Being a C-Sec contracted P.I was evidently good business Jane thought, as she and Naruto sat down for dinner to celebrate her Spectre promotion. The Ninja having asked that they go to a weapons shop first, so that Naruto had some items other than the spare marine armour that had been rather quickly adapted to his size, before then asking if she then wanted to go for ramen afterwards. The request for assistance with procuring Naruto some new equipment had surprised her slightly, the young ninja usually determined to do everything by himself if he could at all manage it.

And, if he had been a bit older, Jane would have assumed he was yet another idiot trying to get into her pants by flaunting some money around. But that was just her rather pessimistic view on men shining through probably, and Naruto didn't seem the type that was used to having money at all, let alone enough of it to go on a spending spree like this.

They had left the others at the Normandy for now, even though Jane had agreed to have Tali, Garrus and Wrex join their crew that didn't mean she trusted them enough to let her guard down yet. They were each a specialist in their own fields and given the magnitude of the task before her, Jane wasn't going to turn down free allies, especially ones she actually knew without a doubt were against Saren.

But that didn't mean they weren't working for someone else that might decide to cause her trouble, so for now she would keep them at arm's length, Naruto clones watching their every move. As for the two Alliance members of her strikeforce, Ashley needed some rest after all the running around and Kaidan's implants had started acting up, meaning it was only the two of them.

So after a cab journey that took them away from the core of the Citadel and instead into one of it's arms, Naruto was now armed with a Firestorm Mk4 shotgun, a pair of Striker pistols and dressed in Predator armour that probably matched or exceeded her own armour at the moment in terms of defensive capability. Though she had been honest with her appraisal of the different weapon and armour types and their key points, Jane had initially baulked at the final price tag when he had followed her suggestions almost to the letter.

But Naruto had just given her another of his slightly infuriating grins before paying with a credit chip she certainly hadn't seen anyone give him and promising to explain later. After another mouthful of noodles, Jane decided that she might as well broach the topic now before it bugged her further.

"Naruto, where did you get the money to buy that equipment? You've only been on the Citadel a day..." Naruto chuckled and tapped something into his omni tool, not quite as agile as a normal person yet, but given his lack of familiarisation it was incredible quite how quickly he was adapting.

"Jane-chan, are you accusing me of immoral activities?" Even with the indignation in his voice Naruto's grin remained, and as she checked the mail that he had forwarded to her she could understand why.

"The Council gave you how much? Just because you are a new species that 'needs help integrating into society'? And yet they expect me to fund my hunt for Saren on my own money?" Naruto chuckled again and shook his head, even as her inbox chimed again with a notification of her accounts, showing a deposit of 50,000 credits had been made less than a minute ago from an unknown account.

Despite the generosity of the gesture Jane couldn't help but get angry at the young man in front of him, she didn't need pity from him even if that isn't how he meant it. Naruto seemed to realise her change in mood before she had a chance to speak, the young man quick to hold up his hands defensively as her own tightened into fists.

"Whatever you are thinking Jane-chan, it's not like that." Despite her inner urge to make her opinion of what it seemed like VERY clear, Jane decided to give Naruto a chance to explain himself first. After all, he had already surprised her a couple of times, this might yet be another one of them.

"From what the Council said along with Udina-san's information, Spectres can act as everything from business owners to assassins, as long as they keep broadly within the rules of the Citadel races and don't do anything overtly against the law. So in effect, you are now in the same job role that I used to be in Jane-chan only with a lot more freedom from your boss aka the Council to pick and choose any other jobs you wish to take." Way to water down her promotion even further, Naruto now made her sound like a gun for hire more than anything else.

"So with that in mind, the credits are a down payment on the job we already agreed on, back on the Normandy before we had to deal with these idiots." It took a moment, Jane's memories of the last few days since the rather whirlwind arrival of the young ninja, but then it clicked and she actually felt slightly guilty for her earlier anger.

"Naruto, I said I would help you look for your people because it is the right thing to do, not because of money. This is your money to start a life here, you could use it to get information..." Jane paused as Naruto held up a hand and pointed at the email that she still had open on her arm.

"You didn't read the small print Jane-chan, that money is more the Council's attempt to shut me up and get me off the Citadel. Obviously they didn't like me helping you during their bullshit..." Jane giggled slightly as the memories of the Turian Councillor came to the forefront of her mind, Naruto lowering his hand and relaxing a little as he finished explaining.

"So me giving you the money is, in order of increasing importance; a massive 'fuck you' to the three of them for what they tried to pull on us twice; my contribution to the 'let's stop some maniac from trying to wipe out the galaxy' fund and..." Naruto paused and for the first time he looked actually uneasy with what he was going to say next.

"What is it Naruto?" The ninja seemed to wrestle with something for a moment before he smiled apologetically at her.

"An apology for effectively blackmailing the Council into promoting you into being a Spectre. Whilst it works out very well for me as I can travel the galaxy looking for my people with you, that doesn't mean that it was the right way for it to happen." Jane couldn't help but smile at the obvious awkwardness Naruto was exhibiting, it wasn't exactly as if the Council had any other choice given the circumstances anyway.

"Naruto, don't worry about it." At his slightly disbelieving look she slugged him in the arm, which to her counted as camaraderie.

"Honestly Naruto it's fine, I am some what used to getting promotions due to politics rather than merit unfortunately, I was only a squaddie when Elysium was hit and then suddenly the promotions came storming in. Even the one to the Normandy could be considered a promotion, not that I saw it that way." It was only as Naruto tilted his head in obvious confusion that Jane realised that despite his rapid acclimatisation he was still a complete novice to Galactic history and her recent role in it.

That was probably one of the reasons she found herself so comfortable with the young ninja, even if they didn't mean to, almost everyone she spoke to or worked with in the Alliance talked to her with the kind of awe that bordered on reverence. She tried not to let it piss her off but it was irritating to be held up on such a pedestal and then judged for everything she did based against that inhuman image.

A memory of a snarling Batarian stood over her father's corpse came to the fore of her mind and she shook her head to remove it even as she came to a decision. Whilst she couldn't tell Naruto about all of her past, hell even Anderson didn't know about her darkest moments, it would be better he hear what happened on Elysium from her rather than one of her admirers. Steeling her nerves, Jane began to speak.

"I suppose I should explain a little more about myself for you to understand that. It was my first tour of duty after graduating the marine academy..." Naruto turned out to be a pretty good listener despite his usually sarcastic and gobby attitude, nodding at the right moments and keeping himself to short questions about things.

Jane couldn't say it was nice to talk about it all once more, the number of reports and evaluations she had been forced to complete in the years after her rather desperate defence meant it had become almost a numbing experience. But the fact that Naruto had no preconceived notions about her, and didn't seem at all put off by the rather brutal melee combat she had resorted to when she had finally run out of ammo, was strangely calming.

Though his lack of distaste for the messiness of close quarter fighting made sense considering he came from a society that didn't know what guns were until their genocide began, so it was probably a norm for him. At the end of it Naruto shrugged, which wasn't the reaction Jane expected either way.

"As much as you probably don't want to hear this Jane-chan, that is how it always happens. If it weren't for that kind of favouritism in fact I probably wouldn't even be here..." Now that was the sort of statement which promised an interesting story, and after bearing her heart (as much as she could really imagine herself managing), Jane felt that she was owed some personal information of her erstwhile and still mysterious companion...

*line break*

Telling the tale of his graduation, with a large amount of artistic licence of course to avoid mentioning the Kyuubi, Naruto knew that he had managed to distract Jane from her own insecurities about her promotion for the time being. Whilst he and the Kyuubi had come to something of an agreement after the invasion, the fox far less keen to break out after they had seen what happened to Kirabi and the Hachibi, that didn't mean he wanted anyone to know about his major trump card until push came to 'need to annihilate a small army in a few minutes'.

So he made Mizuki out to be a simple infiltrator who had just used Naruto as the fall guy to steal village secrets for him, the Hokage promoting him despite his rather sketchy academy performance due to his parents as he had known them before they died. It wasn't entirely untrue and had been something that had plagued Naruto after Konoha had fallen, the boy struggling in the first couple of months due to his rather deficient academy lessons on things like survival skills.

If it hadn't been for people like Sakura to teach him, Naruto was sure even the Kyuubi wouldn't have been able to stop him from dying due to infection and all the other fun slow ways to die that came with living in the wild. Sarutobi in his right mind shouldn't have promoted him even with Kage Bushin to use as a massive crutch, so Naruto guessed it had to do with the Kyuubi and his parents, whose identity Jiraiya had belated revealed during one of Naruto's manic depressive stints. After beating the old sage to a pulp for not telling him sooner, which was lengthened when Jiraiya was stupid enough to mention he was also his godfather, Naruto had gone on a robot killing spree so he had time to think.

Whilst he didn't like the fact that revealing his heritage would have reversed his terrible childhood, the fact that a couple of the Iwa survivors they had managed to rescue had to be restrained from trying to kill him meant it was obviously a good decision in the greater view of things.

"Wow, I think that might be on par with my shitty teenage years, and no I don't want to talk about that." Jane's comment brought him back to the conversation that had somehow managed to make both of them talk about their past, which was something Naruto had been quite determined not to do but had failed rather spectacularly at already.

"No worries Jane-chan, I won't pry any further I promise. Now, I think... Yes, let's have another three Miso Ramen and also one of those Exotic ramen." He looked back at Jane ready to continue talking when he saw the look of shock on her face as she looked between the three already empty bowls in front of him and his stomach.

His grin widened as he recognised the look many people had given him when he was younger and had watched him eat, whilst it wasn't an important thing he still liked to think of it as a type of prank, and he always enjoyed his pranks...

After those four bowls of ramen Naruto decided to take pity on Jane and stopped there rather than blow her mind with how much he could truly eat. So after some more light hearted bantering about the bill, which Naruto liked to think he won with his query about if he paid for it would it count as a date, the meaty bruise from Jane's shocked swot to the face well worth it for the blush he managed to bring out.

The fact she felt guilty about it was definitely a bonus as his advantage would last longer than the actual damage given his healing factor, and having your effective boss feeling like she owes you something was pretty much never a bad idea. Their return to the Normandy from the presidium was interrupted by his name being called out through the rather quiet evening crowds, Naruto recognising Nirali Bhatia as she approached with a middle aged man of a similar skin complexion in close pursuit.

"Naruto, excuse me Naruto! Oh, sorry Spectre I didn't mean to interrupt your business..." Nirali had obviously not seen Jane when she had called out to him, and whilst Nirali seemed uncaring about Jane's new status the man with her gasped in slight shock before giving a bow.

Jane seemed to do her best not to get irritated at the interruption and undisguised awe from the man with Nirali and the other humans who had heard her shout. In an attempt to move the attention and conversation onwards Naruto stepped forwards between the three of them and bowed slightly to Nirali.

"Hello there Nirali-chan, I am glad to see the last of your injuries have healed up now, what can I do for you?" Nirali smiled genially at him before returning his bow, subtly elbowing the man with her into doing the same.

"I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you again for saving me on Eden Prime, with everything that is going on I didn't really get a chance. Also, this is my husband Samesh, he wanted to try and get you to talk me out of accompanying you on the Normandy as Dr Chakwas' assistant, if you will have me Spectre?" The now introduced Samesh was quick to follow up Nirali's comment, wringing his hands together anxiously as he did so.

"You're no soldier Nirali, it is bad enough you went to Eden Prime with Geth attack, until I got your message I thought I had lost you. Now you wish to join the Spectre's entourage and go back into danger? Please Spectre, can you make her see reason..." The man's impassioned plea was better than Naruto had actually expected, many people in his position would let their fears and worries turn into anger far too easily.

"I know I am no soldier, but other than Commander Shepard, Naruto here and a few others I actually have experience of dealing with the aftermath of a Geth attack! I helped both on Eden Prime and also when Dr Chakwas was dealing with the injured servicemen on the way back to the Citadel." Nirali's similarly impassioned outburst garnered even more attention than her shout of Spectre had, many people stopping and starting to listen to the unfolding argument even as Nirali continued, her voice lowering as she looked pleadingly at Jane.

"Please Spectre, after all that I have been through I want to be useful, rather than just stand aside and cower until it is too late. Given the number of Geth and the size of that ship, Eden Prime cannot be the only colony they are going to attack. I am a fully trained doctor Spectre and have high scores in basic training, it's why I was posted to Eden Prime." Nirali made a good point and no doubt there would be an awful lot of wagging tongues and extranet posts in the aftermath of this either way.

Naruto was all for Nirali joining them, she knew his secret after all so keeping her on the Normandy made tactical sense as well as her being one of his few friends thus far. Also, given the scene around them, she had just made herself a target if Saren felt like getting any more information about what happened on Eden Prime. Given the grim look on Jane's face she probably had realised the same thing.

"Mr Bhatia, I understand your concerns, but I assure you that the safest place for your wife to be during this will be on the Normandy. Based on what we know about the fugitive who is working with the Geth, he has an anti-human sentiment that means he will be wanting to target any of the survivors from Eden Prime that might have information related to him." The point made Samesh look even more anxious, and Naruto could tell he was about to become unreasonable. So in an attempt to mitigate the messy marital argument to come as well as reinforce the fake image of his honour bound sense of duty, Naruto spoke up in his best confident manner.

"Bhatia-san, your concern for your wife is touching, but she became a doctor because she wanted to help people, you can't stop her from doing that without trying to stop her being herself. And besides, she will be safe on the ship and I will keep an eye on her, she owes me for saving her life and I won't let anything happen to one of my friends." He had thought about saying something about keeping an eye on her until she could pay him back, but that wouldn't help calm Samesh down in all likelihood.

Samesh was obviously surprised by his input, no doubt due to his age more than anything else, but it seemed that it had managed to calm the man down to the point he was realising he wasn't going to win this particular fight. With the man seemingly convinced Nirali seemed much happier and they continued to talk for a few more minutes before Jane made her excuses about having to get back to the ship, which Naruto took as their cue to leave.

She did flash him a two fingered hand signal with her left hand whilst they were saying their goodbyes, which was part of the code they had been working on given his more... unique abilities. It was still fairly basic, but if Jane indicated with her left hand she was indicating a number of clones up to five that she wanted scouting the area or in this case keeping an eye of the Bhatia's. If she used her right hand then she wanted batches of 5 clones based on the number of fingers, these would be used more for straight up area denial or combat if they were alone or with those they could trust.

So as they departed, Naruto used the rather massed crowds to slip away into the side alleys and from there the higher levels of the Citadel. Now out of the way and unlikely to be spotted, Naruto formed the hand sign that was so familiar to him now it almost felt as natural as breathing. He created 20 clones, pointing at 2 of them to indicate which ones he wanted to follow the Bhatia's, the surplus clones would spread out and see if they could follow the already dispersing gossip back to anyone linked with Saren.

Not that he thought any of it would, most of the clones had only gathered information relating to various small gangs and their activities aboard the station, which he planned on compiling and giving into the Executor later. He shifted back to Jane, no one any the wiser, ready to head back to the Normandy in an attempt to get to know their new 'team'. Then suddenly an idea came to him about how to use his information, and Jane's new status, in a way that would definitely help both of them.

"Jane-taichou?" Obviously his use of the more official suffix and grin told more of a tale than he thought it would, Jane looking at him a little warily even as she replied.

"Yes Naruto?" Oh yes, Naruto was going to enjoy explaining this one...

*Line Break*

"30 crates of red sand, dozens of illegal weapons and mods, 14 smugglers and what's left of their hired muscle, the list goes on!" Yes Jane concluded, Naruto had been right when he had said that the Executor wasn't going to be happy with them, probably the reason the blonde ninja had found excuses not to be here for it.

Pallin seemed undecided between apocalyptic anger or frustrated approval of their actions, which was reasonable Jane thought with hindsight as her team had very much rocked the Citadel boat as it were. Pallin had been listing the items her teams had delivered or secured for C-Sec in what Naruto had jokingly termed 'Operation teamwork.'

Jane had to give the young man credit, he was definitely unorthodox in his ideas and they were generally very good ones. The amount of data on gangs and other criminals his small but widespread clone network had gathered was astounding and definitely gave her enough targets, but as they soon discovered that was a limiting factor in and about itself.

The sheer volume meant that Jane was quickly overwhelmed as she tried to come up with a cohesive target plan, the Naruto clones doing little to distinguish targets by importance or ease of targeting, meaning that she had tried to do it herself. Then she remembered that she had the entire bridge crew of the Normandy available to her and quickly delegated the task to them, suiting up and leading some of the ground forces in order to relieve some of the frustration the data analysis had built up.

She had Garrus lead the Alliance marines that had been seconded to her command, under the watchful eye of Kaidan so that he could evaluate his skills to make sure he would be as useful in battle as he would be as an investigator. Jane would have liked to evaluate the Turian herself, despite the Executor's very impressive report Jane was someone who liked to 'Trust, but Verify', but she was busy leading her own strike team of Ashley, Tali and 3 of the other marines.

"I am glad that you managed to keep it quiet and had Garrus leading the main team, people are thinking this is a C-Sec operation for now and I think you want to keep it that way Spectre. Especially given the carnage Uzumaki and his newest compatriot caused in the wards..." Ah yes her new clearing team, Naruto and Wrex would probably not have been most people's first choice as a small team, but she had thought that the Krogan's durability and Naruto's speed would work well together.

"In their defence Executor, there were no civilian casualties and they did clear their objectives much faster than Garrus' more conventional approach. And why would I want to keep this action a secret, allowing C-Sec to get the glory?" Executor Pallin looked torn for a moment before he replied with a resigned air that Jane was starting to notice he used a lot when she and Naruto were involved.

"Primarily because you will cause me and the Council a pyjack storm of trouble in the media if it gets out that a brand new spectre can clear up more of the citadel in one day than my men can do in a month." The idea of pissing the Council off was tempting, and it would probably get them working that little bit faster on finding leads for her if there was the implied threat she would just carry on until she had some other direction.

"And I know the Council have probably deserved whatever plot you are planning with that smirk, but I hope that you remember how helpful I have been in your previous adventures before your ascension, and therefore don't want to doom me to dealing with that beyond what you are making me sort out now."

"Ah, yeah, I would say I am sorry but I still like to think that I've done you a good turn today. If not, blame your new contractor, it was his idea." If Naruto was going to avoid this meeting, Jane was going to make sure he got at least some of the heat from it.

"No, it is true that this will make my life a little easier in the long run, and your point about Uzumaki brings me to the second reason you should let this be a C-Sec Op, and I promise that this will go a long way to levelling the field with your new employer. Have you heard of the 'Spectre assistance' section in the C-Sec codex?" Oh, well this sounded promising.

Pushing herself off the wall she had leant against during Palin's rant about the goods, Jane could smell a good negotiating opportunity arising and that brought a real smile to her face. Barter and negotiation had been the keystones in her time at the orphanage post mindoir and had served her well at the academy, she liked to think she had a knack for it that went beyond just enjoying the victory at the end.

"By all means Executor, why don't you enlighten me?" Judging by the combative grin of the Executor's own face, she wasn't the only one who was going to enjoy this...

A/N: Yeah it is a bit of a fill chapter, but I needed it to both give a bit more development to the character's and get the team's 'First Mission' out of the way. Honestly, if I were a new Spectre and told I had to fund everything myself I would have gone to war on the Citadel underworld so fast the Council wouldn't have had time to give me my badge.

Jane has hit a lot of the smaller gangs on the Citadel now and whilst the illegal stuff has been handed across to Pallin (I refuse to make another cliched 'Paperwork is the bane of all life' jokes prevalent in Naruto stories now, no matter how apt.), all of the cash and anything her teams can use or sell will have disappeared back to the Normandy if at all possible.

A self funded Secret Agent is one who very quickly becomes a scavenger if they weren't already, especially if they want to avoid the darker root of working for other people as well as the Council.

Anyways, so apologies if you think this is a bit Council bashy, I have tried to tone it down a bit but Jane is more than a bit peeved at them and will be for some time. What did we all think of my reasoning behind Naruto's promotion? I think that the steepest learning curve for Naruto will have been the non-fighting parts of his time after the robot invasion, given that even in the anime he struggles with the academy field trip...

Thanks to PageOfMind again for his work on my previous chapters with the Betaing, but unfortunately they have had to step back, so my new beta reader is DeathKnight999, so big thanks to them for this!