A/N: Here we are with the next chapter and the conclusion of the Land of Snow Arc. Next update will have our heroes back in Konoha where they belong and in the final stretch leading up to the Chunin Exams. First, some catch up ADMIN:

Item #2 from what I'm calling, "The List," addresses Naruto's desire to join ANBU. That still remains and he's about to get his initiation, for lack of a better word, in the very near future. Remember, Konoha is busy trying to prepare for a supposed invasion and that usually means a very involved ANBU force. Perhaps they'll be able to kill multiple birds with that very large stone (I see two on that list that were planned to be a part of the upcoming arc at least). In any event, prepare yourselves for a noted increase in ANBU-like activity.

#12 (The Stingers) was an idea spawned while researching blacksmithing as part of my first story Nature of the Beast that never got used. Once it was implemented in this story to supplement Naruto's income (a means to raise money for an unspecified financial need), it pretty much grew a life of its own. Other than Higurashi's catching up with demand, it might see spurious use in the story but it is not meant to be a large-impact prop.

Alyr Lin, and several others actually, have asked about Naruto's reluctance to get too close to Shizuka and the other girls that have shown an interest in him this fic. It's not that he's not personally interested but I hope to shed some light on why he's hesitant and not against the idea. I think if Shizuka had used a different tact right off the bat, she might have had greater success at the outset. Naruto's growing relationship with Ino has been the product of a steady courting and wooing process leading to the build-up of a strong, survivable relationship with just the right amount of… physical tension. Love, like the relationship it grows from, takes work and a strong one requires time to simmer and develop. This isn't a story where my Naruto jumps in the sack with every woman right off the bat. Even the crap he went through in Istoria stemmed from his pain of a shattered heart and there is regret there to be sure.

As before, enjoy as you will.

~Siva'a-tasi

~III~

Chapter 26: Butterfly Wings and Bijuu Kisses

~ Previously on No More

Mizore wasn't much for ninjutsu not that he could use it with his mechanical left hand. Never had much use for it really. When he signed on with Nadare nearly fifteen years before, his family had all but disowned him leaving him with few choices in the world.

He'd always been big, bigger than anyone else in his family, much too big for the sword. Tou-san was a swordsman. His tou-san was a swordsman and so on back ten generations. Mizore couldn't help that his hands were too big to hold them properly, that he was too big to move correctly with one or learn the stances. It didn't help that his younger brother, Masaru, excelled at everything the larger boy failed in.

Their father actually congratulated the younger sibling for mauling Mizore's hand in a training spar boldly stating that Mizore could finally take up the relaxing life as a plow hand since his massive size and strength were good for little else. Such a monstrous blow to the ego of a young boy should be punishable by public flogging but, alas, Mizore existed in a world filled with feudal laws and sycophantic bastards. Instead, he learned to hate and resent burying both deep inside.

Oh, the hatred that grew inside him that day. For years it festered until Nadare found him. Nadare helped him and led him to Lord Doto, the same Lord Doto that replaced his hand with one strong enough to keep up with his strength. The armor helped also as it made him even stronger. It made him faster.

It made him fast enough that two years later Mizore returned to his ancestral home in the southern hills of Snow and happily crushed the skulls of his entire family with it. He knew his strength. He reveled in it just like he knew exactly what his armor was capable of.

He'd killed repeatedly since then for Nadare and his new Lord and it looks like he'd get the chance to kill again today as he smirked at the lean youth rippling with flames. He'd enjoy crushing the boy's skull just as soon as his armor sucked the flame-flavored chakra from his body.

~III~

~ Yuki no Kuni, Kazahana Keep ~

Naruto knew he'd only get one chance at surprising the Snow nin, so he had to make it count. Squaring off against the bear-like man, he slid his left foot forward just enough to get a good step-off with his front leg then charged. His opponent surged to meet him, the mechanical glove clamping down around his own flaming fist. Once they locked limbs and Naruto felt that familiar tug on his flaming energy, he helped it along by pushing the flow into the vice-like metal claw. The ningen's armor did the rest.

It was like his soul was being sucked from his body, the air nearly leaving his lungs right along with it. Despite the flames still flickering around his form, Naruto felt cold and tingly all over. When his legs buckled dropping him to one knee his flames dimmed and the lighting in the large chamber seemed to dip along with it.

The big Snow ningen chuckled. "I'm not going to drain you completely dry. I want you awake when I crush your skull."

"Naruto!" Ino's scream seemed both scared and incredulous at the same time. "You have to get away or the drain will kill you!" She was aware of the risks concerning Hestia's blessing and her eyes were locked onto his flaming body where several patches of which were beginning to smolder and flicker out.

"Not… yet…" the blond groaned out making her jaw drop all the more, his eyes focused the entire time on the odd device on the Snow nin's chest. The white and blue halves of a bifurcated Yin-Yang symbol were spinning rapidly once they clenched hands, the speed beginning to slow as the colors dulled to a grey-like stone.

By now, Mizore was ecstatic as his metal claw tried to clamp down harder only to freeze place with a stone-like scraping sound. Confused, the larger male glanced to the shiny gray gauntlet on his left arm to see it dulled and pitted, something definitely out of the norm. By the time his instincts were screaming at him to jump away, it was too late. His left leg didn't want to move or bend, and he was having considerable trouble moving the entire left side of his body for some odd reason.

When the draw on Naruto's chakra stopped and he could stand despite the heavy gasping for oxygen, his opponent had become a heavy garden statue. Naruto released his flames with a fluttering burst of air, surged his chakra to break his right hand free of Mizore's grip (shattering the once metal glove in the process), then smashed a fist into the larger man's face shattering his head into a thousand pieces.

The pink-haired kunoichi opened her mouth to roar her anger but the ceiling of Doto's audience chamber beat her to it. It collapsed with the next mighty explosion, the rubble thundering around them as shinobi scattered in all directions. The room shook, debris fell, and dust filled the chamber clouding eyes and filling lungs.

"By the numbers!" Asuma's voice was hard, militant. He knew that, in a panicked situation, routine was often the fastest way to get people back on track.

"One!" Shika coughed out followed by a terse, "…troublesome."

"Two!" Naruto's heart beat just a little faster at Ino's high-pitched squeaking cough.

"Three!" hacked out a raspy-sounding Naruto not half a second later.

"…"

Even if she didn't know the protocol, Naruto wanted to hear Koyuki's voice say something. Anything. Instead, he had to listen to Doto's voice receding in a direction that made little sense, so he looked upwards and frowned.

"Fubuki! Meet me at the glacier!" Looking upwards in surprise and annoyance, the blond witnessed the slimy geezer lifting into the air with Koyuki tucked firmly under one arm, her fists beating futilely against his meaty thighs. The man's bulky cloak was gone replaced by a sleek set of chakra armor unlike the basic sets sported by his three (now two) cronies.

Shikamaru tensed thinking the angry kunoichi might actually disobey the retreating leader. Her teeth clenched and her legs flexed only to get swept up by the cursing Nadare, the older shinobi shoving her in the direction of a side door with a muttered threat to motivate her. With a resounding crash, the pony-tailed shinobi had just enough time to deflect Asuma's sandaled heel before bounding off the nearest refuse pile and through a rupture in the chamber wall, the bearded Leaf nin in hot pursuit.

"Can you-," Naruto began only to get cut off by Shikamaru.

"Go after the Princess! We'll deal with the kunoichi." Even as Ino and Shika streaked off after her fluttering pigtails, he hadn't quite figured out a way around her chakra armor.

'This is so troublesome!'

~III~

~ Office of the Hokage, Konohagakure no Sato ~

A swirl of wind announced his arrival, the lean figure sporting a standard ANBU jumper beneath the grey flak vest. With his head bowed and body kneeling before the desk of his superior, he waited patiently to be acknowledged not wanting to disturb the village leader during his favorite pastime.

"Thank you for responding so quickly, Tora."

The kneeling figure thumped a gloved forearm to across his chest so that a fist struck over his heart, the forearm plating contrasting with the elbow-length gloves. "As you command, Hokage-sama."

"Tora, I am going to need to you revive your Tenzo role as a mentor once again." While the orange and black-striped facemask was emotionless, Hiruzen noticed the barest flicker of the man's body.

"And the subject, Hokage-sama?" Tora's voice was calm and seemingly unaffected but the Sandaime knew otherwise.

"Naruto Uzumaki, the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki." This time the figure did tense visibly.

"If I may be so bold, what is my expected role with the vessel?" Hiruzen deliberately took his time restoking his pipe before he answered, the moments seeming to drag by.

"Jiraiya of the Sannin will fill the head instructor role. You are supplemental, mostly damage control should the boy lose control." The old man noticed that his agent's shoulders did not relax.

"Hokage-sama, is it… advisable… to train with that so soon?" His veiled reference wasn't lost on the Sandaime. Everyone remembered the incident when the emotionally-strung orphan unleashed the bijuu on a serial killer in the slums. The unstable villain, unable to cope with the domineering female figures in his life, had taken to carving up prostitutes, one of which had been very close to the boy. His rage, and the hateful chakra unleashed from that small alley, smothered the entire village and sparked fear-charged riots for weeks on end resulting in panicked calls for his death. Tora's unique ability had been critical in subduing the child and, even then, it was a hard-fought battle when the small boy was a relatively harmless Academy student.

What happened if the boy lost control now? Would Tora be strong enough to contain him until he could be restrained… or worse?

"Jiraiya has sworn to take it slow with the training, but I would feel safer if you were a part of it." The quiet nin bowed his head once. "His team should be returning from a mission in the next week or so. Please use that time to prepare yourself."

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" With another flourish of wind and leaves, Hiruzen's office was vacant once more but he couldn't quite enjoy it as he fought back the strongest case of déjà vu he'd experienced in a very long time. Settling into his trusted pipe, he settled for glaring hatefully at the ever-expanding stack of paperwork weighing down one side of his desk willing it to spontaneously combust with zero success.

~III~

~ Yuki no Kuni ~

They were flying through the darkened hallways trying to keep the pink blur in sight. The audience chamber collapsed completely as Shika and Ino dashed after the Snow kunoichi, the lighting throughout their current level must have failed when the roof caved in. Shika's eyes narrowed as he zeroed in on the odd disc mounted to the back of her uniform, the white and blue spiral bifurcated with an S-shaped line, as it hummed with power. He was so focused on keeping her in their sights, his ears nearly missed her hostile voice barking out a jutsu in their faces.

[Swallow Snow Storm!] Leaping into the air mid-stride, she pirouetted with her right hand slightly trailing. Shika didn't bother dodging what sounded like hundreds of projectiles slicing through the air. Anything ice related in the narrow corridor meant nowhere to run, his own seals flying the moment he heard her voice carrying down the passageway.

[Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu!] Two fingers pressed to his lips, Shikamaru inhaled as much air as he could hold then blew for all his was worth, the heat of his chakra converting to an almost uncomfortable burning sensation in his chest as the hallway before them burst into a column of flame. With the writhing serpent of fire crackling and popping as the oxygen it scavenged surrendered with a roar, he couldn't hear the ice projectiles melting with a hiss, the forty or so sharp-edged blades shaped like swallows converting directly to steam with the heat of his attack.

Once the flames died down, both Leaf nin took stock of what was left. Anything combustible hanging from the walls was aflame providing some light. Too bad their opponent never slowed down her pace as the hazy air showed an empty hallway splitting into three more directions. Hell, she could have ducked out of any one of a dozen shattered windows to the ground not twenty feet below them. Further pursuit would have been pointless.

"Damn it!" Ino swore under her breath.

"Come on, let's hope Asuma-sensei had better luck with his opponent." Shika turned back rather than spend the next hour or so hunting down a fleeing enemy as the castle crumbled around their ears. Despite the seriousness of the situation, a waste of effort was just too troublesome to contemplate at the moment.

~III~

"You really should have left when you had the chance." Nadare seemed relaxed, confident even. His body language as he faced off against the chain-smoking shinobi was that of a man expecting things to go his way giving his opponent all the time in the world to collect his final thoughts.

Most of his weight was on his back leg, the right one, with the same hand resting comfortably on his hips. The left hand hung idly down by his thigh as the wind casually blew the loose strands of hair from his face. Asuma almost thought he might be trying to take after Jiraiya of the Sannin with the lavender-tinted kabuki tears trailing partially down his cheeks.

If nothing else, the man's attire was color coordinated so he'd look good once they buried him.

Asuma calmly lit another cigarette taking a deep draw to fill his lungs.

"Take your time. I want you to enjoy your final smoke," drawled out Nadare's condescending comment. Asuma, just as calmly as he filled his lungs, languidly exhaled a winding gust of rancid smoke into the air.

"You're too kind." On the third drag, he slipped his favorite piece of tinder between his teeth and took a lasting glance at the former Kazahana Keep, its entire eastern wing now aflame and crumbling to the earth with a crash.

"Really was an eyesore given how gorgeous the countryside is," Nadare clucked out between his gnashed teeth. Asuma flicked his eyes over to see his opponent taking in the same sights, the clear disapproval registering in his face and tone of voice.

'Hnh, I guess the grass isn't always greener, is it?' Dropping his now finished stick into the fresh powder at his feet, he stretched his arms with a pop and nodded to the patient shinobi turning back to face him.

"Ready then are we?" Nadare seemed almost amused.

Asuma merely shrugged. "Ready or not, you've been more than fair." With a quick grunt, he launched himself at the lavender mercenary leading with a left straight for a feint as his knee rose up to meet the ducking ponytail. Nadare countered by palming the knee inward and away from his face before rising to counter with a left of his own from point-blank range.

Asuma obliged him by borrowing a move from his student; he ducked under the swing and struck the top of Nadare's leading knee with a right fist catching the man by surprise given the sharp intake of air. As Nadare's body lurched, Asuma caught him with a left uppercut crossing the man's eyes momentarily as he stalked him.

Unlike Naruto at the time of their "introductory training session," Asuma was a seasoned professional understanding full well not to let up on an opponent when you had the upper hand. His right leg shot out of the snow, the sole of his boot rocketing towards Nadare's exposed mid-section only for his body to explode in a shower of ice and snow.

'Tsk, Kawarimi' he muttered internally. It seemed as if the old boy wasn't completely rusty after all.

[Piercing Dragon Fierce Tiger!] Asuma never knew that ice could roar like that as the column of bitter jutsu descended from the heavens erupting as it struck the earth where the tanned nin once stood. Nadare thrust his hands into the air victoriously with a rousing, "YESSSS!" It didn't even bother him that a small snowstorm had begun. He'd won! He'd bested an elite from another village and, once the rumbling of the higher elevation settled down from the concussive force of his jutsu, he'd go claim his trophy and see about getting his bingo notation updated, maybe even upgraded from a "B" to an "A" ranking.

"Ugh! All of this industrialization is ruining our pristine snowfalls," he groused as his hand swept the dark tinted snow away from his face. 'Wait, since when is snow… laced with ash?'

Then his world exploded with heat, the sky going white with light and orange fire.

Asuma stepped out from behind his tree perch and lit another cigarette, his head shaking from side to side as he observed the ruined and staggering mess that was once Nadare Roga. Each of the Snow nin had the same spiral pinwheel on their uniforms, his being on his left shoulder. Asuma surmised it was the secret to the armor that allowed them to create Hyōton techniques despite not being part of the Yuki Clan. In Nadare's case, his had ruptured during the explosion leaving a trail of smoke in his wake.

Maybe the armor could absorb only so much chakra at once? It sure looked that way as Nadare's armor was in tatters, his happuri headpiece hanging on only by shredded strands. The man's ears were trailing blood down both sides of his neck, his face and most other exposed areas of skin showing second and third-degree burns. His armor showed more scorched and melted areas than that soothing shade of lavender he favored, and what little hair that remained on his head was still burning like a candle wick.

Asuma didn't usually get to see the results of his favorite crowd-control jutsu as it more often than not incinerated human remains leaving nothing but more ash. He almost felt sorry for the man as Nadare collapsed to his knees in shock believing most of the man's nerves had been scorched out in the heat. Still, feeling charitable, Asuma blurred once stopping just behind the kneeling man having passed just in front of him.

A second later, Nadare Roga fell forward face-first into the snow as it hungrily absorbed what remained of his life's blood. The man who would be a Kage passing away with no one to protect or to mourn him.

Asuma looked up into the eyes of his returning Genin. "Let's hurry. We need to catch up to Naruto before he does something reckless."

As Ino was still in shock, Shikamaru broke the tension with a snort. "C'mon, sensei. When is Naruto never reckless?"

~III~

Naruto sneezed as he flew through the treeline resisting the urge to punch Shikamaru in the nose. He couldn't move as fast as the flying Doto but the man was heading in a straight line somewhere north, so it wasn't hard to tree hop in the same direction. Molding chakra as he traveled, he could feel the residual trail of artificial Hyoton residue left by the man's armor.

It was sterile, almost clinical in texture like his hateful times in Konoha General. To a growing sensor like the Uzumaki, it was a beacon a blind man could follow.

At some point, he glanced below to see the movie director Makino trudging along on a motorized sled with one of his movie crews. The other had taken up shop at the keep making the blond chuckle at the man's devotion to his craft. If he caught half of what was going on in the country tonight, it would become a blockbuster.

'Hunh, I wonder if we will get royalties if he keeps us in the film?' Those thoughts kept him preoccupied until the trees thinned out and he found himself breaking the treeline and cresting the ridge of a large frozen plateau. Landing at the edge of it, he looked up to see six giant obelisks rectangular in shape and covered in thick layers of ice. Rough trails of (glowing) jagged ice led from the base of each structure towards the center of the plateau where a small pagoda sat, his eyes grew enormous as he sees a familiar pink coat and its owner kneeling not far from the small dome-like structure in the middle.

Her head was down, and she was flinching uncontrollably at the enraged man waving his arms in the air berating her about the secret Kazahana treasure and asking petulantly what he was supposed to do with a worthless heat generator. Whatever sanity he'd maintained over the last ten years must have clearly fled his mind at the moment. He'd need to put an end to this before he took his rage out on the defenseless woman and injured, or worse, killed her. When the itinerate fool raised a fist towards her, it forced his hand throwing any stealth options right out the proverbial window.

"DOTO!" Naruto nearly sighed when the man's arm stayed its downward path and instead his head swiveled around to focus on him.

"Stop picking on helpless civilians and face someone your own size," he growled out. The larger man turned his body to face him, his hands clenching into ham-sized fists.

"With. Pleasure." Naruto's eyebrow raised appreciatively as the ruler began rolling through hand seals in a passably proficient manner, his mind recognizing someone not overly used to employing them.

'He must have studied once he got the suit. Doesn't matter so long as he's focused on me and not her.' Naruto surged forward, snow kicking up in a seven-meter rooster tail as he sprinted across the snow bed. The boy was roughly one hundred meters away.

[Twin Dragon Blizzard!] Doto's arm shot forward, a swirling mass of shadow pouring from his hand snaking its way across the snow. At the tip of the blast, a maw opened showing jagged teeth of inky blackness in a muzzle-like face, a pair of angry red orbs bursting from its shadowy form as it screamed towards the closing Genin. Doto's smile became nearly possessed as the earth in front of the charging fool erupted sending snow and icy water two stories into the sky.

His smile faded as he saw two blond shinobi parting around the eruption promptly resuming their charge. They were roughly seventy-five meters away now and he was growing slightly concerned so he let loose with another volley.

Instead of seeing pink mist as he was familiar with in Nadare's staged training sessions (using purported rebels as target practice), Doto now saw ten blonds charging him. Worse still they'd covered almost half the distance now and his eyes were growing substantially bigger as that old familiar feeling began to creep up his spine.

Cowardice.

Doto was a bully not because he initially craved power but because he never had any. His older brother, Sosetsu, was the favorite. He was the smart one that excelled in the sciences while Doto made do with whatever he could. He wasn't even particularly gifted when it came to physical training it was just that he could never match his brother's scientific advancements and that was how Snow Country traded with the world.

So Doto found a way to leverage his size and strengths to his advantages. He made it through school forcing those weaker than him (but smarter) to do his work for him. He surrounded himself with toughs and, when his reputation grew bringing about its own challenges of leadership, he surrounded himself with stronger toughs to help sweep away those challenges until he couldn't just sweep them under the rug without substantial help.

That introduced him to the world of the shinobi and his three greatest acquisitions: Nadare Roga's Cell.

They made the impossible, possible. The gave him a crown. They gave him the power to carve his own path and it only cost him his entire family. A small price to pay really.

It was unfortunate that such security bred its own paranoia. People at the top that got there by graft, deception, and murder often see those same threats in every corner. Nadare tried to soothe him by teaching him but Doto's own inadequacies only worsened with age. They tried to circumvent that natural process through his own chakra armor but Doto loathed physical labor in all its forms.

He was abysmal at taijutsu. Of all the ninjutsu now available to him through his beloved armor, he'd mastered only two, both versions of the same jutsu he was now using to try and obliterate a certain blond upstart with and failing miserably. Genjutsu? He was pretty sure he slept during that talk with Nadare and you can forget shurikenjutsu and bukijutsu. Anything more demanding that a straight punch was work and Doto was deathly allergic to the word.

He was beginning to regret his lazy habits at the moment. It was his youth come back to haunt him all over again. With a roar, he stumbled through the only other set of hand seals he knew, the delicate sensors placed in the forearm bracers of his armor translating those brain impulses and muscle movements into pre-programmed hand seals designed to mold lethal chakra for the lazy lord. The end result was two of those same screeching dragons of icy, inky blackness shooting out at forty-five-degree angles from his body hoping to converge on at least one of the many blond streaks headed his way. The resulting explosion packed enough concussive power to blow the larger man's hair away from his face revealing his desperately wide eyes searching for some glimmer of success. He had to have hit something. Anything!

When twenty of those cursed blonds came streaming out of the black cloud of smoke and began converging on his position, he lost all composure, surged as much chakra into the right arm of his armor, and plunged his fist into the snow at his feet. The force of the blow punched through four feet of ice rupturing the ground out in front of him in a cone.

It did nothing to stop the boy as he, and his clones, leapt over the chunks of ice closing the remaining distance in an uncomfortable blink. Then the pain began as the punches rained down on the larger man's body.

He'd seen what happened to Mizore and a greater fear of being turned to stone then shattered prevented him from drawing on the Leaf nin's chakra. Instead, he pushed all of what he had stored up into a shield which, remarkably, began to disrupt the clones as they struck out at him bursting six of them before reality could sink in.

Doto chuckled despite the bloody lip and closed right eye.

"So, your strength against mine then," Naruto casually stated as his right hand shot out palm up, chakra beginning to swirl into a solid sphere of whirling blue energy. Doto's eyes, well, one eye anyway, bulged at the power growing in the boy's hands as he braced his feet, curled his hands into fists at his sides, gritted his teeth to set his jaw, and pushed for all he was worth.

"Idiot," Naruto guffawed as his [Rasengan!] solidified, grew from a gentle blue to a vibrant white orb of power pulling in streams of light reflecting multiple hues in the increasingly bright light from the obelisks, then growled like a hungry beast looking for a meal.

Koyuki blinked before her mind registered real-life rainbow chakra swirling in the palm of her blond savior. Then the world exploded in rainbow light.

Naruto fed the Rasengan monster Doto using the large chakra combiner on his chest as a target. The jutsu collided with the shield, the resulting collision sending shockwaves back in both directions as both fighters pushed to break through the other's technique.

For several seconds the two held even allowing Doto a triumphant smile. He almost began to think that he wasn't a complete failure. For one moment in his life, he could stand on his own two feet.

Then the case of his combiner element cracked, and his eyes shot open, his wide grin falling into a surprised "O-shaped" gasp.

Two seconds later and the case imploded, his shield collapsing absolutely under the relentless onslaught of the A-ranked chakra manipulation jutsu. There was a brief moment of peaceful realization in Doto's eyes as his past rushed up to smack him in the face and he almost seemed to accept the inevitable.

Then the pain struck him as the Rasengan chewed through his chest plate, ground down through to his sternum shattering it and driving six of his ribs inward as his body corkscrewed before shooting him across the snowy field. He spun fast enough to leave a trench in his wake, his back slamming into an ice-covered boulder right before the darkness of oblivion claimed his senses.

Without the rampant roar of high-powered jutsu, Naruto could hear the humming machinery as the temperature rose, the ice around each obelisk melting into streams flowing towards the middle of what he now realized was a lake instead of a plain of ice and snow. Great gouts of steam were rising into the air as the large objects positioned around the lake began to focus light up above their heads. Naruto thought he heard the sound of a very old movie, like the old reels that used to have lots of static in the background, his face breaking into a warm smile as he spied the ghostly image of a young girl floating above the island. She was giggling, her arms held out to her sides as she swayed from left to right.

"Believe in the future, Koyuki. If you believe, then spring is sure to come to the Land of Snow."

The voice was warm, deep, and rich with the love of a father for his daughter. Naruto's eyes swung over to the Princess, whose body never left her sitting position, her eyes shedding streams of water down her face as she looked up at the projected image of Sosetsu Kazahana, her most cherished father.

She'd finally learned to cry without help.

"Nice work, Naruto." The voice caught his attention as he turned to see his approaching sensei followed by his teammates. With a nod, he turned back to watch the rest of the reel play out.

"What do we do with him?" Ino chirped out. "Hey! They're getting away!" Now that did get everyone's attention as they spun around to see Doto being hoisted into the blimp by a scowling pink-haired kunoichi.

"Tsk, I am still not sure that I like that shade of pink." Naruto calmly turned and nodded to one of his remaining clones, which nodded in return and shot off to catch up to the fleeing, and rather slow moving, blimp.

"You just gonna let her get away with that?" Ino seemed rather indignant given all the female enemy had put them through.

"Wait for it, Ino," was all the surprisingly calm shinobi would say causing all three of his teammates to raise a questioning eyebrow… right before the entire blimp chain-exploded into a bright fireball of white-hot flames.

"I left them a small present," Naruto jokingly offered up before returning to the now-looping piece of history right as the entire mechanism powered down.

"Well, let's get the Princess back to her people, Team."

Three boisterous, "Hai!" were the only responses.

~III~

The celebration of a new nation was going on its third day now while Naruto was going on his third pass (of the day) at the private buffet established on the balcony of their posh hotel accommodations. The balcony overlooked the public square where they had front row seats to the festivities below. To their right, they could look up and see the new Princess as she smiled down to and waved at her joyous subjects. There would be long days ahead of them to rebuild the kingdom but, for now, people needed to celebrate the return of their rightful ruler and let the dust settle on over a decade of corruption and destructive behavior by her decadent uncle.

Naruto glanced up, his hand hovering over the breakfast pastries that would get changed out later for sandwiches and finger foods to glance up at a sleepy-looking Koyuki. When their eyes met, she blew him a chaste kiss much to the jealous glares of many single (and hoping) bachelors in the crowd below.

Naruto waved back sheepishly then returned his attention to the spread, his left hand holding aloft his rapidly filling plate while his right rubbed an irritated spot on his left shoulder blade.

"You okay, Naruto?"

The blond glanced over the same shoulder to his pineapple-haired teammate and shrugged it off.

"Don't bother," came the snarky response from the group's perturbed kunoichi. "When I went to grab him for dinner, I found him sitting shirtless in his room while a few of his clones were doodling new tattoos on his back, neck and arms. When I asked him what was going on, he gave me some cheesy quip about, 'changing his paradigm' or some goofy thing." Ino cut an annoyed look at her blond like interest. "He wouldn't go into any more detail other than he'd need to finish the rest when we got home."

Shika's eyebrow shot up in his trademark "troublesome" stare but he spoke no more on it.

While Naruto was pretending to be focused on the snack bar, he was truly hoping Ino would let it go. The Queen Snooper hated secrets, but he couldn't up and tell her he was going to unnecessarily risk his life to bond with two Umihebi simply because he was too stubborn to just pick one over the other. She'd never let him live it down… or leave him alone until she bullied him into bonding with just one. No, while he loved her company and appreciated her concern for him, sometimes he just wished for a moment or two… of… silence?

That's when he noticed that it was completely silent. No nagging teammates. No chirping snowbirds. No noisy celebration from below. His eyes snapped up to see everyone frozen in whatever they were doing last.

Ino's left hand found its way to her hip as her right one shot up in his direction, pointer primed and mouth wide open as she prepared to tear into him. He sighed knowing that conversation would not be a pleasant one.

Shikamaru's face was frozen in the same patronizing stare, his eyes saying he wasn't buying that Naruto wasn't up to no good and he aimed to puzzle out what was going on.

Koyuki was frozen mid-wave to the crowd beneath the balcony of her temporary manor, her eyes locked onto their balcony with a fond smile. He idly remarked how pretty she was in her royal robes of the Daimyo.

Looking below even the confetti was frozen in mid-air, birds paused mid-flight as they darted about.

"Sonofa-."

"Man, this food is incredible!" Naruto spun about to see a young male with long scarlet hair tied into a topknot, long bangs framing the sides of his face as he hunched over the buffet table. His flowing sleeves and pants were made of the finest crimson silk, the samurai-styled armor overlaying it the cover of the finest ivory, including the forearm and shin greaves. Naruto tried not to grimace as his eyes raked over the red tori gate etched over the smiling man's heart.

Golden eyes twinkled out from his clean-shaven face as he quickly scooped up delicious looking treacle and apple-filled tarts. "Can't wait for the lunch to roll out! I hope they bring out the good sake this time, like that Four Foxes stuff." His young face looked over to Naruto before his smile faded, his eyes darting down to the blond's partially-filled plate.

"Um, you gonna eat those?" he asked almost innocently but Naruto knew better, his free hand darting to cover his plate as if protecting it from bandits.

"Oi! Oi! Oi! You promised me five slides! Five unmolested regressions, that's six total chances to figure out what I needed to do to work this out!" The young male, still apparently older than Naruto by a few years despite the clean-shaven face, nodded his head agreeably, his eyes closed as if to ponder something deep and mysterious.

"Why are you here messing things up now?"

The ginger's finger shot up reprovingly. "Ahahahahaaaaaaah! I've ruined nothing… yet." Naruto's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm actually here to deliver a message, nothing more."

Naruto tsked, loudly, then patiently waited for the other shoe to drop.

"C'mon, don't be like that! It's for your own good anyway." The blond's face grew more incredulous if that were even possible. "Look, we weren't expecting your psyche to fracture like it did on the second slide. Everyone figured that, between your Uzumaki/ Senju resiliency and her youki, you'd pretty much survive damn near anything."

Naruto's face fell even as he remembered his final session with Inoichi and the fifteen minutes Naruko spent crying on his shoulder. Integration of the last two pairs of core fragments had been less traumatic than that.

"So… she's changing the rules… a little," he mumbled with the thumb and index finger of one hand dangerously close together indicating distance. The red head's shoulders hunched up even as the words left his mouth at a whisper.

"WHAAAAAAAAT!" Now he winced. Ten minutes later when Naruto paused to draw breath, he lifted a hand in a placating fashion to get a word in edgewise.

"You can't survive too many more re-integrations and you know it." His golden eyes locked onto Naruto's ocean blues without flinching and that seemed to center him. Gone was the normal playfulness and chipper prankster attitude the blond had grown fond of.

There was genuine worry there this time.

"And a 'vegetable you' is no good for anyone least of all that one inside you," he took a deep steadying breath, "sosheschangingittothreeslidesmaxwithonlythreejumpersinthefinalregression." He promptly stuffed a large pastry in his mouth while the blond sputtered and choked in rage.

Eventually, the passion died out and the redhead lifted a hand to snap his fingers, a poof of smoke bursting to reveal a confused young woman wearing slate-grey kimono robes trimmed in prancing foxes over her petite frame. Her burnt orange eyes blinked rapidly almost as if she wasn't really used to true sunlight, then they crinkled nearly closed as a dainty hand rose to shade her face from the intensity of the sun. Her hair was ebony, almost the color of night and her skin held nearly the perfect golden hue. The kimono fit perfectly on her athletic figure, her curves modest and well concealed despite her bare feet scrunching up experimentally on the carpet below her toes. Her head might have reached Naruto's chest, and no more, but her eyes showed wisdom beyond their years.

"Kurama," Naruto breathed out in a hushed whisper.

"Relax big guy, it's just a clone construct, a fairly weak one at that. The real one should be napping peacefully in your belly while the consciousness inhabits this handy chakra body. Can't have another 'Jump-1-Era Rampage' here, now can we?" He was smirking again, but Naruto's face didn't share in the humor. "Oh, I hope you don't mind me borrowing a bit of your chakra to tether the construct to you, do you?"

Naruto waved it off as inconsequential. He was too awestruck by the porcelain doll standing before him trying to adjust her now slitted pupils to the glorious light of real sunshine. When she recognized him, however, those eyes narrowed dangerously as her mouth opened to reveal a fanged snarl very similar to his own.

"Heeeeyyyyyyy! None of that missy," the redhead barked out causing the angry embodiment of the world's animosity to rapidly deflate her dangerously ratcheting posture. "Psssh! There's no time to walk you through it all. This will just have to do for this round." He casually walked up to the Kyuubi and touched her forehead with a single glowing finger, licking it afterward once he noticed a spot of frosting left behind between her gently arching eyebrows.

The construct representing the total sum of Konoha's nightmares staggered, slumped to its knees, then hung there on the floor as its eyes rolled up into the back of his head, the eyelids fluttering rapidly as if assimilating large amounts of data.

"Now, while that happens, I'm here to walk you through the remainder of the 'new' deal." His new friend slung an arm conspiratorially over his shoulder and led Naruto back to the copiously stacked breakfast feast.

~ Meanwhile, Deep in the Suna Desert… ~

"Stop dallying, Rasa. We are quickly approaching the point of no return and I need to be sure your forces will be in place."

The very stern man wearing a loose-fitting green kimono to go along with his spiky auburn hair and pointy hat clearly did not appreciate being spoken to in such a manner. Most Kages didn't truth be told and the four attending elites watching his back at this impromptu meeting twitched ever so nervously as their Kage's back stiffened ever so slightly. People had died after smaller reactions.

Rasa's voice was frosty, to say the least. "Suna will be seeking other opportunities following the Chunin Exams. Good day, Orochimaru." With that blatant declaration, Rasa turned on a heel and began the half-day journey to his sand-covered home.

"…disappointed," the only word to reach the bristling Kazekage's ear seemed to be enough to stop him in place.

"I'm sure you'll-." His retort was cut off as Orochimaru seemed oblivious, his repeated mantra talking over the annoyed desert leader's gravelly voice.

"If there's one thing I hate, it is to be disappointed."

Rasa had two seconds to raise a wall of sand, a swirling mass of blustering grit reminiscent of a sand storm, to sweep away the snakes flying for his neck. As he calmly faced about to bring his disgruntled former partner into view, the apparently older male winced in disgust as Orochimaru hacked up a snake holding onto to the famed Kusanagi.

"Truly, you are a vile creature and my village is better off without your help," Rasa bit off in revulsion.

"Oh, I heard a change of leadership was in order. Didn't you receive your invitation?" Orochimaru's surprised face melted away into a disturbing sneer. "Oh dear, I may have spoiled the surprise," he hissed out taking a perverse joy in the banter. Then he charged with the blade point first only to slide to a sandy halt as the weapon locked in place not two meters in front of the smirking Kage, the snake sannin noticing for the first time the dark rings appearing around the man's eyes.

"Surely you didn't expect that to work on someone with the magnet release, did you?" His smile faltered when a set of snake fangs latched onto his neck from behind.

"Of course not, Rasa, but I needed your attention focused on the simple threat after all." Orochimaru's voice sounded jubilant even as the Kazekage vanished in a swirl of sand.

"Impressive to be able to substitute out of that but I'm sure even your magnificent stamina will have difficulty with that poison." Orochimaru turned about to glare malevolently at the dusky redhead clutching at the puncture wounds in his neck. "I made that one especially for you."

Despite the rapid blurring of his eyesight, Rasa dug deep and summoned huge waves of sparkling sand, horrendous gouts of the stuff shooting hundreds of feet into the air all around him. He wasn't much of a mobile fighter and his vision was failing too rapidly to mean anything good but, if he was to die today, he planned on taking this bastard with him if he could.

Wiping away the frothy pink foam from the corner of his mouth, Rasa concentrated everything he had left into one last jutsu praying it would be enough to do the job.

It wouldn't be.

~ Yuki no Kuni ~

"Did you get all that?" The concerned look on the perky ginger seemed out of place but Naruto nodded all the same. "C'mon! Don't' be like that! It's not like you hadn't mostly figured out what you needed to do in the first regression any way!"

Naruto merely growled as he stared in frustration at the floor just inside the room adjacent to the balcony but didn't respond.

"What else could you possibly still need to do?"

Naruto clucked his teeth in frustration. "The things holding my interest have little to do with my promise to free her." His head nodded in the direction of the still-kneeling bijū next to the pastry-ladened buffet table and the lights came on for the ephemeral being.

"You were hoping to save your clan with the final slide," his eyes growing wide with the sudden understanding.

"If I save my clan, I might be able to save my family. Is that so wrong?" Naruto's eyes were almost pleading for mercy.

"No, Naruto-kun. That is not so unfair for the one on which the rest of humanity will eventually come to rely upon but, at the risk of sounding harsh, that was not part of the deal." Naruto's eyes tightened even as moisture began to gather at the corners.

Something twinged in the taller man's chest as he sighed, his arm reaching out to steer the young man back out to the pastry table where he originally found him.

"Look, I make no promises, but I'll put in a good word for you, you know… with her." He carefully positioned the boy roughly where their conversation started taking one final look to make sure Naruto was positioned just so. "I make no promises mind you, but I'll see what can be done considering we're cutting your planning time by twenty-five percent."

"Forty," Naruto corrected.

"Right, forty percent. I meant forty percent. Didn't I say forty?" Naruto was shaking his head sadly by this point. Never trust a kami any further than you can throw them evidently.

"At a minimum, I want to talk more with you next time about them," his head nodded down to the slowly stirring brunette. You mentioned something about divine intervention in the design of the bijū." His comment brought back the twinkle in his strange companion's eyes.

"I always knew you were a selfless bastard but, if you care for her that much, why didn't you just tell her what was going on from the start?"

"You know why. I tried that the first time and had to spend an additional three years convincing her I wasn't brain damaged." Naruto looked back down to the now open and slowly blinking eyes of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. "She would never have believed me, and I really didn't want to stay in this slide any more than I needed to. So much has changed out of my control." He shrugged almost absently.

"I thought maybe I could win her trust the old-fashioned way and start fresh on the next one. As it is, I'm the only one that remembers anything, and we'd be back at square one once I subsumed the original consciousness. Now I need to be absolutely sure of what I want before I fire off the Seven Heavenly Buddha's Jutsu."

He glanced down morbidly as he stared unflinchingly into the most beautiful pair of eyes he'd seen on human or beast knowing the next slide would be the last.

"Fair enough but, before I go, I gotta ask why the Kakashi parody?" Without ever breaking Kurama's gaze, his head tilted towards the steadily munching guest.

"I needed to know what was going on different with Team Seven since I'm not part of their group this time and so much was different this time around. Come to find out that it was more trouble than it was worth even if I had the spare jumper to use." Naruto was referring to the youko-enhanced blood clones sporting his nature chakra conversion arrays, a reference that bulged the bijū's eyes as she rose slowly to her feet.

"Turns out Sakura was the easiest to replace after all and no one batted an eye at the minor changes in her personality, least of all her own parents." The boisterous guest nearly choked on a mouth full of pastry as he guffawed during Naruto's revelation, his hand furiously trying to slap his own back as he choked down the solidifying mass of confection lodged in his throat.

The still silent female took that opportunity to step forward and wrap her arms around Naruto's trunk, the boy's body stiffening as he waited for the now tiny bijū to try and rend his flesh or something. Instead, she squeezed just enough to smash her temporary body into his and held it as the choking sounds from the now-staring onlooker petered out from the resulting shock.

"If you tell anyone," she whispered her honeyed voice caressing his ears and making Naruto shiver slightly, "I'll make your existence miserable. I swear on Inari-Kami's name."

Both males locked gazes and blinked near simultaneously at each other. In the end, all Naruto could do was to slowly wrap his arms around her in return, his hands laying flat against her back as the smaller figure shivered once letting a near silent sigh escape her lips. She felt warm. She felt soft as his fingers pressed into the warm-feeling flesh of her back as the smaller figure's eyes closed at the enveloping sensation of warmth.

Then her eyes shot open to lock with the redheaded male, her head bobbed a quick bow, and the chakra entity released itself in a violent burst of smoke. Naruto slowly turned to the slack-jawed male and nodded once.

"Yeah, not a word," the armored male agreed as he vanished into mist, white and crimson confetti floating away on an unseen breeze. Once the final pieces of paper faded from view, the world broke its slumber and a cacophony of noise assaulted his sensitive ears, first and foremost of which came Ino's voice as she began to lay into for whatever unrevealed stupidity he was about to negligently engaged in once they reached home.

He paid little attention to her rant as his picked up his plate and resumed stacking it with goodies, a small smile upturning the corners of his mouth as he looked forward to reaching home and finishing the supplemental network. They would be leaving in a couple of days and he could use the time to set things up with the Umihebi on the return trip.

He had a clan to bond with after all.

~III~

[Justsu Used in This Chapter]

[A-Rank] Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere) – The Rasengan is a very high-level technique that took the Yondaime Hokage three years to perfect. Unlike the Chidori, the Rasengan does not "cut" per se. It "grinds" rather, literally creating a hurricane of chakra formed in the shape of a sphere, between the size of a softball and a baseball. It does have a drawback, however, the Rasengan needs great chakra control. It is a self-sustaining technique so once the chakra is molded, the user doesn't need more chakra. When mastered, it requires no hand seals and can be used with one hand.

[C-Rank] Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique) - A jutsu that sends a stream of fire towards the opponent, originating from the user's mouth. In some cases, it has been seen to take on the form of a dragon. Capable of being used like a flamethrower, prolonged exposure has been known to transform boulders and cliff side's into molten piles of magma.

[Unranked] Hyoton: Tsubame Fubuki (Ice Release: Swallow Snow Storm) - The user launches a bunch of ice needles that are in the shape of mini-swallows. These needles can change direction in the air depending on the user's level of concentration and proficiency.

[Unranked] Hyoton: Haryu Moko (Ice Release: Piercing Dragon Fierce Tiger) - The user creates a large Dragon shaped Tiger out of nearby ice. Due to being so cold, it can freeze nearby water around it while attacking its target. It's basically just an Ice version of the jutsu Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu.

[Unranked] Hyoton: Kokuryu Bofusetsu (Ice Release: Black Dragon Outburst Snowstorm) - The user creates a black dragon stream with red eyes that is sent towards the opponent. There's an improved version, the Souryubo Fusetsu, in which he shoots two black dragons that attack the enemy by creating a large black tornado.

[Unranked] Hyouton: Sōryū Bōfūsetsu (Ice Release: Twin Dragon Blizzard) - An advanced version of Ice Release: Black Dragon Blizzard in which Dotō releases two dragons of black snow that merge into a massive tornado. This technique manipulates existing ice instead of creating ice.

~III~