AN: Sorry for the wait, but thank you for all of the encouragement. It keeps me going. On an important note, I'm actually going to be doing some editing on these first three chapters so this story better reflects what I want it to be. Changes will be noticeable in the reading but likely not plot important, so you don't need to reread anything once I finish. Anyway, enjoy this chapter.

It was months before the seal was done, but it was well worth it. Of course, Naruto had not spent all of his time working on it- he done plenty of work on combining Sasori's and Orochimaru's research plans, and had achieved a decent amount of results. As much as it disgusted him, he actually sealed up the corpses that were in the cells- they were in varying states of decay- and decided to make them into puppets. He had thought about this decision a lot, but figured that since he had not killed them and that practicing the art would help him discover some of the secrets that kept him from having a human body, it was not so immoral. Or at least, that's what he told himself. He didn't have the materials in his little prison to actually make any puppets for him to try out. To understand how to reverse the human puppet process, he would first have to understand how it was done in the first place.

The seal he had finished was something else. Adapted from bits and pieces of the various scrolls Naruto was working on, it was a very powerful, very focused explosive tag. It was loaded with some of the Kyuubi's chakra and even resembled a Tailed Beast Ball in some respects- at the very least, in the chakra expended for it. However, the blast was designed to be one way only, and powerful enough to crater the entire area above Naruto. The explosion would spread out to make a curve outward to ensure that the entire area did not have a chance on collapsing on the living puppet.

Making it was painstaking work. Loading it up with chakra was the last and easiest step- figuring out how to make the explosion one way, how to curve the blast, and how to get it to accept chakra as fuel for the explosion had been rather difficult. However, in the process, Naruto's sealing knowledge had considerably increased. Using a small hand mirror in the lab, he had examined both the Nine Tails Seal on his stomach and Jashin's seal on his forehead. While he was able to glean some information off of the former, the latter was still completely incomprehensible to him.

Finally, when the explosive seal was triple-checked for mistakes and everything Naruto wanted to take with him was put in storage seals, he drew a copy of his bomb on the ceiling, dropped down, and triggered it. The resulting explosion was massive, but it did exactly what Naruto wanted it to do. The night sky was wide above him for the first time in months, and Naruto rejoiced at being free of his prison. The crater it created was enormous and the noise was very loud, so Naruto knew he had to move before anyone less than welcome came to investigate the disturbance. He thankfully still had his map on him, so he quickly sealed up a number of large branches for creating puppets and moved on in a random direction until he could find a landmark and get his bearings.

It turned out to be another day of travel even after Naruto had found his landmark, a small village that he saw but dared not to approach. The trip gave him time to reflect, and thoughts bothered his already troubled mind more. What had happened in that fight with Orochimaru? Perhaps it was merciful that he remembered none of it, but the thought haunted him. Had Orochimaru really defeated him even with all of the enhancements that the Kyuubi's chakra brought? And even more troublingly, Naruto realized that the chakra of the Nine-Tails had mastered him- overcome his senses in a worse way than even Sasori did. At least with being a puppet under Sasori, even while being used for evil, he saw and understood what was going on. Under Kyuubi's influence, he remembered nothing and was not in control at all. Ironically, even after gaining his autonomy back as a puppet, he still could not retain it during crucial moments. Someone was always trying to control him. These were among many of the thoughts that circulated in his head during the trip.

Eventually, after crossing into Fire Country, he approached it cautiously, but he had never been good at stealth. A ninja, thankfully with a Konoha headband, noticed him out of a small watchtower. Naruto would have breathed a sigh of relief if he were capable of it. Allies! He could finally go back to Konoha and-

"Stop! Naruto Uzumaki, you have been charged with crimes against the Hidden Leaf Village! Will you go quietly?"

Naruto paused in shock, then slowly replied:

"...what? I am a loyal ninja of Konohagakure, I would never..."

The other ninja repeated his question with a more threatening tone.

"Will you or will you not go quietly?"

Naruto was dumbfounded, but he found it in himself to reply to the affirmative. The ninja called out the names of his teammates, and three Konoha nin Body Flickered next to Naruto.

The walk to Konoha was excruciating. Fear and doubt clouded Naruto's mind, and he hardly noticed his environment as he mechanically put foot in front of foot. What crimes had he committed? What had happened in that fight with Orochimaru that he was now a wanted criminal? Or perhaps they assumed he had defected? Whatever the reason, Naruto wanted answers much sooner than he could get them, and that agitated him greatly. He wasn't a criminal- he was still a loyal ninja of the Hidden Leaf. Any attempts at asserting this fact to the ninja escorting him met with an order to shut up, so Naruto quickly stopped trying. But he never stopped thinking.

Escape did cross his mind, but he quickly dismissed the thought. Escape would make him look guilty, would turn the village against him even more. No, he needed to prove his innocence- if he was indeed innocent- or repent for whatever mistakes he made. People knew him in the Hidden Leaf- he had friends, or thought he did. People would vouch for him. Of course, all of his "friends" had seemed especially cold to him, but maybe they would still step up in respect for his past as a human being. The thought that all of his work to reach acceptance in the village was for nought kept surfacing, and he did his best to ignore it. But what he couldn't ignore was the nagging, subconscious feeling that this would not end well.

The party reached the village in relative peace, and the guards at the gate made only a cursory check of the documents that the ninja held before letting them into the village. While both of the chuunin on duty did their best to ignore Naruto, one of them happened to meet eyes with the prisoner. The stony-faced look on the normally playful Kotetsu's face crushed Naruto's spirits. It was a little thing, but it conveyed all at once a message of unwelcomeness and disgust to the living puppet. As he entered through the gates, he kept his head down and his senses low. He did not want to experience any of the pain that was sure to follow if he paid attention to the villagers.

Thankfully, over the years he had become quite adept at ignoring whispers and harsh looks, so it was no trouble for him to engross himself in his own thoughts as the short trip to the Torture and Interrogation Department was made. Soon, he was marched into a cell and thrown in, and told that Inoichi would meet with him as soon as the clan head was available. Of course, chakra restrictive seals were also applied. Naruto did his best to keep his head clear. His thoughts had tortured him enough, and he chose to withhold his panic until he got a chance to find out what happened and clear his name.

Surprisingly, though, surrounded by grey walls and metal bars, Naruto's natural optimism kicked in for the first time since he was turned into a puppet. He did not know why, but suddenly he felt as if everything would turn out ok. Inoichi would probe his mind and find out the true events of what had happened, his name would be cleared, and he would be free to go. And then, with the strides he had made in his research and a little more time, he would find a way to become human again and everything would be back to normal. If there was a will, there had to be a way. And he thought again that people knew him in the Hidden Leaf- what reputation he had established would surely help him, would it not? Then, he would destroy Akatsuki and become Hokage because of that accomplishment. That was what was going to happen, he thought. It was what he chose to believe because the alternative was despair.

Naruto kept up this state of mind until Inoichi arrived in a few hours. He wordlessly let Naruto out of the cell and led him into the same interrogation room with the binding chair. Naruto sat down and prepared himself for another mind probe while Inoichi finally spoke:

"Are you aware what charges you are under suspicion of, Naruto?"

Naruto looked up and shook his head, eagerly awaiting Inoichi's next words.

"You are under suspicion for the destruction of your entire team and defection to Orochimaru."

That sentence stunned Naruto. His entire team was dead? Sakura? No, it couldn't be…

"None… none of them survived?" he said in a croaking voice.

"That is correct. Later agents sent to the same bridge found only Sakura Haruno's body at the bottom of the ravine, mangled and torn apart by what seemed to be the Kyuubi's chakra. Orochimaru's base nearby was tracked down by a sensor team and raided by a large team of ninja. The entire area was blown to bits moments after our team entered the base and there were only a couple survivors to report in afterward."

Naruto sat silently for a few minutes processing what he had just been told. He couldn't believe what had happened. He had… he had killed Sakura? What had he done? What kind of monster had he become?

"In lieu of what we have and the lack of any further information, I have been asked to again scan your brain for memories. Are you prepared?"

Naruto dumbly nodded his head. As before, he appeared in the wooden sewers of his mind with Inoichi, and again the two entered Naruto's memories. The remembrance of the part leading up the mission was incredibly painful, now, that Naruto had knowledge of Sakura's death. He made attention to every detail of her that his mind remembered, and focused on her wariness and aversion. It pained him, because at the time he thought he could win her over again eventually. Now she was dead, and by his hand. Just like Team 8. And just like everyone he ever cared about, a voice in his mind told him. He was a monster, an irredeemable puppet of evil forces far greater than he could ever be.

But then the pseudo memory started, just like last time. He prepared himself for Sakura talking to him, telling him he was the monster he thought himself to be and more. But instead, he felt himself in a different shape, a different form- turning his head to look at himself, he was a gigantic wooden Kyuubi. In the distance sat a tiny Konoha, which he advanced to against his will. And although he was gigantic, he still somehow saw every detail of every person on the walls. Facing him in combat stances was everyone he ever knew and cared about- Team Kurenai, Team Asuma, Team Gai, the rest of Team 7 (even Sasuke), Iruka, Tsunade, the Third Hokage, Jiraiya, his parents, Ayame and her father, even Tsunami and her son- everyone was there. A feeling of immense dread as big as his stomach gripped his throat as he approached and his friends launched jutsu after jutsu at him to no avail. He eventually reached the wall, and using his gigantic paw, began crushing the people with whom he had formed bonds. They screamed words of agony and hatred as they died, calling him a monster and a traitor and a murderer. And they did not say Kyuubi- they all said Naruto. Naruto screamed internally, but could only watch as they all died one by one. His mind began to crack, and he eventually, mercifully, blacked out.

It was some time before he awoke, and it was in a cell with more chakra restraining seals than ever before, and with a seal on his stomach that kept him from accessing the Kyuubi. Thoughts flooded his mind again, but foremost was a question: what happened? Why was he still chained? Didn't he prove his innocence? His intention? His mind raced at mile a minute asking this question and proposing ever more insane theories that answered it, but he calmed down after awhile. Then, after the panic of his trappings faded, his mind reverted to thinking about what he had found out in the interrogation room.

He… he had killed Sakura. And likely his entire team. All because he couldn't control the Kyuubi's chakra, because was overpowered by it and made a marionette by the stuff. What was wrong with him? But the more he thought about it, the better he understood. It wasn't a matter of what was wrong with him. It was a matter of control. He could not let anything control him, because deep down he was a monster. And if he allowed anyone else to have control over him, that meant that that monster was let loose and allowed to harm those he loved. This was it. He had killed Sakura, not the Kyuubi, not the Kyuubi's chakra. And he had killed Team Ten, not Sasori. It was his own recklessness that led to both situations and he took full responsibility for it in his mind.

It was a noble intention, but also absolutely crushing. It grated on him, and although he tried to look at it with a "past is in the past" attitude, the haunting faces of his victims kept returning. If he was honest with himself, he was at a breaking point. He had personally killed too many of those close to him, and this "revelation" about control was just him trying to rationalize before he completely lost it. And in the back of his mind, he could feel himself slipping away to a place he had never been before- the place one goes when trauma and guilt become too much to bear, a place of thin, desperate apathy that tries to hold back an impossibly tall tidal wave of grief. The burden he carried was greater than ever before, and it was a testament to his strength of character that he did not immediately relinquish his sanity to the abyss.

Hours passed and Naruto's desperation only grew. He dwelled on his killings obsessively, and on the pseudo-memories he got from Inoichi's mind probing. He cursed that he couldn't truly feel pain, so that he could not hurt himself. Even sleep could not enrapture him, though he doubted he would see anything but nightmares. Memories of his childhood floated up, and he readily accepted the treatment he had received in his mind. He knew he was a monster, and he hated every moment of his existence. The thought of suicide clung like a leech to his mind, but he had no means to do so, confined in his cell as he was.

Could he have stopped Sasori? It was his fault that he stayed to fight the puppeteer. Kakashi had delegated the team differently. Maybe then Sakura wouldn't be dead. Maybe then Team Kurenai and Granny Chiyo wouldn't be dead. His mistakes, his recklessness, and in the case of his fight against Orochimaru, his willingness to relinquish control. He screamed at Jashin in his mind, cursing the name of the god that had brought him back from the dead into an existence more hellish than he could have ever imagined. He alternated between raging at Jashin, Sasori, and Kyuubi, cursing himself, and studying every detail he could remember from everything related to the deaths of his companions. A grim, unhealthy fascination with their deaths began to form in a semi-conscious portion of his mind, and eventually, a plan formed that he would have never dreamed of otherwise. Sakura had been killed by him, and so had Team Kurenai. Maybe if he recovered their bodies, they could be brought back to life. Jashin had had the power to return Naruto to his former shell, he probably could do the same to the other Konoha nin. Yes… he could fix up the bodies, after all, he had the puppeteering skills to do so now.

It was as Naruto was engrossed in these thoughts that his cell opened, and a robotic "Hello" made him look up to see a masked ANBU member standing in his cell. Naruto said mechanically:

"Hello."

The ANBU member continued in his emotionless tone.

"I have been sent here on behalf of Danzo Shimura to extend to you an offer. You have not been made aware of this, but you have a pending execution in the next couple of weeks. The Kyuubi will be extracted from you and sealed in a different container, and should you survive the process you are to be put to death. Danzo believes this an unbefitting fate for a ninja of your caliber, and proposes that you join Root to avoid execution. Should you choose to accept this offer, you will be taken from your cell and put through Root's rigorous training process to allow you to control the Nine-Tails and prepare you to better serve the village under Lord Danzo's direct supervision. Do you accept?"

Naruto took a moment to process this information. He was going to be put to death, and no one even told him about it? Perhaps he deserved it, because he was such a monster. But on the other hand, he still had things to do. He needed to atone for the deaths of his friends by trying to give them life once more. He had to try. It was imperative that he did not die before trying.

"Tell Danzo… I accept."

Naruto watched a guard unlock his cell just a few hours later. He did not recognize the man, but he was grateful that Danzo had gone through with his promise. Since the man's agent had visited him, he had turned over the proposal and what he knew of Danzo several times in his head, primarily viewing the organization as a means to the freedom to resurrect his dead friends. Although the Third Hokage had warned him about Danzo's less than trustworthy nature in the past, it did not matter to Naruto now. He needed his freedom for his one chance at redemption; the cost to doing so wasn't particularly important. A part of Naruto was scared at himself for thinking like that; but it was squelched beneath the rest of him that was experiencing the nervous obsession with redemption.

The chakra suppression seals were removed with practiced efficiency and Naruto was led out of the cell and down a hallway he hadn't been down before. A tough-looking man stood guard at its end; to the right of him stairs extended upward. Upon seeing Naruto and his escort, he nodded silently and stepped aside. Naruto watched with impatient curiosity as the guard that got him out of the cell made a few handseals and pressed his palm to the wall; a door-sized entrance opened. The former captive made as if to follow the guard down the newly opened tunnel, but he was stopped with the raise of a hand. Naruto paused, and a blindfold was quickly tied around his eyes. With that, he was led down into the tunnel.

From what Naruto could tell, he was walking through some sort of maze. The tunnel had plenty of turns in it, and there was little lighting- Naruto could not see through the cloth of the blindfold at all. However, it was clear to him he was being led in a manner designed to confuse his sense of direction, because he lost track of where he was eventually. That annoyed him, but more pressing thoughts and concerns soon consumed his mind once more. He wondered if Danzo would be open to Naruto's actual final goal- the more he thought about it, though, the more he understood that if he did discover reanimation, the Hidden Leaf Village would benefit greatly. Danzo would appreciate that, surely, and allow him to continue with his experiments.

Eventually, Naruto was stopped and his blindfold was taken off. All at once he saw a dimly lit, large room with several people standing in an area sectioned off by thick glass. Among them was Danzo, but that was the only face Naruto recognized. Although the rest were unfamiliar, all of them bore the same expression: stony-faced neutrality. In the larger portion of the room stood only Naruto and another ninja. This was a large man, a burly figure with a badly scarred face. He wore a lot of kunai pouches and had on an Iwagakure headband. His clothes consisted of a prisoner's outfit- it seemed incongruous with his headband and heavily armed state. He spoke in a deep, masculine voice.

"Now, I ain't gonna pit fight for ya for nothing- you swear you lettin me go if I destroy this thing?"

Danzo spoke in a completely neutral tone, and his voice resonated throughout the mostly empty room.

"Yes. Now, Naruto, you and this gentleman here are to battle to the death. Should you win, you are to be admitted into Root- should he win, he will be set free."

Naruto found it incredibly hard to believe that his opponent would be set free upon winning the bout, and that he would even be a good fight for Naruto. This was a test of the ability for the Root initiate, nothing more. He decided to end this quickly and decisively. Danzo signaled for the battle to begin, and apparently the enemy had decided to engage in some pre-fight trash talk because he had managed to get out a syllable before Naruto cloned himself and sent out about a dozen poison clouds from the launcher in his stomach.

Naruto knew the fight was over as the cloud did not dissipate. Coughing and cursing could be heard from within it for the first few seconds, then choking, then nothing. Ventilation systems overhead cleared the gas from the room after a few minutes, and by the time that the field of vision was clear only three entities were in the room: Danzo, Naruto, and the corpse of Naruto's opponent lying face down on the ground. The expression on his face was one of shock, but Naruto chose to ignore it. He had done what he had had to, and he had seen worse. Danzo spoke up.

"Your abilities are greater than what I expected, to be able to close out the fight with a B-rank opponent so quickly. I of course expected you to use poison, but not enough to cover the entirety of this room. Regardless, you will be beginning Root training almost immediately, seeing as you do not need to rest. I have prepared a… specialized course for you. First, though, an interview is in order."

With those words, Naruto was escorted out of the room by another Root operative. Once again blindfolded, he was led down several more corridors before his blindfold was removed. This time, he was in a small office- in front of Danzo, surrounded on both sides by Root ninja. The chair that he was placed in drained him of his chakra and restricted the movement of his hands and feet. Naruto bristled at this at first, but realized it was just Danzo's paranoia as the conversation went on and calmed down somewhat.

"Hello, Naruto. I will ask questions here, and you will respond truthfully and accurately. At no point are you to deviate from directly answering these questions. Understood?"

Naruto nodded silently.

"How do you feel about Konoha?"

At this point the living puppet paused. Of course, he should have expected the question, but his own feelings on the matter were confused. After a moment, he decided he would voice the part of him that would best please Danzo.

"Lord Danzo, I am a loyal member of Konohagakure and would die to defend it. I care for its people and want to do what is in their best interests. As you know, I have been rejected by it multiple times in the past, this current time not among the least; I still harbor no treasonous intention and would like to serve the village as you best see fit."

"Why did you accept my invitation to join Root?"

Naruto paused, but decided to tell the truth.

"I… I wanted to die, but realized that my only chance at atonement for the death of my comrades was to bring them back. And if I am put to death, there would be no chance of that."

"How far would you go in serving the village under me?"

"I would do anything you requested of me, Lord Danzo, within the boundaries of my morality."

Naruto knew that that last part was a mistake as soon as it came out of his mouth. The atmosphere of the room and Danzo's expression and voice did not change, but Naruto just knew that it was a strike against him. He eventually calmed down as the conversation went on and nothing changed.

"How much do you know about the god Jashin, who is purported to have brought you back from the dead?"

"I know very little about him, except that he looks like a grim reaper with a mask and he wanted me to eventually do some sort of ritual for him."

"How much do you know about your own current state- how you are currently alive with the body of a puppet?"

"I know that I am reanimated with Jashin's jutsu, and that I am anything but human right now. I need no rest, no sleep, my senses do not need adjustment to new environments- I am a human in the body of a machine."

Danzo nodded and concluded the interview, with his aide scribbling down the last words as fast as humanly possible.

During the next month, Naruto underwent a lot of changes. Shortly after the interview, Naruto was subjected to the mind probing of a Yamanaka and soon put through intense loyalty training. Predictably, pain conditioning was found to be wholly ineffective- thus, Naruto found himself in another dimly lit chamber, this one far smaller than the one he had fought in. In front of him was shown a clip detailing the greatness of Konohagakure. Naruto found it laughably easy to process the first time, since it was just propaganda. It went over the greatness of the Hokages and the importance of protecting the Hidden Leaf. Danzo was given the lion's share of the praise. The clip did bring back some painful memories of his childhood, but it did little more. The second and third time went down similarly, but by the time the eighth time rolled around, Naruto wanted out. He was bored and wanted it to stop, but it was not like he could close his eyes- or even move his head, because the chair he was in was fully restraining of his motion. So he had to sit there and watch. And watch. And watch. He stopped counting how many times he had seen it partway through, and by the end he could replay the clip in his head perfectly despite his inability to close his eyes.

The message being sent home quite thoroughly, emotional training started the same way. At first, it was an easy matter- simply small tests of his morality. Small animals in danger he could ignore upon command. He had seen and lived through far worse than that, and although his natural empathy attempted to protest, he quelled it. What was harder were the genjutsu that forced him to decide between things like the completion of his objective and the deaths of his teammates. Of course, he at first went for his teammates' survival every time, but he was subjected to some sort of genjutsu that made him see his own murders again- that was an effective tool in conditioning him to make the "right" decision.

Eventually, with loyalty to the Hidden Leaf Village and to Danzo thoroughly embedded in his mind along with the Root mentality of objective completion at any cost, he was ready for combat training. Danzo apparently had some knowledge on how to control Tailed Beasts, because that was mostly what Naruto was trained for there. His puppet body could endure much more than four tails worth of chakra, and it was possible to retain control of his mind while in the Four Tails state. Beyond that he could go now, with the increased chakra reserves and control he had, but it was too risky to attempt within the village. There was some way of retaining full control- apparently the jinchuuriki of the Eight Tails had achieved that.

In terms of his studies, Naruto had been allowed some space to move forward some after the emotional conditioning was complete. His confiscated scrolls were returned for him to work on, Danzo explaining that with Naruto's tireless mind he was in the best position to uncover the secrets Naruto needed. He approved of Naruto's attempts to resurrect the fallen Konoha nin, but warned him that Jashin was a god of slaughter and he needed to tread carefully around anything involving the deity.

Seals were put on Naruto, of course. There was one that prevented him from talking about Root to enemies, and a suicide seal that could be triggered remotely- it was essentially an explosive seal instead of poison, because Naruto couldn't die from the latter. Seals were used in his training to draw out the Kyuubi's chakra, and he was given access to studying many seals under Danzo's direct supervision. His knowledge and power grew, and he was even allowed to experiment upon a cadaver, to turn them into a human puppet. That process was grisly, and the conditioning that allowed Naruto to turn off his emotions came in very handy there. Eventually, though, Naruto seemed to succeed- although he couldn't actually try it out because his chakra control was nowhere near the level needed to operate an entire puppet using chakra strings.

He was also given stealth and infiltration training- through dogged repetition and the use of shadow clones, Naruto reached the level of chakra control necessary to suppress his chakra and move silently. Likewise, his Henge was practiced until it was perfect. Danzo told him that these were very basic infiltration skills, and that he would still be beaten out by most operatives of Root- but they would be enough. He was not an infiltrator ninja and would not be used as such unless absolutely necessary.

Regardless, though, the day came when Danzo required his services in the field- after about a month. Naruto's unstable mind lended itself to quick emotional conditioning and the progress he had made with his constant wakefulness was astounding. A brief meeting with the Root leader revealed that the mission was of high importance- he was to infiltrate (wearing a mask, of course, and clothes that would hide his true nature) event called the Five Kage Summit. There, his mission priority was to find the Eight Tails Jinchuuriki- a tall, muscular, tanned man in sunglasses noted to be "odd"- and obtain training from him by any means necessary. He would be accompanied by another Root operative both for his safety and, as Naruto suspected, to watch over him. The other objective was to protect the Hokage if events went south. He would have wondered about that since it would seem that Danzo would be in line for the position if Tsunade died, but his conditioning dismissed the thought without any trouble.

The day was dying when the newly-minted Root operative finally saw the light of the sun again in a little over a month. That was just what he was told, anyway- he had no way of tracking the amount of time that had passed while he was underground. He was disguised quite well- a full body stretch suit covered him underneath a full body cloak, and a mask in the shape of a mole's head adorned his face. It would have been uncomfortably hot, if his senses were anything more than an indicator to him. He exited through a covert Root tunnel in the wilderness along with his traveling companion, a stoic Aburame agent. The agent had on a mask resembling a preying mantis and asked to be called simply "Manteisu."

Waning hours of the day turned into the long hours of midnight as the pair traveled restlessly in the direction of, as it turned out, the Land of Iron. During the trip, Naruto couldn't help but wonder about his mission. Although conditioning taught him not to question mission objectives, boredom was a powerful tool as well. He thought about why this "Five Kage Summit" was in the Land of Iron, though he eventually did puzzle that one out as being the most neutral territory. From the information he had on global politics- as outdated as it was- it was probably a meeting about Akatsuki. After all, no one seemed to be on the edge of war otherwise- or hadn't seemed to be when Naruto was human and informed. But that was as much as he could understand from the information he was given. Danzo hadn't exactly been forthcoming with intel on what was actually going on in the world- just that Naruto needed to be a key player for Konoha during the events ahead.

Torn away from his obsessive research, Naruto thought about something else: immortality. He was immortal now. As long as Jashin kept him alive (and Naruto thought it fair to assume Jashin was eternal) he would not die from aging. Poison could not kill him- nothing short of the annihilation of his body would, honestly. And the way puppets were made- the wood would not decay. What did that mean for him, then? He was no longer constricted by the human weakness of temporariness. That frightened him. He wanted to be human, and he wasn't. Immortality seemed to him incredibly frightening. The more he thought about it, the more these "advantages" from becoming a puppet bothered him. There was something sacred about the human form, and he never expected to be this… parody of it. Of course, he was more powerful, more efficient, but… he wasn't human. He would never taste ramen again, he would never have kids, he would never get to grow old alongside his friends. Instead, he would have to watch his friends grow old and die while he stayed young forever. That was not an enticing prospect.

His thoughts, whirling about like this, nearly led to a panic attack, but he turned off his emotions for a while before Manteisu noticed. He remained like this until his companion signalled for him to stop and unsealed a sleeping bag. Naruto was told that they were leaving in four hours and to keep watch. So he did, making a couple of Shadow Clones as he set up to do some research on the go. The Shadow Clones would do the actual watching while he studied the scrolls. He had indeed spent a lot of time studying them by now, but it was slow going after a certain point- the technique itself was highly complex and Naruto's own human puppet was incredibly basic compared to Sasori's. Since he couldn't use the puppets in combat, he wanted to animate them, to bring them back from the Land of the Dead. Danzo had given the researcher a bunch of forbidden scrolls containing the knowledge of the Hidden Leaf concerning Jashin but so far Naruto had been unsuccessful in utilizing the god's power. He needed… something more. A push.

Instead of worrying about that, though, Naruto turned his attention to giving the puppets a proper ability to exist after being given life. After all, it was unlikely that Jashin would so fully revive the others, so Naruto needed to heal them (an impossible task, many of the corpses were already in a state of decay when they were found) or make them into puppets with their own chakra systems and place for the soul. The chakra system was the easy part- Sasori had already done that part for him, he just needed to replicate the results. The soul would be found in the head- a highly theoretical seal already in place in the test dummy Naruto set up. There was no real guarantee it would even begin to do anything at all, but since it was literally just modified parts copied from Jashin's seal, there was a decent probability it would. Of course, it wasn't safe in the slightest, but that wasn't the point; Naruto deemed it a prototype for a seal that would actually perform the function.

Besides a proper holder for the mind, the main component that the construction lacked was an animation component. Something needed to jumpstart it, and Naruto could only guess that that would require advance knowledge of techniques that worked with souls along with an unfathomably large amount of chakra. That last part was complete guesswork, but Naruto suspected it was not easy to rip a soul from the Land of the Dead even with intricate and focused seals.

It was during these four hours that Naruto realized he was at an impasse. He had little idea of how to improve the enormously complex, partially-complete seal that would hold the puppet's soul. There was little way to proceed except with knowledge of how accessing the afterlife actually worked, and Naruto could only glean what was already done. He had no way of extrapolating the information he needed. Frustrated, he put the materials away and focused on something more menial: following a plan he already had for improving the design of his own body. Naruto had nothing but respect for Sasori's craftsmanship and innovativeness despite his deep-set loathing for every other aspect of the man, but Naruto felt that since it was his own body he had a right to… personalize it a bit. In particular, he had some personal effects to add. His hands could be modified to be better suited for making the Rasengan, for one. He also added two artificial appendages around the middle of where his ribcage would be (one on each side), similar in design to the puppet Hiroko's tail. These, however, were retractable… and still full of senbon to be fired from any angle. They couldn't be directly controlled like the rest of Naruto's body, but he did have enough chakra control to operate them using chakra strings. Naruto was incredibly hesitant in applying these upgrades, but Danzo upon seeing them had practically ordered Naruto to do it. He could not disobey Danzo.

As Naruto was putting the finishing touches on his modifications, Manteisu woke up and signaled for the pair to keep moving. He made no commentary upon seeing his teammate's new appendages. Naruto silently sealed up his materials and followed Manteisu's lead closer to the Land of Iron. They took an extremely convoluted path, making many turns and taking pains to ensure they did not make a trail. Apparently, this mission was incredibly secretive- which, upon reflection, Naruto found to be not surprising in the slightest given the nature of Root.

They trudged through icy ground and Naruto did not really understand how anyone lived in the country being as it was. How did they get food or at least anything to trade for food? It was surprising, but people could make a living anywhere, he supposed. Endurance was a distinctly human trait… that thought almost paused him in his tracks. As a human being, how was he supposed to move forward when caught in this shell? Giving up wasn't an option, then, was it? Because if he gave up, he would prove once and for all that he wasn't human. The human spirit was one of tenacity, and a real… human in his situation would continue the journey even despite all the murders he had done. Humbled by the thought but with his motivation redoubled, Naruto walked slightly straighter.

He had never seen mountains like the Three Wolves before, but he got over his awe at the odd natural structures and went into business mode as the pair approached the capital. They disguised their chakra heavily, and Henged into civilians. Manteisu pulled out fake identification papers as they got close to the front gate and they were let in without major trouble. Naruto personally was amazed at how well his disguise had worked- he had a massive amount of chakra and masking that fact was incredibly difficult, only possible because of a mass amount of Shadow Clones working on chakra control for days at a time. Still, it was surprising that he could pass as a civilian.

The capital looked like a Hidden Village, except instead of ninja on patrol there were samurai. The color scheme was very grey and stone-like, and about everything was covered with a thin layer of snow. Street sweepers were common, moving the snow into the alleyways and out of the main walkways. Naruto held himself perfectly according to his training for the occasion, keeping focused on his objective and pretending he had lived in the capital his entire life. The pair was generally ignored by the people around them, most people not finding much interesting about a pair of nondescript civilians. Manteisu beside him touched him lightly on the arm, leading him to a secluded alleyway. Naruto glanced at him inquisitively, but as they advanced down the alley, two figures dropped down beside them. Naruto and Manteisu turned around to face them, not dropping their disguises. The figures turned out to be Lightning nin, one dark skinned white-haired man and another a dark-skinned man in sunglasses and a turban that matched the description of the Eight Tails jinchuuriki.

"Game's up, infiltrators."

Naruto looked at Manteisu and Manteisu merely nodded at him. Realizing this was to be some sort of test for him, Naruto responded to the Kumo nin.

"Kumo ninja. We need to see the Eight Tails jinchuuriki. Are you him?"

Naruto realized he did not think through that response the moment it came out of his mouth. The one in sunglasses pulled a kunai and responded in a harsh tone:

"You think we're going to listen to assassins?"

Naruto attempted to defuse the situation.

"Hey, hey, hold on. We aren't assassins. I have a business proposition for the container of the Hachibi."

"Anything you want to say to him, you can say to us."

Naruto weighed his options carefully before responding. What could he say that would not reveal too much information but still convince them to let him see the Eight Tails jinchuuriki?

"Maybe I can see the Raikage? I'm sure he would like to hear this."

The dark skinned ninja thought for a moment, then said:

"Disarm. Relinquish all of your weaponry, let us search you and put chakra restraining seals on you, then you might be allowed a moment of the Raikage's time before the Summit formally starts."

The danger in giving oneself up on a silver platter to a non-allied Hidden Village like that was not lost on Naruto, but it seemed there were few options to do this peacefully. This Kumo ninja was not giving him much of a choice. Manteisu suddenly spoke up.

"Mention Danzo's name to the Raikage. He will want to see us."

About thirty minutes later, the Fourth Raikage himself was eyeing the two Root operatives suspiciously a short distance outside the capital. His two bodyguards- the same people that confronted the pair from Konoha- stood beside him with weapons drawn, ready to leap into action at a moment's notice.

The Raikage was a tall, muscular, dark-skinned man. The Raikage robes he wore were meant to make him look sagely, wisened; however, he was built such that he looked quite intimidating in a more… physical fashion. He did not look pleased to see Naruto or Manteisu, and he rubbed his temples as he spoke.

"What does Danzo want?"

Again Manteisu signaled for Naruto to speak, and Naruto reluctantly raised his voice.

"I am the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails, and I am here to request training in the use of my Tailed Beast from the jinchuuriki of the Eight-Tails."

"And what makes you think that Kumo is willing to give up the secrets of the control of the Tailed Beasts so readily?"

"Well, the Akatsuki are looking for us, and they pose a threat to the entire world, not just the jinchuuriki. We have to stop them. And… the Hidden Leaf Village would be in your debt."

The Raikage looked unimpressed, and Manteisu interjected before anything more could be said.

"Lord Raikage, Lord Danzo does not consider this service to be free. While it is imperative that both jinchuuriki be equipped as tools to stop the Akatsuki, Lord Danzo is willing to offer the services of Root- and by special request, the jinchuuriki's- services in completing a mission for Kumo, as well as a respectable sum of money."

The Raikage considered for a moment, then replied:

"Remain near the capital of the Land of Iron, and we will engage in further negotiations in the same location after the Summit is complete."

With that, the two parties departed with a relatively uneasy air. The senior Root operative informed Naruto that their next mission objective was to attend the Five Kage Summit in secret, which to Naruto sounded almost impossible. The room would undoubtedly be incredibly heavily guarded, and it would be populated by a selection of three of the most powerful ninja from each Hidden Village- none of whom wanted the Root operatives to be there. Naruto asked about how and received the one answer he did not want to hear- it was up to him.

To that end, Naruto was stumped for a while. In the hotel room he was given, he worked out as many potential plans and details as he could. None of them seemed altogether too promising after he thought two or three steps ahead. He paused a moment after the second one just to marvel at how far he'd come- the tragedy that came to him had warped his personality, eliminating not only his innocence but also his more childlike qualities. Given how obsessively he poured over his work in the past few months, he was able to actually stop and think and concentrate. He had never been terribly intelligent in the traditional sense of the word, but his experience was teaching him to stop and think- and he was growing surprisingly accustomed to if not "good" at it.

He worked throughout the night, and even as morning began he still sat puzzling at the same question. He had to take multiple breaks to unwind with a few simple exercises so he could keep his mind focused, but he worked all the same. Still stumped for answers, he decided to go for a walk around the capital now that the sun was up- perhaps he could glean inspiration from his surroundings. He exited his room, went down the stairwell and outside of the hotel door. He suddenly regretted not fully being able to appreciate the chill morning air. For a moment, his mind out cried out to be reconnected with his senses- he was nearly brought to his knees by the despairing feeling that something was wrong. He wanted to truly feel again, not just be informed about a sensation- he wanted to feel the chill breeze, to be comforted by a blanket surrounding his body, even just to feel pain when he was stabbed. The alienness of his current state crashed down onto him like a meteor.

It was only a moment, however, and after that moment the feeling was gone- but the thoughts weren't. Naruto realized that he significantly missed the sensations of a human body, that this body of a puppet deprived him of simple, everyday feelings that people took so much for granted that they even began to get annoyed with them. Engrossed in longing, he wandered the streets blindly until he was stopped by a samurai, who asked Naruto what was going on. Naruto briefly shook his head to sober himself (the gesture itself having no effect, just its familiarity refreshing Naruto's thoughts) and told him that he was merely getting to work. The samurai eyed him suspiciously for a couple more moments but let him off. Naruto set a brisk pace to the hotel room, not having realized before how militarized the Land of Iron was. On his way, he saw the Konoha entourage.

It was Tsunade with two bodyguards- Kakashi and a man Naruto recognized as the ninja that had brought him from inside the cell and into the Root lair. Refusing to think until they were out of sight, Naruto continued his trip back to the hotel. Only when back in his hotel room did he begin to think again. Naruto knew for a fact that one of Tsunade's bodyguards- one of the people that attending the meeting- was a Root operative. That meant that Danzo already had an in to the Kage Summit, and he was… testing Naruto? That was the only logical explanation. He wanted to see exactly what Naruto could come up with out in the field. Likely that was the same reason for Naruto being the one to lead on both conversations with the Kumo ninja.

So what was he to tell Manteisu? That he had seen through Danzo's test and that there was no reason for him to try to get inside the Kage Summit? No, there had to be a way, and Danzo was expecting results on that. Though, perhaps Naruto could prove his cleverness instead…in the end, his conditioning won out and he decided to follow orders in designing a plan to get inside the Kage Summit. And eventually, inspiration did hit him despite his night of fruitless brainstorming. It was a relatively simple plan, and it would require some subtle genjutsu usage on the part of Manteisu, but he could easily see it working.

So he exited his hotel room once more and went to Manteisu's room. He knocked gently at the door, but there was no response from the other side. Naruto tried the handle, but it was locked; just as he was about to turn around and search for the taciturn Root operative, he saw his companion in a civilian disguise heading toward him. Naruto greeted him, and was met with:

"What is your plan, Naruto?"

Naruto described all the details that he had thought of for his plan in a hurried whisper, to ensure no stray listening ears would find out. Manteisu confirmed that he had the jutsu to make it work, and the plan was immediately set in motion. It began with Manteisu's infiltration of the administrative building with Naruto's Shadow Clone henged into an innocuous pebble. The plan was for him to find whoever would be sweeping the meeting room and slip the pebble onto their person, while putting them under a genjutsu that would make them drop the pebble on the floor right before the Kage Summit. He would do the same to various other civilian and samurai individuals who would be visiting the room before the meeting, and so there would be many pebbles to listen on. If there was any danger to the Hokage, one of Naruto's pebbles would disappear and the pair assigned to the mission would know to rush in. Naruto thought that all of that might be too easy for infiltrating what undoubtedly would be one of most heavily guarded rooms in the Elemental Nations, but he had the tools that he had.

While Manteisu did the heavy lifting of the plan (Naruto was not nearly as good at stealth and genjutsu in order to help him), Naruto would have little to do. He could continue his research little by little, but there was still a day and a half before the actual Summit and he could not leave the capital. As such, he also couldn't break his disguise by practicing jutsu or anything requiring chakra input beyond a petty stream. Unfortunately, in order to advance his studies into the reanimation of his friends, he needed to expend chakra- to put chakra into various little designs from what Naruto copied of Jashin's seal to see exactly how they functioned. He also needed to create puppets to test an ever growing number of theories, and he couldn't do that while confined in a hotel room and attempting to stay concealed. He was running out of bodies to turn into puppets, even.

Suddenly, as he was sitting in his quarters thinking these thoughts, it occurred to him that bringing back his friends into puppet bodies would grant them the same cursed existence that he currently was experiencing. That gave him pause. Would they rather stay dead than be like him? But then again, they wouldn't have the same weight on their shoulders of being controlled. They would have their free will immediately, and then… and then together, perhaps, they could pursue their humanity. But… the sane part of Naruto had serious misgivings about how late this occurred to him. In his desperation- or was it the onset of madness?- he had entirely failed to think of that. Perhaps it was merely in the moment forgetfulness, but after that? He reflected on the thought plenty of times and it seemed inconceivable that mere forgetfulness would have that effect on him. He fervently hoped that his recollection of it now signaled a return to sanity, but he wasn't so sure. But he had read that the truly insane did not question their sanity, so that thought comforted him. He wasn't crazy. Just… determined.

But was it even possible to become human after being turned into a living puppet? His very flesh would need to be regenerated, his skin and organs were long gone, replaced by wooden parts… He sunk into despair again. He could create puppets, but how could one re-create a fully functional human body? Maybe he could transfer his consciousness like that, that was definitely a possibility- maybe into another puppet with the soul holding seal, once it was complete- but another human body..? He needed to talk to Jashin. He had to. He needed to know whether there was a possibility of him becoming human again.

How would he talk to Jashin? The reanimation seal hardly had anything to do with actually talking to the god. There was that one man who was called Hidan who seemed to be Jashin's worshipper. And he walked away from Akatsuki and seemed friendly to Naruto, meaning that… meaning that Naruto might be able to get answers from him. He resolved to find this 'Hidan' again, perhaps ask Danzo about finding him…

But Danzo wouldn't allow him the freedom to pursue Hidan, would he? It didn't matter. Danzo was a great man who was protecting the greatest Hidden Village in the world; whatever he said, Naruto would follow. Although it was worth asking him, there was nothing more important to Naruto than serving his master. If he said no… he said no, and Naruto didn't do it. A part of him cried out at this thinking, and the word "cycle," disconnected from any meaning, floated up in his brain. But he pushed it aside.

Naruto kept mulling over these thoughts and ones similar to them as day turned to night and back into day again. He got a lot of thinking done, but the time for it was just about over. The Kage Summit was set to begin, and he needed to be on high alert should anything go wrong. Henging into a civilian again, he wandered to a reasonable distance away from the administrative building of the Land of Iron- close enough to sprint and arrive in time to assist, but not so close that the guards surrounding it grew suspicious of his presence. To maintain his disguise, he sat down at a ramen stand nearby and ordered a bowl- a bowl he would proceed to stare at in regret.

Given that he could not receive the memories of the Shadow Clones until they dispersed, Naruto would have to wait for the meeting's conclusion to find out what exactly had been said. And wait he did.