The day after Boruto visited, she felt it was a good excuse to request access to the Hokage's office. Discuss his son, speak of the visit, and request a favour. She had found Boruto to be for the most part well mannered and an agreeable boy.

She had entered Naruto's office and within the first three seconds she set foot in and the door was closed, the blond haired blue eyed older version of Boruto with one extra whisker line on either side of his face looked to her. Immediately the sky blue eyes reflected concern as he inquired, "what's wrong?"

The shinigami blinked at the question. She was normally able to hide her emotions and not give any outward indication of distress. She met his gaze and replied, "whatever do you mean? I simply wanted to praise you on Boruto's behaviour yesterday when he was at my home."

First he smiled then gave a small chuckle as he replied while returning to his seat, "I'm happy to hear it, but there's no point in lying to me. Part of having Kurama is that I can sense the feelings of those around me—the negative emotions I can feel more than positive ones."

"Right—part of the package of being a Jinchuriki, I forgot. Please forgive me," Sakiya apologized. To her astonishment the man simply waved it off as if she had mentioned it would rain later and repeated his initial inquiry with different wording, "If there's some way myself or the Shinobi can help you with what's troubling you, you'd only need to ask."

"There is, but I regret I need it to be off record," Sakiya confessed as she sat across from him. This seemed to grab his attention intensely as he regarded her. Kakashi had mentioned something about certain people who resided in Konoha who were as he had put it 'long term guests of the village', he had learned about it from Tsunade, who had in turn once heard of them from her grandfather. They had been once dubbed 'the immortals of Konoha' although it wasn't quite accurate as these people did age, just slower than the rest of the Konoha residents. That was because although they had resided in Konoha for over a hundred years, only one of them had actually been born in Konoha. The older three had come to the village from 'a far off place' as it had been put. The information was very strictly classified, only the Hokages ever knew of their existence. They didn't even speak of it with the other Kages.

"All mission requests have to be in written format," Naruto informed her.

"Most Hokages make an exception for us," Sakiya countered in a hushed voice. Realization washed over him as he sat back and acknowledged, "you are one of them. The rumored 'Konoha immortals' I heard about from the prior Hokages."

The raven haired teenager nodded as she explained, "My mother and her cousins helped lay down the foundation for Konoha to become what it is today. They helped train the Shinobi, teach them new ways to use their chakra and combine it with Taijutsu. She founded the Anbu and her one cousin was the first to head the Anbu himself. However, what Hatake, Tsunade and even Sarutobi didn't know was that years ago my mother and her cousins were severely injured. It wasn't Kurama, but someone else used that event as a distraction to try and eliminate us. The very people we were sent to detain and bring home to face punishment for their actions. However, as each of them fell I was able to contain them in a barrier that kept them in stasis and used a technique that only someone of my species can utilize to transport them away safely. I've been attempting to heal their wounds gradually ever since."

The immortals as it turned out, were not so immortal. The fact that it had taken that much time for her to come to anyone for help now had Naruto curious about what was going on, "so why come to ask for help now?"

" I've done all I can do on my own. I was born here, in Konoha. As such, I can't reach out to anyone back home. Nobody would know who I am there, and they're as likely to kill me as they are to help me. Two of them, Minori and Kiyoshi, have abilities that correspond with elements. Minori's is water, while Kiyoshi's is light. If I can get them somewhere that will allow them to absorb the ambience of those elements into their bodies, it could restore enough power for them to regain consciousness. But therein lies the difficulty. I can't transport them, expose them, supervise the regeneration and guard them on my own. I know some things but for all my talents and skills, back home I'd be no better than a fourth seat rank. To give you a rough idea our ranks go from Captain to unseated, with Captain being the strongest of a squad. After Captain is Lieutenat, then third seat, and fourth seat. My mom and her cousins all hold Lieutenant rank or higher. I shouldn't ask this of humans, but I can't succeed on my own. Failure isn't an option. If this mission isn't completed—if we can't undo what the defectors have done, then this world and the entire universe is at risk of the apocalypse. I wouldn't ask for help if I knew of another way," she admitted. She was now glancing down at her clasped hands, which had begun to fidget while she talked and he saw evidence that she was hiding the fact that she was crying towards the end.

Naruto waited until she dried her eyes and once again met his gaze before advising her, "What you're describing sounds incredibly dangerous whether we get involved or not, however the risk tilts the scales on that danger. I'll join you to revive your comrades myself, and I can think of a few other Jonin who would be ideal to help out. I may even be able to get one out of retirement to lend their talents to the cause. Although, I'd have to restrict this to only being done once or twice and we'll need some medical ninja to accompany us by the sounds of it. There's just one more thing I need to know, how strong are the defectors you're up against? Are they Shinobi or something else?"

"They're not Shinobi. They're the same 'something else' as me. They're Shinigami, and they once held the ranks of Lieutenant and up before defecting," Sakiya answered. She bit her lip before adding, "There is one other thing: When a Shinigami reaches the rank of Lieutenant or Captain, a limiter is placed on their power when they enter a living world which reduces their power by 80%. The reason for it is two-fold. First, it reduces the risk of their energy causing undue influence on the spirits of that living world. Also if their power wasn't reduced by 80% and they fought with their power behind their attack a single swing of their blade could destroy an entire block and kill everyone within the blast radius," she concluded.

Naruto sat wide eyed as he responded, "I see. Well, in that case we'd best take every precaution we can as humans, and we're definitely doing this one at a time. So the question there is do we help the one who needs to be exposed to large amounts of water or light first?"

"Well—I think Sungakure is closer than Kirigakure, right? Honestly, I think a desert would be a pretty good place to get a lot of light exposure," the teen suggested.

She was surprised by a large grin on the Seventh Hoakge's face as he nodded in agreement and stood up, "Alright. One of the Shinobi I have in mind for this is currently away on another mission. I'll recall them and get them back here to help out. In the meantime, try to sit tight and if you can give me any word of mouth information that can help us with this I'd appreciate it."

"There is one thing. The items that they stole before coming here, I've recovered three, but there's still four missing. We also need to recover those objects otherwise what we're trying to prevent could still occur—and it shames me to say that Konoha has already suffered because of these items," she confessed.

Naruto looked to her with an expression she couldn't quite read while he asked which items she was referring to. She contemplated, biting her lip and taking a deep breath before revealing, "my mom and her cousins were sent here to detain the defectors and to recover the items they stole from the Soul Society Archives—the scrolls of Jashin."