Wuddup ya'll

HUGE shout out to Arraia, firetemplar415 (probably…), LeviDragon (good guess, good guess, keep reading to find out), bill12, 777torn777 (uhehehe…we'll see about that. Thanks for reviewing!), biginferno, Tarvinator5 (I appreciate it man. Thanks for reading), Antex-The Legendary Zoroarc (as always, thank you so much, dude), lord 7th (hmmm…maybe, maybe not…read to find out!), KakeruPB (thank you for your review), Banjo the Fox (when the time comes, mah dude), evanescent173 (I'm glad you're enjoying this story, man. Thank you), TigrezzTail, SkeenTheDream (much appreciated), saiyan prince1, TheKing91 (haha and I can't wait to expose all the secrets and mysteries), zerkses and Primarx. You're all fantastic people.

There are many things that have changed so far after this time skip but I will put flashbacks here and there so as to fill in the gaps. There aren't any flashbacks in this chapter, just so you all know. Maybe in the next chapter.

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 15

Time skip: Fifteen Years Later

The Third Great Shinobi War.

It all began five years ago, when a land owner from Hot Water was found dead in his house beside the wife of the deposed Fire daimyo. An investigation was done and it revealed that the Hot Water landlord had been blackmailing the woman, holding her immoral, illegal sexual addiction to young, adolescent girls over her head. The woman had been paying for the man silence, until one day the man demanded more than money from her. A year into the illicit affair between the man and the woman, disgusted by the affair with the over bloated man, killed the man but, as she was about to flee the house-and subsequently the country-she had tripped on the blood spattered on the floor and stabbed herself with her knife.

Loyalists to the deposed Fire Lord refused to take the thorough investigation, for the simple fact that it was exclusively done by Hot Water ninjas.

The current daimyo, Wakono, had refused to spare any of her ninjas or her samurai to investigate the death of her murder. She was seventeen at that time but she could still remember the depth of corruption that had eaten her family alive when she was seven and her monk older brother had hired a caterer to take her out of the country for her own protection.

She resented her family, more so when her brother had been found in his room in the Fire country Monastery, dead from stress, still in a kneeling, praying position. The monk was the only brother Wakono would ever acknowledge she had and the uprising of the people of Fire country that deposed her father and had her ascend to the throne had her immortalize the humble monk by making the site he was buried, within a copse of trees tended to by the monks of the Fire Monastery, a holy place and an important national monument.

She struck her two older siblings names out of the family tree, denied her father's existence and ostracized herself from her own birth mother. They were to stay in a small, isolated hut on the Fire-Hot Water border, where they were exiled until they all died, and if they so much as got close to the capital-not to even talk of the Fire Lord's Palace, they were going to be executed on the spot.

The loyalists, on behalf of the docile former daimyo, began making trouble in Hot Water for besmirching the name of their disgraced Fire Lord, which got more and more serious as time went until they set a bomb in the wrong hot spring, killing a delegation of Kumo officials who had wanted to exchange natural gas from Hot Water with money. The hot spring was close to a pocket of natural gas in the ground and the blast linked up with the pocket, ripping more hot springs out of the ground and incinerating more people and more important delegations that had been there either to relax with their families or to trade. The Raikage, Cee, exploded and attacked Fire country with the Spring country Daimyo, Ronton, who had lost his father in the tragic inferno. They had murdered four whole villages on the northeast part of the country.

Fire Lady Wakono, enraged that Kumo and Spring were attacking her country for what was essentially her father's sin, first of all executed the loyalists and launched an attack on Kumo, burning down Hidden Lightning's supply chain and stealing the food produce for their own. Kumo called on its allies and Fire did so as well, using the control it had on Leaf to attack as well.

Konoha didn't need much reason to attack Kumo, Iwa or Spring.

More and more villages were pulled into the bloody quarrel, until the whole continent was under siege from itself.

Save for the three save havens and one gradually safe shinobi settlement.

This time, Naruto didn't intervene.

The glasses wearing man had purposely taken the time to warn his allies to tighten up their security, reinforced Dark ranks, stock piled vital materials, established a private and secure communication line with his allies and implement contingency plans that he and his council had prepared in case there was another major war.

The Ghost didn't interfere because his country, and his allies, were well-ready for this war. They saw it coming and they were prepared. The blonde didn't feel like investing his time in mediating and murdering the warring factions.

He had better things to do.

Matter of fact, Naruto had assigned a team of his ninjas to carefully record how the war began and the events that occurred, merely for educational purposes for younger generations.

One undisputed point was that the Third War was far worse than its predecessors.

There were more specialized ninjas running about, communication was faster and easier and there were more major landmarks that were being targeted and destroyed.

Like how Naruto had heard that a genin in Team Namikaze of Konoha had been half-crushed by a boulder after successfully destroying a main, though hidden, supply bridge for Iwagakure and Hidden Stone. The Rock village took their revenge by forcefully sealing the Four Tailed beast into the female member of Team Namikaze about a year or so later, while they were on another mission. Their plan was to release the unstable seal within Leaf and have the angry beast wreak havoc. Kakashi Hatake had killed a number of those ninjas and, reportedly, the girl had impaled herself on a Raikiri from Kakashi. The young Copy Ninja had fled the scene when Iwa reinforcements arrived to retrieve their tailed beast, unable to take her along with him, and that was when the story became a bit…blurred.

A person appeared and decimated the ninjas by himself, taking the girl's body with him.

Naruto sometimes felt like the war was mostly the villages swiftly retaliating to one another.

His concern was in evacuating his people from unallied nations ahead of time.

The only oversight the Ghost had when it came to the war was on how quickly it could escalate, with the three warring Great Shinobi villages-Iwa, Kumo and Konoha-, their respective countries and their allies. It had all happened, from the investigation to Fire Lady Wakano's retribution, within two months.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A field five miles from Suimosa Village

Water country

The battlefield was chaos.

It was a shock that it had only been two people that had caused this level of devastation.

Well…they were Kage level…

Naruto tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Gengetsu, you jag off, what have you gotten yourself into…"

The aforementioned man breathed out shakily, clasping a hand over his bleeding abdomen and sitting up against an inclined rock, which looked like it had risen out of the ground at an angle. The thin whiskered man chuckled weakly at the jab from his long-time friend, keeping his bleeding left eye closed and replying as he cast a mild glare to the man hovering over him. "Well…good afternoon to you too, Naruto."

The Dark Leader's eye widened a little as he noticed the blood pulsing out from the Mizukage's stomach. He went onto his knees and pressed his right hand against the wide open gash, soaking his hands in the other man's blood. "You should have waited-"

"He…jus' attacked us…" Gengetsu said tiredly, Naruto tapped his cheek to keep him awake. "Civilians…were in danger…"

"Keep quiet, damn it." Naruto spat, his black rimmed, medicated rectangular glasses almost fell down his nose. His crystal blue eyes glazed over and he ground his teeth. "Save your strength."

Naruto threw a hateful glare to the culprit, Mu, the immediate former Tsuchikage. The bandage swaddled man was lying on his back, blankly staring up at the sky with his bright green eyes. His lower half was crushed between in the grasp of a clam and there was a worrying green ooze leaking from his side, the acid Gengetsu had used on him. The man looked closer to death than the Mizukage he had hated so much, hated since they were genin. There were lifeless clams scattered about him, their chakra was saturated in the air, so much so that it nauseated a non-sensor like Naruto, trees were upturned, the earth was shattered like glass and the grass was scorched black.

The Mizukage's guts were threatening to spill out of Naruto's hold, his left arm was ripped off at the socket, freely pulsing out blood and there was a gaping hole that passed through his right lung, cutting it in half.

Naruto's breathing quickened as he saw the light leave his friends eyes; he spared his other hand and slapped the man again, lightly.

"Don't…don't close your eyes, jack ass."

"I'm…real tired…Naruto…one minute…" the man whispered and Naruto ran a jolt of lightning through his body. The man laughed under his breath, thrown back awake by the electricity coursing through his body but no less dying. "Let…me die…Everything…hurts…"

"You're not dying on me, Gengetsu. I'm not going to let you die." The Dark Leader's blue eyes reflected through his glasses, flicking up and down the battered man's form. He contemplated how fast he could run back to the Kiri and Dark team he had come with, who were all approximately a hundred miles behind him, so that he could yank a medic back to his friend. The teams were running as fast as they possibly could but the Ghost, in his panic, had left them behind in a blast of white lightning.

The silent former Tsuchikage closed his eyes and Naruto grit his teeth, his mind thrown into a rush of what to do.

"Yo Ruto…I've got…three last things I want…you to do for…me…" the man panted. "…'fore I die."

"Shut it-" Naruto murmured quietly, a Smoke clone melted out of his back and sprinted away in an explosion of lightning, Naruto used his body to shield his friend from the debris. "I've gone to get help."

"Under my bed…in Kiri…burn all my porn…I'm begging you…" No one must ever know he was into zombie porn, he swore in his dazed mind.

Naruto closed his eyes and leaned forward, unconsciously placing his forehead on the side of the man's only shoulder. "Can you take anything seriously?"

"It's…a habit…" the man gasped as a sharp pain ripped through his body. "Oof…everything hurts…it all hurts…"

"Then shut the hell up and save your strength." Naruto grated quietly, sitting up and hurriedly looking back to see if his clone was back.

"Take…care of Kiri for me…ok?"

"I will, of course, but you'll take care of it with me. You're not going to die, Gengetsu."

"Do you smell…that pork roast…?" the man closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, Naruto tapped his cheeks to get him back to reality. "C'mon man…you smell it too…don't you? Tell me…I'm not crazy…"

"You've lost a lot of blood, you're delirious."

"Smells…delicious…" the man cracked a grin and turned his head to the silently mourning Leader, who was looking back to where his clone had gone. "Like…your weirdo wife's cooking."

The blonde man snorted and hid a smile as he lowered his head, making his shaggy hair over shadow most of his face. "Help's almost here, creep. Hang in there."

Gengetsu looked forward, to the bandaged man's corpse, and said. "He…said he was gonna…kick my ass…in the afterlife…" the man chuckled, blood spilled forth from his mouth and he closed his eyes peacefully. "I shouldn't…keep him waiting…I'll toss him 'round, trust…me…" Naruto bowed his head, his hair shadowing his face and his fingers taunt on his Gengetsu's bleeding stomach. The man sighed sleepily and whispered through pained breaths from his critically damaged lungs. "Don't…get hung up…about…this…" Gengetsu muttered, losing strength as he lost more and more blood. The Mizukage knew how hard it hit his friend when the Torune, former Uzukage, had been reported dead. Naruto knew exactly what the man was referring to and he shook his head a bit, refusing to listen. He said in a clear, quiet voice. "Let me go…Naruto."

"Just…keep quiet." Naruto hissed weakly, refusing to accept that, once again, he was losing another great friend. "Stop talking like that. You're not going to die."

"Let…me…go…"

Naruto pressed his hand harder into the open slash in Gengetsu's belly, still not looking at the dying man.

Gengetsu Hozuki, Nidaime Mizukage of Kiriagakure no Sato, felt warmth sweep through his whole being and his eyes became heavy. He exhaled with a smile as he felt the small tremor coming from his blonde friend.

The light left his eyes and his ragged breathing stopped.

Naruto kept his head bowed; slowly releasing his hand from the open wound on the other man's stomach.

He placed his left hand over Gengetsu's forehead and gently brought it down, closing his friend's eyes.

His hand didn't move from the Mizukage's eyes and Naruto closed his own, clenching his bloody right hand and perching it on his thigh, fighting down the tears that wanted to spill out of him.

There was a white flash from behind him and Naruto remained unmoving, even as his clone dragged him away from the corpse as three Kiri medics swept to their Mizukage and began rushing to revive him.

Naruto was silent.

Limp.

Numb.

His clone supported him, keeping him on his feet as the man watched his friend being fretted over by the three ninjas. The carefree, easy smile on the man's lips tore through his mind as he stared.

"Adrenaline isn't working!"

"Clear!" thump thump.

"Hit 'im again."

"Clear!" thump thump.

"Still no pulse."

The Leader's clone gazed with an empty expression on his face at the scene, the medics working themselves hard to bring back their gradually cooling Kage. The clone breathed out and turned the original around, stumbling away from the three and into the forest where the Kiri civilian merchant and his family were hiding. The ninjas that had been with the Mizukage were also there, their numbers lowered from their encounter with the former Tsuchikage's initial attack and the supporting Iwa ninjas.

They had just rounded up their own battle with the Rock ninjas, forcing the latter to retreat.

Naruto's head was tilted to the side, his gaze was cast aside. A dead look on his face.

The Kiri ninjas stormed past him and the clone lowered his master to the ground, leaning him against a tree.

The official report was that Kiri ninjas were conducting a rescue mission to help a family from their village relocated from Iwa and back into Kiri. Rock ninjas got wind of the presence in their village and attacked, leading the charge was the former Tsuchikage, Mu. The attack was radioed in back to their home base in Mist and Gengetsu leaped out of his office once he heard that a Kage level shinobi was ripping through the ranks of his ninjas, posing a big threat to the civilians that only wanted to leave the war happening in Iwa to their relatively peaceful home village. Gengetsu directed the attention of Mu and all the Iwa ninja, while the remaining Kiri ninjas took the civilians somewhere safe to lay low for the moment. The Mist reinforcements Gengetsu outran finally arrived and led the Iwa ninjas away while Mu and Gengetsu battled.

Gengetsu Hozuki was the last person that had signed the original alliance with Darkness.

Now he was dead.

The first to go was the old River daimyo fifteen years ago, a good friend of Naruto's and a reliable advisor when the masked blonde wasn't sure what direction to take trade within his country. The man had died of natural causes. He died a happy man, the only reason losing him didn't weigh too much on Naruto's mind. Next was Torune Uzumaki, Godaime Uzukage and Naruto's brother. The man had died from a series of admittedly bad decisions, starting from when he first trusted Konoha-and the Senju clan-based on their shared history. He had rectified this by taking the Kyuubi out of Konoha, ripping the Uzushio's alliance with Konoha to shreds and removing all Uzumaki influence from the Leaf, aside from those redheads that couldn't leave for being too deeply rooted in the village. His death had been painful, as his remaining Uzumaki life force was leached out of him and directed into the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the reason being that the latter man refused to permit the Nine Tails from being taken out of his village and Torune was adamant, thus violating the blood contract. The next person to go was Sabaku no Tetsuyo.

It was hard to stay positive and optimistic in Naruto's line of work, and in the case of his Kazekage friend everyday was a war on his conscience to discard logic and embrace naivety.

A year years ago, during the thick of the Third War occurring outside of his village, the Kazekage was reported to have left the village for a routine visit to an oil field within his territory. The guards he took with him were later found dead, scattered around the desert in various warped positions of death and agony, and Tetsuyo was nowhere to be found.

Naruto shrugged off any worry, because he trusted in the strength of the Iron sand user and that if the man was in any real trouble, then he, Naruto, would be the one to be contacted first. As was to be expected from both villages, they conducted a joint search of the desert for the man-or his body-, scouring every inch of the sandy area, turning every rock and flooding through every cave and underground cavern for any signs of life.

Worry started setting in when, after three months of rigorous searching, there was still absolute no sign of the man.

The Dark Leader recruited his best investigators, two top ranked shinobi who purposely weren't in BLAK and provided assistance to his Police Force on difficult cases, and those two were added to a small team of Sand investigators. The detectives found a patch in the desert, long since blown over by the wind and somewhat covered from view, that glistened with patches of melted metal and, after swabbing, contained traces of an iron corroding acid that would release noxious, deadly fumes once in contact with metal.

Sabaku no Tetsuyo was officially pronounced missing but most of the village couldn't so hopeful.

Naruto included.

The assassin had seen a lot of things in his life, a memorable few of them were from when he was no older than ten, and those thoughts didn't reinforce confidence in him.

At that moment, the musing Leader looked to the good things that have happened since, as traitorous as those thoughts were to the memory of his late friends.

A week after the Sandaime Kazekage went missing, Sabaku no Rasa was instated as the Yondaime Kazekage and one of the first things the Gold sand user had done was sign his name on the very same Dark-Sand alliance his father and Naruto had done all those years ago. The stern man had told the older Leader that there was no point discarding such a mutually beneficial alliance with Dark country after so many years of joint prosperity. The signing had happened in the very same Tea House Naruto had signed the alliance with Tetsuyo, and they shared a pot of tea, some biscuits and a discussion of what they projected the future of their nations to be. Rasa had brought forward his own ideas to his the Dark Leader, almost like how Tetsuyo had formally introduced Naruto to the idea of The Suna Farm, and Naruto didn't see any reason to not support four more main roads leading back and forth Suna and Darkness as well as begin working on other projects as years went by.

A tickled smile came to Naruto's eyes, lifting up the darkness in his orbs as he remembered that day; Rasa had been honest with that point, that much was obvious to Naruto and those from their village that had witnessed the signing, but what the hard faced Suna Leader didn't speak on was that the alliance with Darkness was a good constant for both nations and moving forward together would help ease the wound of Tetsuyo being gone.

On a number of meetings since then, Rasa had openly said that when he decided to settle down with someone, Naruto would be the godfather of their children. Naruto was nine years older that Rasa and he was fairly close with the hard assed man and his father, so the Dark leader reciprocated by saying that if he and his wife ever had children then the Gold sand user would be their godfather. The Yondaime Kazekage broke his frowning image and laughed.

The present River country Daimyo, Kawasatoru, instated fifteen years ago, was making waves with Naruto in their countries. Aside from establishing the Merchants Guild, a place where traders from the two countries come converge in and sell their wares when they couldn't find the opportunity to travel around, and where they could also find affordable, optional lodgings while they stayed in River country, the two men had gone into more detail on their alliance, opening more chances.

There really wasn't enough to be said about the Dark-Whirlpool alliance. Recently, Uzumaki could now become members of the DC, though couldn't become Directors or deputies but only limited to captains and squad leaders. Dark shinobi in Uzushio could now become Sentry Officers-Uzushio's version of the DC-and the same limitations were placed on them as well. The Uzushio whirlpool was now placed on the back of chunin and jounin flak jackets, a small red spiral on the upper part of the back, while the Dark symbol was placed on the same place of Uzushio chunin and jounin flak jackets, which was a pair of curved white horns pointing downwards on a circular black backdrop. This was to show the brotherhood between both countries.

Kiri citizens could now stay for longer in the country, two years to be exact, before they had to renew their Entrance seals. They could also now take loans from the National Bank, within limits of course. In turn, Dark people outside of the country and in unallied nations were added to the list of people Kiri ninjas routinely checked on every once in a while, in secret and without drawing attention to themselves. The clans in Kiri built accommodations for Dark citizens within their clan compounds, a privilege that had never been seen before for people outside of natural born Kiri citizens.

Naruto's eyes flicked to his clone as he coughed.

"You need to wash your hands, boss."

"Ah…yeah…ok." He held out his hands and the clone poured a bottle of water on his hands. The bespectacled man scrubbed his fingers of Gengetsu's blood and took out a red handkerchief from his pockets, tossing it over his shoulder and watching his clone set the damp material on fire with a small Campfire jutsu. The man held up his right hand and the clone grabbed it, helping him back to his feet. He glanced down at the blood on his clothes and sighed, forcing out the dark thoughts that wanted to permeate into his head once again. No doubt Iwa ninjas were going to come for the body of the other man, the masked blonde said. "I'm going to make sure Gengetsu goes back to Kiri safely."

Out of respect.

"Check if Su is back from her mission and if she is, tell her what happened. I'll be back in a few minutes."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wave country

There were a total of four places on the continent that were not overtaken by the Third Great Ninja War.

Life in those places went about as usual and the on-going war outside was scarcely noticed, not unless the people ventured out on their own or the occasional ground shaking explosion from a neighbouring country or village.

Sunagakure, Uzushiogakure, River country and Darkness.

Kiriagakure, to a lesser extent, was unaffected by the war but ninjas from other countries were coming in from all sides to use it as a battleground. Active effort from ninjas of the village and Darkness was being made to expel them from Mist. Unlike other villages, Kiri didn't send out shinobi to attack other nations but focused its effort in keep other warring villages out of their borders.

The four-or five, if you count Kiri-named locations didn't have any unwanted foreigner within their borders and the border patrols did their work in making sure this didn't happen.

There were two major reasons that the war didn't affect activities going on inside the country and as they associated with the other war-free nations.

To start off, they were geographically close to each other already, with Suna being west of Darkness and River just one country after Dark country. Kiri was further than even Uzushio and the latter was an island country with natural defences. They all shared an solid alliance with the long since Silent Nation and took to adopting some of the political beliefs and perspectives of said country of assassins, which was what led to the second reason River, Sand and Mist were warless; there were already a few unallied foreigners within their borders before the outbreak of the war and those foreigners were constantly supervised. They didn't freely welcome those sort of foreigners and any small infraction resulted in them being kicked out. Unlike Dark country, they welcomed everyone into their country but under condition of them to obey the law. This wasn't to say that for a pickpocketing crime, they were ejected from the territory, rather for anything worse than robbery.

They were wary but they were also considerate.

The paranoia of the Hermit Nation spread to their allies and, fifteen years later, there were no signs of war in the country, no non-allied external influence and no obligation to enter the mad fray.

These five nations were deemed safe zones for those fleeing the destruction of war, and entry into them was under strict conditions.

Naruto too bent his own order and created two refugee camps that just barely touched the border he had with Fire country. In the case of Naruto's country, they would be guaranteed safety and protection, clean water, a good supply of food, occasional classes from volunteer teacher's to provide basic education and a humble space in the camp they could call their own on condition that they are not allowed into the country.

At all.

The Dark man knew exactly how bad it was to be a refugee and he felt pity for the children of people running away from the carnage. He did what he could for them but he did not, underline not, permit them to enter his country and his Defence Corp enforced this to the letter.

That was as far as Naruto's compassion went.

Uzumaki Kushina knew how uncaring, borderline emotionless, her legendary assassin uncle could be.

She knew this very well.

He was her teacher after all.

There were an exclusive list of people Naruto gave a damn for-his people and his allies-and anyone outside of that were basically considered walking piles of useless meat.

The Leader had not once visited the two refugee camps he had established but he constantly received news of how the people there deeply appreciated him for sparing their lives.

At that moment, the young red haired lady was on an A rank mission to evacuate a family of Dark citizens that resided in Wave country, a melting pot of fighting and bloodshed. The country was being used as a battleground for Konoha, Hot Water, Kumo and Frost, none of whom were allied to anyone, so it looked more like a strategic free for all.

The purple eyed jinchuriki looked up sharply when the house shook right down to its foundations. Her eyes pointedly looked out of the window and her senses stretched far and wide, pinpointing the warring factions as well her mission assigned teammates that repelled the other villages from their position. She redhead turned back to the children and smiled warmly to them, putting them at ease.

"Hurry, we've only got ten more minutes before we have to move out." the children, five young teenagers, bobbed their head quickly and continued stuffing their bags and backpacks. "Don't worry about over packing; I'll still seal it all up."

She turned back to the window and kept vigil watch for anyone that slipped past their ranks.

They had a long road ahead of them back to Darkness, especially since they were going to be travelling at a somewhat fast civilian pace.

The twenty two year old Uzumaki was wearing her combat gear for this mission; a bright red short sleeved shirt, black shinobi shorts that just reached her knees and bright red ninja grade tights underneath that stopped at her ankles with red ballet slippers that had been made for combat. Her straight red hair was tied up into a long pony tail, leaving two fang-like bangs to fall down to her chin and there was a black bandanna that had Dark country's white horns dotted all over it, wrapped around her neck. The standard shinobi weapons were strapped to her hips. The only makeup she wore was dark purple lipstick but she looked no less radiant. There was a Dark country jounin flak jacket over her torso and a single sheathed katana on her black; the sharp, cutting edge was made out of Obsidian steel and the rest of the sword was made out of Whirlpool metal, the handle was wrapped with white tape and the guard was circular. There were nine seals that resembled whirlpools that ran down the flat sides of the sword. It was a present her uncle, aunt and mother had gotten her when she acquired her chunin vest.

The symbolism of the sword didn't escape her, similar to how Torune and all of Uzushio had gifted Naruto with his ninjato.

Her Dark country hitaite glinted on her forehead.

The tomboyish lady lightly tugged on her red bandanna and frowned.

"Kisame." she called and the shark man standing outside of the room peered inside.

He too wore a frown, an oddity on the nearly constantly cocky man's face. "You feel it too huh."

"Something's…not right."

The Kiri born Dark ninja had been among the exchange students that had been inducted when Kushina had started in the Academy, though Kisame had gone to the second year. He frequently bullied her about her red hair and her pudginess, which refused to leave her until she was about thirteen, no matter how hard she worked out and trained with her uncle. He tormented Kushina's first and second year but eased up when Kisame was in his fourth year, where he was too busy trying to reach a passing score in his exams so as to become a full-fledged Dark ninja. Her first two friends had done all they could to ease up the bullying but even they were at the mercy of the shockingly powerful academy student.

His bullying was never physical, for even he too was smart enough not to leave evidence, but they were brutally verbal. Belittling her every step of the way and bringing her down, no matter how hard she yelled back and derided him.

Naruto and Sueki had been worried for her, more so when the girl refused their help and insisted that she would get through this without any help.

It was probably her Uzumaki pride kicking in.

Her Auntie Su had even threatened to make Kisame…disappear…though the redhead told her to let her fight her own battles, surprisingly grown up words from a nine year old girl. Kushina had reported the bullying to her homeroom teacher but the punishment of a whole school term of detention with the Head of the School Store, going about and maintaining school property until late in the night and giving the shark boy basically no time to sleep and recharge, didn't feel satisfying to her.

Kisame stopped his verbal bullying when he entered his fourth year.

Kushina used that respite to prank the living hell out of her aggressor.

Then, when she could stop dividing her focus amongst passing her classes and dodging him in the hall, she held nothing back.

The pranks were absolutely brutal.

The pranks and fights between them got so bad that the Director of the Ninja Academy had to personally mediate. That was a time Kisame could have gotten permanent spinal damage from one of her more merciless, destructive pranks.

Her uncle had harshly scolded her for almost destroying the school and the almost ending the future career of a prospective ninja of the country, but she could see the twinkle of pride in his eyes for her tactful pranks. Overall, Naruto stayed professional and sent her to clean up the mess with Kisame, to give them a chance to at least talk to each other without throwing insults and deriding comments.

It still felt weird that she was close friends with her former bully.

Kisame had gotten her into rock music and she had gotten him into reading manga, though their preferences differed and they argued over which was superior almost constantly, it didn't feel as bad as it was when they were still students.

The Uzumaki's friends had been wary to welcome Kisame into the fold, but they eased up their suspicion after a while of nothing major happening.

She was made to understand, by her uncle, that Kisame was from a broken home; his alcoholic father beat his mother during their arguments, and this violence surpassed the harmless attacks Kiri ninjas used on one another. The shark boy had to flee his home on those occasions and find sanctuary somewhere else, returning only when he saw his father lumber out of the house and leave for a bar. His father had once accidentally killed his younger brother with an unrestrained punch to his face and the ninjas of the village had taken him straight to prison for it, though not before he crippled his wife in a tense, life or death hostage situation. The only bright side in his life was when Samehada, the spiky scaled, sentient blade of the Seven Swords of the Mist, had chosen him as its next user after the former had died on a mission.

He had never once ventured out of the village, so when he heard that anyone could feel at home in Dark country, he took every means possible to secure a place among the six exchange students slated to transfer to their ally's Academy. He read and fought and clawed and bit his way onto the list, spending his whole first year surpassing his classmates until he was first listed to go to Darkness.

The Dark country was exactly how he imagined it to be.

He was immediately made at home, settled down in his very own apartment with a caterer that came to see him without fail, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, occasionally sleeping in the house and taking him to school every day.

He found out about the supposed Princess of Whirlpool living with the country's Leader and he despised her luck; she was born into the Uzumaki Royal family, she was-to him-privileged enough to live with Naruto and be able to call him her uncle and she had travelled around a fair bit while he had spent most of his life in Kiri.

He didn't understand how hard it was for the girl to suppress the Kyuubi and keep it from influencing her thoughts.

Kushina shook her head and discarded the memory as the tall man bent into the room and ushered the children to hurry up.

"Have you heard anything?"

Kisame shook his head as he sealed up an entire wardrobe into a scroll. "Nothing. Radio silence." It wasn't strange and they weren't too worried about he lives of their jounin comrades because they still sensed them.

"I don't like this, Kisame."

The blue skinned man gave the woman a long, hard look, before he pulled out a headset from Samehada's serrated maw. He stood up and spoke into the microphone with a gruff voice, automatically tuned into the private radio signal of their mission assigned teammates. "This is Jounin Hozuki, is anyone there?" there was silent crackling on the other side and he repeated. "This is Jounin Hozuki, is anyone there?"

Kushina kept her ears peaked and listening in as she simply sealed everything in the room into a storage scroll.

"Hello?"

"…zzzzt-zzzzt…Nami…zzt…Namikaze!"

Kushina and Kisame shared a grim look.

"Take…zzz-zzzt…take the civilians and…zzzzz…get the hell outta there!"

Authors note

Character Ages

Naruto-39

Sueki-36

Kushina-22

Kisame-23

Minato-22

Rasa (Kazekage)-30

Onion-22

Carrot-23

I'd rather not put a specific age on the Sannin, Hiruzen Sarutobi or Danzo. I'll leave that for you guys.

This was a somewhat short chapter but it gave a short outline of what's happening. The next chapter will explain what happened with Danzo-Naruto, Minato and Orochimaru, and maybe it would reveal Zetsu's role in all of this mess.

There are still some things I'm going to clarify in the next chapter that I deliberately didn't in this one.

Do you think she stands a chance against Minato?

But wait…how is Minato even still alive?

What happened to Danzo-Naruto?

Is Kisame to be trusted?

…hehehehe…keep reading to find out ;)

How was this chapter?!

Leave a review on your thoughts, would you so kindly. Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.