We both know I don't own Naruto.

Beta-Readers: ToMockingbird, MonsterCatMusicGirl, GwendolynStacy.

The automatic door opened with an almost inaudible hiss. Classical music hit his ears, trying to set the pleasant, relaxing mood that most of the people that came here were looking for. Hiruzen Sarutobi ignored it and walked out of the elevator, flanked by two towering bodyguards that quickly scanned the lounge of the restaurant.

The place was big, even by most high-end restaurants' standards. Polished wood covered the floor of the lavishly decorated dining area, full of a lunch crowd of men and women in suits. Too early for a formal dress crowd, these were customers that had come to talk about business with their customers or coworkers, or even with their rivals.

Much like Sarutobi himself was forced to.

"Welcome, Mr. Sarutobi," the host greeted him with a courteous smile. "If you would follow me, I'll escort you to your table. One of your guests has already arrived."

Hiruzen nodded, following the young woman as she guided him through the restaurant, as his guards kept shadowing him. He could hear whispers from the crowd, who had noticed the CEO of Sarutobi Enterprises walking among them. He ignored them as much as he could and looked at the scenery out of the full-length window.

Sarutobi noted that the window was made of thick, tempered glass. Considering the kind of customers the restaurant catered to, it was obvious that they would get bulletproof glass, alongside a very advanced security system and a healthy dose of discretion. That had been one of the reasons he had chosen it for this meeting.

The other was the view. He had to admit it, it was breathtaking. It didn't compare to seeing a mountain range or a forest in one of the last natural reserves, but it was something that he liked to see all the same. It reminded him what he fought for, what he had tried to protect in all these years, no matter the cost. All of the skyline was visible, from the upper levels to the lower ones, albeit the latter were partially hidden by the bigger buildings built on top of them.

It looked like the richest part of the city was trying to put the poorer side under the rug, and failed to do. He smiled at the idea. The elitists thought that they could just hide the problems from their sight and they would just go away. He knew better. After all, he had to live with the consequences.

His reverie was interrupted as the hostess finally ushered him in a private room. It was as expensively furnished as the rest of the restaurant but with slightly better taste when it came to decorations. Maybe it was just because they weren't so ostentatious, giving the room a more somber look.

A man sat at the single large table, flanked by his own bodyguards. Sarutobi steeled himself with the best poker face he was able to muster. The two of them studied each other for a long moment, then Sarutobi sat at his own chair, never moving his eyes from the other man.

"Hello, Sensei," the man said, greeting him, but Hiruzen could hear the mocking tone behind the word.

"Orochimaru," he said as a reply, nodding slightly.

"So, what would you like to eat?" Orochimaru asked, picking up one of the menus and opening it. "I've heard that the pork here is a bit greasier than usual, but they do make an excellent spicy chicken."

Sarutobi remained silent, still looking at Orochimaru. The two of them hadn't met in person in almost a decade and half, but Hiruzen knew that his former student was over fifty years old by now. Yet, the pale man in front of him couldn't have looked more than his mid-thirties. Hiruzen would've thought that plastic surgery was involved, but the unnatural appearance of Orochimaru's eyes suggested otherwise. Perhaps his longevity was a result of the studies conducted at OtoGenetics or perhaps both.

"I think we should wait until everyone is here," Sarutobi said, glancing at the still empty chair.

"Then, if memory serves right, we will have to wait for a long time." Orochimaru said with a smirk, not looking away from the menu.

"I should take offense to that," a voice from behind Sarutobi said in a dry tone, but he didn't look back. Orochimaru looked up, appearing genuinely surprised and Sarutobi felt a pang of satisfaction at that.

Unlike the people at the table, the newcomer had arrived alone. He walked to the side of the table and sat down between the two men with a satisfied smirk, although noticeably closer to Sarutobi than Orochimaru. "Thinking that I'll be late just because I don't own a fancy limo like you two is rude."

"This is really a surprise," Orochimaru said, putting down the menu. "I think I haven't seen you in a suit since after college."

"And I never saw you so pale," Jiraiya said, adjusting his sleeves and frowning at them. "Besides, they wouldn't have let me inside if I came here with something not fancy enough."

"Now that we are all here, we should get to the reason for why I called both of you," Hiruzen said, catching both men's attention.

"Don't be in such a hurry, sensei. After all, it's lunch hour," Orochimaru said with a cold smile, looking back at the menu. "Although I'm surprised you didn't invite our other classmate as well."

"Tsunade is not involved into this," Sarutobi said. "After all, she is retired."

"Hold still, stupid brat!" Tsunade all but ordered, her patience for this patient apparently thinner than usual today.

"No, no! It hurts!" Naruto protested as he continued struggling.

"It's a painkiller!" the medic half-snarled as she tried to reach Naruto's body with an autoinjector.

"It still hurts!" he repeated, keeping Tsunade at bay as much as he could from his spot on the examination table.

All of sudden he felt a prickling sensation on his neck and heard a low hissing sound. Turning around, he saw a young woman holding an autoinjector, smiling kindly at him.

"Shizune… you betrayed me," he gasped.

"Honestly, Naruto. You should know to behave at the clinic," Shizune chided him, throwing the empty autoinjector in a small trash can.

"Thank you, Shizune," Tsunade sighed. "I'll take it from here."

Naruto pouted childishly as Shizune left, closing the door behind her. He didn't like needles. Who did, anyway? He bet that even junkies didn't like needles.

"The painkiller should help with the soreness you felt because of the strain you put on your muscles," Tsunade started explaining, as she moved a medical-looking machine full of screens and handles closer to the table. "Now hold still and let me work."

"Fine," he muttered. Tsunade picked up a thick cable that ended with three long needle-like plugs from the machines and gently probed the base of his neck just above the spine, with one of her fingers.

"If it makes you feel any better, brat, I hate this part just as much as you do," she said as she jammed the cable in his neck. Naruto only felt the ghost of a pain thanks to the injection, but he could still sense the needles inside of him as they did their job and connected with the augs in his body.

The machine sprang up to life, emitting beeps and strange sounds. Tsunade walked back behind her desk and started typing something at her laptop, so Naruto imagined that the machine was transmitting data to it. For a while, the only sounds in the room were the typing on the keyboard and the beeping of the machine attached to his

"Well, punk, you were lucky. You didn't last any serious damage, biologic or otherwise," Tsunade said finally, and Naruto took a big breath of relief. "There's no need for a surgery to fix your systems."

"That's great. Can you unplug me now?" he asked, eager to get the damn needles out of his spine.

"I would like to stress to you to not go overboard all the same," Tsunade said in a lecturing tone, as she got up and got closer to the medical table. "Your body may be tougher than a baseline human's, but the overall idea is that you should avoid getting hurt."

"Alright, I get it," Naruto said, eyes downcast. "You're right as always, granny."

The plug was ripped out a bit harder than necessary. "I told you to not call me that."

"I hate that thing," he muttered as he massaged his neck. "Can't you just use a scanner next time?"

"A scanner doesn't allow me to download data or run inner diagnostics," Tsunade told him as she put the device back to its place. "We're lucky we have compatible machinery to examine your augmentations at all, you know? This is not exactly an upper ward clinic."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto mumbled as he put his t-shirt back on.

There was a quick knock at the door, which caught Naruto and Tsunade's attention. The door opened, revealing a young woman with pink hair tied up in a loose bun. She had a tablet in her hands and wore a nurse's uniform, but Naruto knew better. The only reason why Sakura wasn't a doctor yet was because no one around here could afford tuition at college.

"Senju-san, I brought you—Naruto?" Sakura asked as she spotted him. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting a check-up?" he said as if it was obvious, trying to keep a straight face. Had she come in a few seconds earlier, she would've seen him with a cable sticking in his neck, and that wouldn't have been easy to explain.

"If you needed a check-up you could've waited for me downstairs, it wasn't necessary to disturb Senju-san for it," Sakura lectured him. "She's a very busy woman."

"It's alright, Sakura, I wasn't busy," Tsunade said, as she moved the machine she had used back to its original spot. "And I told you, no need to be so formal. Just call me Tsunade."

"Yes, Senju-san…" Sakura said apologetically before realizing what she had said. "I mean—"

"So, what did you need from me?" Tsunade asked as Naruto tried to not smirk at his friend's flustered reaction.

"We need your signature on this," Sakura told her, passing the tablet to Tsunade. "Also, we're almost out of O negative blood and IV bags."

"Alright," the medic said, examining the tablet for a moment before applying her signature on its digital screen. "You and Shizune try to keep what's left only for the patients that really need them. I'll have to make a call to ensure that we'll get an extra shipment with the next delivery."

"What if we run out before then?" Sakura asked in a worried tone.

"We'll improvise. This clinic will not go down just because we're short on supplies," Tsunade reassured her.

"It's just… if we had IV bags, we could ask people to donate blood, but—"

"Nah, don't worry about it. Granny will find a way," Naruto said, trying to reassure both of them.

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed, half-scandalized. "Don't call her that!"

"See? Sakura agrees with me on that," Tsunade smirked, crossing her arms.

"Sure, whatever makes you sleep at night," he said with no real malice in it, as he got up and reached for his jacket. Making fun of Tsunade's age was an old joke between them by now. "So, since my check-up is done and I'm perfectly fine, I guess that I'll go now! See you soon, ladies!"

Before he could even start his dash for the door, he felt Tsunade's firm hand on his left shoulder. "Not so fast, brat. I still need to tell you a few things."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I'm alright, right?"

"Yes but that's not the point," she said, before turning towards Sakura. "Thank you, Sakura. You may leave."

"Uh, yes," the overqualified nurse said, a bit confused by the sudden dismissal. "Of course Sen—Tsunade-san."

"Better," Tsunade smirked, handing the tablet back to her.

"Naruto," Sakura nodded as a simple goodbye, before walking to the door.

"See you later, Sakura-chan," Naruto said, and he was sure he was smiling like an idiot. The door closed, and the two of them were again alone in the room. "So, what did you want to tell me?"

Tsunade looked at him for a long moment, her gaze feeling almost judgemental before she walked to a medical cabinet and fished two small boxes, no longer than a pen, out of it.

"Here, this is your prescription," she said, putting them on the desk. "One for tomorrow morning, the other for the next day. If you feel any pains or aches along your muscles, come back."

"Huh, I didn't know you took the doctor-patient confidentiality this seriously. I mean, Sakura-chan works for you, I think she could be told I have to take these for the next two days," Naruto said, as he picked up a boxed autoinjector and examined it, really disliking the prospect of having to use needles on himself. "Hey is this thing refillable or single-use only?"

"Single use, then the mechanism breaks so that drug addicts can't use them to inject some crap in their veins."

"Uh, cool."

"Now that I have fulfilled my medical duty by giving you these and giving you these…" Tsunade continued, as if he hadn't spoken at all. "Why haven't you told her yet?"

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked in confusion, putting the painkiller back on the desk. "I asked her to go on a date the other week, but she told me she was busy with turns to the clinic so it's kinda your fault—"

"I'm not talking about your love life, Naruto," Tsunade chided him.

Naruto stopped talking, his face a perfect effigy of confusion for a moment before he made a simple realization. "Oh."

"Yes, oh."

"So... that's what you wanted to talk about," he said sheepishly, which caused Tsunade to cross her arms. So he was stalling, what of it? "I thought that I was freely able to tell people about this... or not tell them. It's my business after all, right?"

"It is," Tsunade admitted. "But you must consider this: I may not be a runner, but I met a lot in my time. Even people that pretty much invented the profession, and I know for certain that you and your fellow runners accept to take risks everytime they accept a job. It's how your... career works, plain and simple."

"How does that have anything to do with—"

"By not telling to your teammates about all of your capabilities, you keep them in the dark of a very valuable asset," Tsunade interrupted him, clearly on a roll. "That means that they could take unnecessary risks because they aren't aware they even have the option to use your abilities during a job."

"It's just," Naruto started, stopping a moment to scratch the back of his head. "There's a lot of stigma against augmented people and that's for the legal ones. People would think…"

"Think what?"

"That I'm a freak."

"You're not a freak Naruto."

"That's not what most people would think."

"I'm not saying that you should tell everyone, just that you should consider telling it to your closest allies. And even then, only if you truly trust them." Tsunade continued. "That said, you may want to tell Sakura as soon as possible."

"What? Why?" he asked. "You just told me to—"

"What if she'll have to patch you up one day? And I'm not talking about a gash or a few scrapes here. Don't you think she'll notice by then?"

"I'll just have to not get hurt then," Naruto said stubbornly, which prompted a sigh from the older woman.

"If only it was that easy… just be careful," she told him, looking strangely sad all of sudden. "And think about what I told you."

"I will," Naruto said, putting the injectors in his pockets. "See you soon, granny."

"Don't call me that!" Tsunade yelled as he closed the door with a smile. He was never going to stop.

Naruto headed down the stairs and walked towards the waiting room of the clinic, hoping to talk to Sakura. He could ask her if she was free for her lunch break, so he could take her out for a meal together and maybe try to figure out how to tell her about his secret... if he found the guts for it. How was he even supposed to start explaining that? "By the way, I'm an illegal cyborg"? Yeah right, it would go so well. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Sadly—or thankfully—the waiting room was full. A veritable crowd of people were patiently, and not-so-patiently in some cases, waiting their turn. Naruto spotted Sakura talking to some patients just outside the first-aid station. She looked calm and collected but only now he noticed the bags under her eyes, and Naruto wondered how long it had been since the last time she didn't have to trudge through an overnight shift.

She spotted him and sent a small wave in his direction, but it was clear that she was swamped with work. He waved back and walked out of the clinic, deciding to not burden her with his problems since she already had enough on her plate.

He stopped outside, taking a moment to look at the neighbourhood.

Leaves Ward. A low-income district where pretty much everything was either second-hand or older than Naruto was. While some of its buildings were fairly tall, they couldn't compare to the monolithic skyscrapers of the upper levels. And since it was in the lower levels of the sprawl, it was also rare to even see cops around. The only reason it hadn't turned in a full-fledged slum was because the inhabitants had done everything they could to keep it afloat and to keep the gangs out of it.

Still, a lot of semi-legal and illegal business was done around here, and it had grown to be a some sort of hub for the runners of the sprawl.

Home sweet home.

Naruto took out his commlink and checked the time. It was lunch hour already, but he figured that he could run a couple of errands as he walked towards his favorite joint. He quickly dialed a number and put it close to his ear.

"Hey girl," he greeted before the person he was calling could say anything. "I need to do some shopping."

"Not to state the obvious, but I take that Danzo is not involved into this either, since you didn't invite him?" Orochimaru asked, after cleaning his mouth with a napkin.

"Of course," Sarutobi simply said, putting down the chopsticks. It was time to talk about business. "Now—"

"Wait wait wait," Jiraiya exclaimed, his mouth full of chicken as he started rummaging through his pockets. He fished out a small device, at first glance not dissimilar from a boxy commlink and turned it on. "This should stop any eavesdroppers."

"Should? This place is secure enough already, Jiraiya," Sarutobi said, raising an eyebrow. Jiraiya just shrugged, mumbling something about bugs and how they get everywhere. "As I was saying, we are here because we are all concerned about the events that transpired two days ago."

"We could've settled this with a simple call to my office, Sensei," Orochimaru said with an annoyed tone.

"Call me old-fashioned, but I actually prefer to look in the face of the people I'm dealing with," Hiruzen told him, looking straight into his eyes.

"I'm very aware of how old-fashioned you are. Just looking at your company's policies is enough to know that," Orochimaru replied with a mocking grin.

"And I think we all agree that we don't want an accidental misunderstanding to escalate into open conflict," he continued, ignoring his former student. He remembered very well how many years it took for the city to get back on its feet after the last corporate war. He didn't want to see history repeat itself over a minor accident.

"Right, accidental," Jiraiya snorted. Sarutobi sent a stern look in his direction. Not that he was wrong since Orochimaru had targeted his assets for years by now but they had to keep a certain level of civility for the public.

"Let's start from the young runner that caused this mess," he said with a bit of emphasis on the last word, before turning towards Jiraiya. "Why was he there?"

"I asked my contacts about it," Jiraiya explained. "He's a rookie, started running the shadows recently. Word on the street—"

"You mean the web of runners you're pulling the strings of, don't you?" Orochimaru interrupted, resting his chin on the palm of his hand.

"Word on the street is that he was supposed to do a delivery job, but the exchange went wrong," Jiraiya continued, giving an annoyed look towards his former college friend.

"The Uchiha Private Police received an alert for a firefight," Sarutobi said. "There's still paranoia all over the district about a sniper firing on the crowd."

"A crazy gunman?" Orochimaru asked.

"Unlikely. There were no victims among the civilians or the officers. Only the drones employed by the Uchiha officers were shot down," Sarutobi explained. Both he and Orochimaru threw a glance at Jiraiya, who merely shrugged.

"I'm not involved in everything that happens in this city, you know?" he said. "As far as I know, it was their call."

"Really?" Orochimaru asked with a raised eyebrow. "Skill and initiative. Maybe I should try to find this sniper to offer them a more permanent job for OtoGenetics. We're always interested in expanding our security teams."

Jiraiya only scowled at that. "Orochimaru, stay away from my runners," he warned.

"Jiraiya," Sarutobi called tiredly. Once upon a time, he had to break these spats in good faith, as the two were the best of friends. These days, he had to defuse the arguments for fear of them siccing assassins on each other. Which was bad for the sake of the city.

"After that, the runner evaded capture and tried to get the package to its destination," Jiraiya said, calming down a bit. "So, he opted for a shortcut."

"One of the city's pillars," Hiruzen nodded. "I do not appreciate seeing my corporation's property turning in a battlefield."

"But if it was someone else's, you would be fine with it, wouldn't it sensei?" Orochimaru asked, suppressing a snort. "That's when the policeman got involved?"

"That's right," Sarutobi confirmed. "He barged on the scene trying to capture the runner. I'm still waiting for word from the UPP on that."

"I thought they didn't have a contract that allowed them jurisdiction in Sarutobi Enterprises' premises."

"They don't," Jiraiya informed him with a cocky smile.

"Oh."

If this had been one of those old action movies about a cop, this would've been the scene in which the protagonist would be yelled at by his superior. The hero would be called a loose cannon, be told why he had gone overboard, and then be asked to turn in his badge and gun.

Sasuke would have preferred the yelling, actually. Instead, he was standing in the inspector's office, being forced to watch the footage retrieved from his bike that showed how he had charged head-on into a megacorp's territory, breaking extraterritoriality while wrecking the robot that had been obstructing his access to the site.

In hindsight, that had been a bad idea. Sasuke couldn't exclude having to turn over his badge because of it.

The inspector stopped the footage with a small remote and slowly turned the chair to look at Sasuke for a long moment.

"What was that?"

"Sir—"

"Do you know what that was, Sasuke?" Inspector Obito Uchiha asked, his only eye full of a mixture of disbelief and anger. There were stories about how he had lost his left eye, only rumors or made-up since no one dared to ask him, but everyone had an idea because unlike other Uchiha whose eye implants were damaged, Obito had not replaced it. There was a betting pool about it, last time Sasuke had checked. "It was a good enough reason for Sarutobi Enterprises to sue us for trespassing on their turf, or worse, that's what it is."

"Sir, I was chasing a suspect," Sasuke tried to justify himself, but he knew that it was a weak reason to do what he did.

"And why were you following this guy?" Obito asked, pressing another button. The pictures on the screen started moving again, faster, and the inspector stopped it again as soon as the camera showed a young man with blond hair. "Is he a prime suspect for a manslaughter or something? Is he serial killer, or a terrorist?"

"He may be implied in the shooting that happened in Little Chiwa, sir," Sasuke said. "The one with the sniper that fired on our guys."

"I know what happened in Little Chiwa. That doesn't justify violating extraterritoriality like you did," Obito continued, sterningly. It almost reminded Sasuke of his father. "You could've asked for a warrant."

"He would've been gone by then, and—look at him!" he exclaimed, pointing at the screen. "Those robots around him, he wrecked them with his fists. He ripped the head of one with his bare hands for the Sage's sake!"

"You have a point," Obito sighed. "That man is obviously augmented beyond legal restrictions. I've already passed the file about him to the proper department."

"And what about what happened down there—"

"Not a word, Sasuke," Obito snapped. "Those events are classified. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Sasuke said with gritted teeth. He hated dealing with this cloak and dagger stuff, but he should've expected it since two major corporations were involved.

"Why did you even chase that suspect, Sasuke? Why were you so hell-bent on catching him?" the older cop asked.

"I thought that he could know something, give me a trail for a case."

"A case? What case? You're a patrol cop, not a detective. And if you keep pulling stuff like this, I doubt you'll ever be one."

"A… personal case," Sasuke admitted. There was no use in denying it.

"Sasuke…" Obito sighed again. "This obsession of yours… you have to let it go. You're not him, and you don't have to prove anything."

"Then sir, you may want to tell that to any fellow officer that happens to arrive for backup," Sasuke snapped, regretting his choice of words immediately.

Much to his surprise, the inspector didn't reprimand him or chastised him for the way he had talked about his colleagues. Instead, Obito just looked at him for long, interminable moment before turning off the screen. "Go home, Sasuke."

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"Go home. Take the day off," Obito told him, in a commanding tone. "Actually, take the whole week off. Try to rest, take your head off the job for a while."

Sasuke couldn't believe it. There was no way he wasn't being punished for what he had done. He almost asked if there was a catch somewhere, but he held his tongue.

He was on thin ice, and he needed his badge.

"Sir," he saluted, before leaving the room.

He didn't see Inspector Obito looking pensive for a long moment, and then reaching for his phone.

"So, what do you think?" Tenten asked as she finished strip-fielding a weapon to clean it. They were both sitting in her personal workshop, a spartan room with various gun parts littering around. Naruto didn't know where she found all these weapons and he didn't ask.

"I don't know, it seems a bit… small," Naruto said slowly, as he eyed the pistol critically. It almost resembled a square gray box with a grip and trigger ring welded to it. Even the sights were barely visible above the small barrel.

"You want something compact, trust me," Tenten nodded. "That's a Riverbed-02, it's very easy to maintain. During the Kiri civil war, fighters of both sides would use it while dressing up as civilians, so you should be able to do the same during a job and not be noticed."

"You go around with a huge rifle. One with a scope bigger than my hand attached to it." Naruto said critically. "And who knows what else."

"Because I know how to do it discreetly."

"Are you saying that I can't?"

"You walked back home with an assault rifle in a grocery bag." Tenten deadpanned.

"Hey, it was the only thing Kiba and I found to carry it! And no one said anything about it, so it worked!" Naruto protested "Besides, you're the one that bought that rifle from me."

"Of course I did. A military-grade weapon with a friendly discount? Who wouldn't want one?"

Naruto looked at her for a moment, cogs turning in his head. "Just how much did you cheat me on that purchase?"

"Not as much as I would've cheated by a stranger," Tenten admitted shamelessly. "I have to pay rent too, you know."

Naruto groaned. He should've learned by now: higher price first, then go down as the other person haggles. Kakashi had repeated that for years.

"So, what do you think of that?" Tenten asked, pointing at the pistol. "Are you going to buy it?"

"I don't know, I mean… I get how useful it could be to have a weapon easy to conceal, but it seems a bit lacking in stopping power," Naruto said, picking up a single bullet from a nearby mag. It was small. Very small. A decent bulletproof vest would probably stop the bullet.

"You could always buy the Riverbed as backup for emergencies and pick something else as well."

"What's wrong, isn't the money you cheated from me enough?" he teased.

"Let's make a deal. If you buy a different weapon I'll give you the Riverbed for free."

"But I'll still have to pay for the bullets, right?" Naruto asked, pausing mid fist pump.

"Of course," the gun nut smirked. "And the holster, too. If you need it."

Naruto thought about it, mentally counting how many credits he had left. "Fine, do you have any other pistols?"

"You're buying another pistol," the young woman said in mild disbelief, as she stopped cleaning her weapon.

"Well, as you said, I'm not very good at carrying big guns around," Naruto shrugged.

"You're buying a backup weapon for your backup weapon."

"Hey, don't look down on pistols just because you prefer longarms."

"You're not going to try to do something dumb, like trying to use both at the same time, right?"

"Come on, I'm not that dumb."

"Alright, alright. Let me think…" Tenten began rummaging around her workshop, moving around or discarding what she didn't need.

Naruto turned away and pretended to be interested in how many cracks were on the ceiling. Someone else might have taken the opportunity to stare at Tenten as she knelt—and she was an attractive woman— but after how long they'd been friends, it felt wrong.

"Here it is!" Tenten exclaimed, distracting Naruto from his dangerous contemplations. She turned with a handgun in her hands, checking the chamber before putting it on the table besides the Riverbed.

The new gun was bigger, although not going overboard like those hand cannons that would break the wrist of anyone so dumb to fire them using only one hand. It was the kind of pistol you would see in the movies, with a sleek grip and a chromed, heavy barrel. It was everything that the Riverbed wasn't.

"I think you'll like this. It's a D3, Konoha-made too. It fires in either semi, or full auto," Tenten explained, pointing out a small nub. "Do you see that small square on the grip? It shows the ammo left in the magazine. It used to have a laser sight, too, but I took it off for one of my own guns."

"Alright, I'll take it. Give me three… no, make it four mags and bullets for both. Do you have any armor piercing rounds?" Naruto asked as an afterthought, briefly remembering being trapped in an elevator while being rushed by robots. He could have used some of those then.

"I think I have a couple dozen to spare," she said, arching an eyebrow at

his sudden request. "It will be enough for two magazines. And watch out because the automatic mode burns through the bullets very fast. Should I give you some extended magazines, too?"

"Yes please," he nodded. "I have one last question though."

"Shoot," she asked, while pointing a finger gun at him.

"What does the D stand for?"

"Can we move to the real point of this meeting now?" Orochimaru asked, almost condescendly.

"You mean the part in which we ask you why you sent a black ops team in a rival megacorp's premises, violating extraterritoriality like the Uchiha did?" Hiruzen asked with a stern tone.

"Oh, please, 'premises'... they're sewers. The only people that go down there are your cleaning crews, and half of them are made of robots," Orochimaru snorted, before growing deadly serious. "We all know that's not the reason we're here."

Sarutobi frowned but remained silent as the pale man gestured to one of his guards to come closer. The bodyguard passed a tablet to Orochimaru and immediately returned to his position.

"A picture is worth a thousand words, isn't that how the saying goes?" he asked as he touched some icons on the smooth surface. He passed the device to Sarutobi, who noticed that a video was playing on the screen. "I believe that this is worth much more, then."

It had been filmed from a camera mounted on someone's head, maybe integrated in a helmet judging by what the people around were wearing. A horde of creatures was rushing the operatives' position, and the sound of automatic fire was mixed to their inhumane screeches. A rifle showed up right in front of the camera, firing short burst at every monster that got too close. Had Sarutobi not read the reports about what had been found on the scene he would've believed that this was one of the videogames his grandson was so fond of.

"So, you sent your men to kill a lot of specimen escaped from your totally-not-real labs," Jiraiya scoffed, looking above Sarutobi's shoulder. "What about it?"

"He didn't make them. Otherwise he wouldn't even bother being here," Hiruzen commented without moving his eyes from the video.

"Indeed."

"Although, I think we'll agree that this is edited footage. You're showing us only what you want us to see," he said as he produced a small datapad from his suit. He typed a short password and placed it on the table. The screen came to life, showing a blurry picture of a slightly hunched humanoid figure with dark grey skin. "Most of the security cameras down there are obsolete, but they still work."

"Damn," Jiraiya whispered as he got hold of the device. "This is even more messed up than the others. Bigger, too."

"Anything you want to say, Orochimaru?"

"I admit nothing, sensei," the pale man said drily.

"That's bullshit and you know it, you—" Jiraiya started, but his former classmate cut him off.

"I suppose that such a creature may have stirred the others though," Orochimaru frowned thoughtfully. "Kicking the hornet's nest, so to speak. I doubt they originate from that part of the subterranean levels."

"How many specimen did your team retrieve from the field?" Sarutobi asked, steering the conversation in the direction he wanted.

"Enough. What about your cleaning crews?" Orochimaru instantly answered, redirecting the question. Hiruzen felt a bit nostalgic.

"Enough. But my company is not a bioengineering firm, so examining their remains may take a long time and even then, my researchers may miss something."

"What do you have in mind?" Orochimaru asked after a moment, clearly considering the option.

"Wait, what?" Jiraiya said abruptly, placing his hands on the table. "Sensei, you want to make a deal with him?"

"These creatures, whatever they are, greatly concern me. Should they move closer to the surface, under an inhabited district…"

A long silence fell in the room as they all considered what could happen if the creatures went above ground. To say nothing of all the questions these things raised. Where did they come from? How many of them were down there? More importantly, how long had they been under the city?

"I'm willing to ignore the intrusion of one of your black ops teams inside my premises, even if they were just sewers of little importance. I'll also ignore a cyberattack to one of our servers, which coincidentally happened around the time of said intrusion," he offered, looking Orochimaru straight in the eyes.

"In that case, I could pass your company a complete and detailed report of any findings from the autopsy and more detailed analyzing of the corpses of these creatures."

"One more thing," Jiraiya said. "I want your word you'll not seek retaliation against the runner that got caught in the middle of this operation of yours."

"You're very protective of your people, aren't you Jiraiya?" Orochimaru asked, turning the tablet to the two other men. The screen showed frame of the young runner, standing besides the Uchiha policeman. Sarutobi felt a doubt pass through his mind, but quickly squashed it. There was no way Orochimaru knew who the young man was.

"I try to take care of them, unlike someone that I know," Jiraiya muttered under his breath. Orochimaru's eyes narrowed, but he didn't reply.

"Well, if we've reached an acceptable compromise…?" Sarutobi said, secretly relieved that this hadn't ended badly.

"Yes, sensei, we all agree," Orochimaru asked, opening the menu that had been ignored for most of the meeting. "Any of you care for a dessert?"

"Old man, one more pork-flavored ramen over here!" Naruto called with much enthusiasm.

"Coming right up!" Teuchi replied from behind the counter. As the old cook worked on the order, Naruto took another look around. The place was little more than a diner that moonlighted as a bar, but it had grown on him over the years. The food was good and relatively cheap, the owners were very friendly and it was place to hang around between jobs.

A steaming bowl of noodles was placed in front of him. The smell was so rich that for a moment Naruto almost believed that it was real pork instead of a surrogate meat. As he grabbed his chopsticks and prepared to dig in, he felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Hello, Naruto," the newcomer said while Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Kakashi!" he yelped as he spun around. "Do you want to give me a heart attack?"

"Oh, I think you'll get one sooner or later anyway, if you keep eating only that."

"I don't eat only ramen," Naruto muttered in annoyance. "Only most of the time. When I have to watch out for my wallet."

Kakashi raised an amused eyebrow but didn't try to lecture him about getting a proper diet. Or whatever a proper diet based on substitute foods was.

"Here, Teuchi, for Naruto's bill," the silver-haired man said, putting a couple of credit chips on the counter. "Mind if I use the backdoor?"

"Of course not, just be sure to lock it behind you this time," the old man said jokingly as he swiped away the money.

"No promises," Kakashi smirked under his mask before turning to Naruto. "Come on, we need to talk."

Naruto got up and started following him, only to backtrack just enough to pick up his ramen bowl. Breaking into a careful jog, he followed the silver haired man towards the back door, giving a quick goodbye to Ayame as he passed the table she was wiping down, who waved back.

The alley behind the diner was empty, aside from a cat rummaging through the nearby trash bins who scampered away, disturbed by the two intruders.

"So, what exactly were you thinking?" Kakashi asked as soon as the door closed behind Naruto.

"What do you mean?" Naruto frowned before taking a slurp of ramen.

"It was just a simple pickup and delivery job. Child's play that would require a couple of hours at the most."

"Hey, that's not our fault!" he protested, pointing his chopsticks in a hopefully offended manner. "The guy had hired some trigger-happy muscle; before I knew it they were shooting at me."

"I heard that our customer was in a bad shape when he was arrested," Kakashi said as if it was an afterthought. Naruto just shrugged, eating more ramen.

"The guy deserved it," he said while munching on the noodles.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You should've put a bullet in his head for what he did. I know I would have."

Naruto swallowed before giving Kakashi a pointed look. "Are you really lecturing me about this? No offense, but nothing that went wrong on this job was my or my teammates' fault. The police, the robots, the black ops guys, the monsters—"

"Monsters?" Kakashi asked, his only visible eye wide in surprise.

"Oh yeah, freaky stuff. I'll tell you about it if you want but I guess you had something to tell me?"

"You're right," Kakashi admitted. "I didn't bring you in a dirty alley just to lecture you. I was offered a job; I thought you may be up for it."

"Seriously?" Naruto asked, pausing mid-bite. Kakashi didn't do simple jobs, he was on a different level. If he really meant it...

"Seriously," Kakashi nodded and Naruto could barely keep back his excitement. This was the real deal. This was the chance to go pro and start to make good money. "Tell me, Naruto… what do you know of the Wave District?"

Author's Note: Sorry for the long, long wait. Especially since it's mostly a worldbuilding chapter. I have to confess that I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue this story or reboot it as a Shadowrun crossover (including magic and\or jutsu from canon in the cyberpunk setting) but in the end I decided to keep it as a "pure" cyberpunk, as a homage to the genre itself. I would like to thank MonsterCatMusicGirl for her support and for whipping this chapter out of me!

MonsterCat here, wanted to say that I'm glad this chapter is finally out. *nods firmly* I expect to hear of many excellent reviews for an equally excellent chapter! Because let me tell you, getting all this quality writing out of Igor is a task that the faint hearted cannot take.

Her words, not mine. Hopefully it will not take two years before the next update!

I'll do my best to ensure this. *grins a bit too widely for comfort* Btw the D3 thing is a homage to a fellow author that I came up with for the lolz, because neither of us knew how to call the gun so I said "why not do D3 haha"