Naruto: Command

Naruto was both nervous and excited to be lift in command of the escort mission. True, he had taken charge after Kakashi-sensei passed out on the way to the old drunk's house, but that had been sort-of by default and only for a few hours. This time Sensei had officially handed over responsibility and there was a real possibility of getting attacked by bandits.

The first day went very smoothly, team seven guarding Tazuna at the bridge while Haku fussed over 'Zabuza-sama' back at the house. Apparently the nukenin wasn't recovering as quickly as he should be.

He decided that evening that the next day Sakura would stay behind to guard the seal perimeter since Zabuza still hadn't recovered enough to be useful. According to Haku the swordsman had pulled open some internal stitching while teaching the blond Muon Satsujin, which set back his recovery. The Yukimaki hastened to add that Naruto bore no fault; Zabuza really should have known better than to push himself that hard.

This resulted in Haku volunteering to help out at the bridge, which led to leaving Sakura behind.

"You're a genjutsu specialist at the moment, Sakura-chan," Naruto explained to his pink-haired team-mate the next morning, "and while your taijutsu is improving you work best when striking from cover or through traps and ambush. So long as you stay inside the perimeter you'll be mostly safe -unless they throw things- and you can genjutsu them to kingdom come without ever being in danger. No-one's even tried to attack the house yet, which bothers me."

"So I have to stay behind just in case someone discovers the perimeter? What about Zabuza and Haku?"

"Zabuza has been drugged to immobility by Haku so he actually rests this time and Haku will be replacing you in the field," Naruto said promptly. "We don't have as much experience working together but since he's more experienced than you are it should balance out just fine."

Sakura nodded grudgingly. They'd all witnessed Haku's proficiency with senbon. The ice user was wickedly accurate with them.

"If we get attacked at the bridge Haku will defend Tazuna while Sasuke and I go on the offensive; This is because Haku actually has long-range attacks, while we only have mid- and close-range stuff. If it gets too messy we'll retreat back to the seal perimeter to protect the client; that way Haku can go on the offensive and Sakura can join in. Acceptable?"

"Hai, hai," Sakura grumbled, her body language at odds with her tone. The kunoichi was clearly pleased to be left partially independent and with less chance of actually having to kill someone.

"Good. Lets go escort Tazuna-san to the bridge Haku, Sasuke," Naruto said cheerily. "He needs to get the damn thing finished."

The two black-haired boys followed the blond and the bridge builder out of the house and towards the building site.

"Naruto?" Sasuke asked as they ambled along.

"Hai teme?" Sasuke had been chewing over something for a few days now, glancing at Naruto regularly. It seemed he had finally come to a decision.

"Would you be willing to help me throw off my fangirls?" The Uchiha asked cautiously.

A bit cryptic that. What does he mean by... Naruto stumbled, then stared at his team-mate. "You want to take Naru-chan out on a date? Are you insane?"

"So that's a 'no'?"

"Sasuke, if you want someone to throw of the fangirls just ask Sakura."

"Dobe. Sakura is a fangirl."

"Then why not ask one of the older kunoichi? One of the mature ones? Hell, make it a D-rank mission and pay them for the inconvenience."

Sasuke looked thoughtful, then intrigued. "Any recommendations?"

"Find a sensible chunnin; there are more of them than you would think. Or if you're really serious about throwing them off, set up a regular meeting with a maiko."

"A maiko?"

"Yeah. The younger ones are thirteen or fourteen. Maiko are educated, polite and offer complete confidentiality; a lot of ninja visit geisha just for someone to talk to. I know a couple if you're interested: Properly brought up girls with real manners even a Hyuuga couldn't fault." Naruto's brain had adjusted to receiving Benihime's memories every night by this point, so he was used to remembering two days at once. Benihime's yesterday had involved a distraught ANBU who had discovered the illegitimate son she had believed dead eight years previously had in fact been removed by Danzo and inducted into ROOT. Benihime had made a house call at the behest of her surprisingly frantic squad-mates, who didn't know anyone else they trusted to help. Konoha really, really needs proper therapists for ninja. T&I specialists just don't cut it, however psychologically adept they are.

"Hn." Sasuke looked... reflective.

"Naruto-san?"

"Yes, Haku?" Naruto still hadn't been able to cure him of that '-san' that had come up after his parentage had been revealed. Uzumaki Kushina really had been a princess. It was all the older boy could do not to call him '-sama'.

"How much do you know about Uzushiogakure, about your heritage?" The ice user asked curiously. "I know a little, but it is fairly biased."

"I know some. The Uzumaki clan founded the village and ran both it and the island it was located on. It didn't have any real bloodline clans, just people who were highly skilled in their various fields; all the various fields. The whole village was flattened by Kumo and Kiri not long after the Second Shinobi War because they were intimidated by the Uzumakis' sealing proficiency." Naruto said.

"What's so scary about seals, dobe?" Sasuke asked.

This is an opportunity; one I cannot afford to pass up. "What do you know about bijuu, Uchiha Sasuke?"

Sasuke slowed for a moment, visibly intrigued by the abrupt change in Naruto's tone, cadence and vocabulary.

"Not much," he conceded. "There were nine in total and Yondaime died to kill the Kyuubi when it attacked Konoha about thirteen years ago."

In other words, practically nothing and most of that inaccurate. "The bijuu are chakra constructs, beings of pure energy. Once there was only one of them but it was split into nine pieces by the Ridoku Sennin. Each fragment is twice as powerful as the one before it and has therefore one more tail. The two-tails is twice as powerful as the one-tail and the three-tails is twice as powerful as the two-tails and so on. They don't really have names and are therefore named after the beasts they resemble: Ichibi no Tanuki, Nibi no Nekomata, Sanbi no Ebikame, Yonbi no Saru, Gobi no Irukaume, Rokubi no Namekuji, Nanabi no Kabutomushi, Hachibi no Ushioni and Kyuubi no Yoko. The Ichibi is occasionally called 'Shukaku' after a demented priest who reputedly fused his soul to it in at attempt to gain power. They are all mindlessly destructive in their natural state, largely because they don't see the need to avoid human settlements.

"As they are made purely of energy, specifically Shizennaki -natural energy- and Youki -demon energy- they cannot be killed. Energies -chakra included- can be concentrated, stored, converted or dispersed, but never destroyed. The traditional method of restraining a bijuu is to seal it in something. A gifted and well-trained fuuinjutsu master can do this with a modicum of preparation without harming himself or the designated container; issues arise only when those inadequately trained try to muck around with seals, which sadly is rather often. Are you with me so far?"

"Hai. Bijuu, while dangerous, can be restrained by a competent sealmaster. Incompetents however are more common."

"Quite. This interference occurs because a bijuu sealed in a clay pot -the original method- is completely inert. Useless. In order to weaponise a bijuu it has to be sealed within a person. The person is then called a Jinchuuriki -a Human Sacrifice- and can access the power of the bijuu they contain," Naruto continued. "Of course, Jinchuuriki seals are full of holes since they are designed to let the power out rather than keep it in. They are also fairly crude, often relying on literal human sacrifice to power them.

"The sheer power a jinchuuriki can call on compared to the average ninja means they are considered living weapons rather than soldiers and are often feared and ostracised by civilians and other ninja. This shunning results in unstable or outright psychotic jinchuuriki, which just makes people more afraid of them. This fear however does not stop Kages from ordering them made, so the cycle continues."

"Stupid."

"I agree, but I digress; you wanted to know why people are afraid of fuuinjutsu specialists. Their ability to create, restrain and unmake jinchuuriki is one of the main reasons why Uzushiogakure was annihilated: Kiri and Kumo each have two bijuu and feared that the Uzumakis would steal them and bend them to their own use. Both villages therefore banded together and took steps to neutralise the threat."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, deep in thought. "Dobe?"

"Yeah, teme?"

"If bijuu can't be killed, why are we taught that Yondaime killed Kyuubi?"

Naruto very deliberately looked skywards. "Konohagakure, like any other hidden village, has S-class secrets and laws preventing them from being revealed," he said conversationally. "One of these laws forbids anyone aware of what actually happened the night Yondaime stopped Kyuubi from destroying even more of Konoha from informing anyone unaware of the truth of what occurred."

"You know?"

"Aa."

"But you can't tell me."

"Iie."

"How did you find out?"

"there are sufficient clues available to make an educated guess," Naruto said carefully, "if a person keeps their eyes and ears open and puts all the pieces together in a logical fashion."

"Hn;" more calculating this time. "How come you know all this, dobe?"

"The existence of the bijuu is significant to the power dynamic of the major hidden villages," Naruto said calmly, "so my tutors insisted I know about them. Suna has one; Iwa, Kumo and Kiri have two each. Taki has one -I believe it was donated by Konoha as part of a treaty- and the status of the Kyuubi is officially indeterminate. As far as I am aware, most if not all of the bijuu are currently weaponised: sealed within jinchuuriki. This makes them powerful pawns at the disposal of their Kages and both deterrents against and incentives for outright warfare."

"You believe the Yondaime hokage sealed the Kyuubi within a jinchuuriki," Haku said, entering the conversation for the first time.

"I said nothing," Naruto singsonged with a particularly foxy smirk, "nothing at all."

"Hn," Sasuke acknowledged with his own smirk.

"And here's the bridge," Naruto added, blatantly changing the subject. "Hey, Tazuna-san! Where are the workers? Did they all quit?"

"I don't know Naruto," the bridge builder said worriedly. "They should be here by now."

"If they aren't here they'll be in the village, right?"

"Hai, but they-"

"Tazuna-san, things are not as they should be," Naruto interrupted firmly, forming the cross-shaped handseal and bringing a pair of kage bunshin into being, one of which instantly split into twelve. "My clones will escort you back to the house; we will investigate the village."

"Arigatou, ninja-san," Tazuna said quietly, allowing four of the clones to hustle him back the way they had come.

"Right. You," Naruto pointed at the clone who had not undergone mitosis, "split into four."

The clone did so.

"Good. Clone teams of three, please; one of the stronger clones with two weaker."

Four teams of three coalesced, all composed of identical Narutos, surrounding the real shinobi.

"Now two from each team henge into Sasuke or Haku. The stronger one should be in a different disguise in three of the teams."

Now there were five identical teams in the clearing.

"Perfect. You three teams circle around the village and approach from the other side. You two flank. We'll wait until you've found out what's wrong before jumping in from this side," Naruto said firmly, eliciting a chorus of nods from his clone audience. "Off you go then." The clone teams scattered.

"Now what, taicho?" Sasuke asked, only partly in jest. Naruto could tell the younger boy thought his plan was pretty good.

"Now we get as close to the village as possible without being seen," Naruto said grimly. "This is bad, whatever it is, to keep even one of the workers from coming to the bridge, and I think Sensei has something to do with it."

"Why do you think that?" Haku asked.

"Kakashi-sensei ambles through life leaving confusion, outrage and chaos in his wake," Naruto said flatly. "He makes a mess without even trying: Just look at the muddle he made of meeting Yogensha-kaa-san. Everything was just fine until he wandered off yesterday morning, so I'm guessing he did something during the night."

"What could he poss-" Sasuke broke off as Naruto raised a hand.

"Tazuna's back at the house. Let's move."

The approach to the village was nerve- racking. Naruto became more acutely aware of the terrible responsibility of command with every step and wished -briefly- that Kakashi-ssensei had delegated to Sasuke or Haku instead. He had to remind himself that Sasuke couldn't strategise his way out of a paper bag without using brute force and he barely knew Haku.

Then the first vanguard clone dispelled.

"Shit! Gatou's thugs are sacking the village! We gotta move!" Naruto charged out of the tree-line, abandoning stealth with Haku and Sasuke right behind him as the world went red around the edges. He was wading through a knot of would-be samurai when another clone dispersed, filling the blond's mind with the memory of a mercenary casually decapitating a woman he had just raped. The body of a toddler lay nearby, discarded and broken.

The combination of rage, adrenaline and tattered nerves was too much to keep in. Uzumaki Naruto, jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko, lost all semblance of control and screamed.

Kill! Kill! Destroy them all! DieDieDieDieDie!

You have lost control, kit; you will harm your allies. Allow me.

Naruto was vaguely aware of a ruddy orange shroud enveloping him like a warm blanket. It felt distant but strangely reassuring.

Protect those in my care and obliterate my foes, he whispered to the immense, orangey-red presence wrapped around his mind.

It will be done. Rest.

Naruto let the warmth carry him away, slipping into oblivion to the sound of crackling chakra and terrified wails.

A/N: A little more bijuu theory and insight into Naruto as a maturing character. I'm starting in on the chunnin exam arc in a bit, so updates may slow down while I tie all the little threads together. I have something special planned for when Naruto meets the Sand Trio. Anyone remember Naruto's comment on spending time with kabuki actors? Hehehehehe...