(A/N: Here's the next chapter. Sorry for not updating for a while. The reason for it was that many things have happened, nothing bad but many things that took away my time to write but nothing more on that. I want to inform you that this might not be the last chapter as I got a new idea to this story. I know some of you might not like it so I will put a poll on my profile for you to vote whether or not you want me to continue using the idea. Now read and review.)
Chapter 9
Right now Naruto and Naomi were outside the mansion from which they were supposed to steal the statue. "Have your shadow clones dispelled yet?" Naomi asked while crouching behind a bush. Naruto was about to answer when he got the memories from them. "Just did." Naruto said and started to draw a map of the mansion.
It took twenty minutes to draw each corridor and room. After that Naruto drew the stationary guards and the patrol routes of the patrolling guards.
"The statue is here." Naruto said and pointed the room that was in the middle of the map. "As you can see every entrance is guarded by three guards. The lucky thing is that they are either mercenaries or dropouts from shinobi academies so they won't pose a threat." Naruto said.
"Why don't we just go in there kill or knockout everyone in our way and take the statue?" Naomi asked. "Because it's not as fun as sneaking in and stealing it right under their noses." Naruto answered. Naomi sighed and agreed. They hadn't done anything else but killing bandits so a change was a good thing. They made the plan and started to prepare.
They waited till the guards changed then they silently killed them, hid the bodies and went inside. They continued till they had to stop as a pair of guards came. Naruto and Naomi did the same to them as they did to the first guards. Then they continued advancing while taking out or avoiding any guards that they met.
They arrived outside the room which held the statue. Naruto thought what they would have to do to open the huge metal door that should stop any jounin-level ninja from entering. He didn't need to think long as Naomi went in front of the door and punched it causing it to fall down with a heavy thud. Alarm went on immediately after the door hit the floor.
"Well that was easy." Naomi said and walked in with Naruto following her. "Which one is the statue?" Naomi asked as she looked at the middle of the room where over twenty different small statues on top of a big table were.
Naruto took out the mission scroll and saw that there wasn't any picture or description of the statue. "Let's take all of them and then ask which of these the target is." Naruto said and took out some ink, a brush and a scroll. He then started to write some seals on the scroll and when he was done he sealed the statues to the scroll.
They ran the same way that they came and were able to avoid any guards who were running to the vault. Once they were outside the mansion they didn't stop they continued running for an hour and then decided to continue to walk the rest of the way as they still had week and a half to complete the mission.
"Why would someone have so many statues on a table in a vault?" Naomi asked during the way back. "How could I know? It's not like I have anything like that." Naruto answered.
After four days of walking they arrived at the building from which they got the mission. Naruto walked to the desk and presented the scroll which had the statues. "The scroll didn't state which statue we had to steal so we took everyone that we could find." Naruto said and unsealed the statues.
The man asked for the mission scroll and once he got it he opened it and looked at the details. He almost didn't find the description of the statue but he saw a seal in the very bottom of the scroll. He then gave the scroll back to Naruto and showed the seal.
Naruto looked embarrassed; he was a seal master but didn't notice a seal on the bottom of a scroll. Still he unsealed the contents of the seal and a picture came out. In the picture was the statue they had to steal. Naruto checked if they had stolen the right statue and found that they did along with many others.
"So what are we going to do with the rest of the statues?" Naruto asked after they had received the pay for the mission and were walking around the capital of Kusa no Kuni. Naomi shrugged and said "Maybe sell them to some place that deals with art?"
"Sure but where is something like that?" Naruto said. He then looked up and saw a sign of an art store. "Well here's one." Naruto said and walked in with Naomi following him.
"Hello how can I help you?" The clerk said. He was an old man with long white beard and a bald head. "We would like to know how much these statues are worth." Naruto said and unsealed the statues. "Well you're in luck as my specialty is statues." The clerk said and took a good look at the statues.
"W-where did you get these." The clerk said. "They were from a mission that we did. Why, is there something wrong?" Naruto answered. "N-no nothing's wrong. It's just that these statues have been thought lost after they were stolen twenty years ago." The clerk said with enthusiasm.
"So they're really expensive?" Naruto asked. "Yes. All of these statues are probably worth two or three million ryo." The clerk said. Naruto and Naomi were stunned; that much money for nineteen statues. "Any chance that you might have the money to buy these?" Naruto asked even though he knew that it was not likely.
"Yes I have as I just sold a few expensive statues for some noble whose name I didn't learn. So do you want to sell those statues?" The clerk asked to which Naruto nodded. "Wait here so I can get the money." Clerk said and went to the back of the store. He came back after a few minutes with a big pile of cash. Naruto took out a scroll from a pocket on his pants and sealed the money inside the scroll. They then thanked the clerk and left.
"So were to next?" Naomi asked outside the store. "How about we go see how Wave is doing." Naruto suggested. "Good idea." Naomi said and started to walk towards Nami no Kuni.
"Give us your money and no one gets hurt!" A bandit yelled as he jumped from the nearby bushes with a few dozen other bandits on the road to Nami no Kuni. "Whose turn is it now?" Naruto asked; completely ignoring the bandits. "Mine." Naomi said and disappeared from sight.
"Where did she go?" The apparent leader yelled before he was cut in piece. The rest of the bandits were quick to overcome their shocks and prepared to fight. Another was in pieces with no one seeing who did it. This continued until only three were left. They started to run but before anyone of them could disappear they met the same fate as the others.
When the last one had died Naomi appeared next to Naruto with her hands covered in blood. "Too easy" she said as she cleaned her hands and continued walking towards Nami no Kuni with Naruto.
"What do you think has happened in Nami after our last visit?" Naomi asked after some walking. "I don't know. Maybe they have gotten back to prosperity?" Naruto guessed.
They continued their way only stopping in a town to gamble. It took them three weeks to reach Nami and when they reached it they saw that it was in fact prospering quite nicely. They walked to Tazuna's house and when they reached it they saw that that it was bigger than before.
Naruto knocked on the door and heard some footsteps coming closer. Once the door opened they saw that it was Tsunami who opened it. "Long time no see Tsunami-san." Naruto said. Tsunami looked confused and asked "Do I know you two?"
"Aw, I'm hurt it isn't even half a year ago when I was here and saved this country though I admit that I have changed a lot during those months." Naruto said. Tsunami stood there for a while and then said "Naruto is that you?"
Naruto just smiled and said "Yeah it's me." Tsunami gave him a quick hug and asked "Why didn't you visit us before?" Naruto smiled still and said "I didn't have time to visit. Too many things have happened."
Tsunami would have wanted to ask some more but she was interrupted by someone shouting "Tsunami, who's at the door?" Naruto recognized the speaker as Tazuna. "It's Naruto!" Tsunami shouted back at him. It took a few seconds before Tazuna was at the door. Tazuna looked at Naruto for a while and then shook his hand.
"Who's she?" Tazuna asked while looking at Naomi. "This is Naomi. She's my girlfriend and travelling companion." Naruto answered. Naomi smiled and waved at them. "Well, what are you standing there for? Come inside." Tazuna said.
"So, what has happened after you left here?" Tazuna asked when Naruto and Naomi had sat down on the couch. "Well after I left, I searched for a nice and big cave where no one would interrupt me. Once I found it I started to paint some seals on the walls, floor and ceiling. It was that seal which caused my transformation. After I had used the seal I found that a few enemy shinobis were outside the cave. I fought them and won." Naruto took a slight pause and continued.
"After that I met Naomi and we quickly became friends. After that I looted the bodies of the shinobis and found a letter which had plans for an invasion to Konoha during the chuunin exam. After that I and Naomi spent two months training. Then I and Naomi went to Konoha to enter chuunin exam though we weren't in any of the hidden villages we used an old rule which allowed our entry. We also told the Hokage about the invasion." Naruto took a breath and would have continued but Naomi started to tell the tale.
"Then we did the first two parts of the exam easily. Then we had a month to train after that we had a tournament during which the invasion started. We managed to repel the invasion and then we left Konoha to wander around Hi no Kuni. After a few months we stopped in one of the towns and fought and killed two powerful shinobis, both of which were present in the invasion. After that we just wandered and did some missions after those we decided to come here." Naomi said.
Tsunami and Tazuna were dumbfounded by the story. They were taken away from their shock when Naruto asked "So what has happened after I left?" Tazuna shook his head and answered "Not much as you probably saw when you came here we're prospering really well. Also we heard a rumor that someone called the last Uchiha has escaped from Konoha few weeks ago."
"Figures." Naruto said. Neither Tazuna or Tsunami said anything about that. "Where's Inari?" Naruto asked. "He's playing with his friends right now." Tsunami answered. The next hour or so they talked about this and that.
"Kaa-san I'm home!" was heard from the door. "Inari come here we have guests!" Tsunami said with a louder than normal voice. Inari came to the living room and asked "Kaa-san who are these two?"
"The woman is Naomi and the man is Naruto." Tsunami said with a smile. Inari breath hitched when he heard Naruto's name. "N-nii-san!" Inari yelled and hugged Naruto's leg. "How's it going?" Naruto said and ruffled Inari's hair.
"W-where have you been?" Inari said while clinging to Naruto's leg. "Here and there." Naruto answered. "That's not a proper answer Naruto." Tsunami said to him. Naruto just shrugged his shoulders and started to talk with Inari.
"Nii-san how long will you stay with us?" Inari asked. Naruto thought for a while and answered "Maybe a month or two." Inari looked really happy about that and gave Naruto's leg a death hug.
Suddenly someone knocked on the door and Naruto rose up to open it. When he opened it there was a man whose facial features made him look like he wasn't from Elemental Countries. He was bald and he was wearing clothes made out of leather which had metal plates embedded into it. He also had a strange sword on his back. It had a normal handle but the strangest parts were the guard and the blade. The guard was wider than the blade and the blade was completely straight unlike in a katana.
"Who are you?" Naruto asked. "My name is Seth Auger and I was sent here to look new members for guilds associated with the Guild League." Seth said. "What's the Guild League?" Naruto had to ask as he hadn't ever heard about it.
"Well that is my job to tell. The Guild League is an organization which helps guilds with missions and new recruits. We also put competitions in which the guilds can join. If you want to learn more go here." Seth said, took out a map and pointed an island that was close to Wave but didn't belong to any of the countries as it wasn't large, didn't have any important resources and wasn't in a strategic location. "There's a League outpost there. Now I must be off, I have to tell more people about the League." Seth finished and left.
"Who was it, Naruto-kun?" Naomi asked. "A person named Seth who told me something interesting." Naruto said and proceeded to tell them about what Seth had said.
"Are you going to check the place out?" Tazuna asked. Naruto looked at Naomi who nodded. "Yes but we promised to be here for at least a month." Naruto said causing Tazuna and his family to smile.
The month went by quickly with Naruto playing with Inari. Naomi was usually helping Tsunami or playing with Naruto and Inari. Now it was time for Naruto and Naomi to say goodbye to Tazuna and his family.
"Remember to come back sometime!" Tsunami yelled to Naruto and Naomi as they were walking on water towards the island where the League outpost was. Naruto just waved along with Naomi.
When they reached the island they saw a small fortress there. It had tall walls that were slightly taller than in most of the hidden villages. They saw that behind the wall was a mansion that was taller than the wall. Even though that sight would have stopped most in awe Naruto and Naomi just continued to the gate.
At the gate were two guards. One had an armor made completely out of metal plates and he was wearing a helmet that covered his face. (A/N: It's something like this . ) The armor wearing one's weapon was strange to Naruto. It was a long metal pole with a spike on top and below it was a blade from an axe. The other one was wearing the same kind of armor that Seth had.
"Halt, state your business!" The plate armor wearing one said. "We're here to learn about the Guild League." Naruto said to him. "Alright we'll send some of our people to escort you so please wait for a moment." The other one said and knocked on the gate. Soon the gate opened and two men came out of it. Both of them were wearing gray robes and had some kind of staff on their backs.
"Follow us we will lead you to our commander, he can tell you more about the League" One of them said and motioned them to follow him. They led Naruto and Naomi to the mansion and to one of the rooms close to the entrance. "Commander will be here shortly." The other one said and both of them left.
The room itself wasn't anything special, just a simple office, not much different from the Hokage's office. There were little this and that on the shelves and on the middle of the room was a desk and three chairs. Two on one side the one that on the other was luxurious looking. There was a door on the other side and two windows. They would have continued to check out the room but the other door opened and a man came out.
He was wearing clothes made from the fur of some animal but Naruto couldn't figure out from what animal it was made. The man had long black hair that reached middle of his back.
"Sorry for your wait but there was a small problem that I had to resolve. Now that I'm here have a seat." The man said and pointed at the two chairs in front of the desk. When Naruto and Naomi were seated the man started to talk again "My name is Tagir and I heard that you two would like to know about the League correct?" Naruto and Naomi nodded. "So what do you want to know?" Tagir asked. "Could you tell us about how the Guild League is led?" Naomi suggested.
"The Guild League is governed by the leaders of the ten most powerful guilds. Guilds can go up in the ranking every year in two of the three different tournaments. The tournaments are these: First one is a fight between two teams from the guilds, the second is which guild can do certain amount of missions fastest and finally the third is a tournament between all participating members from each guild but that doesn't increase the guilds ranking." Tagir told them.
"But how do they run their guilds if they govern the League?" Naomi asked. "Through their advisors, who they personally have appointed to lead the guild in their absence. Each guild leader has to appoint an advisor." Tagir answered.
"Now that we know about that would you tell us about the history of the League?" Naruto asked. "Alright. You might want to relax as it is quite long."
"The League was founded two hundred years ago by a group of ten who started the ten original guilds which are still active to these days. They started the guilds to protect the people of their continent of Phyria from bandits and monsters that had started to appear. Slowly their guilds grew in size and they decided to allow their guilds' members to create their own guilds." Tagir took a deep breath and continued.
"It took a few decades before the new guilds had spread all over the continent and for the new guild to start fighting against each other for missions and new members. It didn't take long for the original guilds to decide to start the Guild League which would supervise the guilds so that no wars would break out between them. They also learned that their continent was becoming too small for the guilds. The problem's growing was slowed down by the decision to disband some of the troublesome guilds. But that still didn't resolve it as the guilds were getting more members constantly and there wasn't enough missions for everyone. The League also put limit on how many members could a guild have but that didn't stop people from wanting to join guilds. Finally the situation was completely resolved when they received mission from the biggest and the only country in the continent named Akarn. The mission was to find new lands for colonization purposes. The League gave the mission to the largest guild." He took another deep breath.
"They found many island chains and a continent. The continent they found was bigger than the one from which they left and it was almost completely covered in jungle. That continent is also my home. There everyone lived in small tribes and many of them were quick to accept the guilds and the change that their coming brought. Of course there were tribes that didn't like the change and started to attack the guild members but they were quickly put down by the superior fighting strength of the guilds and Akarn. The continent was named Polyria"
"After many years of hard work there were many prospering colonies and the guilds had more room to expand. It took six decades before the new continent was almost in the same situation as was the first continent. But before it happened the League had decided to start enforcing the rules properly and they managed to prevent the situation to become the same situation as before. Ten years later the colonies on the new continent wanted to become their own country but Akarn's king wouldn't allow it and a war broke out."
"Both sides wanted help from the guilds but the League didn't want to help either side so the leaders of the League allowed the guilds to choose if they wanted to participate to war. The war itself ended after three years of bloody fighting in the jungles and cities of Polyria. The colonies who named themselves as the Republic of Tarn managed to drive Akarnian troops out of their continent. For the following decades the League helped people in the Republic to expand in Polyria by allowing guilds to be formed in there. It was during those years that the League understood that it needed a headquarters that was in neutral zone so they themselves hired their own guilds to search for a place." He took another deep breath.
"You might ask why the Guild League would need a headquarters. The reason itself is simple, to house all the records of accepted and completed missions, new recruits and to hold the meetings between the leaders. Now back to the history. One of the explorers went north on her search and amidst the frozen islands she found an island that was as warm as the first continent on its summers. This caused her to stop at the island. She found that the island itself was big enough to house the League's headquarters but the most interesting find was when she went to a cave with her team. Inside the cave were ruins and inside of it was a machine of some kind that produced the warmth to the island."
"She quickly went back to the League to inform them of her find. Once the League heard her story they decided that that place was to be their headquarters. The constructions of the headquarters were started a month after the island's discovery. But a month after the beginning of the construction another explorer came back and told the League that he had found another continent which was completely inhabited. The League was excited about this discovery and sent messages to both the king of Akarn and to the senate of Tarn. It took a week for the League to receive news about what the two countries had planned. They had decided to send diplomats to the new continent. Leaders of the League decided to send one person to tell them about the League and to ask if they wanted the League to expand to their lands."
"It took two weeks for the diplomat team to come back to their respective governments and both diplomats had managed to get trading agreements with the new country named Arkania. The new country allowed the League to establish few new guilds in their territory for a trial run. It took three years before they allowed more guilds to be made in their territory. After that there haven't been any major wars or discoveries, just some conflicts between the nations until two months ago when we discovered this continent and started build this outpost. So any more questions?" Tagir asked.
"We can sense that you and everyone here are strong but your chakra reserves are as big as a normal civilian's. Why is that?" Naruto asked. "That's because each continent developed their own, unique powers. If I understand correctly chakra is made from the physical and mental energy?" Naruto nodded but didn't know where the conversation was going.
"Well in Phyria they managed to use physical energy to strengthen themselves though it doesn't come without a cost. The cost is if the person uses it often and in large quantities they will get mutations that can be lethal. But if you can survive them you will be more powerful. The natives of my home continent are able to change between human, animal and hybrid forms. And finally the people of Arkania are able to use the mental energy to create different effects like fireballs but the downside is that they cannot make themselves stronger with it and if they use it too much they will either fall into coma or become brain dead. Also in Arkania there are certain crystals that allow objects to be enchanted with different properties like a sword could be in flames. It was also noted that a person can't use both mental and physical energy. Everyone who tried died quickly, we still don't know why exactly this happened." Tagir explained.
"In which of these groups do you belong?" Naomi asked. "As I said before my homeland is Polyria and I'm one of the natives so I can change into an animal, human and hybrid form and I have received some training in the usage of the physical energy." Tagir explained. "There is one thing that has been on my mind from the time we got in is how we can understand you people if you came from different continent?" Naruto asked.
"Well we found out that on each continent people spoke the languages that were similar to each other so it was easy to translate them. Then there are the Arkanians, some of them could use their ability to learn other languages easily from the person who speaks it though I never understood how they do it." Tagir answered.
"Any more questions?" Tagir asked. Naomi was the one who asked the next question "What kind of missions do the guilds do?"
"The Guild League accepts almost all the missions including assassinations if the guild wants them but only one per month. Then there are the normal kinds like destroy a bandit camp, defend a village, escort a caravan and other missions like that." Tagir explained. "Now I have a question for you two. Would you like to join to an existing guild or create a new one?"
(A/N: Done. So what do you think about the Guild League? I know my description of it is not the best possible but for me it is the best I could come up with. IF you have anything you want to ask about the Guild League then put it in a PM or in the review. Now go to my profile and vote if you want Naruto and Naomi to create their own guild or leave the outpost and resume their wandering making the League to stay in the background. The vote will stay for a week, after that I will start to make the next chapter. I don't want anyone to say in their review that this idea sucks and I should rewrite this chapter. See you all in the next chapter.)
