I don't own Naruto, or any of the characters from the Manga or Anime.

A Price for Peace

Chapter 30 A Decision to Make

Naruto sat cross legged under the shade of large tree, so still that it appeared that he could have been made from stone, you couldn't even see the rise and fall of his chest as he would take a breath. He was the perfect picture of tranquility. That was until a large branch from the tree he was sitting under collapsed and fell, striking the unsuspecting blond. "Ahhh what the hell!" He yelled rubbing his head. The dignified and tranquil Naruto had been replaced by the rather awkward teenager that he really was, as he pulled himself out from underneath the large branch.

"Sorry Boss! I think one us went a little overboard in our jutsu training." A clone called out from a nearby clearing. In the past week Naruto had created several training grounds a fair distance from the village. Every morning he would split a group of clones up and send them to the different locations while he would meditate. He didn't want to risk making a large training area, as it may have lead to him being discovered.

Much to his dismay, the meditating had not gone as well as the other clones training. This had been foremost in the blonds mind, he had made no significant steps forward in mastering his empathetic abilities. The best he could do now was get a faint reading if someone was angry while not using his Bijuu's chakra. 'Damn it, I have been doing this for a week an I haven't accomplished anything!' He raged taking up a new seated position, this time atop the fallen branch.

'You're focusing on the wrong things, If anything your ability to detect negative emotions have made huge strides, before you couldn't feel anything without my chakra.' Kurama reasoned lazily.

'Alright then fur ball, why don't you tell me what I should be doing then?' The blond sighed.

'I have already told you, to feel an emotion from someone else, then you need to understand that emotion for yourself. You can't possibly feel emotions that you are unfamiliar with.' The large fox lectured.

'Ah well how am I supposed to know what to do then? I need to experience positive emotions, but it's not that easy is it. I can't just turn them on like a switch.'

'That's true. Tell me, have you decided on a response to the girl yet?'

Naruto froze, the topic of Karin had been a little touchy. He had not responded to her confession yet. 'No I still don't know what to do, I think I like her, and I guess that is enough to move on with... but if things turn out badly, then it could ruin our friendship.'

'There is no difference between a dream and a lost reality. Because in the end humans always want something that they do not have. They dream, then regret only to dream again.' Kurama muttered.

'What are you talking about?'

'Regret... If things end badly between yourself and that woman you will regret. Yet if you do nothing and you start to wonder what could have been, then you will regret that too. Still I think it would be better to regret a chance taken, than to regret never taking a chance.'

'So you're saying that I should go for it... start dating Karin-chan?' Naruto surmised.

'I'm not telling you to do anything in particular. I was trying to teach you a life lesson... But as you clearly cannot follow that principle... then yes, why not see where your little relationship with that woman goes. You need more experience with positive emotions, well this is, if nothing else a great chance to experience some. Go be happy for awhile, stop worrying so much.'

'Are you feeling alright? Up until now you have been telling me to be careful, too almost paranoid levels.'

The large fox laughed, unable to prevent it from sounding threatening. 'I still am telling you to be carful. But, you can't close everyone off, that would just lead you down the path of loneliness. We both know you have walked for far too long down that path.'

'But I still don't know what I'm supposed to do... Even if I ask Karin-chan out on a date, when I think about what a date should be, Karin-chan and I have done most of them anyway. What do you think?'

'Well I can't help you there, not much call for dating when your thousands of years old, and a giant fox.' Kurama chuckled.

Naruto pouted in disappointment. 'Thanks for nothing then... I should probably at least tell Karin-chan, I guess we can go on a few dates... when I decide what exactly would be a decent date around here that is. In Konoha this would be easy, off to Ichiraku ramen and then probably to a movie, something like that. But here everything seems so depressing. Do you have any Ideas?'

'Sorry, but that's something you're going to have to figure out for yourself I am afraid.' The large fox replied, not sounding very sorry at all.

(Meanwhile)

It had been an unproductive week for Tetsu and his team. They had returned to the southern district capital the day after his meeting with the princess Gouhara, but they had not found anything yet that would suggest who had killed the gang members. Tetsu was resigned in his belief now that who ever had killed the men in that store had since escaped from the city.

His team were staying in what was easily the nicest building in the capital, it had several guards that wore the same uniform as those that stood watch at the city gate and it stood in a large open compound that seemed out of place among the tall towers. This was the head office of the near non existent government.

"So Nii-san, where are we searching today?" Koha asked casually as the elder silver haired man arrived at a large table where a fine spread of food had been laid out for their breakfast.

"What have I told you about calling me that while we are on missions?" The elder silver haired man asked with a sense of obvious frustration.

"But Ni- Sensei, we're in a building owned by the military, and it's not like we're on duty now." Koha complained.

"Every time we are out of our clan compound we are on duty. Letting things slip like that you are my younger brother will only serve to put a target on your back. My enemies might even use you to get to me if they think that you could be used as a weakness." Tetsu explained.

"Oh please, what enemies? You are one of the top ranking officers in the military, strong enough to take on members of the royal family. There is no way that anyone could challenge you." The teen said confidently.

This declaration did not go down well with Tetsu. "Don't be an idiot. You think because of my position I am immune to being attacked? We are out here searching for someone who not only knows how to use chakra, but was skilled enough to kill two gang members in one of their own stores, and then get away undetected. We have no idea how strong he is, and we cannot afford to be lax. It is important we perform all assignments as if our lives depend on it, because the truth is they do. Every mission has the potential of being our last and the best way to prevent that is to stay focused and not slack off."

"Alright I'm sorry sensei. Anyway what is the plan for today? We've been searching all over the city for someone and we have no idea what their name is or even what they look like. This is a waste of time." Koha sighed, casting a rueful look down at his plate.

"I know, to make matters worse the gang who's men were killed have stopped cooperating with us. I think they may even suspect that we were responsible." Tetsu sighed.

"I can't really blame them, the only people in the empire that are supposed to know how to use chakra are the military and royal family. Who else would they suspect?" The teen sighed.

Tetsu nodded his agreement, their two month mission in this city was nothing more than a waste of time. "Yeah you're right. Anyway today we will search, and ask around in the western districts of the city. I really doubt that there is anyone there that will be able to tell us anything but it's best to at least finish the search. Who knows we might even find a lead that can push us in the right direction when we have to start searching the rest of the villages in this region."

The two brothers were joined soon later by the other two members of their team. Once everyone had arrived Tetsu gave a detailed explanation, assigning specific areas for each of them to cover in their search.

"Most of this area is industrial, so the concentration of potential suspects will be significantly smaller than in the other areas. But that does not mean you can relax, stick to your assigned area and stay safe out there." Tetsu said as he outlined the areas over a large map of the city.

(Later that Day)

Naruto casually walked through the trees back towards the small village, his training over for the day and the rest of his clones were working on finishing his and Karin's house. As a result the blonde didn't care how long he was taking, he slowly strolled through the tall trees as if he didn't have a care in the world. He had one more stop to make before he returned to the village. A short way to the south he knew Karin was still training under the supervision of one of his clones.

Karin was running effortlessly through the kata that she had been given when Naruto casually appeared at the edge of the clearing. "You're getting a lot better." He said with a smile and friendly wave.

"Well I have been doing this for a week I would hope that I have." The red head said relaxing her stance. "So are you done for the day?"

"Yeah, I am not making nearly as much progress as you have been making though." Naruto admitted, clearly a little disappointed with himself.

"You say that, but you're training in taijutsu and elemental ninjutsu at the same time as your meditation. I'm sure by now you have moved even further away from me." Karin replied seeing the blonds downcast state.

"Well maybe, I can tell I have gotten stronger, but the more powerful I become, the harder I have to work just to improve a little. You will have improved far more I am sure of it." Naruto reasoned this time with a large smile.

Karin smiled in response, Naruto's enthusiasm was infectious. "Well if you say so, but I don't feel all that much stronger than I was last week."

"You will just have to test yourself it's a shame there is no body around that is at your level to test your growth. It will be hard for my clones to assess your growth, but I guess if you can land a hit the clone will burst. Do that and you'll be ready for the next step in your training." The blond said.

"You want me to do that now?" Karin questioned. She was too tired to spar with the blond right now, even if it was only a clone.

Naruto saw the apprehension on her face and gave a light chuckle. "Don't worry you can start tomorrow, your Kata are easily passable, now you just need to put them into practice. We can relax for the rest of the day."

Karin let out a deep breath and relaxed. "Good, because unlike you I can't fight for days on end." She laughed.

"So is there anything you want to do for the rest of the day? I was thinking we could do something together." Naruto said, suddenly nervous.

"You mean like a date?" Karin asked.

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Well yeah. But I have no idea what to do for a date, so if there is anything you want to do it would really help me out a lot." He chuckled.

"Well I don't have anything in particular that I want to do. But if it's a date then my answer is yes." The red haired kunoichi replied earnestly.

"Yeah, but what can we do? There is no where to go out and eat, no cinema's. The village doesn't even have a park... not that it really needs one deep in a forest like this." Naruto spoke honestly.

"That's alright, I don't care what we do... I bet we will think of something when we get back to the village." Karin said.

Naruto nodded his agreement and they began walking back to the village together. They didn't talk much as they walked but after a few minutes the blond slowly wrapped his hand around hers, their fingers intertwining a moment later.

"So does this mean you have made up your mind?" Karin sighed, a coy little smile gracing her lips.

"I guess so." Naruto said with a small smirk. He had wanted to think more about it to try and understand his own feeling for the kunoichi, but this moment seemed to answer most of them for him. "So does this make you my girlfriend now?"

Karin grinned. "That's right!"

Naruto's smile changed to match hers as he lightly squeezed her hand. "I like the sound of that."

Karin readily squeezed back. "So do I."

They didn't speak for the rest of the way back to the village, just happy to be in each others company. The village that had only a week ago looked to be on it's last legs, now appeared to be being revitalised. Naruto and his clones had been clearing the overgrown sections of rainforest when they were not busy working on his new house. The roads were now clean and even the old buildings that had been falling apart looked as though they had more life in them now.

Near the centre of the village Naruto saw the first of his clones, two of them carrying a large door that looked as if it had been carved from one of the trees they had cut down to create one of the many training grounds deep in the forest., Ss they rounded the corner they saw what would become their new home, a week ago it was just a frame, but now it looked like a house, while the others in the small village mostly resembled basic shacks this looked more along the lines of a small home in Konoha, easily large enough for the two of them but not so large as to be out of place. "It's almost done boss. If we keep working, we should be done by tomorrow night!" one of the clones yelled enthusiastically, waving at the two new arrivals.

"Wow that's great, we should go tell Cho the good news," Karin said almost jumping in enthusiasm. "Oh we should buy something to make this place actually feel like a home."

"Well it looks like we found something to do for our first date then," Naruto smiled, "But it's not like we can buy anything here, we're going to need to go somewhere else. Cho will probably know where we should go, and we have enough money, so yeah let's go have some fun," he beamed.

(Southern Capital)

Much as Tetsu had expected, there was still no sign of anyone who could be even remotely suspected of killing those men. 'This is really a waste of time. All for a couple of thugs that would have killed more innocent people than they could probably count. Still it's not my place to question orders given by a member of the royal family.'

These thoughts often crossed his mind, the things he was told to do in the name of the empire were often not things he would agree with, but for the sake of his and his families lives he never questioned an order, and he always completed his missions without any incident. In fact it was Tetsu's exemplary record that had earned him such a glowing reputation within the empire.

With his patrol done Tetsu began heading back towards their lodgings already preparing himself for his charges to report that they had found nothing of any interest. As he walked a man in an unusually high class suit crossed his periphery. "Hey you there!" he called out in earnest, there was really no great need, he could tell just from the way the man walked that he was no soldier, and he certainly wasn't trained in using chakra.

The man spun his face poised ready to berate the man who had so rudely interrupted him. "How dar-" he soon changed his tone when he saw the man who was now approaching him. "My most humble apologies, I thought one of these peons had the nerve to address me with such informality. If I had known you were an officer I would have shown more respect."

"That's quite alright," Tetsu said ignoring the small shot taken at those that lived in the city. "You seem a little out of place here though."

"You have a good eye, I run the finest construction company in the city." He declared confidently. "The position was given to me by a member of the royal family themselves."

It was clear to Tetsu that the man was proud of his boasting, far too proud for him to be lying. "Is there much business to be had around here? Most of the towers in the city were built a long time ago."

"Ah but that is what makes my business so valuable. Any time one of the towers needs repair, they come to me. Sure we get a few of the low life scum from outside the city come in every so often when they can find enough money after they have paid their taxes that is." The well dressed man laughed.

Tetsu found this man to be rather distasteful, but he still had a job to do. "What about recently, any unusual purchases?"

The man rubbed his chin in contemplation. "Well now that you mention it, a few men from one of the larger gangs in the city came by the other day and brought some sheets of heavy duty glass. Normally this wouldn't be so surprising as every so often some disenchanted civilian will throw a rock through a window and run away... But this was different, by the dimensions they gave me it was no low lying window, this was from one of the better apartments in the city, a penthouse."

"Or the gang's headquarters." Tetsu reasoned.

This caught the man's attention and he nodded his agreement. "Yeah that's what I suspected, if that is the case, then it could have just been one of those thugs getting out of hand and shattering the glass himself. Still that's the only unusual purchase... well other than one of the new recruits from the army came and brought a lot of supplies."

"A new recruit came to your store?" The silver haired man asked now reasonably intrigued.

"Yeah, they paid in cash and didn't want anything delivered, I think they must have sealed everything away in those handy scrolls you military men carry." The store owner explained.

'This is more than odd, even if it was a new recruit, they don't know how to use sealing scrolls yet.' Tetsu frowned as he realised that this might just be a lead on the killers. "Can you tell me what this person looked like?"

The man nodded readily, happy that he could be of help to an officer. "There was two of them, each around seventeen give or take a year. The boy was quite tall and had a mop of yellow hair that spiked out in every direction, and eyes as blue as the sky. Now the girl" He let out a low sigh, contemplating how best to describe her. "She had blood red hair I have never seen anything like it before in my life, and her eyes were the same... no they were a little lighter in shade than her hair, more like ruby's, a real pretty thing too if you ask me."

"That doesn't match any of the recruits in this city at the moment, they must have been somebody else, pretending to be recruits to reduce any suspicion," Tetsu said flatly. His mind was already already racing, going back over the last few days to see if he had seen anyone that matched those descriptions.

"But they could use the techniques that only those trained by the military can. If what your saying is true then perhaps there is another squad in the village without your knowledge?" The well dressed man suggested.

Tetsu paused at this prediction. 'Is it possible that this is a test set up by Gouhara-sama? Somehow I don't think so, she seemed too interested in rounding up anyone with the potential to use chakra, and this isn't really her style. She would likely set a squad of her men to try and kill me,'

The business manger seemed to take the silence as a sign that he was right. "So my detection was correct then?" He asked growing in confidence.

"That doesn't seem likely, at least not from the current ruler of the southern empire. I don't know who these two are, or where they came from but I don't think they are members of the military, or at least they haven't been for a very long time. Is there anything else you can tell me about the two of them, did they give you a name?" Tetsu queried.

The man scrunched his face, trying to remember anything that could be of some value to Tetsu. "Well the two of them stood out like sore thumbs but I can't recall their names I'm afraid. The only thing extra I can think of, if I remember correctly, is that the blond had odd markings on his face, they kind of looked like whiskers off."

"Whiskers?"

"Yeah, you know like on a cat, but they looked more like odd birthmarks. There were three on each cheek," the man explained. He paused for a bit longer trying to remember more. "Sorry I cant think of anything else, if I do I will send word, to the government building."

"That's quite alright, you have been a great help. Thank you," Tetsu said formally. 'So this was no raw explosion of chakra performed by someone with no training. Whoever did this was trained... trained well. But that just means that description I was given is all but useless, that could have been a Henge, the guards in this city are not trained to sense them, they all failed the academy so they have no further knowledge of chakra,' he mused. This made things more complicated, if their targets were as adept in the use of chakra as he was beginning to suspect, then they could hide their chakra signatures rather successfully and he would be none the wiser.

With one last short nod of the head to the man he turned and began briskly heading back to the government house where he and his team were staying. He was already preparing a training regime to give to his young charges. "There is no telling what we are up against now... I have a bad feeling about this." He muttered softly to himself.

(With Naruto)

"You're already moving out?" Cho asked with a sense of shock.

"Yeah, my clones said that if they keep working for the rest of the day, then our house will be ready by tomorrow afternoon, once we finish our training." Naruto replied with a fox like grin.

"I could see it was close, but with how fast you were able to build something like that... it's incredible," Tetsu replied still astonished.

"Thank's I'm quite proud of myself," the blond beamed. 'Yamato-taichou could put up a street of buildings twice the size of mine in an instant, but I don't have his kekkei genkai,' he thought, fondly remembering the man who had taken charge of team seven and supervised him in his Bijuu training.

"Well if things don't turn out that way, you're both more than welcome to stay here as long as you need." Cho replied, he was almost sad to see the two shinobi leave, even if they were only moving a short distance down the road.

"Thanks Cho. Oh and before we go, do you know where we can go to to buy something for ourselves as a house warming present, and maybe some furniture?" Karin asked hopeful that the afro haired man had a good idea.

Cho contemplated the question for a moment before nodding. "You definitely have to leave the village, but you won't have to go far. The larger village to the north, near where you destroyed the bandits hideout."

"Yeah I remember the one you're talking about. So that's the best place to go?" The young jinchuuriki asked.

"Well the capital would be the best place, but it might not be safe right now, and it's a little far to go for what you want. But that village will have everything you need, it might not be the best quality, but you should still find everything you need there," Cho replied.

"I guess we don't need anything special, just something to make our house seem like a home, and some furniture wouldn't be a bad idea either," Naruto said calmly.

"Then that village would certainly be the place to go. But I urge you to restrain yourself it is unlikely that they will have given up on finding you in the capital after the stunt you pulled, but showing off your abilities wouldn't be a good idea," Cho left the warning hanging, he knew that the pair could look after themselves without too much difficulty.

"Yeah I'll be on my best behaviour don't worry." Naruto replied with a happy smile.

End Chapter!

Sorry I have been absent for so long. I have had some family issues that have prevented me from writing. So I used this chapter to ease myself back into the swing of writing again. Not all that much happened this chapter but it set some foundations for the things I will be exploring later. I will pick up the pace a bit in the next few chapters maybe a time skip or two in order to bring plot points forward at a faster rate.

Spoiler Alert!

Well the last few chapters have been interesting if nothing else. I didn't really understand the thing about the White Zetsu being soldiers made by the Rinnegan Genjutsu as it was explained earlier that Madara made them with the power of Hashirama's cells, which explained why they kidnapped Tenzo (Yamato). In fact the progression of power ups has gotten completely out of hand, every second chapter we have had a character getting stronger via some pointless plot hole or another. We never saw a decent fight between Madara, Sasuke and Naruto before Madara was taken over by Kaguya. Which in itself despite being an interesting development served no real purpose if I am honest.

On the plus side, this looks like this could be the last of the pointless power ups unless maybe Naruto and Sasuke get another one for some reason that can't logically be explained at this point in time. So if that is the case then at max I would expect a five to Six chapter fight to finally end this circus of an arc. Which may even end the series as only Sasuke would be left to challenge Naruto where they both will likely die as Naruto predicted.

If that is the case I wouldn't mind seeing another time skip first for a few years into the future. Show Naruto as Hokage or something before he dies it would give at least some sort of closure to things that way.