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

25. Chapter 25

Hi!

Hope you're all ok!

MASSIVE shout out to Arraia, Yamajiji, Ragnar, Primarx, firetemplar415, lord 7th, TigrezzTail, Bakeneko, TheKing91, Saiyan prince1, Banjo the Fox, 777torn777, KingZeRoPL, skfff, insanemaelstrom, iRick, jmknz777, Spack Rox and xirons20. You're all wonderful people :)

This chapter features one of my best MARVEL (I don't own) quotes. It's not some riveting speech to inspire confidence…One clue is that it's from Captain America: Winter Soldier. Marvel fans might know what I'm talking about :D

Note: be aware that the below is not an accurate depiction of the prison system in any country, certainly not in my country and most likely not in any of yours. This is a work of fiction and as such, this story should not be used as a reference point on the prison system anywhere at any time. I tried to make the prison here as realistic as possible, that's the closest to reality it is, but I need to remind you all that this is still fanfiction. I had fun writing it and hopefully you'll have fun reading it. It's not my first time writing about an experience in jail, seeing as I've done that in The Beast Came From the Fire Pit, a completed story of mine some of you might know (those that don't…give it a read if you want…you'll find it in my profile).

This is a long chapter.

Are ya ready?

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 25

A shrill harmonica echoed through the dark and desolate dungeons of the Light city Prison.

Naruto closed his eyes and blew into the harmonica, masterfully making music with the metallic wind instrument and swaying ever so slightly to the rhythm.

The guards patrolling up and down the prison complex briefly wondered how the newest prisoner had been able to sneak a harmonica in; they had searched him, seized all of his weapons and slapped a chakra limiter on him, limiting his chakra to only the bare minimum for survival.

They had been stopped from stripping Naruto of his black mask by a strong shake of the head from one Snow shinobi that had accompanied him inside. The BLAK operatives, as ordered by their Leader, were to focus on the investigation, serving as the supervisory and consulting investigators just in case the Snow investigators tried to pull a fast one on them.

Taking his weapons and sealing off his chakra was enough.

The black mask the blonde man wore didn't distort as he blew into the harmonica. Some other prisoners joined in, idly tapping their hands on the bars of their jail cells, following the lazy rhythm the new prisoner was making. Some others whispered lowly and the more energetic ones hummed.

The guards were utterly confused.

It wasn't against the rules to sing, and it wasn't that the music was even that bad; it was that this sort of thing had never happened before.

It seemed as if a great majority of the prison were listening or participating in the impromptu concert the person in Block K, Cell 52 was leading.

"Shut up!" a voice across his cell block bellowed and the blonde man sitting with his legs crossed on the top bunk of his cell turned his head and roared right back.

"Fuck off!"

Naruto stubbornly played the harmonica, adding a few elaborate and enticingly shrill tones. The prisoners, the ones brave enough to defy the apparently infamous prisoner that had yelled for silence, kept up their lazy additions to the song. The masked man hid his smirk and closed his eyes again, falling back into the music.

The irate criminal yelled. "Keep quiet, or else!"

Naruto halted his music and turned to the bars of his cells, looking directly at the hulking mass of humanity that was glaring death at him from his cell. The man was covered in tattoos and his bright orange pants were clearly a larger size than what was normally worn in the prison. The man was much bigger than Naruto, with a glisteningly bald head and a black handlebar moustache above his lip. Still sitting on his bed at the top bunk, the masked man called back. "Or else what?"

The man spat hatefully, answering. "Or else 'll beat tha fuckin' shit outta ya, dumb fuck!"

Naruto scoffed and rolled his eyes. "I bet that's what you tell your dick!"

A round of laughter rolled through the prison.

Naruto lifted the harmonica to his 'lips' and prepared to blow, but the heavy set, muscular man jutted out an arm from his cell and pointed across to Naruto's cell, his finger shaking with rage. "Better not play that, new guy…"

The blonde man flipped the bigger man off and continued his mini-concert, even though those that joined in had lessened in number and were more out of the line of sight for the supposed 'biggest man' in there.

Naruto could feel how heavy his body was from having his chakra sealed off; it was like there was a hundred pound weight on each of his limbs and when it walked it was like he was trudging through sludge.

It wasn't a new sensation or unwelcome sensation.

For a Maximum Security Prison, Light city Prison was better than Naruto had anticipated; there were at least forty stories and hundreds of cells, there was a gym, two basketball courts, a laundry, carpentry and metalwork room where the prisoners tried to earn a little bit of money, much lower than any minimum wage outside the prison. The place could use some rebuilding and refurnishing, like the pillows were dingy, the beds were thin, the bunks were rickety and old, and the bathrooms were only being cleaned twice a week.

The Dark country Penitentiary back home, located on a small, manmade island in the middle of a large lake in the eastern region, was being overlooked by both heads of the Defence Corp. The complex was newer and still somewhat being constructed at the moment. Crime was rarer in Dark country, the major one being pickpocketing, reckless driving-on carriage or on horseback-and public intoxication and it was mainly done by delinquents or kids that didn't know any better. Naruto was keeping a keen eye on the prison of his home country, seeing whether or not he and his council should just scrap the building and reuse it for something more useful. Those crimes previously stated could just as easily be curbed and have already been curbed so far, by giving past, present and future culprits something better to do than run amuck, wasting away their lives. Club activities, after school activities and the option of internship with proper wages reduced crime rate in Darkness to as low as one percent. The crime rate during the first five years after the civil war was much higher, as ninjas returning from Fire country and teenagers that were too thick headed to accept that the war was over primarily dominated the crime scene.

Naruto took swift measures during those crucial five years after the civil war, and with the cooperation of his council, the clans and the clanless, crime rate had dropped from forty one percent to the measly one percent it was presently.

The man's train of thought was interrupted by a voice under him. "It's…not a good idea to get King angry, new guy. I hear he eats his victims."

Naruto answered with a flippant wave. "I've killed worse guys in my sleep."

His answer seemed to jar the person on the bottom bunk. "K-K-Killed…?"

"Yup, killed." Naruto stopped the concert and looked under the bed at his cellmate; his eyebrows were raised in question. "Haven't killed anyone?"

The person lying on his back on the bottom bunk was rail thin and had a deep tan, dark eyes, dark brown hair, a pointed chin but no other distinguishing features. He was fully wearing his bright orange prison jumpsuit, though the front was unzipped to show the white vest he had on underneath. The man shook his head. "No…never killed anyone."

The man on the top bunk tucked away his harmonica somewhere on the inside of his own orange jumpsuit, the tanned man underneath wasn't sure where, seeing as their uniforms didn't have pockets, for a reason too. "What are you in for?"

"Bank robbery. My getaway driver took the wrong turn." His eyes strayed and Naruto frowned, likely the getaway driver was his friend and he was killed while they were trying to escape on foot once their horse carriage was taken out. "I guess we got greedy."

Naruto lay on his stomach and folded his arms under his chin, peering slightly off the side of his bunk to the man lying on his side on the bottom bunk. "What do you mean?"

The plain faced man was silent for a short moment before he murmured. "We used to…rob stores." He shrugged. "Bills started piling up and…I got into a bad gambling debt."

"That's unfortunate."

The man snorted, as if to lift the mood. "Yeah, you can say that." he didn't look up, not making eye contact with the heavily built man staring daggers at their cell. The man on his side suddenly shifted onto his back and pulled out a small book from under his beat up pillow. "I'm Hiro."

"Naruto."

"What are you in for, Naruto?"

"I'm taking the fall for a friend of mine." Hiro closed his book and looked at the blonde man curiously, who rolled back onto his bed and folded his arms behind his head, staring up at the dreary grey ceiling. "Someone framed him for murder. I'm having a team look into it."

"Wait, wait…how were you able to convince them to bring you here instead of your 'friend'?" Hiro asked shakily, afraid that the masked man above him was part of the Snow country Yakuza. Maybe 'having a team look into it' meant his 'friends' were cleaning the crime scene and clearing their names, declaring their innocence for a crime they really did commit.

"I'm taking the blame, but only for a little while."

Hiro gulped, blocking his sweaty face with his small book.

"King, huh," Naruto muttered aloud. "What has he done?"

"Ha, what hasn't he done?" Hiro snorted. "Murder, rape, burglary, bribery, extortion, armed robbery…home invasion…he's what we call a Veteran Jailbird. King's the boss of Chi no Kaze, the gang that runs this whole place. I heard he's got 'friends' among the guards and connections on the outside too. He's been here longer than most people here and with what he's doing around here; he'll probably never leave here either. For your own safety, I advise you to stay clear of him and don't get on his bad side."

Naruto whistled, impressed. Then he asked, changing the subject. "How long are you in here for?"

"Lord Doton's High Council gave me five years; I've got one year left, six months for good behaviour." He sent a stern look to the bunk bed above his. "And I'd like to get out of here in one piece," he suddenly recalled the possibility of Naruto being a member of the notorious Winter Hacksaw gang, a Yakuza that was among the top three most feared on the continent; what else could explain the man's confidence at flipping off the humongous Veteran Jailbird? "I-If you don't mind…"

Naruto chuckled loudly and exhaled, wiping a stray tear from his left eye. "Y'know, Hiro, I don't know why you're scared of me, but it's hilarious."

"Y-You've killed people." Hiro said in a hushed whisper, afraid the others in their cells would hear him. "Of course I'm scared."

Naruto hummed to himself, saying. "Well, how are you so sure I've even killed anyone? For all you know, I haven't even killed a rat."

"I know a shinobi when I see one." Hiro bit back, withdrawing again as he remembered the man above him had killed before.

"Good eye, good eye…" Naruto murmured in acknowledgement. "Counter argument; they've sealed away my chakra, your chakra, all of our chakra…how am I still a threat?"

"…It's…a gut feeling." He patted his stomach familiarly. "My gut's never led me off before. Well…" he trailed off.

The bespectacled blonde man tapped his chin at Hiro's answer; he had thought once he entered prison, his glasses would make him look like weakling. Well, yes it did to some people, but for more cautious people like the thief below him, he was still suspicious. Maybe it was his leanly muscular build or his pale skin or probably his mysterious blue eyes.

Naruto laughed to himself at his self-descriptions.

All from Kushina, mind you; during the date the other night, while they were pigging out in a backyard cookout, she had told him how she would describe him to those that didn't know him.

Thinking about Kushina, his mind lingered on the tomboyish redhead, then Sueki wondered along and the corners of his eyes crinkled softly.

"Hey, Hiro," he called, after ten minutes of partial silence; the outside of the cell was filled with warbled conversations going on inside the cells and being thrown outside to other cell blocks. It wasn't yet time to open the cells and allow the prisoners out to do their morning work. The pointy chinned bank robber grunted in reply. "Do…you have anyone waiting for you outside?"

"…No…" Hiro wondered where Naruto was taking the conversation; wasn't it just thirty minutes ago that the blonde had been led into the cell by the warden? "I assume you do…?"

Naruto's fingers dipped into his orange jumpsuit and he pulled out a picture he had taken of him, Sueki and Kushina from a few days ago; he was half asleep, coming out from another long meeting with the Daimyos, and Kushina had come at him with a camera, egging Sueki out of the shadows to take a picture with them. He rolled onto his side and showed Hiro, hanging his left arm off the edge of the bunk. Hiro squinted at the picture, taken some weeks ago before the Conference of Wealth Nation Daimyos. "My wife and my girlfriend."

Hiro looked up at Naruto incredulously. "Wife and girlfriend?"

The glasses wearing ninja pulled his arm back and stared at the picture. "Yup."

"Damn…" Hiro mumbled in admiration. Then he looked up and asked. "A-And do they know…?"

"Yyyup." He left out how he, his wife and his girlfriend had a threesome just a handful of hour ago.

How time flies.

"Damn…" Hiro mumbled again, gradually becoming less scared of Naruto and more impressed. "And they're fine too…You're a lucky man, Naruto."

The masked man chuckled. "Yes, I am, Hiro." The man placed the picture back into his jumpsuit and asked. "Any family?"

"…I have a younger brother. He's shoemaker." He looked back into his small book. "I haven't heard from him in years."

"How do you know he's a shoemaker?"

"His last postcard years ago said he was setting up shop in Suna, to make 'comfortable footwear for frequent travellers'" he quoted out loud. "I don't even know if he's still alive."

Naruto was about to say something but his sky blue eyes flicked to the cell door as it was buzzed open. Three prison guards stepped inside and looked directly at him. The leader of the group said. "Prisoner 547127, get down, face the wall and put your hands behind your head."

"What's this about?" Naruto asked. Hiro sat up, surprised.

"I will not repeat myself again." The leader and his two subordinates brandished batons and clicked a small button. Light blue electricity coursed over their batons and the glared at Naruto.

The masked man stared at the three stoically, then he hopped off his bed and held up his hand, facing the wall and putting his hands behind his head. A violent hand yanked his hands down and cuffed them with chakra suppressors at his lower back, chaining his legs as well. A firm hand pulled him out of the cell and another guard closed the door.

The leader of the group marched before them, tapping his now un-electrified baton in his hand. "You have a visitor."

"Ohhh…" Naruto said. "You should have led with that."

The hand on his shoulder tightened. "Quiet."

Naruto ignored him. "For a second there, I thought you were taking me to the bathroom. King's gunning for my ass…I just know it."

"If you don't watch your mouth, it'll happen sooner than you think."

Naruto brazenly looked across from his cell block to King's and rolled his eyes, an action that made the Veteran Jailbird smirk evilly right back at him. The hulking man signed subtly, the receivers were out of Naruto's field of vision, so he didn't catch who he was talking to, though he was very sure that the people King was communicating with were on his cell block.

The bespectacled blonde hobbled along at his own pace, various scenarios' churning around in his head.

They led him into a white walled room with a single metal table and two metal chairs inside, the table was bolted to the ground and the chair scrapped back as they shoved Naruto onto it, connecting his handcuffs to a loop on the steel table and doing the same for his shackled feet. This was so that he didn't make any sudden, violent movements towards whoever visited him and so that there was no exchange they couldn't see. No normal man that had his chakra sealed away could hope to rip the bolted down table out of the ground. Two of the stood on both sides of the room behind him and there was a pitch black, one-way glass facing him. He counted four security cameras, one for each corner.

Naruto settled onto the cold, metal table, lacing his fingers together and resting on his forearms, waiting.

The man coolly glanced up as the same door he entered from buzzed open.

Sueki, not in her mask but wearing her full ninja uniform, trooped into the room emotionlessly. She sat down on the chair across from him and mirrored his posture, placing her forearms on the table and looking her husband deep in the eyes.

"…How's it going?" she asked out of the blue and Naruto mulled the question over in his head.

"I haven't been stabbed yet…so I think that's good."

The vampire sighed and rubbed her forehead tiredly, feeling a throbbing headache coming. "Can you take anything serious, sensei?"

"Food." Naruto said seriously. "I take food very seriously." He then cracked a smile at her exasperated groan. The listening guards shared bewildered looks at the bizarre shift in the conversation. "Have you found anything yet?"

The woman quickly flicked her crimson red eyes to the guards watching them like hawks, ensuring that there was no prohibited exchange, and she nodded. Naruto, catching the flicker of an action, bobbed his head slightly at her answer. "Yes."

She couldn't reveal the whole situation right there, with the cameras and the guards in the room, but she could tell him about general knowledge in the investigation. She began speaking in code, starting by saying-through shaded language and body gestures-that the message underneath was not meant to be told before unconcerned ears. Meaning, in simple terms, not to air their dirty laundry before others. It was the way back operatives in Darkness began their shaded language and subtle gestures, their way of hiding their past or their Leader's past from unauthorized people. The Ghost in Glasses gave his student all due credit for the Coded Speak of the Dark country black ops, seeing as she was the one that created it.

The BLAK Commander laid out what they had discovered in the thirty minutes Naruto had been shipped off to Light City Maximum Security Prison, slipping in casual messages under.

"We found foreign chakra in Kisame's system and eye witnesses at the bar he was drinking in say that he was too drunk to even know where he was." She blinked, looking down for a split second, and then screwing her lips to the side. This meant that the surface information was indeed true, but also that the sensors in Team Eleven and Twelve-Bat and Komodo Dragon, respectfully-had been able to get a few drops of blood from Kisame, away from the main investigating team, and had identified the strain of chakra in the chakra man's system as being that of an Uchiha's. Naruto team, according to the Neutrality Pact, was not allowed to do that but, seeing as they were trained experts in subterfuge and misdirection, they could easily do it without getting caught.

"Then…how did she end up in his bed." He tapped his ring finger on the table twice and fractionally tilted his head to the right; was the Uchiha chakra in Kisame's system because of an illusion? Seeing as Kisame had been inebriated beyond belief, it would have been easier to set an illusion over him.

"The bartender says she came up to him halfway through the night and started talking to him, says they were acting like they had known each other for years now." She nodded subtly; the woman also had Uchiha chakra in her system. She was a civilian from what they could notably see from her body structure, her physique and the compactness of her muscles. She was as civilian as they came.

Sueki then went on to say that while Kushina was personally supervising the Snow Investigation team to make sure they didn't plant any incriminating item anywhere, Sueki and the two specialized teams under her command were undergoing shadow campaigns, digging deeper and breaking laws without much regard.

As long as they weren't caught, Naruto thought with a shrug, before he scoffed to himself, briefly breaking the Coded Speak he and his wife were making.

His ninjas weren't going to get caught.

They were just that good.

BLAK Team Twelve, comprising of Operatives Koala, Pony, Komodo Dragon and Polar Bear, were making plans to go to the capital of Snow country and break into the Citizenship Registration centre to sift through records to confirm if the woman was indeed a citizen of Snow, or whether or not she had taken any trips out of the country recently. This angle in the illegal investigation Naruto's ninjas were taking was to confirm whether or not she could have been placed on an illusion several weeks before the Conference of Wealth nation Daimyos. Sharingan genjutsu weren't only known for their potency or their effectiveness but also for how long it lasted on the victim.

BLAK Team Eleven, comprising of Operatives Bat, Wasp, Panda and Phoenix, were going to stay back in Light city and make a full sweep of the crime scene to pick out infinitesimally small details or clues that could have been missed, like fibre from clothes or strands of hair, or even areas where there had recently been bursts of chakra. They were also going to the bar Kisame had gone to so as to look around the general vicinity, spreading outwards from the bar for any sign of Uchiha presence.

Branching a little bit off their present situation, Naruto asked Sueki how moving the clan out of Konoha was coming along. She said that she had delegated the mission to Onion, Carrot and Umara, who had said that there was a secret ROOT tunnel leading directly through to a remote area in Suna. The thing Naruto's side of the mission had to worry about was masking the Kurama migration so that Konoha didn't notice them leave until the last second. Dark country's side would help transport young and old as best and as comfortably as they can.

Naruto then leaned forward a little. "Were there any strange people in the bar?"

When he had looked into Kisame's eyes, he not only saw that the Sea Monster of Dark country had not committed the gruesome murder, but also that he suspected he knew who it was.

Sueki tried not to look surprised at the revelation her husband gave her as he conveyed the message to her.

"It's a bar, sensei." She said with obvious looking, half lidded eyes. "Everyone there's sketchy."

Naruto sat back with a laugh, shrugging. "Worth a shot, huh."

The woman smirked invisibly at his amusement; she was going to make Kisame talk, if he knew what was good for him.

His white haired wife then looked over at her husband, her eyes sad but her face professionally emotionless. "I'll get you out of here tonight."

The guards looked at themselves, worried that this was a blatant admission that she wanted to break him out of prison. The man's eyes smiled and he leaned forward. "Let's hope I'll come out in one piece, huh, Su~"

She leaned forward as well and whispered, her eyes gradually closing. "You'll manage somehow." She placed a soft kiss on his mask and physically smiled at him, a little upward twitch of the corner of her lips and a rejuvenated glow in her burning red eyes. "You always do."

"Hey, no touching the prisoner." One of the guards barked.

Sueki exhaled in mild frustration and stood up, Naruto's head craned back as he looked at her rise of her seat; he squinted a little behind his glasses.

He reassured her that he was going to be fine.

Chakra or no chakra, the masked spectre wasn't someone to be trifled with.

The woman gave him a lopsided smile, forming the Kurono with her left hand and holding it to her chest. "I'll wait for you, Naruto-sensei."

He smiled warmly back at her, not minding the hilarity of the surface statement; she had promised to get him-and by proxy Kisame-free of all charges by that evening. The understated message was that she was vowing on Kurono to get him out of prison by that evening. He flicked his left hand into the forked hand sign of the country, holding it up as best as he could from the inconvenient way his hands had been chained down to the table. "Thanks Su. Tell Kushina…I'll see you and her when I get out."

Naruto could always count on his Sueki to deliver.

She didn't need to promise on Kurono to get him out of jail.

He already knew she would get the job done.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Suradachi Coal Mine

Sunagakure

Rasa grunted deeply and frowned underneath his turban as he looked at the siblings kneeling before him, alongside a team of who he realized were from BLAK.

Onion and Carrot had come with Team Thirteen to request something from their long time, close ally, Suna. The difference being the four black ops were wearing masks while the two ROOT ninjas weren't, exposing their faces and showing Rasa identifiable Kurama traits.

"We will like to conduct an operation on your home soil, Lord Rasa," Captain Frog of BLAK Team Thirteen said respectfully. "This operation will happen in thirty hours' time after preparations have been finalized, and it will not cause damage to Suna or its people."

Rasa crossed his arms. "Where is this operation taking place?"

Frog faulted in his answer. "I…am not at liberty to tell you where this operation will take place, for deniability reasons if we are discovered. What I am cleared to tell you is that the location of this operation is approximately a thousand or so miles from Suna village, somewhere in the desert. This operation will not make use of explosions and, as per protocol, there will be no flashlights, flares or strobe lights involved."

The operation will take place in pitch darkness, so Suna wouldn't notice their presence and no person from Fire country will detect the light from their sentry post on their side of the Suna-Fire country border. The tunnel ROOT used to infiltrate Suna was only a few miles away from the main base inside Konoha, and it was understandable why Danzo did not bring the tunnel any closer, as that would no doubt arouse the suspicion of Suna ninjas.

Just about twenty BLAK Teams were assigned to the mission, making the total number of hand selected black operatives to be a little over eighty shinobi and Kunoichi, seeing as there were four people in one team. Less than half of those ninjas would stay back to impersonate the Kurama clan in their compound, heavily covered by paint illusions. They were picked out due to their similarity in physical features and their similarity in their chakra nature to the Kurama people, although they were either not affiliated with the painting clan or were related to them in some way, like outside marriages. The rest, a good sixty of them, would help the Kurama people seal their things away and escort them out of the escape hole in the desert floor to a minor road, where horse carriages would be waiting for them to transport them back to Dark country.

When Konoha finds out that the Kurama were no longer in the village, and they will eventually, Naruto wanted to ensure that his friends, Rasa included, could deny knowing about the operation.

Dark country was prepared to defend its borders in case Konoha got hostile in its demand for the return of the clan, and the blonde Leader was less than afraid if the Fire Daimyo was involved, as his source in her palace had said that she did not like Konoha all that much. Naruto's confidence in his police, his Defence Corp, his BLAK and his 'normal' ninjas couldn't be emphasized enough.

Just because there hadn't been any person that had managed to forcefully break into Darkness didn't mean there weren't any who tried; many have tried.

All had failed.

When Naruto said that Dark country had long since surpassed Konoha when it came to military and economic power, he wasn't lying.

The economic power and outreach of Darkness had passed Konoha after the first seven years. The only thing Konoha really had over them was the collective respect of a majority of the continent, though they were slowly inching past the Hidden Leaf in that aspect. Evident with how the first three Wealth Nations feared Darkness due to its silent, secretive nature. Allies spoke only praises and identified Dark merchants locked their lips.

Yes, Darkness could handle Konoha just fine.

The difficult part in the operation was handling the holder of Mania.

The present holder was twenty two years old, within the same age bracket as the present generation occupying most of Naruto's Ninja Forces and the same generation that were making innovative moves in Dark country. Those in the generation included Kushina, Kisame, Shimara, Epic Mist, Onion, Carrot, Polar Bear, Asura Kemuri-clan head-, and more than a few others.

The holder of Mania, as a measure to prevent the demon inside of her from gaining strength, was not trained in basic ninja knowledge but was tutored in subjects taught in her home country, Darkness.

People from the Kurama clan could not touch her, else the demon would awaken, and most of the Kurama people could not be further than ten miles from her. This meant that she was to be led out of Suna first by BLAK ninjas, far in front of the rest of the Kurama clan, while still keeping her within five miles of the rest, and she would have her own personal carriage. Naruto's special operatives were keeping four things their Leader had outlined in mind; Naruto didn't want the holder of Mania to accidentally or tap a person from the Kurama clan, Naruto didn't want the holder of the deadly demon to feel isolated from her clan and Naruto, giving these last orders strictly and to be obeyed to the letter, wanted the Kurama clans movement out of Konoha to be as comfortable as humanly possible and also wanted their transition into the society of their home country to be smooth and without preventable problems.

Naruto wanted to take part in this operation, and it was on receiving news that he had been incarcerated for false charges levelled on Kisame that they extended the day of the operation by a day.

The Kurama weren't very happy at the extension but they had been waiting to leave Konoha for thirty years, they could patiently wait another day.

The plans for the mission had been rigorously created by a dual council of Naruto's half and the Kurama half. All angles and situations were considered, including if Minato got involved or if a spotlight from the Konoha half flashed on the evacuating clan. There was no space for mistakes and Naruto, in a strongly worded letter the other day, had said that there would be grave consequences to the eighty selected ninjas if so much as a hair on a Kurama clan head was out of place.

Naruto was remorseful for not bringing them out of Konoha sooner and, ensuring their safety with eight ninjas specialized in Assassination Techniques and ninja arts in general, was a small way for him to apologize for his inefficiency. Being there and helping how he could during the mission was another way of expressing regret.

The captain of the third most specialized BLAK squad continued, his head tilted down. "The operation will not take any Suna time and we will not be in your borders longer than forty minutes."

"…Can I ask why I'm not allowed to know more about this operation?"

"Leader Naruto, out of respect for your past alliances, wants you to have deniability and non-involvement in case of any future accusation." Rasa could know about the operation but he could easily deny where it had taken place, what was involved and why it happened.

Rasa filled in inside his head that 'past alliances' meant one thing.

Konoha.

"Leader Naruto is willing to halve Suna's debt in return for you granting permission for this operation."

Rasa hummed in thought and said. "No…that won't be necessary; Suna always pays back its debts. Tell Naruto, we'll talk later."

There was a highly risky venture Suna intended to undergo but it needed human support from a capable, knowledgeable ally, and Naruto's country immediately sprang into mind. The venture wasn't illegal but it was dangerous; Rasa's ninjas had discovered oil under the sea, west of Wind country, and he wanted to extend his reach over there, set up a pipeline to pump the oil into Suna, where it would be taken to Dark country to be distilled. Half would be sent back to Rasa's village and half would remain with Naruto's country, where the two nations would sell the oil to their connections, pool the profits back together and split it. This was all in two and a half decade long Dark-Sand alliance, penned down by Naruto and Tetsuyo during Rasa's father's time as Kage; it had been working to both of their benefit, so Rasa didn't see any need to change it.

One other thing Darkness needed help with concerning that undersea venture for oil was of convincing the Wind Daimyo to sell the land to Suna without said Daimyo finding out about the billions in ryu of oil flowing in underwater. The Wind Daimyo held Suna in contempt, even till that day, and the man scarcely, if ever helped the Hidden Village with anything. Naruto's couldn't had the influence to sway the Wind Daimyo in his favour, and if it came to buying the general region the oil was found, Suna didn't mind increasing its debt to Dark country if it meant Naruto's country could buy the area.

Rasa considered what the small delegation were asking him of, while he had been going round his coal caves, doing the same rounds his father once did to supervise the growth of the three precious goods Suna produced-coal, oil and gas-.

As long as Suna wasn't being placed in danger and as long as Naruto could handle the consequences, if it came up, then the Kazekage didn't mind.

Sabaku no Rasa shrugged. "Alright."

The glasses wearing Kurama woman, Carrot, sighed in relief, almost collapsing under the weight of the five minute silence, and a small look of appreciation bloomed over Onion's face.

"Thank you, Lord Kazekage. You'll barely even know what's going on."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

The interrogation wasn't going so well.

The two detectives were trying to pin Kisame to the crime, saying that it was possible he had taken her to his room and killed her in his drunken state. There were no signs of rape, and as such no semen in or on the victim, and there were reports of the woman struggling on their way to the palace.

Instead, it looked like he was the one struggling with her, like he was resisting something.

The investigators then changed their accusation to Kisame becoming more violent as the woman carried him to his lodgings in the palace, accidentally killing her.

The ominous presence in the corner of the room darkened and the pair of burning purple eyes narrowed angrily.

Kushina's had enough of this.

"Then explain the chakra in his chakra network." She snapped, taking a step forward and crossing her arms tightly. "Explain how the maid that witnessed Kisame and the woman enter the room, said that Kisame fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed."

The shark man turned back to the interrogators, silently glaring at them, unyielding. One of the detectives said. "The maid could have been lying-"

"She stayed in the room for ten minutes, helping the victim properly undress Kisame and arranging his room before she left." Kushina bit angrily, veins throbbed on her neck and her fingers cracked dangerously.

There wasn't much keeping her from committing a murder right there and then.

These dirty detectives were forcing a crime on her friend's head, a crime he didn't even do.

That wasn't even the worst part.

Naruto, her idol, her childhood crush and her boyfriend, had been forced to take Kisame's place in prison because he believed in the innocence of his subordinate, when all the Snow shinobi concerned were pushing for Kisame's execution.

Kisame was smarter than this.

He may be a blood thirsty monster and he may be a ruthless swordsman, but Kushina was confident that Kisame would never, never, jeopardize the mission he was on and he definitely would never rub mud on his Leader's face.

Kisame may have a bad reputation, and deservedly so, but he was smarter than this.

Kisame might not have grown up hearing Ghost Stories, but he respected Naruto all the same for his dedication and his work ethic, two things Kisame could relate with.

It was why Kisame, after the mandatory first year of serving Dark country after graduation, as a requirement for being a transfer student from Kiri, stayed in Darkness as a proud jounin shinobi.

Fifteen years of faithful service to his country and to his Leader.

No regrets.

Kushina wasn't going to stand around and allow them disrespect her friend.

"No one is going to ask how the victim was given citizenship a month before the conference?" the Uzumaki tomboy prodded harder.

"Are you implying that the victim cut off her arms and legs and was still able to slice her stomach open and slit her throat?" the second detective said incredulously. The woman pointed at the silent Sea Monster. "He is known to kill his victims with such barbaric techniques."

The blue skinned man shook his head and mumbled. "Not true."

The redhead turned to him and the other two detectives looked at him as he spoke.

"I shave off the arms to the elbows and legs to their knees…while their still alive…there's more pain that way. I stab the throat," he pointed to two places on his throat, where major arteries carrying blood to the brain were located. "But only on two occasions, both for quick kills and not for torture. And…I've never sliced open any human beings stomach…too sloppy." He added the last part at the end, remorselessly. The two Snow investigators were forced to recall how the victim didn't look to be in pain and that forensics had confirmed that the arms and legs, sawed off not shaved off, and not to the bloody stumps Kisame had described but a little bit past the elbow and knees, had been done to the victim a little while after her death.

First was the throat, then the stomach, then her arms and legs. For good measure, they bashed open the back of her head with a blunt object; Snow country autopsy found tiny splinters of wood in the opening behind her head, so it could have been smashed either with the fist or a part of a puppet. Though the Snow detectives were creating a story that the, from the blood spattered on one of the bedposts, Kisame had hit her head there. They ignored how the bedpost wasn't chipped and how the wood of the bed differed from the wood in the head wound.

Splinters of redwood littered the head wound, while the bedpost was oak.

These terrible things had been numbed out by the chakra in the system, leading them to think that she was dead long before she sat next to Kisame in the bar.

This was confusing.

Because, obviously, a normal person had to be alive to do all of that.

The forensic team had been forced to not alter the truth by the tomboyish woman's mere presence.

Kisame was now more subdued, Kushina noticed.

His Leader taking the fall for the crime had changed him.

"Last piece of evidence that frees Kisame of this crime," Kushina said firmly after nodding appreciatively to her blue skinned friend. "Is that there are no signs of blood on Samehada, no fingerprints on its handle-other than Kisame's-and no tissue samples on its scales."

It was hard dusting off the sentient sword for evidence, as touching the handle would still make spikes jut out, but they had gotten what they needed.

Kushina wasn't new when it came to framing someone for a crime or planting evidence, a few missions with her former team when she was chunin centred primarily on incriminating people and stealing valuable artifacts. So she made full use of her knowledge to defend her former bully.

"Then tell me, genius," a detective said with a roll of his eyes. "Who killed the victim? Who else but the obvious suspect?"

"I don't care who killed her." the woman said lowly, directing her eyes from the two detectives and to Kisame. "What I care about is clearing his name and taking my lord out of prison."

It wasn't unheard of in Snow for a suspect to be absolved for a crime he or she didn't commit; the problem being that there needed to be undeniable proof the person was innocent.

While Kisame was allowed to leave the interrogation room, the two detectives and Kushina left look over the scene of the crime again.

BLAK Operative Phoenix grabbed Kisame by the back of his shirt and both ninjas disappeared in a small burst of fire.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A dark skinned black operative came out of the pop of fire at the back of the bar he had spent most of last night in.

The Kunoichi pointed to a booth and Kisame went to it without hesitation, sliding open the door and looking at the single person seated inside; Bat jerked her head to the seat on the other side of the table and the man sat down heavily.

He noticed how Phoenix had taken off her mask as they entered the bar, though he didn't get to see her face, and he also noticed how Bat was also not in her mask, wearing civilian clothing; a pair of blue jeans, a white turtle neck sweater, red gloves and red sneakers. Her white hair was tied up into a bun and her burning red eyes bored into his own.

What Kisame didn't notice, was that outside of the booth, and in the bar, Sueki had ten small Blood Hounds of Killer Intent sniffing around. She had not channelled killer intent into the blood creations but instead sacrificed ninety percent of her sense of smell and shared it among them.

The blood hounds had been able to pick up the faint scent of redwood and mahogany, two kinds of wood popularly used by puppetmasters, discernable from the oak tree used to build the bar. Her team had found a small piece of clothing that had been caught on a loose nail on a seat inside a booth, a piece of black clothing, and the last thing their illegal investigating team found was a strand of black hair in the same booth as the piece of clothing. Wasp's eyes and the blood hounds nose had confirmed that it the strand of hair came from the same person that had slightly ripped his or her clothes.

Those three things were very important in the investigation because all three things had been found in Kisame's room; flying right under Snow's investigating team.

In Kisame's bedroom, Sueki had managed to detect another foreign chakra spot, one different from the Uchiha chakra in Kisame's system and more 'refined' than the ones from the servants of the palace.

This meant that there were two culprits.

Sueki leaned forward and placed her forearms on the table, closing her hands into loose fists.

"Don't make me ask again." She began and Kisame sat up straight, knowing better than to make light of his superior in both rank and skill. "What are you not telling us?"

The shark man didn't even bother deflecting the question.

"I was in Kiri two weeks ago," he began sombrely, his blue and black sclera eyes looking down to the table. "Visiting my mother. It was her birthday."

He wasn't sure how long he had spent staring at his mother's tombstone.

An hour? Two hours, maybe?

There under the ground, his last family was buried.

His father had killed his younger brother with a blow to the face. The little kid couldn't survive have survived that kinds of attack. His mother hand been injured while she and Kisame were held hostage by their father, confining her to a bed for several years. His alcoholic father had died in a mental institution.

The Hozuki clan, the clan he was from, seemed to be strangers to him; he wasn't close to anyone in the clan.

Every step of the way, Kisame took his mother for granted.

Every time she shielded him from his abusive father.

Every time she spent juggling three jobs just to put food on the table.

Every time she woke him up at night so he could escape before her alcoholic husband became violent.

He called himself a coward, for every time he wouldn't stand his ground but flee at the sight of his father.

The poor woman didn't even blame him for the state she was in after the whole ordeal with Kisame's father had passed. She only smiled and told him to make something of himself.

So he did.

For her birthday, and his dead brother's birthday, he would return to Kiri and spend hours telling her all the things he had done with his life. The grisly retelling of missions didn't make the smile waver from her pale blue face and even the boring details had her intrigued. He continued this tradition well past when she was dead and buried.

Kisame's shame was not telling his mother that he…appreciated all the sacrifices she made for him and his dead brother.

Sueki rolled her wrist, urging Kisame to continue.

"Someone came up to me…and started talking."

"One day the Ghost will have no use for you, Kisame." The grieving shark man didn't respond to the taunt. "When you become too much of a threat, he will find a way to dispose of you without hesitation."

This time, Kisame scoffed. "You don't know Lord Naruto."

"Spoken like a true puppet." The stranger applauded.

The Kiri born Dark ninja grounded his teeth and turned to the person talking.

"Describe him to me." the vampire said and pulled out a notepad from a seal on her wrist, clicking the end of a pen and waiting for Kisame to recall the person's features and clothing.

He was shorter than him, by maybe a foot, but then again not that many people were as tall as Kisame. He had black hair and he wore an orange, spiral mask over his face. The mask looked strange because it only had one eyehole and the spiral of the mask turned into the eyehole.

"Clothes." The white haired woman stated curtly.

Kisame closed his eyes and hummed.

The stranger was in a black cloak with red clouds on it, the sleeves reached his palms but the Sea Monster saw the gloves on the person's hands.

At the mention of the black cloak with red clouds, Sueki paused.

"Are you sure that was what he was wearing?"

"Positive." Kisame nodded surely.

"Was there anyone with him?"

"I couldn't see anyone but Samehada," he motioned to the unmoving bundle of bandages leaning on his side of the table. "Said someone else was there."

"How is it so sure?"

"Samehada has a wide sensory range." The swordmaster answered immediately, continuing his report.

"You are wasting your potential in Darkness. The Ghost is purposely keeping you back so that you don't become a threat to him in the future."

"Shows what you know." Kisame scoffed. "I've learnt a lot from Lord Naruto."

"Then think about the more you can learn if you join us." The orange masked stranger said, fully facing Kisame. "My organization is looking for strong people, like you. Our goal is to bring peace to this world through might, taking down cruel masters like the Ghost down. Do you want to take the chance and wait for the Ghost to dispose of you once he has squeezed you dry?"

The swordmaster didn't answer, turning back to his mother's grave.

"Take your time and think about it, Kisame. I'll be back to take your answer."

"And then?" Sueki pushed.

"He just…disappeared." Kisame shrugged weakly

"Shunshin no jutsu?" the woman proposed but the man shook his head.

"He just sorta," he made a motion with his hands of a spiral turning inwards. "Turned into himself, and he was gone."

The civilian clothed BLAK Commander tapped the pen on her chin and murmured. "Some sort of…non-chakra utilizing teleportation technique, probably."

Inside her head, all the clues and evidence came together.

Kisame, drunk out of his mind, was being helped out of the bar and to the Snow Daimyos palace by a woman he had never met before, who was under compulsion by a sharingan genjutsu. Kisame too was placed under the illusion and his large chakra reserves had not been of much help because of his inebriated state. Large reserves-larger like Kushina's and Kisame's-equalled harder to control, was the known logic behind genjutsus. He did not complain or stop the woman because he was controlled not to.

The Uchiha that had thrown the genjutsu over Kisame, likely the one that had met him in the graveyard, used the same teleportation back then to take him and his partner from the bar, where they observed Kisame for a while, placing the illusion on him, and into Kisame's room once the servant was done cleaning the swordsman's room.

Kisame was too large and too limp to do anything but sleep immediately. The puppetmaster with the Uchiha, from where the smell of wood in the booth from the bar and in the bedroom came from, controlled the woman to do all those heinous things to her, except for severing her arms and legs, where it was an actual puppet that did the deed, passably mirroring what Samehada would do. The puppetmaster could not use Kisame because, again, the Sea Monster's massive reserves could prevent control of his body or his limbs. Though, with enough skill and experience, puppeteers were known to be able to have limited control of humans as well, Chiyo was proof of that.

When chakra was used, no matter how hard it was suppressed, there was always an infinitesimally small expulsion of said chakra from the body. The expulsion of chakra from the body while performing ninjutsu could be reduced to a size that most sensors couldn't detect, with enough practice, but there was a 'chakra footprint' left in the location the chakra had been expelled from a living being.

Puppetry was a branch of ninja arts, and manifesting chakra strings left behind a chakra footprint.

Sueki gave the puppetmaster credit; she wouldn't have detected the footprint if not for her hypersensitive hounds and Komodo Dragon's sensory tongue. The latter ninja was able to 'smell' and track chakra in the air and on surfaces using his long, reptilian tongue.

The two culprits covered Kisame in the victim's blood and once a maid shuffled into his room to open the windows, the alarm had been raised.

Then the question of how the Dark country black ops were not the first to arrive on the scene and clean up the crime, whether or not Kisame really did it, but then, coincidentally, those high ranking ninjas had been called away when dozens of alarms were raised by Dark citizens in Snow country who were being attacked by 'mechanical moving bandits'.

Sueki slowly tapped her middle finger on the table, her mind turning.

'Akatsuki.' She said in her head. 'They're trying to recruit Kisame.'

The masked person had tried to use the same logic Naruto had used on Minato; create doubt.

It had worked, until…it didn't.

Unlike Konoha, Naruto had no ulterior motive for his ninjas or his country.

Today was proof of that, Kisame thought morosely.

His Lord…His Master…had done the equivalent of taking a bullet for him.

Kisame swore to himself that he would never doubt his Leader ever again.

The vampire woman sat back in her chair and sealed up her notebook. 'They could be trying to fill in the position of the plant man Naruto-sensei killed, or they could just be looking for strong shinobi to fill their ranks.' She recalled how the orang mask wearing man had tried to create doubt in Kisame, which-in other situations-would later result in Kisame defecting. 'Missing ninjas…people who have severed ties from their villages and from their families. Kisame could have vital information that could help Akatsuki if they ever want to retrieve the Kyuubi and the Gobi from Dark country.' the woman nodded to herself and exhaled. 'He fits exactly what Nagato wants.'

She acknowledged that the plan of the masked man to recruit Kisame had failed.

The quiet shark man was stewing in his regret.

The genius of the masked man's plan was that the murder in Kisame's bedroom would be difficult, if not impossible, to be framed on someone else. Kisame was the obvious suspect and as such would and should be blamed for the crime.

Ketsueki turned her mind away from that thought process, murmuring to the man across from her. "We'll find a way to make it look like you didn't kill her," her red eyes flicked up to the blue skinned man, glowing ominously as she smirked a little. "Without a doubt."

Kisame breathed out through his nose and his lips twitched up ever so slightly. "Thank you, Lady Ketsueki."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Prison courtyard

The bespectacled blonde coughed into his fist as he casually walked into the prison courtyard, his hands tucked into his pockets and the torso of his bright orange jumpsuit unzipped to show sleeveless white vest. He moved towards a solitary bench overlooking a basketball court and he plopped down on it, sighing appreciatively as he sat back, propped his legs up on the unoccupied bench before him and folded his arms behind his head.

He spied the other inmates keeping their distance from him.

Two reasons behind this.

First was that some, now that they could fully see who the newcomer was, found that he looked strikingly like the Ghost. Though this point conflicted with the fact that the Ghost was too skilled of a ninja to be caught and thrown in jail, and second that the Ghost was the Leader of a Wealth Nation, no person in their right mind would force him into prison. He had all the tell-tale signs of the Ghost; blonde hair, blue eyes, black half mask, black rimmed, rectangular glasses and pale skin.

The second reason they were flicking their eyes at him and muttering under their breaths was that King, the Boss of Chi no Kaze, had his sights set on him and underlings of the biggest man in prison had warned others not to interact with the newcomer or else they would face the King's wrath.

Naruto didn't care much about that last one.

For the first one, he could already see the disbelief at him being the real Ghost dissipate from their eyes; when he was being arrested and he was escorted to the prison, he told the person that had taken him in to not give him any special treatment.

That means, he shouldn't be referred to as a 'Lord' and he shouldn't be referred to as his moniker.

Initially, the warden and a fair chunk of the guards that had processed him recognized him immediately.

Though they then had a second thought.

The Ghost, the phantom that had defeated Cee the Raikage, slaughtered hundreds of shinobi at a time and had pushed Hanzo the Salamander to the limit couldn't be this man that had been brought in with chains.

Naruto bearing the same birth name as the Ghost even seemed offensive to them.

The glasses wearing war veteran looked on at the game of basketball, trying to figure out how the game was played and what was the end point of it all. His confusion at the rules of basketball allowed his mind to wonder.

He could feel how much weaker he was without his chakra.

His limbs felt weighed down and his movements took more effort than normal.

Surrounded by dozens of the continents most feared and most notorious criminals, it felt…

Exhilarating.

As part of his training when he was young, Orochimaru sealed up the chakra in his arms and forced him to do a few push ups at a time; starting with ten, moving up to thirty, then to eighty, then to a hundred, then to five hundred push ups with no chakra in his arms. The sadistic teacher then ordered his student at that time to do those same push ups, without chakra in his arms, with only one hand. The exercises became crueller; two finger, to one finger, to hand stand push ups, to one hand stand push ups. On bad days, Orochimaru would add weighted seals on his body and make him run around a field on his arms, if he fell or stumble, he would do not less than fifty hand stand push ups and continue the hand jog around the field.

Looking back on it now, Naruto was man enough to admit that Orochimaru's sadistic training had done him a world of good.

As his arms were devoid of useable chakra, the physical exercises accumulated more chakra in his reserves, increasing the size of his chakra coils. Once the seals on his arms had been deactivated, the chakra that was supposed to be in his arms flooded back with a vengeance, adding in the store of chakra gotten from the training.

Orochimaru would repeat those exercises, except now with his legs; seal away chakra from his legs and make him run around a field, do squats, one leg squats, jumping jacks, running in place, burpees…it was hell.

When a training session was over, Naruto barely had any strength left to teach his own student anything.

Flexibility training, muscle toning-so he didn't bulk up like a gorilla, something Orochimaru didn't like- and endurance. The snake summoner taught Naruto basic ninjutsu, tasking him to learn or create jutsu on his own, and he gave Naruto better coordination over his hand-to-hand, though this was at the end point of his training and when Orochimaru was gradually losing interest. Naruto didn't learn any fighting style from Orochimaru.

At the end of the first month, Naruto felt a significant difference in himself; he was stronger, faster, smarter and best of all, he was more confident in himself.

So, Naruto wasn't unfamiliar with having no chakra.

It was that he hadn't felt like this in years.

Excitement.

Pure, unbridled excitement.

That was the emotion the trained assassin felt at that moment as he saw a few of King's underlings eye him from the other side of the courtyard.

Naruto could barely keep a straight face, only smiling genially back at them from behind his glasses. The corners of his eyes crinkled in anticipation.

The prison guards patrolled the extreme edges of the courtyard, smart enough to keep their distance from the dangerous prisoners, and the guard towers, manned around the clock and fitted with the latest computers and surveillance cameras, watched each and every prisoner in the facility, whether they were in the courtyard, in their cells, in the workshops, doing the laundry or simply moping the mess hall.

They focused especially hard on the newcomer, a tall, black half mask wearing blonde in glasses that was watching the basketball game with a curious eyebrow ever so slightly raised.

He was a strange one.

The warden unintentionally placed him in a cell directly opposite from the one King was in, and not thirty minutes later, the blonde had angered the person even the fully armed and chakra-unsealed guards preferred to not get in the way of.

Naruto was his name.

This might be his last night in Light City Maximum Security Prison.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

02:32PM

Naruto looked down at his thin, soupy broth with disdain, turning his spoon in the vomit coloured liquid that the prison apparently called miso soup; it was more like they had made a gallon of miso soup and watered it down with ten gallons of tap water, running from a mosquito egg infested pond.

The masked man squinted behind his glasses and contemplated whether or not his poison resistance still applied to him not having his chakra.

There were a few strands of noodles here and there, sure, but they were far from done.

He found two strands in his thin soup-two-and both of them snapped as he pressed the back of his spoon on them.

The man cleared his throat and shrugged carelessly, dipping his spoon in the soup and bringing his head down, ready to take a taste of whatever it was that the cooks called food, but he paused as the empty bench to his right creaked as a person hopped to his side. He put down the spoon, not tasting the soup, and sat up, turning to the person; it was a man much younger than him, a kid really, and he had black hair styled into a low Mohawk, a silver nose ring and babyish looking features. Though there was a fresh looking prison tattoo of a spider on his neck. The boy was in the same orange jumpsuit as the other inmates, though he wore his fully, not like how Naruto had the upper torso of his shrugged off and hanging from his waist, showing that he wore a sleeveless white vest.

Naruto noticed five others sit at his formerly empty table, all bearing intimidating tattoos, some bare-chested and having the torso of their orange jumpsuits hanging off from their waists or also in white vests.

They had spider tattoos in different places, on their faces, on their arms, on their chests, on their stomachs, among others, and they also had terrifying prison drawings on their bodies, like on person had his whole body inked to show tally marks crossed out.

The blonde, glasses wearing man had his own fair share of tattoos, though most of them were natural; the black line tattoo going down his arms from the centre of his back, branching off into his fingers and leaking blackness into his fingernails, had appeared on his body when he unlocked his Smoke release. He had a special seal tattoo on his right upper arm which symbolized him as the Supreme Leader of Dark country and Supreme Commander of BLAK. That one hadn't hurt, though it had been placed in suck a way that it didn't disrupt his Smoke release markings but also incorporated it. He had two storage seal permanent ink arts that Amara Chui-Inku, clan head, had done herself on the back of his hands. The last one he had was the one the Salamander Elder had drawn on him, positioned on his inner lower left arm.

If not for his glasses, Naruto would have cast a very scary image.

It wasn't that Naruto was unaccustomed to people bearing massive body art, seeing as he had some as well. A few people in his Ninja Force bore body art as well, Kisame first sprang to mind; the blue skinned man had an illustration of a congregation of sharks spread out on his whole back, one he proudly boasted of from time to time to his teammates-when they were still a team-and to his friends. Some jounin Chui-Inku clan members also had ink art, albeit they were small and unnoticeable. This was to show how proficient they were in fuinjutsu; using a seal as small as a coin to unleash a whole waterfall of water.

Sueki had tattoos too, though hers had purposely been drawn with invisible sealing ink by an experienced artist from the Chui-Inku clan. The vampire's clan took pride in their prominent pale skin and red eyes, anything that outshined them was disgraceful, just like how Chui-Inku were proud of their horns, Pansa-Senshi were proud of their shapeshifting abilities, Gado were proud to be part clay, Hogo were proud to be nearly blind due to being descended from moles, Kurama were proud of the Kurama Curse as kami herself had acknowledged their might, Suzumebachi were proud of their wasp eyes and teeth and the Kemuri were proud of their heavy bone density, something that made chakra control and swimming very difficult for them.

Clanless were proud of their place in Dark country.

Everyone was proud to be part of Dark country.

There wasn't a better place to live, work and serve.

So, no matter how much doubt others wanted to create in the minds of the People of Darkness, how much disturbance they wanted to make among their long-time allies and how much they wanted to paint Naruto as a blood thirsty monster, no person-not even allies inside or outside of Naruto's country-wanted to exchange the lives they have now for anything else because of Darkness.

A ghost of a smile floated over the glasses wearing Leader's face.

Naruto blue eyes flicked to each person on the table, then he saw a guard far behind those seated before him turn and whisper to his comrade, jerking his head to the door of the eating hall and troop there. Some prisoners left as well, leaving only about thirty people with spider tattoos.

King was nowhere to be seen.

Naruto hid his grin under the shade of his shaggy blonde hair.

Darkness covered the upper part of his face as he kept his head lowered, teetering silently.

He sat up straight and gently pushed his bowl away from him, indicating his disinterest in eating. The shadows vanished, replaced by a genial smile, a close eyed expression that had those seated at his table frowning.

"Before we get started," he placed his hands flat on the table and stood up, doing so slowly. "Does anyone want to get out?"

The others hurriedly got up, as if they anticipated Naruto fleeing, and the grinning youth next to Naruto chuckled.

"We jis' gonna carve ya up a bit, gramps." He pulled out a crudely crafted knife, fashioned out of what looked like rusted metal and the grip was swaddled in a dirty white piece of cloth. Two others pulled out shanks. The first speaker savagely kicked away the bench he and Naruto had been sitting on. "No hard feelings."

"Is that so…"

The blonde bobbed his head and chuckled as well, shuffling back a few steps. The doors to the eating hall slammed shut, manned by a seven foot tall man with a spider tattoo. The masked man looked over his shoulder, caged in the eating hall full of Chi no Kaze gang members, and moved back so that he was exactly ten feet from the first speaker, right in the middle of the gang surrounding him in the eating area.

He counted thirty five of them.

The legendary ninja lifted his fists up to his chin.

Naruto inhaled.

The Ghost exhaled.

The youngster that had spoken to him took this as his cue to attack, and the rest followed accordingly.

There wasn't any particular style Naruto was using.

This was brawling.

He wasn't facing failed ninjas or bandits. These people were hardened criminals; gangbangers, serial killers, rapists, arsonists, captured missing ninjas, renegade samurai and the like. They had spent years in this prison, ruthless and merciless, and the Ghost fought as such.

The Ghost bent under a stab to his chest and punched his aggressor's stomach, making the boy stumble back and grit his teeth as Naruto rose up with an uppercut to his jaw, jarring his victim and dislocating his jaw. The masked assassin, as he dove head first into those after the young, shank wielding Chi no Kaze member, shook his sore fist and used the back of his other fist to bat aside a kick, cracking his elbow into the person's cheek and ducking a wild shank swing, catching the man's arm and judo flipping him over his body. The ninja immobilized the downed prisoner with a sharp punch to the temple, forcing him into the realms of painful unconsciousness.

There was a noticeable difference in speed and strength, the Ghost realized as he snap kicked a man's shoulder with as much power and dexterity he could muster, an action that would have normally shattered bone and torn muscle but now it merely dislocated the elbow and tossed the man into his enraged peers.

Sluggish, the war veteran thought with a disdainful hiss. His face was eternally devoid of feeling and compassion but inside he was berating himself.

A straight punch dug into a man's face and a right hook finished him off, allowing the Ghost to turn on his heel before another opponent could smash the back of his head with a bench, sliding beneath the swing, tripping the man onto his face and bringing down a savage axe kick to crack into his lower back, dislodging his spine.

OOOOORRRRRRGGGGHHHH!

His eyes widened and he crossed his forearms at a particularly accurate flying kick made to take his head off, skipping back a few steps when four others threw blows to his torso; he didn't have the luxury of having his Smoke release bloodline to watch out for his back. The Ghost kicked a man square in the middle of his chest and pursued the person, he had to skid on his knees from a wild slash, picking up an empty bowl from the ground and smashing it into his targets chin as he rose up, catching the bleary eyed man by his nose and shoving him in the path of an eight foot tall man lumbering towards him.

The mountain of muscle briefly stumbled in his step, walking all over the poor person that had been pushed in his path, and he deftly picked up a table, throwing it to the Ghost.

The blonde wisely didn't catch it, sliding around it and sending a clean heel kick to one man, stretching his body to deliver a hard right hook at the same time.

The Ghost picked up a loose shank on the ground and, with a flick of his wrist, let it sail all the way into the eight foot tall behemoths eye, hilting it. Still the man came running at him, like a runaway train, fully intending on flattening the shorter man in his path.

The masked man sent two straight punches into the chest of a particularly stubborn man, turning around and cracking his foot on the same man's jaw while at the same time dodging a simultaneous punch to the head from three others. The blonde grunted as he blocked with his forearm, jabbing the man's liver with a firm punch but grunting again as a blow met the back of his head.

The assassin rolled with the punch, blinking rapidly to clear away the blackness.

He had heard to blow coming-he heard it coming-but he had been too preoccupied with taking down his former opponent and avoiding the person next to his former opponent.

YYYYAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!

The Ghost's blue eyes darkened at the bellow from the eight foot tall man, shuffling back as ten more Chi no Kaze goons sped up to him, holding up their fists.

The ninja lowered his centre of gravity, flattened his feet on the ground and strengthened his shoulder muscles, his chest and his abdomen.

He ignored the dull throb of pain from the back of his head and the pulsing soreness from his knuckles.

"Come on!"

They saw the madness in his blue eyes…and yet they still charged.

He ducked under a kick, wrapping his arm around the leg and smashing the man into the ground, holding the persons heel and swinging him around like a mace. In a feat of strength that amazed the few Chi no Kaze that remained, the Ghost heft up the person he was swinging around into the air, never once moving his feet and keeping his knees bent at a ninety degree angle, thus his centre of gravity a being low. The unfortunate man landed messily on his feet and the Ghost slammed his awaiting fist into the centre of his chest.

The man's feet lifted clear off the ground and he travelled through the air, clattering lifelessly into the eight foot tall monster and making the massive man stumble again.

Meanwhile, the Ghost caught a fist with his left hand, caught another with his right and crossed his arms, smashing both prisoners' heads together and giving them both a parting blow to the skull for good measure as they crumpled before him.

The Ghost in Glasses exchanged blows with three skilled inmates, having to move about in a circle in the middle of the three to better defend and attack them; he blocked a punch to his forehead, smacking the attack aside and a burning fist, swivelling on his heel to back hand a kick to his stomach, ducking a punch to his nose and cracking an elbow upwards to shatter the forearm, spinning around to cross his elbow across the man behind him, ducking a kick from another man and liver jabbing the man he was tussling with, sending him to the ground. The masked man got tired of facing the man to his back, so he found a space in the person's defence, whilst still defending and countering blows from the one in front of him, and stepped down hard on his foot, cracking the back of his fist into his face, smack dab on the bridge of his nose.

The unfortunate man never saw it coming, only feeling an explosion of pain burst on his nose, bright lights popping around him, encroaching even the darkness of his closed eyes and heat spouting out from his nose. He stumbled back and fell onto his back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

The Ghost wasn't paying attention to him anymore, now dividing his attention between one taijutsu expert that had doggedly refused to be felled and an apparent kenjutsu expert, wielding a short shank instead of a longer blade.

The blonde assassin used his elbow to drive up a stab towards his chest, shooting a straight fist into his other opponents sturdy guard, shifted his head aside from a downward slash, flicked a kick aside with the back of his hand, shifted his head to the other side from another poke of the shank and his forearm deflected a knee strike aimed to his chin.

His eyes vigilantly stayed on them but a pained roar brought his attention back to the giant of Chi no Kaze he had blinded in one eye from throwing the shank. The eight foot tall creature was still coming for his target, albeit at a slower pace, and Naruto's priority was stay as far away from the eight foot tall man's reach as much as poss-

A right hook tore across his face and the crafted knife stabbed into his right forearm as he lifted it to block a stab for his neck.

The feral blonde ground his teeth, not too jarred from the blow but his vision blurred as his glasses had been carried off his face after the punch. He swiftly turned his stabbed forearm, wrenching the short blade out of the weapon users hand, holding his other fist out to bang sickeningly against the fist of the taijutsu user. The kenjutsu user saw the blonde's right leg tense and he made to back track, though he already found himself careening across the eating hall and his head slammed into the wall by an accurate roundhouse kick. The Ghost ignored the pain in his fist after blocking the blow with another blow, dragged his arm back, slid around the man, who was hissing and frantically shaking his bright red fist, likely a few fingers were broken, the masked man cracked his foot inside of both his opponents knees, forcing him to fall down onto his knees and he ended his sequence by driving his knee into the back of the howling man's head.

The Ghost never stopped for rest, ripping the rusted blade sticking out of his forearm and throwing it straight and true to the giant coming for him.

The half blind man only managed to turn his head in time, though the short blade hilted itself in his left ear.

That was enough.

The giant groaned deeply and fell forward, crushing few inmates that had not been fortunate enough to die from their wounds. His animal-like rumbles of agony lasted a few more seconds before silence.

Naruto blinked, his sky blue eyes fogged up and his head starting to thump from the bad vision, he searched for a glint and picked up his glasses, frowning at how one lens was cracked and the frame slightly bent.

He flexed his fingers and shook them; blocking the former punch with a punch had hurt only a little. His Kemuri bone density prevented any such fractures or dislocations. Though he now felt a limp in his right knee from how hard he had struck the back of the taijutsu users head.

He glanced at the man lying face down and winced at the pool of blood around him, originating from the lazy pulse of blood coming from the back of his head, flowing down his head. Naruto rubbed the stab wound, wincing again.

The man limped towards the dead giant, cradling his bleeding forearm and trying his best to navigate through the eating hall of mangled bodies and unconscious forms. He stepped over a pitifully moaning Chi no Kaze gang member, not caring much that the man had his arm dislocated in such a way that what looked like muscle tissue hung from the wound.

The blonde man grabbed onto the short blade sticking out from the dead giant's ear and yanked it out. "Ow, ow, ow…" the open wound in his forearm throbbed once again. His headache was somewhat gone and his vision was clear but, seeing as he didn't have the luxury of having his chakra, his natural body regeneration couldn't help him heal his knee or his blade wounded forearm.

The man hobbled towards the door of the eating hall, throwing it open and flicking his eyes to the non-Chi no Kaze gaping at him.

"Oh, don't mind me." he said casually, limping ahead. He held the shank in a reverse grip in his left hand. His right arm hung to his side. He turned to a random inmate and asked. "By any chance, is King in his cell?"

"A-Ah-Ah-"

"I'll take that as a 'yes'" the man in the mangled glasses said with a genial smile. "Is there anyone with him?"

A braver, though still surprised, prisoner replied him. "Yes."

"How many?"

"…I don't know."

Naruto hummed to himself and lightly scratched his chin with his newly acquired short blade. "That many huh…" he shrugged and limped on. "Good."

The same person then stepped forward, blocking Naruto. "They're gonna kill you, Blondie."

"Bah, I'll be fine." he shoved the man aside and ambled on. The man then paused and he scoffed, saying to himself. "I guess Kushina and Kisame won the bet."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

08:32PM

Hours later, as Doton, the other Daimyos and Naruto's guards came to retrieve the Leader of Darkness from the ill-reputed prison; the Warden told them that the blonde was in solitary confinement.

The Snow Daimyo asked why.

The Warden, knowing that his head was now officially on the chopping block, showed his Daimyo the video footage of six hours ago.

Starting from the eating hall and leading into the cell blocks.

Naruto was less of a man and more of a beast.

He tore, he slashed, he stabbed, he poked, he rend, he dislocated, he snapped, he battered, he wounded, he maimed and he killed. He tossed people over the railing to their untimely demise, he poked out eyes and he slashed jugulars.

When Naruto got to King, and he got to King, amid the walkway of battered humanity he had left in his wake, those watching lost hope in the Leader of Darkness; King was so tall that the six foot, some inches tall blonde had to crane his head all the way back and King was muscular, built like a war machine with veins and throbbing muscles.

Naruto was visibly tired, the fashioned short blade was chipped and broken, his stabbed forearm bled freely and the man had long since abandoned his glasses, choosing low visibility and a headache than risking the chance of getting a shard of glass in his eyes.

The malevolent Ghost entered King's cell.

King held nothing back, ripping his sole bunk apart and using a long piece of rusted metal as a weapon, though the tired blonde threw his blunt shank towards the massive man as King prepared to use the long metal to crush Naruto's head. The chipped blade cut past King's throat, but it also tore open a vital artery. King dropped the metal in his hand in favour of holding the blood spouting from his neck and Naruto capitalized on this by snagging he rusted metal King had dropped and swung it hard and true, smashing into the side of the Chi no Kaze boss's head.

That was when guards stormed the cell.

Not during the brawl in the eating hall, not when Naruto was carving a path through Chi no Kaze on King's cell block and certainly not during the short fight with King.

When it was all said and done, that was when the guards came.

The video hadn't even finished before Doton fired the Warden, assigning some of the guards with him to sack a sizeable number of the prison guards and make hasty preparation to replace the multitude that had lost their jobs.

The guards ordered Naruto to get down onto the ground and the blonde didn't resist, only barking for them to take it easy on his bleeding arm.

The thing that saved the Prison Warden from an immediate execution was when a medic had healed Naruto of his injuries before taking him to solitary confinement, though Doton did throw the corrupt warden into prison.

They took Naruto out of solitary, processed him out of prison by unlocking the restrains over his chakra; the seal master from Snow gaped at how the seals looked like they would fall apart in the next few minutes, testament to the volatility of Naruto's chakra.

Doton admitted that Kisame was not the one that killed the woman.

The evidence was overwhelming.

The man had insisted that the Leader of Darkness, who was now out of the orange prison jumpsuit and in his normal shinobi gear, plus his Leader's robe and hat as well as a fully bandaged right forearm, stay a longer in Snow so he could properly apologize, for both the corruption in his prison system as well as for jumping the gun and assuming the worst in one of Naruto's ninjas.

Naruto declined without much thought.

He had other matters to attend to.

The Leader of Darkness and his people left Snow, but they set course for Suna.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Somewhere outside of Snow, Sueki drew her master, Kushina and Kisame's attention. The vampire's subordinates were nowhere to be seen, this being because they were spread out and protecting their Leader in the darkness of the night. They swiftly dealt with bandits or troubling animals long before their master could notice, giving them privacy.

The procession was speeding hastily towards Sunagakure.

The BLAK Commander laid out all she and her subordinates had discovered from their covert investigation.

Hopping from tree to tree, Naruto scratched his chin. "I purposely chose to ignore Akatsuki after I killed that plant man."

"Hai, sensei." Sueki nodded.

"Nagato is smart enough not to test my patience." He fixed each person in his confidence a dark, hard look, one that they returned back to their master with grim expressions. "We move now."

"Hai, Lord Naruto." The three ninjas echoed mutely.

Three hours of steady running later, they reached Sunagakure, specifically the manhole Danzo formerly used to infiltrate Suna when he was still alive.

Those standing before the hole in the sandy ground went down onto their knees before Naruto.

Onion, Carrot and the Captain of BLAK Team Thirteen inclined their heads forward and placed their hands over their hearts, welcoming their Leader; the eighty black operatives handpicked for the special mission were already now in Konoha, some in the vacated Kurama clan compound and some in the ROOT base the majority of the painting clan occupied, helping them pack.

Kushina leaped into the hole at Naruto's command, and went ahead to help however she could.

The goal was to make the migration out of Konoha and transition into Darkness as smooth and as comfortable as possible.

Onion, Carrot and the Captain of Team Thirteen went in after the eager redhead, leaving behind Naruto, Sueki and Kisame.

Teacher and student shared a look. Sueki shook her head; there was no other living being watching or listening for at least fifty miles of them, except for the Konoha sentry posts, her bloodline accurately informed her. The BLAK teams had swept through the dark desert multiple times, clearing the path towards Dark country so that not even an errant beetle would get in their way. The Kazekage, Sabaku no Rasa, was only vaguely aware of their presence though he didn't know their exact location in his deserts, and the sentry posts looking out into the dark desert couldn't spot them, seeing as no person used any light among them.

There was no moon to illuminate the night and no stars in the sky.

Kisame stood at attention as Naruto faced him.

Kisame's Leader sighed quietly and the corners of his eyes dipped. "Kisame…I have a mission for you."

By morning, news of Kisame defecting from Dark country spread like wildfire.

Suna, Kiri and Uzushio Bingo Books promptly entered him into the S rank section, but as the Zero Tailed Beast, Kisame Hoshigaki.

Authors note

It should be noted that Darkness does indeed have their own bingo book but entries are missing ninjas and ronin from Suna, Kiri, Uzushio and River country. Now they have their very first missing ninja.

Hurray…?

Next chapter should start off immediately after Naruto sneaks into Konoha through the underground tunnel (still at night). Minato will also feature in next chapter (maybe…probably…) and the Sandaime Hokage choosing a successor will also be in the next chapter.

What are your thoughts on this chapter? What do you think of the events that have taken place?

How is the story so far?

Let me know what you think, would you so kindly. Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.