the stone wall loudly, making the men and women locked in small cages cringe away in fear, huddling within themselves and ensuring they didn't make eye contact with the irate kidnapper.

"Another failure." Orochimaru hissed quietly, his hands curled into fists and his nails dug into his palms. He sent a venomous glare to the corpse lying on the operating table, spitting hatefully. "Useless." He cast an enraged look at the sobbing prisoners. "All of you. Useless."

Lying on the table vaguely looked humanoid, his skin had changed to wood and his arms and legs were twisted grotesquely as he curled up into a ball, looking like an insect that had been placed on a hot pan. The laboratory wasn't that big; there was an operating table in the very centre, a wall of chemicals and scientific equipment to the right and the remaining space was filled with people in cages, stacked atop each other and left in varying stages of neglect. Orochimaru barely had enough space to walk around with his elbows jutting out, but he had to make do with this small space for now because any construction would alarm he animals, which would alarm the ninjas of the village of his nefarious acts.

The man growled and his yellow reptilian eyes narrowed with disgust, getting madder and madder at the insistent whimpering of his prisoners. "SHUT UP!"

He grabbed the corpse on the table and chucked it straight out of the window right of his chemical wall, leaving it to the elements and the gradually ravenous animals of the forest.

It might be because of him that the animals were getting more and more feral.

He had been performing human experiments since the end of the second war. Testing how far he could get to immortality, and the resulting failures were discarded for the animals to do with as they see fit, which mostly meant they ate the chemical ridden corpses and lapped up the liquid chemical waste he also threw out without much thought.

The man pinched the bridge of his nose and ground his teeth, struggling to centre himself. "I said," he looked up and white scales crept up his neck and speckled around his cheeks, under his eyes. "Shut. Up."

The prisoners clamped their mouths shut and covered their mouths with their hands, crying in silence as their captor paced around his table to this wall of chemicals, stepping to the window. There was a small table there with instruments littered about.

He reached for a pencil and scribbled onto an open pad of paper, Wood Cell Replication: Fail.

He had an abundance of Hashirama cells but the cells couldn't replicate if he placed them within himself; only Hashirama could replicate his own cells, basically making him immortal-though long dead now-and if he did inject himself with Hashirama cells without finding a way to activate the replication abilities then it would remain stagnant and useless.

The man's eyes flicked to a phial seated on a tripod over a Bunsen burner. Inside was a golden liquid that sparkled in the sparse lighting of the illegal laboratory.

He wasn't deceived by the bright looking liquid.

It was dangerously poisonous.

This was Mito Uzumaki's chakra in super condensed down to liquid form, not made impure by the Kyuubi's tainted chakra.

This was Orochimaru's masterwork; the continents first ever Liquid Chakra.

No scientist had ever come up with the correct formula to change chakra into liquid form and they probably wouldn't with their inferior intellect, Orochimaru thought with a deriding scoff.

He had a lab rat drink a small portion of the liquid chakra and the persons throat had dissolved, and Orochimaru could see the throat dissolve externally as well as internally. The persons tongue charred black, blackness crept down his throat with each pull of the golden liquid, black bloomed over his chest and lungs as the liquid did its toll, even as Orochimaru forced more down his mouth, his stomach turned red and then quickly changed to black as it had been burnt all the way through and finally the golden liquid escaped the man's ass, as pure as it had been ingested.

Meanwhile, when he had chakra Jiraiya's chakra into liquid, something that looked a mix between dark green and bright orange, and made another lab rat swallow it, the person took up ugly, toad-like features, short white hair and the red markings that went down Jiraiya's face imprinted itself onto the test subjects face. This transformation lasted only a minute before the nature chakra in Jiraiya's chakra became unstable and turned the subject into stone. The nature chakra could not be separated from Jiraiya's chakra, not like how Mito already had chakra different from the Kyuubi because of the Beast Containment seal.

There were finger sized scrolls organized on a corner of the table that held the parts of Mito's body. Orochimaru only really need her chakra so that he could bring out the regenerative abilities of her chakra and make it so that he could use it on himself; her parts were just in case he needed her DNA. In some other small scrolls was the DNA of Mito's late husband.

So far, he had been unable to extract the regenerative capabilities of Mito's Uzumaki chakra.

The man tapped the side of his head and looked down at the biological breakdown of Mito's liquid chakra he had written down on; on paper, it looked like the Elixir of Life but there was one component that made the chakra truly dangerous to anyone other than Mito-and probably clan mates-and this was that it was too packed together in a jumbled cluster, though the liquid itself remained smooth and light-like orange juice, for example-the liquid chakra was too strong.

"Maybe…if I watered it down…"

He scribbled down that note for later.

There was one strange thing he knew of Mito's chakra, was that whenever Hashirama's DNA was near it, when it was not sealed up, that is, the liquid would move towards it as if it was a living organism.

Orochimaru could not get his hands on the late Shodaime's chakra and it was impossible to extract chakra out of dead tissue, especially not with how long ago the tissue had been dead.

"Merge…Mito and Hashirama DNA…"

He murmured as he added another note for himself.

The man had been working on creating, not just a permanent cure for himself but on unlocking true immortality.

He had been injecting terminal cancer into his human test subjects and subsequently testing out his experiments on them.

Failures, each one of them.

When he did end up combining the DNA of Mito and Hashirama it would only be so small it would need to be seen under a microscope; there was a slim chance that their DNA would react with one another and replicate to form some sort of tissue but Orochimaru wasn't globally acclaimed as a scientist based on 'slim chances'.

Mito's chakra was being uncooperative and Hashirama cells were fatal. He could change their biological makeup but he didn't have the equipment.

He could already visualize what he would do to Mito's chakra to subdue it.

He made a mental note to meet the Sandaime for a mission to Snow country. They would have the lab tools he needed.

Orochimaru looked around with visible disgust.

While he was on the mission, he could steal as much as he wanted and find a bigger facility to operate in.

Operating on his test subjects would be so much doable them.

He coughed into his fist.

Another side project he was working on was transferring his conscience-his brain waves, his chakra, his nature chakra, his whole genetic makeup-into another totally different body. This was only if all else failed and he was pressed for time to find a cure for his kami damned illness.

"Fucking brat." Orochimaru cursed his former student. "This is the thanks I get for making someone out of you."

He turned and kicked a cage with a small girl inside, creating a large dent.

"Ungrateful little shit."

The man exhaled loudly through his nose and rubbed the sides of his head with the tips of his fingers, calming himself down; he was already troubled by the attention the village investigators were giving him concerning Mito's murder. They didn't want to believe that he was with the Sandaime while the former Kyuubi holder was being tortured and killed.

Orochimaru had been careful.

He had used a Shadow clone to keep his teacher occupied while he did the deed himself, masterfully covering up his tracks as he left. Hiruzen vouched for his innocence but the investigators were pressing down harder on him, throwing questions at him with the purpose of destabilizing them.

Orochimaru sneered, a corner of his lips turned up in laughter.

His alibi was airtight.

With each passing day, it looked like the murder case was going to be shelved. The investigators were running into brick walls with each turn and they were being side tracked by the cases of kidnapping happening across the country as well as within the village. The scientist suspected it was Danzo, because the secretive man just looked like that kind of person, but a small portion of kidnapped victims was on Orochimaru.

It was funny.

Two of the cases the Konoha Shinobi Investigators were looking through were concerned with him, and they weren't anywhere close to coming down on him.

The man hummed and scratched his chin, sifting through his wall of chemicals. He selected a closed phial and a syringe. He sucked up the dark brown contents into the needle and tore open the door of the cage he had formerly kicked. He grabbed the girl by her hair and hefted her out, immediately stabbing the needle into her neck and injecting the terminal stomach cancer he had previously selected into her system. Any struggling stopped as the girl howled with pain.

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

He strapped her down onto the table and a smile tickled along his lips.

No better way to relieve stress, he thought with a chuckle as he savoured the child's agony.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Suna Farm

Half a Kilometre from Dark country's western border

Sunagakure no Sato

Wind country

Kushina tugged on Naruto's pants leg as she beheld the amazingly large farm.

"Lord Naruto."

"You can call me 'Uncle' for now." Naruto said as he kept his eyes on the rows and rows of sprouting crops. Farmers attended to the crops here and there, and there were even small crowds of Suna citizens learning from Gado clan members and Dark country civilian farmers on how best to grow particular crops. The loan Suna was taking from Darkness didn't just go into creating the farm but also to maintaining it and, for now, the farmers were mainly Dark country and the students were from Suna. Those being taught hastily wrote down what they heard and tossed questions to their teachers. The teachers were being paid to teach Suna people how to farm for three years, which was a smaller contract Naruto made with Sabaku no Tetsuyo, and during those three years, the Suna people would slowly ease themselves into planting and growing crops. The Suna Farm didn't encompass animal rearing, as they left that part for their Dark country comrade to do; trading in animals like cattle and sheep was a sub-topic in the Dark-Sand Alliance. Naruto's country would process the products of the animals and Tetsuyo's country would buy the products at a somewhat discounted price.

The Suna and Dark country's military and trade relation was yet another alliance born out of both Leaders mutual respect for each other. Similar to Torune, Naruto and Tetsuyo kept in contact and the association between both shinobi settlements couldn't have been better.

Now…the whole thing with his official title to the Uzumaki clan was a bit messy; he was Torune's brother, making Tamaki-Torune's daughter-his niece, and Kushina-Tamaki's daughter-his grandniece. Tamaki addressed him as her brother, even while Torune was alive, and Naruto just went with it so as not to confuse little Kushina.

"Oh, ok…U-Uncle Naruto?"

"Yes?"

"I have this friend in Konoha, her name is Karin but she said I should call her," she hid her mouth behind her small hands as she giggled. "Carrot." Naruto smiled gently at her enjoyment. "She told me that Suna was building a farm." She stared out in absolute wonder of the fields and the life shooting out of the green, imported earth. "I thought she was joking…"

"You haven't heard of The Suna Farm?" Naruto asked. "As far as I know, it was big news all over the continent."

People from all over came to inquire of the farm being built in the desert but no one could get a definite answer on how successful the venture was because The Suna Farm was a secret facility that only allowed in students from Suna, Darkness teachers, Dark Sand Joint Task Force operatives that patrolled inside and along the border of the facility, high officials in both allied nations and a select few that had gotten express permission from their respective Leaders.

"Didn't your mother tell you about the farm?"

"My momma might have said something about it." a sweat drop grew on the side of the girls head as she winced.

Naruto patted her head. "Well, you can learn as much as you want while you're here."

The man then entered his 'Teacher mode'.

"I won't go into too much detail. The Suna Farm grows crops like corn, beans, yams, even apples and the like. Things like rice and tea is difficult at the moment, and they already have a place they grow their medicinal herbs." He bent down with his right hand on her shoulder and his left hand pointed at a troop of ninjas rushing off somewhere. "Those are members of the Dark Sand Joint Task Force. They are entrusted to protect the farm and also to watch over and report any kind of strange activity going on along Suna's northern border. Dark country border is protected by our Defence Corp, so we don't mind our ninjas signing up to be in the Dark Sand."

Kushina noticed that the Dark Sand ninjas wore the chunin slash jounin flak jackets and forehead protectors of their respective villages but over their bodies were white cloaks with a yellow kanji for Dark Sand Joint Task Force. The white cloaks gave them uniformity and their haste in movement made them look very professional, especially to a young girl like Kushina.

"Darkness has a thirty percent stake in The Suna Farm. That means Darkness owns thirty percent of the farm," even when the loan has been fully paid back. "So it's our duty to protect it as much as we are able. My ninjas sign up for membership and, after some really hard screening, they will be given their cloaks and their membership seal tattoos. Still though, as our ally, Darkness is obligated to look after Suna's interests as Suna as well is looking after our interests." Kushina nodded slowly in understanding. Close after Uzushio, Dark country was very close with Suna and River.

Naruto and the current River Daimyo, Kawasatoru, had established a Merchants Guild for both of their nation's mutual benefit. The building itself was in River country, seeing as that country was an acclaimed trading nation, though as long as the merchants were either from River or Darkness, there was always a place in the Guild for them to trade in wares they couldn't sell while on the road or in another village. There had only been one other nation that had been close to River, so much so that they built a Merchant Guild and that was Iron country, though after the First Great War, the Guild was torn down and relations with the samurai nation became solely formal. In time, Kushina would find out more about Dark country's relationship with its four allies.

The serious faced Dark Sand ninjas went about their work. Naruto directed the girl's attention to a separate crowd of students, singling out a boy in his mid-teens with dark red hair and a large storage scroll on his lower back. The chunin had his arms crossed and was listening in on a civilian farmer telling his class on the best way to determine if yams were ready to be harvested. "That is Sabaku no Rasa. He is the Sandaime Kazekage's oldest child. Tetsuyo is training him to take over being Suna's Kage after him."

Out of curiosity, Kushina asked. "Does he want to be a farmer?"

"No. His father tells me that he enjoys visiting the farm and he comes as many times as possible." The Uzumaki girl searched the frowning teens face for any trace of joy and looked up to the masked blonde, confused.

"He doesn't look very happy."

"Trust me, Kushina; I know that kid, he's happy."

The Suna Farm used to be a dream within a dream.

At some points in time, the Nidaime and Sandaime Kazekage had given up hope of ever realizing it.

Then Naruto and his country came along with the alliance proposal.

During the alliance talk, Tetsuyo had brought the idea before his fellow Leader, showing him blueprints and plans and a comprehensive list of crops expected to be grown there, doing everything in his power to convince his legendary counterpart to support him and his village, and Naruto, greatly surprising the man-seeing as he didn't now Naruto had planned well ahead of their alliance talk with Sueki-, had immediately cut him a deal.

A ten billion ryu loan, split into five hundred million every year, and a small portion of ownership of the farm. The latter ownership was more for Darkness to take some of the credit for the success of the farm, though the small size of such ownership was so as to keep them in the background.

Thirty percent of the farm was nothing compared to the feeling of finally making their dreams come true.

True to Naruto's words, Kushina caught a flicker, an invisible crack, on Rasa's face.

"This farm is very important to not just Suna, but to Darkness as well." There really wasn't a way of saying this without sounding conceited, so Naruto went on. "Suna wasn't doing so well; food was expensive and water was dirty and hard to find. Darkness has contributed mostly in lowering food prices for Sand and in the drilling of wells and boreholes in the desert, which is really hard. When its harvest time, both Suna and Darkness would see a boom in trade with unallied villages and countries for the crops." he looked to the child. "Do…you understand what I'm saying?"

The girl bobbed her head. "Yes, uncle."

"Food prices would be the same between Suna and Darkness but it would be higher for anyone else." Yes, even for Naruto's other allies, not unless they reached an agreement with Suna or they bought Suna produce through Dark country. Thirty percent ownership didn't give Darkness authority to change price of crops going to unallied. The quality of the produce would be high, that much was undeniable, so once others got a taste it would be in high demand. "Dark Sand would have their work cut out for them in defending the farm."

The Leader then rubbed his hands and said to the knowledge-absorbent Uzumaki.

He nodded backwards to a willow tree behind them a short distance from the entrance to the exclusive farm. "We'll rest under that tree."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Dark Leader huffed as he sat down, leaning back into the tree and inhaling calmly, enjoying the fresh air.

Kushina hesitantly plodded to him and sat down by his side, crossing her legs and squeezing the end of her dress in her small hands. The masked blonde opened an eye and asked her.

"What do you think of The Suna Farm, kid?"

"I-Its big." She then turned to the man and asked. "Does Darkness have its own farm? Like this one?"

"Something like that." the man began. "We have a farm just as big as this one in the western region and there are smaller farms all over the west and south. Unlike The Suna Farm, the big farm in the west rears animals. There's the bee farm in the northern region managed by the Suzumebachi clan," the clan of wasp holders, the redhead filled-in in her head. There was only one bee farm in the country and it was the one that controlled the circulation of honey. "There is also a fishery in our southern region, also within Pansa-Senshi region. Our farms have been operating for the past six years now and they are mostly managed by the Pansa-Senshi clan."

"The panther people?"

Naruto nodded with a smile. "Yes. Their history is steeped with hunting, cooking and growing their own food." This, among many other things Naruto had told her and was going to tell her, was a topic that was going to be taught in the Ninja Academy, but the man didn't see any reason to keep the girl in the dark until next year's resumption date. Though he had to inquire, "Do you want to know their history?"

"Yes, please."

Naruto told her a short version of the history of the Pansa-Senshi clan.

The clan of shapeshifters used to live on an island south of the continent. The island was wild and near inhabitable, with all the wild animals, killer infections and natural death traps here and there. They had persevered and stayed on the island, hunting and gathering. A way for the clan to not fall into the despair after losing a clan mate or from a lacklustre harvest was in cooking. The panther people had been living in houses in the trees, so predators found it very hard to reach the source of the tantalizing smells.

Then one day, the earth just stopped yielding.

There was no reasonable explanation.

The soil turned into black silt, the trees withered and were unable to hold the houses in their branches. Even the water around the island and in the island became poison, forcing them to venture outwards in search of cleaner water to bring back.

The first recognized clan head in their history ordered them all to pack up, and they did so, setting sail northwards to the continent, where they encountered the Kemuri-Smoke clan-and the Suzumebachi already inhabiting what would later be known as Dark country.

Dark country was the second oldest human settlement on the continent, and the clan of panther shapeshifters made their homes in the western and southern regions, where the soil was fertile, coincidentally bordering Wind country. Some years later, the Kurama would come in from the west, the Chui-Inku would come from the east, the Hogo emerged from their burrows and the Gado would come out of the earth of the northern region.

The young Uzumaki sat there, amazed.

"Have you ever seen one shapeshift?"

Kushina searched her memory for a time she had ever witness a human being change into a panther. She shook her head.

"It easily is one of the coolest things you'll ever see. Really." Naruto said with a sure nod. "You'll get to see it when you start school."

The girl looked down to the grass and a whirlwind of things rushed into her head; first was the fascinating sight of seeing a human change into clay and seamlessly merge with the ground. Suzuyi had shown her what her teammate could do when it came to fighting and Kushina would admit without a shadow of a doubt that it was friggin awesome. Then there was the Wasp clan and their ability to see nearly all around them and also their pinpoint archery accuracy. She was also interested to see how they could use their colonies to battle, because Sueki had told her how deadly a Suzumebachi wasp could be for other people. Then there was Naruto's clan, the Kemuri, that had been born with two chakra affinities and could create truly staggering jutsu. The Kemuri she had seen on the training ground yesterday did not really use their Smoke release-but rather they used water or fire release-but they were wildly strong. Now her idol was telling her that there was another clan of people that could do something as awesome as changing form from human to animal.

The prospect of attending the Dark country Ninja Academy was becoming more and more appealing for the girl.

It was probably the first time in her whole life that she wanted time to fast forward and she could be able to sit in class and learn more about the country she intended to serve. She might have the chance to access the Dark-born citizen Assassination Technique classes, though this didn't dim her enthusiasm.

Naruto chuckled at the light tremor of the girl's hands. He could see the girl's true behaviour slowly peak out as she continued talking with him. Tamaki had said that Kushina was a rowdy, impulsive, boyish girl that was occasionally hard to control because she had so much pent up energy.

Kushina's mother had even said that the girl had an adorable verbal tick.

Naruto had yet to hear it, though he eagerly kept his ear out for it.

"This home of ours will be nothing without the contribution of each and every person. Clan or no clan, and now that we have four great alliances with four cooperative places there really is no stopping us now." The Leader smirked. Then his eyes dimmed fractionally as he asked. "While you were in Konoha, did you ever get a chance to look around?"

"My momma said that I shouldn't go anywhere without granny."

"Your mother is a smart lady." Kushina visibly brightened up at the praise to her mother. "Was Mito able to show you around?"

"Sometimes." The girl shrugged, looking back out to the fields and the hardworking people on it. "Granny was tired most of the time, so we couldn't only go out for walks together once or twice a week." Then she added with a faint stutter. "B-B-But Uncle Nawaki took me to the park whenever he's not on a mission."

"That's…Tsunade's younger brother, right?"

"Yes."

"Was there anything you noticed there?"

"There weren't that many of my clan mates in the village."

Naruto conceded to that point. "Yes, true, what else?"

"Things cost a lot…?" Kushina reluctantly supplied, a bit unsure of the point she raised. While she had been in the village for six-seven months, Tsunade had enrolled her into the villages Ninja Academy and the Senju had been visibly surprised by the school fees the Director had put forward. Another time, Mito was taking her and Carrot to the market to buy fruits and the seller had called three times the price for a bunch of bananas than they could get in Dark country. So Mito ended up asking Umara Kurama to contact Naruto and ask if he could send her the items on the list, which Naruto quickly did through the Kurama clan head. Mito Uzumaki refused to be ripped off.

"Good." Naruto said, both at the point and in relief that Kushina hadn't ventured out on her own into the darker parts of the Leaf village. He got up and watched as the girl rose back onto her feet as well, dusting down her dress for errant specks of grass. "Are you tired?"

"No." the girl answered.

"We'll take a walk to the northern region and I'll show you the Dark Forest. With some luck, we'll be able to see some animals."

After that, Naruto would take the girl to see a Blind Test of Strength happening in the Hogo clan compound. The Blind Test of Strength was a yearly tradition of the clay people that occurred before winter; anyone was free to attend. The Hogo people would put up a complex demonstration alongside their clans mole summons in a show of might. It looked like a play to outsiders but it bore a deeper importance to the mole people, as every action told the story of how the very first Hogo child was abandoned in a dark cave and how the Mole Elder had taken the child in and raised him as his own. The highly traditional clan performed this 'play' every year to remember their humble beginnings and show the rest of the country their current strength.

Naruto had met the staggeringly old Mole Elder once before, at the insistence of Nanako Hogo, the clan's head and Director of the Southern Region's Defence Corp. This meeting had happened in the real world-not the summoning realm-and it occurred two years after the civil war ended, when their country was gradually rebuilding itself and Naruto had been less swamped with his duties. The old summons approved of Naruto's strength and had given the Leader his blessing.

Then Naruto and Kushina would move back to the capital and watch a puppet show a popular Suna entertainer was to hold an hour after midday. The story, as advertised by the entertainer as she asked for Naruto's permission, was of a samurai princess who had given herself the task of freeing her lover from the demonic possession of seven entities, one for each day. The woman had promised that it was packed with action, suspense and romance, and it was a story for all ages. The puppet master had a flair for the dramatic and she had a good following back in Suna-a village with more than a few puppet masters-, so Naruto was nothing if not interested to watch the story.

They would rest and have lunch in a café for thirty minutes, then proceed south to see how they could help families there prepare for the forecasted snow storm. The southern region was the place first and worst hit by the blizzard and Naruto wanted to make sure they felt included and thought of. It would give Kushina a chance to mingle with the children and learn how the people there reinforced their houses and property against the inevitable snow storm. Helping them could take a while and Naruto wanted to ensure that Kushina had time to have fun, so it would consume most of their time, but that was fine.

By evening, the Leader would take the girl to the Chui-Inku clan compound in the eastern region concerning Amara Chui-Inku's invitation to watch her clan mates perform their last practice before the ballet dance that would happen in the End of the Term Festival of both Academies. The clan head and Director of the National Bank wanted the man to come and watch in case he was too busy to see it happen during the festival. Naruto wanted to use that chance to expose Kushina to another clan of fuinjutsu masters, besides her own. The Grim Ink release users had an astonishing way of making and using seals. It should be about eight or nine in the night when they were done, so they would return to the capital and do some furniture and carpet shopping to end their day.

If Kushina remembered the question he posed to her by then, then he would decide if he should or shouldn't train her.

He wasn't going to remind her.

It was all up to her.

They began an easy trek towards the Hogo clan compound in the northern region.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Several hours later

Grim Ink Theatre

Chui-Inku clan compound

Eastern region

Dark country

"One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three-" Amara clapped her hands in tune to her counting, her eyes kept track of each of the ten ballet dancers fluttering across the stage, elegantly strutting and posing, pirouetting and skipping to the beat their clan head was making. Fast paced music began playing fro off the stage.

The dancers were in perfect sync, spinning on the tips of their toes in circles, flicking out their other legs and bounding forward as one.

The ballet dancers were in dark green leotards and airy white skirts, they danced on green ballet flats.

Ten more dancers came in from each side, a few men and a few women, six from the left and four from the right, this new group were in black leotards and misty black veils over their faces. Their horns gave their veiled faces an even more eerie look.

A spotlight from above the staged flicked on and singled out a single girl, wearing a tattered red dress that floated with each step, black tights and black ballet shoes. Her horns were painted a hypnotic red and white that seemed to turn with her as she moved about the stage. Amara voice receded as the dance went on, eventually becoming a low whisper till the woman said no more. The red dress wearing dancer spun across the stage, then she was dragged back by three of the green leotard wearing dancers, away from the snapping grasp of black leotards and their ill-intentioned looks. Fear entered the main dancer's face as she fled from the demons; the green leotards threw themselves after her, blocking the evil dancers from bringing getting a hold of her. Ten green leotards reduced to two and the ten black leotards went up from ten to eighteen, converting the fallen protectors to their side as they elegantly pursued the Jade Phantasm.

The music became more hurried.

The spotlight diligently followed the red clothed ballet dancer, the Jade Phantasm, keeping careful track of the fright and alarm awash on her face.

Two demons finally grabbed onto each of her hands, pulling her back and forth as the others heckled and laughed, throwing the Phantasm's last protectors into the backstage. Her turning red and white painted horns stopped as the main dancer cried mutely, pleading for help.

Naruto, his head perched on his fist and raptly watching the performance, honestly wondered how it would end.

The red and white of her horns turned pure green and her red dress also flickered to the colour of the forest. The demons began to panic as power gathered into the girl's eyes, but a single demon grabbed the girl from behind and whispered sweet, alluring words into her ear, smiling devilishly as she drained the Phantasm of her strength.

Finally the main dancer fell limp in the tempting demons arms and the light went off.

The spotlight beamed down once again, this time showing the main dancer sluggishly walking, her eyes dull and empty and her tattered green dress now taking a weaker hue of emerald. Her striped horns were completely black. Five kids, not older than seven, yipped and skipped around the main dancer, crowing like imps.

Kushina grasped her heart with shaky hands, already expecting the worst. This was cemented as the main dancer fell onto her knees and curled up into a foetal position, soundlessly crying into her knees as the short devils jeered and insulted her, all without making a single sound leave their lips.

The music turned mournful and riddled with pain.

The Uzumaki girl gasped into her hand as the main dancer stopped breathing and the last trace of green on her clothing leached out of her body and into the ground.

There was absolute silence as the stage once again faded into black.

A lady in a pure white body suit bound onto the stage, passing where the Phantasm had previously been lying, lightly and quickly stepping on her toes as she exited the stage. Another woman, this one in a black body suit, passed the pitch black stage, her pale white face bobbing and bouncing gracefully as she too left as quickly as she had entered.

Suddenly, a tree made out of green, red, black and blue ink rose up from the place the main dancer had previously been, its branches sprouting far and wide and creeping outwards like living tendrils.

A large dark red eye opened on the wide trunk of the three and pulsating, glowing red fruit slowly began growing from the branches. Light gradually returned to the stage to show weapons and human bodies littered about the base of the demonically gazing tree. Low white mist rolled from the right and covered the bodies of the dead warriors. The ten original demons re-emerged from the mist and clambered up the ink tree, mutely chattering as they fought to reach even one of the trees fruits. Several tendrils wrapped around the demons and yanked them into the branches, never to be seen again.

Silence returned to the stage and, half a minute after witnessing the semi-satisfactory demise of the demons that had murdered the Jade Phantasm, a young girl that was clearly a princess of some unknown land, danced her way onto the stage and looked up into the branches of the tree with wide, intrigued eyes.

The red eye flicked to the girl.

A branch lowered itself, bearing a single red fruit.

The princess took the fruit and bit into it.

The light went off for the last time and the music stopped.

Naruto shot to his feet and clapped loudly. "Amazing! Spectacular! Well done! Well done!"

The light on the stage came back on and all the dancers, even the main dancer, flooded back on and took a deep bow to the clapping man. Naruto's ward joined in, after wiping her tears, and began clapping in appreciation. The dancers turned to their right and Amara walked before them, clasping a clipboard to her chest and beaming proudly. She too took a bow.

The ballet dancers talked among themselves in hurried, excited voices, immensely pleased that their Leader was happy with their performance.

Amara hopped down from the stage and walked up to her Leader as he retook his seat. The dancers left to go back to their dresser, far too cheerful to keep their voices low. The young clan head took her seat beside Naruto, making the number of people sitting in the audience three, except for the ink clan guards standing in strategic places within the theatre. Naruto didn't like going about within his country with guards, so the green and white haired lady took it upon herself to give Naruto a security detail whilst he was in her care; the biggest threat being some of her clan mates who couldn't control themselves around him, preferring to throw themselves at him without much thought.

"Was that a true story, Amara?" Naruto asked and Kushina looked too.

"I'm not sure. It's based off of a dream my grandmother had. She claims its real but…it seems too farfetched."

"Long ago, people lived in a time of wonder and discovery…or so you told me." Amara was an archaeologist after all. The woman had dug up and dated many priceless artifacts after the Civil War and put them up for display in the National Museum. "It might not be impossible for a god tree-whatever that is-to be born from a dead spirit."

Amara teetered. "Ehhh…" some dancers began clearing up the stage. "I don't believe there were actual spirits and imps walking on the earth at any point in time. There just hasn't been proof." She saw the look in Naruto's blue eyes and she scoffed. "For my clan, it's different."

"So…you believe your clans origin story…but you don't believe in spirits…?"

"There is actual proof for our own." The Goth shot back to the blonde, trying to be respectful in her retort. "In the bone formation of long dead, old members of my clan we found at the bottom of the ocean, arguably the first ever to step on the earth, they have small outgrowths on their backs."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Similar to wings, yes."

"And," Amara continued, standing on her ground. "In the base of their skull is a drawing of the sun and moon, and we have determined years ago that they weren't etched on but rather came naturally."

"Hey, hey, I'm not insulting your clan origins."

"I know, Lord Naruto. I just feel like I should explain it better." Amara visibly calmed down and cast her lime green eyes downwards, subservient to her Lord. The petite lady cleared her throat and tucked a stray strand of her green and white gradient hair aside. "Pardon my behaviour, my lord."

"Come on, Amara, its fine." Naruto said, waving off the apology. "Keep on defending your heritage stubbornly."

The Grim Ink clan had a belief that the first two clan mates were born from the sun, on a boat far east of the continent. The children had wings and horns, the former of which were shed and the latter remained till date. It was argued within the clan whether or not the children were actually defective angels that had been abandoned by Kami or were simply off springs of the literal sun. All signs pointed to them being born from the sun. Amara was of the opinion that they weren't abandoned angels but children of the sun.

The Grim Ink clan and the Paint clan were cousin-clans in respect to their fascination with art.

Amara jumped when Naruto abruptly asked her. "I was wondering…could you give Kushina here a small demonstration of your Grim Ink release bloodline? It's to expand how she sees and perceives fuinjutsu."

"Ah, no problem, my lord. Please, let's go to the training grounds." She made a few quick hand signals to the Chui-Inku security team of their precious Leader and they nodded curtly, running ahead of them to clear out a training ground as well as ward onlookers away so as to give them privacy.

The Uzumaki seals weren't in any way faulty, seeing as some of their seals were being used all over the continent for various purposes. The same could be said to the ink clan's method of creating seals, though they kept their seals closer to their home than the clan of redheads. There were many Uzumaki created or improved seals across the continent.

The sun had begun setting as they reached an isolated training ground, an average looking place with short grass and spare tress, and the woman began.

A paint brush shot out of her sleeve and Naruto admired the dark blue Dark wood and the white horse hair collected at the top into a smooth point. Black ink leaked from the base of the brush head to the tip of the white horse hair fibre and Amara swiped through the air, writing a basic 'X' stroke in mid-air, holding up a half Tiger seal with her left hand as she placed a quick poke to the centre of the 'X'.

The seal bolted to a tree a large distance away and Amara muttered.

"Katsu."

Booooooom!

Kushina marvelled as Amara looked at her from the corner of her eyes, a smirk glinting on her face as hot air rushed past them, casting a faint glow to the woman's pale face. The girl had heard of how an Uzumaki that had Chakra Chains could use the chains to draw a seal on a surface and activate it, but she had never seen someone draw the seal in the air and cast it to its target. The girl immediately began brainstorming on how Amara could summon ink without a visible storage seal and how she, a budding sensor, couldn't feel any chakra from the ink; Kushina was still on the Basic Stroke Practice phase of her now on and off fuinjutsu training with her mother, so she couldn't think of any rational seal that could pull off the amazing feat.

The clan head looked to Naruto, searching for approval, and she got a wide smile from the cerulean eyed man. She felt her heart flutter and she swept around to the fire being doused by Naruto's security detail. This time she swiped her brush downwards, black ink flowed from her brush and formed to parallel vertical lines. She finished the seal by slashing the two lines diagonally and tapping the centre once again.

The seal cracked and split on two, one shooting left and the other careening forward in a blur of black ink. The one flying left imprinted itself onto a rock and the other stapled itself onto a tree.

"Hiden art: Grim Ink release: Inanimate Object Switch technique."

The tree changed place with the rock, going as far as even the roots digging their way into the earth. Though, seeing as the rock had a wider base than the tree, there was a visible patch of earth around the tree that it couldn't fill.

The secret to Amara not bringing out any pot of ink to cast seals was that, as a Rite of Passage before a Chui-Inku clan member could truly be recognized as a ninja and brought into the fold, the person would have to make his own painting brush and the brush fibres from scratch, meaning they had to enter the Dark Forest, take a branch from a Dark tree that 'felt warm', plucked hair from the animal that 'allowed them' and combined it all together to get a strong, sturdy brush. When this was done and the brush was created, the ink clan member would have to draw three micro-storage seals onto each and every fibre on the head of the brush, push their chakra into a large vat of ink presented to them by the elders and use the tiny storage seal on the brush to suck up every last drop of the ink from the vat.

It was a whole ceremony.

It was also a close secret to the clan, and people's minds never went to micro-storage seals because that idea was simply impossible.

The only outsider that knew the clan secrets-hell, the only outsider that knew all the secrets of all the clans in Dark country-was their Supreme Commander, Naruto.

Ketsueki Sakenomi was a member of the secretive clan, so she was privy to this knowledge, though she didn't truly apply it to herself, seeing as she already had her own 'thing' going on, what with her blood manipulation and the Vampire Empress moniker.

The vampire was the only exception to the centuries old clan tradition.

The clan head made ink senbon rain down from the sky and, with each needle embedded into a surface, blew them up in a blaze of glory.

Amara's last display had Kushina's mind reeling; the woman summoned ink into the air and formed an upside down 'V'-what the redhead recognized as the basic seal for 'cool' for when an item was hot-, drew a stroke resembling a lopsided 'T' and tapped the centre.

"Hiden art: Grim Ink release: Inanimate Object Transformation."

The small rock the seal landed on visibly warbled and white smoke burst outwards. The smoke dispersed an ordinary looking cardboard box.

Naruto sent a glance to the woman and she shook her head slightly; she couldn't tell Kushina about how this could come about. It was against Clan Law, and it could only be broken by an order from him, Naruto.

The clan secret being that Chui-Inku chakra had the power to physically change the form of an object and a person for a specific amount of time, depending on the strength of the user and the amount of chakra being used. So far, only Amara and two other clan mates could do this. The limitations to this being that once the chakra ran out the object or person would turn back to normal. If, say, an object was placed into the box and it changed back, then the object would be stuck in the centre of the reformed rock. Depending on the amount of chakra and ink used, the complexity of the transformation and the detail put into it, the strain on the user was monumental and so they couldn't keep, for example, a human transformation on for longer than ten minutes. It took time to create too.

Aside from this, Chui-Inku fighters were very proficient in their sealing art and in their martial arts, seeing as they were close to mid-range fighters. Their brushes could be refilled once the ink had been used up and there was constant study to create more seal combinations.

Naruto tapped his chin and made a mental note to ask Amara for a spar later that week, probably after the End of the Term Festival.

"Lady Amara, I have a question."

Reluctance flashed through Amara's face. She smiled quickly and stashed her brush into her pocket. "Yes?"

"Is it possible for someone outside of your clan to do all of that?"

"Uhm…"

Naruto saw that she didn't want to break Kushina's hopes, so he spoke for her. "Their chakra is keyed specifically to manipulating ink, kid. So far, no one else can do it." Kushina's face fell and Naruto rolled his eyes. He then slyly suggested. "Though…it's possible for someone super smart and super skilled to replicate it."

The Goth clan head noticed what her Leader was doing and nodded in agreement. "No one has ever done it right…"

Naruto scratched the back of his head and looked away, humming lowly. "But…I don't know…can…you do it…Kushina…?"

The fire from the morning burned in Kushina's purple eyes. "I can do it."

"Pshhhh…I don't know…"

"I said, I can do it." her voice was low, rumbling.

"Hmm? Did you say something?"

Amara hid her smile behind her hand as she watched Naruto casually cast his eyes away from the girl as Kushina, that adorable little runt, stood before her idol with her hands balled into fists so tight her small knuckles were white. Her teeth was grinded against each other at the offhanded dismissal of her abilities and her straight hair separated, forming nine dangerous looking tendrils and waving about as the child struggled to put a cap on her emotions.

Naruto stuffed his hands into his pockets as Kushina whispered mutely, her eyes closed hard. "I don't quite hear you, kid."

"I said…" she grabbed Naruto's flak jacket and roared, right in his face. "I can do it! Dattebane!"

Silence bathed the clearing…before Amara erupted into chirping laughs, holding her belly as Kushina finally realized herself.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh." Her face was horror struck, taking an unhealthy red hue and her lips wiggled with embarrassment. She released her crush's jounin vest with a wild jolt and stumbled backwards, falling onto her bottom.

"Aww~" Amara cooed, pinching her red cheeks. Clan Law wasn't being broken if Kushina found her own way around the puzzle, instead of being fed by an ink user. It was certainly the first time someone had taken an interest in deciphering another way to manifest seals, seeing as Uzumaki preferred to continue using their own fuinjutsu style and fuinjutsu itself was a complicated art that needed total dedication. Amara saw seal work as enjoyable, and the determination she saw in Kushina reminded her of when she first began studying seals. "I believe in you, kiddo."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ROOT Main Hideout

Somewhere in Konoha

Fire country

Danzo hummed to himself at the report.

"He's not leaving anything for chance huh…" his face didn't shift with emotion or indicate the frustration he was feeling inside.

"He also entrusts the boy to Sakumo Hatake when he goes on missions, Lord Danzo." One of the three blank masked operatives mumbled, deferring to his master. "We are unable to approach the Hatake clan."

Danzo turned away from them and said quietly. "It seems Sakumo isn't as resentful of Minato as the others. I cant allow such a child to live."

"What do you want us to do, Master?"

"Keep an eye on him for now." The man answered as he looked at a priceless painting from the Kurama clan head of a four headed tiger razing down a village. "Take him down once you see your chance."

The three stoic ninjas knew their master didn't care if, after the assassination of the seven year old boy, they were killed. They were his tools and he could use them as he saw fit.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Mist's Very Own Home Furniture, Fixtures and Appliances

Dark Capital Market District

The Capital

Dark country

Naruto was man enough to admit that the obnoxiously named Kiri store had basically anything and everything any average family would need to furnish their home.

Of all Naruto's four allies, the one Darkness had with Mist was more cordial than anything, even if the Kage, Gengetsu Hozuki, as flamboyant as he was, continually encouraged his shinobi and his civilians to make the Dark people in his village more welcome. Their alliance was in the traditional format; military aid for whoever needs it, defence would come at any time as long as it could be provided, travelling between both places was allowed, shops and business could be set up as long as it abided by the law and finally, families and individuals could settle down as long as their Entrance seals permitted, unless occasionally renewed.

It differed from the alliance with, say, Suna, because that alliance went deeper and was less formal than anything the Sand village had ever done; ninjas could go on joint missions, visitors could stay in the village or country for up to five years before they had to renew their Entrance seals, citizenship could be given though under strict scrutiny, the Dark National Bank could provide loans or financial support to Suna citizens-or Suna born Dark citizens, and vice versa-, Suna extended more permission for Dark visitors to access some facilities and services other allies could not attain, and one significant thing was the establishment of the Dark Sand, one of the ultimate signs of a village joining forces.

Naruto didn't see anything truly beneficial in the alliance with Kiri. It could be that Gengetsu and Kiri scouted out Darkness and saw the future prosperity, wanted to get a slice and so the Mizukage sent out an alliance request.

The best things that came out of their alliance was that his ninjas were getting more adept in fighting in low visibility-though training in the desert gave Dark assassins more heat tolerance over time-and the Bi-Annual Genin Evaluation Examination, which would occur between both shinobi settlements, pitting both of their ninjas against each other in all-out warfare, tournament style, to find out which genin squad was more qualified for a promotion to chunin. This event only occurred between Darkness and Mist, but Suna and Uzushio wanted to get in on the action as well, River too, though the trading nation was more reserved in its request to enter the Bi-Annual Exam. The exams have happened only twice-which is one year.

The battles fostered common respect for both of their ninja forces and when time came round for the event to take place, there was a rapid surge in businesses being temporarily or permanently set up in the host location, increasing revenue and money circulation in the respective economies, so Naruto wasn't too against the alliance anymore.

The opportunity for his ninjas to see and witness the power of the Three Tailed Turtle was also something Naruto enjoyed. Yes, the turtle preferred to wade the water far off Kiri's shore, but it was still within the country's border and it hadn't posed any problem for centuries.

It was similar to how Suna kept the One Tailed Raccoon in check; Tetsuyo used his iron sand to weigh down the beast and keep it docile in a remote cave somewhere in Sunagakure territory.

The furniture and appliance store Naruto was in, Mist's Very Own Home Furniture, Fixtures and Appliances, was set up by a small caravan of Kiri civilians. The blonde even remembered the day and time the small group had come by his Kemuri Office to ask his permission to set up the business. There hadn't been any formal alliance with Kiri as of that time, so nearly everything had to pass through Naruto before it could come to fruition. Now, when outsiders or citizens wanted to establish business they would have to go to one of the many offices in the Civilian Division's Headquarters in the capital or to a branch office in the four regions and formally file for permission, instead of meeting Naruto-seeing as he delegated that power to them when business requests became too many to investigate and scrutinize-. The group of Kiri traders informed him that they had been bolstered on by their Kage and openly admitted that they were taking a big risk in setting up shop in the Silent Nation.

Now look at them, three years later.

Their business had three floors of merchandise and services, including plumbers and electricians.

Best part, to Naruto, was that the Kiri business pumped a great deal of money into Dark country.

Kushina was looking over a few shelves of small, square carpet samples before him and the masked man was eyeing a dark blue couch on display. It wasn't too fluffy or flashy but it looked dangerously comfortable.

There was a saleslady, clearly from the Hozuki clan, with her shark-like teeth and her black sclera and blue pupil eyes, making subtle motions to the couch. She knew who he was, obviously, and she also knew how business would boom once word got out that the Leader had fallen asleep on one of their couches while he was testing it out. it would give a big advantage over the competitors within the country, like an equally popular home furniture and appliance store owned by a Dark born Uzumaki couple.

The man was jerked out of the tantalizing thought of slumbering on the couch by a small tap on his shoulder. His turned around and his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to remember the person standing before him.

The person, carrying a hook staff strapped to his back, a long coat over his ninja garb and a Kiri forehead protector, mumbled in disappointment. "It's Yagura, Lord Naruto."

"Ah, yes, Yagura." Naruto said with a nervous chuckle. "I was just about to say that."

The Mizukage's prospective successor frowned. "You keep forgetting my name, sir."

"What brings you here, Yagura?" Naruto asked with a smile, shifting the conversation away from how he found it hard to remember the man's name.

Yagura's eyes narrowed fractionally, then he shrugged. "I was looking for new tiles for my kitchen. I plan on spending winter here."

Naruto didn't bother asking what was wrong with the tiles already in the kitchen; Owners of their houses were at liberty to alter the decoration of the rooms as they saw fit, only renters couldn't do that. So Naruto assumed Yagura had purchased his house. Natural born citizens-including allied nations born in Dark territory-had the privilege of getting free housing and accommodations, aside from hotels, motels and guesthouses, but allied foreigners had to either pay rent of their accommodations or buy it at the average price used around the continent, the former option was better, seeing as they had to renew their Entrance seals every once in a while. Healthcare was cheap and affordable for the foreigners-meaning they paid for it but the cost wasn't obnoxious or unattainable-and education was completely free. Allied foreigners paying for housing and healthcare contributed to the increase in the country's money reserves.

Non-allied foreigners were not allowed entry into the country.

It was one of the reasons unallied nations and villages were curious, and threatened, by the secret prosperity of the Silent Nation.

"Where's your apartment?" Naruto wondered.

"Eastern region. There are some flats that were recently completed and I moved into one of them." Naruto had been informed of the completion of one of the many houses. One of the things he did yesterday was issue an order to the Civilian Department to not build any more houses or accommodations anywhere in the country; there were over a hundred unoccupied houses spotted around the country and Naruto's council didn't estimate any drastic increase in population until ten or so years. The other order he made to the Civilian Department was to finish any building construction and to regularly maintain the houses until they were rented or bought.

"Are you aware that winter in the country is very harsh?"

"I'm aware. The reason I'm spending it here is to help in any way I can."

A corner of Naruto's eyes quirked up as he smirked. "That's nice of you."

"I don't mean to offend-" the next Mizukage hastily said, thinking the worst.

"No offense taken."

"I'm sure your ninjas have the situation handled." The other man explained. "Gengetsu-sensei recommended I come and lend my support." He bowed and said. "I am in your service, Lord Naruto."

"Glad to have you, Yagura."

As Kushina rubbed a carpet sample in her hands, the Kiri ninja muttered to Naruto. "Is that the Kyuubi jinchuriki?"

"Yup."

"The beast seal…is it…?"

"I wouldn't risk the safety of my people if I wasn't sure the seal would hold the nine tails down."

"And the people know of her status?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"The villages I have gone to have not been too friendly to jinchuriki." It was why the Three Tailed Turtle and the One Tailed Raccoon were not sealed into people. Naruto knew the history of jinchuriki running wild with beast chakra and unwillingly rebelling against their superiors; it had happened twice in Kumo within the past two years and twice in Iwa in one year. The man observed how Kushina freely went down the aisle in search for the perfect carpet. "With all due respect, why is here any different?"

"Well, for starters, everyone in the country-shinobi and civilian-has, to an extent, passed through our Academies. They know the basic fundamentals of how a seal works." The Kiri ninja acknowledged to that fact; he had heard of how, during the Rehabilitation and Re-education Phase of rebuilding Darkness, every person was given basic education. This phase was to reinforce the confidence the people had in their ninjas. "Next is that I trust Mito's seal." The late Uzumaki being a fuinjutsu master at the peak of art. Torune had also inspected the work before he passed. "And last is that I have my best seal master from the Chui-Inku clan look over the seal every once in a while."

Yagura smiled lopsidedly at the man's caution. "I'll have to hand it to you, you are very careful."

"When it comes to the wellbeing my people, and my allies, I should be no less thorough."

Part of the reality was that, since Naruto was at ease with living with the holder of the most powerful beast on the planet, then his people followed his example and relaxed around Kushina.

"Any decent Leader in my position would prioritize the lives of their people over all else."

Those same words would echo through Yagura's minds for years to come.

No wonder people respected Naruto so much, the man murmured in his mind; the Mizukage, the Kazekage, the Raikage, the past and present River Daimyo, a whole slew of people important shinobi across the continent, they had the utmost respect for the man standing before him.

Then there was another portion of the world that absolutely feared Naruto.

That side couldn't muster up the courage to openly call him by his name; they referred to him by the title he had been given during the second war.

The Ghost.

Among the things Yagura considered very important was for him, personally, to not get on the bad side of the infamous Ghost. He heard what happened to Kakuzu, it wasn't that much of a secret around the country and among Naruto's allies.

Yagura had been brainstorming for a long time on what to do once he became Kage that would cement Kiri's mutual relationship with Darkness hopefully until the end of time. Not out of fear of the Ghost, but out of desire for his village to grow with the Darkness.

Sunagakure had the Dark Sand Joint Task Force.

River had the Merchants Guild.

Uzushiogakure was essentially brother-nations with Darkness.

The Chunin Exams was a step in the right direction though.

He momentarily shook the thought from his head and Naruto asked him. "If you really want to see how you can help, report to Amara when you can and inquire if there's anything for you to do. If there's nothing, then we'll put you on the Shinobi Reserve List." His blue eyes glanced to the man briefly, returning back to his ward. "You know what that means, right?"

"If or when I see someone in need, then I lend a hand." Yagura recited. It was basically what any other person in the country did.

"I apologize if your winter is too uneventful."

"An uneventful winter is what I hope for, my lord."

Naruto chuckled and amiably slapped Yagura on the back. "That's exactly right."

"Uncle!" Kushina waved, holding up a small square carpet sample. "This one."

Naruto jerked his head towards an attendant and flicked his eyes to his charge. She quickly rushed over and politely collected the sample, leaving for the backroom to bring the whole carpet out. Kushina went on ahead and selected a wallpaper sample.

"Have you found the kitchen tiles you were looking for?"

The future Mizukage shook his head. "Not yet."

Naruto pointed at the couch he had formerly been ogling, three similarly coloured chairs, a coffee table for his parlour and a few shelves, because he was planning on turning the house's attic into their personal library and storage unit for old items. For the old furniture they were replacing, Sueki had proposed she take them to a pawn shop to sell.

Naruto collected the storage scroll, sifted through the items sealed inside and paid for them. He waved goodnight to the Kiri ninja and proceeded out of the store with Kushina.

The sun had set by this time, so the street lights illuminated the road and police officers were on their rounds. So far, only a few shops were open, and they were restaurants and bars. Some carriages rumbled up and down the road, transporting families and trading wares about the capital.

A couple of officers bowed to their Leader as he strolled down the sidewalk. The blonde nodded back to them and squinted up ahead at a tarp covered building that towered over everything; it could almost be seen all the way from the different regions.

The contractor, by Naruto's order, had put a halt on the building of the Leader's Tower and postponed it until after winter. The lights coming from the site were just workings reinforcing the building to strong winds and the cold. The building was now covered because it was in its last week before completion and they wanted it to be a surprise for their Leader.

Naruto was excited.

The contractor said he only made a few infinitesimally small changes to the original plans, but it was no less a tower fit for their master.

It would be the centre of the country.

It would be a physical show of the Power of Darkness.

The grand reveal and opening would come before the Academies were opened for the new semester.

There was a cheerful, jittery, hyper enthusiastic buzz going through the people in preparation of the historical event.

The masked blonde looked down when he felt a tug on his pants leg. He smiled at the girl, still a bit distracted by the tower. "Hmm?"

"I have the answer for your question."

"Which question?"

"The one from this morning…"

"…Oh!" Naruto snapped his fingers in realization. "Yes, right. What's your answer?"

"I want to be your student because…" churning purple orbs clashed with jovial sky blue. "Learning from you and training under you is the only way I can become the next Leader of Darkness."

The girl experienced a lot today.

She had seen how important each ally was to Dark country and how, in turn, Dark country was important to them. She saw the fervour and eagerness people put into everything they did. She chatted with the children that also intended to attend the Ninja and Civilian Academies next year and how they didn't want to see any harm come to their dear country. She experienced the emotion of loss a significant portion of the people felt during the war. They told her stories of their plight during the dreaded Civil War.

Naruto told her the plans for the future he had for his precious country and that it could only come to be with the cooperation of his people.

Kushina glared up at the man as he laughed lowly.

"Whether or not I'm allowed to take Assassination Technique Classes or not, I will be the next Leader, so that I can be the one to protect everyone!"

"Oh really?" Naruto asked with a mockingly raised eyebrow.

"Dattebane!"

Authors note

For those that are confused, 'Dattebane' means 'Believe it!' I couldn't find a direct translation for it, so I just went with the obvious. I also didn't want to write 'Believe it!' so…

This chapter exceeded my word limit by 4k words and change.

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Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.