Ink Heart

by Foy the Snooze Button

People always thought that to be strong a person had to have bulging muscles or super speed, or almighty battle field levelling jutsu; some of the more naive people taught that to be strong one had to have someone or somewhere to love, someone they had to strive to protect. But all of that changed when Naruto entered the picture. Scientist!Naruto

7. Chapter 7

Yo!

Thank you all for your amazing reviews! Keep 'em coming, keep 'em coming.

In this chapter Naruto is going to do something he has NEVER done before. Cookies for the person or people that can guess what he does. There will be a few flashbacks, maybe two or three, so be prepared. Also, Aoki-chan still works under Naruto and she was raised in a proper samurai home. So, despite how close she is with Naruto, she still calls him 'boss' or 'sir' as well as 'Naruto'.

A warning before you read, I will be changing a lot of things about the fourth great ninja war and a few abilities, like Zetsu clones. Keep an open mind while reading.

I hope you enjoy reading it…

CHAPTER 7

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Naruto asked as he sceptically looked down at the snowy landscape sparsely populated by decrepit huts that operated as shops. He squinted his red eyes, hidden under his goggles, at the massive mountain that the 'market town' was named after. He shared a sceptical look with his samurai friend, as they stood on another mountain which was much shorter than mount Yomisaki,

Aoki-chan turned the large map in her hands over and looked at the sun, hidden behind a few clouds, to confirm if they were really north, she looked down at her map again and nodded resolutely, "I'm positive this is Yomisaki market town,"

About two hours ago, the duo had been on the run from an entire hidden village after they had taken a tour of their hidden underground library.

Flashback

Naruto hopped backwards from a mallet and was forced to disperse into multiple spiders as he sensed a sword cutting through the air towards his spine. The spiders reassembled beside the female ronin, who was expertly deflecting and countering sword strokes from the sea of humanity before them, all of whom were wearing Kumo forehead protectors. He grabbed her hand and she didn't strike because she was very much aware of what his hand felt like at that point and she used that cue to stab her sword into the ground and yell,

"Earth pulse!"

The ground rippled under them violently and threw the thousands of ninjas raining surrounding them away, giving the duo a chance to run. Naruto, dragging the female by her hand towards the exit, ignored the accusing look his friend was sending him as they blurred to their destination. Rows and rows of shelves and books that reached high onto the roof blurred around them as they tried to navigate their way back to where they had come from.

"I knew this was a bad idea!" she shouted over the pained groans and outraged screams, "I freaking told you, Naruto!" she could see the ninjas wall running towards them on the shelves, hundreds of them surging from behind them and a few coming from in front,

"Yell at me later, Aoki-chan," he grunted before a grin and a loud hoot left his mouth, "but isn't this fun?!"

For a fraction of a second her eyes turned red, "no it isn't!"

"Hey, hey, hey, remember, you did ask me what I wanted for my birthday," he said with a lax roll of his eyes,

"I thought you were joking…" her screaming reduced fractionally before it went up again, "but-but-but what sort of birthday present is finding out the secret of the Raikage's lightning armour?" Naruto shot two senbon downwards and they clanged against the shiny tiles and impaled their intended target,

"I like being spontaneous, Aoki-chan, you know that," he said and looked over his shoulder with large doey eyes, even with subtly wobbling lips, "don't you like my unpredictability…?" he idly sent three kicks to three cloud ninjas that dove at him from the ceiling,

The ronin blushed a little and looked away, "whatever,"

Naruto smiled and used his other hand to poke her reddening cheeks, "your birthday is in a few months. I swear on my name and my summoning scroll that you can do anything you want that day. Deal?"

She looked at him sharply, then away again, allowing him to drag her through the obnoxiously large room, shelves of books spread out far and wide with which they were running through, "deal," she muttered back

The secret Kumogakure underground library was located at the epicentre of the village, under the Raikage's tower and dangerously deep under the ground with about twenty seven separate rooms and five levels going downwards, each one with records of Kumo, as well as the worlds, history and accomplishments as well as secret techniques. Only chunin and higher were able to know about it but ANBU and the Raikage were the only ones allowed access, plus the few chunin that maintained the library. The sort of defences placed on and inside the underground library could be split into three types; sensors, alarms and locks. All of them were level at least level seven; up to five different locks on the entrance door located under the Kage's desk, each one had to opened at the very same time or the alarms would go off, this led to stairs winding downwards two flights with sensory-detection seal combinations peppering the walls that detected the if the person walking down the stairs was authorised, if not the alarms would sound. The stairs landed in the first room, an empty space with white paint that had a larger than life locking seal at the very end of the room, which had a special name tag-seal that had to be swiped over it, otherwise the person breaking in would be struck with lighting chakra that would freeze them in place until ninjas came to (violently) apprehend him or her. From there it was simply using the same methods getting that far to traipse from room to room, level to level, and touring around the super-secret library. This was possibly the strongest and most secure location in the entire country and it was suicide to break into it. Once a team of rogue Sand ninjas attempted to break in, after interrogating one of the chunin in charge of the library, and were stopped before they could even gain entry into the Kage's tower. The horrors the missing ninjas underwent, the torture they had to endure before they were generously allowed to die could only be left for the imagination.

The fact that the only entrance and exit to the library was located in the Raikage's office should dissuade any sane person from even thinking about it.

But Naruto couldn't really be classified as sane.

To Naruto, sneaking into the building was child's play; Konoha had even better security and he snuck in when he was twelve. The problem lay on his ronin friend, who just so happened to refuse any and every ninja art lesson he wanted to give her, preferring the way of the samurai, or as close to the way of the samurai in her case, so he had a problem sneaking her in as well, especially when she was adamant that something would go wrong and their heads would be on the chopping block. He still managed to convince her enough that what he wanted for his birthday was the secret to the current Kage's lightning armour. He broke into the office at the time the Raikage was half way to Iron country to attend the Kage's summit and the eight and two tails were on a mission to Turtle island. There was a big gap in the villages defence because of this, and Naruto was made aware of it from the informants his KDC ninja and samurai guards had. He bypassed the seal on the door and picked a seal key card from the chunin receptionist, who left it on his desk, as he looked down to look for the schedule, replacing it with an identical Henge'd cardboard card. From that point all it took to opening the five locking seals on the trap door under the Kage's desk was making five lightning clones and unlocking it at once. From there it was all smooth sailing; Naruto distracted his bodyguard with the wonders of all the books around while he subtly looked for the lightning armour creation scroll. Thankfully (depending on how you look at it) he found the scroll, removed every trap seal on it and stuffed it in his pockets before the alarm bells sounded when Naruto realized that he had forgotten to check whether removing the trap seals would activate the alarms.

On purpose.

A large grin stretched on Naruto's face and dragging his partner through the air as she used her free hand to deflect thrown weapons, Naruto now had a four inch long senbon in his grasp as he slashed the few ninjas that managed to overtake them, with help from channelling lightning chakra into their limbs. Naruto spun around, positioning the ronin in front of him so that she could yell out one of her swords jutsu,

"Earth: Leopard bullets!" she clenched her sword in her left hand and levelled it on the oncoming ninjas blocking the elevator to the first floor directly under the Kage's desk. The result was brownish chakra coating the sword and bullets shaped as claws shot from the tips, five every second, and impaled the ninjas after they valiantly attempted to block the attacks. She ignored his look when she refused to let him lead, "I'm not destroying any of these scrolls," and then she added, "And I'm supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around,"

He got his feet back under him and ran with her, disregarding the fact that they were still holding hands, "I was trying to be a gentleman,"

She scoffed, "we both know it's too late for that," she skidded into the metal box with her boss and Naruto kicked the control panel, destroying the buttons, and flowing through five one handed hand seals,

"Summoning jutsu: Ninja art: Web of lies," and from the palm of his hands a sparkling white web blasted out and covered the entrance of the elevator, blocking it off from the other ninjas, and as the web hardened it turned black; they could already hear the ninjas frantically hacking through it. They could see the small, fingernail sized spiders with red beeping abdomens sluggishly walking on his summoned web with a constant trail of silk coming out of their abdomens to maintain the structural integrity of the web wall for as long as possible. Naruto ran up the walls, Aoki-chan's right hand still in his left, and a senbon slipped out from his right sandal, under his foot, and he flipped backwards back onto the ground, carving cleanly through the metal roof of the elevator and forcing the samurai to flip with him just so he wouldn't twist her arm. He stomped his foot and the acid eroding through the roof opened wide enough for his guard to jump up first and forcing, this time for him, to leap up as well so that she wouldn't tear his arm off with her iron grip. The duo ran up the walls as fast as they could jointly do and Naruto took the liberty of kicking open the closed door of the elevator level above the one they had just escaped from. He smiled and made a flourished movement at it, "after you," she rolled her eyes and dragged him with her after her, "see? I can be a gentleman,"

"It doesn't count if you have to kick the door open," they stopped abruptly when they beheld the ninjas standing at the ready to intercept them, not forgetting about the ninjas struggling to break his web,

He leaned to her and whispered from the side of his lips, staring at the ninjas standing in front of him, each one first looking hesitant at who they were about to attack before they tried to steel their faces, "it counts,"

She whispered back, "no it doesn't,"

"Yes it does,"

"No it doesn't," she heatedly whispered,

"We'll talk about this later," he said with finality. He held his right hand above his head, palm open, and a glowing ball of blue chakra inflated in his hands, this seemed to be the signal for the Kumo ninjas to attack but it was too late, "Web bomb: level four,"

Flashback end

If the Hidden Cloud wanted to have any more reason to hate Uzumaki Naruto, the Nine Tailed Spider, then breaking into their top secret library and basically making a fool of their defences was reason enough. This was also including the fact that Orochimara and Naruto had made a fool out of the village previously on their training journey to Uzushio.

Aoki-chan rolled up the map and perched it under her arms as she held up a pair of binoculars to her eyes, Naruto's goggles spun within themselves as they zoomed in, the ronin nodded, "I'm very sure this is the place,"

Naruto pricked his thumb with a single senbon from his silver launchers and a moment later a small poof of smoke later and a grey spider as large as a horse skittered out of the chakra smoke and knelt down with all eight legs in front of Naruto. Naruto offered his hand to his partner and she gratefully took it as she mounted on his summons while he jumped on and sat with both legs crossed on the spiders large head, leaving the wide and partially flat abdomen for his partner, "go," he simply said and the spider began his hasty run to Yomisaki market town,

This was when the female ronin behind him, also sitting with her legs but with her legendary sword on her lap, her bow crossed over her body and her quiver of arrows on her back, poked the backpack on his back to get his attention and said, "the sooner we settle down you can begin the preparations," her lips were curved upwards in a small smile and her face glowed when he sighed, merely looking over his shoulder for a fraction of a second before he looked back forward to where his summons was taking them to,

"Sure, sure, I'll start right away,"

Flashback

Thirty minutes after escaping Kumo

Border of Spring country

Naruto was usually very well composed. It was what people had come to know him for most of all, even more than they acknowledged his skill and strength. As a genin he was able to stare Kakashi and Gai in the eyes and have the presence of mind to deduce what they intended to do to him as well as form a plan to succeed. He had once gone up against the four tails jinchuriki after he and his godmother had passed through Iwa during their training journey without panicking and had that same calm and collected presence of mind to craft a way of stunting the superior ninjas speed for him to run away with Orochimara, who was less than happy running away. That was a story for another time.

Right now though, Naruto was struggling to keep his face as calm as possible and even throwing in a friendly smile at his female partner, "you want me to do what?"

Small droplets of sweat built up on his forehead as the black haired beauty stepped closer to him, as if to intimidate him, which wasn't working seeing as she was a head shorter than him and he had just been too accustomed to seeing her, and repeated, "For my birthday I want you to take me on a date," he leaned away when she raised her right pointer finger and jabbed his chest, "you will be on your best behaviour, it would be the best day in my life and kami help you if I don't enjoy it,"

He smirked a little and poked her forehead, "and what would you do if you don't have fun?"

"I would make every day in your life a living hell and you know I can do that," she growled under her breathe and looked to his side, behind the tree they were hiding behind, at the numerous ninjas that were blazing just past it, none the wiser of their presence. The spiders that covered the tree in a dome of interlocking limbs and fangs, each on melding with the environment, hid them perfectly while they had to super suppress their chakra,

"Is that so?" he whispered and his smirk widened, exposing his serrated teeth and he looked down on her, making his goggles glint in the limited light of the spiders camouflage. She nodded and stood strong under his scrutiny, "you're going to make me suffer? Are you sure about that?"

"Positive," she puffed out her chest bravely,

"And you're so sure I won't kill you?" he cocked his head to the side as he placed a hand on her shoulder but she looked back at him, even when he removed his goggles and placed them on his forehead, exposing his horrifying vulpine eyes to further intimidate her,

It wasn't working, "you're not going to kill me," she said and her voice didn't waver, not even in the slightest, but a small blush grew spread over her nose at the hand on her shoulder. His eyes darkened evilly, an impressive feat because his eyes were always dark with evil, and he gently ran his thumb over her neck, raised it up so that he tucked her black hair over her ear. The standoff lasted a few long minutes, even as the Kumo ninjas returned to their village before the highly ranked Uzumaki leaned back and sighed tiredly,

"Fine," he waved his right hand and the spiders covering the tree and them fell onto the ground, rushing towards him and entering his pants legs before they returned to their summoning realm through a seal just over his calf,

"Good," she sighed in relief and turned around, her swords sheath in her hand and a skip in her step,

"But I'm not sorry about the whole lightning armour thing," he said to her loudly as he laxly walked with her with his hands behind his head,

"I've already forgotten about that," she said and smiled up at him, he looked down at her from the corner of his eyes with a raised eyebrow. His right hand reached into the bag on his back and brought out a map, he handed it to her,

"We're going to Yomisaki market town in Spring country,"

"Mind I ask why?" she said as she rolled open the map, not caring that he was in a sour mood,

"It'll be our new base until all the Akatsuki are dead," it wasn't that he was going to go out of his way and kill them; rather he had been informed that the ninja world was gearing towards war subtly. There was unrest all over; Gaara the one tails holder had died after his beast had been extracted but brought back by a sacrifice from an old Suna elder, the two and eight tails were in hiding by order of their Kage, the three tailed beast had disappeared, the four and five tails had been kidnapped, the six tails was in hiding, the seven tails had been kidnapped, and he, the nine tails, was having the time of his life with his samurai best friend.

"Then after they're dead?"

"I've always liked to live in Kiri, before the war I mean. What do you think?"

"If you like the place, then so do I,"

They had to quickly round up their continental adventure because of the threat of the Akatsuki as well as the constant reminder that Naruto needed to find a definite place to call the home base of the KDC, if not it would be incredibly hard producing drugs and even harder transporting all the money he had, even though they were in small squares by the thousand.

Flashback end

The market town was sparsely populated, with the distance between residential houses being more than fifteen feet apart, though the market aspect of the town was merely a circular mesh of kiosks. It was pitifully small, making the spider summoner wonder if the place was called market village out of some sort of twisted humour. Usually, tall mountains like Yomisaki invited tourists and funds but with Spring country and Mountain country having the most tall mountains, Yomisaki was all but forgotten, leaving it to be populated by traders who couldn't afford the tax of selling in better locations like Spring country's capital. It was obvious that there were more people than there were houses and shops. He felt eyes on him and his partner as they passed through the village on his summons; he looked to his immediate right, at a deplorable brick house, and grinned widely with his eyes closed, flashing his scary spider-like teeth for the peepers to see and this seemed to scare them enough for them to close the curtain. Thankfully his goggles were still on. They reached the base of the mountain the town was named after and Naruto made a quick motion over his shoulder at Aoki-chan and she stuck onto the back of the spider with her chakra. Sensing this and taking it as a cue the summons leaped onto the surface of the mountain and blazed upwards, the air began getting thinner and thinner with each ascent and this didn't seem to phase Naruto but something in his head clicked and he fell on his back so that he was looking up at his friend, who was struggling to breathe but was too stubborn to call his attention about it. Her face was red and she looked down at him with his coal black eyes, clearly showing her fight to stay conscious. He smirked and folded his hands behind his head, amused that she actually intended to fight against her urge to breathe rather than ask for his help. Her cheeks were puffed out with air and her hands fisted the short body hair on the top of spider's abdomen. They stayed like that, him finding it funny that she didn't want to ask for his help and her, barely conscious. He finally caved when she slowly began leaning forward with her eyes closed, as if to kiss him, and he caught her by her forehead with his pointer finger holding her up and he used the other hand to snake into the side of the bag. He miraculously pulled out his blank mask, though without the black head cover, and pushed it to her face; the girl quickly took in numerous deep breathes and got enough strength to hold the mask to her face. He allowed her to use his pointer finger to support her for a few minutes until he was sure she was strong enough to support herself. He removed his hand and placed both of them back behind his head. The mask had a store of clean oxygen in it in case he ever gassed up a room; it could also serve as a breathing apparatus for mountain climbers,

"Thank you, sir," she muttered, switching to addressing him formally, and bowed to him slightly, then remembering that he was on his back and looking up at her, so she had to stop herself from bowing fully, like she usually did, because he was still on his back,

"I can't kill you remember? That includes letting the altitude kill you," he smiled widely at her and masterfully kept himself securely on the large spiders back as it ran up the mountains slanting surface, "why didn't you want me to help you?" he asked with a curiously raised eyebrow,

Aoki-chan secured the mask on her face and gripped her sword again, "I didn't need your help,"

Naruto scoffed and crossed his right leg over his left, "need I remind you, you almost lost consciousness not five seconds ago. Oxygen is important, you know,"

"Then why don't you need it?"

"The nature chakra in me makes it easier to breathe in this altitude," he looked at her dully and poked her forehead, "that doesn't apply to you," she looked away from him up the mountain they were climbing,

"Why don't you ask me for help?" she said under her breathe, still not looking at him,

"I rarely need it," he answered honestly,

"Then why did you hire me? You obviously don't need me around to keep you alive,"

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows as he caught her shaky voice; he sat up and turned around to her. He shuffled closer so that he was about two feet away and sat down with his legs crossed, he silently stared at her and she masterfully avoided his eyes before he said, "believe it or not…I need you," she snorted and he nodded, "yes, I do,"

"For what?" she looked at him and he could see her black eyes glaze over from the eyeholes of his mask, "you plan on using me for some sort of elaborate experiment? You want to sell me? You want to use my organs? You want to take my sword?" she asked heatedly and clasped her weapon tightly at the last one, "what purpose do I serve to the infamous nine tailed spider?"

He looked surprised at her outburst, "Aoki-chan…I need you-"

"For what? Just-just tell me!" The boy looked like he was struggling to get the words out of his mouth, the girl grabbed his shoulder firmly when he looked away from her, forcing his eyes back on her, she gently removed the goggles over his eyes and placed it between them, "just tell me…you can trust me,"

"I do trust you. I trust you more than you can even believe,"

"Then why can't you tell me the reason I'm even with you?" she begged, "why do you keep me alive-"

"Because I need you!" he shouted. He realized what he had said and looked down at his hands, which were shaking, "you…keep me sane and you are my stability. I enjoy every day I am with you," his hands shook even more and he clenched them tightly, "when we first met…I wanted you alive just to be Kitsugami's guard, to make his guise more believable, and I wanted to kill you when I was exposed. I wanted to poison you and watch you die, just to destroy these feelings so it would stop hurting me but-but I didn't. I couldn't. Then…then…then I broke my first rule…I got too attached to you and now I don't know what I'll do if you're not with me or if something happens to you," he shrugged weakly and closed his eyes, "one moment I want to impress you, another I want to make you happy and I always want to see you smile," the girls mouth dropped at his confession and she unconsciously placed her hands on his own, "I…I…I need you, Aoki-chan," he frowned heavily at his vulnerable state; he didn't like it. It was a raging inferno that had been building up in his chest ever since the day he had given the girl her bow was being forced out of his mouth and he didn't like it. He liked being in control and he liked knowing what he was doing. She gently clasped his fisted hands and he relaxed them enough for her hands to slip into his own, but he still had his eyes closed in resignation, "I need you, Aoki-chan," no use fighting it anymore; he felt relieved that he had at least got that much out. There was so much he wanted to say to her but he didn't want to say it,

"Naruto-" she whispered gently as her hands held his more firmly and smiled at him but he interrupted her,

"We're here," he pulled his hands away and rolled off the spider as it came to an abrupt halt. She got off and was about to rush to him but with the way he kept his back to her as he looked up at the large cave entrance at the side of the mountain she stood away. He wasn't physically showing his turmoil of emotion; rather he was waging an intense internal battle against himself. He breathed in deeply and spun around to her, a wide, obviously fake, smile on his lips as he opened his arms, "let's clean this place up," waves and waves of spiders left his trousers and rushed into the caves, eating away the sides to smoothen it out and create more room for them till the interior of the cave was a massive, spacious and neatly made smooth box, similar in size to his first warehouse laboratory. They were not close to the peak of the mountain, rather they were on the only cave entrance there, and it was as cold as it looked and as cold as they imagined; they could even see their breathes and they had to swirl chakra through their bodies to stay warm.

The swordswoman looked down in disappointment and passed him into the cave to use her wind control to sweep away the rocks that escaped the tiny spiders off the frigid mountain while, allowing both of them time to think.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"I think I've got a clue where Naruto is hiding," Jiriaya the toad sage whispered to his female teammate as she sat down on her designated seat among the other four hidden village leaders, with the leader of Iron country, Mifune, sitting at the head of the table,

"Can't that wait?" she whispered back, carefully looking around and stopping at two of the village leaders that hated Konoha the most; Iwa because of Minato and Kumo because of Naruto, not because of Kushina. They lived in a world where information was a highly valued commodity and this commodity travelled almost as fast as electricity. That said, it shouldn't come as a surprise that five days ago Kumo had been successfully infiltrated by the last Namikaze and said Namikaze also managed to escape with his friend without either of them sustaining any sort of injury. For the second time, Naruto had broken into Kumo and escaped unharmed. From the logical standpoint, A, the Raikage, should not blame Konoha for what one of their missing ninjas had done but from the illogical perspective he needed someone tangible and available to place all his deep seated anger on and Tsunade, who was almost literally the embodiment of Konoha, seeing as she was the one representing the village, was going to be the person he blamed. The dark skinned and heavily muscled man scowled at the woman and placed both of his gauntlet hands on the table to further emphasize what he intended to do if he was not in neutral territory. The blonde Sannin couldn't care in the least what he thought, or any of them thought, but her eyes were fixed firmly on Mizukage, Mei Terumi, and the playful woman winked at her coyly for her attention but Tsunade still looked at her suspiciously. Her reason for this was because it was now common knowledge that Kiriagakure, and all of Water country, were openly allied to the KDC, even going as far as to place the KDC's logo, a small one, under their village's symbol on their backs. They weren't the only village or country to do this seeing as Suna, Spring country, Bear country and a host of many more places openly patronized the KDC, but Kiri stood out among them for going the extra mile.

There was a large warehouse stationed in Kiri and a smaller warehouse in the capital of the country on a man-made island. Water country had suffered during the war and they were in drastic need for help and it was understandable that when they had asked the KDC for help, and this help was provided without hassle, they would be indebted to the organisation, so much so that there were now registered Kiri ninjas that guarded the warehouses in Water country. Regardless of this Tsunade couldn't help but feel disgust that Kiri had chosen that path instead of seeking help from her old allies.

Hidden Mist was still recuperating from the bloody civil war and distrust among their shinobi was still in the air but the main place they united was in safeguarding the KDC warehouses in their territory; the KDC was supplying them with drugs, medical technology and, at a small scale, food and water for their less privileged civilians who seemed to have suffered more during the war. The illegal organisation had gone above and beyond for them and the result would be for Water country to do the same. Instinctively, the blonde Hokage knew that it wasn't Naruto that had sanctioned his warehouses to provide food and water but his more compassionate friend. It wasn't in his style to do that. Speaking of compassionate, a few months ago Naruto had sent a letter to her telling that he was going to give Konoha one more chance to allow his company to work, or else they would withdraw all support, including influencing their best customers to withdraw their own support from them. This was after she had pleaded for the Kazekage to speak to the KDC CEO on her behalf, seeing as she couldn't get contact with him but close allies of the KDC were privy to his whereabouts. Gaara agreed to do this but on the condition that she divert one quarter of the missions sent to them from Fire country capital to Sunagakure. The woman begrudgingly accepted and Gaara summarily sent a message to Naruto and three days later a letter was sent back, which the Kazekage sent to the Hokage. Now, bull pox epidemic ravaging Konoha had been squashed. Though the woman still held some resentment for Naruto for withholding information on where he got the herbs and roots for his medicine, even though she knew that Naruto wasn't entitled to tell her.

She looked around and the Kazekage, Sabaku no Gaara, sent her a polite nod and she returned it; behind him his siblings, Temari and Kankuro, stayed alert and made sure that their hands were ready to pull out their weapons. Tsunade had chosen Jiriaya and Yamato to be her bodyguards, the latter because of his high control of his Wood release; it would be a great advantage if she was able to drain dry the chakra of anyone that attacked.

The Kage were patiently waiting for their host to begin their meeting, and ten minutes after they had all settled and their guards were stationed behind their leaders, the man raised his hand for their attention and they looked at him,

"The Tsuchikage, Oonoki, requested I call this meeting in my country to discuss the rising threat of an organisation hell bent on destroying all we know and love-"

"No, he called this meeting because he lost both of his jinchuriki," A grunted and met the harsh but silent glare of the fat nosed Kage,

"Are you going to deny that both of your jinchuriki were attacked by these S ranked missing ninjas?" the old man retorted, "or that sand kid didn't have his beast unsealed?"

"Order!" Mifune called and the bickering stopped, "regardless of his ulterior motives, the trouble brewing cannot be ignored. We are continually receiving news of this organisations exploits and each on is troubling as the last," he began counting on his fingers, "they took the one, three, four, five and six tails," he motioned at the Mizukage, "they orchestrated the civil war in Kiri. And the seven tails has disappeared with no trace,"

"I say Konoha took the seven tails," Oonoki growled and smashed his fist on the solid table, "trying to compensate for their lost jinchuriki,"

"I refute that claim; what purpose would Konoha gain from taking another tailed beast?" Tsunade replied coolly with a delicately raised eyebrow,

"It was the Kyuubi that made you strong! Do you deny that?!" the old man yelled and Mifune cut in before the female Sannin could reply,

"Enough. Senseless arguments would get us nowhere,"

"You are calling my claims senseless?" the dust release user asked lowly, as if he was trying to understand how anyone in the room would call him senseless,

The samurai remained un-intimidated, "yes because as far as I know the nine tails is not anti-Konoha; he killed two of this organisations ninjas, Kakuzu and Hidan, and he has chosen to keep his Kitsugami Drug Company active in Konoha," he turned to Tsunade, "or am I wrong?" she shook her head,

"No,"

"Do you know where this boy is?" Mifune asked, "Since he can kill two then he can kill more of them," the woman shook her head,

"We don't need the Kyuubi brat to kill those S rank; I have ninjas in my ranks that are capable of destroying them," A said, and his guards, Samui and Darui, silently agreed,

"If I may," Gaara piped up and drew their attention, "I'm in regular correspondence with Naruto-san and he has made it known to me that he will not actively seek out this organisation,"

"And there's your answer. The brat is too afraid to fight them; I bet he barely won against Kakuzu and Hidan," Oonoki grumbled,

"On the contrary, my sister, Aoki-chan, works for him and I have no doubt she participated in their deaths," Mifune said stoically, "I need not emphasize what she is capable of. But I digress; we need to form a united front and end this threat before it gets out of hand, we don't know why that organisation is gathering all those tailed beasts but I am sure that their intentions are not peaceful-"

"And your right, old man," a deep voice intoned from the far end of the room on another table, away from the Kage's assembled at the other side, "our intentions are not peaceful," a vortex of air swirled on the spot the voice had come from and a man wearing an orange mask styled in a spiral so as to emphasize his lone for which the kamui had come from appeared before them, sitting laxly on the table. His black cloak with red clouds symbolized who he was and the Kage's all abruptly got their feet, ready for a fight.

All his plans had already been set in motion, all his pawns had been influenced and were geared to fight and all he had to do was light the match that would set the world ablaze.

The air was taunt with tension and this tension thickened as Obito Uchiha declared war on the elemental nations.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It had taken the duo a full day of effort, shadow clones and spider/snake summons to get their temporary home ready but they were finally done. The walls of the cave were now smoothed down and were painted red and grey, to give the place a sort of warmth and the rocks the tiny spiders ate were spat back out as a sort of liquid rock so that they would form separate rooms; a main laboratory, two bedrooms, a small kitchen and a bathroom with a complex drainage system that made us of the mountains slope to lead the water down into the ground at the base of the mountain, a store room and finally a large laboratory suited up with all of his equipment and chemicals. The interior had been painted red and grey, mostly to give the feeling of warmth. He had set up a generator outside the cave, protected by a small steel house augmented by seals to withstand the cold and the wind, to provide electricity in the cave, which at this point didn't look like a cave or feel like a cave, especially with the wooden boards they set up to cover the wide open mouth of the cave, also supporting it with seals. Naruto had taken the liberty of using a seal he called atmospheric support seal which basically circled around the mountain, specifically the area the cave was located, and ensured replicated the effect of the atmosphere on ground level, besides the warmth; it mostly made the place liveable without Naruto's gas masks. The seal could run infinitely because it was powered by nature chakra, which could be found anywhere if the person looked well enough. There was level ground for a few yards in front of the mouth of the cave, giving both of them space to exercise.

It was their home for now.

The problem was that to get down the mountain they had to make use of summons and Aoki-chan had to wear a mask until they got to the base of the mountain; it was a sacrifice they had to make. The top of the mountain was a secured location, no sane person would want to climb that high, and it was private; exactly what Naruto wanted and what he was used to.

The blonde scientist stood at the top of the mountain with his black haired ronin friend beside him, admiring their home from outside. He was wearing a red and grey hoodie with a black short sleeved shirt underneath and black ninja pants, he had bandages wrapped around his ankles, leading into his black shinobi sandals. While his partner wore a white hoodie with the symbol for the spider clan stitched onto her right upper arm, her pants were equally white as well as her sandals. She also had her sword strapped to her side and her bow and arrow across her torso. The duo weren't yet back to speaking comfortably with each other but they weren't out rightly ignoring each other. Naruto was trying his best to get her back to her comfort zone around him.

The boy didn't have a sheath for his grass cutter blade, so he chose to leave it in his backpack, which was on his back. He sent the girl a small smile as he sat down at the edge of the mountain, just close to the seals protection, and she followed suit, and they both watched the sunset.

The next day came slowly and Naruto leaped out of his bed, perky and eager to get the day started. It was four in the morning and he sat down on his desk, clean as a whistle, and sent out several letters to his branch warehouses with his spider and snake summons, as well as to the brothel in Konoha, thanking them for their services and sealing in several thousands of ryu as their payment. He needed to summon a few shadow clones to get the writing done and he needed to summon a few more to begin their research into breaking the barriers of the universe. Aoki-chan woke up at six in the morning sharp, mainly because she did her regular night rounds to watch their new home before leaving it for a snake summon. Groggily, she greeted her superior before she too went to the bathroom to freshen up. When she came out, Naruto gave her the task of familiarizing herself with the environment and its occupants (in Yomisaki market town), saying that it wouldn't do if they didn't at least try to know their new neighbours. Deep down Aoki-chan knew that although it seemed like he didn't want her around him he just didn't want her to be idle; just like how they went about their business in Konoha, she would work not just as his bodyguard but as his spokesperson as well.

Although Aoki-chan was closely affiliated to Naruto she didn't want to sign her name on the spider summoning scroll, saying that she had lasted long enough without the summons and she would last longer without them, so Naruto had to summon a large snake to take her down the mountain to the market town.

The state of things at the base of the mountain was deplorable; houses were falling apart, the market was an eyesore and the people were ill prepared for the cold their region of the country was in, seeing as even though the former daimyo of the country, Doton, had been overthrown by his niece, Koyuki Kazahana, the new daimyo changed Snow country to Spring country, destroying the machine that made the country as cold as it was named, though this didn't affect all of the country because the country bordered Frigid country. Yomisaki market town was bordering Frigid country, so it didn't enjoy the privileges of the change of government. Aoki-chan was renown across the continent as the 'Broken child' and the 'Dark Angel of the Five Elements', so she had already been seen as a ruthless person not to be messed with, and this was further reinforced by her battle style. Few knew her as kind, this included her boss, her adopted brother and a few of the people in Iron country, and seeing the deplorable lives the people were living and how they each went out of their way to welcome her touched something in her. These people had been forgotten by the world because they were not able to keep up with its fast paced and ever developing nature, mostly because their government had forgotten them first. They were all poor but they lived and worked as a family, sharing what they had and could, even though there weren't that many customers that patronized their market.

The dark angel felt obligated to help them and she immediately rushed back up the mountain with the large snake, much to the wonder of the people, and dragged Naruto down.

It was a day of surprise for the people of Yomisaki; they were being treated to many firsts in just one day. The first time they had seen a samurai, the first time they had seen a ninja that wasn't trying to steal from them, the first time they had seen a snake that size, the first time they had seen a teenager with a mouthful of serrated teeth, which he wasn't afraid to flash, the first time they had met someone that freely gave them money with the only condition being they shouldn't tell anyone they were living there, and many more firsts. The snow that almost constantly fell around Yomisaki was harsh and, from Aoki-chan's prodding, Naruto summoned spiders, each one bearing clothes they had crafted and shared it to the multitude. The sheer quality of the clothing had them question whether or not it was kami that had come to aid them.

The reason Naruto was being so out of character was because when he Aoki-chan had slammed back into their new home, out of breathe and desperate for his attention, and dragged him all the way down the mountain, on a summons of course, he listened to her rant. From what he could deduce from her rush of words she really wanted to help the people of Yomisaki, and he had already opened up to her that making her happy was his top priority. It was hard to believe, seeing as he was considered blood thirsty and selfish, but he had learnt to just accept those feelings instead of allowing them to kill him. Though he did need a lot of convincing to do it,

"Boss, just look at them; they need help," the samurai implored and motioned at them, Naruto looked over them with unconvinced and dull eyes,

"It isn't our jobs to help them, leave it to their government," he said with a flippant wave and was about to ascend the mountain again but the ronin grabbed his hand and he paused,

"You'll gain so much from helping them, think about it," she said and stroked a tender part of his attention masterfully, knowing that he would forever look at the personal gains,

The KDC boss rolled his eyes, "and what will I get from helping them?"

She thought and hesitantly replied, "A…warm feeling in your chest…?"

Naruto shook his head and patted her head, "I'm sure we'll both survive if I don't get that warm feeling," he said it like he was talking to a toddler and the usual blush spread across her nose from the contact,

"What about their support?" she hastily added,

"Nearly half of the continent is supporting me, through my company but still me," he replied back,

She still refused to let go of his hand, "how about this? If this place is properly set up and run then a percentage of their profits would go to you," the boy still didn't look convinced and for good reason too; he had so much money that he didn't care about it. Money from his organisation, money his godmother had willed to him, which he was still gathering from all of the different banks she deposited them in, money he got as goodwill from countries he set up KDC warehouses in and the money he made in Konoha from all his other dirty deals. He could easily buy the most expensive but sophisticated equipment and weapons, such as his silver senbon launchers, the launchers curved black stealth guards and Aoki-chan's bow and arrows. Not forgetting the fact that he didn't need to buy clothes because his primary summons, the spider clan, was able to create any kind of cloth with any texture that was of excellent quality. He needed to set apart approximately ten billion ryu to pay all of his workers across the continent, which included the guards as well and the bonuses for stellar work. This also included the fact that he was in close contact with all of his branch so that he was aware of what was in desperate need there, whether it was a broken door knob to more mosquito repellent for those in his tropical branches. This was all mostly through a trusted foreman in charge of all the warehouses productivity and sales, who constantly travelled around, with his family or not, to keep an eye on the branches. Everyone was happy and loyal as long as they kept getting their monthly wages. Needless to say Uzumaki Naruto was not in dire need for money. The black haired girl continued, "It would boost your reputation as a person that can make a town prosper if he gave it a thought," that convinced him.

Aoki-chan was unofficially his company's public relations officer. This meant that she helped him deal with delicate matters such as providing support to countries and villages so as to boost the KDC's image and further their goals of making it an international franchise. Left to him, his first instinct would be to kill any aggressor that went against his business and this was what he would have done to Konoha if the samurai had not stepped in before him and withdrew his the warehouse branches in Fire country, to open konoha's eyes that even though the KDC was illegal they couldn't deny how much they had helped them and also a warning to the other countries he had branch warehouses in that he wouldn't be partial seeing as he used his home village as an example to all. Naruto had come to realize that if he wanted a wider customer base he needed to show a little bit of restraint in his heavy handedness; he wasn't brought up in the most compassionate of environments so he wasn't used to lending a helping hand just because he could, and he was faced with the reality that people would take any means necessary to destroy him if he did not show that the KDC wasn't all bad. Aoki-chan though, although brought up in a strict samurai household in a family that valued strength and loyalty, had experienced a large measure of compassion in her life. Bifune might have been a formal man but he loved all of his children equally, showing them this with various acts of kindness and she being the only female and performing better than her older brothers he had lessened his strictness on her and allowed her room to grow on her own. His trust in her was one of the many acts of kindness to her.

Her partially well rounded upbringing was what made Naruto trust a fair portion of control of his business to her and he mostly trusted her judgement for the most part because she had never disappointed him in anything he set her to do. Whether on a mission or to deal with a problem in a branch, the results she brought back to him were always satisfying.

So, once again, he decided to trust her judgement.

"Fine, we'll spruce this place up but we're not helping them sell their stuff," he said and the girl bowed deeply,

"That's all I ask, boss," he ruffled her hair before he turned to the multitude of people eagerly looking at him,

"Let's get this place cleaned up," he bent onto the snowy ground and drew a fairly large summoning circle. When he was done he added a drop of his blood on it and a poof of smoke erupted from the seal, five white, lion sized spiders with the kanji for 'Cloth maker' drawn on their abdomens marched out of the smoke, each one hefting large sealing scrolls between two of their front legs. Theses spiders laid the scrolls on the ground and unrolled them in tandem, revealing several storage seals drawn neatly on it. Aoki-chan, who couldn't make clones, was the one to hand them the clothes and the people profusely thanked them, while the spiders looked down at them with bright red eyes, silent as night, watched on in astonishment as their masters servant handed out clothes. Naruto walked past them, through the eager crowd of very appreciative people to the middle of the town, ignoring the people that grovelled as he passed them and the older residents that eagerly wanted to shake his hands, but withdrew their hands as he hissed at them. He got to the centre of the town and a few people turned to look at him, the others clamouring to get clothes from the giant spiders and the kind teenager. The boy hummed to himself as he examined the layout of the houses and assumed that the houses were built to face each other but leave a wide berth between them for a mass of people to walk through, this space between the houses led further down to two iron rods that had been jammed into the ground, probably to symbolize the entrance of the town.

Although Naruto had been privileged enough to be able to use all five nature transformations from training in all, control his beasts chakra, nature chakra and an array of other things he wasn't able to use Wood release. So he wasn't able to erect houses out of the ground like he had heard a drunken Kakashi rant about when he was a six year old child posing as a rich adult. Yamato Tenzo was the wood release users 'name' and Naruto still hadn't met him; he wasn't able to steal even a finger nail from this 'Yamato' so he could replicate the legendary kekkai genkai, but he was content with what he could do. The nine tailed spider held up a half ram hand seal, "Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu," over thirty identical clones of his were summoned out of numerous plumes of smoke, attracting the eyes of the towns people, and Naruto commanded them to search for trees. If they found trees they would seal them into storage seals and bring them back.

The display for the next six hours was proof enough that if Naruto put his mind to something it would result in staggering success, just like with his spider clan. The clones had to travel south of the town to a warmer part of Spring country known for its vegetation and dense forests, luckily for them; or else they would have been forced to travel even further down. The trees were brought back and the original Naruto summoned even more clones and they began constructions, making them realize that as the clones were searching for trees Naruto had been busy crafting a blueprint for the houses he wanted to build. It was a basic structure that had two spacious bedrooms, two bathrooms inside the house, a living room, a fully furnished kitchen, parlour and a front porch facing their neighbours across the street. The added clones, supported by a few snakes to carry the chopped up wood, built the houses. For each completed house the real Naruto drew special reinforcement seals that supported the structure for as long as there was nature chakra in the air. He had been taught this seal by his godmother in Whirlpool village; they mad the wood as strong as steel, able to take a full on chakra enhanced punch and still be able to stay on the ground. The effect was like with electricity; part of the strength in the punch was pushed harmlessly into the ground while the rest was deflected back to the attacker. This only worked if the attacker was using chakra, if not it would merely injure the person. Naruto used a tunnelling jutsu to create a deep well where clean water could be pumped out. This water was connected to the house via plastic pipes at the backs of the houses, so if they wanted water in their rooms they had to lug it into the house by themselves. He placed sure that the roofs of the house were made out of wood as well that, because of the seal, couldn't rot from rain or exposure to the elements. He crafted three wind turbines from wood as well, smoothening it out and painting it red, to provide electricity to the various houses. The last thing he did was form fences to provide the individual houses with privacy.

It was exhausting work but he was done; the people of Yomisaki watched as their town was recreated by a total stranger. Gratitude couldn't be expressed with mere words and Naruto tiredly ignored them and slumped onto the ground with his back leaning on the fence of a random house; they flocked around him, noisily thanking him while he rested and replenished his lost chakra. He closed his eyes and channelled the noise out, Aoki-chan ushered the families into their houses, allowing her master to rest, while she personally dealt with the first ever threat to their new home by herself.

Six Konoha missing ninjas that had heard the clamour from a distance and took it as an opportunity to take money from weaker civilians chose to travel to Yomisaki. They were summarily dispatched of by the samurai.

One week later

The world was indeed on fire.

Identical white plant men were attacking villages, usually eating a dead ninja or swallowing small drops of blood from living ninjas and taking his form to further their attacks. The remaining Akatsuki had been paired to reduce the morale of ninjas from the other villages by displaying their full strengths against them. Worldwide, formerly dead ninjas of unbelievable calibre were being brought back and they were added to the ranks of the Akatsuki, each one controlled by a mysterious man who focused their attacks with the aim of finding the nine tails. Most suspected that the strongest of them was yet to be summoned and this fearful prospect was what united the countries of the continent. Battles had been fought with these undead warrior and they had been mostly lost because the undead were immediately revived, leaving the only other option for the allied ninjas to seal them away. This would have been easier if not for the frequent attacks from the Akatsuki, who had already captured the seven and two tails in one of their many campaigns.

The two tails had been captured and her beast removed after she had been intercepted on her way to Waterfall by Sasori and Deidera to provide support after hearing of the minor villages trouble with active ninjas. She had been with her team and made the ultimate sacrifice of telling them to retreat while she held the S rank off. The seven tails had been tracked to be hiding and working in a KDC branch house in Wave country. The green haired girl had been working there since the day Waterfall threw her away out of fear that their village would be attacked by the Akatsuki. She had been sighted and summarily captured by the Akatsuki after their civilian spies, or puppets, notified her of her presence. This had happened on the day Naruto had finally been located. Her captors had been the six paths of Pein and Konan.

All the nations of the world were afraid that the end was near; the dead were being brought back, white plant clones were impersonating ninjas and killing ranks from within and the countries were losing their frantic fight for survival against legends in the history books and S rank warriors. Their hope returned when Itachi Uchiha defected from the organisation and returned to Konoha, but it was fizzling when they realized his deteriorating health, despite that he was also participating in the war in their side.

The only tailed beasts left were the eight and nine tails and the former was in the thick of the fight. The latter, even though he was aware that the world was crumbling at the seams, had shown no interest in the war. He spent his days telling stories in houses in front of a large crowd of eager listeners, he was content albeit bored that so far he had no rival in strength. The world could utilize his medicine however they wanted, and this freedom had transformed his products into highly valued commodities, especially because they had been able to bring people out of the hospital faster than their own drugs. The KDC had gone even further underground in their dealing, with each warehouse covered in triple A rank illusions, and the delivery people now strictly used the underground tunnels and railways to move their goods to their intended destination. The owner of the drug empire had assumed that that would be enough help to turn the tide of the war, he didn't need to necessarily go out of his way to fight, but he was wrong. He was still desperately needed, not just his drugs or his technology; the nations against the nine tails chose to swallow their pride and send out a few of their ninjas to search and retrieve the elusive jinchuriki to plead with him to help them fight for the world's survival.

The Konoha ninjas found him first…

…But so did Obito and Kisame…

And this is where we find ourselves.

Flashback end

The hand-to-hand fight between Naruto and Obito was eerily similar to watching a dance. Both of their offensive, counters and defensive moves melded into each other smoothly, creating an opportunity for them to try again but usually resulted in the same thing. It was hauntingly like his battle with Naruto's father, and the end result of that was a Rasengan to the back and weeks of recuperation, and despite his effort of trying to bypass Naruto's blocks the boy would always see it coming and adjust accordingly, all with an infuriating toothy grin on the boy's face.

The Uchiha clashed his forearm against Naruto's and slapped the knee to his stomach back down while driving his own knee towards Naruto's side but the teen spun away from the attack and slashed his pincers at the limb, which was hastily withdrawn. The Uzumaki cut upwards, forcing the masked man to make himself intangible; this surprised Naruto for a fraction of a second, long enough for Obito to flip backwards and squarely drive his foot under Naruto's chin. The spider summoner grunted and flipped backwards as well but when he landed he still had the excited grin on his face, a grin that sent shivers down Jiraiya's spine because it was scarily similar to Minato's grin during a fast paced fight; crazed and blood thirsty. The Namikaze learnt it from his older sister. The blonde eagerly blurred right back to the Uchiha, even before the man had gotten his feet back on the ground, and did something that shocked all the watchers, something that his unpredictability managed to bypass the other fighter's sharingan. He flickered to Obito, as his toes touched the ground, and punched forward, the man began the motions for slapping the attack away but was surprised to see that he merely slapped the long senbon Naruto was using away, a needle Naruto shot to him to draw most of his attention. He leaned away from the fist that wafted across his mask but not away from the unforgiving elbow Naruto smashed into his face.

The cracking sound was horrifying to all the listeners and the follow up spinning heel kick to the dazed Uchiha's neck was equally bone chilling to watch. The orange masked man careened away but got his right hand under him to flip back to his feet. He faced Naruto and idly dusted his shoulder, showing how much it didn't hurt but this only got Naruto's eyes even more deranged with battle lust.

"How about going all out, stranger? That way I won't feel bad killing you," the blonde called to his opponent, his hands itching to punch the masked stranger,

"You're still a brat. A brat that had gotten a taste of powerful chakra and thinks he's invincible; there will be no point fighting you at full strength," Obito answered coolly as his cloak fluttered weakly in the low winds of the town, he held up his right hand and clenched it for Naruto to see, "but I advise you to take me seriously, anything less than your best would be your end,"

Naruto hummed in thought and scratched his chin before he shook his head negatively, "you're not worth it. I've met grave robbers better than you,"

This comment obviously touched a small part of Obito, though he remained relatively cool headed, "then come and feel the strength of an Uchiha," he opened his hand and motioned Naruto to come at him, "if you dare,"

The teenage spider summoner cracked his neck and commanded his long senbon to slide back into his launcher, before he flashed back to his opponent, faster than any untrained eye could catch. The blurring fight continued, each driving the other back but still holding back a measure; Obito was not using all of his strength and Naruto was not using Kyuubi's chakra or nature chakra, or the combination, merely his own chakra.

Further away from them, the fight between Kisame and Aoki-chan, which on the surface would looked like the more experienced swordsman was winning, was in reality the opposite. With each sword clash and each strain for dominance, Kisame noticed something strange, which was made even clearer when the ground beneath his feet began rebelling against him. The Omnyojin, the all-elemental sword, was a legendary weapon that bestowed its chosen user the control of every element, whether it was from the sword or from the user. Every part of the sword could be used, even its sheathe, and stories had been told that if the user had enough control over the sword he was able to command a demon from the underworld to come to his aid, seeing as the sword had been forged in the mountains of demon country out of obsidian steel, which was an evil, cursed metal, the hide of a demon dragon, the tears of a saintly fire country monk and the blood sacrifice of the high priest, while the sheath had been made from a demon wolf's hide. It was said that if a person, other than the person the sword chose, touched the sword their souls would be sucked into the sword and used to power it, this also applied to people the swordsman killed, further pushing the idea that the wielder could summon demons at will. Only two people in history had been recorded using the sword, the first was a featureless man from Kiriagakure, usually thought to be the home of legendary blades, before the person had willingly handed the blade to the priests of demon country. Many, many years later it had been stolen by a woman who connected the blade with her child by making a blood sacrifice agreement with the god of death for reasons people were unaware of.

Aoki-chan didn't know why she had been given the cursed sword but that fact never stopped her from fully mastering it when she was thirteen and about to be named leader of Iron country. Her sword could indeed use souls to power it if she didn't want to use her own chakra, and she was able to give control of the blade to anyone of her choice (Naruto). Her only hurdle till date being she had to endure the torture of the pitiful moans and whispers of the souls in her sword speaking to her all at once and struggling to get free.

Kisame had never fought against an Omnyojin user before so he was almost running in the dark, almost being he had slain plenty of samurai and he believed that since the dark angel was a samurai she would be predictable. He was obviously wrong; first because she used her sheathe to fight as well, samurai didn't do that, second was that she used more elemental attacks than a regular samurai, and the last reason was that she was spending way too much time around Naruto.

Although most of the swords abilities were a mystery to Kisame, mainly because all that went against it weren't alive anymore, one outstanding precaution stood out; don't ever let the blade touch you, even if it's a minor graze. Just like with Samehada.

Smoke wafted off the blade and the sounds of torment flittered in the air as she blocked an attack from Kisame. He commanded his sword to suck out the chakra but it remained unresponsive seeing as she wasn't using chakra, merely the souls of the slain stored in her blade. He hacked and slashed at her savagely, using his superior strength to push her backwards into a more defensive and desperate position, until they were close to ten feet from the base of the mountain before she turned on the offensive. She twirled her sheathe dextrously and swiped it towards his left leg but he blocked it easily, she jabbed her weapon at his chest and he was forced to lean away, watching, impressed, as her weapon sliced through his cloak and barely grazed his shirt, though not touching his skin. Aoki-chan followed up with a firm foot planted in his stomach and using that foot as a purchase to run up his torso and smashing her knee into his chin. This was the time Kisame chose to fully unleash his sword; Samehada frilled out dangerously and bent in his grip towards the samurai as she prepared to leap away from him after her last attack. She grit her teeth in effort and his concentration was thrown off when the ground beneath his feet shifted away from the mountain a full foot, allowing her to flip backwards over the sentient sword.

The strongest of the seven swordsmen of the mist commanded his weapon to shorten back to its normal length, but its purple scales remained dangerously frilled.

He stood up straight and sharply smirked at the ronin as she got into a defensive stance, making sure to lick the small trickle of blood that came from his mouth, "you're not half bad for a samurai," she didn't reply, only tightening her stance, "I've always wanted to know what would happen if Samehada broke your sword, but sadly we're just here to cripple you beyond repair," he blinked once and she was in front of him, her blade rising upwards diagonally, but he blocked it swiftly against his own sword. He anticipated her sheathe coming into play and summarily used the sole of his right foot to block it, he smirked cockily after this but frowned when the girls focused expression morphed into a playful one,

"Got you,"

Kisame looked down at his position and realized that his left foot was swallowed up into the ground to his ankle, he then quickly realized another thing; both of his legs were far apart. It was much too late to dodge the pillar of earth that rocketed out of the ground between his legs and solidly struck his groin. His eyes widened in pain and it was only when his sword took the initiative to extend and surge towards her did he get enough control to break his leg out of the ground. The sentient sword descended on the samurai and she leaped back several times to avoid it, but it dipped and moved in different directions, growing in size and ravenous appetite for her blood and chakra. Sparks flew as her cursed blade deflected the massive purple sword, jumping away when it moved unexpectedly, meanwhile Kisame was struggling to stand, his groin still hurt. Samehada squealed in accomplishment as he wrapped the ronin in its elastic handle and brought its full weight down forcefully on her head like a hammer. There was tense silence and the purple sword kept on squeaking and making shrill cries of joy, until it abruptly stopped and a large pillar of earth exploded from the ground and pushed it off, untangling its greyish white handle enough for any watcher to see Aoki-chan standing in the last place she had been seen, although there were numerous bleeding cuts across her face and her left, sheathe bearing arm. Her blade had been stabbed into the earth and her sheath was crossed over her head while the pillar of earth had risen up behind her to throw the sword off.

She slid her sword into its unbreakable sheathe, levelled it at her opponent and yelled, "Wind: Shot!" the black sword holder rocketed off the blade at impossible speeds and Kisame had to hastily command his weapon back to him so he could use it to cross his midsection. The weapon smashed against the sentient sword and the sword master had to apply chakra to his feet so that he wouldn't skid away too much.

Obito ducked a swing for his head and nailed Naruto's cheek, drove his knee into the boy's side and head butted him. Infuriatingly enough Naruto still got up and charged, this was when the Uchiha noticed a pattern he would never had noticed if he did not have the sharingan; Naruto was naturally unpredictable, inheriting it from his mother, so he did not have to put any effort in his fighting skills to be unpredictable. This unpredictability was fluid enough to confuse his three tomoe doujutsu, and with this perk he didn't need to put conscious effort into being unpredictable. Now though, as he hopped away three times from a senbon barrage from the boy's launchers he noticed something strange; Naruto was being predictable. He could even go as far as saying that he was able to see three steps ahead of him, when at the beginning of the fight he was only able to see one third of a second ahead of the blonde. It couldn't have been exhaustion, because as far as he knew Naruto had much more chakra than anyone he had ever met and more stamina than any Kage he had faced. The Uchiha couldn't read anything from Naruto's maniacal expression other than his death, so he didn't bother looking to much at it, but he noticed the boys plan too late.

He had been driven to the makeshift gate of the town, under the guise of dodging backwards from Naruto's insistent attacks, and Naruto changed the direction of his attacks to his immediate right and Obito had little option but to follow in his lead since he couldn't let his defence leak for a world renowned trickster to capitalize on. Abruptly he froze in place, in the position of countering a kick, and a trap seal beneath his glowed with blue, ominous light. His eye widened in horror and Naruto held the half ram seal, he opened his mouth wide, unhinging his jaws, and the deadly Kusanagi blade shot out. The Uchiha quickly activated his Mangekyo, knowing he wouldn't be able to physically overpower a trap seal that made use of Naruto's dense chakra, and a spinning vortex sucked him in, but not in time for the blade to slice across his upper right arm, deep enough to graze the bone, before it impaled the ground. Naruto stayed where her was, after fixing his jaw, and made sure that the attacker had truly gone before he walked to his sword, handed down to him by its former user, Orochimara of the Sannin, and he pushed it into the backpack on his back like a regular sword user would sheath his sword, and the blade disappeared like the bag had enough space in it.

Meanwhile, Kisame and Aoki-chan were frantically attacking each other, each spark of contact rained down and every limb that reached to attack the other was countered. The older sword man's clothes had seen better days, with cuts littering its surface and even his whole left sleeve gone. Neither of them wanted to admit defeat, so they kept slashing and slicing until he felt a bloody hand on his shoulder,

"We have what we need, let's go," the voice sounded pained. He was then dragged into the kamui.

The samurai stood rigidly for a few seconds before she straightened up and smoothly sheathed her blade. Naruto walked to her and stopped as he was about to pass her, he frowned at the cuts on his face and she could see his fists tighten. On the surface he looked like he was staring at the sunset, deadpan, but inside he was enraged that her opponent had gotten her in her present state; blood on her face and left arm from numerous cuts, her coat sleeves had jagged slashes perforating it, exposing some of her smooth tan skin. Skin Naruto did not want any other living creature to see, besides him. The primal part of him wanted to track Kisame down and make a coat out of his skin, but the sensible part of him just barely wrangled him back in control after she sent him a knowing look, even lifting a corner of her lips slyly; a silent challenge he would address when everything had been settled for the day and they were in the privacy of their cave. He opened his right fist and a single blue pill was in the middle of his palm, "take this," she immediately swallowed it and sighed as the cuts on her face and arm began knitting back together, though there was still blood, "go and get cleaned up, I'll deal with our other guests," he raised a single finger for her to be quiet, and the quick motion and the fact that he was still technically her boss had her snap her lips shut, "come back when you're done," she bowed quickly and stomped to the mountain, she looked up hesitantly at the height of the mountain before she looked at Naruto pleadingly, he slowly smiled at her, realizing what the problem was, "is there a problem?"

She closed her eyes tightly and her fists tightened, he watched on in amusement as two minutes passed of her tightly closing her lips, "Please!" she shouted and he laughed under his breathe as he summon a spider to take her up to their cave home. She climbed onto it and patted the spider, the creature raced up the steep mountain to their temporary home.

The boy didn't look or feel winded for his long drawn out fight against the Uchiha, so he leisurely walked to the town's entrance with his hands lazily behind his head, and waited for the Konoha ninjas to make an appearance. The ninjas walked out of their hiding place of a large rock a mile away from Yomisaki town. Although Naruto could sense he couldn't discern who was who unless he made use of his second or third pair of eyes, or second nose (the dots on his forehead and nose) and that would be a waste of chakra. Basically, anyone he couldn't sense monumental chakra from he would never take seriously; Obito Uchiha, though had a large well of chakra, didn't have the capacity large enough to interest Naruto. So, he was surprised at who Konoha had sent to capture him, seeing as that was the only reason he thought they were here in the first place. Those he had met were now different; those he had not were piquing his interest enough to look over. Kakashi looked like he had seen better days; his uniform was rugged, though clean enough, he had bandages wrapped tightly around his left arm, from fingers to shoulder, and all round tired. Even though Sasuke was looking at him with a straight face Naruto could see the war of words he wanted to unleash on him. The Uchiha also looked tired but all the more eager to return to wherever he had come from. He had on a jounin flak jacket. Sakura…looked down when his eyes clashed with hers; a tinge of red crept up her neck and covered her cheeks. She was in a chunin flak jacket, prompting Naruto to nod in acknowledgement that she had at least bettered herself. Sai was still Sai with his fake smile in place and masterfully hiding his exhaustion he felt. He wore a jounin flak jacket. He skipped over analysing Jiriaya, not caring what he went through; to the person he assumed was called Yamato. He deduced this because he could sense a perfect mixture of water and earth affinity chakra in him, an awfully large store of it. The man, whose large iris made the spider summoner a little bit uncomfortable, sent the boy an appreciative smile, for what he was yet to find out.

Jiriaya took the initiative to speak first, "your godmother really taught you well kid,"

"She's a perfectionist," Naruto replied simply with a shrug, he crossed his arm and subtly began to prepare his chakra to defend him if the ninjas chose to attack but curious enough he could not even see the minute signs that their muscles were geared to attack; quite frankly their hands were at their sides and their shoulders sagged, 'what is going on…?'

"You just did what no one else could do and you were still holding back," Kakashi spoke above what Jiriaya had to say, the Sannin was clearly floored by Naruto's response, "you critically injured Madara Uchiha," Naruto didn't make use of his extra eyes and nose to fight, not even using more than three jutsu and they were just the trap seal, the senbon barrage and summoning the Kusanagi from his mouth.

"He didn't want to take me seriously so I didn't take him seriously. He got what happens when I'm toyed with. And I'm sure you people would know that that isn't Uchiha Madara," they nodded and boy shifted on his feet, looking at each person again, "now why are you people here?"
There was a war of emotions broiling on their faces, "Naruto-kun…" Sakura muttered, still looking at his feet but more out of admission that he was past her skills, "we need your help,"

This time it was the blonde scientist that was floored; of all the times Konoha ninjas had come to retrieve him the reasons had all been the same, for him to face justice or to collect his bounty. Tsunade had changed his A rank entry to an S rank 'Flee on Sight' so that he would be left alone but people from her village still went behind her back to take him on. He was aware of the war burning a path of destruction through the continent and he assumed that his personal help wouldn't be needed because he had left a few of his warehouses still fully manned and operational just for the countries; his products were revolutionary, able to heal a severe cut to the stomach in mere hours or provide a new limb to an amputee and with said limb being easy to use. He was positive that they wouldn't need his help; he was the outcast, the brat, the demon. From birth he had been predestined to be the one they hated, the one who was meant to suffer. Why would they need his help?

"Why?" he asked,

Yamato coughed into his fist and said, "We are losing this war, there are too many casualties that even your drugs can not fully heal. The enemy has outnumbered us and our morale is low, a few of the soldiers have even walked to their deaths, unarmed,"

"Why do you need my help?" Naruto repeated with a sharp frown, "What can I do that none of the other shinobi cannot?"

No one wanted to speak but, surprising enough, it was Sasuke that continued, "Everything. You…you can do everything," Naruto cocked his head to the side in confusion and Sasuke kept speaking, "your skills are well rounded and you're a master of many things. Most people cannot be scientists and masters of taijutsu or ninjutsu and fuinjutsu masters at the same time, it is either one but you…" he had to swallow his pride to admit this, "Are a master of all,"

'Not all, I can't perform genjutsu. But they don't need to know that…' the blonde blissfully thought, "So you believe that if I participate in this war I would make a difference?"

"Yes-" Kakashi spoke but Naruto held his hand up for him to stop and pointed at Jiriaya,

"No…I want him to say it,"

The toad sage screwed his lips to the side in distaste and Naruto clenched his teeth, trying to maintain a straight face. The sage abruptly bowed his head and said, "Yes, Naruto, you would make a big difference in the war,"

From the admission Naruto felt another weight on his chest lift off him. His godmother had told him of stories of when Kushina was still pregnant. The busy snake summoner would take at least thirty minutes of her time to visit the Uzumaki and at least get on good terms with her before he was born. Kushina and Orochimara might not have liked each other, even borderline hated each other, but what they had in common was Minato, whom the Sannin was gradually distancing herself from. Throughout her pregnancy, Jiriaya had been out of the village. She took the liberty of sending him messages and telling him her plans to take care of their godchild but the letters he sent back was what made the woman hate the toad sage. She even showed him the letters he sent to her; each one clearly outlining the fact that he didn't care what happened to the child. That he will be nothing if not for his sole guidance. Naruto never had faith on his godfather but it still chipped off a part of his heart to read that the man didn't care what happened to him, as long as he was part of his future.

Needless to say that his whole life had been proof enough that Naruto didn't need Jiraiya's help.

Naruto controlled his smile and said, "then I will gladly help you, but only because of two reasons," he raised a finger, "because my friend and I also live on this planet, if its destroyed then we will have nowhere else to go," he added a second finger, "and because it'll be fun,"

Yamato hastily said, "And no holding back,"

Naruto made a flippant hand gesture at him, "let me worry about that," he then rubbed his hands together in anticipation, "now where do I start?"

Kakashi nudged Sakura forward and she blushed under Naruto's curious gaze, "there are these plant-like men that are giving us trouble. We don't know their weakness," Naruto motioned for her to continue as he began trekking to the mountain, the others followed him, "we know that when they take a blood sample of a living or dead shinobi they are able to take their form and infiltrate our ranks. The only way were are to know that they are posing as a comrade is that they had a zigzag like marking going down from their chests to their pelvis,"

"Even the eyes don't change?" the scientist asked, intrigued by the creatures ability,

"No, they seem to be able to place a chakra-less illusion over them," the star medic of the team continued,

"What are their key components?" Naruto summoned four spiders and they began their ascent upwards, they met up with Aoki-chan and she turned around. The Konoha ninjas each got out slightly older versions of oxygen masks that ANBU use,

"White fibrous skin, a greenish sap in their chest cavity that is imbued with nature chakra and our sensors say that there is another chakra signature on them, that this chakra comes off as watered down and weak from age," the pink haired medic was on the same spider as Naruto but she still had to yell over the high speed winds blowing around that,

Naruto hummed and nodded, "I'm under the assumption that you have a sample readily available on you,"

"Yes, we recovered a whole plant body from a battle in Waterfall,"

"You did? How have you been able to kill it so far?"

"Knife to the heart but that alone is incredibly difficult because they can heal themselves and stand up again. We need to make the wound deep and large so that most of the sap would leak out," Sai yelled to Naruto, he had been feeling left out of the conversation. Naruto looked at Sakura and she nodded to confirm what she said, he looked back up the mountain as his spider scampered to the cave,

"I think I know how to kill these things from a distance but I need to get that sample to my lab and analyse it to confirm," his ronin friend waved for his attention and he mentally commanded the spider she was on to approach his speeding stead, both racing side by side,

"Someone broke into the lab, sir," she discreetly signed to him and his eyebrows shot up in surprise and she nodded before hesitating for a few seconds, "they…they took your godmother's DNA,"

'They did what?!' he didn't even wait for the spiders to slow down in front of the cave before he jumped off, slapped his palm on the door and pushed it open.

The lab looked unchanged but he knew better. He ran to his desk and saw that documents he stored on it had been pushed off to the ground, scattered everywhere. His shaking hands ran over the surface of the table and ever so slowly a fractured storage seal that spanned over the whole table opened up. Fractured because it had been forced open by a counter seal greater than level six. Nothing was unsealed since it was empty. Among the many things Orochimara wanted him to do on the event of her death was to find a cure for her unique heart cancer, he was just about to get to it until the Konoha ninjas came. It was the only physical sample on the planet because the body he had buried had been burnt to ash, again at her request.

He fell on one knee and closed his eyes forcefully; trying to force the tears that wanted to come out to stop. The Konoha ninjas looked at him, not knowing what happened, and Aoki-chan hastily walked to him and blocked him from view with her new attire; a long white coat that reached her mid-calf. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and his head snapped to her, fire spinning in his vulpine eyes that were hidden under his black goggles. She handed him a small handheld device with a glass screen and her thumb tapped the centre so the surveillance video would begin playing.

A spinning vortex similar to the one he saw the Uchiha used to escape appear inside the cave, just behind the door. The man stumbled and fell on his knees, visibly in pain from the slice wound through his right arm that cut clean through it enough to chip into his bone. He stayed on his knees, panting for air and clasping the profusely bleeding wound with his other hand. The man cursed under his breathe and looked up from his kneeling position at the pristine lab besides the spurts of blood that pumped out of his arm and pooled at his feet, the toxins laced in the blade were destroying him. He grumbled, his voice sounding gurgled, and his sharingan eye looked around for a source of chakra that wasn't nature, Naruto's, Aoki-chan's or Kyuubi's. There were storage seals all around the lab and only two in each room, as far as his eyes could see from his hunched position, but the one that stood out was the one located on the desk. He struggled to his feet, grunting with each steady step, and stopped by the desk. He suppressed the pain the toxins were putting him through to draw a counter seal for the storage seal with his blood. There was an audible crack and the glass cylinder that stored flacks of the dead Sannin's skin. He swiped the sample and stuffed it into his cloak before he kamui teleported out of the lab.

Naruto pushed the video device away and took his female friends had to stand up. He looked over his shoulder at his Konoha shinobi guests with a sinister smirk, "it seems I do have a reason to go all out,"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Are you aware that he will kill you for doing this?" Orochimara the snake Sannin said with an amused smirk to the one armed Obito Uchiha and her former apprentice, Yakushi Kabuto. She looked disapprovingly at the latter, "I'm very disappointed in you, Kabuto-kun,"

The Sannin honestly felt great; she was not in any pain. The pale woman looked around at the location she had been revived and saw that it was a cave with the walls smoothened out so that they all curved at touched at the top. Around her were hundreds of closed caskets but from the ones that were opened she was able to recognise three legendary figures; Hashirama Senju, Mu of the Dust release and Uchiha Madara. The real Uchiha Madara. He had his arms closed and his awe inspiring three tomoe sharingan looked down on her. She wasn't able to move, a sign that her apprentice had perfect the impure world resurrection jutsu and was simply keeping them rigid with his mind. With a heavy mind she realized that the war her former organisation, the Akatsuki, wanted to start had already started the war. Though one thing made her yellow eyes brighten,

"None of you stand a chance against my Naruto-chan," she growled under her breathe and flashed a bright grin at the one armed Uchiha, "I take it he did that to you," she tutted lowly, to shame him, "can you even imagine what else he can do if he puts in a little effort," she didn't know he had re-created an entire town in six hours but that was a point proven, "you all are dead men walking; when he finds out I was brought back-"

"Shut up," Madara intoned, his voice bounced around the large subterranean room. The snake woman opened her mouth to curse at the Uchiha but Kabuto mentally forced her mouth shut, she turned to him and spat venom through her eyes. The snake boy recoiled a little, "get on with the plan, Obito," even though he couldn't move his presence was still felt and it only seemed Hashirama wasn't affected; the wood release user looked at the man from the corner of his eyes seeing as he couldn't turn his head to look at him,

"What plan?"

The reptilian teen looked away from her to his 'partner' Obito, "yes, what plan?"

"Tell her to summon the Uzumaki king of the underworld mask,"

"Why-"

The one armed Uchiha glared at the medic and he clearly got the message. He nodded to his former sensei turned undead puppet and she rigidly weaved through a hundred hand seals, struggling with all her might to slow her hands down but Kabuto had full control of her, merely with an idle thought, and she finished the set of seals by clapping her hands together and interlacing them, "Summoning jutsu: Uzumaki King of the Underworld mask," a thick crack broke a foot in front of her and it widened. Out of the crack rose multiple skeleton hands, each one supporting a corner of an average sized mask that bore the seal of the underworld king on its forehead. It was designed in a way that it had ringed eyes of a racoon and fangs of a vampire, pale white as the moon. The Sannin ripped the mask from the skeletons hands and they returned to the underworld, she shakily handed it to her former apprentice.

There was a reason the Uzumaki were so feared, not only because of their chakra, or their battle lust, or their kenjutsu skills. They were feared because of their fuinjutsu skills; they were among the oldest clan in history and it shouldn't come as a surprise that they were able to use seals to tap into the realm of the undead. The Uzumaki king of the underworld mask was created to temporarily revive dead comrades to return to battle but the power of the mask soon took over its user and corrupted him. He had to be put down before he could do something evil and the mask had been stored, not in Uzushio, but deep under the marshes of Swamp country. Orochimara had stolen the mask in the hopes of using it to bring back her baby brother, Minato, so that she could at least apologize to him, but the day she found it was also the day she had gotten news of Naruto's existence; she dropped everything she was doing: her life and her duties, to take care of her godchild for as long as she could, forgetting about the mask.

Until today.

The sacrifice needed to flawlessly use the mask was of a person who had frequently escaped death, or a person the king of hell would gratefully snag.

Obito took the mask from Kabuto and that was when Pein, specifically the Asura path, made his appearance, dragging the limp body of Shimura Danzo. The man had made the mistake of sending his ROOT ninjas to him in order to make a deal; Danzo's sharingan for safety during the war. The old war hawk actually believed that Obito had one eye because he couldn't get a replacement. The Uchiha clearly didn't want to make any deals and effortlessly destroyed ROOT, sparing Danzo so that he would serve a purpose, which was to be the sacrifice to bring Madara back to life. The one armed Uchiha, who was one armed because he had cut off his poisoned arm before the poison spread to his heart, put on the mask. Pein held Danzo up so that he could face Madara and the ancient Uchiha wore an evil smirk of victory as his disciple pointed his index and middle finger at Danzo, the colour on his skin began to drain, and swiped it to his master. There was a visible vortex of translucent white that passed from Danzo into him, for about five minutes before it stopped, with Danzo being nothing but a pile of bones. The mask crumbled from Obito's face and every living member in the room took a cautious step back as Uchiha Madara walked forward.

The revived man slowly looked at his one armed disciple, then to the frantic reptilian teen that formerly had control of him, then to the path that represented Nagato. He smirked at the latter. His power rolled off him in dangerous waves, enough to make the erect coffins around them to creak away from him. His bone chilling eyes not hiding his intention for the world as the still tomoe analysed each resurrected coffin, not even needing to open them.

He began walking through the sea of standing caskets to the exit, situated under the Valley of End, and said, "we attack Konoha first, after which we begin phase two of my plan. No one would stand in my way,"

Orochimara closed her eyes, 'good luck, Naruto,'

Authors note

Wow, so, I intended for this chapter to be shorter but there just some things that I wanted to be mentioned here and not left to the next chapter. So, so many things; like Obito's preliminary fight against Naruto, how they even got to Yomisaki, to reviving Madara, lots and lots of things. Total word count is 17,300 approximately. I purposely didn't make Minato, Kushina or the Sandaime be with Obito and the rest under the VOE because it would be an even longer dialogue, starting with Minato wondering how Naruto was doing and Kushina yelling at Orochimara for dirtying her child, yadda yadda yadda. I might like writing stories but there is an extent my fingers can take.

There are a lot of layers to this; Obito finally caught wind of where Naruto was and went to guage his strength with Kisame capturing Naruto but not counting the fact that Naruto still kept Aoki-chan alive. His secondary mission was to take the only available sample of his godmothers DNA so that he could revive her and take the mask to revive Madara. He got poisoned for not taking Naruto seriously and he had to lose his arm. I don't need to explain how Danzo is the person that death would love to embrace; his scars are reason enough.

Yes, Naruto can spit out the Kusanagi. Did it surprise you? I hope it did.

I'm aware that I uprooted ROOT unexpectedly but if I kept them around they would just hinder the plot. The story is a bit accelerated, seeing as the war takes place when Naruto is fourteen while the canon war took place when they were like sixteen-seventeen.

I'm not sure anyone noticed but I rushed through a part of this chapter; re-building Yomisaki market town. My reason is because that information was just a filler and will not affect the story whatsoever.

What do you think of Naruto's confession? Where do you think it would lead for Aoki-chan and him? Kindly drop a review on what you think.

Next chapter is going to be wild. Fights and fights all round. I will have to dig into my creativity vault for them. Opinions and thoughts on what should be included would also be appreciated.

Review, if you so kindly, even though I know you're tired from reading this long ass chapter. I would be very appreciative.

See you on the flip side,

Foy.