No More Chapter 51, a naruto fanfic

A/N: Many of you familiar with my fanfiction work know that I am big on research to help flush out my world(s). I do this (one) because I enjoy learning about other cultures and places other than my own native country, and (two) I believe it makes for a richer world in which to write.

Some of you find this tedious and long for senseless violence and smut. That is your prerogative but I think, as I've stated before, that you'll find this story frustrating and I'm not changing the way I write.

You are about to see some violent action as we work through the final arc of the story. This chapter dips its toes into the more aggressive storytelling but, never fear, there is much more to come.

For those of you that love a well-developed story to lose yourself in, I hope that I have delivered on that promise with this latest update.

Enjoy as you will.

~Siva'a-tasi

~III~

Important Disclaimer: For the next few chapters, historical references have been used to add depth to my version of the Naruto Universe. Much like the work of Kishimoto, none of them are presented as part of my original work and are intended solely to add character substance to your enjoyment of this story. They are the sole property of their creative and/or hereditary sources (i.e.: the familial estates of Japanese noted historical figures) and are used without malicious intent or for the purpose of financial gain.

Chapter 51:Harsh Breakups and Bittersweet Reunions

~III~

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."

― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

~III~

~Konohagakure, Early Morning~

Sakura thought she knew what "tired" consisted of. In the academy, she studied until her eyes bled, well, sometimes they felt like they were bleeding after having read all that extra material she felt really should have been part of the curriculum. Despite her best efforts to be prepared, she discovered "Genin-hood" to be even more tiring as cray-cray Kakashi tried to work her to the bone. Then the attack on Konoha happened and nothing made sense anymore.

Here it was a week later and some things still made very little sense to her, such as Sasuke's newest behavior.

Something happened to Sasuke that drove him mad while they were stored in the ANBU bunkers during the invasion. She heard from some of the Chunin escorting them outside again that he'd snapped and pounded the chakra-reinforced glass for hours screaming to be set free so that he could "prove himself," whatever that meant. Hadn't he already proven himself to be valuable to Konoha? No, he didn't win his match in the Chunin Exams but she thought he gave a decent showing.

In the end, all Sakura could do was shrug it off as a mystery to be unraveled another time.

In the end, they had to sedate the tragic clan survivor and remove him from the bunker under heavy guard.

What was worse was that she saw the bloody smears his taped hands left behind as the rest of them were released and calmly escorted out. That... no, his behavior wasn't normal and deep, deep down in places people usually avoided looking she knew that he needed more help than she could give him.

That's what led her to her new routine as she was determined to heal him literally with her mind if she couldn't do it figuratively with her love. She hadn't completely given up on him but the young man was clearly suffering and needed experience medical, if not psychological, help.

It was all very painful to have to admit to herself but the truth was undeniable.

So Sakura decided she'd begin her new career path by focusing on the harder one to master - as book learning always came easy to her. Heck, if Ino-pig could learn the human brain, then it would be a snap for Sakura.

No, she needed to learn something she was confident Piggy would never master: she'd become the best Iryo-nin the elemental nations had ever seen. If she had to, she'd eclipse even Tsunade with enough hard work.

Maybe then Sasuke would finally see her. Sakura. Perhaps if she worked hard enough, he'd see her as the serious kunoichi she believed herself to be.

She took a moment to snort in laughter at herself.

Oh, sister was that a bunch of rose-tinted promises. She didn't have the faintest clue how difficult the curriculum would be. Worse off, she found Ino in the front row the first day of class and their rivalry (at least in Sakura's mind) began all over again.

She was already a subject behind the mini-head shrink. There was no way in Yomi she'd let her get ahead in this as well.

So, every morning at four-thirty Sakura dragged herself out of bed and stumbled into the medical training field behind the long-term patient care ward. For the first hour of the day, the trainees did calisthenics and cardio training to improve their general health and fitness. A quick shower in the staff locker room followed by a hearty, healthy breakfast (as a means to teach what Tsunade-sama dubbed 'healthy nutrition' making sure their caloric intake was monitored - and enforced) and the first Sannin-taught Iryo-nin medical academy class spent the rest of the morning studying up on human physiology and disgusting medical conditions from the relatively benign to the horrifically tragic.

At first, it surprised Sakura how hungry she was when lunchtime rolled around on that first day (and every day since then) but the novelty soon faded. Now she studied while grinding through her lunch and whatever breaks they were given in the morning because the afternoons were all about reinforcing the morning lesson through practical applications and medical drills for time and grade.

It may be basic triage with septics and splints but here Sakura was in her academic element. Here she excelled.

Unfortunately, it was not enough - not yet - as she found out one bright, sunny day while visiting the Uchiha district to see how her former teammate was holding up (and to share the good news of her development). Despite her intentions, Sasuke was more than happy to make his displeasure clear in no uncertain terms.

His scathing vitriol still stung her ears and tinted her cheeks the warmest shade of red when she thought back on his spit-soaked tirade.

"Why would I need dead weight like you and that fat bastard dragging me down?!" His eyes almost glowed in their disgust even without the Sharingan.

The poor pinkette shook away those terrible memories and plowed on with her morning routine. She'd need to grab her post-workout protein drink and chug it on the way to the auditorium this time having dawdled a bit more than usual in her morning reflection period. Today they were moving early from small vertebrates to cadavers since the first wave of Oto corpses had been cleared for use.

Sakura bound up her neatly trimmed hair into the functional ponytail she'd taken to using. It was low maintenance and kept the majority of it out of her face, the routine motions not quite enough to erase the painful memory of his emotional abuse.

The thought made her blink as she finally put a name to her ongoing pain. Disillusionment.

"I'd be better off without you! I'd be better off without any of you! All you're good for is holding me back!"

He was screaming by that point, his bulging neck veins turning his cheeks a horrid scarlet-near-purple tinge, but who would hear in a dead district filled with the ghosts of his family?

Who would see her bleary-eyed flight from the garden of the death that surrounded the lone Uchiha on a daily basis?

Slipping the white intern's smock over her normal kunoichi attire, Sakura gently closed the door to her locker, the gentle "clack" of the metal hinge sounding considerably less harsh than the slamming wood of her former teammate's front door.

She was done worrying about someone else only to have her heart repeatedly smashed beneath their sandal.

She was his whipping post no more.

~III~

"Go."

That single word hissed into the still darkness of Orochimaru's audience chamber sent three shadows out into the elemental nations without so much as a "by your leave."

His voice was raw almost as if he'd been screaming for hours on end. Oddly enough he had been - at least until his latest physician's drugs took effect - and if you were really patient and still, a patient listener could almost hear the cracks whistling in his battered larynx.

Once the snake Sannin was sure his minions were gone, he turned a heavily bandaged face to the nervously-sweating male standing to his left, his eyes ghosting past the large intravenous drip bag filled with purple fluid.

'Good color,' he silently joked producing a drug-affected giggle.

"The sedative I've given you is a derivative refined from a concentrated form of tetrodotoxin harvested from the Takifugu, Lagocephalus native to the elemental nations. In the doses I've given you to dull the pain you're feeling, we could have killed off half of Konoha by now but it should do to keep you pain-free for the next hour or so."

He paused at the pleased humming sound coming from his patient hoping the insane dosages of pufferfish venom wouldn't accidentally kill his patient. Amachi didn't think he could outrun the ninja guards still lurking about.

"It's a good thing since I've only been able to partially decode one of the three sealing arrays that make up," he motioned to the gently pulsing seal of angry red ink in the center of Orochimaru's chest, "whatever this is."

Orochimaru giggled in his drug-induced delirium, his right hand gently patting Amachi's face.

"Orochimaru-sama, I need you to focus for me," he spoke very hesitantly, his body flinching with every meaty slap of the Snake Sannin's palm to his sweaty cheek. He only gulped more once those odd yellow eyes zeroed in on his own beady little orbs.

Amachi knew what he was about to attempt was highly unorthodox but the seal he was attempting to bend was far beyond his admittedly brilliant skill level. He was a doctor, not a miracle worker and seals, to him, fell within the realm of miracle workers. Too bad such comments weren't the type that his snake-like boss entertained in a friendly matter. He only had to look at the fresh blood splatter decorating the room he was working in to deduce that much remained true over their prolonged separation.

Orochimaru did not entertain fools nor failures and, should his idea have any profitable margin of success, it would be due to blind luck and his current refusal to second-guess himself in the eleventh hour. His pufferfish venom cocktail could only hold out so long against the snake's rapidly-adapting biochemistry.

It was with such courage (and liberally-imbibed amounts of appropriated sake) that he steadied his shaking hands and pushed onward.

"I'm only going to be able to loosen, for lack of a better word, the chakra binding array of the seal matrix for about two minutes. You're going to need to focus what you can of your chakra so that you can jump bodies into this one." His head and hand swung lethargically to indicate the blue-gray mop of hair laying prone on the surgical gurney across from the Snake Sannin.

Orochimaru's eyes swung with some effort from the sweating features of Doctor Amachi to the spiky hair-do of a muscular figure being rolled into the room.

"If you don't make the transfer by the time the seal resets itself, I fear the strain on what's left of your rapidly-deteriorating chakra network will kill your current body," he gulped heavily this time, "and you with it."

Orochimaru giggled one last time before turning back around to face Amachi-kun, as he often called him and fear gripped the good doctor's spine as an icy bolt shot up the middle of his back.

"I suppose," the Sannin paused to heave a monumental sigh while his body swayed under the influence, "I suppose we should get started then." His tittering giggle gave the good doctor very little confidence as his itchy, sweaty palm fought the urge to reach for his favorite scalpel kept hidden in the breast pocket of his lab coat and instead reached for a chakra-infused inkwell and the finest calligraphy brush he owned.

He hoped it would be enough to do the job and preserve his life in the bargain.

With the help of one of Orochimaru's remaining scientists, Amachi levered the Sannin into an angled position to match the receptacle body now positioned directly across from them. He tried not to think about how ominous-sounding was the heavy clanking of the gurney's ratcheting gears in the very silent operating room.

"Are you prepared," he tried to swallow quietly enough not to be noticed, "Orochimaru-sama?" Amachi tried not to shiver at the psychotic giggle that was his patient's only response.

For several moments afterward, the only sound anyone heard was the occasional clinking of Amachi's extra-fine tipped brush tapping softly against the inkwell in his left hand. So lost in his work was the good doctor that he failed to notice when his three helpers stealthily vacated the chamber leaving him alone with the transfer patients.

Stifling a bitter curse, he set his temporary tools aside and prepared to charge the array using his left hand, his right reaching slowly into his lab coat pocket to grip his old friend one last time.

Just in case.

With one last giggle as his accepted signal to begin, Amachi began pushing his chakra into the complete guesswork of symbols radiating outward from the Sannin's abdomen and prayed.

Then the bloody screaming began all over again.

~III~

~Konoha, Prisioner Holding Pens~

Noise, any noise really, was his only constant apart from the dark, dank, humidity of his eight-foot-by-six-foot world. It was too dark to see and the only time the lights came on was during muster, the painful searing of his single still-functioning eye enough to blind him utterly until the night's sweet embrace reclaimed him. There wasn't much to see beyond the cot chained to the wall across from a solitary toilet anyway.

No foreign objects were allowed in his isolation cell, no pens, no paper, no motivational posters, no reading materials. It wasn't that they were worried about him committing suicide if the mocking laughter he'd heard at his mention of the possibility early on were any indication.

To be brutally clear how little they cared, one of his ANBU guards tossed a kunai into the cell during their last cell check and dared the chakra restricted inmate to take his own life. They knew that he knew that, without access to any chakra, the best Mizuki could do would be to injure himself trying to stab a chakra-powered ANBU he wouldn't be able to see.

They were saying he wasn't even being taken as a serious threat. They were saying that they didn't fear him, that he was a coward incapable of taking his own life and the rancor of the truth struck him worse than any blow delivered by that snake whore traitor to Orochimaru-sama. He would spit on the floor at her memory if the many teeth she'd knocked from his jaw didn't result in another slimy mess down his chin and shirt front.

She had a whole list of things to answer for anyway. What was one more insult?

A knitted brow tightened over a milky, unseeing orb that used to be a functional left eye as both met above his crooked nose in frustration. His anger still burned at the worthless prison medic that either couldn't or wouldn't correctly set his broken ribs. That bastard would get his comeuppance as well if he had anything to say about it.

Orochimaru-sama would come. Orochimaru-sama knew he had value. They'd all see in the end. He just needed to hold on to his faith even with his failure to deliver the Scroll of Seals.

Or... at least he hoped Orochimaru-sama wouldn't abandon him to these faithless dogs.

A sharp flash of pain in his side while trying to get comfortable on his slab-like cot coincided with his temporary loss of faith and Mizuki's sole eye flickered open in response. Stifling a groan, the battered inmate found the strength to sit up in time to hear the cellblock door open with its usual metal CLANG signifying the first meal of the day.

At least he thought it was the first meal of the day since time had no meaning in this hell hole.

His hearing on the right side wasn't all that good lately with a busted eardrum, another reason to curse the traitor wherever she lay. The constant ringing in his ear made it hard to make out sounds clearly, not that he'd need it for this guess.

Like clockwork, the food slot to his cell was the third one to open with a much smaller CLANG, the small and safely harmless bamboo bento placed inside the cell just beyond the door's edge. Say what you want, the Leaf generally didn't treat prisoners inhumanely. Generally.

Shuffling over to retrieve what would most likely be a serving of plain rice with soft-boiled egg and a simple herbal tea, Mizuki paused when the slot remained open.

That was a bit unusual?

Most meals were taken in the dark but, as he hunched over near the still open slot to set down his tea and crack open the bamboo parcel, his eyes widened on the note within. He was so shocked that he nearly dropped his meal and meals, though they only came twice a day, were never to be wasted without a reinforcing lesson of pain not to waste food the guards clearly thought they didn't deserve.

Brushing away the flakes of crusted-on rice residue, he had to strain his sole working eye to make out the hand-scrawled missive, and what he saw brought out a crooked smile.

Crumbling the rice paper note into a ball, he shoved it into his mouth in the hopes that his saliva would be enough to do the job since chewing was a bit challenging with most of his teeth missing.

Rapping his knuckles on the tray slot, the panel slid shut with a much quieter clack of metal on metal as he felt around for the mostly-warm cup of tea.

He was also mostly sure that accessing his seal could return or heal most of his ailments and, when that was done, then everyone that every wronged him would pay. He would swear by it.

They would pay in rivers of blood.

~III~

"I'm headed out, Kaa-san!"

The door was halfway open before the resounding roar of his adoptive mother froze him in place, Daimyo or not.

"Stop right there! NARUTO GINJIRO UZUMAKI! You get your tail in here and eat a hearty breakfast young man!"

Everyone frozen at the table patiently awaiting his arrival blinked then looked at each other in confusion. Several of them, the large males, in particular, trying not to snicker overly much at the kitchen island most notably, mouthed "Ginjiro" to each other before trying to gulp down sniggling bursts of laughter.

There was the peaceful "clicking" of the front door closing followed by the morbidly-depressed shuffling feet of the clan's latest patriarch. He paused at the arched entryway to the breakfast nook that had become the default morning location, the atmosphere considerably less formal than the large dining area, and pouted.

While a mighty weapon in and of itself, Keina was able to resist the dreaded Naruto-style Puppy Eyes no Jutsu by gently biting down on her lip to keep from breaking.

The large males sitting at the kitchen island had no such reserve as great guffaws, palm-slapping, and full-bellied roars greeted the moping Daimyo of Uzu no Kuni.

"We talked about this," was all he said but it was enough to get Keina's face to soften, her head tilting to the side as she sputtered out a half-hearted apology. As far as Naruto knew, no one knew what his middle name was not even himself. His birth certificate did have the letter "G" as a middle initial but the meaning had been lost with his parents, or so he believed.

Ginjiro would have been his oldest uncle if he'd survived his childhood.

Of course, his mother's sister would know the truth behind it, a truth she'd been more than happy to share with him way back in their first month of bonding.

"So," Kaen giggled behind him, "Ginjiro, huh?" The meaty SMACK on her rump produced a petite squeak and a hasty "I-mean-Ginjiro-sama!" as she scooted on by to claim a seat at the table before all of the extra-crispy bacon disappeared.

"I know, Sochi, but I can't let you go screaming out of here without something to eat." Keina truly felt bad for using the dreaded Middle Name no Jutsu germane to mothers everywhere but she really didn't want to chase him all over hell's half-acre. Her Sochi had given Konoha's shinobi enough fits when they had to chase him around and she wanted no part of that sort of early morning exercise.

With a pout, he plopped down across from Kaen, wrinkling his face up in return when she sent him a very unapologetic scrunched-face sneer.

"What's got you so hot to duck out of here without us, Ginjiro-sama?" Umi tried to hide his mirth but couldn't help the dig at his master. There were so few opportunities after all.

Naruto shot a "See What You Did" look at his Kaa-san and picked absently at his plate without answering. It didn't matter since a smug-looking Soyo-chan slinked into the kitchen a second later and spilled the beans, the turncoat.

"He's going to see his little flower today."

There was a huge chorus of "Oooooooooooooo" immediately following that announcement, with the exception of the softly smiling Haku (who missed her frenemy for his affections) and a puzzled Shiroi (who wondered who her latest competition would be).

"It's about time," Karin snarked.

"Since when does shithead (SMACK)... I mean... uh... since when does Naruto have a sweetheart?" Tayuya absently rubbed the back of her head where Keina's very quick-moving palm graced it.

"We'll catch you up over breakfast," Karin happily chirped.

Naruto childishly pouted back thinking Tayuya was adjusting a little too quickly if her girlish giggling with Karin was any indication.

"Well, eat up then," Keina joined in while gently slapping the arms of her hatchling instigators. "I have a feeling you're going to need all of your strength for the ton of groveling you'll need to do today."

Here Naruto winced knowing he owed Ino a great debt for her performance.

"Besides, you didn't think I was going to let you get out of the farewell with Kumo and Kiri before they left, did you?"

"No," he responded, "but I was hoping you might."

Keina snickered before snarking back, "Not today, Sochi. Not today."

~III~

If you asked for a general opinion of Yoshino Nara, words like "Strict" and "Fierce" would more often than not get tossed around. Yoshino was a woman known for "wearing the pants" in her marriage. She was a woman that took guff from no one, man, woman, nor beast. Fitting since the clan she married into tended the largest herds within Konoha's metropolitan reach.

Ask any Nara in the mid-sized clan and the verdict (by any of the male population at least) would be a unilateral "Troublesome Woman" verdict followed quickly by the rapid shuffling (for a Nara) of well-worn sandals as they found a new place to nap.

It wasn't that Yoshino enjoyed conflict. She just didn't shy away from it. Having once been an active Chunin kunoichi in a field that thought little on the ability of females, Yoshino learned to fight early, often, and with all her considerable focus on what she wanted. It was how she won the perpetually lazy eye of her husband after all. Therefore, it was only natural that this applied also to her civilian life and specifically when dealing with the unbelievably unmotivated geniuses in her immediate family.

This is why she's currently storming with frying-pan-in-hand to the second floor of their modest compound home, the home of the Nara Clan Head, Shikaku, to retrieve her son from his usual sleeping cocoon.

Imagine her surprise as she threw the door to his bedroom wide open with girlish glee, her intent to shock him from yet another deep sleep, only to find his tightly-made bed vacant of his gentle snores.

It wasn't due to some devilish desire to torment her perpetually lazy child that she did this but to motivate him - if for no other reason to avoid her - into some semblance of action. He had too much raw potential, too much ability buried beneath a horrifically lazy surface, to allow him to linger in mediocrity... whether her son agreed or not.

So, here she stood in the still early morning hours of the day blinking uncontrollably into the empty silence of her son's room wondering just where he'd escaped off to at the ungodly hour of nine-thirty.

"One last time, Shikamaru, then we need to tend to the herds. We'll use the push to the southern pastures to work on your conditioning."

She blinked at her son's grunted response waiting for the inevitable "troublesome" that never came.

She blinked again, the voice of her husband minus its nasally whine about "troublesome things" floating up to her from her son's open corner window overlooking the back yard. Before she realized it, her feet carried her across the carpeted expanse of his bedroom so that she could glance down into the open greenery of their plot (Nara men were too lazy to worry about rock gardens or Koi ponds) where a most unusual sight greeted her.

Yoshino paused to glance up at the sky wondering why the sun wasn't rocketing into the heart of Hi no Kuni before snapping her eyes back down to the grassy patch at the rear of their home.

Both Nara men of her house were squared off in the open area of their back yard, their feet planted firmly in a horse stance, their hands clasped firmly in a Rat hand seal. Both men were drenched in sweat, the discarded wrappers of standard-issue ration bars lying about the yard like war carcasses - her brow twitching momentarily at the thought of them leaving a mess behind for her to find.

What struck her more to the point of proud disbelief was the mass of writhing shadows surrounding both figures like inky black octopi wriggling, reaching, and lunging about as if the night were rebelling before the sun's angry rays chased it back into the hell that had spawned it. She knew that exercise which is why she didn't flinch once one of Shikaku's tendrils effortlessly scooped up one of the many kunai from the ground and slung it with whip-like accuracy at her son.

Instead, she watched with an absorbed fascination as Shikamaru grunted with exertion, his hands twitching minutely as his own tendrils flexed and writhed. Several shot out, one to deflect the kunai up into the air so that another could lash out to catch the now slowly spinning blade by the handle and bring it within easy reach of the slightly smaller mass of darkness surrounding him on all sides.

One corner of her mouth twitched upwards in pride at her son's latest drive to improve. He still needed lots of work before he could snatch multiple projectiles without needing more than a single tendril but he was working hard and it showed. For once, she'd greet him with gentle words of encouragement and a warm breakfast instead of harsh words and the bottom of her frying pan.

~III~

The "farewell" wasn't that big of a deal. With the Uzu contingent on one side of the busy thoroughfare across from the current Kage administration, which consisted of Hiruzen and his replacement, Kakashi, there was only so much they could discuss openly.

Naruto tried to ignore the searching gaze of Haku's cousin and focused on Mei's face - definitely focused on her face and not the plunging neckline of the travel robes she'd donned for the journey home.

They settled on meeting in Tetsu two weeks from today. Kiri could bring a Kage and two escorts per Tetsu no Kuni's guidelines. If their Daimyo wished to attend, then another six befitting their rank was allowable in neutral territory per the established rules Mifune published and updated on a regular basis.

The face-smothering hug by the slim-bodied Shiroi and her much curvier Mizukage brought raised eyebrows to everyone on the far side of the street watching with clear and keen interest as well as the sharply-interested Kumo delegation patiently waiting their turn (and dragging out their farewells and platitudes to their Konoha hosts as a result).

With Naruto's embarrassing escape from Mei's soft bosom, which smelled amazingly of lilac, the unofficial signal was given to switch sides so the conversations and gracious thanksgivings could begin anew. She'd whispered plenty of things in his ear to mull over later while trying to smother his face with her cleavage, which he really couldn't object to now that he thought about it.

Willing the blood from his flushed face, Naruto settled in to deal with the Kumo group he so very much wanted to avoid, his eyes settling briefly on the Two-Tailed hostess much to her tickled interest before zeroing in on Ay.

"It would seem I misjudged you, Daimyo-Ōmo."

Though it came out as a begrudging grunt of affirmation, the closest Ay had ever come to an open apology raised eyebrows in both groups, Ay's own Daimyo most of all. The Kumo delegation knew that it took a monumental effort to earn such a consolation from the walking mountain of muscle who favored physical effort over intellectual pursuits.

That's not to say he was an unintelligent meathead. The man was just as crafty as the next Kage. You just didn't earn his respect unless you had the strength to take it by force. For a boy in his mid-teens, it was a truly impressive feat worthy of note.

He would bear watching from this point on.

"You thought me an easy target for manipulation." Naruto's blunt retort was delivered in an oddly neutral if contemplative tone.

"Perhaps," Ay answered. "It is still my hope that we can both move on from the huge mistakes of our predecessors."

Naruto shrugged noncommittally. "That remains to be seen."

The clasping of forearms, though tense for a moment, ended without broken limbs and with a brisk nod from Ay as he stepped aside to both speak with his Kage counterpart and allow the Namikaze descendants a moment with their cousin.

[Kyuubi's Perspective]

From deep inside her much comfier cell, Kurama stirred with a hearty stretch.

There were days that she cursed Inari-sama for the return of her memories, some days worse than others. She had to admit to herself that her existence, while not ideal, had greatly improved with the advent of Inari-sama's generosity as well as the continued selflessness of her idiotic host.

Oh, he was such an idiot sometimes. Like now.

As much as she hated the ningen's sire, Kurama had to admit that his seal was a work of art. Once she was fully linked with her host, more so than by a simple tearing of the paper representation used in their first life (admitting that still sounded so odd in her own mind), it opened up the full world of sensation to the trapped chakra entity. She was mentally connected at the physical and biochemical level.

It was a gift granted during the kami's last visit that she'd only now begun to realize was a breadth and scope wholly beyond deserving of her gratitude. Grudgingly, Kurama admitted that while she hadn't gotten her freedom she'd been given a truly wonderful gift of incalculable worth to an entity that thrived on physical stimulation.

For the most part, she'd been content with simply feeling out the scope of her new access. It takes time to fully assimilate everything that now was and she wanted to enjoy the process before it became stunted and dull.

It was a good start but it wasn't freedom.

That brought her attention back to the approaching group of ningen approaching her container. Kurama had a choice here: choose to let him flounder in his anger risking everything they'd scraped for to Kumo's natural paranoia or provide what limited assistance she could from her cushy sleep pillow and gently push along the most single beneficial relationship he'd need to not get murdered in his sleep by a potential Kumo assassin.

Looking at the silver-haired vixen sidling up to him, she opted for the latter.

The bijuu's memory was a terribly powerful tool and this woman registered as a very dangerous threat. Physically, she was not as overwhelming as a fighter but her body, by ningen standards, more than made up for it.

Slender of limb, wide of flank, and soft of skin and pelt, she easily slipped into the temptress role Kumo had clearly set aside for her. Kurama also noted that while she wasn't as swollen in certain areas as the pale blonde - Kurama never understood why human males found such large teats appealing - the silver vixen was curvy enough to catch the eye of many a male. That was not, however, what made her dangerous.

Kurama's ability to detect emotion and intention clued right in on her duplicitous desire to win his affection. Humans did not possess the natural genetics to release pheromones like foxes, a true pity really. Pheromones did not lie - in most cases making them a much better indicator. As humans normally lacked both the necessary glands and the olfactory senses necessary to make use of such tools, she'd need to give his plan a little push in the right direction.

She could work with this vixen's rather perverted intentions if she was understanding the signals being given off. The question was how?

Living for thousands of years and eating hundreds of thousands of humans can be quite helpful in understanding their anatomy. Naruto's memories concerning anatomy books and studies on human biochemistry (helpful in making a more efficient killer) honestly didn't give her much to work with.

Shinobi and Kunoichi artificially stimulated their sense of smell through chakra infusion but it did not replace what never existed to begin with. Humans lacked the necessary brain structure to process what their missing olfactory sensory equipment could not detect in a potential mate that lacked the necessary scent glands to produce the required pheromonal signals.

Humans were such imperfect creatures, tch. Naruto's genetic propensity for all-purpose, thick-headed obliviousness wasn't helping either.

Recalling a particular passage from one of his intermediate anatomy books, she began to trickle some of that considerable youki through one of the three Iryo seals tied to his anatomy in the hopes that what she wanted to do would work. Again, Kurama recognized the skill of that wretched Yondaime but even a powerful ningen like him could have his own work turned against him.

It took several minutes before any notable effects could be felt through their enhanced bond. Once she could tell that her youki saturating the sebaceous glands[2] throughout his chest and neck, even at its filtrated and diluted level through the seal she was trying to overpower, was working, she began to concentrate on that sensation to the exclusion of all else. The natural heat of his body would provide the rest.

She could watch the replay through his memories later.

She'd have to really and truly thank Inari-sama for his enhancement of their link when she saw him again.

~III~

Samui fidgeted uncharacteristically next to a stoic Mabui, her kunoichi gear in place with all signs of robe-like frippery long gone.

"Konoha has asked to re-open talks with Kumo," she began uncertainly. When she saw zero response, she pushed on. "I've asked Raikage-sama to be the Ambassador here and would like...," she took a deep breath to continue but had to jerk to a halt when the blond-haired Daimyo stepped forward and gripped her in a surprisingly strong yet comfortingly warm embrace.

'Are you sure about this, Kurama?'

'Less waffling, more squeezing, ningen.'

The unexpected hug stopped all movement in the clustered Uzu-Kumo huddle. Neither Kage took notice of their counterpart's barest upraising of their mouths at the corners, one in relief and the other in approval.

"This is not forgiveness," Naruto whispered with his face turned into the crook of her neck to minimize lip-reading. "We still have a ways to go before we reach that point but I am willing to try."

Despite herself, Mabui shivered in his embrace. The warmth of his body plus the soft brushing of his lips against her flushed skin combined with his heated breath on her neck doing shockingly pleasant things. What was that wonderfully spicy aroma? Was it cinnamon? When taken in conjunction with his slightly taller bulk pressed firmly against the entire front of her curvy athletic frame, it sent a warm rush through her body.

It was a lot of stimulation to take in at once.

Her fingers unconsciously clenched the decadent silk spanning his wide expanse of back muscle, her chest expanding against his sturdy ribcage as she took in his pleasant scent. To her pleasant surprise, she found the pebbling nubs of her heavily-wrapped chest delightfully stimulated by the contact.

"I look forward to discussing the possibility of Kumo's future relationship with Uzushio when we next meet in Tetsu," she all but huffed out showing unbelievable self-control to prevent herself from stuttering.

There. He'd delivered the invitation as planned and now he just needed to work his way into her thoughts a bit with a little help from his inner furry.

Her body tensed again and he could feel it as he squeezed her just shy of it being uncomfortable. The best part of their particularly intimate embrace was that no one could see the gentle kiss he placed on her neck, and her body's very subtle shiver as he let Kyuubi's chakra-enhanced tingling of his skin work magic on her senses.

Naruto, as well as Keina who was watching with particular interest, could literally see her deflate with disappointment when he finally broke the embrace and had to suppress a particularly evil smirk. Turning to face Samui helped, her own eyes dimming as she recognized the clear shift in his emotions when she stepped forward for a hug only to be greeted by an extended forearm.

[Samui's POV]

The strong clasp of his rough-textured hand on her wrist held none of the warmth she'd just seen with his embrace of her older cousin and, despite years of hardened combat and experience, Samui felt an unpleasant twinge deep in the expansive bulges of her chest. She'd never considered herself a very feminine kunoichi, seduction missions, and the like more a formality than anything else. It was probably why she saw so few of them lacking the emotional mindset for it.

She'd always been a combat kunoichi first and foremost.

Seducing a male for her was surprisingly easy and, to be honest, disappointing aside from the blatant objectification of the act. Most of the time it didn't even require her to remove more than her blouse even if the end result required a detailed scrub-down in the shower afterward.

It was the curse of her physique. Pale skin, ice-blue eyes, curvy kunoichi figure topped with uncomfortably large breasts. It made seduction little more work than revealing a slinky, body-hugging, cleavage-revealing evening gown. Most of the time she didn't even have to worry about playing the vapid blonde role or the sexy seductress.

Most of the time it required very little art actually.

However, this sterile departure brought up her normal melancholy. It was a deep-seated pain due to her life as a kunoichi and what that life had cost her that she was growing increasingly displeased with. Kumo had begun her original spiral into despair with the methodical eradication of her extended family and it was only made worse with their extended plan to do the same with the Namikaze branch here in Konoha, a branch that included her sole surviving non-Kumo relative (even if he was adopted).

To know that one survived brought a pleasing warmth to her heart only to have the kunai of loss painfully reinserted with the knowledge that this same relative borderline despised her because of her desire to save their final patriarch the agonizing torture of a Kumo assassination squad.

How long before Kumo tried to do the same to this remaining male even if he wasn't related by blood? The Namikaze tenets cared little for blood ties.

Once a Namikaze, always a Namikaze.

Even as she struggled to keep hold of his strikingly powerful limb, a futile final attempt to enjoy the warmth flowing through his hand into her arm, she vowed to do what she could to repair that scorched bridge between them. She would make him see the merit of her actions. She would earn his forgiveness so they could be a family again. She would find a way to keep him beyond the reach of Kumo's greed.

And she would start by doing whatever she could to get assigned as Mabui's personal escort.

~III~

[Normal POV]

"Until we meet again, Samui-san."

He could see that his formality stung her a bit. He could see it in her eyes but, at the moment, did not regret it. He couldn't afford to be too forgiving upfront even if he understood deep down why she did what she did. It was Karui's crass cruelty that he really could not abide but that was another story.

She had to work for what she wanted. He needed her to want to work for it hoping Mabui, whose intentions were a bit more obvious, would lend a hand. A worry clearly meant for another time.

Having said their farewells, the Uzu contingent waited until all parties stepped through the gate, some of the smaller nations meandering through the departure gate with their slightly battered, bruised, and limping Genin toddling along behind them.

Somewhere in that mass of floating bodies, he distinctly remembered the pleasantly squishy bodies of Nadeshiko and Snow glomming him together much to the ire of a dozen or so leering dignitaries hoping to chat with the beautiful ladies on the road. He pointedly patted both gently on the rump to their squealing approval just to make the gawkers scowl all the more.

Several, despite their jealousy, still slipped tightly-rolled parchments into his hand as they slithered by, scrolls no doubt promising future prosperity and fortune should Uzu see fit to enter into negotiations with the soliciting parties involved. He suspected more than a few entertained the odd arranged marriage or two and would need to be carefully declined to prevent bruised feelings before insult could set in.

Naruto had no doubt that insult would set in with quite a few all the same.

He at least had the decency to hand the scrolls to Haku after the respective official departed for parts unknown so as to keep his hands free for the next solicitor. It would take another hour after Kumo departed to reach the end of that political conga line before Keina's acknowledging nod could free him to his first desired location: Higurashi's.

~III~

Keina waited until Naruto was well into the crowd and on his way before turning back to lock gazes with Hiruzen and his grimacing sock puppet, Kakashi. The man's frown beneath that facemask always managed to leave an unpleasant taste in the back of her throat, his displeasure with her and her Sochi an almost palpable presence by itself.

Recently hostile attitude aside from the former ANBU that used to gleefully watch over him, he would certainly be a problem to deal with at some point in the near future. For now, she'd at least attempt to be civil. For now, she would make a passable attempt.

His perpetually-wrinkled-up brow did remind her of her next major hurdle, the closest wolf to the palanquin as it were. Despite the cordial nature of the current Hokage, their amicable association did not equate to the incoming chair warmer. No matter what she thought of his personal skills, she wouldn't be meeting the fool across a battlefield immediately, at least she hoped not right away, but would instead need to contend with his already established and considerable political influence backed by an established hidden village. A Konoha run by an angry and spiteful Hokage, despite having no idea what brought on this bout of petulance, would be an enormous obstacle militarily, politically, and financially.

To counteract that, Keina knew she had only weeks to cobble together enough of a reasonable deterrence to delay open Konoha aggression even if only on the economic war front. To do that, a struggling Uzumaki Clan would need to build up the allied defensive front with nothing more than a promise printed on paper backed solely by the goodwill of the Hi no Kuni Daimyo and the promise of former Uzumaki greatness.

Simple, right? If only.

It was said that politics was merely war by other means. Politics was a double-edged sword, a slippery slope and, if not for the years working behind the scenes with Hiruzen as his ANBU enforcement arm, Keina would have been woefully unprepared for her current position. Added to that waiting paper bomb came the fact that she only had three weeks left to do it in, given that Crack-ashi would be seated by then making the short-notice two-week timetable a necessity. This made their upcoming summit in Tetsu all the more important for their infantile clan.

No pressure.

Sochi was learning quickly on his feet, remarkably so in fact given his suggestions and helpful questions as she shared her gained knowledge, but they were woefully short on time.

Refusing to break her stoic demeanor in front of petulant a man-child she was growing to strongly dislike, Keina allowed the left corner of her mouth to twitch upwards in a cruel-seeming grin. She'd had to argue with Naruto over the rest of breakfast about the need to at least appear civil with the Kumo delegation but it worked splendidly. Not only was Ay rendered near speechless with surprise when he hugged the curvy assistant, her eyes switching to Kakashi's wrinkled brow gave her exactly what she wanted to see.

Concern. Added bonus in that she saw it on both their Konohan faces.

Good. They needed to be concerned and they needed to be as equally concerned as she was about Kakashi's silent hatred lately of all things Uzumaki. Friendly overtures to both Kumo and Kiri, both unknown entities to Hi no Kuni at the moment, could help forestall most overt blocking moves or murderous intent on Kakashi's part but it could only do so much without solid trade alliances and treaties. Keina knew Nadeshiko and Yuki wouldn't be enough due to the negligible military threat but it was a huge economical deterrence especially in light of the Kazahana technological advantage, one Konoha had been desperately courting through unofficial channels for months if her "Girl Talk" session with the two rulers was any indication.

Oh, Shizuka-chan was "all in" and she was hoping to bring along sweet little Koyuki-chan with her.

Nadeshiko boasted an impressive agricultural market specializing in herbs and poisons to bolster their highly-prized assassination and infiltration services fielded by an impressive force or over five-hundred skilled kunoichi killers. Keina knew of Yuki's technology but she'd been more impressed with Koyuki's willingness to listen to reason instead of erasing all vestiges of her uncle's regime by imploding her budding shinobi village (at least publicly). In what was now called the Land of Spring, she'd slimmed down the unsustainable force of a thousand mandatory conscriptions to a more manageable two-hundred and fifty shinobi and a new samurai cadre of close to four hundred brand new sword wielders, most of whom were slated to support their Daimyo with the help of a few well-placed hatchlings to teach them basic swordplay. Too many bodies were still needed in the labor force to buffer their infantile agricultural power discovered with the recent thaw but Koyuki was, if nothing else, pleased with the recent spate of spiked demands on Spring's neonatal services.

Spring's population would grow to meet the need.

While too young a force to be much of a deterrent, Spring technology would help even the playing field until their native forces matured. Even better that the Uzumaki would help foster that growth and build an unbreakable bond with both nations, one Keina hoped to foster with political marriages.

Right now Keina would settle for them being a political buffer to stay Kakashi's aggression in the near term.

Kami bless Koyuki-chan and keep her in place a bit longer since her Sochi was going to be a very busy man once he finally got married. Keina would be lobbying heavily for her to fill in the recently opened fourth spot of the CRA Naruto was trying to solidify during the Chunin Exams. That woman had more than earned her vote folding easily into the Uzu Liberation Plan from the get-go promising custom chakra armor for Uzu operatives once the alliance was solidified.

Saving the woman's life and her country tended to affect people like that. Konoha's recently bitter opinion towards her personal hero didn't hurt either, much to Naruto's persistent blush.

He knew exactly how the woman felt about him - she wasn't shy after all.

Keina could deal with that later. For now, she needed to face down the wolf closest to her family and that meant crossing blades with the current snake in the grass.

Moving to the middle of the street (and forcing her counterparts to meet her halfway unless they wanted to shout), she clasped her hands in front of her body in the universal symbol of non-hostility; it was a Warring States practice believed to imply if your opponent met you with fingers interlocked that they would need extra time to cast a jutsu or draw a weapon giving you sufficient time to react. Sufficient that is if you were a skilled shinobi.

"Hiruzen-dono," she cooed sweet as fresh cinnamon rolls. Kakashi noted with a narrowed brow that she hadn't so much as blinked in his direction.

"Keina-dono," her counterpart responded. "I trust you are well even with Kumo's and Kiri's combined interest, such that it is?"

Hiruzen was fishing for information, his unspoken message quite clear. 'Should I be concerned?'

His concern, as relating to a threatening Uzushio allied with a militant Kiri against Konoha, was clear as day to her. It wasn't an unwarranted threat. A unified Kumo-Kiri-Uzu alliance was serious enough to put wolves in the very heart of his beloved tree and that was a risk Konoha needed to closely monitor, even if Keina wasn't a threat - maybe. This was his way of being obvious (to those that knew him) without being overly anxious and she resisted the urge to sneer once again at his scowling protégé. She knew the old monkey didn't bear her ill-will over his son's near-death at the hands of his former student knowing with certainty that the Uzukage had not been involved.

If she had been, he would have never gotten free and they wouldn't be nearly as cordial with each other, even out here in the open.

"Well enough," she replied. She tried not to snicker as his eyes narrowed, her 'Possibly?' message delivered with a subtle eyebrow raise and subsequent glare to the man standing at his side.

She knew that Hiruzen caught the obvious deferral.

Expertly dodging the subtle inquiry, she hefted a scroll bearing the broken office seal of the man she was speaking to. "If I read this correctly, you're saying I should expect her timely return to my clan by the end of the week?"

Hiruzen nodded with a relaxed smile but it only made her want to curse him all the more. They'd already submitted their travel notifications and made arrangements in Tetsu. She'd need to make other arrangements until they got back.

She knew the subject of their reported summit with Konoha's now-departed guests would surface again but, for now, she knew Hiruzen would also be glad to divert the conversation and finally be rid of the onerous burden he bore for the ongoing mistake in question. Too bad that a disgruntled sound from his personal shadow brought the attention of both Kages to the unrepentant neo-Godaime.

"And you think this is a mistake, I take it," she continued with clear derision in her "not-a-question" retort.

Kakashi's simple folding of his arms across his lean chest was all the answer she needed in response.

"Then I suppose it's a good thing better minds than yours will prevail." Her tone was heavily clipped and short. With an appropriate bending of the neck towards Hiruzen and a sniffed "One-eyed idiot" to the Cyclops, she spun away with her six female katana-bearing shadows flowing effortlessly into her wake.

Yes, she'd have to deal with Kakashi when the time came, supposed ally or not.

~III~

Some, mostly civilians and fresh shinobi, mistakenly referred to his shop as The Green Anvil due to the sign above his stoop but the shop was officially registered under the owner's last name. Those in the know knew better.

"Welcome to Higurashi's!" The pleasant chime of the bell never failed to churn up the coined welcome phrase whether it came from the rumbling bass of old man Raimei Higurashi or the bell-like tinkling of his adopted daughter Tenten. Though, this time Naruto noted the subdued smile on the young woman once she recognized his unmistakable shade of blond enter the storefront.

There was no flying tackle, no high-pitched squeal in greeting this time but he understood why.

"Hello, Ten-chan."

"Hey." Simple. Neat. Clean. Her greeting may have been abbreviated but her blush remained.

"I never thought I'd be seeing you again," she moped.

He rather liked the way her lower lip stuck out when she nibbled on the corner in concentration.

"Why? Because you opted out of CRA? Why would I hold that against you?" he asked. He was hoping that his open humor and relaxed attitude at such a concept would help break the uneasy ice building between them.

"I know your dream, Naruto, but..." It was obvious by the helpless waving of her hands that she couldn't bear to finish the thought aloud.

"I don't think you're being selfish, Ten-chan."

Her blush deepened just a bit when he used the familiar nickname for his childhood friend.

"I did mention the concept isn't really a natural thing to accept." He tried to make his smile a naturally rolling thing.

"Maybe but that didn't stop the others," her face twisting into a grimace.

She'd been quite candid in what she thought of their decision to lessen themselves for short-term political gain and security. Then again, she wasn't an heiress or anyone of significant political power or position so she had that luxury, that security in her own personal morals someone like Hinata or her sister Hanabi didn't have.

Tenten considered herself a kunoichi first and foremost and a serious one didn't suffer her pride for such trivial affairs no matter how much she lov-cared for Naruto. Risk pretty much encapsulated her entire existence.

She simply could not share her love for him but that also meant she had to either win him outright or find another way to be happy that didn't involve her other teammate, Lee. The brief thought of bun-haired babies crawling around in green spandex onesies gave her chills.

"This doesn't mean I'm giving up. You know that, right?" Her eyes burned with intensity even as her arms folded admirably beneath her tightly-wrapped chest.

She was a no-nonsense sort of kunoichi after all.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Ten-chan."

~III~

Not to be completely left out of the drama, we find our resident brooder stepping into a sidewalk cafe, one of four strategically selected to limit his exposure to his ever-present horde of fangirls (here his eyes twitched in annoyance) in his daily quest for a replenishing breakfast. Contrary to the ridiculous rumor milling about that he lived strictly on a diet of greens and tomatoes, Sasuke paid close attention in the academy to anything he deemed useful in his quest for revenge, the section on nutrition being of particular interest to the clan survivor.

Healthy food meant a strong and healthy body. A strong and healthy body meant a stronger, healthier Avenger and that was enough for Sasuke.

With strict military precision, he plopped into his usual booth, which provided a cornered wall to his back and a clear view of the kitchens, the entrance, and nearby windows, before ordering his "Standard Number Three" breakfast consisting of udon-noodle soup, a boiled egg, shrimp, and pickled vegetables.

He'd get a fresh selection of tomatoes at Cafe Ikeda during his lunch break.

Money would never be a problem no matter how often he took the lazy, strike that, more efficient path to strength. Though still a novice in the kitchen, his skills were tolerable yet steadily improving. No, he couldn't afford the time to prepare and cook with seven available locations within two minutes of his center-village apartment. In truth, he only needed his clan compound for its secluded training grounds and the clan library it held as his family's holding provided all the income, and then some, that he'd ever need.

No, efficiency was more important given how easily he'd lost to the Kiri strumpet in the finals.

'Avengers don't lose to inferior shinobi,' his mind snarled. He'd just have to up his training again. There were several Katon jutsus he'd been putting off until he'd mastered the Gokyakyu. His lackluster performance was demanding that he stop holding back.

'Not hot enough to melt your stupid ice, huh? I'll show you next time.'

Shaking off his bitter resentment to focus on his morning Ninjutsu cram session, the raven-haired nin frowned as the unremarkable face of a brown-haired Chunin, his hitai wrapped around a lean right bicep, settled into the seat across from him in his two-seater corner.

Unremarkable and unimpressive and the look on Sasuke's face said as much.

His unwanted visitor snorted out a derisive, "Don't discard the messenger before you've heard the message," pausing long enough to accept a second cup of tea from the hostess before continuing.

"Not interested," the Uchiha grunted out, his eyes turning to the nearest window indicating dismissively, and with no small amount of condescension, that the conversation was at an end.

"Your selective experimentation with the gift my master gave you would indicate otherwise. You should find a better way of hiding your blind fumbling from even the poorest of sensor nins."

Dark orbs snapped back to the unwanted speaker before narrowing.

"I thought that might catch your attention, you little prick." The sneer on the unremarkable face appeared to be equally condescending.

"The message is simple so take note," his unidentified guest began flinching marginally as red orbs swirled into view beneath the Uchiha's disgruntled brow. Still, he continued fearing his still unidentified master more than the Uchiha's hereditary Sharingan.

"There is another level to this gift."

Despite himself, Sasuke's eyes widened slightly.

"If you want the exponential increase in power that comes with it, prepare yourself for my master's escorts. They will arrive in three days to bring you to him so be ready."

Sasuke's answering grunt crossed the line between acknowledgment and annoyance.

The still-unnamed male rose from the table as Tomoko returned with his serving of assorted bowls and plates tossing down a small bundle of Ryu to cover the bill.

"Compliments of your new master," the male quipped before turning without another sound and strolling calmly from the small cafe without an apparent care in the world.

"The Last Loyal Uchiha" as the Konoha Council dubbed him would not deign to yell at the retreating back of an inferior. No, his 'I have no master' he kept to himself deciding to make his intentions known later through action.

For the messenger, he'd learn respect at the feet of an Avenger.

Sasuke paused for two heartbeats before cutting off the flow of chakra to his eyes and digging in having already made up his mind to accept the offer. If Konoha wouldn't help him, then he'd turn to the next best thing, his eyes falling to the engraved snake on the money clip laying peacefully in the middle of the table.

He didn't care about the cash but he'd take the money clip just to be sure Konoha kept its nose out of his personal business.

~III~

He was a Daimyo, a powerful figure in his own right.

"Staring at the door isn't going to make this any less painful," Umi's rumbling baritone rippling with mirth.

As one of the last Uzumaki royals, he was a figure of authority meant to inspire strength.

"Maybe if he gets down on one knee it will go better for him?" he heard the gentle Sandā offer. Kaen's higher-pitched giggle nearly made the twitch in his brow jump.

'Ahem.' He could do this. Yeah, he survived a recent assassination attempt by one of the Fire Lord's own samurai so apologizing to his girlfriend should be easy, right?

With Umi and Ishi taking up station just outside the entrance to Yamanaka Florals, Naruto squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, then pushed open one side of the storefront with Soyo-chan and Nisshoku-chan hot on his heels. He pointedly ignored their still smiling faces.

He should have realized something was up when all three Yamanakas working the store paused at his entry, their faces turning on some silent signal to lock eyes. It took opening his mouth to speak only to have Ino lift a palm to silence him to drive the concern home.

Suddenly, the smiles of his Guardians seemed less sure.

His eyebrow quirked as Sumiko stepped gracefully past the Uzu entourage flipping the open sign to "Be Back in Twenty Minutes." He watched quietly as the platinum blond family finished up with the handful of customers in the store, the parents moving to stand behind the counter, their hands folded calmly on the countertop.

By this point, his calm nerves had been steadily ratcheting up to a frazzled bundle of confusion, that is until Ino bowed, along with her parents and intoned clearly, "How may the Yamanaka Clan be of service to the distinguished Uzu Daimyo today?"

By now the smiles were gone and only stupefied confusion remained. Surely... this was a sick joke of some kind?

Naruto couldn't help the confused and rapid blinking of his eyes, his confusion weighing him down like a soggy blanket.

"Wha-... Ino, I don't..."

"I'm sorry, Daimyo-sama. Has our clan displeased you in some way?"

He could see the honest confusion on her face, that pretty, innocent-looking face as she stood to face him with her head tilted to the right side of her body. She was the picture of serenity and servitude and it confused him. It... angered him just a little.

"Why are you doing this?" Her innocent blinking in return only seemed to annoy him further. "What is going on?"

His eyes showed his confusion and building frustration but none of the three Yamanaka moved nor did they show any emotion beyond humble servility.

"Whatever do you mean, Daimyo-sa-."

"Please stop!" He didn't mean to cut her off but something wasn't making sense and his head was starting to hurt.

"I came to see you, to see if we could rebuild what we had-."

This time he blinked as she interrupted him, her placid features melting into an angry snarl he knew all too well.

"I'm terribly sorry, Daimyo-sama, but I already love another man."

When he blinked this time it was as if she'd reached across the two meters that separated them and slapped him personally. He felt gut-punched, unable to draw in enough air to help formulate a coherent thought.

"What?" Somewhere in the back of his head, it registered that his voice was timid and fragile.

"You heard me, Daimyo-sama. I am in love with a good man, a kind-hearted man. I am in love with a man who I am sure would fight to the death for me." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I've seen him do it against foes stronger than us when our team was out on-mission." Her hands had parted each forming into a fist hovering by her curvy hips.

By this point, his eyebrows once raised in confusion and shock were narrowing in confusion and anger.

"A man that helped me become the kunoichi I am today. One who would never," her own growing anger and increasingly darker tone caused a reflexive tensing in his guards that caught Ino's attention forcing her to pause in her heated closing of the distance.

Naruto's shocked processing of what she was saying didn't catch but both of Ino's parents did and everyone else in the temporarily closed shop not wearing a Komodo Squad uniform flinched.

She instead settled back into her customer service stance and picked up where she'd left off.

"Like I was saying, he's a man that would never Shadow Step me on a mission. He trusts me and knows better than string me along when he knows I can help him!"

By the time he'd mentally caught up to the conversation, Ino's voice had risen to a harsh almost-a-shout.

Shadow Stepping was a coined term alluding to stringing along a fellow operative, one believed to be expendable, sharing only critical information until they were no longer needed. The end goal of post-mission cleanup, either through elimination or isolation, was the only purpose to Shadow Stepping an asset. It was a horrendous concept, one he'd never willing consider doing with Ino, or so he'd thought.

Apparently, it didn't seem that way from her family's side of things.

By keeping Ino and her family out of the main planning loop, Naruto realized that his intention of keeping her safe and isolated had backfired spectacularly leaving him with far more distance to cover in order to make things right.

He gulped nervously but couldn't complete more than, "Ino, let me expla-," before she cut him off, politely of course, with another raised palm.

"You don't get to have it both ways, Daimyo-sama."

He noted how calm her voice was even as it turned bitter and moisture began to pool in the corners of her eyes.

"Either you're my boyfriend and fiancée, my shinobi partner in and for life through the good and the bad, or you are my Daimyo-sama." Her shoulders squared and her jaw set as she finished her final thoughts. "I love and would both fight and die for one..." she began.

"...but not the other," he finished somberly.

Her nod was sharp and distinct. "You don't get to pick and choose when it's convenient, even when the risks are high."

"What you're asking for is bigger than you think, Ino. It may potentially force you to choose between Konoha and Uzu."

He saw her teeth clench and her shoulders stiffen even as he stepped forward to close the distance but he kept pressing while he could get a word in edgewise.

"What will you do when the interests of my clan drive me away from Konoha? When they come between you and your mother and father?" He took another step. "When they come between you and your Hokage? Those decisions have steep consequences."

He could see the concern in her eyes, those same ice blue peepers he loved so much, flickering briefly as they were in an attempt to glance over her shoulder at her father just behind her left side.

"Could you forgive for me that?" He looked over her shoulder at the girl's parents, noticing how Sumiko's hand had joined with her father's on the countertop.

"Could they?" His eyes flicked back to Ino's pale blue eyes in time to see her swallow nervously but she didn't waver.

"I made my decision months ago when I took your side and became your double agent." Her eyes were sliding back and forth between both of his. "What more proof do you need than that?"

She reached behind her back, much to the nervous flexing of his guards whom he stilled with a raised palm of his own, to bring a colored envelope around to place in his hands.

"I chose you over Konoha knowing you'd be Uzu's new leader. That by itself means that I'm making a clean break with Konoha to become your wife."

Turning his palm up, she pressed the sealed envelope into his hand with a shaky sigh.

"I'm not the one that needs to decide what they want."

One last glance, a nervous meeting of the eyes before she backed away.

He would open it later, but, for now, she'd given him something to think about and he needed to respond in kind hoping her response to the CRA question wasn't as heart-wrenching as Tenten's had been.

He bowed his head before turning to walk away, his feet pausing a pace or two from his slowly relaxing Guardians. 'Was she ready for what was to come? Was he prepared to protect her?'

Before moving on, he turned to look over his left shoulder at her and offered one bit of information he hadn't intended to share. Perhaps that was part of his current dilemma?

"We're traveling up to Tetsu no Kuni this weekend to meet with Kumo and Kiri leadership." His eyes slipped past her to Inoichi knowing the man would be honor-bound to report this to the Hokage. "Hiruzen knows as we've had to file the appropriate visas through the mansion's administrative staff."

Inoichi nodded once in his direction indicating that he understood the unspoken message. The Department Chief would in fact have to report this encounter with the Hokage but he'd delay it as much as he could.

Naruto wanted to say more but couldn't, not with the T&I Department Chief listening in on every word being said.

Having given what he could, Naruto exited the shop to ponder how much heartbreak awaited him on sunflower yellow card stock.

At his side were two extremely stone-faced Guardians trying not to gnash their teeth in frustration on his behalf.

~III~

Timeskip: 2 Days Later

19:10, Thursday Night, Konoha Detention Center, BRAVO-Cells

He had no idea what time of day it was. Time was meaningless when the entirety of your existence was swallowed up by the same four dingy walls. Judging by the congealing slop he was scooping up with a battered spoon, it was most likely the evening meal; food tended to be less liquidy and more sponge-like blobs of flavorless yellow when it was "the morning eggs."

What he was eating matched the walls in color. That meant stew. He was mostly sure it was stew and he really hoped those cooked grains were rice.

The only thing that brought any fire or color to his life was the smoldering haze of red that glazed over his one functional eye whenever he thought of Konoha, in general, and that demon child and his hellspawn supporters, specifically. His half-hearted grunt between his fourth and fifth spoonfuls of slop held just a bit of that searing hatred as visions of the Snake Whore staked out naked on the floor of her beloved training ground-.

His inner fantasy died with an unfamiliar sound intruding on his normal nightly routine. Bothered by the interruption but not bothered enough to stand or interrupt his feeding despite the wish for a pinch of salt, his blue-silver mop turned enough to his right shoulder so that he could use his "good ear" to listen for more sounds.

He made a mental note to add extra torture to his nightly murdering of the snake lover for not leaving him a functioning eye and ear on the same side of his head. She probably did it to be even more of an ass.

Still, he listened and was rewarded with the faint sound of a death rattle, the dying breath of a warm body just beyond his door. 'Well, that was a shinobi of a different color.'

Slowly setting down his nearly-finished meal, he'd risen from his cot to a near crouch, his spoon gripped tightly in one hand like a blunted kunai, when the spy-panel in the cell door tore open revealing a familiar set of nondescript brown eyes.

"Time's up, Mizuki."

If he was shocked that Imai was one of Orochimaru's men it didn't show on Mizuki's face. Of course, Orochimaru's brilliant mind would see contingencies within contingencies if his plans needed to be altered along the way. Mizuki just accepted the assistance for what it was.

Besides, he was sure he could kill the prison guard with little trouble if it came to that.

The metal spoon clattered to the floor as the door opened with a clanking lurch. Three quick strides brought him into the hallway where he was greeted with an offered kunai pouch and a rapidly cooling Chunin guard, most likely Imai's watch partner, who was using his lifeblood to add color to the bland floor stones at his feet.

"You'll have an hour to secure your objective and meet up and the rendezvous once this forcefully activates your cursed seal."

Mizuki's smirk of revenge was rudely interrupted when the shorter brunette jerked on the collar of his prisoner's uniform to break him out of another revenge-driven fantasy.

"Hey! Focus up for now!" The smaller man hissed. "There will be plenty of time for that on the return trip. For now, Orochimaru-sama needs your dedication."

For several moments, the two stood nearly nose to nose as Mizuki's need for revenge warred with his desire for Orochimaru's acknowledgment of his loyalty. In the end, the taller man acquiesced with a single head nod before taking the proffered injector capsule and jabbing it into his neck.

It burned as the cold syrup worked its way into his veins. Yomi did it burn.

His entire chakra network roiled and twisted like some tormented beast, the smell of burnt flesh rising from the nape of his neck with the accompanying smoke spiraling to the ceiling overhead.

With an approving grunt and the rushing return of his long-departed chakra, Mizuki's eyes closed in near-bliss before the painful transformation began to take place, his body swelling and bulging with the snapping and reconnecting of his underlying skeletal structure.

The first transformation after such a long hiatus was always the most painful. It would get easier again over time.

That thought alone comforted him as he grunted through the elongation of his appendages and facial structure.

~*O*~

Imai, on the other hand, did not pause once he'd passed over what the poor fool "needed" for his part in the grand scheme of things. Hopefully, they'd all be beyond the wall before the idiot realized that the chakra inhibitor injection he needed to reverse the transformation was conveniently missing from his donated hip pouch.

No loose ends.

As soon as he saw Mizuki strap the thing on without question, Imai made up some half-hearted excuse about securing the package for Orochimaru and made himself scarce scoffing as he skived off.

'As if you'd ever be one of us.'

No, he just needed to get to the upscale section of the Market District while Mizuki created all the smokescreen necessary to cover his trail.

~*O*~

19:26, Hokage's Office

"Sir! Si-Sir, you can't... SIR!"

Kakashi tried hard not to sigh at the frustrated sound of his new secretary. She'd been working alongside Ms..."

"..."

"...her name escaped him at the moment but his secretary, a very petite and perky Ms. Midori Hamasaki, would be very hard to forget. His eye crinkled up pleasantly at the slender thought of her, the memory of being told that he could pick his own secretary one of his better days in office.

He didn't even care that she couldn't type to save her cute little bubbly rear.

The fact that she was so distressed could only mean one thing; he was about to get an unwanted visitor which meant trouble.

Not ten seconds later the door to his office burst open to allow in a stern-faced Ibiki Morino trailed by an unidentified Chunin bearing a Detention Company Patch, and - of course - a red-faced Midori-chan, whom he placated with his patented "Eye Smile No. Four" and a happy wave that all was well.

Once the door clicked closed behind her slim but curvy hips, his eye smile evaporated as he mentioned for Genma and Raido to stay seated (as they both had risen to excuse themselves).

"I hope this is as important as the meeting I'm currently in, Ibiki."

The scar-faced interrogator grunted even as his eye flickered over a matching set of pictures in the hands of a very stunned pair of Konoha Jounin that once served the Yondaime. As keen-eyed as always - no matter how quickly the two in question tried to hide what they held - he filed away his piqued interest and moved on with why he was barging into the Hokage's office to begin with.

"I'm guessing you don't care about the escape of nearly a dozen dangerous prisoners from the BRAVO Wing."

Kakashi's eye narrowed dangerously. Ibiki's cheek had been growing progressively worse over the past few weeks meaning he'd need to nip that in the bud soon. For now, he'd have to focus on the closest problem to the Tower.

With a wave of his hand, he sent the two prospects away, the photocopies in their grip vanishing into thin air like the professionals they were as he returned his attention to the scowling bear he would soon be calling his lead torturer.

Kakashi's index finger jabbed the intercom button.

"Midori-chan."

There was a brief pause on the other end before a small beep precluded her nervous, "Hai, Hokage-sama."

Ibiki's scowl drew down tighter when the infamous Copy Nin did not immediately correct her.

"Please send a runner to alert Sandaime-sama. He is going to want to be briefed on this."

Kakashi's smirk (Patented Eye Smile No. Two) pivoted back to his guest.

"Shouldn't we wait for the Hokage?" Ibiki intentionally stressed the title.

"No need Ibiki-kun," a fresh voice chimed in from the office entrance.

Both men turned to find the Sandaime gently closing the door.

"I was not far off to begin with." The old legend settled gently onto the well-worn office couch much to Ibiki's surprise if the slightly raised eyebrow was any indication.

Professional that he was, however, he shook it off rather quickly and intentionally focused on the older man lounging on the much softer office furniture.

"Ahem, yes. At approximately Nineteen-Oh-Three security lost visibility in Camera Seven of the second sub-level to BRAVO Wing." He passed two folders over, one for each man sharing the office. The top photo showed a corpse in the central passageway. "Several more cameras were destroyed along the second and first sub-level before eight inmates burst through a sidewall on the ground level."

Kakashi's soft whistle said it all; that was a lot of raw power. Those doors were made of dirty iron (the unrefined iron ore made it harder to channel chakra through it).

"Chunin Miazaki was found when reinforcements swarmed the cell block to regain order. He was on watch with," Ibiki paused as he glanced down at his notes. "It seems he was on watch with Chunin Fujioka."

"Imai Fujioka?" Kakashi interrupted, his eye slimming to an annoyed glare as his head turned to the placidly-sitting elder shinobi.

Ibiki grunted something unintelligible, even to keen shinobi ears.

"What? Speak up or be silent," the former dog-nin hissed.

"I said," the torturer returned, "the one and the same." Ibiki's enunciation of each word showed more annoyance at Kakashi's cheek.

Kakashi brushed it off like bad porn.

"Tell me you found his body in a dumpster or some back-alley somewhere." It was not a question but Ibiki's sideways shake of the head sent a chill down Kakashi's spine.

Kakashi's next snarl was a guttural thing of pure malice as he focused his glare on the placid Sandaime. "Once again your sentimentality has left me another mess to clean up."

"Wisdom tempered with decades of experience is not weakness," Hiruzen countenanced but it may have been water for all the effect it had on Kakashi's mood.

The Cyclops's finger speared the intercom once again, this time viciously. "Midori! Get me both the General Shift and ANBU watch captains and I want them yesterday!"

Her startled squeak died a miserable death as his finger released the push-to-talk button.

"Surely you don't think we need their help to round up a few escapees that haven't even fled the village, do you?" Ibiki's voice sounded affronted.

'Good,' was Kakashi's thought. 'The more people that see the old man for what he is the better.'

"If you think the escape of chakra sealed incompetents awaiting transfer from a medium-security holding pen is anything other than a distraction then you need to consider retiring, Ibiki. Why Mizuki was still there, however, is beyond me."

Hiruzen did not miss the final surreptitious glare sent his way.

Kakashi groaned knowing it was going to be a long night.

~*O*~

19:42, Konohagakure no Sato, Ruins of the Hatori Clan Compound

Leaning idly against one of the still sturdy walls of the abandoned compound, Imai was the picture of perfect self-control.

"What are we waiting for?"

Too bad the spoiled Uchiha princess was trying to seriously unhinge his calm. Groaning aloud he pushed off his resting spot with one shoulder never taking his eyes off the distant section of Konoha that blared to life with the searching spotlights sweeping for escapees.

"We're waiting for our insurance policy."

A grunt of irritation was the only response. It didn't matter. Orochimaru-sama would bend him into line like all the others. He would either bend or break. It made no nevermind to the Oto turncoat.

Right about then something enormous, bulky, and furry landed with a thud heavy enough to shake the ground not five paces from the startled Uchiha heir. With a much smaller thud followed by a pained but familiar squeak, what appeared to be a half-man half-tiger dropped a pink-topped bundle to the ground with a disappointed growl.

"Huhn, he seems rather skittish to be the master's new prized pet," the overly muscled monster snarled, his rumbling-purring voice striking an odd accent to Sasuke's ears.

Imai ignored the comment in favor of pointing at the cowering kunoichi. "What is this?"

"Insurrrrrrrrrrrrance," Mizuki snarled back.

"She wasn't anywhere near the top of the list!" The much smaller Chunin was beginning to pace back and forth. 'Would she be enough to draw him out?'

"Can't have errrr both ways. You said Snake was orrrrrrff limits and the otherrrrr two werrrrrren't home. With the next one on mission and the rrrrrrrrrramen-girl surrounded by t-t-t-grrrrrrr, many shinobi, this was all left."

Imai noted that Mizuki was having a hard time with his "R" and "T" sounds. Soon he'd be all but unintelligible and the change would be irreversible as his mangled chakra network hardened into its current configuration. Not too much beyond that and his chakra network would begin cannibalizing itself so he'd need a good distraction.

The glowing lanterns of the city patrol sweeping through the abandoned clan corner they were hiding in looked to be a perfectly-timed sacrifice meeting his urgent need to shed some dead weight.

"It will have to do," Imai obfuscated. "Gimme the girl and delay those guys for thirty minutes."

He saw the striped muzzle twist up in distrust and cut off the very powerful hybrid before he could become a problem.

"You've got," he glanced quickly at his watch, "another sixty-one minutes in that form. You don't need to fight them all to the death. I just need you to give us enough time to meet up with our escort team."

When the large hybrid looked like he would argue anyway, Imai dropped a name he knew would ensure obedience.

"Orochimaru-sama must receive his prize!" It was a hiss but the Chunin spy could see from the boggling of the girl's eyes that she heard the transaction all the same.

Too bad it meant she'd have to die after they got what they needed from Konoha.

Imai slung the bound and gagged pinkette over his shoulder. "No more than thirty minutes! Break off and catch up so we can get you changed back safely."

He waited until the hulking mass of muscle, claws, and fur leaped off into the night and the screaming began before turning to dash for the freshly dug escape tunnel.

"C'mon, Sasuke." He tried not to smirk too much. "Your freedom and your new master await." As he darted into the Doton-formed tunnel, Imai was oblivious to the silent drama playing out behind him.

~*O*~

Even as he followed, the unhappy heir tried not to pay attention to the look of betrayal on the teary-eyed face of his former teammate. He kept telling himself that he needed what Orochimaru was offering to kill his brother. He kept telling himself that what he was doing was for the greater good and that Konoha would understand.

Even if they didn't understand, it was far too late to turn back now.

~*O*~

20:03, Hokage's Office

Kakashi's fingers were trying to burrow their way into his temple as his evening watch captain concluded his troop strength summary. For now, they weren't going to touch the pathetic reserves which were being strangled into some semblance of the former Uchiha Police Force. They just weren't ready for much of anything beyond a civil disturbance at this point.

He was also trying to ignore the glaring emergency notice handed to him not five minutes before by a messenger from the Barrier Division kindly informing him that Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno left the village in the company of one Imai Fujioka not twenty minutes before. He'd deal with the "how" of that little problem (given the coordinates they supposedly breached the barrier at) in a minute once he sorted out the very confusing report from his evening watch captain.

"We just won an overwhelming victory against multiple hidden villages with minimal losses." Kakashi figured stressing the obvious might help them focus. "How the hell are we strapped for bodies?"

No one standing (or sitting) in the room believed the next Hokage's relaxed tone was as laid back as it came across. The words were too cleanly shorn at the end, tightly clipped as it were. Still, someone had to answer the question so it was the captain in question who delivered the report forged onward.

"It is because of our undisputed success that we are stretched so thin. Business has been good for Konoha coffers and bodies are required to meet the surge in mission demand." Contented with his response, the good watch captain clasped his hands behind his back awaiting further direction while making a mental note to bring this conversation up with Shikaku-san at his first opportunity.

Kakashi tried not to cringe outwardly. Did no one teach troop managers about maintaining a reserve anymore?

Instead, he pushed that reprimanding lecture aside, for now, so that he could focus on the immediate need.

"And what of our escapees?" This question fell squarely on the ANBU watch captain with one dark pupil.

"Eight of the twelve escapees were apprehended without incident. One was killed while resisting arrest, something about a failed hostage attempt. Two more are holed up in an abandoned warehouse claiming to hold several hostages from the night crew. Sappers have been called in to help end the standoff." The good ANBU watch captain shifted uncomfortably, pausing before addressing their lone holdout.

"And?!" Kakashi's rolling-looping head and hand motions implied a get on with it sort of prompting.

"Ahem, yes, well it would appear that after killing several of the reservists you activated as part of your new Community Policing Initiative, Captains Tora and Kuma, of the I&A and HC companies respectively, have started a Lottery."

Kakashi's ire evaporated to be replaced first by humor only to end with confusion. "Wait, which escapee is left?"

"Mizuki." The good watch captain seemed almost embarrassed to utter the name aloud.

The confusion on Kakashi's face was matched by the disbelieving tone in the ANBU watch captain's voice.

"He's a crippled B-Ranker last time I checked. Why would two of our heavy hitters be squabbling over his bounty?"

Kakashi knew that prison escapees and nukenins were awarded cash bounties based on their last known threat evaluation. He also knew as a former ANBU Commander that ANBU teams catching an actual bounty were allowed to keep half of the return fee to apply to their inadequate team funds, a most valuable incentive resource that often brought on fierce competition between companies for bragging rights and cash. Kakashi knew that in spite of Mizuki's "B" rating the traitor was just a hair more dangerous than a fresh academy Genin after Anko finished playing around with him so something wasn't adding up here.

"The teams believe that Mizuki was the one to free his fellow escapees by ripping their cell doors from their hinges. Whatever transformed his body also managed to burn through the chakra restriction seals placed on him when he was incarcerated leaving him as some enormous half-man-cat beast."

Hiruzen and Kakashi both locked eyes realizing Orochimaru's handiwork when they saw it. Kakashi's following response was immediate.

"Order them to subdue, not kill him!" he roared rising from his chair as he grabbed his kunai and belt pouches.

Blinking beneath his mask in surprise, the watch captain relayed the message via radio as the Sandaime's voice cut through the upward-spiraling emotion with a terse, "Ah-ah-aaaaaaah."

Kakashi froze mid-step and turned to his predecessor only to follow the bony finger pointing to something over his shoulder, shoulders that immediately drooped followed by a heavy sigh.

Turning slowly, his arms moving as if they were being weighed down by lead, Kakashi took robes and hat in hand despite Hiruzen's overly pleased smile.

He hated wearing all this unnecessary crap.

~*O*~

20:15, Hatori Clan Compound

Six ANBU operatives, three from the Infiltration and Assassination Company and three from the Heavy Combat Brigade, stood in equal stupor side by side at the ridiculous scene taking place at the old abandoned Hatori Compound. It would be enough to shame them before their peers if word ever got out.

"Okay, on three-."

"Wai-wai-wait! Do you mean one-two-three-then-go or do you mean to go on three?"

Nezumi couldn't believe it was her Taichou arguing with his much larger HC senpai on the accepted procedures and protocols of the third and final Janken round to decide which squad would get to take on the tiger furred monster that put the finishing touches to an unlucky reserve patrol.

"One-two-three-then-go," the larger, broad-shouldered Kuma responded, his deep baritone sounded oddly childish despite the fresh death and carnage happening in the background. It was almost as if the five... no, six bodies cooling on the ground meant nothing to the ANBU Captains.

Who was she kidding? They knew the dead or dying reservists meant little when compared to the valuably scarce resources this murderous fugitive's head would bring, especially if R&D could get their hands on him.

"Just making sure you aren't trying to cheat me, big guy. The score is tied here-."

Both men scattered with curses and harsh insults at the now non-distracted half-man-half-tiger beast the radio reports said should be a mutated Mizuki Hirayoshi. They were ANBU. Professionals.

None of them cared what he looked like just that his mutated hide would be worth fresh Kevlar weave and septics, both in high demand among the rank and file operatives without permanently-assigned medics. But to sit by and argue over tagging rights while loyal Konoha soldiers got mauled? That brought several rounds of sucking air through tightly gnashed teeth.

Perhaps it was a good thing the beast got bored with his current playthings and focused on the distracted captains interrupting their game.

Tora and Kuma shared one look before nodding at one another, both men uttering the same oath: "Even Splits!"

"Finally! 'Bout freakin' time!" Harinezumi grumbled.

"Kabu, on me! Zumi-kun, take the flank!" Both breakers glared at their leader's affectionate nicknames and found him already moving.

Tora took the opportunity to flash a string of hand signals to his squad as they shot into the shadows, his red and green tiger mask blurring into the wake of his larger peer.

Their prey roared a challenge in return, one taloned hand drawn back to rend flesh and armor alike.

Kuma, having freshly dawned his spiked heavy gauntlets after their interrupted Janken challenge, which was traditional in ANBU Lottery disputes, surged liberal amounts of chakra into his spine and upper body throwing both forearms up in front of his chest to block the heavy-limbed swing, ignoring the way the ground buckled beneath the strike. Though a big man, whatever changed Mizuki had him standing head and shoulders above the ANBU leader. Fortunately, the maneuver held long enough to create the opening Tora needed.

Tora's standard-issue ninja-to sang in the night air, a thin sheet of simmering blue chakra flowing along its edge like water. Mizuki's hissing snarl indicated damage had been dealt but by the time the larger creature hopped back a meter or more, Kuma couldn't see the results of their perfectly-timed attack.

"Tora-senpai?"

The tiger-mask shook negligibly from side to side. "His hide and the muscle beneath it is tough. Barely got the full width of the blade in and even that healed up as we cleared out."

Kuma nodded once.

"Right then. Let's see how he likes a little heavy metal."

Tora's fingers began flicking in conjunction with Kuma's broader paw swipes but the message was delivered to both teams in short order.

The second bear-faced ANBU, the one Kuma teasingly referred to a "Cub," stepped forward in preparation for charging. Hedgehog, seeing as his weighted wrist blades were doing little to no permanent damage, fell back to wait for his opportunity next to his Boar-faced female teammate.

Then the I&A team took the lead swapping raw brute strength out with dizzying high-speed feints and flashes of light.

The large half-man snarled, his tree-trunk-sized arms rending air as the flashing lights and high-pitched noises stung his vision and pained his ears. It was made worse when something heavy slammed into his body every time he stumbled.

Kabu blurred in from the creature's right side, his metal stave glowing with enough chakra to pass for a street lamp. Though the team rookie, he picked up quickly on the strategy and aimed for a previously struck spot on the massive frame, his polearm striking true with a sickening crunch.

The monster's response was automatic, its right arm crashing down to pin its latest annoyance - the stave - firmly under its arm, its entire body rotating to face a new threat. Since Kabu's grip was strong enough to hold on to the metal staff, his body was dragged along for the ride before inertia sent him rolling under an already streaking Nezumi moving in to distract the beast by its one clear eye.

"Still in one piece, Rookie?"

Kabu tried to ignore his spiky-haired teammate. Seriously, he took the whole hedgehog theme too far ever since they found that old Sonic video game. It was just tough to ignore the ribbing when he made stupid mistakes... like leaving his main weapon behind.

Maybe he'd get a heavy war mallet like that other Rhino over in Delta...? Instead, he redirected the conversation.

"Is it me or is that thing slowing down?" he mumbled followed by an equally quiet, "...and shrinking?"

The unnaturally blue mass of spikes protruding from his teammate's head swung jauntily to one side as his head canted to take a better look at what was going on. Sure enough, whatever they were fighting was now snarling at Kuma eye-to-eye.

"Well, I'll be..."

Without further comment, both men charged to keep up the pressure.

By the time Kakashi arrived with his entourage, both ANBU teams were standing around a prone and withered Mizuki, his face sunken and aged to a ripe old seventy-year-old. Both eyes were glazed over and his breathing was shallow enough to miss with casual observation. If it wasn't for the pitiful wheezing sounds eking out from his cracked and bloody lips, Kakashi would have thought the traitor already long dead.

"What happened?" the Cyclops prodded already fearing the answer.

Kuma shrugged. "He began withering away about five or six minutes into our fight. From then on it became a fight to keep him alive."

Kakashi nodded once the burly ANBU pointed to the pile of discarded chakra transfer seals lying next to the desiccated prisoner.

"Get what's left of him to R&D. He's a loss at this point." After a moment's thought, he added, "and find me a Yamanaka to walk what's left of his skull."

He wasted no time after turning to the ANBU Watch Commander. "Who do we have left that can chase after our wayward heir?"

A few minutes passed while sheet after sheet crackled in the crisp night air.

"I have two squads not out on rotation. The freshest team has two rookies, unfortunately."

Kakashi contemplated that for a second. Just a brief moment of time.

"Every mission carries risk," Kakashi snarked. "It's time they got their feet wet."

Hiruzen could see the hitch in Tora's shoulder as he listened, a telling sign of his disapproval.

"We'll throw them a bone and send a medic," Kakashi conceded as he turned to leave.

"That's a problem," the watch captain threw back.

"And tell me why, pray tell, is that a problem?"

"All three ANBU medics just came back from extended rotation on the Iwa Front."

Kakashi hissed letting a few rather creative curses slip from his mouth before he gained control. Then his one visible eye opened with petty glee.

"That's rich."

"I don't understand," the watch captain hesitantly offered up.

"It's the Senju's rules come back to bite her in the rear." Kakashi's resulting laughter was anything but pleasant as everyone around him looked nervously between each other.

Hiruzen did catch on and his face grew grim. "You cannot mean to-."

"I can and I do," Kakashi interrupted.

"She made those rules for the safety of her field medics and it has greatly increased the survivability of our shinobi," the old man cautioned. Everyone could hear the warning in Hiruzen's voice.

"Tough."

Everything blinked at the callous response but Kakashi continued on uncaringly.

"This mission requires a medic with combat experience. If her precious field nins aren't available, then she must provide me one that is, even if she needs to go herself." Kakashi leveled an unflinching gaze on the Sandaime.

"This is not a mother bear you wish to anger, Kakashi." Hiruzen's eyes were hard flints.

"You chose to place this responsibility on my shoulders Sandaime-sama," Kakashi's cutting teeth hissed and spit. "You don't get to armchair my methods in the eleventh hour."

He then turned to the ANBU watch captain with an unforgiving glare.

"Get me a healer from the hospital and have them in my office within an hour. If she balks or refuses, tell her I'll shut down the hospital and strip her of her Sannin privileges within two."

Then he vanished in a torrential swirl of leaves to find someone suitable to deliver his next request to the Uzumaki.

~*O*~

20:45, Uzumaki Compound

Naruto was trying not to let three sets of puppy dog eyes get to him. Some day he would find out the secret to this terrible female power. For now, he kept moving and kept chanting to himself, "There's no such Suiton jutsu," over and over again. He almost jumped for joy at the sound of the gate chime.

To the annoyed pouting of three of his Sirens, he was already moving to the front door with an all-too-happy shout of, "Thank Inari!"

Throwing it open he was greeted by a different bird-masked ANBU being escorted by the latest pair of Hatchling sentries. This one much shorter than Kuren, who had been conspicuously absent as of late, and most definitely female. He almost mistook the mask for a pigeon until he saw the laurel sprig painted just under the beak markings.

'Ah, you're a dove.' Naruto wondered for all of two seconds where the gangly stork was before brushing the annoying figure from his mind.

"What can I do for you, Hato-chan.'

Her voice was like silk when she spoke. "Hokage-sama regrets that the situation has come to this but he must ask on Konoha's behalf for the assistance of our oldest ally."

'Ooooooh, she's a smooth one.' Naruto looked down with a frown at the ornate scroll case bearing a gold-plated cap being extended in his direction.

"You mean like the Uzumaki called on Konoha's assistance near the end of the second war." His eyes flickered up from the scroll towards the mask of his visitor and, while he couldn't see it, he could almost hear the quiet ANBU blinking as her mind processed his words.

"Please give my regards to the Hokage and let him know that he can expect the same level of support from their 'oldest ally' that he once gave Uzu no Kuni."

Then he promptly, but gently, closed the door in the poor ANBU's face.

~*O*~

20:55, Hokage's Office

Dismissing his ANBU messenger, Kakashi turned to his ongoing collection of advisors in the night's escapade. His ANBU watch captain already had his retrieval team standing by to depart minus their ready healer and things at the detention center were calming down to a dull roar. Aside from the runaway Uchiha, things were largely back to normal, at least until his healer arrived.

BOOM!

Kakashi winced. His poor metal-reinforced door was receiving a horrendous beating tonight.

"Please. Don't knock on my account. Come right in and make yourself at home," he opined, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Kakashi's deadpanned delivery almost made the poor watch shift commander snicker, a tittering guffaw that died horribly in his throat at the baleful glare on the face of the angry blonde snorting steam through her nostrils.

"What the fu-!" she began only to come screeching to a halt with his unemotional interruption.

"Hokage-sama."

Blink-blinkety-blink..."What-What?!"

"Hokage. Sama." He spoke slowly as if speaking to a particularly dense child. "You forgot the 'Hokage-sama' and I thought I should remind you to whom you were speaking before it landed your curvy ass in jail."

Blink. Blink.

"You're not Hokage yet."

The gnashing of her teeth made it hard to understand but everyone in the room was pretty sure that's what she said.

It was at this point that Kakashi brandished a fresh scroll trimmed in ornately lacquered wood and golden trim bearing the distinct fire-red seal of the Lord of the Land of Fire.

"Ahem," Kakashi cleared his throat grandiosely. "To all who shall see these presents, blah-blah... let it be known that I, Masato Shijimi, Daimyo of Hi no Kuni in this our blah-blah-blah..." He mumbled a few things as he skimmed through major sections of the scroll, Tsunade's eyes still blinking dumbly.

"Ah, here it is!" His free hand tapped a finger excitedly against the unfurled section of parchment.

"This is my favorite part. It says right here, 'Having placed full faith and confidence in Kakashi Hatake, the infamous Copy Ninja and Son of the White Wolf, do hereby decree him the Godaime Hokage effective immediately. He is to hold all power, rights, and privileges as is appropriate to his new station in order to carry out the Will of Fire to the farthest edges of the kingdom. May his reign bring peace and prosperity as he spreads the branches of the Great Tree... blah-blah-blah, so on and so forth."

His one-eyed smile radiated smug self-satisfaction as he watched the female Sannin writhe in anger, her teeth grinding hard enough he thought he heard one crack under the pressure.

"It's dated three days ago if you much want to know."

Kakashi carefully rolled up the scroll and tucked it back into his vest. "As it stands, the ceremony is just a formality but I'm going to wait until then before I enact any radical changes." His hands clasped calmly atop his desk, his head tilting jauntily to the side.

"I suggest you get your medic to the gate." He glanced idly at the clock on the wall. "He or she only has another twenty-two minutes to make the deadline."

For many long moments, it appeared to the watch commanders pressed up as close to the wall that the strongest kunoichi in the world was going to strangle the new Godaime with her bare hands. Instead, she stormed from the office and they heard that same Godaime cluck his teeth in disappointment.

Hiruzen was up off the couch and on her heels not three seconds after her blonde pigtails cleared the doorway.

"They never close the door after," Kakashi carped.

~*O*~

Tsunade had only cleared the Tower's door when a Shadow Clone shimmered into being then sped off to help Shizune prepare for the mission. Knowing the girl, she'd have gone straight to the hospital storage locker to prep a med-bag then gone straight to the Senju Compound to change into her mission kit, armor and all. Shizune would have done it despite having worked a full shift today, as a true kunoichi would.

None of this lowered Tsunade's simmering rage at the pompous ass imprinting his rear end in her sensei's chair.

Shizune was in many ways the more adult of the two and tended to do what was right or, in this case, unavoidable. Not for the first time, Tsunade wondered who was the adult in their relationship and who was the unruly niece.

"You planning to talk me out of this?" She huffed out, her eyes never leaving her destination in the far distance as the rooftops gave way to the sporadic trees of the more residential areas.

Sarutobi's grunt of amusement was her only answer until the two of them landed in front of what was now the Uzumaki Clan Compound main gate and the four hooded, masked, and heavily-armed individuals guarding it.

They didn't speak but the audible tightening of their grips on well-tended sword pommels spoke volumes.

"Oh, bullshit! I don't have time for this!" Tsunade lunged for the gate only to have her arm gripped by the Sandaime, her fingers stopped just half a meter shy of gripping and tearing the ornate metal webbing making up the latticework.

Then her eyes registered the half-drawn katana wielded by all four sentries now crouched in very aggressive postures.

"I would temper your passion for Shizune with a little patience, Hime."

She could only mumble in agreement, her throat constricting with the rush of adrenaline since she hadn't even registered their half-draw movements. 'Iaido!'

It took several moments of neither side moving before she slowly nodded her head and drew her arm back. It wasn't until they both stepped back away from the gate before the still silent defenders returned their weapons fully to their sheaths.

"Please inform Daimyo Uzumaki or even Uzukage-dono herself that I have an urgent plea for their ears only. Please."

When Hiruzen bowed at the waist, one of the smaller guards, a female Tsunade noted by the sway of her hips, ran up to the house only to return with a woman wearing a deep blue kimono trimmed in orange waves that looked a lot like Kurenai Yūhi, at least until she spoke and they both could hear the immediate difference.

Sharing an odd look, they followed the woman into the house proper to find themselves in a rather decent-sized entry foyer. To their right lay an exquisitely lacquered wall cubby for sandals and cloaks but it didn't appear that they'd be staying long enough to enjoy the famed Uzumaki hospitality as their future host was standing at the far end of the foyer with all six of his equally-famous Guardians, the Komodo Squad in full tactical gear. To Naruto's immediate right stood Keina Uzumaki in her black and red Kage robes.

Despite himself, Hiruzen swallowed nervously his eyes noticing that the Yūhi lookalike bowed before the young male, which he returned perfunctorily, before she glided away from the front entrance.

Hiruzen couldn't stop himself from thinking of the spacious and pristine space as a rather well-decorated Kill Room, finding that he found the thought a rather unpleasant one.

"I hear you need something, Hiruzen," Keina opened up.

"I do," he admitted, "but first I bring news you may not be aware of." He paused while Naruto's right eyebrow arched to indicate he was listening.

"The Fire Daimyo secretly appointed Kakashi the Godaime on Monday."

Hiruzen really didn't appreciate the way the entire Komodo Squad tensed at that news.

"For all intents and purposes, the ceremony weeks from now is just a formality," he summarized.

Keina glanced nervously at Naruto whose head had not budged. "And what will this news cost us, Old Man?"

Hiruzen's furiously beating heart actually slowed a bit at her use of the old familiar greeting. It meant there was still hope. Mouth suddenly dry, he pushed on.

"I'm aware that Kakashi asked you to support a retrieval mission earlier tonight and that you turned this request down."

Naruto nodded once but said nothing. His eyes were focused on the incredibly jumpy blonde standing next to the Sandaime as he watched her twitch and jerk as the seconds ticked on. A very childish part in the back of his mind chided her for not wearing wrappings to tie down her ponderous chest. At least Samui's were manageable.

Then he mentally slapped himself wondering where that thought came from before forcing himself back to the ongoing conversation.

"Aside from the fact that he will most certainly hold that against you, he has altered his plan and ordered Tsunade to provide a medic for the retrieval team."

Keina swore a bloody foul oath. "That bastard knows that Karin is a highly trained medic."

That clicked several pieces together for the blond lord. Karin was indeed a skilled medic-nin, a Field Grade Three in fact - the highest field qualification you could get below Field Surgeon. It was a skill she hid from Konoha hoping they wouldn't press her into service if she could escape from Kusa and pull her away from her new clan but T&I uncovered the reality of which he was made immediately aware of.

Kakashi would have sent her off to her death in a heartbeat just to poke them in the eye but that didn't explain why they were there and why Tsunade was so jittery unless...

"He's taking Shizune Kato for this mission, isn't he?" Naruto's voice was surprisingly even compared to Tsunade's heated response.

"Y-Yes!"

"Why didn't you take her place?" He knew why but that information would be out of place with him in this timeline so he pressed her.

She didn't answer so he pushed again.

"You show up at my home late at night asking for my help and want me to rush in blind, deaf, and dumb?" He added just a touch of annoyance to his voice as if he'd already decided to deny them.

"No! Wait..." Her words died under the calming hands of the Sandaime as he stepped forward to save her once more from rushing in. Time was precious and Shizune would be leaving in the next few minutes of the clock in the foyer was accurate.

"Haemophobia. Tsunade suffers from an overwhelming fear of blood due to tragedies suffered during the Third Shinobi War." The old man sighed heavily. "Even if she could overcome that, Kakashi has ordered her to stay within the village fearing they would flee at the first opportunity rather than chase after the escaped Uchiha."

Naruto's skeptical gaze swept the old shinobi. "He finally ran, did he?"

Tsunade actually saw the old man squirm like a scolded child before the youngest set of eyes in the room pivoted back to her anguished face.

"You can't help her without becoming either a risk or a fugitive yourself so you want my help." It was a non-question that left the two Konoha nin unsure as to where to go with his statement.

"We informed the Godaime that we intended to stay out of this mess," Keina grumbled.

In response, Tsunade fell to her knees - though it stung her pride - and clasped her hands together. "Please," her eyes near to tears, "she's all I have left of him."

Naruto appeared almost as unmoved as Keina.

"Please," Tsunade continued. "Please don't let them take her from me as well."

~*O*~

21:45: Southern Shores of Dōhō Lakes

"It's not a bad plan," Jirōbō of the South Gate mumbled softly to himself. Although he was trying to be quiet given Kimimaru's stern personality and the normally tense atmosphere of being deep in enemy territory, it became readily apparent that the others heard him. Their scoffs and huffs of amusement told him as much.

A rather sickly cough muffled by the albino's hand covering his mouth brought them up for a second, the moment passing once the Kaguya straightened without further issue.

"He'll never be one of the Gates, 'Rōbō."

The large man almost felt included, sort of like camaraderie, until the much slimmer nin finished his thought with a dismissive, "Pfft, you barely made the cut as is so what chance does that dipshit Imai have?"

The large man's surprisingly gentle face turned enough from the southern approach to their position to see Kidomaru's snide expression. No, he was decidedly not a fan of the youth's arrogance. Next to Tayuya's incredibly crass way of talking, Kidomaru had to be his least favorite of "the Gates" as the multi-armed gamed fanatic referred to them all.

Tayuya guarded the North Gate.

Sakon guarded the West Gate.

That left Kidomaru to guard the East Gate.

Yeah, Kidomaru...

Deciding not to engage in another pointless debate with his spider-themed teammate, Jirōbō turned without a word to continue sweeping Konoha's vast Gozoku Forest. Considering they were just a hundred kilometers off the eastern-running Kelwa Trail, it wouldn't take much to spot shinobi figures sprinting for their lives through the trees.

He grunted to himself almost as if the sound was enough to bolster his confidence. Imai was a cunning shinobi and it was a good plan.

Jirōbō wasn't naive enough to believe Konoha's prized Uchiha would get away clean and easy but Imai's escape route would buy them time. A little but, for a competent shinobi, a little time was often more than enough. No, Konoha would fight to keep the boy, for all the good it would do them.

What Orochimaru-sama wanted, Orochimaru-sama took.

He shivered and shrugged off the memories that landed him on his current team. Nothing pleasant ever came from them and there wasn't much he could do to escape his fate, his right hand absently reaching up to scratch the tattooed skin hidden beneath the cloth covering his left shoulder.

Nope, no one escaped the Snake Sannin. Better to accept and deal with it.

Mentally shifting from the rather depressing thoughts invading his mind, chief among them his worry for his foul-tempered female teammate, the Sound Five's powerhouse gently dropped one heavy paw of a hand on top of the ornately inscribed barrel resting next to his right thigh. It would be his job to carry it back to Oto once the Uchiha's body had been stuffed into it.

"You worry too much," Sakon chided. "She's tough. The Leaf won't be able to break her."

A sudden flash of the most gorgeous (to him) red hair flashed through his mind.

Jirōbō didn't budge but his eyes did rise from the barrel lid to once again sweep the upper branches of the massive forest surrounding them on all sides. He was hoping it was just dark enough to hide the slight pinking to his rounded cheeks as his face flushed.

~III~

Five figures tore through the lush canopy of Konoha's nighttime greenery like nearly-silent ghosts. I say nearly silent because the young medic trying not to slow them down wasn't nearly as capable at the physical aspects of the job as they were. To be honest, her Shishou had been less than diligent in that section of her education and Shizune was swearing curses to rival the best sailors of the coast that she'd correct that deficiency once this mission was over.

Thought did bring soft chuckles from her four shadows who, in a rare mark of generosity, slowed down so as to not wear out their temporary teammate before they got to the upcoming fight. It would be brutal enough with someone to bail them out and none wanted to go into an unknown situation without a battle-ready medic.

That be the realm of fools.

She outwardly appreciated their gift with as soft a sigh of relief that she could manage.

Then she noticed the one they called Badger snapping off crisp hand signs at the front of their formation.

"He says the scent is getting stronger," the burly Rhino offered from his position on her right flank.

"Ah, gomen, Shizune-san," the squad leader - Falcon - chimed. Bull, the squad "Breaker," was trailing as the rear guard.

She learned that it was the job of the breaker to charge in first and either break up the mob or bash-in doors. She shivered realizing it was for reasons exactly like that, that warranted imbedded medics with ANBU combat units. Even the non-HCU squads like this one needed the occasional boo-boo fixed.

Shizune nodded kindly and tried to fight the persistent blush refusing to stay hidden. Rhino was the burly muscular sort with hair the color of rich chocolate, not overly muscular with all those nasty veins as ANBU conditioning kept him trim around the middle, but the manly bulges of his upper arms and broad shoulders kept trying to make her weak in the knees and ruin her favorite pair of undies at the same time.

He kept just enough body fat to keep his arms smooth but she could see the thick cords of sinew writhing beneath the surface and she couldn't stop the errant fantasy of those biceps, massive arms as thick as her waist, from wrapping around her slender body-.

No! Bad Shizune!

She viciously cut that line of thinking off and focused on the mop of shockingly pink hair belonging to one of her students. Sakura. She had to help rescue Sakura.

She caught the heady ripple of thigh muscle to her right and nearly stumbled on the next branch.

Sakura! Must. Rescue. Sakura!

Her professionalism was failing horribly so she tried to focus on the facts of the case as she knew it.

Their prey had been rather sneaky. Their breach point of the barrier indicated they were heading due north towards Otafuku. Shizune didn't know why the Hokage suspected Oto involvement in their pre-OP brief but heading north then northeast to the Land of Rice made sense, at least that's what she thought it was still called.

She was shocked that the ninken-less Inuzuka (judging by the way he used his sense of smell to track) lost their trail twenty minutes outside of the northern gate leaving them to backtrack only to pick the escapees back up in the upper tree branches.

She'd asked in surprise why Badger did not have a companion but the mood turned somber and the group took to the branches without another word. She didn't ask again.

The trail led west directly through the heart of the Gozoku only to gently wend it's way clockwise along the mountains foreboding spine. An hour into the chase and they were definitely arcing towards a more northeasterly course.

They were also gaining on their targets.

This worried her. Imai's profile wasn't one of overwhelming strength. He had to know that a mild case of trickery wouldn't be enough to let them escape well-trained ANBU pursuit, even if they weren't the special companies of the dreaded ANBU Black, Konoha's lethal Hunter Corps.

No, this bode particularly ill since Oto proper lay another six hours or so from where they were. She was becoming concerned about what waited for them once they caught up with the runaway. Was it a small team? Was it a large force?

'Why were they going through this, clan heir or not, for one Genin?'

Her thoughts, as well as her heartbeat, camp to a thunderous stop when Rhino swept her up into his burly arms then leaped higher up into the three they'd just landed on.

"Wha!... Ah!... Why-."

His hand clamping down on her mouth to silence her protests only confused her more until he pressed one finger to his mask then pointed down below to the branches not ten meters in front of their squad.

She had to trickle chakra to her eyes to see what he was pointing at but she did finally see moonlight glistening on the chakra-laced, gossamer-thin webbing crisscrossing the path ahead of them. Badger had stopped within arm's reach of the first layer of it, his nose stiffing gently at the air around it.

Yup, she was right, this rabbit had help.

~III~

"Whatever you're discussing," Kidomaru drawled, "you're going to need to speed this up."

Kimimaru sent him a scathing look which prompted a nervous gulp.

"Company," was all the spider-like boy mumbled out before unsealing his bow.

With Kimimaru's help, they'd dosed the Uchiha with a Mind Awakening Pill then stuffed and sealed him in the maturation chamber (the barrel) all the while ignoring the worthless pink girl's sobs. It was a good thing she was gagged otherwise Sakon might have stabbed her to death even after Imai explained how she was the closest female they could find that had any sort of relationship with the subject Orochimaru wanted.

"How many?" was all the pale Kaguya asked in return.

Kidomaru shrugged. "The vibrations aren't clean. It's like someone disturbed the air around the web instead of touching the web itself."

"ANBU then," Sakon offered, making all of them turn to the bone wielder awaiting his thoughts.

*Sigh* "You will not embarrass Orochimaru-sama by failing to fight off trained ANBU after trying to outrun them all night. Jirōbō!"

The nin in question mostly kept his body from twitching violently in response as his orange pupils snapped to his recognized team leader.

"We will entertain our approaching guests. Deliver Orochimaru-sama his prize in pristine condition."

For a second, it appeared that the burly youth was about to open his mouth in protest. That was before Kimimaru's KI battered the very air from his lungs.

"Our master will not be made to wait on Imai's incompetence as a shinobi. Move before I provide the proper motivation for you."

Grunting his displeasure, Jirōbō easily hefted the barrel onto his back and, with one last glance back in Konoha's direction, ascended to the upper branches on his way to Otogakure.

The Kaguya paid him no more attention the moment his soldier's feet left the moist earth beneath his feet, his attention sweeping over his remaining forces. He didn't hold out much hope for Imai and accepted without question that Mizuki perished back in Konoha. Given his failure in obtaining the proper prisoner, his fate had never been much in question.

The rest - the entire lot of them - looked offended but the Kaguya didn't care as he continued to direct their force disposition. "We will deal with this Konoha trash here. Besides," his sickly grin looked demonic, "we need someone to deliver the master's message."

Without further discussion, Kidomaru took the trees at the edge of their small clearing.

~III~

When Hotel-One-One finally touched down south of the Dōhō Lakes, they were on the southern edge of a good-sized clearing still buried deep in the great Gozoku Forest. Every year the forest continued to work its way further west much to the farming community's hate and discontent as harvesting of the fabled trees came under strict control by the Konoha Forestry Regulation Committee, one of the Konoha Advisory Council's longest-running oversight projects. As a result, families continued to flounder and fail, surrendering farm after farm as Konohagukre no Sato as "the benevolent Council" stepped in to buy out their withered family legacy for pennies on the Ryo.

Dōhō had been a final stand for a small band of farming families under the leadership of Kaiyo Dōhō. Kaiyo was not a shinobi. He'd never served in the armed forces or any branch of the Konoha government. He was a farmer. Just another failed farmer trying to scrounge together a living for his family, a farming family dating back to through the Warring Clan Era on the same plot of land specializing in taro.

Then Konoha's greedy Council came along as those precious trees invaded his farm worse than any invasive weed infestation. They came and their greed demolished what little was left.

He was a simple man trying to save a family dream and others followed, others with the same problems and even less hope. Together they made a stand. As a group, they relocated nearer to the lakes - the Dōhō Lakes were a pair of freshwater pools several kilometers at their widest oblong ends - and began clearing land for a new start.

Their deaths were documented in excruciating detail in one of Danzo's sterile logs.

The irony was not lost on the ANBU squad leader standing as he was at the edge of the manually cleared patch of land.

Falcon stood at the front of his squad staring down the pale figure in front of his small force, the figure he assumed was his counterpart, his keen eyes noting the pink-capped bundle lying at the feet of who he presumed to be Imai. The lanky teen standing with them he could not ID but he wasn't the focus either.

He couldn't see the Uchiha and that worried him.

Their current position had them perhaps one hundred kilometers south of the Valley of the End. They would need to wrap this up quickly if they intended to catch up with the missing clan heir. He was going to need to move things along at a good clip.

"Surrender the girl and lay down your arms."

Imai shifted nervously but the pale blue-head laughed at the command.

"This is your one chance, trash," Falcon heard from the surprisingly calm voice belonging to the pale one. "We are going to hold on to the girl. You, trash, are going to inform the Uzumaki that he is to meet with us in two days at the Valley of the End along with Tsunade Senju."

Falcon ignored the startled gasp from the med nin standing behind him only to let it slide when Imai shifted over enough to whisper something to the pale figure, who nodded once.

'Fucking traitor!'

"So much for negotiations," Falcon opined.

There was a pregnant pause as people shifted on to the balls of their feet. It was as if the entire forest stood still to take a deep, shuddering breath.

"It would appear so," came the predicted response.

Then the pale one grew something out of his back and charged erasing any further debate or discussion.

ANBU Squad Hotel-One-One burst into motion as one entity, as one body, as a fist of righteous fury to strike down Konoha's enemies.

~*O*~

Falcon was ready when Bull broke off to engage the shinobi behind the bone wielder thinking fondly, not for the first time in his career thankful for the anonymity his mask provided.

Human nature, at its very core, centered around duplicity and it started early. It is an ingrained behavior that is reinforced through action and consequence. You need look no further than the small child caught redhanded reaching for a sweet they know they aren't supposed to have. The child knows, through repeated behavior, that the adult about to lecture them will be unhappy so they try, even when caught in the act, to mitigate the punishment they know is coming.

In that way, the child learns to develop either better ways to obtain their unlawful goal or to develop better lies to cover up their treachery. Through this iterative process, it becomes a learned behavior.

Shinobi are no different.

One could argue that they are in fact worse hence Falcon's much-appreciated knack for detecting chakra. It was a talent he worked hard to cultivate and improve. No, he wasn't the greatest sensor not even amongst his family but he was more than up to the task before him. Two years with ANBU had helped to hone his talent and he was thankful for it now.

Long before they'd reached the lakeshore, he'd honed in on the disgusting chakra filtering through what he recognized was webbing. He nearly panicked thinking their prey had given up their stationary spot by the lakes when the chakra died out suddenly, the thin strands fading to their normally dull gray color, but their sickly pallor returned almost immediately.

Whoever was connected to them must have relocated then. A sniper perhaps?

By the time his team arrived, assignments had been given through Silent Speak and bodies were in motion. Badger surged forward to engage what he recognized as a Kaguya, his sharp eyes recognizing the Dead Bone Pulse for what it was. Bull bum-rushed the lanky figure just behind the Kaguya much to the bone wielder's obvious surprise - if he read the quirked eyebrow correctly. When Rhino moved forward to engage Imai, that left the, ah, there it is.

Falcon's gloved hand shot forward releasing the kunai he'd palmed during their polite conversation. With unerring accuracy, he flew like his namesake into the treeline to engage the huddled figure who'd circled around to their flank. His kunai hadn't been enough to destroy the arrow nor knock it from the air but it was enough to deflect it from their wide-eyed med-nin.

He'd be damned if he gave the vermin a chance to adjust and try again.

~*O*~

Bull moved in Badger's shadow just as they'd trained over and over and over and over again. By now the move had become reflexive, their motion so in-sync with one another that it was near-autonomous. Badger flowed a half-step to his right to interpose himself between Bull and the pale threat; Bull flowed in his wake curving around to the right another full step to engage the smirking shinobi just beyond him.

He had his orders after all.

That didn't make the bulky Breaker a mindless basher. Being in ANBU forced you to take note of your surroundings. You either learned or you died from stupidity.

He noticed one of Badger's Kodachi lashing out to deflect the albino's passing swipe at his thigh and made a mental note to thank the little berserker later. He noticed the stunned pause from the traitor Imai that allowed Rhino to close the distance to the captive Genin. He heard more than saw the object Falcon's kunai redirected. He also noted the odd tattoos covering half of his dark blue-haired target's face even as his own body darkened beneath his concealing cloak as thick arms broke through the front seam of the garment's hemline.

Then he was to close to notice anything other than his opponent's surprise when Bull's blow seemed to numb his entire right arm. By then, Bull was close enough to observe other things about his opponent such as the dark, splotchy marks covering his face and the extra arm he used to help block his Hammer Fist Strike. The ground cratered beneath their sandaled feet as bits and pieces of earth flew up with its concussive force.

Then he noticed a second head sticking out from his opponent's shoulder, a second set of eyes grimacing at the shock of the impact.

A third arm lashed out to clash against his forearm then, before Bull knew it, he was at the center of a veritable cyclone of fists and feet. For every two he blocked, there were three or four more that got through to strike his iron-like hide.

He shrugged them off as inconsequential, which - to him - they were. Earth chakra surged through his body at a measured pace. While the multi-limbed shinobi fighting him was surprisingly strong, he was not a physical match for the stubby-horned ANBU and it was beginning to show.

Knuckles, even reinforced as they were with that putrid chakra you didn't need to be a sensor to detect buttressing his opponent's body, were starting to crack and bleed. His slimmer opponent was slowly dodging the body shots that made him vibrate in pain rather than proving physical superiority by tanking them.

The larger ANBU knew he was making progress when his opponent substituted with a log, his punch shattering the defenseless block of wood into splinters.

Bull knew he punched hard, especially as a walking statue, and (in true ANBU fashion) was seeking to end the fight as quickly as possible. No second chances.

~*O*~

Badger knew he had his hands full the moment he crossed blades, bone to kodachi, with "The Albino."

ANBU training, especially once you cleared the six-month Basic Training Gauntlet, never eased up. ANBU missions were all trial-by-fire and he'd lost his share of teammates during his first three years than most shinobi did their entire career. No, he'd learned the painful lessons of laziness the hard way, thank you very much.

While grateful that the Clan had offered a new ninken to train, Badger pushed past the longing and focused on himself first. Chakra control, chakra enhancement, chakra techniques, kenjutsu, taijutsu (beyond the clan), tracking, stealth, traps, if it had a place in shinobi skill books, Badger pushed himself to learn it then he pushed harder to master it.

He wasn't ever going to fail another partner again.

Sumire sang as he maintained a steady stream of chakra through the blade, Momo still sheathed with the pommel sticking up past his left shoulder. The bone wielder's arm was lethal. his weapon sent vibrations strong enough to numb fingers when Badger blocked a decapitating strike. Each of Badger's Shaving Strikes was parried and riposted with a similar return.

Blade and bone clashed repeatedly as the two swayed, lunged, dodged, parried, then lunged again. At first, the surge of energy accompanying the initial clash tempered into a rhythm that bent and swayed with the prevailing winds of combat. It did not break, however, not even when the Albino extended his fingers and shot the tips at him as a means to throw off his timing.

'Interesting.'

Though it didn't break his timing, the technique did give the taller Kaguya the opportunity to prepare something a bit more dangerous, Badger's only warning being the muttered, "Perhaps you aren't complete trash after all."

First, the bone swordsman set his feet in a slightly wider than normal stance, then snarled [Dance of the Camellia].

Badger had just enough time to recognize the name of the attack then draw Momo from her sheath before their brief gap closed and his opponent's arm became a blur. Then all he could do was burst chakra into his arms in an attempt to keep up with the hailstorm of sword tips stabbing at him from all directions.

He didn't block them all. Those he couldn't block or dodge he tried to pivot away from to let them graze an arm or a leg instead of piercing a kidney or a liver. Retaliation wasn't even an afterthought as the seconds blurred into minutes which seemed to drag on for eternity.

When his opponent's technique finally ended and Badger was still standing though bloodied, he was greeted with the formal stance of a blademaster's salute. His opponent stood, for the barest moment, at attention and touched the dull side of his sword to the tip of his nose.

"Kimimaro of the Kaguya."

"Mujina," he grunted out in return. Badger hated the term tanuki or mami, even though either was a direct reference to the Japanese Raccoon Dog.

Not wanting to embarrass his sensei, Badger returned the gesture then the two reset their stances in preparation for bleeding each other dry as civilized sociopaths do.

His opponent grunted once in acceptance and the two merged in bloody combat once again.

~*O*~

A second projectile shot out of the treeline before Falcon could dash into its shadowy embrace. Thankfully Shizune, smart kunoichi that she was, was in full motion in the opposite direction keeping Rhino between her and the last visible opponent. It would make for one less headache at any rate.

He could see the chakra of his opponent fading from the tendrils radiating from his back like an enormous spider web. The spider, it would seem, had disconnected from his web choosing mobility over sensory.

Against any other shinobi he might have an advantage but not against Falcon who only altered his altitude and trajectory to intercept. With a whisper or air, he pushed about fifty meters ahead of his target's intended path then settled into a thick mass of leaves. He could see his opponent pause, one arm extended at shoulder height and the hand of the other gripping something up near his cheek.

'A bowman. Good for sniping.'

Falcon stilled his heart rate and willed his body to calm itself. He would need patience with this one but at least the fool wasn't sniping his team anymore.

Like the sniper's teammates, his chakra gave off a fouled sensation. The ANBU's sensitivity to such energy perceiving its inky tendrils coursing through and snake-like across the skin of the stalking shinobi form below. It made his skin crawl in repulsion.

"I hope you're not the strongest they have to offer otherwise I won't get to play much."

Falcon ignored the taunt and slid down the trunk of his tree just enough to allow the arrow shot at him to punch through the trunk where his back was just a second before. Splitting into three darting figures, the real body continued circling.

Another arrow launched only to be [Substituted] by one of his clones. He may not have the chakra capacity of the Kyuubi vessel but Falcon's clones were trained ANBU combatants. Even at reduced capacity, they were a serious threat.

Suddenly the sniper was being hunted, his arrow sent off to who knows where and the ANBU he thought he was about to thrash for serious status increase appeared in all his frightening glory presenting the business end of his ninja-to for Kidōmaru to inspect in a very up-close-and-personal fashion. He did not approve and immediately sought to open up space, his Level One Curse Seal flooding his limbs with power and speed.

The exchange was brief, the archer swinging with his bow as a weapon as the clone bobbed and ducked hoping to prolong his existence long enough to transfer back some useful information on their opponent. So far all he had was dark-skinned (Kumo-native? Raiton?), multi-limbed (experiment gone bad?), and chakra enhanced.

Kidōmaru scuttled up the tree's trunk sideways dodging a bladed lunge by his too-close opponent using the opportunity to spit out another mass of sticky webbing as he did so. The chakra he'd infused in the substance with the spinnerets in his mouth formed the arrow even as he knocked and fired it at point-blank range.

The web arrow promptly fulfilled its function by piercing the small log it was now pinning to another tree, much to the archer's churlish glee. Falcon could see that the enemy was enjoying their little game of "Spider and the Fly."

Shadow senbon flew and the bowman burst into motion, his ponytail bobbing and weaving as he fired harassing shots at his ANBU pursuer.

The chase was on.

~*O*~

Rhino clashed against Imai's kunai with one thought in mind: overwhelming force and martial dominance. He was very thankful that his cousin, Bull, was kind enough to share the more advanced Earth Spear technique finally allowing him to set aside his [Fist Rock Technique]. Sakura's successful retrieval required no less of him.

The young ANBU smacked the tiny weapon up and away delivering a bone-crushing strike to the Chunin's side just below the ribcage earning him "first blood" as Imai sputtered and coughed up spittal and pinkish fluids. Rhino didn't think it would too easy since he was a Chunin after all. Supposedly the man earned his rank.

The kunai dropped straight down into Imai's left hand, the blade reversing direction as it jabbed into the ANBU's side between the armored chest and back plates of his gear. Rhino took the half-second to enjoy the shocked look of his opponent as the blade tip chipped against his armored skin.

The ANBU would give no reprieve.

Slapping the weapon aside, Rhino slammed a meaty palm into Imai's back sending the older male stumbling a few paces. Leaning backwards just enough to let the return sidekick skim past his porcelain mask, he jabbed a fisted-knuckle into Imai's knee joint producing a satisfying CRACK as bone and cartilage gave way.

Imai cried out but didn't collapse completely, his eyes radiating desperation as he shifted the kunai back to his dominant hand snapping his arm forward from his sideways position, his body hopping lightly on one sturdy leg as his weapon of choice sought a soft spot to pierce.

Rhino slapped at the first jab, then threw the offending limb high once again with enough strength to bruise the limb and buy time for his booted foot to find the traitor's ribcage with a thunderous front kick. There was a choking grunt as Imai shot across the soft grass to roll to a stop at the water's edge, one arm dangling lifelessly in the gently lapping surf.

Rhino waited to a ten-count before assuming it was safe to subdue the subject before, dropping his chakra-intensive technique and turning to check on the prisoner only to find a bone sword waiting for him as it pierced his lower abdomen sapping the strength from his legs. It hurt to breathe suddenly, his eyes blinking as shock began to settle in.

"I must commend you, ANBU-san. Not all of your kind are trash as I first believed."

Rhino watched helplessly as the angled lines tattooing what was once pale unblemished skin receded into the pale figure's chest beneath his now tattered robe.

'When did we lose control? Weren't we winning?'

His eyes flickered over to the still form of Badger then to Bull even as his knees gave out. He'd never seen his gentle cousin soo still before.

Somewhere he could hear someone screaming, there was a brief scuffle but he was having a hard time focusing. His whole world was drilling down, fading into a haze of darkness and the sound of his own beating heart.

Something brushed against him grabbing his attention and he could see the pale one again, Shizune's limp body and the now sobbing Sakura slung over one shoulder like a helpless sack.

"Remember... two days... Valley of the End." The words were fading to a bee-like buzz, the noise blending into nonsense.

Rhino's eyes blinked beneath his second face before fluttering closed one last time, his body falling for what seemed like an eternity.

~III~

~Deep in the Shadows of Amegakure no Sato~

Shadowy figures stood lined up like little toy soldiers upon the finger of what would become the world's destruction. Each pair of eyes, the brightest points of light on each figure, were aimed upward towards a pair of rich purple orbs belonging to their leader, the most powerful among them.

"How sure are we that this information isn't leading us into a trap, unh?" Deidara trusted no one, not even his own colleagues.

Sasori's raspy baritone interjected. "It won't matter with our numbers so stop worrying."

"Jashin-sama will show us the way!" No one was surprised by the zealot's outburst.

"Sasori has a point."

Here everyone froze, even Hidan still deep in the throes of religious fanaticism. Kisame never agreed with anyone that wasn't Itachi and this threw everyone off as evident by the less than eloquent, "Huh?"

Kisame, however, continued as if he was speaking only to himself. "You can't see them until it's too late. Then it's too late." His voice meandered off into quiet whispers and faint-hearted grunts.

"Can you handle this, Itachi?" Leader-sama had a level of concern flickering across his face Itachi had never seen before, something no one in their right mind would see as a benevolent thing on the face of a tyrannical mercenary group commander.

While he had no specific ties of loyalty to anyone in this teleconference, he'd grown close to Kisame over the years. He also happened to sympathize with the shell-shocked nukenin concerning the Komodo Squad but he'd have to bury those concerns deep for the time being.

Perhaps they'd spare him long enough to come in from deep-cover. Perhaps.

"We will be ready," was all he said and withheld a sigh at it being just enough.

"Good. The rest of you begin relocating. According to our source, the Kyuubi vessel will be in position in three days. Kisame and Itachi have the lead for capture while Sasori, Deidara, Hidan, and Kakuzu will provide sufficient cover to secure the vessel."

Tobi began hopping around shaking the pom-poms he'd stolen from some poor child as Leader-sama called them in for a prayer circle.

"Oh, mighty Jashin-sama!" Hidan began only to twitch as Itachi began to fade from view. "OI! Oi-oi-oi! You need to give Jashin-sama her due!"

Itachi simply held up a cupped hand to one ear before shaking his head side to side to indicate he was breaking up. Then the red-eyed clan slayer vanished from sight.

~III~

A/N: I hope you are all staying safe out there. While most of the world is getting a handle on COVID, it would seem that my country is bound to kill itself as people lose their minds to selfish stupidity. Whether you believe in a higher power or not, I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers and wish you considerably less drama.

I thank everyone that follows and comments on my work. It is the greatest honor for any level of writer to know that their efforts are appreciated and enjoyed. Please remember to read, follow, and review if you are so inclined.

~III~

[Jutsu Used In this Story]

Core Technique Descriptions Courtesy of Narutopedia

[B-Rank] Doton: Domu (Earth Release: Earth Spear): One of several Earth Release techniques centered around creating personal armor for the user, Earth Spear (other than the darkening of the skin) is one of the least-noticeable variants (Carbon Control, Crystal Armor, Earth Release: Hardening Technique, Rock Armor, Steel Release: Impervious Armor). For this technique, the user flows earth-natured chakra through all or parts of their body, causing it to become noticeably darker, all while increasing their defensive power to become as hard as their skill in the jutsu allows. Categorized as a B-Rank, increased proficiency - indicated by skill rank - produces different degrees of resistance.

Genin - (Generally not capable of manifesting the defense for prolonged periods, C-Rank equivalent skill, Granite Defense Equivalent for less than 10 minutes)

Chunin - (B-Ranked skill, Iron Defense Equivalent)

Jounin - (A-Ranked skill, Steel Defense Equivalent)

Kage - (S-Ranked skill, Diamond Defense Equivalent)

Like the vast majority of earth techniques, Earth Spear suffers from a chronic weakness to Lightning Release ninjutsu.

[E thru A-Rank; B-Rank as used in this chapter] Hiden: Kumo Sōkei (Secret Technique: Spider Web Area): Kidōmaru spreads a network of "touch threads" throughout an area. Kidōmaru constantly sends his chakra along the threads, allowing him to sense anything that comes into contact with them; the threads are sensitive enough to even detect slight disturbances in the air. Because the threads appear no different than normal spiderwebs, they aren't likely to be noticed and thus are effective as an alert of approaching enemies. Kidōmaru uses this technique while he and the rest of the Sound Four are resting, ensuring they won't be ambushed. The touch threads, being stronger than wire, can also be used to reel in those who've contacted them.

Hiden: Kumo Shibari (Secret Technique: Spider Bind): Kidōmaru spits a web of threads from his mouth, the web's size being adjusted depending on how far away his targets are and how many he intends to trap. On contact, the web pushes targets away from Kidōmaru and wraps around them, trapping them. Because Kidōmaru's threads are made sticky with chakra, escaping from them is difficult once trapped. Kidōmaru most often uses this technique in response to frontal attacks, the webs neutralizing his opponents before they can harm him.

[D thru A-Rank] Kageyose no Jutsu (Shadow Gathering Technique): This is a ninjutsu using materialized shadows, but compared to the Shadow Sewing Technique from the same line, this technique places emphasis on the minute control of the shadow's movements. It is accurate enough to even make the tentacles go through tiny holes. Basically, this technique takes the user's own shadow and transforms and stretches it into countless thin tentacles, which are then used to grab objects and pull them in. Also, one can skilfully make use of the tentacle-shaped shadow tendrils by using them to lift up and throw weapons like kunai and such. This technique has many possible applications and uses. There are no hand seals used for this technique (the Nara enhance control of their shadows by channeling through a Rat handseal), but the hand movements resemble that of Gaara's Sand Binding Coffin.

[Kekkei Genkai] Teshi Sendan (Ten-finger Drilling Bullets): Kimimaro parts his fingertips, creating holes that expose hardened finger bones. In volleys (five per hand), he shoots these bone bullets at a target by swinging his hand, causing a loud sound as they're fired. The bullets travel incredibly quickly through the air and take a spinning motion. Upon impact, the bullets tear through skin, flesh, and bone. The bullets aren't able to penetrate the Shield of Sand, but, in the anime, they can pierce samurai's armor. Kimimaro relies on this technique for his long-range attacks.

[Unranked] Sōma no Kō: Tarenken (Attack of the Twin Demons: Multiple Connected Fists): While occupying Sakon's body, Ukon adds his hands to Sakon's punches; when Sakon is about to punch something, both of Ukon's arms sprout from Sakon's arm. Ukon's punches can be performed simultaneously with Sakon's, increasing their combined power to the point of punching through rock, or Ukon can grab opponents to give Sakon's punch an easy target.

[Unranked] Sōma no Kō: Tarenkyaku (Attack of the Twin Demons: Multiple Connected Feet): While occupying Sakon's body, Ukon adds his feet to Sakon's kicks; when Sakon is about to kick something, both of Ukon's legs sprout from Sakon's leg. Ukon's kicks can be performed simultaneously with Sakon's, increasing their combined power to the point of sending targets flying, or they can be performed in intervals, spacing out the damage to their target.

Kenjutsu:

- Dance of the Camellia: The user repeatedly stabs at his target, doing so rapidly enough to create the appearance of afterimages. Each stab is directed at a slightly different part of the target, from a slightly different angle, and with slightly different regularity, making it difficult to predict each strike. Although targets may be able to dodge these attacks for a time, they will eventually be unable to keep up with the constant and "chaotic" strikes, giving the user the opening he needs to finally stab and kill them.

- Shaving Strike: The practitioner lunges as if to jab or pierce their opponent. The intent is to slide the sharp edge of their weapon along their opponent's flesh in a sawing-like motion. A Shaving Strike is meant to weaken an opponent's limb to gain advantage or to sever a major artery near the skin's surface (carotid, and the like).

~III~

[References of Note]

[2] Human Biology (Sebaceous Glands) - References drawn from Neurobiology of Chemical Communication, Mucignat-Caretta C, editor, Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press/Taylor & Francis; 2014.

Vomeronasal pits (VNO) seem to be vestigial in humans according to some published research volumes (Trotier et al. 2000). In this fanfic, human development has been aided through decades of chakra enhancement aiding biological mutation in predictable spurts (Kakashi's an example of vestigial advancement enhanced through chakra use; Inuzuka Clan seem to have a strong proclivity for development in conjunction with their close ties to ninken).

Humans, in general, do not have the equipment necessary to produce, receive, and process pheromonal stimuli. In general, humans possess three major exo-epidermal glandular systems serving one of two purposes: sweat glands for body temperature regulation and oil glands for epidermal maintenance and protection (keeping your skin from drying out and cracking painfully). These glands are the apocrine sweat glands, eccrine sweat glands, and sebaceous glands. It is the latter that Kurama chose to manipulate by infusing with her youki by focusing on a single seal tied to her youki hoping that its oversaturation would flood his skin's oil glands knowing that her youki, when used in enough purified quantities without overpowering and poisoning the receiving vixen, has positive - if not nymphomanic - effects on receptive females of the same species.

Mabui, with her intentions of working her way into Naruto's good graces, counts as a receptive female.

~III~