"Once we localize them, should we proceed with a complete removal of the facility?", one of the ANBU men asked, waiting for instructions in front of Naruto's desk.

The way the ANBU phrased the question about the mission made him shiver.

"I… let's observe them for a bit. Give me another report in a week.", he heard himself responding.

The ANBU team nodded and swiftly left his office.

Silence and an uncomfortable feeling of being stared at intensely suggested to him that Shikamaru had comments, as always.

"Out with it, Shikamaru."

"There is no logic in observing them for a week. If they are there doing what we expect, the suspicions will be proven to be correct. In that case, they are a major threat to the village, along with the Fire Lord. You were simply trying to postpone having to make a decision, and I oppose that."

Goddamn Shikamaru, always reading him like an open book.

"Ok, that is true. But I don't like to simply murder people without trying to understand them first and trying to negotiate."

"There is no point in negotiating, Naruto, they sent out a crew to kill you. And now thinking about it, perhaps even the original bomb attack from a year ago could have been orchestrated by this group."

The mention of the attack which started all of this mess made Naruto shiver.

"Even if, there must be something deeper there, driving these men. They would not be simply evil for no reason."

One thing he would never give up on was believing that there was some good in everyone.

"You don't know them."

"I know Kiba. He might have lost his memory, but he is not a bad person. I cannot believe he would be doing something like that for so long without being given at least some good reasons."

"Naruto, Kiba was being brainwashed since the day he woke up over there, just like the rest of the men probably are. Remember, Ino found they were giving him some kind of drugs. You cannot rely on his good sense in such a situation."

"He might have been brainwashed, but he still has his morals. Let me talk to him first."

He saw Shikamaru rolling his eyes, but Shikamaru was smart enough to know that once Naruto decided to do something, trying to persuade him otherwise would have just been a waste of energy. Both men made their way back to the hospital.

"Kiba, I want to talk to you."

"Yes, Hokage-sama.", his friend said and bowed.

The fact that the dog-nin was still greeting him and referring to him that way made him feel very uneasy. He always teased Kiba about not showing him enough respect as a Hokage, but this was another level. One which he did not appreciate.

"I want to ask you about your motivations. For what you did at the facility."

That made the man visibly cringe and divert his gaze to the ceiling, just to avoid looking at him.

"I did what they told me to. There were not many other alternatives for me really."

That would not satisfy Naruto.

"If I asked you now to go and kill a child outside, would you do it?"

"Of course not."

"See. And you do not have currently many alternatives other than obeying me either."

That got him Kiba's eye contact again. Bingo. His friend spent some time thinking, obviously trying to put his thoughts into clear sentences.

"Look I- I did not remember much about the society or the ninja system at the time. But the little I did understand about the people around working with me - civilians for the most part - was how important safety was for them."

He felt his eyebrows rising. Now they were getting somewhere.

"What do you mean by that?"

Kiba smelled something in the air and then turned back to Naruto, now with a smirk on his face.

"You love Hinata, Hokage-sama."

Naruto had no clue how he arrived at that conclusion, but he figured that maybe he didn't even want to know, thinking of how much 'ew' some of the possibilities implied.

"Yes.", was all he responded.

"How would you feel if she was not a trained ninja herself and had to go out of the village for work or business on a regular basis?"

"I- I think I would never let her."

"Exactly. It's not the life that we live, but these people - the civilians - they are constantly afraid."

Naruto was starting to see where Kiba was coming from.

"At first, when they thought I was just an unlucky man, they would not even let me out of the complex, thinking I would be easily murdered, especially when I was still very weak. Afterwards, when they found out that I actually was a ninja who could defend himself… I saw how valuable it was in their eyes. Not just to the Lord, but to the other people working alongside me as well. And not just from the perspective of money or power, but… security. They wanted that too. They wanted to live safely at the end of the day. Most of them lost something, and many of them lost that something during 'the war' exactly because they could not defend themselves or the people around them they loved."

Naruto wanted to say something in return, but found himself unable to oppose that point.

"Hokage-sama, I am not trying to defend assassinating you. But if you ask about the motivations for my work there beyond simply not having other options, I just thought that giving civilians some means to defend themselves could surely not be that bad. I mean how could that be worse than training a twelve year old to kill?"

With Naruto still failing to reply, the dog-nin continued.

"They looked up to me for the training and experience I got, because I decided to be a ninja - to be paid for killing - when I was a kid. But what if I had decided not to? Would that have meant that I should automatically lose the right to feel safe without spending amounts that I could not afford?"

Naruto sighed, letting it all sink in.

One thing that was becoming clear to him was that the destruction of the facility was not the answer. He could destroy the means this way, but he would not solve the problem. It would just resurface again later.

Behind him, he heard Shikamaru shift uncomfortably.

Again, reading him like an open book.

"I know what you are thinking Naruto. But moral reasons or not, we cannot let that group continue their work, especially with the support of the Lord. It will be the end of the shinobi."

Naruto closed his eyes. Nothing was ever black and white.

"Maybe we don't have to pick one of these options, Shikamaru. Maybe both ideologies can exist together. Civilians can still be safe without ninja with tools, at least to a certain extent, but not all ninja services can be replaced with tools and we both know that."

Shikamaru was apparently surprised by his answer.

"So what do you want to do?"

"We will take over the development of ninja tools. Here, directly in Konoha. That way we can have direct oversight of the progress and uses of these tools."

A moment of silence that Shikamaru took to think about his answer suggested to him that this was not an idea so stupid that the genius could refute it instantly.

"I don't see how the Lord is going to agree with that.", he finally said.

"Who said I will leave that decision to him?"

Shikamaru laughed.

Naruto would always search for ways to try to reach an agreement first without fighting and bloodshed. And he would try that now too, also with the Lord.

But there was only so much leniency he would have with a man who dared betray his trust and use his own people against him.

He turned around, resolutely walking from the room back to his office. After the mess that was the last year and especially the last week and a half, finally, he felt like he was getting things under control again.