Standing in a dark room, he was wondering why he had been called in directly by the Lord, especially this late in the evening.

He saw the Lord in a chair in front of him reading a newspaper. His sight landed on the title page of it that he could see and noticed it was almost a year old. Not that it was his business, he was always just a bit too observant.

He straightened up and cleared his throat to attract the attention of his employer.

"You wanted to talk to me, sir?"

That got him the Lord's attention. He saw the Lord eyeing him up and down, very intently and then looking back at something on the paper in his hand. And then back at him, smiling a little.

"I am a very lucky man. Change of plans. You will go with the group to crush the Hokage's contingent on his trip to the kage summit."

He felt his eyebrows rising. This was definitely very different from the original plan that he was aware of.

"Yes, sir. But I thought you did not want to send any ninja in order to prove your point."

"Well, and I changed my mind. The main goal is that the Hokage dies and something is telling me that perhaps, you might have an advantage when fighting him."

An advantage? In any case, again, this was not for him to think about. He knew the Lord had his plans and would not change his mind.

"Very well. When are we leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning. Get them when they are at the canyon. It will be easier to simply push them down when it comes to improvisation and you surely have an advantage in difficult terrain. And remember, the goal is to kill. Let the mercenary group try to tackle them first, but if you see them having any difficulty, jump in and finish the job."

He nodded and left to pack his tools.

Ino woke up suddenly, realizing that the target of her technique lost consciousness. Sakura was immediately at her side with a supportive hand on her shoulder.

"What happened? Why did you break the link?"

Ino, still slightly disoriented, just threw a glance the passed out dog-nin on the bed, regretting that she did not break the link a bit earlier.

Sakura, as if reading her thoughts, made her way to the patient and checked that his condition was still stable.

"Seems like it was a bit too much for the beginning. But we did manage to get something out…"

"What was that?"

Only now processing what she saw, Ino's tone was becoming truly serious.

"Sakura, we must talk to Naruto and Shikamaru immediately."

"You think WHAT?" Naruto could not believe his ears.

"I don't think that, I am quite certain of that. It was the Lord of the Land of Fire who sent Kiba to take you out.", Ino emphasized.

"That makes no sense! He himself agreed to appoint me as a Hokage!" Confusion was an understatement when it came to what Naruto felt right now.

"I don't care whether it makes sense or not, I clearly saw him."

After a few uncomfortable seconds later, Shikamaru sighed and looked Ino into the eyes.

"How do we know that Kiba's memory had not already been tampered with before, by whoever sent him? Maybe someone wanted us to see exactly this, to create conflict inside the Fire country.", he offered, clearly being as skeptical about the matter as Naruto himself.

"I would have noticed. This is not a memory that Kiba consciously had, it was something I had to work hard to get out. If someone had implanted that, it would have been on the surface, much easier to get to."

Naruto has always trusted Ino with her work, which is why she was leading the interrogation corps of Konoha at the moment. At the same time, there was no way he was just going to easily accept the fact that the Fire Lord was secretly trying to kill him.

"So you are saying that Kiba worked for this man the entire time he was gone?" Shikamaru asked after a few more moments passed, obviously also trying to paint the full picture.

"At least for some time, yes, it seemed like it. From the way Kiba felt about the dialogue, it looked like it was something normal for him and he was being paid to carry out missions for him on a regular basis.", Ino explained.

"So Kiba… he just stayed there instead of returning back to Konoha and obeyed every word? I cannot believe that.", Naruto heard himself responding in disbelief. Nothing was making sense to him at the moment. Kiba had many flaws, sure, but he was always loyal to a fault.

"From what I saw in that memory, at that time, he was already completely clueless about the world around him and who he was. When the Lord mentioned the Hokage, he did not even think of you or recall your name. I think he was already suffering from major amnesia back then, or he was drugged somehow."

"You think it was just a coincidence that the Lord happened to send Kiba specifically on the mission to attack the Hokage?", Shikamaru asked, with a tone of voice suggesting that he himself doubted that very much.

"No. From the short dialogue that I saw, I believe the Lord actually recognized that Kiba was your friend at some point, Naruto. Which is why he sent him with the mercenary group to attack you…"

"... because he knew that as his friend, I would have a hard time fighting back.", Naruto finished, feeling adrenaline rushing in his veins.

"We all would have. And we all did.", Shikamaru added.

Naruto thought that he would be sick. He always trusted people and expected the best from them. It was probably his biggest weakness, but also his biggest strength. He couldn't believe that someone like the Lord himself would send people out to kill him - and not just any people. Based on what Ino was telling him, this person secretly brainwashed and hired his own friend to do the job, hoping that Naruto would have a harder time defending himself in such a case.

"We need more information before we take any direct action.", Shikamaru concluded. "We need to know where these operations are taking place and what the reasons behind them are."

Ino agreed. "I will try to get that out too, but I need to wait until he wakes up by himself before I use my jutsu on him again. I don't want to fry his brain."

That was actually probably good, Naruto thought, as it would give him some time to think about it all.

A walk around Konoha could probably help as the village did have a calming effect on him. He was feeling too much at the same time, and he needed a clearer head to make decisions.

Naruto was generally not an indecisive person, especially when it came to feelings. But that was definitely not the case now.

His mind was preoccupied with the feeling of betrayal, should all of these allegations about the Fire Lord prove to be true. The Fire Lord was not the only source of his confusion however, and for the bigger part of the past few days, he had someone completely else on his mind.

There was definitely the feeling of a relief and happiness from having his presumably-dead childhood friend back in the village and very much alive.

There was, however, also the unease associated with the fact that considering how much Kiba remembered, he might have as well been a complete stranger. And the fact that he, well, kind of tried to murder Naruto in cold blood not even a week ago. Though if he indeed was completely amnesiac or drugged at the time as Ino suggested, Naruto knew he could move past that without any problems.

And finally, there was the feeling of guilt. One which he knew anyone would tell him was unjustified, but one which he could not just let go of. The fact that his friend obviously survived and Naruto, as his friend and his Hokage, was not there for him after it happened.

Naruto would never forget the day.

He was just sitting in his office, and wow, even after almost a year, it still hadn't quite absorbed that it indeed was his office and he was the Hokage sitting in it. What, however, wasn't absorbing either was whatever Shikamaru and Sakura were trying to explain to him and which was, quite apparently, an essential part of the administration that he would have to soon deal with.

Suddenly, a sound of a massive explosion penetrated through the village. Anything would be more interesting than the stack of papers on his desk even were he not the Hokage worrying about the safety of his village, and he quickly rose and ran to the balcony, with Shikamaru and Sakura following closely behind.

They saw a cloud of smoke and fire rising from the forest a couple of kilometers away from the village borders. The loud sound was followed up by silence and then, scream, coming from somewhere just behind the Hokage tower.

It took Naruto only a few seconds to make his way to the source.

Mirai.

"Mirai, what's going on?", he grabbed the girl by her shoulders, trying to calm her down.

That was not working however and the girl was not even just crying, but having a total breakdown. He couldn't see what was wrong. She looked unharmed, and there was no one around and no blood spill.

"Mirai, talk to me!", he insisted.

"Naruto, let me-", Sakura interrupted, freeing Mirai from Naruto's hold. She put two fingers on the girl's forehead and after a faint glow of green, the kid instantly relaxed. Once again, he didn't regret one bit that he promoted Sakura to be the chief medic a few days after he took office, regardless of the fact that some people loudly objected to that decision and accused him of being biased.

"So, now, Mirai. Tell us. What's going on?", Sakura inquired.

"He is gone!", she got out along with a sob.

"Who?"

"Ki-Kiba-senpai."

Naruto knew that Kiba would take Mirai to walk around the village quite often, to give Kurenai some time for herself and also to teach Mirai a few things about tracking and searching. Now that he was the chief of police, checking on the village regularly made sense for him, and Mirai found his job very interesting, so she would gladly accompany him and even help him around.

At the same time, Mirai was fairly independent, and so he did not understand why she would be so upset about Kiba leaving her. Exchanging a look with Sakura told him that she was just as perplexed.

"Did something happen to you after he left?", she asked the girl, eyeing her up and down and searching for possible injuries.

"N-no, b- but he is gone!" Not helpful.

"Gone where?", Naruto tried.

Mirai did not say anything, just pointed behind him. He turned and felt all blood draining from his face.