A/N: A couple of quick responses to the unidentified guest comments:

1. I obviously can't tell you what Guren found for Kabuto as that would ruin the surprise.

2. Someone commented that Naruto's whisker marks were a result of him being exposed to Kurama's chakra while still in the womb. This would be true in canon. This is NOT canon. No one bat an eye when Kishimoto ignored that fact with Gaara (and before you say something, it has been routinely stated by the author that the rings under the Ichibi Jinchuuriki's eyes were caused by sleep deprivation and not as a result of being exposed to the tanuki's chakra while still in the womb). This is an AU fanfic and, as such, I've altered the rules for being exposed to the 9-Tail's chakra.

No, Mito did not have the same tattletale markings as she sealed the bijū away much later in her life.

Yes, Kushina developed a similar set of whisker marks (in my fanfic only) as she was fairly young when the bijū was sealed inside her body and her chakra network was not as fully matured.

No, I will not change this as it's my story, my rules, but thank you for bringing up the point.

3. For the guest that asked how Ella's rack compares to Tsunade's, Tsunade will remain the undisputed "Bosom Queen" in Kishimoto's fantasies. I always found it odd in stories how Naruto (or anyone really) could accurately estimate the size of a woman's chest by eyesight alone, especially when most of them wrap with bindings. So, I don't like to use cup sizes. Naruto, even with multiple trips through the timeline, didn't pick up Jiraiya's perverseness and can only describe them generally as "huge" or "bigger than my hands." However, to satisfy your curiosity I believe someone once equated Tsunade to a "J" cup, which makes sense (she'd need ridiculous amounts of strength to haul those things around). Using that as a guide, Ella would probably be between an "F" and an "H" cup. It's not like she'll sit still or agree to be measured and she sure as heck isn't going to wear a bra for anyone other than Naruto (and not even that right away). Opal is still growing (being physically close to Hinata in physical age/ development despite being over three hundred years old). None of this really matters since the Umihebi don't generally interbreed with humans; they just have a human form to make interaction easier.

To the person claiming this is another Naruhina fic, just… no. I can say that in no other way. Read the summary. Note the pairing listed there. Just because he's friends with the bluenette does not automatically make them lovers.

Nevertheless, here is a quick update to help shorten the long delays between posts. I give you An Interlude.

~Siva'a-tasi

~III~

Chapter 30: A Quiet Night Before the Storm

~ Previously on No More ~

Back in the training field, one Naruto Uzumaki was discovering that he was abruptly left the last man standing and he found the sudden isolation smothering. He wanted to celebrate his amazing progress and, if the humans of his village weren't going to help him, then he knew the right crowd that would. Several had signs later and a healthy burst of smoke left in his wake, Naruto vanished from the forest replacing the earthy scent of Konoha with the salt-ladened air of the Glittering Grotto.

He was rewarded with the happy squeal of an ivory-hued echidnae and her two best friends.

~III~

~ Glittering Grotto, Upper Tier ~

Naruto was surrounded on both sides by cooing and gurgling and, to be quite honest, he was very contented with himself.

Arriving at the Grotto immediately after departing Team Ten's training field, he had barely enough time to register a successful reverse summoning to Opal's cavern before the excited ivory-ette pounced on him (in her human form) from behind. Barreling him to the stone floor, the happy summons promptly flipped him over so she could "smoosh him with hugs" as she liked to refer to her pleasant greetings, greetings he rather enjoyed with her softer human cushions.

That was over an hour ago.

Now he found himself inside the large stone depression she slept in with her back resting against the gently curving stone and his back resting against her stomach; she insisted that he be comfortable with his less sturdy human body and that ultimately led to the back of his head resting in the valley of her cleavage. Once her fingers began kneading his scalp and trailing lightly through his hair, the now very comfortable male had absolutely zero strength or motivation to change his current situation, all of which Opal was quite contented with. Then the Twins unleashed all their curious glory.

"Is this him?!"

"He looks underfed."

"Don't they feed him in the human world?"

"Those whiskers… kawaiiiiiiiiiii!"

"Where are his scales? Not very resilient, is he?"

"What happens if I poke here…" (Feel free to insert Naruto's shocked squeak here)

Five minutes later after a sound scolding and a very cross Opal (whose scowl was directed at a very contrite Nectamia) pouting at her diminutive friend.

"How was I supposed to know. It's not like we've had a personal summoner before," Minō began and Nectamia finished.

"He's not food," Opal groused, her entire body glowing a soothing green color as she healed the rather nasty bite mark on Naruto's right arm.

"You never know until you try!" Minō opined.

"I think he looks rather tasty," Nectamia smirked.

"Try this again and I will personally find him a new messenger." Opal's eyes were narrowed dangerously, the smaller echidnae sitting on their haunches with their heads hung and tails curled around their limbs protectively.

"We are…" Minō began.

"Truly very sorry," Nectamia finished.

Naruto ended the standoff by reaching up to either side and gently scratching under their chins, the heads of the smaller serpents being shorter than the length of his (now healed) forearm. This, in turn, led to another surprising discovery; in addition to purring much like the whiskered blond did when you stroked his whisker marks, echidnae tended to lose partial control of their chameleon-like abilities, the coloration of the smaller Twins rippling from their chins, down along head and neck before rolling through their bodies in bright blue waves.

It then devolved into a lounging party as each of the messengers morphed into their more petite forms with their heads resting comfortably on their summoner's thighs while he rubbed their spiky-haired crowns. Even knowing that the pair were several hundred years older than Opal, their tiny forms resembled some of the civilian Academy girls in Naruto's class, at least until he began to pay closer attention to the subtle differences.

Their hair resembled a dark purple bob, the very tops crowned with many threadlike spikes. When their eyes were open, the iris color matched their hair. Their identical faces shared strong cheekbones and slightly wider jaw structures, but their lips were full and pouty despite currently being parted at the gentle touch of their summoner.

Sliding his eyes along their slender necks, Naruto couldn't categorize their bodies as anything other than petite. Slender arms with lean muscles were latched onto his own as he soothed away their apprehension. At first glance, their human forms could have been mistaken for early teen children, that is until you took a closer look. Like other echidnae unused to human contact, they neglected to cover their lavender-tipped breasts which he thought were still larger than the screeching pinkette from his graduating class, if only by a small margin. Their bodies weren't unformed, their waists narrowing and hips flaring noticeably. They were simply smaller than the others wyrmkin.

Noting Naruto's focused stare on their figures, both messengers blushed a brilliant shade of red.

"You shouldn't…"

"…stare at us so," Nectamia finished, her teeth nibbling at her lower lip despite her hands neither releasing his arm or moving to cover up her partial nakedness. Naruto's face started from its daze bringing a reddish tinge to his cheeks as his eyes snapped from the purple eyes of one to the other.

"Gomen, I didn't mean to." Opal's thoughtful humming behind him made him a bit more self-conscious. "I was trying to puzzle why there are such differences in your human forms."

This caused Opal to perk up sensing another opportunity to teach her Walker about her clan and further cement her bond with him. "What do you mean, N-Naruto-sama?" She winced briefly still unable to drop the reflexive honorary from his name.

At least she wasn't calling him Walker still. Kami how he hated formal titles.

"Well, I understand that there are different strains of Umihebi, that you come in different sizes, shapes, and colors. What I don't understand is why your human forms are so different." He twisted his head around far enough to glance up into her face, his head bouncing comfortably on her right mound.

"I mean, you have the body of a kami," here Opal blushed a brilliant shade of pink, "and, if you were human and I could start a family with you, I'd snatch you away from any male trying to steal your heart from me." He'd already spun his head back around, Opal unconsciously guiding his skull back to its proper resting place upon her chest, so Naruto missed the rapid deepening of her blush as the poor female's brain began to temporarily shut down.

"But the Twins are different. I thought all echidnae, whether male or female, had human bodies like yours or Regnus."

He seemed perplexed. Titus was a bit leaner and, despite Ella's very attractive build, he'd never seen either of the Clan's boss summonses in their human forms so there was no hope of comparison there. The carriers of the Oracle were powerfully built males and the only other shapechanged sea serpents he could remember seeing during his short familiarity with the clan. It would appear that he was learning otherwise firsthand as Mino's eyebrow began to twitch violently.

"Are you saying…" she began snatching his hand from her cheek to slap it on to one of her perky orbs.

"…that small breasts make us less female…" Nectamia continued heatedly making Naruto twitch nervously, his hand plopping down on a matching cushion.

"…than Opal-dono just because they're small?" they echoed dangerously.

"No! Of course not! Beautiful comes in all shapes and sizes," he blurted out effectively changing their angry faces to ones of surprise (the flaming blushes remained). "I just want to understand why your bodies develop differently aside from your family line. The more I know about your whole clan, the smarter I can be when summoning one for help."

Opal was clearly well balanced, but the Twins were whip-cord lean, their well-muscled legs and nicely proportioned backsides the only anomalies on their slender forms.

"That's an easy question to answer… Walker." All four blanched with fear at the sound of Ella's sickly-sweet tone. "Just as soon as you explain why you would come to the Grotto without visiting the eldest of your summons first?"

The inflection of her voice did not give the impression of her statement being either a question or optional when it came to providing a proper response.

Another hour later, and a slightly-bruised Naruto found himself laying in a different lap with a lump gradually fading from the top of his head. Opal was sitting on her heels off to the side, the Twins on her left and right, all three with bumps on their own heads and anime tears streaming down their anguished faces much to Naruto's frustration. He blinked as Ella's finger tapped him between the brows snapping him out of his annoying funk and back to the conversation of the past hour.

He'd learned quite a bit about echidnae in the interim, the conversation definitely providing him with a great deal to consider. Despite initially being very skeptical of what he was hearing, the Konohan examples he had to draw from seemed to bear out the older wyrmkin's theories.

Humans generated two types of chakra which they converted to infuse and create elemental jutsus through their affinities. Yin and Yang-based chakra represented the two necessary halves, the mental and physical aspects generating will and form. Their Sages taught that these chakra forms have the side effect (added benefit) of influencing the physical and mental development of the user. Ella advocated those who focused on Yin manipulation and intellectual pursuits tended to develop sharper minds, quicker synapses for eye-hand coordination, and stronger affinities for both Gen and Iryojutsu. Conversely, those with greater Yang affinities developed stronger more well-developed bodies, powerful physical skills like taijutsu or bukijutsu, and stronger elemental affinities with substantive effects, their bodies tending to mature sooner and with greater variation than their Yin counterparts and far above the average civilian.

Looking back at Anko, Tenten, Hinata, and now Ino, Naruto really didn't have much room to argue especially when compared to the likes of Sakura and the rest of the Uchiha Fan Club.

For the echidnae, he simply had to substitute Senjutsu and Reikatsu, the latter forming the mental equivalent for summoning clan. Opal would become the next Sage following in the tradition of her mother, while Ella would become the next Acolyte, the equivalent of a Yin-based priest in the human world. One would embody the powerful physicality of the Sage world, while the other would embody the raw power and energy of the spiritual realm, two halves of the same whole.

Those two differences had a distinct impression on the development of the associated echidnae. Much like the toad sages of Mount Myoboku, Opal's body would continue to blossom making her a juggernaut among the Umihebi. Her affinity with nature chakra, just like Yang chakra among humans, would enhance her body physically, in essence supercharging her development. Her scales would (eventually) become nigh impenetrable, her claws strong enough to rend chakra metal. Naruto could only imagine what her human form would look once she'd reached her peak, something he found a bit saddening as he'd most likely be long dead before then. If it was anything like Ella who claimed her growth was only a result of Mito-sama forcing her to train her meager nature chakra affinity (all elites among the clan were tied to both chakra sources only with a stronger affinity for one over the other), she doubted strongly that her natural form would be as formidable as it was nor would her human form be as appealing to the still blushing male.

"Good!" Ella beamed. "Thus, ends the lesson for today. I shall expect you to visit me first when next you are in the Grotto, as is appropriate, Walker." Naruto flushed with embarrassment. "We will work on your ability to channel Reikatsu. In addition, we will formally present you to the Clan and finally get you to sign the summoning contract."

Naruto's embarrassment began to fade as excitement started to edge out the shame of being caught.

"Yes, Walker. It is time for you to stand up among both our sects." She burst a surge of chakra and Naruto vanished in a billowing cloud of smoke, Opal's face falling further into depression with his departure.

"Never fear, sister. We will complete the bonding following this… Exam he seems so concerned for." For a second, Ella's face scrunched up into concern. She was worried for a second reason, one that stirred up a great unease throughout her contacts among the exiled. She only hoped there would be enough time.

"Now," Opal grimaced at the suddenly harsh tone in her sister's voice, "we will address your selfish nature when it comes to our summoner." Ella's body language and tone indicated clear displeasure with her sibling as evident by the already cool temperature of the cavern dropping another few degrees.

"Don't think I've forgotten your involvement in this either!" Without looking over her shoulder at the two messengers trying to silently slink from the living chamber, both now ducking and flinching slightly at the raised volume in the voice of the elder Clan Princess.

"Have a seat." They both gulped loudly. "I'll deal with the two of you in a moment." Ella's narrowed eyes never left the shivering form of her sister as she closed the distance to tower over her kneeling body with an evil grin.

~III~

Guren knelt at the memorial stone, her eyes taken with its timeless beauty. Without dwelling on the morbid fact that thousands upon thousands of names were immaculately etched into the marble colossus, she often lost herself in the forest green swirling of the polished stone.

It must have been all the seals that kept it pristine. She knew very little about them but could admire the art after seeing what Orochimaru could do with the things.

Another scowl flickered across her face, but she struggled to force it down as her mind began to unwind the last four years of her life. Four years she had dedicated to serving that worthless snake bastard who would just throw her away. Four years of unwavering devotion to a beast not worth a single day of respect. Looking backward she found a lot of new discoveries she never could have seen if not for the last few months chained to his bastard of a lieutenant; Kabuto was nothing if not a diligent student of his psychotic master.

Vanity. Among all of the signs that should have alerted her to the man's instability before she'd become inescapably trapped, the man's inability to surrender the spotlight should have been the tell-all sign to flee far and wide from Oto. He could not take criticism of anything he did and those that spoke without thinking found themselves strapped to a sterile table quick enough. She'd even personally helped a few victims end up there so it was bitterly ironic to find herself in their place not more than a few years later.

No, his biggest failure came when anyone, prisoner or henchmen, foolishly claimed that Jiraiya of the Sannin was the better seals master. Now there was a rivalry that spanned decades of miserable hatred and jealousy. Guren knew the only reason she was not suffering horribly under one of those cursed snake hickies was that until recently, recently as in when the bastard snake had carelessly gifted her to his equally hateful assistant, she'd been a top contender as a vessel for her former master and no vessel of his would be so recklessly marked.

She knew his plan to mark the Uchiha was a testament of strength for the boy and the egomaniac had plans to remove the mark once he'd won over the boy's loyalty. Until then, it was a means of control to ensure subservience.

Here Guren shivered uncontrollably before she could stop herself remembering how she'd once been ecstatic for the honor, how she'd actually pleasured herself that night in her quarters at the thought of giving her body and soul literally to the snake bastard. That thought made her stomach heave reflexively, a new ritual she'd begun in this new self-reflection thing.

Soo many poor choices in her life. Soo little time to punish herself she thought as her eyes rose once more to the monolith silently critiquing her poor life navigating skills.

Stone obelisks did not judge; they condemned. Written in line after line of immaculately tiered kanji were the names of the condemned, those that gave their all in the foolish pursuit of someone else's ideals, someone else's conviction. Guren snarled as she absently tugged on the same weed she'd been pawing at for the last half hour, a half hour she'd used to swear never to willingly fall under another's banner again. No more would she blindly serve another. No more would she risk life and limb for anyone but herself. She would sow her own fate for once, her eye's skimming over the names as she focused on three recent additions to the silent keeper of Leaf history.

Yakan Hisakawa

Fumiko Honda

Kasō Kimori

Their seals master was brilliant in his craft even if his creativity in making believable names was somewhat lacking. The names blended in with the others, even the age and wear of the carving made them almost indistinguishable. Guren snorted mentally chastising herself for ever believing that snake bastard was the greatest at everything he did. He could learn a thing or twelve from whoever added these clever seals.

If not for the fact that marble was composed of recrystallized carbonate material, she would have never noticed the unusual concentration of chakra around the three new names spaced exactly twelve centimeters apart. If not for the fact that they literally pulsed with latent chakra, she would have never considered their location made up the equidistant points of a triangle, one of the basic geometric configurations used in many of her former snake idol's rudimentary seal configurations. How many times had he used such a formation when marking his curse seal experiments right before he watched them wither and die?

Guren shivered again at the thought of another horrible fate narrowly avoided.

No, the seals were a stroke of genius, well-hidden on a stone already inundated with chakra from hundreds of mourners in addition to the seals that maintained the stone. Guren just happened to be better in tune with crystallized formations of all kinds.

She quickly mouthed a prayer to whatever kami was suddenly looking out for her as she absently glanced up at the growing shades of orange and purple in the night sky.

Surprisingly enough, everything else was harder to decipher requiring numerous trips to the village's public library while she studied everything she could on the heraldry and genealogy of Konohan families. No stranger to this sort of homework as an assassin, she spent many hours under the guise of "preparing for her citizenship exam" in the public section shocked at the availability of such dangerous information to any half-competent spy. Clearly, the Leaf had become complacent (and sloppy) during the many years of peace the powerful village enjoyed. She almost felt sorry for them as they seemed like good people outwardly.

Guren's face twisted up into a frown as the weed's stem snapped in her strong fingers and she tossed it away to begin picking at the base root.

None of the names were tied to Konoha. The first two were meaningless and the Kimori Clan was a family of tea traders from the same land of their profession. Coincidence or transplant? Guren didn't believe in coincidence and so she began dissecting the names and came up with three words among the seemingly garbled mishmash of confusion.

"Will of Fire"

"Yakan" translated roughly to "mettle" or "intestinal fortitude." The rest of the name was all but worthless to her. The second name was a bit more confusing until she dissected the last name; Kasō meant "conflagration" and Kimori roughly translated to "tree forest," the latter not unusual in a heavily forested region like Hi no Kuni. It took several moments staring at the forest for the trees before it clicked and Guren had to resist slapping her own palm to her forehead in the middle of the library the day before Kabuto's patience ran out.

Will. Fire. Konoha's bloody Will of Fire was staring her in the face the whole time. The "Hon" part of "Honda" was an old reference to the "source" or "origin" of something. The rest of the name was just a foil to make her spin her wheels and she grinned despite herself; anyone familiar with Konoha's history and traditions would not have spent days pouring over texts to learn the simple meaning, meaning that this was a trap to weed out spies. Spies just like her.

She felt suddenly very conscientious back then as she forced herself to casually return the heavy bound books back to their original locations and stroll without a single outward care from the library. She would find returning there later just for casual reading the hardest thing she'd ever done as a spy but the thought of killing her current torturer gave her all the yakan she needed to see it through.

Now, as she watched the final rays of the sun disappearing below the horizon, Guren waited patiently as the sound of a screeching hawk dragged her from the deep introspection, several of the shadows hidden among the cemetery shadows leaping away towards the center of town. Not ten seconds later, she felt the familiar slimy chakra of her second most hated dirtbag slithering from the tree line.

It wouldn't be long now.

The Sandaime was enjoying the early evening walk to his clan compound. He tried to make it back once a week to enjoy time with his grandson knowing opportunities like this were rare indeed. His parched face crinkled around the eyes knowing that all of this, not just his clan, but all of the clans in Konoha would be in very real danger soon enough and he needed to be prepared. Until then, he'd enjoy the quiet moments when they presented themselves.

Enjoying the silence of his personal stroll near the monument, his eyes caught the western wall of the silent clan home that bordered his property and sighed once heavily. Oh, how he used to enjoy stopping there to visit with Kushina as she puttered around the kitchen with a growing belly. If only he could have changed what happened on that tragic night…

Breaking away from pointless reminiscing, Hiruzen made the turn leading up the path to the tori gate marking the official entrance to his clan home and suddenly vanished to reappear next to the guards slumped against the gates heavy wooden poles, both dead. An explosion further up the path snapped his head up, his practice bo appearing in his right hand with a rush of released air.

'Konohamaru!'

A ghost himself, the Lord Third streaked off like a wraith looking for souls to feast upon, his four shadows trying to keep pace with their vengeful master.

Naruto reappeared in Team Ten's training ground with a flash of smoke. Stifling a cough as he batted away the whirling wisps, he couldn't help but try to shrug off the tingling sensation creeping up his spine through his bond with Opal. He hoped Ella wouldn't be too hard on her.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he began the ten-minute trudge home with only a passing glance up at the darkening sky. The sun was apparently past its nightly death of vibrant hues and well into the soothing blue-grey blanket signaling the day's end. As he passed from the cloistered trees and into the village proper, his ears could hear the buzzing hum of electricity in the streetlamps above his head, his body relaxing at the night's normal rhythm of things.

The day's inhabitants were being swapped out with the normal "night crowd," as he liked to call them. The middle-aged and older adult crowd slowly gave way to the younger generation, loud teenagers and young adults wearing what he assumed passed for the latest blaring fashions, bright colors seemingly intermixed with little regard to function or (in some blaring examples) fit. Since when did baggy overcoats and skin-tight jeans become the fashion?

He sighed and shuffled onward, his mind trying to ignore the growing cacophony of sound and sight as his mind wrestled with the day's events.

It's not that he was sad or even disappointed. To be honest, he was expected to overcome the challenge and regain enough control to "do his job" as a proper shinobi. It was to be expected. Then why was he so bummed? Why did he flit off to the Grotto knowing Haku would be wai-.

'Crap!' he mused internally, his eyes snapping up in the direction of the Towers he called home. 'I completely forgot about that!' Releasing a heavy sigh, he didn't remove his hands from his pockets, but Naruto's pace quickened enough to cut his trip home in half. It mattered little in the way of his expectations as he found the slender girl where he figured she'd be.

Despite the dim lighting of the apartment, his keen eyes could make out the twin place settings at his dining table, two once tall candlesticks having burned down past half their original length. He sighed at the molten mass of wax cluttering the base of the holders in hardening clumps then his eyes traveled from the dancing embers to the full place settings at opposite ends of the squared table. More importantly, he looked to the dozing figure turned sideways in her chair so she could still face the door, her legs held firmly together, hands on knees, back straight. He smiled softly as her long mane of brown hair cascaded freely down her left shoulder and her head bobbed once again only to lightly jerk back to an upright position, her eyes closed as she fought off the Sandman in a losing battle.

Softly closing the door behind him, Naruto slid off his sandals then padded across the entry to gently place a warm hand on her shoulder, the skilled kunoichi snapping awake with minimal twitching. Dark chocolate pools blearily swung upward to meet his gaze as the dazed teen leaned into the hand laying gently on her cheek.

"Thank you," Naruto whispered out almost as if he was afraid to fully wake her. It was enough, however, as eyes halfway towards closing again flickered open to stare with dazed confusion before turning to take in the now cold pheasants covered in a congealing glaze of something the color of honey.

"uh… I-I…" she was trying to regain her wits, her words sputtering as her hands came up to gently take hold of his own while her thoughts cleared. "G-Give me a moment…" she inhaled strongly to rush oxygen to her sluggish brain hoping to spike her metabolism.

Naruto brought up his other hand to cup the other side of her face, the warmth involuntarily closing her eyes as he spun her face back to meet his own crinkling smile. The guilt was heavy with him; he'd forgotten all about the poor girl after she'd done so much to help Naruto celebrate what she knew would be a successful day for him. Between the echidnae, his girlfriend, and Haku, he felt like an emo ass.

Somewhere in the clan district, Sasuke Uchiha fought the urge to run out into the streets looking for a blond dobe to pummel.

A certain brooder king flashed across his mind as he leaned forward to embrace the sputtering female, her words dying out quickly as she blinked into his chest with rapidly blushing cheeks.

Breaking their impromptu moment, Naruto spun her gently to face the table before sliding her seat up against its wooden edge. Without another word, even as her now wide-awake eyes followed his casual stroll around to his side, he took his own seat and raised the now cold sake up in a toast. It was a jerky moment as Haku reached for her own saucer before she could join him, but she managed.

"To remembering what matters," he panned out in a humble voice, his eyes locking onto the still red-faced young woman across from him.

"To… remembering what… matters," she parroted back still a bit confused. She was also partially shocked as her master tucked into his cold meal without complaint. Zabuza would have-. She froze at that thought chastising herself for the comparison remembering these were two vastly different people in her life, the latter now forming her entire world.

With a smile, Haku laid the fancy cloth napkin she purchased earlier in the day snugly into her lap and dinner proceeded quietly as the two enjoyed the fading candlelight of their celebratory meal.

After once again having to persuade the ice user that he didn't need a human body pillow for the night and that her new futon should help her sleep better than the pullout couch, Naruto collapsed onto his bed looking for nothing more than a peaceful night's rest. Tomorrow morning would come all too quickly beginning with their mission brief to rescue his cousin from Kusagakure, something he was grimly looking forward to. Which was why he was completely surprised when his rapid fall into peaceful slumber turned into a rapid freefall through the air of a brisk summer night in Konoha's forest, the fall ending with a vicious splash into a chilling body of water deep enough to pull him under into its inky blackness. A few furious kicks with his feet as his arms clawed his way back to the surface and the blond eventually crawled back to the shallow shore of a grassy bank, his hacking coughs shattering the peaceful night calm as he looked up to find no bright half-moon like the one that escorted him home from the training field.

"Okay… cough!... hack!... You know," he sputtered a few more time before being able to draw in a solid breath, "you could have just asked me to join you in here." Barking the remaining water from his lungs, the vessel turned an annoyed pair of burnt orange eyes to his left to glare at the frowning face of his tenant, her hands planted firmly on her hips as a sign of her clear disdain.

'So much for a quiet night,' he carped internally.

~III~

Omake: A Deal with the Devil You Know

"Absolutely not!" came the tenth adversarial response from the purple-haired beauty in ANBU body armor.

Neko was quickly moving past annoyed to aggravated and the worst part of it was that she had no one to blame but herself for it. She was the one that offered up the invite to Tora and Ushi. She was the one that just had to gloat about her new recruit and now she was paying for it in spades.

It was only fair, wasn't it? As the junior Captain of the three special branches, she went last in just about everything. She got last pick in communal tech. She was last to pick in the draft for new talent. The hand-me-down list of crappiness just never seemed to end so, when the Hokage offered her not one but two new bodies to fill up her struggling ALPHA Squad roster, well, she just had to rub the noses of her senpais in it. A girl was entitled to some vindication after that traitorous bastard…

No, she shook off those hateful thoughts not wanting to ruin her already failing mood as she listened to her two senior Captains try to explain why either one of them deserved the new hopeful, Naruto Uzumaki, more than she did.

She was not amused.

"Neko-chan, surely you must understand that life in the heavy combat company will wear him down just as it did-." She whirled around on the mellow-voiced Tiger ANBU with a silent finger pointing straight up in the air. Everyone who knew Yugao understood that conversation about the only other living Uchiha was taboo. She had a hard-enough time substantiating her promotion filling his vacated spot in the same, and once highly respected, ALPHA Squad was more than just administrative smoke signals. It was hard enough proving that she earned her spot in ANBU let alone that she deserved the promotion to Captain.

Bringing up the Traitor was a guaranteed invitation to hug any one of the many sharp, pointy things hidden upon her very curvy person, point first.

"I'll kill him myself before I let that come to pass," she hissed out. While his mask prevented anyone from seeing his face's reaction, Neko could almost picture the soft-spoken nin blinking in shock.

"Yes," he began slowly, "I believe you would."

Satisfied, Neko spun on her pivoting foot and resumed her purposeful stalk to The Kunai. She had a friend to meet so the celebration eventually leading to her dousing her liver in tons of alcohol could hopefully salvage what was left of her "happy day."

"Both of you are mistaken," the third voice piped in finally.

'Dear Kami, he's still hanging around?' the now miserable sword mistress grumbled internally. Why couldn't they both just be happy for her? Why couldn't they just let her have a moment's happiness with her new psyche victims, er, recruits? Was that too much to ask for?

"Did you see those twin Rasengans in his hands? That's DEMO-quality jutsu if ever I saw it!" he all but roared.

'Whatever happened to silent but deadly? By the gods, why couldn't he stick to that creed just this once?'

"He doesn't need to waste time tip-toeing around in your backstabber's convention," Tora made no attempt to hide his disgust at the beefy nin's derogatory comment, "and he doesn't need to get turned into a pincushion as part of your meat grinder." Neko made an annoyed sound halfway between a tsk and a scoff. "His place is with the Sappers and you know it."

Both masked nin laughed out loud at the suggestion, one because he wanted the recruit and the other because she already had him under lock and key. Then someone decided to play dirty.

"I'll offer a six-month supply of Kanahada," the tiger-faced nin blurted out making Yugao stutter to an almost immediate stop in the middle of the Market District street. "And not the low-quality stuff. I'm talking Nugui."

It was no secret that budgetary sacrifices were still being made following the last great war and the subsequent assault by the damnable fox. Nin rosters across the village were still creeping up from barebones levels necessitating double and triple mission runs levied with a heavy forty-percent tax to help restore the village, though many wondered (often openly and loudly) where all that money was disappearing to. Many questioned even more loudly how the village looked barely maintained while certain civilian sectors seemed to flourish even during financial downturns.

This meant the ANBU, those that should have earned the lion's share of funding, often supplemented their meager operating funds through barter, trade, and miserly scrimping. Many often sacrificed personal comfort to pour some of their earnings into their squad's capital funds.

Having a large bank account did you no good if your gear failed you in the field leading to your death so they kept a close guard on hard-to-learn skills instead trading their talents for much-needed supplies their team had difficulty mastering on their own. Yugao herself routinely helped fund her team by teaching kenjutsu to other ANBU, a highly perishable skill she devoted obscene amounts of time to off-books.

That is exactly why Ushi whistled through his teeth while Yugao stood there in utter shock. Everyone knew about her fetish with swords compounded by her almost religious devotion to maintaining her weapons (no one that knew her spoke about her secret sword shrine in the guest bedroom of her shared apartment). Many hypothesized it was her way of coping until she could marry her boyfriend and work on a breathing collection of small people but Tenzo knew better. The simple truth was that she loved swords like Naruto loved Ramen and Kanahada was a very high-grade sword polish, the Nugui mix using powdered fine iron oxide mixed in with extra fine powder of polishing stones. It was expensive to buy, a month's supply (for a normal person) costing as much as a B-rank mission. A month's supply for Neko would break most traders looking to bargain with the strong kunoichi.

"I counter with a year's supply plus five repair vouchers with Higurashi." Tenzo sucked air through his teeth at the counter move. Armadillo was a skilled armorer, the best the ANBU force had seen in almost twenty years but there was only so much he and his four apprentices could do with three hundred dedicated customers. The wait list for repairs in the Corps was almost eight months long and not shrinking any time soon. Higurashi, a former nin that now ran one of the best armorers in the Land of Fire, had greater capacity and turned out equally fine work. Add in the fact that he could mix in specialty elements to strengthen and repair weapons and Ushi's offer was a damning one.

"I'll see your counter and raise you my first-round pick in the next draft," Tora counter-countered leaving a reeling Bull in his wake. So heavy into their trade war were they, neither one noticed the increasingly angry shaking of the kunoichi they were trying to woo with their succulent bribes. It was as Ushi was pretending to roll up his sleeves in order to dig deep and get serious that she rounded on them both.

"JUST STOP IT!" Both masked faces turned to stare at her blankly (appropriate given the unemotional masks facing her. "He's not a toy to be passed around and I'll not treat him like a pet to give away now that I have a full squad!" Her murderous aura had long since driven off innocent bystanders within two blocks of their location, so her voice echoed in the now empty streets.

"Hokage promised him to me. He's my newbie. END. OF. STORY!" Without another word, she vanished in a rush of wind and leaves leaving behind two very stunned ANBU Captains. She desperately needed a stiff drink or five and was hoping to be bowlegged by the end of the night if Hayate was home.

"Wow, she overreacted just a bit, don't you think?"

Tenzo turned to glance at his former bid war opponent and shrugged. "Must be missing her beau. I hear he's been gone for a while on some escort mission." The larger man shrugged it off and tilted his head a bit in his co-Captain's direction.

"The Kunai?" he offered.

"The Kunai," Tenzo agreed. He didn't get ten paces before adding, "I still think he's better suited in the I&A Company." Ushi snarled and gripped his spiky brown hair.

"Oi! Don't start that again!"

~III~

A/N: P.S. Reviews help refine the writing process. Please feed the monster.