YES YES YES I DID IT! I FINALLY MADE A VERSION OF CH3 THATS NOT GARBAGE! YAAAAAAAY!

Thanks. Without all you guys i'd have given up by now, and i mean that.

(Heh, consider this a valentines day update~)

This is my final attempt to combine my favorite aspects of my old story and my new story, to hopefully make something that is better than both could ever be alone.

Two individuals walked down a dusty mountain road, stopping their trek just outside the main headquarters for Gato's underground businesses. It was guarded by every manner of Bandit, Brigand, and mercenary money could buy. But the compound was completely devoid of missing-nin. This was odd in the world of shinobi. Gato was a man of ruthless penny pinching, a tactic that served him well in the business world. But he had made the mistake of betraying missing-nin after making use of their services. No only the bravest, or the most foolhardy, of Ninja would work for him.

The two strangers were here to take advantage of this little fact. Because when one wealthy business leader found a practice that so far hadn't bitten him on the ass, and made him a pretty penny doing so, more business leaders were bound to follow in his footsteps. If it became commonplace to betray hired missing-nin, none of them would be safe.

Both individuals stopped outside the fortress, their laid back poses and bright red masks with a large beak on the front marking them as suspicious. Likely either insane or dangerous. Perhaps both. So the gaurdsmen of Gato's criminal empire stood with their hands on whatever weapons they carried, as they observed the strangers.

One was male, and the smell rolling off of him would make decent people cringe. But the bandits that surrounded the two were a far cry from decent people, and most seemed to relish the opportunity to out-stink the stranger. If their chipped, yellow-toothed grins were any indication, they felt they were winning.

It would be a great exaggeration to call his clothing "rags" and a thick black beard hung low and untrimmed beneath the mask. Under the crow's nest beard, a medallion spun. It was cylindrical, and burned with a venomous green fire. Circling the cylinder, twines of gold enshrouded it in twirly lettering. The wealth put into the object was tangible, the bandits could taste it.

The second of the two had a feminine form, with subtle curves hidden by a thin black cloak that covered everything but the mask. Whenever she moved, a clinking sound followed.

But the bandits of Gato's shipping conglomerate in the Land of Waves payed her no mind. They had plenty of women, sex slaves and whores who were willing to do anything to stay on Gato's good side. So the thought of a Kunoichi had no appeal for them. Life as a bandit was dangerous, and every one of them, both old and young, knew a dozen horror stories of men who had tried to violate an unwilling Kunoichi. Some men still tried of course. Some got off on the power, others just had spent too much time with only men for company. More than a few got away with it. But every attempt was a gamble, and one that the servants of Gato felt no need to take. That crystal on the other hand... Well, greed was something that all mankind knew. A gem like that could buy a country if one played his cards right.

The woman spoke up, her smooth voice holding a razors edge within it, "Which one of you is in charge here? Speak up! We seek an audience with Gato." The two had been told simply to find criminal organizations. Gato was obviously the first to visit, as his crimes were about as well hidden as Tsunade's gambling problem.

The bandit's simple minds only caught one of those words, and that word was "Seek". These people didn't have an audience with Gato. They might even be spies or assassins. As such they wouldn't be missed, and even if they were there would never be any proof of who attacked them. This was like kami reaching down and handing them riches, and they all offered up thanks for god inventing the sucker. As one they all charged the man in the red-beaked mask, blades drawn as they fought for the crystal that would make them kings.

A long ways off, in the land of sound, another man and woman in red beaked masks, spoke with the leaders of the Fuma clan. A second crime group that was pathetically easy to find (They had an ALLEY named after them. An alley where shady crime stuff happens. Not too many dots to connect.) The man in the mask looked at the Fuma clan gang's leader, happy that they could reach a compromise.

He was dressed in long black robes, made of an excessive amount of fabric. Stitches ran across it, covering hundreds of minor tears in the baggy material. The stitching was rough, clearly the man's own handiwork, like he'd grown so used to stitching these robes he knew every rip by heart.

His partner wore a threadbare cloak, little more than a blanket with a high heavy hood to hide the seams of her mask. She was clearly uncomfortable in the garment, the entire thing seemed built with the expressed purpose of throwing it off the second trouble started. She didn't even bother to follow the diplomatic proceedings, she just stood off to the side, bobbing her head in rythm to sounds only she could hear. Her mask was different, being much higher than her partners, almost as if she had an object around the top of her head she wished to hide.

The man smiled beneath his mask, already marking the next group to visit on a handheld map of the elemental nations. "Well Hanzaki of the Fuuma Clan, let me be the first to welcome you into the ranks of Tengu."

"Hey dad! Look who's here to see you? It's Naruto, he came back to us. Just like you said he would." Ayame knelt next to a small plot of land in Konoha's cemetery. The headstone read, "Teuchi Ichiraku. A man who opened his heart to all."

Naruto knelt next to Ayame, trying to come to terms with everything. Teuchi had always seemed like a piece of konoha, more like a monument than a man. Just like Sarutobi, it had always seemed like Teuchi would always be a part of the village. The thought that he would never see Teuchi's warm, friendly smile again... It was unbearable.

"Ayame." Naruto whispered through clenched teeth, "What happened."

"I-it was a little over two weeks after you vanished. A group of people from the village showed up at the gates. Mostly civilians but a handful of Genin were there two. They carried a Jonin named Kazara Maruyama. He was dead, and a lot of them were injured. They told everybody about a group of nine-tails worshiping cultists who abducted you, and how they managed to track them down to a small seaside village. When they got there, they fought through the cultists trying to save you. They said they found the cult leader trying to unseal the beast, and barely managed to collapse his sealing jutsu. It collapsed and killed you, but stopped the beast from being released."

Naruto ground his teeth with rage, blood soaked into his combat wraps from how tightly his nails dug into his palms. How dare they. HOW DARE THEY! They murdered innocent people, the people who treated him as a friend, as family, and they had the gall to say that they were the good guys?! They would suffer, every last one of them... A voice pushed it's way into his thoughts. The very voice that lived within his mind. Kill kill them ALL burn it burn it burn it everything die betrayed us kill them ALL none escape burn it all everything everyone the village the land the world all fire fire fire all gone all better betrayers burn. As always, it was a mix of insanity and pure rage, and one Naruto had long since learned to push back into the corners of his mind.

He was so furious, Naruto almost missed the rest of Ayame's story. "They said a bunch of stuff happened, and none of it made sense. It had so many holes in it... But the council proclaimed them heroes. The Hokage tried to interrogate them, find out what really happened, but every time he did something the council rallied against him. A few days later, when Sarutobi-sensei was busy with a mountain of paperwork... They stopped by our stand. We told them to leave, that we wouldn't serve liars. But they had an Uchiha with them. It was dark out... All the customers were gone. There were twenty of them out there, standing in the street. The Uchiha's eyes swirled, and i saw the red tomoe of a sharingan..." Here Ayame, the cold collected ANBU who had made a name for herself as "Konoha's Red Flower" broke down and cried.

Naruto shook the blood from his hands, and held his childhood friend as she cried against him. Her body shook with sobs.

When she had calmed down she looked out towards the Hokage monument, covered in the four faces of the village Hokage since it was first created by Hashirama Senju's dream of unity and peace. "If they only knew... They would have torched this village long ago."

She trailed off, her voice dying. How long she was quiet nobody knew, seconds felt like hours, and minutes felt like seconds. Just as Naruto began to think she wouldn't finish the story, she spoke. "I couldn't move. I felt like i couldn't breathe. They got my father with it too. I wanted to scream, call for somebody to help. But couldn't. It was such a simple genjutsu, i could break a hundred just like it as i am now. But i wasn't the same person back then. They doused the stand in cooking oil. Father too. They burned everything. Worst of all..." She froze, holding Naruto even tighter. "My fathers great secret. What made his ramen so good. He had a great big metal freezer imported from Kumo. Kept everything fresher, allowed him to take his time preparing everything. They... They locked me in it as the stand burned." Her right hand touched the burn patterns on her right cheek, revealing that the entire hand was covered in similar burns. "Sarutobi-sensei pulled me out. Just a scared eight year old who showed clear signs of being placed under a genjutsu. Because of that, i couldn't charge anyone with the crime. But Sarutobi-sensei took me in. I told him i wanted to be a ninja so i would never have to feel as powerless as i did then. The council threw a fit of course, but he stood up for me, trained me when everyone else said my chakra coils never developed enough for me to be a ninja."

She broke her hug with Naruto, matching his eyes with her dark brown ones, "Did you know there are genin with more chakra than me?" She laughed, a sad pathetic thing, riddled with pain. But a shred of joy still clung to it. "Only one other person ever acknowledged that i could be a ninja. His name was Itachi Uchiha, and he murdered his entire clan for no reason one night. I should hate him. Everyone does. But when he murdered his clan, he found the man who placed the genjutsu on me and my father. I don't know how he did it, but he did. That man... Itachi took his time. Pushed him as far as the human body can be pushed, and then a little bit further. Used every torture in the book. I can't help but want to thank him for that, no matter how bad his crime was."

Naruto felt happy, happy that someone could do so much for a stranger. He promised to one day help Itachi as he helped Ayame.

"Sarutobi-sensei began to see how hopeless i was. He never said it, but i knew he thought it. Everyone did, even me. He tried so hard, trained me as often as he could, but my chakra never grew to even a decent point. A simple genjutsu leaves me gasping for breath, i can't use elemental techniques, a Fire jutsu would kill me from chakra exhaustion. But then fate stepped in. He found a scroll for sale in Sunagakure, a scroll on the basics of chakra strings. It was expensive, i know that much, but he never told me how much he had to pay for it. But when i first made them, it was like magic! I had so little chakra, but making the strings didn't bother me at all. I learned to make one the day i got the scroll. By the end of the week i had a dozen. By the months end, three times that number. I wanted to become a puppet master like they have in Suna. But those scrolls are top secret. Nobody gets them. So i took what i had and made it work. Two years ago i won the Chunin exams, and within a year i had passed the Jonin exams. I lost that, but still did pretty well. Then Sarutobi-sensei gave me a surprise. Just a month ago, he gave me my ANBU mask, and made me one of his bodyguards! It was the happiest day of my life." Ayame smiled at Naruto, who was taken aback by how beautiful the gesture was. It was like a morning glory. Usually it's a sad, dark looking flower, but that only makes it more beautiful when it blooms. Ayame spoke again, her smile growing, "Or... At least it was. Until... Today that is." She took Naruto's chin, and pulled him into a kiss.

Just a short ways away from the kissing couple, the fifth member of Tengu, a man who viewed himself as Naruto's personal bodyguard stood watch on a tombstone. His brown/green blended eyes looked through the scope atop of a very long high powered rifle. A bullet was chambered, and his finger rested on the trigger. It wasn't that he was concerned for the Boss, it was simply a force of habit. He couldn't relax if his finger wasn't pressed against the comforting weight of the firm metal switch.

An even six feet, he wore a long, brown and green camouflage jacket. Beneath that he wore a black wire mesh shirt, and long cargo pants that bagged around his ankles. His feet were covered in high combat boots, with metal clasps along the sides. Fingerless green gloves were on his hands, and a silver metal heart swung on a pendant which attached to a simple string around his neck. The mans hair was a pale blonde, neatly combed and mostly hidden under a green and brown camo beret on his head.

Of all Tengu's members, this was the only one who never wore a mask. The logic being, that if an enemy got close enough to see his face and survive to tell the tale, whatever fate he received was simply a byproduct of his own lacking skills. "Poor poor girl, been through so much. The boss too." He mused, revealing that he could read lips. "What a shame, everybody else gets a fun job and here i am stuck with the graveyard shift." When he realized his own joke, he cracked up. Wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, he made a mental note to remember that joke for some other time. Looking at the sun which had just begun to rise, the sniper realized that he was late. In fact he was late, he was late, for a very important date. With no time to say hello/goodbye, he was late late late late late.

Laughter followed him as he sped off to his mission.

(please get this reference, it's important to the identity of a mystery man.)

Five small villages across the land of fire woke to a wondrous sight. They had received an invitation to join the group which called itself "Tengu". Better yet, it was an ACTUAL invitation, not a "Bandits butcher your families and rape your women if you don't" invitation.

Four of these villages awoke to a member of this organization standing in the town square, the remaining village found a long letter notifying them of their choice. The terms were simple.

Tengu wanted nothing. Absolutely nothing. At first they thought it was a joke. Then they began to understand. Despite the masks and cloaks, Tengu wasn't a criminal organization, nor did they have a specific goal in mind. Their desire was simply to make the lands safe for all, and since the Ninja never did a goddamn thing without pay, they would secure the lands by offering Shinobi training to any who would offer.

"These... Gift to you. We only ask you protect you." The foul dressed, foul smelling man with that glowing pendant said in broken english. When he said you, he gestured to the entire crowd, indicating that they would have to protect themselves. A twelve year old boy stepped towards him. The boy's leg was badly crippled in an attack last year, and his sister was taken by bandits. When she was taken, he prayed for her return. Now he prayed that she was long dead. "I-i want to protect my town. Please teach me how to." On a crippled leg, he tried to bow to his teacher, but the bone was too poorly injured for that. Struggling to bow, tears stained his eyes and the boy knew he would never protect anyone. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the foreign man who offered the chance to make his dreams come true. The man guided the boy to stand tall, and rapped a hand twice on his own chest. "Heart. Courage. Make good shinobi." Then he tapped the boy's chest. "See same in you. Make good shinobi." The villagers of Dosa strode forward in droves, inspired by the boy.

For the first time, common civilians in the elemental nations began to feel that their lives weren't forfeit the second a bandit came around.

In the end, only three villages joined Tengu. Dosa, a small mountain village to the northwest of Konoha that farmed rice and barely turned a profit. Shizukana, a once noble port city that had rapidly dwindled into insignificance when other larger ports opened around the elemental nations. And lastly Wattan, a village of perhaps two or three hundred woodcutters.

Their training began, but outside of each village, a blood-red sign hung ominously. In pitch black letters the sign proclaimed,

PROTECTED BY TENGU

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED