Lost

by Senyor Fier Mensheir

During the 3 year training trip Naruto gets separated from Jiraiya. Will he get to see his sensei and Konoha again? Only time will tell. OOCs and OCs abound, as well as powerfulNaruto. you have been warned. AU. !Unfortunately on Hiatus...nigh inefinitely!

11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and any reference to any other thing owned by someone else.

Claimer: The OCs are mine. If any are sue-ish, well…they're still my sues.

Warning #1: Characters may sometimes be OOC. You have been warned.

Note #1: I made a mistake in a previous chapter. I mistook a naginata for a tanto or a wakizashi. So yeah...Karasu and Mikio use wakizashi not naginata...

Note #2: My version of the world is bigger than ours. My version of the Elemental Continent is that it is the size of five Asia. Population wise it could be that big, but its not. There are still vast tracks of land that are not populated by humans. The Hidden Villages are called Hidden since compared to the cities they are small. If a Hidden Village has a population of say five hundred thousand individuals, then a city would hold five times that, thus allowing a daimyou's army to reach more than a million units. Not that I'm saying that that is how much they had. Hope this helps...

Note #3: Don't be surprised if I say that Hi no Kuni, Tsuchi no Kuni, Kaminari no Kuni, and Kaze no Kuni are roughly the sizes of well lets just say that I'm using Asia and Africa as my references of country area. Hi no Kuni being China and then some, Tsuchi = India, Kazakhstan, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan. Kaminari = Tsuchi, but slightly smaller. Kaze = Russia. Mizu = Indonesia and Malaysia.

Note #3: Be prepared for a long one. Its the longest one so far.

---

Lost

Chapter 10

Exactly one year had passed since Naruto left Konohagakure no Sato. It had also been more or less eight months since he had been dropped into a coma. Sure training had gone smoothly, but waking up having a library worth of knowledge, and then some, kinda made his brain feel like mush for the first second or two. His muscles and bones all felt like jelly from dissuse. He was taught everything about almost everything, most importantly about his Kage Bushin, but for some reason it wasn't only the memories or the knowledge that he got from them, it was everything else, it was as if he had trained for centuries with a body with limitless potential. Time to move onto his next lesson. Whereas the first lesson was gaining knowledge, the next lesson would be application.

Kyonshi had informed one of the clones about lesson number two, just not what it entailed.

So getting out of his infirmary bed, Naruto got dressed in his new outfit, the one his old one transformed into during the unlocking of his other power sources. Having lost Touken to an unorthodox extraction, Naruto had lost one of his power sources, but at the same time this enabled him to gain two or even three more, sort of. One was the addition of magic into his arsenal, the second one the power of creation, so to speak, at his fingertips, sort of. The third power, was the military might that he had accumulated or gained. He was a literal one man army, with almost everything an army or a country would need, the only thing missing were other living people.

After leaving the infirmary Naruto went straight to the mess hall to have a much needed food break, living off of liquids does wonders to one's stomache and stuff, nothing to taste, it just goes fwip into the stomach or the blood stream. Naruto desperately needed to get some grub, his tongue badly needed exercise.

Once in it he sat down at the the table that his friends were eating at. Hyakume was wearing a black shirt, pants, and shoes, all of which contained his ninety eight eyes, the other two were on his face. Dorotabo was wearing his laborers uniform, which was a grey shirt and brown shorts, he wore a pair of straw sandals. Touken was not in full fox form, he opted to eat in his human form, which suffice to say was stunningly beautiful for a male, he was a prime example of a bishounen, he had red hair and red eyes, he wore a white collared shirt and blue cargo pants.

When the three men saw him they greeted him and asked him how his training went. He replied by saying that phase one was complete. He got loads of info and "experience" shoved into his brain and body. Touken joked about his lack of experience with the opposite sex, and further added that most of the blonde's friends seemed to be guys.

It wasn't Naruto's fault that he still didn't feel the urges. Although his mind wasn't as pure as it once was, there was just no time to go off courting, or just hanging out with girls. The Sakura-chan bit was just a phase. Being away from her had changed things, seeing Touken in human form had changed things, he wasn't gay or anything, Touken was just that beautiful.

To help him ease his gender preference and his sense of morality, Naruto asked Hyakume to lend him the raunchiest adult novel he owned, he wanted to see how much of a man he was, he wanted to know if being away from real girls for so long had changed his preferences. Clones transforming themselves into his Naruko form did not count.

Touken, Hyakume, and Dorotabo reassured him that he didn't need something like that to assure himself that he would still in the future chase some skirts. How did they know this, well its because they saw Naruto check out one of the passing naiads that passed their table. Naruto realized that that was true when he caught himself checking out a gaggle of girls at another table.

So he dropped that topic, and found himself into another one. This time revolving around training phase two or lesson two, depending on who was talking. Naruto still had no clue what his second year's worth of training would hold. Touken seemed to have an idea, Hyakume kinda knew, and Dorotabo saw the hourglass doing some acrobatics, at least thats what they told him. Leaving Naruto grasping starws as to what his training would entail.

Hyakume update him on the goings ons of one of his adventure quests, and Naruto found the things Hyakume's questers kept finding themselves in. For some reason, some of the things took hold of some unkown memory that didn't exist. They were probably somehow linked to the stories, but Zombie-sensei probably thought that he didn't need some useless stuff to clutter his brain.

After perusing the menu for what to eat for his first breakfast lunch and dinner in a long time, Naruto opted to go with one order of Food of the God, which turned out to be oatmeals, one order of Food of the Maelstorm, which was actually rabbit ramen, and one order of twenty eight inches worth of anchovy pizza.

Naruto's three friends helped him finish the pizza, Kyonshi passed by the table and grabbed a slice before vanishing off to his office.

After saying their temporary farewells, Naruto skipped his way to Kyonshi's little office for the start of lesson number two.

---

Kyonshi was in his office eating slices of pizza left and right, he hadn't had a slice for more than five millania, and Naruto's anchivy pizza slice got him to go into craving mode, he was like those pregnant women who crave for weird things, so Kyonshi craved for pizza, the pizza was nothing out of the ordinary, it was the toppings that were.

That was the sight that greeted Naruto as he entered the office, there were boxes and crates and whatnot of pizza lying around the place, the chairs had been replaced with pizza boxes, the table was oozing with cheese, the whole place could be likened to a palace of pizza, or a shrine to the Enlightened One in charge of Pizza creation. So instead of taking the offered seat, he stood in front of Kyonshi's cheese oozing desk.

"So...lesson number two?" Naruto asked, hoping that the talk that lay ahead would distract him from the pizza covered and filled office.

"Student," Kyonshi said, "Let me just finish these last few pizzas and we'll get started."

It took a whole three hours for Kyonshi to finish all of his pizza. After the three hours, it took him another thirty minutes to burp out all the gases that had accumulated in his gut. Thats when he finally addressed his sleeping student who had fallen asleep standing up.

"Naruto? You awake?" he asked his obviously sleeping student.

Getting no reply, Kyonshi brought out a larger than normal harisen and prompty whacked his student's head. This resulted in Naruto kissing floor.

Once Naruto got back to his feet, having recovered from the harisen smack, he stood at attention in anticipation for part two of his training.

"Now that you are awake," Kyonshi began, "I shall begin by introducing you to the title of the lesson."

"So..what is it?" Naruto asked excitedly.

"Hold that thought," his sensei said as he spotted a pizza slice wedged between some books on a shelf that Naruto didn't notice until his sensei summoned the pizza slice.

"Zombie-sensei?"

"Right then, onto business!" Kyonshi exclaimed, "Lesson number two is Application."

"I kind of already knew that."

"Huh? How'd you know? I didn't tell you that!"

"Kage Bushin."

"Oh right, you are THAT Naruto, sorry sorry forgot."

"What do you mean by," Naruto did the quoting sign with his fingers, "quote THAT Naruto unquote?"

"Oh, remember the thing about there being more worlds than one?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you're not the first Naruto I've taught."

"Really?"

"Yeah, as of yesterday I had been teaching millions of other Narutos."

"Zombie-sensei..."

"Yes Naruto number zero?"

"Those were my clones.."

"Really? They acted so life like, like they had minds of their own.."

"Kage Bushin, MY Kage Bushin."

"Oh, yeah, forgot you could do that," Kyonshi said thinking out loud, "Wish I had you tap into THAT."

"What is 'THAT'?"

"You don't need to know, ask me when I see you in your next life."

"How about, what would it have allowed me to do?"

"Drop into a commatose state that would last for three years, while allowing you to create roughly seven hundred fifty eight trillion four hundred seventy two billion eight hundred ninety one million three undred twenty thousand seven and one of those lovely clones of yours.."

"..." Naruto was shocked into disbelief, "I-i-is that it?"

"Nope, the last part is that after being in a coma for three years your body would have died, seeing as your mind would have been unable to handle the strain of that many other yous. Also you are not an Enlightened One, the age of creation for those guys was over eons ago, that and no one, none of those stuck up know-it-alls would allow someone like you to become the Enlightened One handling ramen, frankly I am disgusted by the mere thought that anyone, especially you would consider being a higher being with the sole purpose of governing ramen."

"You're just saying that cause you hate the stuff."

"Yes!"

"What does that have to do with the lesson?"

"Absolutely NOTHING!"

"Oh, ok..."

"Now going back to the lesson," Kyonshi returned to his lecture, "I seemed to have forg..."

"Application," Naruto interrupted and supplied.

"Right. Application. For this year, you," Kyonshi pointed his yellow foam finger, which he placed on his pointer fingertip taken from who knows where, at Naruto, "will be applying all your gathered knowledge."

"How exactly am I to do that?" Naruto asked, "I got a world's worth of knowledge that somehow got crammed into my head and more. How am I going to apply that?"

"Well...I was going to have you shake things up a little some.." Kyonshi counted using his fingers and toes, "some...yes that would do it," he thought out loud after counting, "a little more than a thousand years ago."

"WHAT?!" Naruto was shocked.

'Shake things up a little?..A thousand years ago?..Was this animated corpse kidding?..' were the kinds of thoughts that popped up in Naruto's head.

"What about causing paradoxes? Anomalies in time? Changing the flow? Causing my history to change? Deleting my character from the game you call Life? Huh? Huh? Huh? What about all those things that could, would, and should happen?" Naruto hastily asked.

"I am Toukou Kyonshi!" he said, "Through you and your ancestors I have adopted your world! The flow of TIME is at my command! NOW, just listen. Capiche?"

"Hai, sensei..." Naruto answered in a somewhat defeated tone.

"I'm going to send you, and those three friends of yours slightly more than a thousand years into the past, into parts of Elemental that are mostly unknown to or mostly unheard of or whatever by most of the presently existing countries and people that you and that perverted sensei of yours and then some.."

"He's a super pervert actually," Naruto stated matter-of-factly.

"I know, but perverted is shorter," Kyonshi said, "Basically, I'm sending the four of you to a war torn area, where you will have free reign to do as you please. You will have precisely one year to accomplish your task there. Don't interrupt me, your task shall be known to you once you get there. Your dream is to become Hokage, rather it is to be recognized for you, to be seen as Naruto and not something else. Your dream is that you are to someday more or less be valued, more so than you already are. Am I correct?"

"Hai. I kinda get the apply part and how to do that in relation to the Hokage bit, but how about the non-mlitary stuff?"

"Simply put you shall get your leadership experience. Think of it as a leadership training camp. Ever been on or to one of those?"

"Nope, can't say that I have."

"Well, do you at least get what I am saying?"

"More or less."

"Well, thats better than nothing."

"If you say so."

"Now that you have been briefed on your task.."

"But you haven't said anything about the task," Naruto interrupted.

"I have, now shush," Kyonshi said, "As I was saying before I was so Narutolly interrupted, "I'm going to grab that little percent of MY world that you have converted into more or less your own, and am going to dump it into a pocket dimension for you to use as your base of operations. Entrance and exit into and out of it will be up to you. Use your imagination on how and what to call it. Basically you will have your own..little world, continet, island. I say island because MY world kinda resembles one, except its so big that even I haven't explored the length and bredth of it."

"So...anything else."

"Yeah, you are going to play alien. Until I say otherwise, no one asides from you, your clones, those pets of yours, Touken, Hyakume, and Dorotabo, are allowed access to your world. Got it?"

"Hai."

"Now go prepare pack up your stuff."

"But I thought you were going to grab all my things?"

"Those parcels of land and whatnot I'll take care of those. You grab your stuff from your room in this fortress. Bring 'em to your HQ, and go to the roof, the one where you first fell off of."

"Sir, yes, sir," Naruto said as he saluted to his teacher military style, then he left the office to go pack his stuff.

'It sure is hard thinking up this stuff. Sheesh playing around with Fate's and Destiny's project is harder than it looks! ARGH! This better not blow up in my face else I'll have to start over from scratch...' Kyonshi thought to himself as Naruto left his office.

---

A few minutes later Kyonshi was standing on the air beyond the roof ledge where Naruto would go to after packing and stuff. He was literally grabbing the land masses and whatnot that Naruto had taken as his own. His hands stretched out to grab these things as if they were on a table before him, as if they were toys that he could just pick up. What he was doing was literal child's play to the things he was really capable of.

The pocket dimension that he had created for Naruto's world was tied directly to Touken's former prison gate. That would be more or less where it would be kept until Kyonshi could find a spot in the greater scheme of things for it to go. He would have to form a bunch of tendril connections, and the like.

After packing up everything into the pocket dimension that was to be temporarily contained in Naruto's figurative belly, Kyonshi summoned up an anchovy pizza slice and ate it. Then he returned to his true task at hand. He was forcefuly turning back the clock, carefully setting things up so that no matter what Naruto did, the rest of his world would not get hit by it until it was time for Naruto's little lesson's fruits to be revealed to the rest of the world. Everything would go with the flow once he was done with his little business.

Messing up with the time stream and with the flow of things was seriously some really tricky business. Kyonshi had to literally create eons worth of loopholes to fit in anything and everything that Naruto would, could, should, do and not do with present conditions. Kyonshi made it so that even if Naruto were to somehow end all of creation and beyond, it would somehow turn out the way it was meant to be, complete with Naruto getting trained by Kyonshi. The world would end, all of creation would cease to exist, the Being's influence would disappear, yet well the world and everything else would still go on after that.

"Take note, if I screw up its goodbye to all of you," Kyonshi said to no one in particular, "This is going to be like Naruto killing all of the mamals which would cause man not to evolve, but there would still be humans and fossils of dinos today. Naruto better not make a mess out of things, cause thinking and doing this is giving me a headache. Here's hoping he doesn't ask for an explanation, cause I'm already going into a paradox just thinking of the explanation."

As Irony would have it, Naruto had just gotten to the roof with his three friends.

"Yo! Zombie-sensei how ya gonna make sure that anything I do doesn't mess things of the present up?" Naruto innocently asked, not knowing that his sensei did not want to have to answer that question.

"I might tell you when you die. Wanna find out if I do?" Kyonshi asked.

"Nope!"

"Good."

"So Bossasaur, what're we gonna be doing?" Touken asked.

"You three are to be travelling with Naruto, his word is my word so to speak. Just act like how gennins are supposed to act, Naruto will be your figurative Jounin-sensei. Got it?" Kyonshi answered.

"Sure thing Kyonshi-sama," Hyakume and Dorotabo answered.

"Okie dokie. Naruto is the new Bossasaur. Gotcha. Uhum, Yep. Yup."

"Have you been watching Dinosaucers again?" Kyonshi asked.

"Whoops. Ehehe...sorry Kyonshi-sama."

"Pair up you four. Touken, I authorize you to inform Naruto how to travel from his world to this one," Kyonshi said.

"Sure thing sensei."

"Now I want all four of you to dance the waltz, you stop when you hear me say stop. When I say stop, the year begins. Got it?"

Instead of answering with words the quartet paired up and started to awkwardly dance the waltz.

"More passion!" Kyonshi shouted.

"More grace!" he would add.

"Watch your steps!" would be heard by the four.

"Don't trip now!"

"Almost there!"

"STOP!!!" they heard Kyonshi shout, but when they looked around he was not there with them.

---

Naruto and friends found themselves standing in a barren wasteland. The land was devoid of life, Naruto using his ability to gather nature chakra was unable to sense any other living thing for miles around aside from himself and his three companions.

Naruto was not the only one to notice this, Touken being one with nature himself, felt something that Naruto was unable to notice, the land had been soaked in blood. It was as if it had rained blood on this patch of earth for days on end. Probably the flood of that crimson liquid only ended a few days prior to their arrival.

Hyakume's eyes shot out of his cloak, all ninety eight of them spread out in search of anything that could clue them in on where they were, and what had happened for life to have simply stopped existing in the place.

Dorotabo, being an agriculturist of sorts, was very familiar with the earth, life was supposed to be born of the earth, but the corrupted land that they were standing on would not be able to sustain life, and to created life would be nearly impossible for the next millenia or more.

"Well, I guess this would be the best place to set up our base of operations," Naruto announced.

"I agree, its not like any one will bother us here," Touken said while in his human form.

"But how would we survive here? The land is not suitable for life," Dorotabo said.

"There really isn't anything around us, it is the ideal place to set up base. My eyes see nothing but wasteland," Hyakume said.

Naruto held out his hand, the blood that had seeped into the soil rose out of the ground and flew through the air and formed a ball of blood in his hand. Using his telekenetic skills, Naruto used the collected blood and drew seals upon seals on the ground with it as ink. When ever he needed more he just focused his mind on collecting more, there was an abundance of it anyway.

---

While doing this Naruto had his three companions travel together to see how big the wasteland was. He needed to know how much ground was more or less theirs to do with as they please. So they did as they were told.

---

After using up all the blood in his immediate area, Naruto channeled a mix of chakra and magic into the blood drawn seals to activate them. Instantly the seals rose out of the ground and started to pile up on one another. They formed a tower of blodd seals that were fueled by the chakra and moved there by the magic. After a few seconds the seals came together and formed a solid tower of blood.

Placing a palm on the pillar of blood, Naruto imagined that the pillar was duplicated in the center of HIS world. Then he imagined that the pillar started to divide or split from the middle and separate into to pillars. Then from the twin pillars and arch formed from them and connected the two pillars. When this use of his imagination was done, the images that formed in his mind happened in the real world, just as he had imagined it. There stood before him an arch, a portal. He knew that in HIS world there was anohter one identical to the one before him. They would serve as the doorway between worlds.

The portals were constructed, all that Naruto needed to do was to connect the two, mere imagination would not be able to power these things up, more complex things were in order. So once again Naruto used his telekenetic ability to gather up the blood that he could now sense was still in the earth around him. After gathering the blood, he started drawing seals and runes in the space between the two pillars and the arch and the ground. By now some force had made the blood archway crystal.

Once the process of drawing seals had finished, Naruto set them alight with magic and chakra. The door way that connected the two worlds was almost complete. The only thing that needed to be done was to add the key hole and the key. These two things were the easiest parts of Naruto's on the spot made up plan. For the key hole, well the portal itself was the key hole. For the key, Naruto formed the ram seal to gather up some chakra, when he gathered enough for a hundred normal kage bushin he grasped this power and molded it into the shape of a key, then he gathered up a fraction of his magic and infused it into the chakra key to give it a more solid form. Lastly, he imagined the chakra-magic key to gain a silver coat which would keep the two elements melded together. With that done, Naruto had his portal and key all in working condition.

He needed a physical base of operations. So using his link to his clones, he ordered them to prepare the tools and materials that would be needed to construct a formidable base. One that he would be able to attack and defend from. He needed something that would be able to witstand a full on frontal attack from ten SandFish.

Once the supplies had been prepared Naruto opened the Gate, as he now called it. Out of the Gate walked his clones, behind them were cart loads of supplies, materials, and tools. Behind and between these carts were some of the onigumo aka the giant spiders, and the giant scorpions.

During the time that Naruto spend in his coma, his clones, the ones that were created before training officially began had started on the breeding and training program of the animals that he had acquired.

The onigumo and scorpions were followed by a number of rocs, ankylosaurus, and dragons. Naruto needed these beasts for what he had planned. Naruto planned on creating his own mountain, a really small one compared to Kyonshi's, but a mountain nonetheless.

The mountain would be more like a volcano, four walls, and a crater in the middle. They were all standing on what would be the center of the crater. The Gate would be right smack dab in the middle of the crater. In the crater would be the main building of the fortress that Naruto intended to build.

The four walls of the psuedo volcano would serve as the first set of walls surrounding the core of the fortress. The fortress would have five floors below the crater's mouth, and seven floors above the crater's mouth. These twelve floors would vary in height. All in all it would have thirteen floors counting the crater floor where the Gate would be located. The upper seven would be regular in height, while the lower six would have higher ceilings to accommodate a number of things that would need the high ceilings. One or two of the floors would have an A and B or even a C sub-level. Since Naruto planned on installing elevators, the floors would be G for Gate, 1A..1B..1C...and so on for those that will have sub levels until the fifth floor, then the rest would just be 6..7..8..9..10..11..12.

The fortress would be made out wood and stone, like a traditional castle keep. The length and width of each of the floors would be the same, except for the top seven floors which would be considerably smaller. The length and width of the floors found within the crater would be two hundred fifty feet by two hindred fifty feet. The sixth floor would be eighty five feet by eighty five feet. The seventh floor would be seventy five feet by seventy five feet. The eighth floor would be sixty five feet by sixty five feet. The nineth floor would be fifty five feet by fifty five feet. The tenth floor would be forty five feet by forty five feet. The eleventh floor would be thirty five feet by thirty five feet. Floor twelve would be twenty five feet by twenty five feet.

The base support for the structure would be made out of diamond. Four diamond pillars of columbs would hold up the twelve floors. There would also be bridges that connected each of the numbered floors within the crater to the crater walls and the tunnels and structures on and in it. Each floor would have eight bridges each, each being fifty feet wide, and if something would not be able to cross it being too big or too heavy, even though the bridges would be made out of diamond, there would also be four teleportation gates in each floor, each one with a control pannel that would syncronize with the other gates in the whole fortress. All the floors would be connected via stairs and by sixteen elevators elevators, the elevators would only connect the floors within the crater, the ones above would only have stairs and gates.

The Gate floor's ceiling would be two hundred feet above the crater floor, the Gate floor would only house the Gate. The crater would have an estimated diameter of two thousand feet, it wouldn't be like the usual craters that grew wider and wider as it reached the mouth, this one would be a cylindrical crater, it was more like a hole at the top and center of the mountain. The crater would have a diameter of two thousand feet, and have a height from floor to mouth of nine hundred fifty feet. The floor where the gate was formed on would be raised one thousand nine hundred forty five feet higher than its current height. The mountain would be three thousand feet in height, the diameter of its base would be roughly six thousand feet, and distance from the edge of the foot of the mountain to the edge of the crater would be four thousand one hundred sixty nine feet.

Floor one would be divided into three sub levels. Each one being fifty feet in height. Floor one sub level A would serve as the storage for food and drink. Floor one sub level B would serve as the treasury. Floor one sub level C would serve as the kitchens, mess hall, and rooms for the staff of floor one.

Floor two would also be divided into three sub levels. Each one also being fifty feet in height. Floor two sub level A would be used for storage of all the electrical equipment, as well as all other power sources of the various doohickies in the entirety of the fortress. Floor two sub level B would house the excess and or surplus gizmos and gadgets, and their replacements and such. Floor two sub level C would serve as the storeroom for some of the military and non-military equipment.

Floor three would also be divided into three sub levels, each being fifty feet in height as well. Floor three sub level A would house the chemistry labs and storage rooms for the equipment, experiments, chemicals, and the results. Floor three sub level B would house the potions labs and storage rooms for the things that had to do with potions. Floor three sub level C would house the alchemy labs and the storage rooms for the things that had to do with alchemy.

Floor four would serve as the living quarters of the staff of floors two, three, and five. It would be subdivided into ten sub levels, there would be an elevator stop on the first sub level and on the sixth. Each sub level would be fifteen feet in height.

Floor five would not be divided into sub levels, sort of, the layout would be changed every now and then to suit the needs of the work that would go on in the floor. This floor would serve as the breeding center for all those wonderful creatures that Naruto had collected, the ones that he would use directly or indirectly for his army. Livestock would have different facilities altogether.

Each of the top seven floors would be fifteen feet in height, each one requiring different levels of clearance to enter.

Floor six would have all the rooms that guests would have access to, like the receiving area, a hall or two that could serve as a party hall, a small game room, a dining hall, and the like.

Floor seven would house the living quarters of the staff that would be handling the top seven floors.

Floor eight would serve as the headquarters of the non-military related stuff, these being the offices in charge of economics, agriculture, maintenance, the HR department, and the like, these offices would be the main offices in charge of the running of the day to day things in the fortress, for now.

Floor nine would serve as the headquarters for all of the military related stuff, from the tactics and strategy department to the torture and interrogation division.

Floors eight and nine would be like the village councils, in the sense that floor eight would handle all the civilian related matter, while floor nine would handle the military matters both offensive and defensive.

Floor ten would simply house all the information, it would be the central library of the fortress. All the books, scrolls, papers, knowledge that Naruto had acquired would be housed on this floor. His unwritten knowledge would be put to parchment or paper, then would be turned into books.

If Naruto had a house, floor eleven would serve as everything in a regular house, except for Naruto's living quarters which would be on the top floor.

That's basically the outline for the core structure of the fortress. Naruto intended to make use of the mountain as part of his fortress. Normally, a fortress is situated on a mountain or hill or wherever for a strategic purpose. Naruto did not plan on having the mountain be just a defensive wall for his keep, he intended to drill tunnels and caverns into and in the mountain. The inside of the mountain would later resemble an anthilll.

These tunnels and caverns would serve as living quarters, storage rooms, armories, arsenals, labs, prisons, dungeons, everything. Connecting all the levels of the mountain would be a number of stairs, poles, gates, doors, you name it, most likely it would be in there, including several elevators.

On the slope of the mountain there would be several towers, and some smaller buildings. These would serve many different purposes. There would be four housing facilities for the rocs, four caves and facilities for the dragons, another four facilities to be used as housing for the basilisks. There would be eight caves that would open up in eight different levels and sides of the mountain, these caves would serve as the bat caves. The onigumo would have ten caves to themselves, the scorpions being their neighbours with their own set of ten caves. The only entrace and exit to the onigumo and scorpion caves would be the cave mouths on the side of the mountain. The inside of the caves would be half filled with sand.

The different structures and whatnot found on the slope would be connected by a series of bridges made out of different metals and crystals, asll well as gates. The mountain as well as the lower six floors would be riddled with contraptions that would allow easy and swift sending and receiving of messages, files, and whatnot.

The slope of the mountain would not be just those buildings, structures, and facilities, it would have the look and feel of a naturally formed mountain, complete with trees, crags, rocks, boulders, other plants, and other animals. Some of the animals and plant species of Kyonshi's world would be found there as well.

Surrounding the base of the mountain would not be a dense jungle like Kyonshi's, the foot of the mountain would be surrounded by a two hundred fifty foot wide moat, with varying depths ranging from just an inch to several hundred feet.

Opposite the foot of the mountain would be a two hundred fifty foot tall wall that would surround the moat and the mountain. This wall would be connected, on the inside, to structures that would serve as the facilities that would take care of or handle the things living in the moat. There would be a total of twenty five regular gates for entrance and exit purposes Parts of the moat would serve as the fisheries for the literally hundreds or more fish that Naruto had collected. Other parts would be dedicated in the care and such of the crocs, both regular ones and the supercrocs. The moat would seem just as natural as the mountain, there would be all sorts of marine life in it, ranging from fresh water to salt water. There would also be small islands in the moat, as well as some structures that would serve as housing and other stuff.

The water's edge on the mountain's side would start directly at the base, but on the wall's side the wall and some of the land structures would be fifty feet away from the water's edge.

Beyond the wall would be a sprawling city filled with buildings, parks, houses, compounds and whatnot. Naruto's idea of a fortress was closer to a castle town than to just a fortress. But instead of a town it would be a city. This city would be able to house a population of roughly five million individuals, that would be men, women, and children, and still have space for a few thousand or a million or two more. The area covered by the city would be as big as osaka and singapore combined, which would be nine hundred thirty two and thirty one square kilometers.

A wall would surround the city, this too would have some twenty five main gates with a few smaller ones here and there, it would be two hundred fifty feet high. It would have towers or turrets every hundred feet. The wall would be thirty five feet wide. It would also have different levels in it. These levels would serve as the barracks, armory, arsenal, storehouses, mess halls, and other military facilities. The wall would also serve as the stables for the horses, as well as house facilities that would be in charge of the care of the ankylosaurus, smilodons aka sabertooth tigers aka tigers and a few other big cats, direwolves and wolves. The wall would be so wide since on top of it, aside from human patrols, there would be catapults, trebuchets, and ballistas.

There would be an open space that would be used as a staging area for offensive and defensive battles as well as to be used for training excercises. This space would surround the wall that surrounded the city, it would be a hundred and fifty feet wide. Where the space ended would be another wall.

This wall would be shorter than its counter part, shorter by fifty feet. But it would be just as wide, but it would only have two three levels, the ground level, mid level, and the top of the wall. There would also be towers and turrets along the wall, but they would be constructed in places that would not hinder the towers, turrets, and seige weapons behind them. This wall would also have catapults, trebuchets, and ballistas on it. Beyond this wall would be quicksand, the only space that would not be covered by this gunk would be the roads that people and whatnot would pass on. Aside from the quicksand there would also be a number of antlion pits spread out. The mid level of the wall would have rope bridges that would connect the wall before this defense and the wall after this defense.

This next wall would just as tall as the previous wall, just as wide, and with one more additional level. But it wouldn't have any seige weapons on it. It would still have turrets and towers. The only long range things on it would be the archers, long range jutsu users, and magic users. Between this wall and the outermost wall would be a space that would be twenty feet wide with the floor being covered in sharp pointly objects. Of course there would still be roads and stuff.

The outermost wall would be one hundred seventy five feet in height, and would be ten feet wide allowing only personnel to man it. There would be towers and turrets every three hundred fifty feet. This wall would have a total of thirty two big gates. These gates would serve as entrances and exits to the fortress city.

Within the city there would be parts reserved agriculture and for the care, breeding, and slaughter of livestock. The fortress would be self sustaining. Around it Naruto, with the help of Touken, would plant and grow a forest that would rival Hi no Kuni's great forests.

But before all that he had to do his thing.

"TAJUU KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU!!!" he shouted and created five million extreme clones, these ones were just below the ones that stayed after dying for a few minutes, they were living entities, sort of...one thing that set them apart from their creator was that they were still just Kage Bushin, modified, but still clones, another thing is that even if they could get it up that didn't mean that anything would come up.

Naruto then assigned his older clones to gather the clones that they needed for their assignments.

The first task, that Naruto had to do was terraforming. The mountain and the moat would be the first things he conjured, transformed, etcetera'd up, the surrounding forest would be made after his three companions would return from their surveying mission.

Once the task of terraforming was completed, Naruto had to take a day long break. It took him twenty four straight hours of determination, will power, and imagination to do it, but he did it, and he was exhausted because of it.

Touken, Hyakume, and Dorotabo had yet to return, but they did send updates every hundred square miles or so.

Seeing as the basics of the layout of the fortress city were in place, the clones began setting up the foundations of the structures. The construction had begun. Naruto really didn't need to do anything anymore, but being someone who believed in hard work, he let his clones do everything.

Instead of helping his clones, Naruto opted to do his own surveying of the land. So he prepared some storage scrolls, some with supplies, others that were empty. He wanted to know the lay of the land, as well as the conditions of life outside the now bloodless land.

Touken, Hyakume, and Dorotabo had decided to split up early on in their mission. Touken would head north, Hyakume would head east. Dorotabo would head west. They each would communicate with one another and send reports back to Naruto via summon.

Once they reached the what they each perceived as the edge, they contacted Naruto, who then did all the calculations, since he had opted to travel southwards. They had more or less mapped the waste land in the span of ten weeks, also the fortress city was completed just as Naruto announced that the land that he now claimed as his had an area of roughly thirty four thousand five hundred seven square kilometers, think Taiwan.

---

(A/N: I know it not like me, but as for land area, lets just say that everything is bigger than usual. Sorry for the interruption.)

---

Also as the four found out, the land was situated at the very center of nine nations, that were at war with one another. The land that Naruto claimed used to be the battleground, but due to the land being so far gone, the armies did battle elsewhere.

Naruto sent back messages to the other three via the summons, that they would visit these nine nations and see how everything with them is. He wanted to know the goings ons of the time that he was in.

Just by arriving he already had an inkling of what his task was to be. For an application lesson, his task was not a simple one. To confirm his hunch, Naruto and the three would be travelling the nine lands.

Touken would visit the northern lands, Hyakume the eastern lands, Dorotabo the western lands, and Naruto would traverse the southern lands. Three for each of Naruto's three companions, while he would be taking on the challenge of visiting the remaining four.

As soon as the three received their orders they started immediately, Naruto on the otherhand went back to his fortress city. There was still something that he needed to do.

Naruto more or less only had his three friends as real companions. With a city the size of the one that he had constructed, Naruto felt that it needed something. It was lacking something that was very important to a city, people. So he gathered up as much raw power as he could muster. All the while chanting.

"recolligo terra vultus anhelo vita..recolligo terra vultus anhelo vita..recolligo terra vultus anhelo vita.." he chanted over and over as he gathered up his power.

He didn't know how many he would be able to create. What he was going to create was something that he learned from Kyonshi, how to literally create life from non-life. He would gather earth, earth being one of the life givers, then he would shape it or sculpt it like clay, then with the air would breathe life into his creations. This was Naruto at his best and worst, he was literally playing god. These thing would be the next stage of evolution of golems.

Once he was done, a great earthquake shook the ground, a storm formed over head thunder rolling loudly. The winds blew strong and fierce, followed by a dense fog. All of this happened within the span of a few short minutes.

Once the fog dispersed there were, two thousand individuals, these were no where near Kage Bushin. These were actual people. All of them adults. Naruto had recycled some lost souls that he detected on the battlefield and infused a part of himself with them to give them a firm hold onto the land of the living. In a sense it was necromancy, and a bit of alchemy, and some other things.

They were clones of himself and of others. It was like Noah's Ark in a way, since Naruto had somehow breathed life and granted an evolving soul to these technically advanced golems, he made two equal sets of the genders. It was a ratio of one to one. From this one thousand he hoped that they would breed more people. It felt weird and a bit sick, and really weird, but it had to be done. Kyonshi did say apply everything he had learned, and this was just one of those things.

After that he took a month long break, he needed to acquaint himself with his citizens and or creations. He also had to give them names, clan names, and the like. His clones were a big help with this.

Aside from these new breed of people, Naruto also created a thousand of each version of his modified clones to fill up the rest of the population. He had them all change their appearance and create identities for themselves.

It was hard playing god, but for one month that is precisely what Naruto did. He kinda knew how Kyonshi must have felt in the beginning.

To understand death, one must understand life, to understand destruction one must understand creation. And boy did Naruto understand.

After the month was over and he began to leave for his new journey, he knew that he should not regret doing what he did, it had to be done, also he really was lonely. Having only clones as constant companios as well as some animals was a really lonely existence.

His creations would be the foundations of his nation to be. At the time Naruto only thought that he now had people to go home to, that was enough for him, in the future, well the future was the future.

---

Three weeks after leaving his fortress city, Naruto found himself in Naiya no Kuni, he was in one of the few cities that remained from decades upon decades of war. Greed was a powerful thing, after the gold and diamond mines of the country had dried up, the daimyou looked to the other countries and wanted their wealth to be his, so he went to war with them, the other countries were of the same mind as he. So it was a nine sided war.

Naruto had to change his outfit in order to blend in, he looked like just some other mercenary. The city had a number of them loitering around the place.

The city didn't really look like it had been in good shape for a long time. Naruto figured that it being a war torn country, nothing would look good. But there was one building in the whole city that actually looked in good condition, and this building was the seat of power of the daimyou of Naiya no Kuni. Apparently Naruto had stumbled upon the capital city itself.

Being a traveller Naruto went to one of the local pubs and asked around for some information as discreetly as he possibly could, he only brought out some copper coins when he absolutely had too.

He learned that for decades many of the citizens of the nine countries had been displaced, many had been forced to leave their homes, many had lost their lives by just being at the wrong place and the wrong time. Their was poverty anywhere, and the only way to get a decent life was by joining the army. Sure your life expectancy was short, but at least you had three square meals a day, a roof over your head, and clothes on your back, you were also paid, twenty five copper coins a day, that was a lot of money, compared to what other jobs paid people.

Making his way through the city Naruto went to the barracks of the city. He wanted to know what kind of firepower the military was worth.

Getting in had been easy enough, so disguising himself as one of the regular soldiers he moved around and took note of all the things he saw. Doing nothing but walking around had called the attention of one of the officers, which led to Naruto being assigned guard duty of the prisons.

The prison was a well built building made solely of stone. The doors to each of the cells were made out of solid iron. Each cell was made to fit only five people each, but the soldiers had forced more than ten to inhabit each cell.

After snooping around a bit, as well as being treated as a greenhorn, Naruto learned that the prisoners weren't soldiers from the enemy, but civilians from one of the other eight countries, as well as some citizens of their own country.

The prison was where the daimyou kept all the people that he would sell on the black market as slaves, he needed funds to fund his war, and slaves were a commodity. He sold them in bulk, that was why the prisoners were packed in the cells worse than a can of sardines.

The people in the cells were people taken from their homes, mostly women and children, the men were usually soldiers, or sent to work somewhere else.

After his shift was over Naruto decided to change his disguise again, he needed to infiltrate the castle. So he disguised himself as a doctor. There was talk of the daimyou looking for skilled doctors, for what purpose Naruto didn't know. But he wanted to find out.

Upon entering the castle Naruto was brought to a room with a number of other doctors already in it. Apprently it was on the spot hiring, some of the doctors didn't look anywhere remotely qualified. Naruto guessed that as long as you were willing to cut people up or something you qualified as a doctor.

Once the last applicant was brought into the room, everyone present was told to take a seat. Then they were given their instructions.

A few people possessing unusual abilities had been found, and the daimyou wanted to have these people examined, he wanted to know how these people ticked, what made them work, and what made them so special.

They were then each led to a different room, one doctor per room. In each room there were around twenty subjects, all of which were tied up or chained up, basically they were all restrained. Naruto, like all the rest was given some notes on the observed abilities of the individuals. Then they locked him in the room to do what he was told to do.

Among the observed abilities there was one man that was supposedly blind, yet could see perfectly. There was another that was supposedly deaf, yet could hear perfectly. There was another who could tell what was what just by the smell, he was both deaf and blind. There was even a person that had his hand placed in a container, it was separated from his body, but it still moved. There was one little girl who was encased in some kind of metal binding or wrap, the notes said that it was to keep her from stretching.

After looking over the notes for a while, as well as visually observing the other occupants in the room, Naruto concluded that most likely these people held within them the first Kekkai Genkai. A blind man who can see could possibly be an ancestor of the Hyuuga, the girl who could stretch herself could probably be the ancestor of that guy in the Chuunin Exam. Naruto was actually starting to wonder if there was an ice user in the group.

He didn't want to do what the daimyou wanted to be done, so he just wrote down what he observed, as well as what he could pick up using his powers, he had so many of those that it would be cheating to use them all.

After about six hours of being stuck in the room, the door was unlocked and he was told to submit his findings for the day and return the next day. He was also given his pay for the day, which wasn't much.

Once outside he returned to looking like a mercenary, then he walked to the inn he was staying at for the duration of his visit.

He planned on trying to get the people that he saw suffering a way out, not death mind you, but a way to somehow escape. Their treatment was inhumane, he may have grown up with something similar, but this was more extreme. He was an outer circle member of a bigger thing, and he only saw the basics. He could guess from that the other things that happened. It was possible that the daimyou, with the lack of food, might have opted to go with the soylent green approach. Due to the decades upon decades long wars there wasn't enough food for all the people. Naruto really didn't want to find out if the soylent green approach was used.

It was fifteen minutes after midnight that Naruto entered shinobi mode. He had himself literally blend in with the shadows. He hopped from shadow to shadow until he reached medical room that he was in during the day. The subjects were still inside, still restrained, most of whom were sleeping, some of whom looked like they were dying, a few of whom were already dead. The daimyou must have had a number of these special people around for him not to have to worry about the health of one special individual.

In the middle of the room, Naruto slowly detached himself from the shadows between two dead bodies. Whispy tendrils of darkness escaped from his form as he rose out of the shadows like eerily and creepily as if prolonging the inevitable fate of the occupants of the room.

Once he was fully out of the shadows, the people saw what he looked like in the light. He was wearing an all black outfit, save for a bone white mask with the kanji for one on the forehead. The people were either too weak, too freaked out, or both to move or react to his appearance.

Naruto then pointed at each individual, one by one sending a ball of darkness at them. Once it hit a person, the person looked like he or she had been disintegrated. Once the last one was vanished into the darkness, Naruto travelled via the shadows to another room, repeated his performance, then moved on to another room, then another, then another, until all the specimens had been collected.

In the shadow plane, it looked like there were families of people with similar traits and abilities. He then brought them to the outskirts of the city, where he had set up some kage bushins in preparation for his heist. The location was some ways away from any patrols.

All of his clones were dressed in a similar manner as him, except their masks were black as pitch. There five hundred of them all in all. Naruto had set up a temporary Gate in the glade that the clones were in, and had brought out five fifty foot long dragons, each one had a mountable wagon like thing on their backs, which were usually used for carrying things, but in this case they would be carrying people, civilians. These five were jet black in color, even their bellies were jet black, the only thing on them that had a different color were their eyes and their insides. They had been made to await their cargo in a V-shaped formation.

That was the sight that met the people once they were brought out of the shadow plane.

As soon as the people were out, the clones sprang into action, they moved like blurs to the untrained eyes. They scooped up people one person at a time, and deposited them in the wagon mounts that the dragons had strapped to their backs.

Once all the people were secure, Naruto silently ordered his clones to do their thing. Which was to transport the people to homebase. The clones that couldn't ride on a real dragon opted to create their own dragons, using wind as the main element.

Once that batch of escapees were gone with the wind, Naruto melded back into the shadows, his next stop being the prison cells. But before he was one with the shadow he created another set of five hundred clones and with the Gate still in existence had ten more dragons brought out.

The cells being pitch black on the inside was ideal for Naruto to get he people in them out. He had some clones read the files on the prisoners, and knew which ones to break out and which ones to let rot.

The first cell that he reached, instead of appearing like he did in the medical labs, he just sucked people into the shadows, more than they already were. They only realized that they were no longer in the cells when there was absolutely no light, not even an inkling of it, also they didn't feel as cramp as they were in the cells. After the first cell, Naruto moved onto the next and the next and the next until he had no more people to gather up.

The sight that greeted this new batch of people was even more intimidating than the previous group, since there were more dragons.

Once out in the open, the clones burst into action and did their thing. After all the people were loaded into the transports, the clones created their own set of dragons and the whole flight took to the skies, heading for homebase.

Naruto's job for the night was over, so he transported himself to his room at the inn, and promptly went to sleep. Little did he know that his absence had been noticed.

The next day at around the time of dawn, Naruto left the inn, after reaching a safe distance, he changed his appearance to his soldier look, then walked to the barracks where he would be having breakfast and would be assigned to who knows what.

Naruto arrived to a very chaotic sight, the soldiers and prison guards were running here and there. Apparently his nightime adventure had been noticed. He hoped that he medical labs hadn't been found to be empty yet.

As soon as the officer that assigned him to prison duty saw him, he had Naruto join a platoon of soldiers that would be heading for one of the few remaining mines left in the country. There they would guard the mine an watch over the laborers, they were to make sure that none of the laborers escaped.

Oh the joys of Kage Bushin.

Once the platoon reached the mine, they were joined by some other platoons. They travelled in separate routes in order for no one to know the way to where they were going. Seeing many platoons heading out would fool the enemy into thinking that the country's narutal resources were still plentiful.

Narito being one of the greenhorns was given the task of guarding the cages in which the laborers were kept in at night. He noticed that the laborers were mostly young boys, young men, some older men, but very few seniors. So he asked one of the regulars where the old ones were, and the answer he was given was that they were at the factory. Factory of what, where, why were they there Naruto wanted to know, but to ask too many questions may get him in trouble, so he just went back to his post and waited for their shift to end.

It was nearing his time to appear at the castle for his stint as a doctor. So during a short break that he was given, he shadow walked to the castle gates and altered his look to look like a doctor, once he entered the guy in charge of the program informed him that he was no longer needed. They didn't want any of the docs to know that there was a major jail break. So Naruto went back to the mine, and resumed his vigil over the cages.

Come nightfall his shift finally ended, and the platoons left for home once their replacements had arrived.

As the other soldiers made their way to their homes or wherever they lived, Naruto went on his way to the inn. He didn't immediately join the shadows, he once again waited for midnight before he acted.

A few minutes past midnight, Naruto went to the place where he had first erected the temporary Gate. He crewted another one for the night's deed. He brought out ten rocs and ten dragons. Each roc had a clone riding it, sitting on a specially designed saddle. Each dragon had four riders, one to give directions or orders the other three as support. Naruto then gave them all the information they needed to finish the task. It would be a hit and run thing, well more like a grab and fly away thing.

Once the flock and flight had left to complete their objective for the night, Naruto made his way to the industrial district in search of the factory where the senior prisoners or slaves were kept or made to work. What he found was definitely not to his liking. His fears were fact, soylent green was one of the food solutions of the country. Naruto suspected that the other eight countries had similar plants or facotries that mass produced the stuff from the bodies of the dead and the damned.

There were very few people to save, but save them he did, he acted as fast as he could, he became the wind, his movements swift and sure, he pulled into the shadows all the living prisoners that he could get his hands on. In record time the only bodies that remained were those of the dead.

Naruto then made his way to the clearing, he created another temporary Gate and had one dragon and six rocs come out. The dragon would serve as the transport, while the rocs its escort, riding each of the beasts was one clone. The clones then dropped down from their saddles and gently brought each of the old men, and women to the transport wagon on the back of the dragon. Once all were in it, they were off, most of the people were in desperate need of medical attention, which Naruto's medical staff at homebase would provide.

Having accomplished the night's tasks, Naruto went back to his room for some much needed rest.

The next day Naruto went about his duties as an undercover agent in the army of the daimyou of Naiya no Kuni, he didn't really pick up any clues as to the whereabouts of anymore prisoners, slaves, and the like. But he did get some info on the date of the next attack on one of their neighbouring countries. Naruto would make sure that he was part of the regimen that was deployed into the battle. That way he could travel to the other country without anyone being the wiser.

Once he got back to the inn after a hard day's work he went directly to his room, where he was greeted by the sight of a young man wearing the garb of a stable boy.

"So...where ya off to tonight?" the young man asked.

"To bed," Naruto answered, "What are you doing in my room?"

"I saw you last night and the other night," the young man said, "A few minutes past midnight you weren't in your room, then a few hours later you appeared in it."

"Really? So now that you have caught and seemingly cornered me, what are you planning on doing?"

"I was actually gonna ask if you needed any help, I mean its quite obvious that you're the brains behind the jailbreak operation."

"Why should I let you in?"

"The country sucks, our lord sucks, I wanna be of use to someone, you know being a stable boy, as fullfilling as it is, doesn't really let me do much."

"And so..?"

"C'mon, gimme a chance, I know you've been doing your thing cause you wanted to help those people."

"Hmm, since I was clumsy, and you did more or less catch me in the act. I'll let you in on my operation."

"Alright. So when do I start? What do I do?"

"First you tell me your name."

"Right, sorry, forgot about introductions," he said, "The name's Yahiko, Shokon Yahiko."

"Nice to meet you," Naruto said, "You can call me Rosuto."

"Nice to meet you too," the two men shook hands, "So whatcha got planned for tonight?"

"Tonight? Nothing, but since you're a part of my rescue operation now, you'll be doing the rescuing and stuff, I'll lend you some of my men."

"Me? Why aren't you leading in this?"

"Cause once the army gets deployed, I'm going with them. I need to get into another country. I have a distinct feeling that all nine warring countries have got a lot of people problems."

"So, you're leaving me in charge of your operations here in Naiya, so you can start another branch in one of the other countries?"

"Yep."

"So, when do I meet your men?"

"Now."

As soon as Naruto said that, the two of them were in the glade that Naruto had been using to summon up his clones and stuff.

"H-h-how? W-w-wha?"

"Magic, lets leave it at that."

"O-o-ok."

Then Naruto created another temprary Gate, this time one hundred of his disguised ultimate clones stepped out of the Gate. All of them had storage scrolls with them, which held various tools and supplies. They were all in Shinobi mode, they all had on a crimson mask with the kanji for one in black on the upper half of their masks. Beneath their masks they wore a portable radio, the range being one mile. It was the ear piece type of walkie talkie.

"These hundred are under your command," Naruto then handed Yahiko his own set of the communication divice, "This is how you will get in touch with them."

Then he proceeded to demonstrate how the thing was used. He explained how the operation was to be done, but more or less everything else was up to him. Naruto's men would be the ones to take care of how the future refugees would get to homebase.

Two weeks after first arriving in the capital of Naiya no Kuni, Naruto found himself dressed in full military gear, his other stuff was safely tucked away in the shadow plane. He was marching along with the rest of his assigned platoon, they were off to battle, and for him his 'death'.

The battle was quick, neither side coming out on top, both sides losing a number of men, for the Naiya side, Naruto was one of the loses.

---

During the battle he used a Chisio Bushin to fake his death, while at the same time transforming himself to look like a field medic of Nasu no Kuni. He successfully integrated himself into the army of Nasu, and went back to the Nasu capital with them. He was once again treated as a rookie, but this time of the medic corps.

The capital of Nasu was not that different from the capital of Naiya, the place hadn't seen better days for decades upon decades. The daimyou's residence was just as well kept as Naiya's. The people were just as gloomy. Everything was the same. Except, Nasu still had a food supply, a dwindling one, but there was still enough for the populace. No soylent green in this country, thank kami.

Naruto was made to stay with the family of one of his fellow field medics, by the name of Giman Ryuu. He and Naruto both found similarities with one another. Both did not approve of the way POWs were treated, as well as the abductions and unjust arrests of some of the people. Ryuu's family was lucky that he was part of the army, else there would have been a big chance that someone in his family would have been taken by the army either to work in one of the labor camps or to be sold on the black market as a slave.

This country like the previous one lacked gold, that being the reason why so many women and children were disappearing almost never getting the chance of seeing their families again. The only ones that were spared were the ones that opted to join the army without pay.

Being a member of the medic corps made gathering information hard for Naruto, he had to resort to using disguised kage bushins to get information on the whereabouts of the various holding facilities, prisons, and the like.

Getting the coordinates or general locations was the easy part. Getting he people out was another thing altogether. Apparently only the senior or veteran members of the army were assigned to guarding such facilities, therefore it really would take a lot of planning for the rescue missions to be successful.

After the first week of staying with Ryuu and his family, Ryuu found out about Naruto's secret life. He figures it out by seeing Naruto talk to or chat with a number of strage or odd individuals who normally wouldn't stand out.

After blackmailing Naruto into confessing, Ryuu too, like Yahiko, wanted in. With two men working on a plan for the rescue operations, the work load got easier.

That is until the army had to go to the battlefield again. Which meant that Naruto and Ryuu had find some way that they would be paired up. Luckily they were, unluckily they were literally sent out into the field of battle, the last battle left the army short on man power and so they had to resort to using some of the non-combatants as combatants. It was a good thing that Naruto had experience in the fighting field, he was able to defend his friend and himself.

After he battle was over, and still no victor had come out, Naruto decided that it would be the perfect time to implement the plans that he and Ryuu had come up with.

Nasu no Kuni's capital had ten places all in all that kept the oppressed people that Naruto and Ryuu wanted to liberate. There were POWs, people that were just taken from the streets, people that were too poor to pay off debts, there were even a few people that had the original Kekkai Genkais.

Ten locations, each one housing roughly two hundred to five hundred people all in all. There were probably more spread out around the country, but Naruto would only be able to do his thing in the city that he was in.

The countries, though big as they were, were not proportionate to the number of people that were living in them. Each of the countries only had populations ranging from one to five million people. But Naruto estimated that after a thousand years or more the population would increase, that is if the land got better.

Nasu's capital was a lot bigger than Naiya's. Over in the industrial zone there were three factories where slaves, mostly men and young boys were made to make armor and swords for the army. They were kept in three warehouse that were converted into a prison of sorts. They were separated by age group.

Also in the industrial zone there were two other factories where women and younger girls were made to mass produce the clothes that the soldiers wore beneath their armor. They were also kept in warehouses, ones that were no where near the men's.

Two platoons were stationed to guard each of the places where the slaves were kept. These soldiers were ones that rarely saw the battlefield. But they did see battle, every now and then one of the slaves would try to escape, the punishment was death. A slow and painful one performed by one of the soldiers, they looked at it as some sort of sport.

In the military district there was one holding facility for POWs. The ones held here were basically just soldiers of the other countries that had been captured during battles. Instead of being killed, the daimyou got a kick out of seeing his enemies suffering. These men, and a few women, were not killed outright, but they died due to blood loss, starvation, sickness, 'accidents', and a bunch of other things.

Nasu's POW prison held up to around five hundred prisoners. It was a POW only prison. There was another prison right next to the building, it was where criminals and the like were kept. But most actual criminals were given pardons if they opted to join the army and fight on the frontlines. But most of the other prisoners were just people taken off the streets, or people from villages, cities, and towns from other nations which the army pillaged and plundered. Basically for all the countries regular citizens were treated as livestock. Sure people are a resource in themselves, but the nine countries saw people as more than that, people were goods, objects, things that held monetary value.

This other prison or holding facility held some four hundred individuals. Just four hundred because most of the ones taken to it soon get sold, die, traded off, or killed immediately.

A bunch of slaves, were cooped up in the dungeons of the castle, being given only what they need to survive and go about their daily chores. Some of them, women specifically, were used for entertainment and most likely were treated somewhat better.

A group of suffering people were in the medical district, these people were given false hopes and promises for cures and the like for their problems.

The last group of sufferers were those that were to be transported to parts unknown to Naruto. That was part of the reason why he decided that tonight was the night, when Nasu would experience a breakout of such magnitude.

As Naruto left Ryuu's place to find a place to prepare, Ryuu went around the city gathering people of like mind to himself and Naruto who would help with the plan. It was a coup d'etat on a very small scale, most of the people that Ryuu had recruited were medical practitioners like himself. Ryuu and his people would meet up with Naruto and his 'people' wherever Naruto would set up as the temporary base of operations. Ryuu had gathered some twenty other people. Hopefully they were enough, since Ryuu knew that Naruto had a number of his people already in the city. Ryuu didn't really know why he bothered to go along with Naruto, he didn't really know why he decided to help Naruto do the right thing. Even though there were times where the thought of his familly getting caught up in something really bad, Naruto had something in him that made Ryuu think that everything would be ok in the end.

Later, at around ten in the evening, Ryuu found a note left by Naruto with directions on where to go. So Ryuu and his accomplices followed the directions which led them to one of many abandoned buildings in the city. Once in the designated floor, in the designated room as written in the note, Ryuu and company found themselves in the presence of one of Naruto's clones, this one was wearing Naruto's field medic uniform. But Ryuu didn't know that it was a clone. Also the clone was wearing a hat to hide his hair, and a face mask to hide most of his face.

"Good, you're here. And as I suspected you brought friends," Dr. Naruto said.

"Yeah, about that, sorry I didn't check with you first," Ryuu said.

"It's alright no need to apologize. The more the merrier, right?" Naruto said, "Lets get down to business. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not our base of operations. I had you come here so that if anyone followed you or were suspicious of you, they would be led here instead of to our base."

"That's very cautious of you," one of the other doctors said.

"Safety first," Naruto stated, "Now, Ryuu, don't panic alright."

"Huh? Why would I panic?" Ryuu asked, the others wondered that as well.

"This is why.." Naruto said as he used the wind to whisk Ryuu away to their base of operations. At the sight of this the others started to panic, thinking that perhaps it was a trap by one of the people of the Daimyou. But before they could run away they too, were whisked away via the winds.

Dr. Naruto stayed behind. The abandoned building may not be the actual base of operations, but it would be one of the pit stops or checkpoints that Naruto had set up all over the city via his clones. The refugees or escapees would have to pass through these places in order for them to reach the base, from which they would be sent to Naruto's fortress.

Dr. Naruto created a few clones of his own, regular kage bushin that would serve as his aides as well as support and lookouts. The clones set up a perimeter around the place, as well as installed a number of traps and early warning systems around and in the place. They turned the place into a mini fortress, that looked nothing like a fortress. The clones were prepared for anything.

Dr. Naruto, before heading for his present location, acquried some things that would make defending the place easier. He had come prepared with weapons, armor, and other supplies that would allow his own clones to last longer than they normally would.

There were nineteen other checkpoints that were occupied and run by Dr. Naruto clones, with their own small band of kage bushin.

The medical practitioners, upon arriving at Nartuo's base of operations in Nasu, were surprised to find themselves at the center of an actual base. It was a small military camp being run by Naruto's Medic clones. Unlike the clones that had been deployed in Naiya, these ones all wore the uniform of different medical professions. All of them wore masks and their hair was of different colors, on their sleeves was the kanji for the number two.

The camp was buzzing with activity, most of which was concentrated around Naruto and his temprary Gate. Supplies were being brought in in bulk. Some rocs and dragons were also making their way out of the Gate and into the camp.

Instead of screaming, shouting, or panicking, Ryuu and his volunteers were stunned into silence. They had never dreamed of actually seeing so many people of their field in one place, all of whom were working for Naruto, or Rosuto since that was what he told them to call him.

There were tents everywhere. They were actually on one of the mountains a few miles away from the city, it was very rocky terrain, and most folks avoided climbing up, due to the great chance that they would slip and fall to their deaths.

Most of the supplies were medical supplies, but there were crates with armor, some with clothing, some with food, some with weapons as well. There were also several things that Ryuu's group had yet to encounter, these things being some of Naruto's advanced technology, advanced for Ryuu's time at least.

"Hey, uhm, Rosuto. What's all this..?" Ryuu gestured to the camp.

"My base of operations in Nasu. That's what it is." Naruto answered.

"Base of operations? In Nasu? You mean you've got camps like this one is other countries?" one of the other doctors asked.

"Yep, at present I have one in Naiya, a smaller one, but its got around a hundred or so of my people working there. I got more here though."

"Why?" another one asked.

"Cause its the right thing to do. Many need help, and well, I got the resources, so I might as well."

"But what if the authorities find out?," another one asked, "I mean, sure you got these guys helping you out, but can you stand up to the army?"

Naruto smiled as one of the dragons passed by the group. On its back were five Shinobi clones, all of whom had crossbows in their hands.

"I think I'll manage it."

"So, What do you need us for?" Ryuu asked.

"Hey, you volunteered, saying you wanted in on the operation. Not that I really was looking for more helping hands, but you insisted. Heck you tried to blackmail me into letting you in. I don't need you for anything," Naruto somehow sounding sarcastic said.

"Alright, alright, geez," Ryuu said, "What do you want us to do then? You've got more than enough medics running all over the place. What can we do? Cause originally you said that I'd be checking up on the people you got out."

"The twenty five of you will still be doing that. You guys'll be our welcome wagon. You guys'll get to do all the greeting. Since you're all from Nasu, you guys'll be more suited to reassuring the people that we're here to help them."

"Ok, we can do that." they said.

"Good," Naruto then called over one of the clones that looked like the clone that sent the group to the camp. The difference between Dr.. Naruto and this clone was that it had a patch on its coat over its heart with the kanji for surgeon on it, the color of it being gold.

"This guy'll be in charge while I go out and do the rescuing. Ryuu, you're second-in-command," Naruto instructed then left the group.

"I'm Gekai. Nice to meet you," the clone said, "I am currently one of Rosuto-sama's Surgeon Generals. You do know what that means, right?"

"..."

"I'll take your silence as a 'yes'," he said, "You guys are in charge of welcoming the rescued as well as performing the initial diagnosis. After which you will send the people to one of the other divisions. This camp will act like a hospital. Got it," he didn't wait for an answer, "Good. Should I be forced to leave for whatever reason, Giman will be in charge."

He then brought the group to the different tents that made up the different divisions of the psuedo hospital, this was so that the group would know where to send the people. The group were then given a team of nurses to help them with their duties. These nurses were a mix between Naruto and Naruko clones, of course ones that had different features to make it harder for anyone to realize that they were actual clones of Naruto. Not that he had encountered anyone that could tell that they were clones, or anyone that could perform even a simple bushin. It seemed as if the shinobi clans of this time were either very nomadic or had small hidden villages scattered throughout the continent, all of whom were avoiding the war torn lands of the nine nations at war with one another.

The group were given new uniforms to wear while they were in the camp, Ryuu's coat having a similar patch to Gekai's except this one had the kanji for number two below the kanji for surgeon. They were then ordered to get what they think they would need from the supply tent. All of them wondered where Naruto had gotten a hold of the creatures that were in the camp.

Dragons were things of myth, but here they were walking and sleeping amongst them. The giant birds were something new too. The group never ever dreamed of the possibility of them ever seeing, much less finding such big birds.

After leaving Ryuu and his group, Naruto became the wind, and travelled to the POW prison. While still being the wind, he saw all the prisoners, he knew where all of them were located. He saw all the guards, as well as some guests of the prison. There were a few prisoners that were being tortured and worse by these guests. The most notable one being the Daimyou himself.

Naruto kenw that he could take out the Daimyou, but his priority was freeing the prisoners. Which is exactly what he did. Becoming human again, Naruto created twenty Ultimate clones, he had them all transform into different people of different ages and genders, and had them all infiltrate the facility. The mass jailbreak that Naruto had planned was going to look like it was planned by one of the other countries, he didn't want the Daimyou to be aware of a tenth party in the war. Naruto was not ready for such a thing, yet.

The clones, would, from the inside of the facility make sure that when Naruto grabbed the prisoners there would be no witnesses. They would accomplish this by setting explosives on a number of walls all over the building, the clones would also lay out some things that would lead the Nasu soldiers to believe that there were spies working in the prison. The clones would also do something in order for the Daimyou to think that his enemies had sent assassins to end his life once and for all. Naruto's clones would make it look like a mass breakout, an attack, and an assassination attempt. The clones wouldn't do anything until Naruto gave them the signal.

Naruto then went to the other facility, the other prison, he sent in another twenty clones, they would do the same except, the attack would look like it was made by a bunch of bandits and mercenaries, outlaws to all. Visiting this second facility was one of the heads of the medical corps, this guy used his knowledge in healing to further enhance his torture skills. Morino Ibiki would have been impressed. But Naruto was not. That man was a taint on the profession. Naruto's clones would make sure such a taint was scrubbed out. Due to this official's death, Naruto would try and make it so that Ryuu be made to take his place as one of the heads of the medical corps.

Naruto's next destination was the industrial zone, specifically the warehouses that housed the slave laborers. Instead of wind, Naruto became water. He moved through th sewers to get below the warehouses. The layout of the inside of the warehouses were easy enough to navigate through. There was no way in or out on the ground level that wasn't well guarded. Naruto being water, could see into the buildings via the grates on the warehouse floor that the slaves used for bathroom purposes. There wasn't a single shower in the place, just grates that covered the sewer system below the place. Instead of creating Ultimate clones, Naruto created mud clones, the thing about mud clones was that they could take a lot more hits than a regular kage bushin, but unlike water clones, these ones each got more than a tenth of their creator's strength. Naruto didn't bother modifying these clones, even though he did have modified versions of it. These mud clones formed themselves inside the warehouses in the corners above the grates, with the lack of mud around, and Naruto being a bit more cautious than he normally was, had to make due with what he had at his disposal, he used the mud like crap found in the sewers.

He created as many clones as he could. These mud clones, well more like crap clones, would somehow cause the roof to come tumbliing down as well as cause the place to burn. Naruto didn't exactly modify the clones too much, he just made it so that when the clones burst into smoke or melted they would release methane instead of the standard ninja smoke which was just chakra residue being released into nature. The released gas would then ignite due to the way that Naruto was going to grab the slave laborers.

Naruto would grab the prisoners using his control over earth, he would literally suck the people into the earth plane, which was like the shadow plane except that instead of just formless darkness, there it would be really rocky, sure they wouldn't really be able to see, but should they move they would feel the rocks, the soil, the earth, the sands, and the occasional earthworm. For the people in the warehouses, Naruto was going to grab them into the fire plane. The usual vision of hell being a place filled with fire, well the fire plane was just that, although Naruto would make sure that the people went to the part that was just warm.

Naruto's next desination was the medical district, where all the clinics and the hospital could be found. This one was the easiest one of all the places, no clones needed. Once Naruto got there still using the sewers he instantly shifted into wind, and whisked off al the people to the checkpoints. From there they would be counted, it was like an impromtu census, then they would be sent to the camps via portable teleportation gates.

After doing that Naruto went to his last stop, which was the Daimyou's castle itself, there were a lot of slaves that worked as servants, and play things, and Naruto was going to get them out of there, whether they liked it or not. He was going to deprive the Daimyou and his court of some of the pleasures in life.

Arriving there on foot, while sticking to the shadows but not travelling in them, Naruto created one hundred ultimate clones, that would somehow find their way into the castle. Naruto was going into the castle himself, he wanted to use the physical way of doing this part since he didn't want to accidentally do something stupid too soon into the game. Stupid and reckless things would be done later, when he got a hold of all the information from Touken, Hyakume, and Dorotabo.

He needed his hundred clones for this job, since he needed to check out all of the rooms, and when he said all, he meant all. Every single one of the rooms would be checked. His clones were allowed to createe clones of their own to hasten the search and rescue operation, but that was the only jutsu they were allowed to use. There were more hostiles in this place than any of the other places that Naruto was targetting. Here his shinobi skills would be put to the test. He would be going up against multiple individuals, and taking them out of the game, of course he would also be leaving a number of them alive, but there would be loses. This way the daimyou and his generals would think that one of the other countries had really sent an attack on his capital without him knowing it. Some how Naruto thought that by doing this it would make the Daimyou realize the real value of his people.

Once the first slave had been brought out, the clones that had found the child literally carried her out of the castle and to the nearest checkpoint, Naruto gave the go signal to his other clones.

All over the city in various locations explosions occurred. In the places where the targets were being kept, all the things that Naruto wanted to happen went without a hitch. Sure the rescued targets or people were really feaked out, they weren't in any condition to do anything about it.

Back at camp as soon as the first person arrived, the clones and Ryuu's group leapt into action. They all quickly performed their duties. Gekai then informed Ryuu that he was incharge for the time being, then he left camp with the all of the dragons and the rocs, with their respective clones.

Gekai was assigned the task of rescuing the slaves that were being transported to who knows where. He rode one of the rocs, all of which were the same size.

The rocs had armor on their bodies and head, as well as saddles on their backs for individual clones to ride on them. The dragons too had armor, but instead of a saddle, they each had on some sort of mounted cart, where five clones were, four of which were carrying crossbows and regular bows, the rest of the transport cart was filled with arrows, bolts, and bombs.

The slave caravan would be passing by the mountain any minute now. The rocs and dragons were perched on crags and ledges, ready to take flight at a moments notice. Then Gekai saw it, the caravan was well guarded. It was guarded by at least two hundred fifty men, the slaves were in horse drawn wagons, these wagons looked like they were bult to sardine at most a hundred and fifty slaves each, and there were ten of them. It looked like Gekai hit the motherload. The caravan looked like it didn't originate from the capital, rather it looked like the capital was just one of the stops along its way.

Gekai motioned for one of the roc riders to take to the air and see if the escort was actually made up of soldiers or something else. Gekai had a feeling that this wasn't a Naru escorted caravan. As the roc rider returned, his suspicions were proven to be true. The caravan was actually made up of mercenaries hired by one of the kings of the slave trading industry.

When the caravan was a lot closer to the mountain he signalled for the whole flight to take to the skies. It was time to make their presence known. It was a cloudless night.

The rocs formed a constantly moving circle above the caravan. The dragons darted here and there within the circle. Gekai was planned on having his men drop bombs to confuse the mercenaries. These bombs were smoke bombs, big ones. Once the bombs were deployed, with some of the clones saying bombs away, Gekai and the other roc riders broke away from formation and had their thirty two foot long rides to fold their twenty four foot long wings to go into dives, Gekai and the roc riders were equipped with spears, these would use in their dive bomb attacks by spearing the mercenaries. The rocs would help using their claws.

The mercenary escort expected that if they were ever to be attacked there were more than enough of them to ward of the raiders. But what they didn't expect was for their attackers to come from the sky. As soon as the first bomb exploded the mercenaries, tried to find the position of their attacker. More bombs kept raining down on the caravan and exploding. The mercenaries started to panic since none of them seemed to be able to find the attackers. The smoke obscured the shadows in the incoming roc riders. Those that noticed where the bombs were coming from, found out just as they were impaled by one of the spears. Other s were taken up into the air by the rocs and were split in half. With thirty rocs dive bombing the caravan, the smoke soo dissipated, and the remaining mercenaries, saw their attackers the rocs and their riders. But that wasn't all they saw. They also witnessed the dragons swoop down and grab the wagons with all four limbs and took off with them. Some of the mercenaries also fell victim to the arrows of the clones, as well as to the breaths of fire of the dragons.

After an hour the raid was over, none of the slave wagons remained. The dragons had carried them all off, and the rocs had snatched up the horses. The only ones left on the open plain were around fifty mercenaries.

They didn't know what hit them. It was so sudden. The whole affair lasted for only an hour. They were not prepared for something like this. Their employer would have their hides if they returned empty handed, if they didn't return they would be hunted down. All fifty of them were in a quandry. They really didn't know what to do.

One of them decided to just plop down on the ground and wait for death, at least it was his choice, and not the choice of some other person. He knew the slave trade was not really that good of a thing. Its just that he like many of his companions needed the money, some of them just to survive, and those that had families for their famlies' survival. Of course there were those that did it since they approved of it, but there were those like the one who resigned himself to death who were against such things. Being a mercenary didn't instantly mean that they had no morals, it was just that these were the things that they were paid to do.

Soon all the rest followed the first man, they were all sitting on the ground. Waiting for their deaths, that would come in one form or another, some of the men were waiting for the others to fall asleep, when that happened which they would committed suicide. They had all chosen the coward's way out.

But it was not meant to be. Three hours after the raid, they saw a speck in the sky making its way for them. Most of the men thought that it was one of the attackers coming back to finish them off. A few of them thought that it was the Shinigami coming for their souls for the things that they had done in their lives, these were the men who had regretted every single job they had done.

They all watched the approaching speck, it didn't get any clearer the closer it got. That is until it suddenly dropped down infront of them, at a speed way faster than during the attack. Once the bird was comfortable on the ground, its rider dismounted.

The remaining mercenaries got a good look at one of their attackers. He looked like one of those field medics that they were very familiar with, having participated in atleast one battle as one of the soldiers in one of the armies of one of the nine warring countries. The one that had returned was Gekai.

He noticed that the mercenaries looked to be devoid of life, none of them tried to attack him in retaliation for what he and his men did three hours ago. So he decided that it was a good time as any to speak his proposal.

"I am Gekai. You fifty that remain seem to be a worthy lot of the gift of life. Therefore I shall not kill all of you," he paused, "Instead I am going to offer you a job. The payment for this job will be that you will not have to worry about the wrath of your previous employer."

Gekai's proposal was met with silence, due to disbelief or anything else he didn't know.

"Well?" he asked.

One of the men, the first one who plopped down to the ground moved in front of the others so that he could speak as their representative to Gekai.

"Let me get this straight, you kill off four-fifths of our number, take away our cargo, leave us waiting for death, then come back and offer us a job, and expect us to say yes to this proposition?" he asked.

"Pretty much."

Seeing himself as a professional in his line of work, he had previously encountered being stabbed in the back by his employer, but never something like this, so he decided to act as professional as he could in the situation.

"So, what does the job entail?"

"Oh, so you're considering it already, good, good," Gekai said, "Simple you lot help out at my camp. We're in need of some guards. That's about it for now."

"So, how are we to get there if we agree?"

"When you agree you'll find out."

Not having any other choice except possibly being left in the plain to die, all fifty accepted.

"By the way, if I'm to be working for you, you'll have to know my name," the spokesperson of the mercenaries said, "I am Genri Tamotsu."

"Glad to have you onboard.." Gekai said just before all of them were on the mountain a ways away from the hustling and bustling camp.

The collection of mercenaries were surprised to find themselves not in the middle of the barren plain anymore.

"H-how? W-where?" Genri voiced the questions of the group.

"How? I wont tell you. Where? A ways away from camp. So don't be surprised at what you see when we get there." Gekai said.

Gekai led the mercenaries to camp. Once there he didn't pay any mind to their surprised expressions, as he gave them a tour of the place, as well as introducing them to Ryuu, his second-in-command. The mercs were even introduced to Naruto who just nodded to them and went back to adjusting one of the teleportation gates, that would be sending the rescued back to his fortress. Some of the people had already been sent through, some opted to stay and help with the rescue operation, but the control panel needed tweaking since the destination was already swamped, Naruto was making the thing send the people to another part of the fortress.

The mercs were not expecting to see what they were seeing. The camp was more organized than any military camp they had ever been to. But instead of military personnel, there were medical staff running here and there. They were all busy as bees, treating to the wounded, to the sick, and to some of the supposedly dying. They saw that there were three groups of people in the camp, there were the medical staff, the black clad soldiers, and the slaves. The soldier, which were Naruto's Shinobi clones, were walking along the perimeter, some of them were on the rocks, and some were in the few trees that were there. Some of the others were caring for and grooming their mounts. The medical staff were doing as they were to do as was their profession, fixing people. The slaves, which consisted of actual slaves and the POWs who never expected to actually be rescued, were being treated by the medical staff, were waiting for their turn to walk through the gate, or they were sitting around waiting to be told what to do.

The mercs noticed that some of the ones that they had classified as slaves were getting new clothes, or more like uniforms, they were given armor, and weapons as well as first aid kits, their uniforms were of different colors, which was what told them what group they were a part of.

Gekai, ended his tour at the supply tent, where he had the mercs get their new gear. They were to wear a dark purple bodysuit underneath their armor. Their armor was more like chainmail, it was very much not like the armor that the soldiers of the countries' armies wore. Instead of helmets they were given caps, with the kanji for the number two placed in the center of the front, these caps were also dark purple. The mercs were given the choice of using their own weapons, or choosing from a wide selection and still keeping their own weapons, they dived at the chance of getting new pointy things.

After getting their gear the head clone of the guards who went by the name Jieichou, which literally meant captain of the guard, approached them.

"I'm Jieichou, I'm your new boss. We'll be watching over the paths leading to camp. So get your gear on and meet me at the, well the place where you got into camp."

The mercs quickly did as they were told and soon found themselves in the company of Jieichou and a few of the Shinobi clones. Jieichou and Gekai were both Ultimate clones.

The group them made their way to the only path that led to camp, once there the shinobi clones positioned themselves in locations that gave them a clear view of the path. The path itself was more like a long flight of stairs. It looked quite steep. Naruto created it for future use, if you were a friendly the stairs would act like an escalator, if you were foe, you had to climb the whole way up.

After being told where they would position themselves, they were informed of their shifts, then the ones that were not slotted for that time were then led back to camp. Once there they were shown to the tent that was designated as theirs. Jieichou didn't stay with them, he returned to guard duty, he was only in camp to retrieve them.

The camp was by no means a small one. It took up a large chunk of the mountain, but it was shielded from view by the surrounding mountains. The mountain that the camp was located in was one that was located at the center of a mountain range that consisted of nine mountains that were so close to one another that Naruto could jump from one to another, with the aid of chakra of course. The camp's mountain was the shortest one.

Tamotsu was one of the twenty five mercs that were off duty. He picked a pre-set up bunk bed near the tent entrance. As he lay in bed he quickly grew bored with nothing to do. Some of the other mercs brought out some playing cards, one of them managed to get a shogi set from the supply tent. Tamotsu decided that he would wander around the camp a bit, and get himself a bit more acquainted with some of the other people he would be working with.

As he walked around the camp he saw that Naruto who was Gekai's boss, he wondered what the man was doing in the camp. It looked like Gekai had everything under control, he was the cneter of attention of a number of the officers of the camp, the heads of the other divisions and group were crowded around him receiving their orders. He also took note of Ryuu, who was giving out orders to the medical department heads. But what he grew curious about was what Naruto did, aside from tinkering with that thing that Gekai refered to as a teleportation gate or gate for short.

Normally the boss wouldn't be seen wandering around camp, the boss, the leader, would be lounging around in his tent or something doing other things, not running around.

So Tamotsu decided to follow the blonde man around the camp as he did what he did. He watched as Naruto helped tend to the wounded, as Naruto conforted the ones in pain, as Naruto made the children laugh. He watched Naruto as he went to the Kitchen tent, and helped with cooking the meals. There was food round the clock. He watched Naruto as he sparred with some of the regular soldiers, and encouraged them to actually try and hit him. One of those men actually hit Naruto by accident and instead of being yelled at was treated the sight of a laughing leader, who laughed out a "Now, that's a punch!"

Tamotsu spied on Naruto as he talked to some merc looking people. While he was spying he failed to notice that Ryuu had walked up to him.

"So, spying now are we?" Ryuu startled him by asking.

"Hehe, yeah," Tamotsu admitted, "I was trying to find out what our leader does around camp."

"Oh, thats an easy thing to answer. Rosuto, does everything."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well he personally went with some of those black clad soldiers and when it was time for the rescue operation. He was one of the people that rescued the slaves that were in the castle."

"Really?" Tamotsu couldn't believe that there was actually someone that would willingly do that.

"Yeah. He's nuts, thats what he is. He's got a lot of people working for him that could do the things he does, but he choses to do them himself."

"Why does he?"

"He once told me, cause it was the right thing to do. Not the easy thing to do, but the right thing to do."

"Does that apply to everything or just to rescuing people?"

"Mostly the rescuing, the rest is most likely for that same reason but also because he just likes doing it."

"I see. So you gonna tell me what he was doing over there?"

"Sure, that merc looking fellow was one of his spies."

"Oh," Tamotsu said, "So you got family?"

"Changing topics huh, I'll indulge you, yeah I got family, a wife and two kids, both boys."

"They know what you're doing now?"

"Nope. But I'm planning on bringing them here, if possible. Rosuto said he could make it look like one of Nasu's enemies attacked or kidnapped them or something."

"That guy seems to be a little too good to be true, so what's he want in return?"

"Who knows. So how bout you, got any family?"

"Yeah, sort of, I don't really know where they are nowadays, my jobs kinda kept me away from them, one time as I got back home they weren't there no more."

"Sorry."

"S'ok, you didn't know."

"So, wanna go check out those dragons?"

"Eh? Sure."

So the pair walked off to look at the dragons. When they got there, they were treated to the sight of two dragons cowering in fear in front of Naruto who looked mad at them for some reason. So Tamotsu asked one of the people there what had happened. He was told that the two dragons got into a wrestling match and almost rolled over some of the civilians, and so Naruto had told them off for doing such a thing, the dragons were told to be more aware of their surroundings.

After glaring at the two dragons for good measure, Naruto walked off to where the rocs were.

"So..Ryuu, you know how he did that?" Tamotsu was referring to Naruto being feared by the dragons.

"I was wondering the exact same thing."

"Oh, its simple really, the dragons view him as their alpha, he beat the previous one for the position," someone said.

That someone was one of the newly freed slaves that had decided to stay. He was a former soldier that had retired early in life, and was from Komugi no Kuni where after being a soldier became a farmer in some village that was later attacked by Nasu. He wore a white bodysuit underneath his brown body armor.

"How do you know that...?" Tamotsu asked.

"It's Yuji, Kuraku Yuji. As to how I know, well, I asked Rosuto-sama."

"You just asked him?" Tamotsu asked.

"Yep, he told me straight how he did it, and asked me if I believed him."

"Well did you?" Ryuu asked.

"At the time? No. But after what I've seen, yeah I do."

"When'd you ask him?" Ryuu asked.

"Couple hours ago."

"Well, you two it was nice talking to you, but I've got to get back to work," Ryuu said before leaving the two men.

"So what are you a part of? I'm a guard."

"Me? Well I'm supposed to be an apprentice to one of those dragon riders."

"Cool. So, maybe one day I'll see you riding one of those big lizards, huh."

"Yeah. I'm supposed to be wearing an eye patch right now, since its training for using those bows and crossbows."

"So why aren't ya?"

"The dragon I was assigned to ate it."

"Ha Ha, seriously?"

"Yeah. Scary really, it plucked the patch off of my face and just ate it."

"Good thing it didn't hurt ya."

"Yeah."

"So you supposed to be doing anything else now?"

"Yeah actually, so I guess I'll see ya around..."

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I'm Genri Tamotsu."

"Well see ya Tamotsu," Yuji said as he walked off.

Tamotsu then went back to the tent, and lay on his bed waiting for his shift to begin. All he had learned of their leader was that he was weird, could do almost anything, enjoyed being around his people, was the alpha of the dragons, did some things cause he wanted to do them, did some things cause it was the 'right' thing to do, and was crazy. Enough analyzing, more resting, his shift wasn't for a few hours.

A week after that night Nasu's capital had a shortage of slaves, but due to that night's events, securty was a lot tighter, Ryuu was promoted and replaced the head that had died in the attack, and Naruto was making plans to leave.

Nasu had lost one its major resources, people. Nasu was starting to run low on gold, so the daimyou decided that it was time to go raiding his neighbours again. The daimyou then informed all of his officials of his plans. At the end of the month Nasu would attack Tetsu no Kuni. Attacking Naiya no Kuni was out of the question since there were reports of that country having problems of their own, and that they too were preparing their army to attack Tetsu. This was the kind of news that Naruto wanted to hear. His relocation plan revolved around being one of the people that would die in battle again.

At the end of the month Naruto marched off to his 'death'. Gekai and Ryuu were left in charge, with Tamotsu and Yuji as the next in the chain of command. Jieichou had promoted Tamotsu two days after he joined up, then he went back to Naruto's fortress to continue his duties there. While Yuji was given command of the Nasu Flight of Dragons after it was found out that the dragons seemed to like him most out of the other new recruits, he was also promoted due to his being a fast learner. A day before Naruto's departure, the camp had more real people than clones, seeing as a large number of people decided to stay and help out.

---

One week after Naruto's 'death march'. He found himself working in the kitchen of the daimyou's castle. The daimyou was a big man who loved food. After his Chision Bushin died, he disguised himself as one of the kitchen staff that accompanied the army. When he found himself in the capital he was told that he would be living in the castle since he told the officers that his companions had died in battle, while they were making deliveries on the battlefield, on one of these deliveries they were ambushed by the enemy and Naruto was supposedly the only one who survived.

Another thing that Naruto learned about the daimyou, asides from his gluttony, was that his favorite food was basically of the soylent green variety. This man was a cannibal. He ate slaves cooked in different ways for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When a family displeased him, he had them eat one of their family members. Due to his barbaric nature the soldiers in his armies were men who loved bloodshed, and didn't mind eating a person or two. The reason for Tetsu no Kuni's being at war with the other eight nations was that the country's leading clan had a craving for human flesh and blood. The country may have gotten its name from the vast amount of iron ore found within its borders, but that had nothing to do with the war. This over abundance of iron is what caused the other countries to make war with them.

Naruto's job in the kitchens consisted of peeling potatoes, and that was about the extent of it, that and bringing the daimyou his food.

All of the slaughtered human beings were prepared in such a way that the dishes resembled regular dishes, the only thing that gave away the fact that the meat was people, was the occasional distinctive body part found in the dish.

Naruto did not enjoy the job, he was also not able to make any friends, since having friends showed weakness, and the government did not like weakness.

Through being in the castle at all times Naruto learned a lot from the people that he encountered. Weakness was literally frowned upon, and when slaves and POWs were concerned that was a really bad thing to be, weak equalled being qued up for the next meal.

The only source of sustenance that the slaves and POWs had were each other, it was a literal eat of be eaten world for them. The daimyou's castle was situated on a hilltop, that overlooked the capital city. It literally and figuratively lorded over the capital and its people.

Naruto had learned that beneath the castle was where the slaves and POWs were kept. He knew where they were, but what he couldn't figure out was how to get them out. He might have to get himself locked up for him to find a way to get them outta there.

Which was exactly what he did.

After being shoved into the pit like place, Naruto created a few Chisio Bushin, these would be the 'prisoners' that he would beat the crap out of and 'eat'. He spent a week in the place thinking up plans and the like. But by the end of the week he figured the only way that he was getting the people out was to grab them out. But in a place like this, his powers would stand out too much and he didn't want anyone getting suspicious about them. Making his only option another mass breakout, if not a breakout, then an actual invasion. He spent another week coming up with a viable plan. But in order for him to excecute his plan, he needed an accomplice. So for another week he concentrated on making friends with some of his fellow inmates, most of whom did not want to form any sort of bond with him, since in their minds they thought that they would have to eventually backstab him to live. All of them rejected his idea of friendship save for one young woman and her daughter, their names were Tokage Tsukiko and Tokage Yoshiko.

When Tsukiko was forst thrown into the pit, she was eight months pregnant, her husband had been killed by some of the soldiers for no reason other than that he was weak. The shock and trauma of being put into a place like this forced her into going through premature labor. Which some of the new people helped her with. When she was strong enough to venture away from the group that had cared for her, she realized the truth of the rules of the place. Which made her realise that the people that helped her were actually planning on eating her child when the time was right, so she went to another corner of the place to hide herself and her child eating the little lizards or rodents that she could find in the place, with the hope that one day she would find a way out of there.

It had been four years since she had first been brought in when she met Naruto, who still went by the name Rosuto, who wanted to be her friend. At first she was suspicious of him, but after two days of him defending her and her child, she started to think of him as a friend in this hell that she had been living in. Sure he killed some people but he never showed any agression or such behavior when dealing with her. He was kind and patient as well as protective of her and her child.

Naruto's week of making friends had ended, he now had the accomplice he needed. The only thing that bothered him about his plan was that he did not share it with the two girls.

Naruto's plan was simple, he would cause mass chaos in he pit. He would make it so that most of the inhabitants would end up fighting one another, including the guards. This was not only his way of distracting everyone from his leaving the place, but it would also serve as a way for him to know who were worth saving later on, and who were to be left in hell.

If he was going to cause chaos, what did he need an accomplice for, well he was going to have a few of his Chisio Bushins kill his accomplices, then he was gonna jump them, and somehow get the whole place into a 'feeding frenzy' or something like that. The people would really believe that his friends had really been killed and that he was avenging their deaths, this would make those that still considered the gift of life to be important to defend one another from attack. Hopefully the only ones that died were the heartless.

It took Naruto another week to set everything up for his big production number.

The day had finally arrived for Naruto to put on a show. He had created several Chisio Bushins that would 'ambush' Yoshiko, drag her out and kill beat the living out of her, of course the Yoshiko that they would beat the living out of would be another carefully placed Chisio Bushin.

Time for things to begin, he signaled his clones to begin the first act. Around six of the clones ambushed Tsukiko and Yoshiko while Naruto was away from them. Two of the clones held back Tsukiko as the other dragged her little girl to a place where many could see the spectacle that was about to unfold. Somewhere along the way Naruto grabbed Yoshiko into the shadows, and replaced her with a blood clone copy. When the clones were in position, they went nuts, sending blood and guts everywhere, some of this being Naruto utilizing one of his area effect illusions. As he heard Tsukiko's scream of horror he jumped his clones and started beating the living out of them, and shouting things about friends and stuff, that was the signal for the other clones to do their thing and start beating the living out of one another, some of the clones had to use genjutsus to get the people into a frenzy, after a few minutes the whole place went nuts and bananas. During those precious few mimutes Naruto had slipped off into the shadow plane and grabbed Tsukiko with him. They then popped out of the shadow of a tree a few meters away from the city limits.

Tsukiko after seeing freedom, thought that she had died seeing as her daughter was there with her along with Naruto. She was happy that she was finally free, but she was also at the same time sad that she had died, as did her friend and child. But something shocked her, Naruto was smiling a big smile, he was happy.

"Ha ha! Finally outta there! Heh heh! We're free!" he shouted.

"What are you so happy about?" Tsukiko snapped at him, "We're dead! What's so nice about that?"

"Dead? Really, I feel alive to me."

"Of course we're dead Yoshiko is right here with us," she said as she gestured towards her child.

"She looks like she's just sleeping to me, not dead."

"WHAT?! Do you have any proof that we are actually still alive?"

"Sure," he then pointed in the direction of the castle that was visible, "That proof enough, cause I know you haven't done anything to warrant hell."

"..." she stood there slack jawed at the sight of the castle.

"Believe me now?" he asked her.

She nodded her head in response.

"Good, now then lets get you and her to someplace safe, then I can go about getting the rest of the good people out of that hell hole."

After making his proclamation the three melted into the shadows and reappeared inside an abandoned iron mine.

Once they were in the safety of the mine, Naruto unsealed a storage scroll from one of his seal tatoos, one of many seals and tatoos that littered his body, but were usually not that noticeable or even visible for that matter.

Then he unsealed the contents of the scroll, which consisted of a few sleeping bags, clothes, food, and water, which he handed over to Tsukiko. Then he went deeper into the tunnel until he found a chamber large enough to house his soon to be summoned army.

While he was busy creating another temprary Gate, he created a few shinobi clones then had them go fetch Tsukiko and Yoshiko. The two girls were too tired to do anything to the clones.

Once they got to the place where Naruto was, they saw what he had made, there were two portals, one was the temporary Gate, while the other was a teleportation gate. Tsukiko didn't know what to make of it, while Yoshiko just found them cool.

The mother and daughter pair were made to rest by one of the chamber walls. Then the clones positioned themselves by the tunnels that led in and out of the chamber. Naruto was extra cautious when it came to caves, since his past dealings with them always seemed to have some sort of monster lying in wait, preparing for the right moment to attack. Luckily for him, he wasn't in one of Zombie-sensei's caves.

Naruto contacted the General clone that was on the other side of the Gate and had him send over the usual troops, minus the rocs and dragons that wouldn't be of much use in this particular country. Instead he had some ankylosaurus, or ankylo for short, squads sent over. After the last instructions were given to the clone, Naruto's army came marching out.

Tsukiko was still awake when Naruto's army came marching out of the portal, Yoshiko had already gone back to sleep. She saw shinobi clones come out, this time with the kanji for the number three on their masks, following them were ankylo drawn wagons, riding on the wagons, along with the supplies, were the medic clones whose sleeves also sported the number three. Following them were the Chef clones, then the smith clones, and so on and so forth. The last ones to leave the portal were five hundred ankylos and their riders, two riders per ankylo. After the last one was out the temporary Gate snuffed out of existence.

---

To be continued...

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some positive reviews would be nice, even ones that just have WTF in them are fine...ty

one other thing, I apologise for some of my spelling errors, the mistakes were made by the spellchecker...I inputed the wrong spelling and haven't had the time to correct them, one of the most notable ones being "travelling" which in some cases is spelled as "travelling", sorry.