Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies and all Naruto characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. This is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.

Warnings: AU for parts of both worlds (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), mild character bashing, mild to moderate violence (there are shinobi involved after all), and a few others that will be announced as they crop up.

AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter 32: Mission's End

Tuesday, August 12, 2003, Late Afternoon
Tazuna's Home, Nami no Kuni

Once he'd finished viewing the final memory that he'd drawn from the latest prisoners, Harry sealed away the memory and stretched out his stiff and sore muscles. He then dug out another pain potion from the pocket of his cloak (which he'd dug out of his pack on his way to draw the newest prisoners' memories) and downed the potion. A soft sigh escaped from his lips as the lingering ache from his misadventure the previous afternoon melted away. Harry then quickly gathered up his collection of scrolls containing all of the memories he'd spent the day viewing, sorting, and storing and dropped down to put them away.

His next task was to sit down and write out another report for the Hokage. He also requested permission to transport their shinobi prisoners and Gato back to Konoha and briefly mentioned the lack of a local authority to which they could turn the hired mercenaries over to once they'd been captured. Right after he finished his report and had it shipped back to Konoha via house elf, Harry spent several minutes writing down the information he'd gleaned from all of the memories that he'd drawn from all of their prisoners so that he could make adjustments to the plans that he and his teammates had made to take down Gato Corporation.

That information included; the general layout of Gato's base, the location of his safes, the lock combinations for each of said safes, the location of any incriminating documents, the entrances to the smugglers tunnels where he stored the drugs, contraband, and stolen artifacts and merchandise that his company sold on the side, the guard rotations, and the total number of mercenaries, bandits, and shinobi (both the legitimate ones and the rogue agents) that he'd hired.

When he was finished with that, Harry began working out several different potential plans for dealing with the hired thugs and shinobi that were currently on the island. The latter group would be fairly easy to deal with (once they were subdued) as they would all be sent to Konoha so that the Hokage could decide their fates. The former group, however, could present a bit of a problem if the Hokage confirmed Izumo's prediction that Konoha wouldn't want to deal with them. If he and his teammates were left to dispose of them, then Harry was going to have to find a way to weed out those that could be redeemed from the cutthroats and mercenaries.

He knew that some of them were undoubtedly good people that had been forced to do terrible things for some reason or another and if he simply just killed them all, then he would be forever haunted by a guilty conscience. Harry may not have an issue with taking a life during a fight but there was no way he could execute any prisoners without making certain none of them had been forced into the life of a criminal against their will. He had never forgotten his godfather's plight and he could never sentence anyone to death (or imprisonment) without a trial because of what had happened to Sirius.

Harry was just considering the benefits of sending his elves to purchase a large enough supply of Veritaserum to dose each and every single hired mercenary in Gato's army (in order to weed out the true criminals from those who'd made a bad decision or were forced into their current position) when he received a reply from the Hokage. The wizard accepted the sealed scroll from the elf with trepidation; a scroll that would determine just how much blood would stain his soul before the end of the mission.

After a full minute had passed, he sighed and released the seal with a smear of blood and a pulse of chakra so that he could read the message inside.

Takeshi,

Accommodations are currently being prepared for the shinobi prisoners that you and
your teammates have captured to date or will capture shortly along with one for Gato
Senshu. Once the holding cells have been prepared, transportation scrolls will be
created and sent to you.

Furthermore, arrangements were made with the Fire Daimyou to deal with the hired
mercenaries and civilian criminals that are part of Gato's forces after your first report.
Additional transportation scrolls will be sent to you once I receive notification from the
Daimyou's court confirming that they are prepared to handle the estimated numbers
that you provided in your most recent report.

The first shipment of relief supplies are currently being gathered and loaded into the
wagons that you graciously offered to supply for ease of transport. We will send you the
supplies and a handful of medical personnel to treat those villagers in need of medical
attention with an escort the moment you have confirmed that all hostile shinobi on the
island have been contained.

Sarutobi Hiruzen
Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure

Harry felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders the moment he read through the line about arrangements having been made to deal with the civilian thugs. He really hadn't wanted to be forced to execute any prisoners through his oath; orders from the Hokage ironclad unless they would harm the village or his family. And removing potential threats would neither harm the village nor his family even if it would traumatize him. Feeling infinitely better, Harry rolled up the missive and tucked it into his cloak pocket so he could pass it to Izumo and Kotetsu when they returned.

The wizard then returned to his planning.

He would work uninterrupted for another hour before a flying sandal announced the arrival of the young Inari. Harry caught the flying footwear just before it would have clocked him upside the head and sighed before he leaned down over the roof of the makeshift prison to see what the gaki wanted. He was slightly surprised to see the boy smirking at him for once; since the eight year old usually scowled at him.

"A single shoe still isn't going to do be much good – even if it is almost my size this time."

"Okaasan sent me to tell you that supper will be ready shortly and to warn you that she will be very cross if you skip another meal."

Harry blinked in surprise over the second half of the message before he asked, "Your mother told you to tell me that she would be upset with me if I didn't show up for supper?"

"Yes. She's already mad at you because you snuck out of bed this morning. She's also mad that you skipped both breakfast and lunch today because you missed lunch and supper yesterday."

This time Harry shook his head over the strangeness of having a woman who couldn't be more than five, maybe six, years older than him going into mother-hen mode on him. It wasn't even as if she was an old friend that had grown up with him (like Hermione) or an old friend of his parents that saw him as a connection to the past. Maybe there was a gender specific instinct that all women carried inside of them that was activated upon obtaining motherhood or upon seeing blood. At least Tsunami wasn't quite as smothering as Mrs. Weasley tended to get (not that Harry had really ever minded it all that much when Molly coddled him a bit).

"And the reason why you felt the need to throw a shoe at me again?" Harry inquired as he refocused his attention on the eight year old that was still smirking up at him.

"You didn't answer when I called you," Inari replied with a shrug of his shoulders and without a trace of remorse.

Harry snorted because the slight smug cast to the kid's smirk suggested he hadn't tried very hard to get Harry's attention before he launched his mother's sandal at his head. He couldn't find it in him to be angry though, it was something that Naruto would have done in the kid's place (and had done on more than one occasion, though Naruto tended to throw pranks instead of shoes).

"Please let your mother know that I will join your family for supper once my teammates have escorted your grandfather home for the evening."

"Why can't you tell her that?"

"I suppose I could but then I'd have to tell her about the shoes you keep launching at my head. What would your mother think of you attacking an injured man?"

"Ano… that's alright, you don't have to tell kaasan anything, I'll go let her know you'll join us for supper tonight right now!" Inari cried as he immediately took off running for the house as if his feet were on fire.

"Works like a charm every time," Harry chuckled to himself in English as he returned his attention back to his planning one more; nothing was more effective for acquiring a moment of peace than threatening the one breaking the peace with their mother (or other parental figure)… unless it was to threaten them with embarrassing pranks.

Sunday, August 17, 2003, Early Evening
Former Daimyou's Residence, Nami no Kuni

Harry sealed away the last of the money and documents that he'd pulled out of the safe in the former Daimyou's office that Gato had used to store his valuables inside. Once that was done, the twenty-three year old took a long look around the office for anything he might have missed before he left the room to continue his search of the modest mansion. As he traveled down the hall towards what he knew was the master bedroom, Harry mentally ran through the list of tasks that still needed to be completed before his current mission could be considered completed.

At the top of the list was guarding Tazuna until construction on the bridge was complete; a job that would last at least another two or three days according to Tazuna's estimates. Next was rounding up the last of the hired mercenaries that were scattered about the island; most of them hidden within the tunnels that riddled the archipelagic nation. Harry's clones were hunting through the underground maze for the hidden bases at that very moment but it would still take time to flush the thugs out since he and his teammates were already spread thin. And the final task was to finish collecting the evidence against Gato; which Harry hoped to have finished within the next hour or two.

Pleased with the fact that they were mostly finished the mission, Harry mentally reviewed everything that had happened over the past five days.

After Harry had spent the entirety of the twelfth going through memories and making plans, the three Chuunin had spent three days systematically hunting down and capturing the five remaining shinobi that had been hired by Gato alongside Zabuza and the Oni Kyoudai. The hardest part had been finding the five of them; as they'd gone to ground the moment they'd discovered Zabuza's ransacked room mere hours after Harry had captured the Oni Kyoudai. Taking those five shinobi into custody had been a piece of cake; none of them anywhere near the level of Zabuza or the Demon Brothers.

It helped that they were facing three to one odds each time they located one of the enemy shinobi; the three Chuunin had trusted Harry's Kage Bunshin to watch over Tazuna and his family while they took down the enemy.

As soon as all five shinobi had been captured, Harry had sent notice to the Hokage. The Hokage in return had sent the promised transportation scrolls that would transport all ten of the high profile prisoners (the nine shinobi and Gato) to Konoha and word that the supply caravan had left Konoha. Once those ten prisoners were gone, Harry had converted the temporary prison he'd made into one large holding cell that could hold up to two hundred people. The trio had then begun rounding up the bandits and mercenaries that had been hired by Gato.

It had only taken two days to round up three quarters of the hired thugs as the trio caught them completely by surprise thanks to the clones that had infiltrated the various bases that had been set up throughout the island. Those they hadn't caught during those two days had been out on patrol at the time their base was raided or down in the tunnels. When they weren't scouring the island for the scattered mercenaries, the three young men took the time to interview the villagers; gathering more information on Gato's many crimes, collecting the names and detailed descriptions of those who had gone missing, and confirming the rough census that Tazuna and Tsunami had provided.

Once the majority of the mercenaries had been neutralized, Harry had made plans to raid the former Daimyou's Estate to collect Gato's personal effects that afternoon. Kotetsu and Izumo had come with him; the two older Chuunin remaining outside to stand guard and search the grounds for the unmarked grave of the Daimyou and his family. So far, Harry had spent close to three hours searching the house and sealing away anything and everything that could be linked back to Gato or Gato Corporation. The only two rooms left to search were the master bedroom and the basement.

As soon as Harry stepped into the master bedroom, he refocused on the task at hand and created a pair of Kage Bunshin to help him gather up and seal all of Gato's clothes into a scroll. While they were doing that, Harry drew his holly wand and began summoning the stolen trinkets, incriminating documents, and other valuables that Gato had kept in the room. Once the spell no longer drew a response, Harry quickly sealed everything away before he searched the room for the safe he'd seen in Gato's memories so that he could empty it as well.

"Aren't you finished yet, Takeshi?" Izumo demanded as he stuck his head in the room just as Harry finished clearing out the safe; nearly earning a stunner in the face when he startled the magical Jinchuuriki.

"Just the basement left to search now," Harry replied as he resheathed his wand. "Did you and 'Tetsu find the Daimyou's grave?"

"Aa, we think so; though the bodies were too far decayed to accurately identify him or the other four bodies that had been buried in the same grave."

"Not completely unexpected when you consider the fact that they'd been buried without a coffin," Harry murmured as he suppressed a shudder of distaste; the idea of half rotten corpses bringing to mind the inferi that he'd encountered in the seaside cave that Dumbledore had taken him to at the end of his sixth year. "I can call his spirit back to this plane to confirm the location of his and his family's grave now that I know the man's full name."

"Does that mean he'll be sticking around like the Yondaime?"

"No, Minato is a special case – I haven't found a way to get rid of him yet."

"I feel so unloved," Minato deadpanned as he appeared beside Harry the moment his name had been spoken.

"Not my fault that you're dead boring, cousin," Harry quipped with a smirk at the deceased blond.

"Ha, ha, ha; lovely pun – did you think that up all by yourself?" Minato snarked back with a barely disguised snort of amused exasperation. "I think I much preferred it when you were far too respectful of my feelings to resort to gallows humor."

"Need I remind you that you're the one that told me to stop tiptoeing around the topic of death and your current state?"

"I never thought you'd take that as permission to openly joke and tease me about my death."

"Don't pretend you don't enjoy my morbid sense of humor," Harry countered as he joined Izumo in the hall outside the room with a pouting Minato trailing along behind him.

"So, did you want help searching the basement?" Izumo inquired after he'd stopped chuckling at the two cousins; the older man long used to Harry interacting with the dead shade. "Or are you going to summon the dead Daimyou first?"

"I'm not prepared to summon the Daimyou just yet," Harry replied as he briefly thought of the Resurrection Stone that was securely hidden behind the strongest wards he could produce back in Konoha alongside of his cloak; he'd stopped carrying those two items when he first started taking missions outside of Konoha for fear that he'd lose either of them in a fight or that the cloak would be damaged. "Actually, I won't be able to call on his spirit until we return to Konoha because I had not planned to call upon the dead while I was here in Nami. And I wouldn't mind having a hand with the basement; if you're sure 'Tetsu-senpai won't fall asleep without you there to slap him awake."

"Kotetsu will be fine on his own for a bit; he has a couple of your clones to keep him from falling asleep out of pure boredom," Izumo replied with a snicker.

Harry laughed as the two of them moved through the mansion towards the kitchen where the entrance to the basement was located. It would take the two Chuunin roughly forty-five minutes to pack up the smuggled and stolen goods that were stored in the room. The last thing they did before they headed out to join Kotetsu was to seal up the hidden entrance to the underground tunnels that was located in the basement in order to prevent any of the thugs still running loose from retaking the Daimyou's residence now that it had been cleared.

The two of them then joined Kotetsu outside in time to see him securing a couple of drunken bandits that had apparently walked right into him. Just before they left the area with their latest prisoners, Harry sent a couple of clones to ward the grounds of the Daimyou's residence to further secure it against future intrusions. They would arrive back at Tazuna's house just after supper and Harry left Kotetsu and Izumo to sweet talk Tsunami into forgiving them for being late while he hauled their latest prisoners off to the rather crowded holding cell (the Hokage had not yet sent the transport scrolls that had been promised for the civilian thugs).

Inari would deliver Harry's supper to him (along with the now standard accompanying sandal to the head – not that the kid had yet managed to actually clock Harry with one of the offending shoes) just ten minutes later. Harry teasingly told the kid he threw like a girl and subsequently earned a pouting glare in return before the kid bravely dared (more like demanded) Harry to teach him how to throw properly. Surprised at Inari's boldness, Harry silently regarded the eight year old while he ate a couple of bites; noting the determined glint in the kid's eyes.

He then agreed to show the kid how to throw once he'd finished his food. Tsunami found them thirty minutes later and the older women lit into Harry like nobody's business when she saw that Harry was teaching Inari how to throw a kunai (after he'd given the kid a few pointers on throwing shoes and rocks). He couldn't fault the woman for being angry; he should have gotten her permission before teaching her son anything but in his defense, the kid was rather stubborn and had not been satisfied just learning how to throw sandals.

Harry apologized for overstepping his boundaries but refused to apologize for trying to teach the kid how to protect himself. He knew far too well what it felt like to be young and defenseless in a dangerous world. That would be the last time Harry saw more than a glimpse of Inari for the remainder of his mission; Tsunami had forbidden her son from having anything further to do with the three shinobi.

Harry wouldn't have much time to feel guilty about getting the kid in trouble with his mother. He was far too busy planning a raid on the underground tunnels as he poured over the rough map he'd made of the natural maze that sat beneath the island so that the last of the mercenaries could be rounded up. The biggest problem would be sealing up all of the potential escape routes in order to prevent any of the thugs from getting away once he and his teammates started striking each of the designated bases in the hidden labyrinth.

They had sealed up several entrances to the tunnels over the past several days but Harry wasn't arrogant or naïve enough to think they'd found all of the exits. And while he could theoretically spam the entire network of tunnels with clones; that didn't mean that was the smart thing to do. Clones weren't the answer to everything and if he didn't make an attempt to solve the problem without abusing the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, then he'd never grow above his current level. Besides, he was already using the clones extensively to watch over the bridge and Tazuna's house as well as searching the island for more entrances.

And he didn't need the extra headache of trying to sort out memories on the fly while trying to catch the bandits since he'd undoubtedly miss something and end up in a worse situation because that was when his luck would invert again.

When he wasn't making plans (with the frequent input from his teammates), he was either on the bridge watching over Tazuna and the rest of the workers or patrolling the village on the off chance that one of the hired thugs turned up to harass the villagers; jobs that he shared with both Kotetsu and Izumo. Neither job was very demanding but that didn't mean that the three Chuunin didn't take their duties seriously; even Kotetsu stayed alert despite how boring it was to patrol the bridge and village. Regardless of what Harry was doing, his mind continued to plot out his team's next move.

By the time the three Chuunin returned to Tazuna's house around supper time that night, Harry had tentative plans in place to deal with the last two dozen or so mercenaries that were still on the island. He would bounce his idea off of his teammates while he cooked their supper (Harry feeling far too leery of Tsunami's temper to even think of imposing on the small family's hospitality at the moment). By the time they finished eating, the three of them had made solid plans to infiltrate the tunnels an hour before sunrise the next morning.

Their plans would be derailed a half an hour later by the arrival of another letter from the Hokage accompanied by a large scroll holding one hundred seventy-five transportation seals. According to the Hokage's letter, the seals couldn't be activated until after seven o'clock the next morning; when the Fire Daimyou's guards would be in position to receive the prisoners. Each seal would also need to be activated in two minute intervals to allow the guards enough time to secure each prisoner before the next one was transported. That meant that it would take close to six hours to transport all of the mercenaries that they'd captured to date.

After a short discussion, it was decided that they would put off their raid on the tunnels for a day so that Kotetsu and Izumo could ship off the prisoners while Harry watched over the bridge and the bridge builder and his clones patrolled the village.

Bright and early the next morning, Harry saddled Felix when he noted the gelding was more than a little restless due to the fact that he'd been pastured on a lead line since the day they'd arrived. Harry would then ride double with Tazuna to the bridge in order to both save time and allow Felix to burn off a bit of energy. Once they arrived at the bridge, Harry would leave a couple of dozen clones to watch over Tazuna, the workers that turned up to work on the bridge, and the village while he cantered along the length of the not-quite-finished bridge to check the integrity of the temporary wards that he'd placed on the structure.

Once he'd ridden the length twice, he dropped down to the ocean's surface (the wizard circulating his chakra through the gelding once more) in order to check on the ward stones he'd placed in the water. That process involved summoning the numerous rocks he'd sunk with the ward runes on them so that he could check them for damage and return them back to their original places (the current had shifted the stones over the time they'd been in the water). It was a task that would take Harry most of the morning to finish. The magical shinobi would then return topside to join Tazuna at the construction zone for lunch.

Harry had just finished tying the reins of Felix's bridle to one of the steel beams when several of the workers called out in alarm. The wizard automatically apparated to the very edge of the unfinished bridge before he'd even finished consciously registering their cries so that he could find out what had frightened the men. He had half drawn both of his wakizashi blades from their sheaths on his back before he registered exactly what it was that he was seeing. The moment he saw the makeshift wooden bridge connecting the unfinished end of the bridge to the shore of Hi no Kuni, he knew that there was no danger.

There was only one man that he knew who could grow his own bridge and neither Harry nor the workers need fear him. Sliding his blades back into their scabbards, Harry relaxed and addressed the workers, "You can relax gentlemen; you're in no danger from the new arrivals."

"How can you be so sure?" a rather scruffy looking man demanded as he scowled at Harry before casting another worried glance at the newly grown extension.

"Because the man leading them is my Jounin teichou," Harry replied as the rumble of wagon wheels on wood reached his ears. "And he is escorting the much needed food and medical supplies that Konoha sent to relieve the suffering that Nami no Kuni has endured while under Gato's tyrannical control. There will be…"

The rest of Harry's words were cut off as the twenty three year old was tackled by a blue, orange, and blond blur with a loud cry of, "Niisan!"

Team Kakashi had, apparently, been assigned as part of the escort along with Yamato and it had been Naruto that had tackled the green eyed shinobi. Housei and Midori soon joined the impromptu dog-pile; it had been well over two weeks since the three Genin had seen the Chuunin and they had apparently missed him a bit. Those seventeen days were also the longest time that Harry had been separated from Naruto since the day they'd met one another. Harry laughed beneath the three teens as he distributed noogies and hugs in equal measure; he'd missed them just as much as they'd missed him.

"Did you purposefully go looking for trouble the moment I left or was this just more of your usual luck?" Yamato demanded in exasperation as he walked up beside the quartet and toed Harry's leg with his foot.

"Kotetsu got bored and my luck took care of the rest," Harry quipped back with a snort as he freed himself from the kids so he could stand back up. He'd barely regained his feet before Naruto latched onto him once more; the blond burying his face in Harry's side as he wrapped his arms around Harry's waist. "To tell you the truth, I'm just thankful that it was our team that got this mission. I shudder to think of what might have happened if Kakashi had shown up first that day and had been assigned as Tazuna-san's escort instead."

"I was rather impressed when I learned that the three of you captured Momochi Zabuza alive," Kakashi interjected as the group moved to one side to allow the two wagons carrying the promised supplies to trundle passed them; both wagons being driven by one of Naruto's shadow clones.

"Zabuza and his accomplice were a piece of cake when compared to the Oni Kyoudai," Harry countered with a slight scowl. "Those two bastards damn near killed me when I ran into them while I was alone."

"Nani!?" Naruto yelled as he jerked back and stared up at Harry in horror.

"A pair of Chuunin shouldn't have given you that much trouble," Yamato stated with a frown.

"It wasn't their skills that nearly killed me; it was the poison they coated their blades in. Well, that and the blood loss I was suffering from and the fact that I was tired at the time," Harry explained as he led the group back to where he'd left Felix; his eyes noting the two dozen uniformed guards wearing the sigil of the Fire Daimyou, the four green clad medics, and two masked AnBu Guards that had accompanied the supply caravan. "If I'd been wearing my cloak during the encounter, then they'd have never cut me up as bad as they had; since the cloak would have deflected more than half of their attacks. Unfortunately, I'd left my cloak behind when I infiltrated Zabuza's base that day and the two brothers caught me as I left."

"Why weren't Kotetsu and Izumo with you?" Naruto demanded as he briefly scowled at Harry before he began searching for the two men in question. "Where are they anyway? Shouldn't they be here too?"

"They were guarding our client the day I ran into the Oni Kyoudai and they spent this morning shipping our prisoners off to their guest quarters."

"As entertaining as it would be to watch you prank Kotetsu and Izumo for not keeping your cousin out of trouble, we still have a job to complete," Kakashi pointed out as he deftly began herding the three Genin in the direction of the still moving wagons. "Our job is to protect the medics and the supplies. You can finish catching up with Takeshi later."

"How many more mercenaries are still running free? And do you know where their base camp is located?" Yamato inquired as the three Genin reluctantly allowed their Jounin to shuffle them off.

"Roughly two dozen and they are scattered throughout the network of tunnels that run beneath the entire island. We had originally intended to flush them out this morning but we had to postpone our plans in order to transport those thugs that we'd already caught to the capital. Are you going to be taking over command of this mission now?"

"No, I'm here to help rebuild portions of Nami no Kuni's capital and to provide backup should you need help in rounding up the last of the bandits. Once Team Kakashi has finished overseeing the distribution of the supplies that were sent, they'll be available to help as well."

"I see," Harry mused with more than a little relief; having five extra bodies would make rounding up the last of the thugs a bit easier. "Ano, just out of curiosity, why are Daimyou's men here?"

"The guards are here to keep order and help reestablish the former government; that will include organizing an election for citizens of Nami to elect a new Daimyou to replace the previous lord."

Yamato stuck around a few minutes longer in order to gather a little more information before he headed into town where he would grow a small hospital to house the sick and injured while the team of medic nin treated them. Harry watched his friend and captain walk away for a moment before he returned his attention to his mission. As he stood guard over Tazuna that afternoon, Harry felt far more at ease than he had since the day he'd first learned that the bridge builder had lied about the mission.

Until Yamato and Team Kakashi had arrived, Harry hadn't even realized just how stressed he'd felt over being separated from his family for so long.

The final four days of the mission would pass by in a blur for Harry. Most of that first night had been spent filling Yamato and Team Kakashi in on the details of what had happened on the mission once everyone had finished their assigned tasks for the day. The following day would be spent rounding up the last of the mercenaries and shipping them off to Hi no Kuni's capital where they would be held for trial. Harry would then spend most of the twenty-first pulling down his wards from around the island while Yamato grew a new grocery store, a bank, a new school house, two hotels, and a small police slash guard station for the Daimyou's men.

Team Kakashi had spent that time helping the medics finish setting up the hospital, tearing down the old grocery store, and helping the villagers clean up the village (Naruto spamming his clones everywhere in order to tackle everything at once while his teammates supervised and coordinated the clones' efforts). Kotetsu had spent the day shadowing Tazuna while Izumo watched over Tsunami and Inari – the bridge builder's daughter and grandson venturing into town for the first time since the shinobi arrived in order to help with the clean up.

Tsunami would end up regretting bringing Inari into town with her because the eight year old ended up becoming fast friends with Naruto. Apparently, the two boys had bonded over their mutual respect for Harry and the fact that Inari was impressed to finally meet Harry's cousin. Harry would end up being on the receiving end of a second blistering lecture from the woman when Inari boldly announced his desire to become a shinobi that night at supper. The only reason the woman didn't strangle him in her ire was because Tazuna had stepped in to calm his daughter down.

Tsunami's adamant refusal to allow Inari to travel to Konoha to take up the life of a shinobi would do an abrupt one-eighty the very next day when the villager's elected her father as Nami no Kuni's next Daimyou upon completion of his bridge. The reason she gave for changing her mind was that her son would need to know how to defend himself from assassination attempts after he had been named his grandfather's heir. He would also need a proper education; something that Nami couldn't provide for him in its current condition.

The woman had cornered Harry yet again after that in order to tell him that she would hold him personally responsible for her son's health and education. Harry didn't hesitate to agree to watch over the eight year old; he'd grown rather fond of the gaki. The green eyed Chuunin would also end up as a temporary guardian for another three orphans that were roughly the same age as Tazuna's grandson that same day once word got out that he would be sponsoring Inari's enrollment in Konoha's Shinobi Academy.

The villagers hoped that the orphans would have an easier life in the larger village with the added bonus that if they ever returned to Nami, they would bring with them the training necessary to help them protect the village from future tyrants. A scenario that would more than likely come to pass as they would only be required to serve on Konoha's shinobi force for a minimum of five years if they passed the Genin exams once their education was complete due to the fact that they would still be considered citizens of Nami no Kuni. It was an arrangement that had long served those smaller nations that didn't have a Hidden Village to protect them from outside threats.

The completion of the bridge also marked the end of the mission and Teams Yamato and Kakashi would leave first thing the next morning with their four charges in tow. The first stop they made as soon as they crossed the bridge, which had been named the Great Naruto Bridge by Inari (much to Harry's bemusement), was to collect the wagon and shire team that had been left in a secured clearing all of this time.

The large group would then spend the next four days on the road.

Translations: Japanese to English

Ano – uh/um
Gaki – brat
Oni Kyoudai – Demon Brothers

AN: This chapter feels a little rushed but I actually expanded a couple of sections when I was editing it to make it a little less so. Part of the rush was also intentional though as Harry is feeling impatient for the mission to be over after all of the trouble that had cropped up and this chapter is from Harry's PoV. The next chapter will wrap up this arc and transition into the next one and will be up tomorrow night. ~ Jenn