No More

by Sivaatasi

How much crap does a guy have to take just to get a fair shake? The school was out to get him, villagers were trying to ruin his life, and everyone he'd ever loved (admittedly that's not many people in the life of our favorite Jinchuuriki) were vanishing on him. Determined to make a new start, he learns that not everything glittering is gold. AU, Naruto. M (just in case).

54. Chapter 53

A/N: First, I want to thank the folks that shared their thoughts and comments with me during the last chapter - both good and bad. I am grateful for the few fans of my writing that I do have.

Second: Kakashi. Some of you seem to pick up on the fact that he's not really a sound leader. You'd be correct since he still lives and breathes at the tactical squad level - even with ANBU Commander experience; he's not able to see and comprehend the whole picture yet but that's something he will need time to grow out of if he weren't soo wrapped up in his current issues.

Hiruzen's appointment of the guy was more from a point of pain and betrayal in his life but even he didn't expect the man to run right off a cliff as he did. The good news is that he's getting closer to figuring out why. For the Guest reviewer that thinks I need to explain what's going on better, I ask you to remain patient. I tend to explain things as we experience them - no one has the whole picture right away and, if they tell you that they do, then they're most likely lying.

Admit it, you want to know what's going to happen and you hate waiting. I think that's the real problem. That's also why you keep coming back - because you want to know the answer. Ask yourself this: If GoT had spilled everything in the first season as spoilers, would you have stayed until the very (admittedly) disappointing end? Of course not.

Third: My version of the Akatsuki was heavily influenced by SlytheFoxx's "The Unforgivable Act." If you haven't read it yet by all means please do. The story may be a bit heavy for some but it takes a good look at the dynamic between Naruto and his home village. It is most definitely a new perspective on an old tale with the added benefit of some snappy humor. Check out his work.

As a final note, I have corrected the skipped number (FFN kept saying I already had a Chapter 52), corrected the poorly unfinished chapter 48, and offer you the continuation of the brewing Uzu-Kono drama in the next installment of "No More."

Enjoy as you will.

~Siva'a-tasi

~III~

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Chapter 53: The Dreaded Camellia Blossom

~III~

---

Previously On No More...

Three days. It had taken three long and painful days to sprint the distance back to Kumogakure but the Kumo contingent was finally home just as the sun began to crest the nearest peak. Normally, the muscle-bound blond would pause to enjoy the uncluttered skyline, to breathe deeply the pristine chill of his home's mountain range, and to enjoy the brisk morning air but not this time. No, this time he had too much on his mind to take note of his home's natural inspiration.

He had a dying village to save from its own foolish decisions. Soo much to do, so little time to do it in...

Ay, the Yondaime Lightning Shadow of Kumogakure, the mighty Village Hidden in the Clouds, swept through his tower like the force of nature that he frequently was wont to be. Kumogakure was a military village and, when in such a place, military protocol was the word of the day. Everywhere he looked, heeled sandals snapped together crisply. Sharp salutes thumped to flak jacketed chests as he thundered by.

Ay acknowledged it all with a brusque nod of his braided head, his smile tugging at the tightened corners of his mouth. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't hide the hope nibbling at the corners of his hardened heart. And to think a descendant from a village his father helped to destroy out of fear would be the cause for it.

A sharp command for someone to, "Make a hole!" snapped him from the brief mental distraction bringing darkened eyes back to the well-lit hallways of his tower marking the end of a long journey held at a punishing pace. Bright halls meant safety and a safe place to think and plot. Bright halls meant fewer places for enemy shinobi to lurk and hide.

Clearing the way before the hulking bruiser stalked Yugito, the slinky two-tailed Jinchuuriki. Behind him carried along with the harsh pace of his focus trailed Darui and C, the Raikage's loyal but often lazy bodyguards, the two elites bracketing two Kumo kunoichis freshly returned from Konohagakure, Samui, and Mabui.

Despite the slowly dying taciturn scowl - his usual expression - the Raikage was buzzing with excitement. You would never know it unless you knew the man intimately but it was there. It showed in his unusually light steps. It thrummed in the subconscious twitching of his broad shoulders and thickly muscled pectorals. It hovered around him in the distracted tune he hummed as his dark eyes glazed over in thought once again.

He was pleased and it was beginning to show, something those closest to the overburden Kage rarely got to see yet always appreciated.

Once they reached his office, Yugito pushed the double doors open and slinked off in her cat-like fashion to her usual perch in the corner of the large office space nodding to the much taller and patiently waiting Kirabi as she did so. The two smaller males shadowing the Raikage broke to either side of the Lightning Shadow as he flung off his weighted haori and conical hat, both objects finding a resting place with the bored men standing just behind his chair. It was almost a casual gesture most likely practiced over and over and over again despite C's annoyed grimace and Darui's raking disapproval as they moved to fold and place his garb of authority. Even Mabui barely withheld her eye-roll as the larger-than-life leader of their village tucked in behind his seat of power nearly covered in paperwork, every Kage's greatest nemesis.

"Would you like for us to arrange your usual meal, Raikage-sama?" Mabui's routine query involving the brutal death and glazing of three healthy chickens was hastily brushed aside by the now openly grinning behemoth.

"This is why I have my emergency stash, Mabui-chan!"

Both women blinked helplessly before glancing at each other in confusion. The Raikage never used the familiar suffix to her name unless he was in a very good mood. Now he sounded almost... giddy.

Mabui's left eyebrow rose daintily up towards her scalp as she watched Ay unseal with a small puff of smoke a reinforced plastic bottle with a metal coil shaped like a sphere inside of it, the man merrily jabbering away as his hands worked as if on auto-pilot.

"We may have a chance to finally break Konoha's monopoly! Darui!"

The lazy Jounin lifted the eyebrow over his exposed eye (his version of snapping to attention).

"Make sure we call together an emergency meeting of the advisory council tonight. We'll be leaving first thing in the morning!"

Darui's put-upon sigh predated his drawn-out sigh and exasperated, "Hai, Raikage-sama."

Ay continued on knowing it would be executed as directed, his smile growing more and more as his hands worked independently of his following string of directives to his assistants. A fresh rag landed on his desk as he routed around muttering about a banana he left in a stasis scroll somewhere...

The most frightening man Mabui had ever known tittered in a fit of near giggling, something Mabui hadn't seen since his inauguration day. Ay's uncharacteristic happiness raised an eyebrow on both guardians and at least one puzzled bodyguard.

An industrial-sized tub with the words "Now With More Chocolaty Goodness" slapped all over the front got hoisted from his desk's lower left-hand sliding drawer snapping her out of her shocked daze. The label had large super-hero-print letters identifying it as "Ka-Pow Protein Powder" now with "extra-dense chakra-whey extract."

"Oh-hohohooooo... Things are looking up!" Ay's thick shoulders were repeatedly bouncing as he scooped three heaping portions from the container's plastic measuring scoop into his shaker bottle with uncontained glee. He was like a child given his favorite treat.

Mabui could only grimace in annoyance as chocolate-colored powder spilled messily onto his desk. She only grew more annoyed when he used one hand to brush the powder from the desktop into his other palm before depositing it back inside the large tub, a disgusting habit she'd never been able to break the stingy miser out of.

Yugito snorted in derision loud enough for the entire room to hear it.

"Now, now Yugito-chan," the giddy Kage chided. "You didn't see the progress we made over the entire week."

The Hellcat half-laughed/sputtered then.

"I saw him try to set fire to Samui's head with his eyes the entire week. How can you be so happy about this situation, Jiji?"

Mabui and Samui both caught the confused stares between the Raikage's guardians before they both snapped their eyes back to the large man filling his bottle from the fifty-gallon water cooler behind his desk.

"That's easy!" he retorted happily, pausing to make sure the level in the bottle was just so. "It was the fact that he was willing to clasp forearms with her right before we left that gave me hope."

Suddenly the light came on in Mabui's very sharp mind.

"He's already forgiven her. You think he just needs time to get used to her, don't you?" Mabui's sharp green eyes began to glitter in the office's sunny interior as her mind cataloged Samui's dreary recollection covering the majority of her stay in Konoha. Her earlier summary reports had been less than encouraging.

"Aaaah-YUP!"

The big man's chirpy response drew her back to the room and the rhythmic flexing of his right arm. Ay was furiously mixing up the rather poor imitation chocolate in the now froth-filled container making Mabui's face scrunch up at her own memory involving her one and only attempt at drinking one of the man's imitation shake concoctions.

For her part, Mabui tried very hard not to gag at the memory of undiluted powder chunks floating inside the thick mixture.

"His willingness to come in contact with her is a sign that she is winning him over. And THAT means our two beauties have a chance!" Ay's eyes were now burning with a fierce light as he popped the stopper and tilted his head back to chug his first of six meals of the day, his head turned slightly sideways so he could enjoy the growing pink adorning the cheeks of the last two Namikaze women in the entire village.

He'd overheard a few of their whispered conversations concerning the "cuter than expected daimyo" on the way home.

Yugito, in accordance with her contrary feline nature, tried to rain on his parade but snarking out, "You realize Atsui isn't going to go for this."

She hadn't missed Darui's twitching eyebrow either but chose to move on past that very convoluted problem. The lazy second to the Raikage had never been shy about his feelings towards the slender-yet-busty secretary and his opinion of the Raikage's plan to use the last two Namikazes in the village to win favor with, at first, Konoha only to later focus on the last Uzu-Namikaze heir was more than well known.

Darui's, "He'll follow the orders of his Raikage all the same" did little to deflect the issue with those that knew the hot-headed blond. It also did nothing to mask his personal irritation with the whole subject, his lone eye fixating on the green-eyed beauty.

Ay slammed the empty container to his desk, a small frown bending down the corners of his mouth at the small globs of undiluted protein sliding down the inside of his shaker bottle, his hands already reaching to add more water to it so as not to waste the expensive import from the distant Land of Tea.

"Atsui has his own agenda," Ay mumbled. "He will do what is best for Kumo."

Samui frowned knowing what the Raikage was speaking about, her disgust evident at her village's attempt to distract her volatile brother with willing women to help him rebuild the Namikaze under one roof in Kumo, preferably a ninja-clan-oriented roof so as to avoid more civilian complications. She hated it but she'd keep her mouth shut knowing her brother would refuse to leave his home village automatically filing that idea as being "not hot, Sis!". The fool wanted power and prestige and had wanted to be the clan head his entire egotistical life, something he'd never get being the younger fraternal sibling. Marrying off Samui politically killed two of her personal birds with one stone.

Atsui was a prideful fool that way, extremely loyal yet gullible. Kumogakure could do no wrong in his eyes and that was another reason why the busty blonde was looking to distance herself from the village she once loved. The old scars from the mission forcing her to slay her own kin still ran pretty deep but she was pulled from her melancholy by the Raikage's barking voice of command.

"Mabui!" the large man behind the desk bellowed after belching loudly and wiping his face with a handy napkin.

Mabui tried to withhold the disgust from her voice while carefully schooling her face into passable shinobi impassivity. "Hai, Raikage-sama?"

Ay tried to ignore the firm jiggle of her body as she snapped to attention mumbling something about lucky brats not realizing how fortunate he really was.

"I name you the Uzushiogakure Ambassador."

She blinked in confusion. "Pardon, Raikage-sama, but don't you mean Konohagakure Ambassador?"

He waved away her question with one large paw of a hand. "Konoha will never trade fairly with us given our... history." Ay secretly hated the mess his father left behind that he was still trying to clean up. "With Kiri looking to firm up a treaty of their own, you could place us in a good position to finally unlock those hateful sea tariffs we are forced to pay."

Mabui blinked. Kiri, Nami, and Uzu historically were the three big lochs holding sway over high-valued commodities from the sea. With Uzu resurfacing yet unable to capitalize and Kiri stuck in a bloody civil war, Gato Corporation had for years held an iron grasp on trade from the sea making equitable trade impossible. Given Kumo's landlocked position to the far north, sea trade in the ice-cold northern waters simply could not keep up with growing demand.

Gato was a greedy bastard and Ay had cheered for days upon word of his gruesome death during a village revolt. If they could get in on the ground floor with Uzu, even get a positive boost in helping them get back on their feet, favorable trade breaks could benefit Kumo well into the term of Ay's replacement, which would most likely be his brother unless he died horribly in some training accident.

"Focus on the Uzumaki Daimyo." He turned to lock eyes with Darui standing over his right shoulder. "Darui! I want you to take Samui-chan under your wing and make her stronger."

Darui's only response was to raise his one visible eyebrow again and lazily look up to meet the surprised face of his soon-to-be student. "Hai, Ay-sama."

The kunoichi-in-question was jarred out of her surprised daze at the sound of her Kage's rough voice.

"Don't look soo stunned. If you're going to join Yugito-chan as Mabui-chan's personal guard, you need to get much stronger."

Samui only blinked as his words sunk in, the corner of her mouth tilting upwards as the possible implications began to sink in.

"Yugito can't possibly be expected to keep both of you safe by herself," Ay finished before filling his now once-again-empty bottle up with water once more. "This will also give you the chance you need to win him over."

He locked eyes with the busty kunoichi, his glare locking her spine rigid with its authority.

"Do not fail us."

Ay then turned to C and snapped off a barking, "Ready my boat for the trip to Tetsu!" right before preparing a brace of last-minute tasks for his shinobi, his empty hand already reaching for his specially-prepared menu of meal options. He would need at least two warm meals under his belt to deal with all the added requisition forms and expenditure obligations to support his trip.

At a minimum, the ship's freezer would need to be stalked with enough food to feed him six solid meals a day for three weeks or more.

Perhaps they could restock in Tetsu...

The rest of the bodies hovering near his desk took his mumbling over beef versus chicken as their cue to make their own travel plans and began wandering off.

Even as they were dismissed with another absent-minded wave of a paw, Samui's smirk became a full-blown smile as one word kept repeating over and over in her mind.

'Cool.'

~III~

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"To be successful you need friends and to be very successful you need enemies."

― Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight

~III~

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Oto Forward Camp (Evening); Hi No Kuni-Oto no Kuni Border: Hostage Exchange In Progress

Kimimaro-san spurred everyone into action with a hissed, "Leave everything not immediately important."

That was enough to jar the three Jounin into motion and they began laying sandal leather to anyone not moving with purpose. Each knew it would be glorified nanny duty but the urgency behind the Kaguya's order sent shivers down every spine, not just her own.

Then, just as suddenly, all motion stopped and focused on the southern treeline of their clearing, the whisper of steel being torn from its sheath echoing across the hasty camp.

"You're not thinking about skipping out on our understanding are you?" The intentional pause by the porcelain-masked killer before the stressed word brought on a very uneasy peace as rushed movement settled into tense battle stances.

Five emotionless masks of oddly predatory animals stood surrounding a blonde tart (with a chest that defied all the laws of physics) pivoted individually to the nearest warm body while reinforced gloves tightened noticeably over leather-wrapped sword handles. The squeaking caused by the hide condensing pierced the forced stillness far to easily for the comfort of everyone wearing music notes somewhere on their person.

The clear difference in confidence between this latest batch of Konoha scum and his latest groups of victims was not lost on the pale Kaguya. These were not inexperienced ANBU and it resonated in their body language, in their state of relaxed tension that most seasoned killers radiated right before they gutted you from stem to crown.

"Tsunade," Kimimaro-san hissed, his eyes never leaving the foremost ANBU agent.

Even as the pale nin stepped between the camp's latest visitors and his own troops, a single glare spurred his fodder into motion again. He would simply have to multi-task if the fat one's sensor was half as competent as he claimed.

"You appear to be missing one of Orochimaru-sama's guests." Pale eyes narrowed just a hair as they raked over the five ANBU and the deceptively soft woman standing in their midsts.

The overburdened blonde snorted once but offered nothing more leaving any explanation up to her supposed escort.

"It would appear that the Uzumaki has declined your invitation," the ANBU with the predatory bird masked provided with the barest shrug of the shoulder. The lack of concern in that simple gesture seemed almost insulting.

"Trash," Kimimaro chuffed out leaving it unclear as to whom he was referring. In the end, Orochimaru-sama's safety overrode his desire to punish the Konoha scum dissecting his camp with their arrogant gazes.

"Let the coward know that his treachery has cost the councilwoman her flesh and blood." Kimimaro flicked one wrist uncaringly towards the shinobi holding a blade to the dark-haired medic's throat indicating he should release her only to pause in surprise at what happened next.

"Matte..." The gloved hand not gripping a sword pommel raised a single finger into the air.

By now the Kaguya was simply assuming the bird-faced ANBU was the clear leader.

"Keep the medic. Perhaps she can still be of some use."

Tsunade's response was immediate. "That was NOT the arrangement!"

Everyone could see her nostrils flare, her teeth gnashing together as her chest heaved in anger - Sakon particularly found that part difficult to ignore. Yet before she could continue her angry rant at the blatant betrayal, her indifferent caretaker turned his intervening palm in her direction to provide enough space to explain.

"You should thank the Uzumaki for this little divergence."

Everyone could hear the disdain in the masked man's voice, the venom in his tone narrowing the last Senju's eyes even more.

"If he'd been more willing to play his part, perhaps the Hokage might have been more willing to help an old friend of the village." Saying nothing more on the subject, the bird-faced ANBU motioned for one of his own to turn over the still huffing Sannin.

Jirobo, Hikari, and Shizune all blinked in surprise at this turn of events. Tsunade's face only twisted up further into a scowl as she realized both Kakashi's treachery and the movement of one of her escorts to stand directly behind her; the slimy one-eyed bastard had every intention to sacrifice her, one way or another, most likely as a means to stick it to Naruto.

Not wanting to let the masked punks gloat over the not-a-surprise surprise, the busty medic stormed forward without the Konoha ANBU, the latter trying to frantically catch up, and motioned to the other shinobi holding a blade to the pink-haired medic in training. "Let's get this over with."

Kimimaro blinked once again but motioned towards the other prisoner guard even as his eyes followed the powerful kunoichi as she walked to stand next to her apprentice without fuss. When the Oto nin refused to lower the blade he held to her throat, Kimimaro nearly smirked when the angry woman flicked the shinobi-in-question into a crumpled heap with a single finger.

"T-Tsunade...sama?" Sakura tried to make eye contact as she got dragged along only to be graced with the curvy back of her new idol.

"Go, Sakura, while you still can." Tsunade kept her eyes firmly locked with her apprentice refusing to meet Sakura's confused gaze.

It was a shame how far the Haruno girl had begun to turn her life around and now she'd never see the finished product. Too bad really.

A firm push to the back forced the dazed pinkette to stumble forward before her own legs picked up the pace, her eyes still seeking for the Slug Princess in the hopes to meet her gaze just one last time. It wasn't meant to be as the sturdy material covering the hands of another ANBU cut through her bindings right before cloaks converged between her and her former captors. In a highly efficient burst of coordinated activity, she found herself in short order flung onto the back of an older female and being carried rapidly through the treetops and away from women she very much wanted to emulate before the world became a blur of green and brown.

Back at the hasty camp, Kimimaro was watching patiently waiting for the cluster of chakra signatures to vanish from his limited sensing range.

"You can ease up now. I'm not going anywhere." Tsunade's annoyed timber brought a chuckle from the pale-haired shinobi with the growth on the back of his neck.

"Yeah, Chesty," he paused to enjoy the big-chested blonde's annoyance, "forgive us if we don't give up our advantage at the moment."

Tsunade decided to poke back.

"I guess you're not completely as stupid as you look." She grinned as the lanky nin flinched in irritation.

"Keep it up, melon-!"

"Sakon." Kimimaro's voice wasn't overly loud but it had the desired effect. It silenced the twitching duette from their latest quip.

"The rest of you finish packing up." The Kaguya was moving now to escort the Sannin.

They had a disturbance that needed investigation back at base camp and he hated to keep Orochimaru-sama waiting.

Tsunade and Shizune shared a brief glance, one worried and the other considerably less so, as the group started making its way north through the Valley of the End. She was so worried about her apprentice that she failed to notice the occasional full-body twitching of the female Oto nin every three to five steps once the group got moving.

Jirōbō, unfortunately, did not and that worried him to no end.

~III~

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Konoha - Just Outside Yakiniku Q

"Are you sure they're coming?"

Shino turned to his right and from the busy street to regard his twitchy teammate with his normally stoic demeanor and resisted the urge to sigh for the first time in his life. Kiba had always been a bit obnoxious seeing as he lacked a logical brain-mouth filter or any form of impulse control. Most people outright avoided him like the plague, which made missions on Team Eight challenging at best.

How did the Aburame heir deal with it?

Minimalistic Neglect... and lots and lots of silence.

He turned back to the ebb and flow of humanity, his pale eyes flickering to and fro among the crowd allowing himself time to gather an appropriately minimalist response. It had almost nothing to do with the fact that his teammate had even less patience than he did self-control.

"Yes."

He was rewarded with the sound of Kiba sucking air in through his teeth and allowed himself what amounted to an Aburame Smirk - the upturning of the left side of his mouth. He'd take whatever potshots he could at the Inuzuka without making the situation worse. At least now he didn't have to listen to the slobbering mongrel making salacious comments about his (presumed dead) wife and that had to be worth something.

Wife. The very word produced a pleasant hum from the allies surging about inside his body. Life with Hinata as a part of it brought everything else into better focus. As illogical as it seemed, she made everything... more fulfilling.

For the first time in his young life, Shino's carefully plotted life plan seemed less certain and it vexed him so. That realization would not deter him from his modified path. No, of that he was certain. Why do you ask?

He wasn't planning on staying an active shinobi for much longer. The Aburame Clan planned for him to retire early from the K.S.F. and begin a second clan on the adjacent property he'd just signed the paperwork for the land purchase yesterday. His purpose was to start a new colony farm and merge both compounds. All in all, a very satisfactory arrangement with his new bride.

"C'mon Shino, use full sentences man."

This time Shino did sigh, just the barest whisper of air through parted lips.

"We will not be meeting our new teammate as she is currently being rescued from Oto shinobi."

Kiba blinked stupidly before his face twisted up into a rictus of pain and misery. "Don't tell me we got stuck with-."

"Contain yourself, Kiba-san. She was the best fit with our remaining options short of pulling from the Reserves."

Kiba, despite Shino's admonishment, grunted unhappily at the possibility of pairing up with one of "the failures." He made no secret what he felt about anyone unlucky enough to fail their sensei's graduation test. Even worse in his eyes was the fact that Konoha had seen fit to make the reservists the new Konoha Police Force, something less than worthless in his Alpha eyes. Those that could, do; those that couldn't, they taught or walked a beat.

"Someone wanna tell me what's wrong with being a 'Reser'?"

Most reservists would fight you over a dirty street name the kind people of Konoha hissed and whispered behind their backs. The fact that someone would take pride in such a moniker...

Team Eight's remaining cadre turned back towards the street and the voice belonging to the purple-haired female that used to grate on both their nerves in class. Shino noticed the taller boy with shaggy brown hair standing just past her right shoulder and sporting a medic's battle kimono, however, Kiba's eyes were too busy appreciating the no longer emaciated figure of his former classmate, much to her tsking ire and disgust.

"Someone's been eating well lately." Kiba's grin nearly took in his entire face.

"Pig!"

"Hey, don't blame me," the dog-nin returned. If you'd looked like this back in the academy, maybe your 'Sasuke-kun' would have noticed you."

Kiba was the only one chuckling. The silent medic standing just behind Aimi was sporting the most judgmental sneer on his face you could find when facing a perverted lech like Kiba and Shino found it appropriate. He found it appropriate enough to spin on one well-heeled sandal and glide into the barbeque restaurant leaving his teammate to his own demise.

"And if you'd taken a bath more than once a month, perhaps the Hyuuga Princess might have noticed you as more than comic relief."

Kiba's smirk melted like shaved ice in July.

Inside the popular eatery, Shino made his way to their reserved table just across from Ino and her taciturn Nara teammate who only raised an eyebrow in question once he sat down.

"He's greeting our latest members. No sign of Haruno yet."

Ino promptly slapped the back of the Nara's head before he could make his usual rebuttal. It appeared that the lazy shinobi just didn't have his usual fire without his big-boned sidekick nearby.

Oh well. Shinobi endure and Shino was positive they'd all endure this latest change. No one else needed to hear those thoughts so he filed them away under future considerations then turned his focus away from his teammate stalking in just ahead of the snickering duo in his wake.

Served him right in all honesty. Kiba could be a bit much to take. Why? Very little impulse control combined with an abrasive personality that often tended to rub people the wrong way and you ended up with a socially constricted circle of friends.

He'd earned it after all and the newcomers would need to learn to deal with him soon enough. The Konoha Twelve as they'd been called were down a fair number even without his not-quite-dead wife waiting patiently to make her resurrection known. Now, Konoha was scrambling to fill gaps and return functioning teams to active duty rosters all the while pretending that nothing untoward was going on behind the curtain of trees making up their homes.

It was all a powderkeg and the stoic Aburame heir was hoping his blond friend would get clear before the explosive tag brought the dance to a close. Naruto always had a way of getting caught in the middle of the most troublesome situations.

Across from him, Shikamaru sneezed hard enough to convulse his torso.

~III~

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Hi no Kuni - Uzumaki Ambassadorial Estate

Calm. Slowly moving her left leg out until her feet were shoulder-width apart, Yugao took another deep breath and settled into the first position of Form Sixteen: Commencing[*]. Both hands rose up until her arms were out straight in front of her body at shoulder height, her entire frame sinking until she was squatting with her palms facing outwards in front of her, her arms lowering to her midsection as she bottomed out in the movement.

She'd been trying to come to terms with her new situation and failing with stellar dedication.

Settling Breath. Her weight shifted to her right leg, the same arm raising to place her forearm across her body, palm downward, while her left leg shifted inwards to her planted foot before gliding out to the far left side allowing her body weight to shift in the same direction altering her stance to a more forward-leaning one with sixty-percent of her body now resting on her left leg. The entire time her left hand gracefully dipped down, under, upwards, then out to end up palm-inward facing in front of her bent left leg. her right arm during this shifting of weight had gracefully swept the air in front of her chin towards the ground stopping palm-down by her waist.

Although her fluid motions through Parting the Horse's Mane, Form Sixteen's second position, were graceful and serene, Yugao's face was anything but. While her body recovered from its physical trauma and the tenderness of her healing was fading, Yugao's heart and mind still waged war with one another.

Hayate.

She shifted her position stepping through to the second form of the second position. Pointed toe, shift her weight, foot planted, arms flowing smoothly through the half circles and arms sweeps.

She loved him. She lost him. How could she betray his love now?

With both feet placed directly under her curvy frame, Yugao shifted flawlessly through positions three and four as her mind grappled with what her dearest friend was asking of her. White Crane Spreads Its Wings melded easily into Brush Knee.

Anko, in her own special and exuberant way, wanted her to join the Uzumaki's little harem with her. She wanted her sister in all but blood to become her sister in marriage and Yugao had a very real problem with that. It's not that she disliked or even held the Kyuubi against the boy...

She paused there and corrected in her mind that he had become a shinobi and, in the eyes of the village, that made him a man no matter how young he actually was. She tried not to snort over the fact that he'd be legally able to marry in a few months.

Brush Knee flowed into Positions Five, Six, and Seven: Single Whip. She tried not to wince as her still tender core twinged at a remembered pain from the invasion.

No, she didn't dislike him. She just didn't love him and to marry someone without such affections would be a betrayal to both parties. What was worse, how could she love him when her heart still belonged to Hayate? That wound was still too fresh to heal and there was nothing the Med-nins could do about it.

Without thinking, her body flowed through positions eight, nine, and ten. Playing the Lute became Repulse the Monkey. Repulse the Monkey became Throwing the Loom.

Yugao's movements settled as her scattered mind stopped chasing its tail with troubling thoughts. No, she couldn't love him and didn't know if she ever would be able to but she could serve him faithfully.

None of the Uzumaki had asked anything of her for their care and mercy. Naruto took her in. His clan healed her, fed her, clothed her, all the while neither asking nor suggesting her next course of action. While they afforded her the time she needed to heal, Naruto-kun's diplomatic immunity shielded her from Suna's retribution and Konoha's treachery.

She paused mid-step through Needle at the Sea's Bottom.

How do you even begin to repay something like that? How many people would be willing to risk war on your behalf and ask nothing in return? And since when did she start referring to him as Naruto-kun?

Another deep breath. She calmly stepped back then forward to roll into Position Eleven: Waving Hands Like Clouds.

She knew that Naruto's decision last night meant that they would have to leave Konoha sooner rather than later. That said, Yugao couldn't stay in Konoha on her own. If she did, she'd have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder wondering which "Comrade" would be the one to slip a kunai between her ribs or which mission would end up with her hog-tied and handed off to Suna to face their "justice" for her crimes.

Oddly and surprising enough, she was certainly less anxious to die if it couldn't bring her the justice she craved. She was certainly less inclined after Kakashi's treachery.

Grasping the Bird's Tail, Right.

Being betrayed by her own village was definitely not appealing. Unfortunately, neither was being smothered in a pile of flesh trying to find her future husband at the bottom of the pretzel pile. She'd seen the tangle of legs that made up his bed in the morning (Anko thought it would be fun to show her what to expect) and was not interested in "joining in" as the other purplette put it.

She couldn't deny that he was a handsome young man. She just found it unnerving to be having thoughts like that of a gaki she once looked over as a child. No thank you very much.

Grasping the Bird's Tail, Left.

She would much rather put her skills to use on behalf of her new benefactor. There were plenty of strong bodies to protect him. She was and would always be ANBU. Whether it was for Konoha or someone else meant little to her.

Besides, if she worked for Uzushio she always had the option of crossing one more name off her list seeing as Konoha refused to do what was right over what was convenient. So long as she stayed a Konoha kunoichi, Baki remained forever out of her reach.

Crossing Hands.

Bringing her feet back to shoulder-width distance, Yugao rose, gracefully parted her hands, then slowly brought them down to her sides exhaling in one long stream with the final position, Closing.

"You done thinking things over, girlie?"

Yugao snapped out of her calm haze to look over at her long-time friend in purple and smiled.

"I am if you're done staring at my butt." Anko's perverted chuckle made her smile despite itself.

"Good. We need to go collect your things. We need to be packed up and ready to leave in the next couple of weeks." Anko turned without another word from the meditation garden to head back inside the very comfortable house.

"I never said that I was going to go with the Uzumakis," Yugao shot back with a half-smile on her lips.

Anko stopped and turned her head just enough to smirk at the pajama-wearing woman. Then it ended and the trench coat fluttered quietly inside the house as the glass door slid closed with a soft click.

"Right. Of course, I didn't," Yugao chuckled even as she moved to join her. After all, where else could she go?

~III~

---

Hi no Kuni - Oto no Kuni Border

Hour Before the Scheduled Hostage Exchange...

Escaping Konoha hadn't been much of a challenge for Naruto and his security escort-slash-extraction team. Stealth and disguise were arts intrinsically linked for infiltration experts and the entire Komodo Squad were well-trained in the art unlike the vast majority of their fellow hatchlings.

Naruto had always been good at being a sneaky bastard. Living the orphan life as a hated jinchuuriki in Konoha made that a necessity for daily survival since not every ANBU assigned to protect him was diligent in their job.

Accidents happened. Accidents involving Naruto happened more often than statistically feasible when an entire village wanted you dead or gone.

Having the added benefit of being able to live his life a second time had only helped to further polish already finely-honed sneaky-bastard talents and then the Squad came along in his third run and taught him a thing or twelve.

It was almost humbling how much he still didn't know even after two lifetimes since most of his personal knowledge was self-(stolen)-taught. Things like ambient chakra resonance, passive chakra emission masking, transmission muting, and cyclical coil compression. These were the things that made Kiri's Silent Killing techniques extremely hazardous to a shinobi's health.

The "Squad" was a walking master class on infiltration, which they learned under the heavy-handed tutelage of his adoptive mother.

A henge by itself was easily detectable given the low-level nature of the technique. It simply had too many flaws unless the user was either ANBU-grade with it or Yuhi Kurenai. It was Genin-level for a reason.

The more powerful transformation was still detectable by skilled sensors because the chakra shell creating the newer image completely obscured chakra pathways making the disguised nin literally glow like a beacon. That all changes when you add in one or two of those additional chakra techniques to "dull the glow," so to speak.

Coil compression was useless when your whole body was one moving mass of chakra but transmission muting and chakra resonance used together could make an entire squad with Kage-level chakra pools disguised as miners and lumberjacks blend in with the day workers without much trouble. It was almost disturbing how easily they snuck out of the eastern gate under the very masks of the daily sensors spying on normal foot traffic.

Once clear of the open ground between the village walls and the Mokuton-created treeline, a simple area-wide Genjutsu helped the mob move on without them as nine shadows took to the upper branches with urgency. From there, the seven-hour sprint to the outpost just east of the Valley of the End provided Naruto plenty of time to think as his body moved of its own accord trailing within Umi's wake.

To be honest, the swirling miasma of brain cotton forming up the memories of his past life were still trying to untangle themselves. It was almost as if each pass through the timestream jumbled them worse than before taking longer for the individual streams to condense into something that made sense. Into something that resembled the single life of one soul instead of the fragmented mess made out of two separate beings having been painfully mashed together.

It didn't help at all that the continuing merger screeched to a horrible halt during his fractured emergence this time around. Soo much time was lost just putting himself back together trying to regain lost knowledge. The time case helped once he dug it up from his family estate during the Namikaze estate purge. For the first time since he re-incorporated his multiple mind fragments, he felt like himself.

He still missed those fragments but it felt good to be whole mentally even if his body hadn't developed enough to catch up with the knowledge and experience he did have.

Again, Naruto blinked the sense of loss from his eyes and forced his rambling thoughts onto a single focus, one sole purpose: the recovery of two kidnapped Konoha kunoichi. He held out little hope that Sasuke would be anywhere near the Valley this time around. If the snake bastard held true to form, they'd both be long gone anyway and Shizune would probably be dead somewhere in a ditch.

Heartless yes, but most likely true. Orochimaru was as uncaring as he was untrustworthy.

Whatever hole they were currently squirreled away in would be long since abandoned even as his shinobi fought, bled, and died today. Judging by the grim set of his escort's faces, Oto shinobi would in fact die horribly and that would have to be good enough for now.

Naruto felt he'd surrendered enough of his lives chasing Sasuke down and he damned sure wasn't going to waste it chasing that snake this time around. His first life was a lesson in painful learning-through-fumbling and his second run hadn't ended any differently despite having different incentives. He'd just discovered new secrets of what not to do through the scientific method of trial and error.

The Kamis gave him the method to rewrite history but intentionally left the owner's manual at home.

More's the pity as neither altered Sasuke from his self-destructive course of vengeance.

Both times the traitorous bastard escaped only to turn his hatred back against his birth village and now the blond Uzumaki no longer cared to save him. Princess Emo had already proven his lack of moral efficacy and integrity. He no longer felt bound to a childish promise born from a fatalistic attachment to a simpering fangirl. Can a promise even transcend multiple lives? Did it matter if the victim didn't see themselves as one or want his help in the first place?

At this point, who actually cared?

The only difference in Naruto's memories during the second life was that he didn't spare his former teammate. He couldn't repeatedly turn a blind eye to the man's crimes and by then he'd grown a bit more cynical after living through Konoha's Greatest Kyuubi Brat Hits twice in a row.

'The third time's the charm.' This time he'd live life to his own soundtrack. No more letting the world dictate his future. No more chasing after a ghost that didn't want to be found.

An abrupt descent to the earth below shifted his autopilot focus admirably, a single clone taking off almost immediately in the direction they'd been heading: north by northwest.

His group broke hard right and continued to the northeast past Tenko Village to Outpost Echo, more commonly known as Okayu Outpost.

Why?

Well, much like the bland comfort dish people cooked to make sick patients feel better and strengthen their bodies, the outpost - along with Outpost Gulf further to the east along the Hi no Kuni/ Yu no Kuni border - was intended to strengthen the northern front during the Second Shinobi War against Kumo and Kiri after a particularly effective joint raid through the Land of Hot Water and (the then) Land of Rice Paddies. Having been abandoned after the war, there really wasn't much left to it these days.

It was four large walls, when not interrupted by gaping wounds blasted out by enemy jutsu, made out of rocks and stone overgrown in ivy. That place couldn't defend against a sad rain squall.

Just south of the border and nestled comfortably in the farmlands of what was called the Hokage Province, there wasn't much in the way of cover either, which should have been good to defenders for visibility. The problem came in that the chosen site rested on one of the few hills available in the overly processed rice paddies and yam fields meaning little protection and wide-open lines of approach defenders were unable to buttress before invaders tore through the Northland in waves.

It was ransacked and burned early on in the war, the entire garrison overwhelmed before reinforcements could turn the tide and punish Kumo for its audacity. Today it would serve its long-intended purpose and allow Naruto the chance to observe the enemy at a distance without being observed in return.

Given their fifteen-mile - give or take - distance from "The Valley," It wouldn't take much to get an idea of what was going on.

You see, Naruto was still physically developing his body and, problematically, was still behind the power curve with the whole reintegration issue. He as a sensor should be able to cover several leagues using Sage Mode by now but at full power could only manage twenty kilometers on a good day. Worse still, he'd only have enough fidelity to separate individual chakra signatures at ten to twelve kilometers so his clone would need to get much closer than he'd otherwise be comfortable with.

While Nature chakra wasn't detectable by people untrained in the ways of the sage, it had the unintended side effect in a not-fully trained sage trainee of ballooning and blending regular chakra signatures producing an increased, yet blurry, chakra envelope even non-sensors could feel. Most sensors would pick up the powerful pressure of the signature but wouldn't be able to pinpoint it nor anything within close proximity of a sage flexing their combined aura.

Sages didn't really hide from anything that used chakra. They were simply better set up to make a sensor guess how much chakra they had available and Naruto was counting on that today.

Then his clone dispersed and Naruto noted two things.

One, Tsunade and her team were making their approach. Good. They'd need to time their move to come in behind the Oto escort at the right moment if they planned to snag the two kunoichis and make a clean break.

Two, Orochimaru was clearly up to something underhanded given the mass of Oto shinobi waiting patiently on the far side of the border. While his clone couldn't make out the exact number, he knew that no one needed that big of an "escort" for a hostage swap. Unless the snake bastard never planned to...

Oh hell no! Not this time, snake-face.

Rising from his seated position on the lush green hillside, eight pairs of mask-covered eyes swiveled to his tense body.

"It's time."

Two words spoken through clenched teeth brought his shadow guard to their feet, each silently gliding into position in two rings around their master. The inner ring held two of the sirens standing on either side of him for the short distance they would need to cover in a blitz. The outer ring held all six of the Komodo Squad forming a near-perfect ring of steely death.

As three clones puffed into existence, the defensive ring known as the Camellia Blossom, a formation named after the delicate and sometimes bright red flower, moved across the land before taking to the trees.

Left behind, the three clones sat quietly to begin their task of gathering Nature chakra as best they could.

~III~

---

5 Minutes Before the Scheduled Hostage Exchange...

"Snap to, you slugs! Kimimaro-san will be returning with our 'guests' and we will be ready to move out!"

Joben tried not to overtly enjoy the scrabbling of their junior shinobi. To be honest, he could care less about "Oto's rise to power" as he'd heard the cannon fodder discussing earlier. It was a paycheck to him plain and simple and, as a professional, all he cared about was living up to his reputation as a professional.

He would do his job and do it well so long as Otogakure kept him off of Kusa's missing nin-radar. Let the pale bastard and the fat one worry about taking responsibility.

Don't get him wrong. The promotion from Chūnin, which he thought he'd never see in Kusa, was nice but the quality of his fellow Jounin didn't exactly blow his hair back. Granted he had to admit that their Kage's new rank of Kōinin, the elite caste, or favored nin (including Kimimaro, Sakon, and Jirōbō), had earned their ranks, but still...

Joben found his peers lacking in both experience and power and the subtle reference to "expendable losses" he'd heard bandied about his fellow Jounin did little to warm the general worry held in the heart of the freelance shinobi.

It was as he was preparing to break off another sandal in a particularly slow-moving kunoichi's bottom that the sudden stiffening of all four sensors deployed with their group caught his attention and poor Joben's heart plummeted to his suddenly nauseous stomach.

Two minutes later, when the entire camp paused to face towards the east at the overwhelming sense of power headed their way, Joben gnashed his teeth together and started barking orders for folks to get into formation hoping those same leaders would make it back in time to pull their unskilled fat from the fire.

He would be terribly disappointed when nine hooded and masked figures wearing similar shinobi garb dropped into the middle of their camp accompanied by the sound of metal slicing flesh as the screams of his dying troops began assaulting his ears.

Being a battle-hardened soldier of Kusa, instinct kicked in as he started shouting rallying orders.

"Wedge up! Wedge up you sorry sons-a!" Joben's hands began rolling through seals hoping his brother Mujō's lessons in Katon jutsu weren't wasted. Snapping the small gourd hanging from his waist up to his lips after inhaling a chest full of air, Joben gulped a mouthful of the burning alcohol before expelling it from his mouth towards the cluster of ringed bodies as the mass expanded and then combusted brilliantly into a hurtling sphere of flames[1].

Shooting a glance to his left and right, he dared a quick peek to see the medics and ranged support forming up behind him as the short and long-ranged fighters formed up at his back and to either side of the killers moving like a well-oiled threshing machine. His eyes did not miss the dozen or so bodies bleeding out at their feet even as a particularly large figure stepped forward brandishing what appeared to be the fracking sword of the Bloody Demon of the Bloody Mist!

He tried not to flinch as three more versions of that same sword cut down a trio of his troops sending fresh blood spurting into the cooling night air.

Joben then swore vehemently as the hulking figure spun lazily on one foot, a veritable rush of water flowing from the tip of his sword to form a dome of swirling liquid capable of soaking up several fireballs given the quick response of several other jutsu users.

"Press in, Lancers! Someone give me some kami-rammed fire suppression! Sappers! What are you waiting for?! Get in there!" Joben's harsh voice snapped several of his soldiers to action but even he could see that it would not be enough.

More jutsu covering multiple elements surged from the wandering meat grinder smashing into his retrieval squad, a wind blade here, a fast-moving water sphere there. It was rapidly becoming a slaughter distinctly not in Oto's favor.

He'd seen enough in a quick glance to judge a possible weakness in the enemy's formation: the middle. Joben was focused on the single figure in the center yet to draw the large weapon strapped to his back. He also noted that the entire formation hovered around him like angry hornets.

They were very deadly hornets judging by another piercing scream cut off abruptly by the flash of steel, but the analogy seems appropriate at the time.

The darker-colored shinobi dressed in dark greys and blacks formed a perfect outer ring while the two lighter-dressed figures closer to the middle wove a dance of deadly defense around the central figure, neither stopping as they moved in a near-constant defensive circle around the center. The six outer figures were lethal at close range as another set of limbs were brutally detached from their owners. Those brave enough to engage in swordplay found themselves quickly and equally disarmed to his displeasure.

Throughout it all, that same figure moved in an expanding circle throughout the camp sending out the occasional kunai or jutsu at figures too far for his defensive ring to reach. While not overwhelming in his arsenal, they were effective enough to send shinobi scattering for cover and interrupt their offense.

Joben perked up as the ground just behind the formation's center began to break up. Finally! he thought. If they could break the formation perhaps they could end this attack rather than waiting on that southern lot to get back.

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

Naruto grimaced as he tried yet again to shift closer to the northern side of the enemy encampment only to have the entire formation, this damnable Camellia thingy Soyo-chan had called it, shift with him with the same predictably frustrating end result. After the fourth random direction shift, he'd very nearly given up and the Wind Sect's insufferable, "Sorry, Walker-sama, but it's for your own good" only served to grate on him further no matter how cute she could be at times.

He was not a "Porcelain Princess" Kami-damnit!

Being that they were keeping him in the center, nothing living could get close to him without getting cut down by a Fang. The enemy's Taijutsu or Bukijutsu threat just couldn't reach him and most jutsu with a range long enough got blocked by either an earth/wind/water wall from one of the three heavy hitters forming the front half of the formation. With Kira-chan burning his left flank, Sandā shocking anyone closing on his right flank into charcoal, and Ku-chan garroting anyone stupid enough to approach from the rear, he was feeling particularly isolated from any danger.

It only got worse once Ishi warned of vibrations beneath their feet driving Sandā to burst a rather large pulse of electricity straight into the ground. It was no surprise when Oto shinobi erupted from the earth ten seconds later, their teeth clenched hard enough to crack as their bodies convulsed in pain.

For a moment, just a single moment with these three nearly incapacitated enemies, Naruto entertained the thought that he might see real hand-to-hand combat. A huge grin broke out on his face as he paused to give them time to gather themselves from the Raiton-user's attack, his right hand reaching up over his shoulder to grasp the handle of his own weapon...

...only to watch as Akimi and Ōzuoku promptly stabbed all three of them. Repeatedly.

With a disgruntled groan, he returned to firing off sealless Air Bullets or Wind Blades only to observe the faster Oto shinobi dodging clear or swapping out with debris. He'd already taken out the slow ones and was having a difficult time making himself useful.

With another angry snarl, Naruto fired off three silent Tajuu Kage Bunshin techniques, one after another, and sent his clones out in three groups of fifty to hunt.

He was going to have to sit everyone down and have a serious discussion about "mother-henning" him to death. It was seriously beginning to impact his growth as a shinobi.

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

Joben's face broke into another scowl as one of the figures robed in white twirled around the center to the right and stabbed down into the earth with a particularly sparkly kodachi.

'Just great, another Raiton user.'

Joben knew his sappers were goners and instead turned his attention back to directing what remained of his troops. Though initially shocked by the large clone jutsu, he immediately brushed it off as a threat disregarding them as distractions. No way someone had enough chakra to spam that many solid clones and he was confident that his soldiers could handle the weaker earth or water variants. Instead, he focused on his panicking ranged support.

"You really shouldn't lose focus on the field of battle."

Oh crap.

The shocked soldier had enough time to feel the blade slip through his ribs and into his chest cavity, the electrical energy coating it disrupting his chakra flow and making his legs collapse out from beneath him.

The last sounds he heard were the screams of what sounded like his medical corps off to the side, his eyes flickering over to see hundreds more of the figures draped in darker greys and blacks tearing apart his support cadre. It was then that the hopelessness of his situation struck him down.

They never had a chance, to begin with.

Joben managed to swear one last time before darkness took him.

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

Naruto turned his gaze south as the last Oto nin fell beneath a clone-driven dogpile. He knew the remaining clones would fan out to search for survivors or those fleeing for their lives. Right now he had other concerns as the orange pigmentation around his eyes faded away with the last of his borrowed nature chakra.

"That was disappointingly easy," Umi groused as he kicked another corpse into the growing pile of mangled flesh earning a mild rebuke from Sanda.

"Careful brother else your words may doom us one day."

Umi scoffed in return showing how dismissive he considered the warning. Naruto, despite agreeing with his blue protector concerning Oto nin battle efficiency, felt it was time to move on to the more dangerous part of their operation.

"They're coming," he called out so the furthest of his guardians could hear. "Clear the camp and make ready."

Once the last corpse was tossed into a pile, eight of the nine leaped up into a tree while the gentle giant flashed two quick seals ending with Tiger[3]. Two minutes later the last of the bodies sunk beneath the surface before the clearing solidified once again into solid earth. Once done, he joined his comrades in the nearby foliage.

~III~

---

Konohagakure (Late Afternoon)

Hiruzen was trying to move with haste as he left the Hokage's administrative building without being rude to the smiling faces of his fellow villagers as they waved in his passing. Many sought to greet and converse with him but the aged warrior needed to move with a purpose as he fled the rapidly growing nightmare that was the latest Council meeting. He needed to get somewhere where his next conversation could be held in relative privacy.

He needed his personal office.

Bobbing his head and plastering another false smile on his wrinkled face, the Sandaime swept briskly through the streets calling out to the familiar faces he recognized or smiling at the lesser ones that he did not, his mind a blur as the chaos of the chamber threatened to break his spirit.

Kakashi, that bastard! He'd brought the photos with him to plead his case and Hiruzen, while using every trick in his considerable arsenal to school his features, watched helplessly as one after another the civilian eyes of the Council glazed over beneath the same layered genjutsu holding the Godaime prisoner.

When he tried to urge caution, the angrier voices of the chamber shouted him down with the backing of the current Kage. It only grew worse as more and more fell under the spell. After all, he was fellow clan head now even if a slightly more respected one. Hiruzen held no more influence than any other council member, technically speaking.

He couldn't be sure if either the Aburame or the Hyuuga would have succumbed or not given their normal lack of expression. Hiashi was just enough of a bastard during life to be not quite trustworthy and the empty seat ill afforded him the chance to do more than ruminate on the possibility. He had to believe that the clan's higher level of chakra control would have detected the subtle intrusion giving them the chance to counter it before the seal could take hold. Unfortunately, this was just speculation on his part barring a Hyuuga to question.

The Aburame seldom expressed opinion one way or the other unless it was supported by irrefutable fact or considerable logic. Hiruzen just couldn't tell at a glance and he really didn't have the time nor confidence to approach Shibi to discuss it; none of the Aburame were particularly pleased with the way he'd let Naruto's life play out knowing he was the Yondaime's son.

That little secret was impossible to hide from an entire clan of sensors capable of identifying and categorizing chakra similarities through their symbiotic insects.

Regardless of the Aburame conundrum, he had a hell of a time saving the few allies he could from that meeting.

It took a monumental effort to remain emotionally passive while frantically waving off Shikaku beneath the Shinobi Council table, even more so by using one-handed signals to convince him to pull back an already rising Inoichi-Chouza duo intending to dispute the evidence themselves. The old Kage had never been more thankful for the duo's loyalty to Shikaku than he was at that moment despite their clear curiosity.

It was truly unfortunate that he couldn't save Tsume Inuzuka from the mental trap. It only made him feel more useless as he watched the Hōki matron succumb followed quickly by Unkai Kurama and Dōshu Onikuma. One after the other, they began to fall, and Hiruzen chose discretion as to the better part of his honor while fleeing the growing chaos of gnashing teeth and frothing council members baying for an Uzumaki genocide.

With a terse nod that was acknowledged by the scar-faced former Jounin Commander, his position being filled by what Hiruzen considered to be an ill-prepared novice (former academy instructor Daikoku Funeno), Sarutobi strode purposefully from the chamber without waiting to be dismissed for the night. Given the conceited smirk on the face of his replacement, he did not expect to be stopped in his minor act of disobedience.

He wasn't, which brings us to his currently harried pace through the village towards his own clan estate.

By the time his brain registered the cobblestone path leading to the Tori gate of his home, the evening guard was calling out to Hiruzen in greeting.

"Hitoshi, Jun," he returned with the barest pause to gain their attention. "I am expecting three visitors shortly. Please see to it that they find their way to my private study."

The snap of their sandaled heels together accompanied the crisp bows from both sentries as he billowed on past them to the main house, once again lost among his own thoughts. He needed allies otherwise there was no hope.

His thoughts consumed him through his house upstairs to his private corner of the world vaguely remembering to call out for someone to make a fresh pot of green tea for his pending meeting.

His thoughts continued to swirl until the clacking sound of wood striking wood dug him out of the mental spiral holding him captive, the elder Sarutobi falling into the rhythmic sound of wooden percussion.

THWACK!

CLICK-CLACK!

THWACK!

"Good... sochi. Let's take a short break... let your old man... catch his breath."

Hyousuke.

There was a pause as Hiruzen recognized the voice of his eldest and his heart shuddered in pain. Too fresh. Still too fresh. Despite his own hesitance, he inched his way to the large window overlooking the rear yard and the family dojo where the young ones practiced the clan's beginner bōjutsu techniques.

"Brother-."

'Asuma,' Hiruzen lamented, his face compressing in anguish.

"I know what you're going to say, Otōto, but I'm fine."

Though his voice seemed less out of breath, Hiruzen winced as his eyes crested the ledge to see below. He found his two sons and his grandson resting on the stoop of the open-aired dojo and longed to join them. Wasn't this why he retired?

"Doctor said that I needed to start getting a bit more exercise anyway."

Hiruzen could tell by the scrunched-up look of concern on Asuma's face that he did not agree and the sibling's concern for his older brother turned up the barest corner of the patron's mouth.

"Come on, nii-san. I may not be a stick guy but I can still run him through the basic forms."

Hiruzen had to fight back a bitter chuckle at Asuma's confession. Another of my failures once I drove him away to the capital. Asuma tried to distance himself from the clan as much as possible. The two always did seem to connect more than he and the former Fire Guardian ever did.

Hiruzen's gaze lingered on the bladed knives nestled in the small of Asuma's back until Hyo-kun started to rise, the movement drawing his eyes to the taller of the two.

Hyousuke finished wiping the sweat from his brow and flashed a brilliant smile to his sibling. "You'd rob a father of his parental right?"

Asuma blanched but his elder brother dismissed his concern and unease with an easy laugh. "Besides, I still need to answer Kono's question about the Uzumaki Clan and why his "Boss" is at the middle of it all."

"Hyo," Asuma cautioned drawing out the "o" syllable.

Another dismissive wave of the hand.

"Nothing classified. This will just be all history he should have learned in school."

Konohamaru, ever the fount of boundless energy, jumped up with his practice bo in hand eager to begin the lesson. Just as Hiruzen reached for his pipe in order to settle in for spying on their impromptu history tutorial, a gentle knock at his office door drew him away from it all precluding the arrival of his three visitors. Turning to face the door, Hiruzen was greeted with the stern - and very worried - faces of the elder Ino-Shika-Cho Trio.

Thanking the escorting family member for both his guests and the fresh tray of steaming tea, Hiruzen motioned to the three comfortable chairs in front of his smaller office desk and slapped a palm down on a particularly smooth corner of the ancient piece of furniture. Three pairs of eyebrows rose as dark runes swept across every surface of the room, the chakra closing and sealing the previously open window as it blanketed the entire room in sound-proofing silence.

Appearing calmer than he felt, Hiruzen turned to the now shaken threesome and pointedly asked, "Shikaku, please fill us in on what you remember concerning Tsuwamono Seals."[A]

Shikaku's normally tanned complexion, one earned from many diligent hours napping under Konoha's clear skies under the premise of tending deer, paled to a sickly green hue.

"Hokage-sama, w-we swore to bury that troublesome past with the last great war. We-."

Hiruzen calmly raised a weathered hand to still the elite's verbal meandering, his eyes never leaving the glassy pair of his normal Shogi partner. "Humor me without the honorifics, Shika."

Even with the former leader's gentle prodding and the security of ironclad privacy seals, it took several minutes before the Nara Clan Head started speaking, his voice cracking ever so slightly from his suddenly parched throat as his eyes took on a glassy-eyed look that appeared to look through the now dark-tinted walls.

"It was before the Yondaime turned the tide of the war on the Iwa Front." Shikaku licked his suddenly parched lips before continuing.

"Kumo, who joined up with Kiri, seemed all but immune to our best plans and it was costing us in blood, good ninja lost far too soon in the early days of the fight and we couldn't figure out why. Plus, we were losing shinobi in the oddest places for an ambush, places where there were no Kumo nor Kiri shinobi to worry about, and we weren't even killing the enemy that our scouts and hunters could tell. The neutral territory no less.

"From what we could see, the enemy was much better at guerilla warfare even if they were targeting innocent civilians indiscriminately. They were better than we were and we were hemorrhaging our best and brightest to an invisible enemy. It was maddening."

The Clan Head shuddered briefly and his gaze flickered for just a moment to the teacup mysteriously appearing in his shaking palms.

"I was part of the Cypher Division then trying to help crack codes or piece together INTEL reports in the hopes that we could solve the mystery." A bitter laugh escaped his mouth for a moment. "We couldn't."

Despite decorum, the Nara Leader gulped down a mouthful of the steaming liquid before resuming his zombie-like state.

Both Choza and Inoichi winced knowing what a heavy blow that failure would be for their large-brained comrade but said nothing hoping he would continue. Shikaka never spoke openly about his time in the "Think Works" as he often called it during the war.

"Even in the end we never discovered who came up with Kiri's crazy idea but we did finally catch a break near Umibe Town when one of our returning squads was headed back from a tactical resupply run in the Land of Hot Water. Most of the squad got wiped out near the border though, the supplies were a lost cause but a single member survived to make it back across the border to a Hi no Kuni outpost.

"It took three medics an entire afternoon to stabilize him enough to bring him back. It took another team of Yamanaka to patch his brainpan together enough for us to piece together what happened but we saw it through chakra-enhanced memory distillation: Jashinist temples and shrines made up of pacifists had seemingly joined up with the enemy and were ambushing our squads despite their government professing neutrality."

Shikaku grimaced as if he'd swallowed an entire ball of wasabi.

"No one in the Council believed it possible but that wouldn't stop them from sending a rather stern message." He snorted disdainfully. "Unsurprisingly, it was a unanimous vote on Konoha's response."

Choza and Inoichi were both supporting the western front against Iwa but had heard of the massive sweep and clean OP but nothing more. Both were powerfully curious to learn more especially since everything afterward had been blacked out and labeled S-Rank or higher. This was their chance to get the unvarnished truth and they both wanted to take it.

When it appeared like the seasoned veteran would not continue, Choza prompted him with the obvious question he shared with an apprehensive Inoichi by asking, "What was a unanimous vote?"

"An example needed to be made." Shikaku broke free from his thousand-yard stare to lock eyes with Hiruzen who only nodded for him to continue.

"Operation Amaterasu's Wrath was thrown together, the objective of which was the complete obliteration of all Jashin nodes in Yu no Kuni culminating in the complete obliteration of Yugakure as a shinobi power. It was scorched earth to the extreme."

"By the gods..." The larger man's voice died off as the breadth and impact of such a mission dwarfed his understanding of the general conduct of shinobi warfare. There were easily a dozen such holy sites in Yu before the war.

"All cooperation with Yugakure ceased and within three weeks, five hundred Konoha shinobi poured into Yu no Kuni's Yu Province in five strategic locations. It is believed that Hidan the Immortal later discovered his alleged immortality during the Jashin Raids, which was the first phase of the operation as most Jashinists tend to be noncombative. By the time he'd recovered enough to hide from our forces and develop his unique brand of violence, Yugakure was a smoking crater. When it was discovered later that Hidan survived and our Hunter nin couldn't permanently kill him, Konoha began a slander campaign blaming the murders on him stating that his dissatisfaction with Yu no Kuni's increasingly commercial rhetoric was blasphemous and offensive to his blood-thirsty god, a sin cleansable only by the spilling of their blood as heretics."

Shikaku glanced down at his hands in shame for having developed the PR contingency.

"No one questioned the spin but the message had been sent to Kiri and the ambushes seemingly vanished without our knowing why... at first."

Inoichi gasped quietly as he processed what he'd just heard but the final comment drew out a question of his own.

"What do you mean 'at first' and what does this have to do with Tsuwanomono Seals, whatever those are?"

"The Yamanaka discovered that certain Jashinists had blank periods in their memory. Certain targets were 'exported' for further study and it was discovered that each had a seal we'd never seen before. It took both Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki working together to break all of its functions. Keep in mind that this was well after we'd razed Yugakure to the ground and blamed the massacre on the sole surviving Jashinist."

Shikaku grimaced and downed the rest of his tepid tea.

It was only after all this that we discovered that a stolen Uzumaki Black Seal had been modified and was responsible for turning our allies into murdering psychopaths."

"Black seal?" Choza asked in clear confusion.

"A forbidden technique among the Uzumaki," Hiruzen offered.

Shikaku continued looking almost sick by the knowledge. "Because the seal turned the victim into a mindless puppet hell-bent on murdering Konoha nin, it was labeled the Tsuwamono Seal by the then ANBU Director, Shimura Danzo. No one among the Council wanted to entertain a discussion about how the seal found its way onto the Jashinites nor why no one in Yugakure had the recognized skill with seals to be able to modify it to do what it did. It was all just... swept under the rug."

All four men developed a sour expression but now that the bottle had been opened Shikaku couldn't stop talking.

"That was why we could never find signs of the enemy at each of the ambush sites because the actual enemy had never been there. They were using innocents to do their dirty work, innocents that wouldn't remember a thing after. It also explained why all of the ambushes were happening in the eastern sections of Hi no Kuni's Kogeta Province and our surrounding trading partners. We never figured out who altered the original seal but I remember Kushina raging for months afterward about hunting down the thieves that stole from her clan." Shikaku turned to Hiruzen with confusion written clearly all over his face.

"But what does this have to do with Hatake?" It was no secret among the four that Shikaku despised the man. Kakashi was giving lazy bastards everywhere a bad name with his recent behavior.

Hiruzen released a breath laced heavily with tobacco smoke from his pipe before speaking. "Gentlemen, I believe the Godaime, and everyone in the Chamber of Councils tonight is under a layered Genjutsu based on such a seal. If not an actual Tsuwanomono Seal, it is one spurred by the forbidden technique and anchored to those photos in Kakashi's possession."

He paused as their jaws fell open.

"Furthermore I believe that the seals driving his behavior are using Kakashi's ambient chakra to reinforce the Genjutsu and we will need to find a way to free them of it without being arrested for treason."

There was a very long silence before Shikaku summed up his position on their entire situation.

"This is straight bullshit too troublesome to even contemplate. Count me out."

Then he stood up to leave as the three men in the room began to sputter in confusion as to his reaction.

~III~

---

Hi no Kuni - Oto no Kuni Border

Kimimaro's group moved as quickly as possible dragging along two captives. More than once after their sensor reported a complete lack of activity back at their base camp he threatened to drag them by their hair if they didn't pick up the pace. It made even less sense once they crossed the border only to find zero traces of the more than fifty shinobi and the campsite they knew they left behind for the sole purpose of helping to secure their now high-priority cargo.

Kimimaro glared at Jirōbō who then calmly turned to Hikari with a raised eyebrow. The visibly shaking woman pitifully shook her head in the negative as if words would result in her immediate execution.

She couldn't feel a thing to indicate their missing shinobi but she did point nervously to the northern treeline they'd need to pass through now that they were "safely" back in Oto territory.

"What do you see?!" Kimimaro snapped irritably, his patience clearly wearing thin with the day's events and this useless woman's silence.

"N-N-Nine chakra s-s-signatures, all f-fairly s-s-s-strong!"

"Nine?" Kimimaro blinked back.

The three Koinin blinked in return once she nodded in silent agreement.

"Stronger than me?" He asked for clarification.

She nodded once more and he wanted to strike her down in frustration.

That final response did, however, get an unusual response from the Kōinin as they all turned to face the treeline in time to see several hooded figures casually walk out into the clearing. While the appearance of these hooded figures did little to answer the question of where the remainder of their Oto expeditionary force was, it did produce near-automatic responses from the three Oto Jounin still under Kimimaro's control; they moved to grab and subdue their prisoners threatening to open up their carotid arteries unless the newcomers stood down.

Kimimaro was not impressed and made it known with a particularly snarky, "You Konoha trash just don't know when to quit, do you?"

"We aren't tied to Konoha and you Oto trash are about two people short of being massacred where you stand." This odd comment coming from the shortest figure standing in the middle of the odd enemy formation rose more than one eyebrow.

Kimimaro and Sakon both flinched at the "trash" insult but neither moved towards the cluster of enemies that outnumbered them.

"I will say this only once," the Kaguya replied. "Step aside or we will start killing the short one." He expected the cowards to back down or to at least make way until a better chance to rescue-.

"Go ahead."

Blink. "What?" Surely the fool didn't hear Kimimaro correctly.

"I said," the short one spoke again, "be my guest."

It took a second but Kimimaro's only logical response was that this idiot didn't believe he'd murder off one of his own bargaining chips.

Without hesitation, he ordered the death of the apprentice and sneered even as the smaller female exploded in a harmless puff of smoke. His eyes snapped to the Sannin only to see her wave innocently at him before vanishing into smoke as well.

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

Already back across the border nearly five miles to the east, Tsunade, Shizune, and a cadre of ten shadow clones provided by her Godson were flying through the trees on their way to Tanzaku Quarters where she hoped to secure another short-term loan and spend the night soaking in the hot springs with a bottle of expensive sake.

"Boss understands that you're leaving behind a few things so he wanted to make sure you were provided for."

Tsunade, who was happy to hear about the generous gift after the rescue of her most precious person, turned to the clone speaking only to scowl angrily as it handed a small scroll to Shizune.

"What?" the clone carped. "With your bad habits, you didn't think the boss would trust you will five million hard currency, did you?"

While Shizune giggled and stuffed the scroll down inside her kimono, Tsunade responded by sending her fist through the clone's skull dispelling it rather violently.

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

Ignoring the disturbing memories from his clone, Naruto smiled beneath his mask and focused on the seven Oto shinobi standing between his group and a warm meal back home. His focus was currently on Kimimaro currently speaking through his tightly clenched jaw.

"You. Will. Pay. For. that."

Knowing how futile it was to try and convince the Kaguya of the error of his ways, Naruto's response cut right to the chase.

"Kaen-chan, you get the ugly twins."

Sakon flinched in anger.

"Sandā, Please deal with the fat earth user."

Jirōbō frowned. He tolerated Tayuya's verbal abuse because he liked her. He was looking forward to squashing the short punk's head after this was all said and done.

"Taifū-chan, please entertain the idiotic Kaguya until Sandā can be freed up to help with his annoying Kekke Genkai." He caught her terse nod knowing she'd do her best to kill the bone-covered bastard before that could happen. He also tried not to enjoy Kimimaro's twitching eyebrowless-eyebrow.

"And the rest of us, Boss?"

Naruto turned his head to address a hopeful Umi. "We need to send a message to the snake-pedo, Umi-kun. Fortunately, we don't need to leave any survivors to do so."

With the Oto Jounin...

"Sandā, Ku-chan, stay with Walker-sama while I deal with these shinobi."

The large Water Sect Champion could tell straight away that the small female wouldn't be an issue; she was too busy cowering behind the three males. Stepping away from the Camellia formation with one hand reaching up to lift his Fang from its seal-based holder on his back, his eyes settled on what appeared to be the bravest of the three nin spreading out to surround him.

"You're going to pay for underestimating us!"

Umi snorted in his face much to the smaller man's ire.

The one on the left. Umi spared him a disparaging glance before bringing his weapon across his body in a standard cross block. He could feel the nervous energy from the nin on his right and figured he'd just cut straight to undermining their poor strategy.

Using his freakishly strong water affinity, Umi began spinning in place as water began to rise from the ground in droplets only to cling to the spinning blade as it passed by. In three seconds of increasingly rapid spinning, enough drops had attached themselves to the blade to create a glowing sheen of chakra-laced water that vibrated fast enough to produce a keening sound similar to a biwa playing a vibrato tone[4].

The three Jounin glanced nervously at each other, the one on the right pausing in their charge to glance nervously at their appointed leader only to receive a frustrated nod indicating that they should charge anyway. None of them believed the nervous, "We're right behind you" nod of assurance that followed but he gulped anyway and prepared once again to charge in tanto-in-hand.

As the shinobi to Umi's right began to charge, the large Hatchling spinning like a blurry top on the balls of his left foot pushed off with his right hard enough to fracture the ground at his feet. The eyes of his intended target, the leader, ballooned in surprise as his own ninjato rose to defend against the shining blade almost as tall as he was.

There was a sharp CLINK! sound and the larger blur came to rest several paces beyond his target, his large frame slowing to a stop facing his remaining two opponents, the large blade in his hand still humming its death song as an Oto shinobi slow slid into two separate pieces, his ninjato blade sliced neatly in half.

Both nin saw the light fading from their shocked ringleader's eyes and promptly fell to their knees offering to surrender.

The last either saw was Umi's surprisingly fast bulk blurring in their direction before darkness claimed them.

Hikari, still petrified at the quick demise of her Oto brethren had just enough time to start screaming before Umi separated her head from her neck by way of mercy killing, thus ending the last of the Rokushō siblings.

With Kira-chan, the Flame Hatchling...

"Sakon of the West Gate," the former leader of the Sound Four grunted out.

The flame-haired female snorted but did not respond.

"Trash like you doesn't have to acknowledge my name but you will remember it because I'll be making you scream it over and over again before we're done here."

His perverted leer was not lost on the repulsed Fire Hatchling since his eyes refused to leave the rather healthy bulges protruding from the front of her chest.

"Pervert," Kaen growled in response only to produce a hyena-like cackling from the younger twin.

Sakon found her response hilarious and laughed even louder before calming down enough to add, "You'll thank me later."

"Unlikely, pig." Without drawing her blade, the Fire Sect Hatchling charged meeting her opponent head-on. She wanted to enjoy pummeling him into a bloody mess.

It didn't take long to establish who was faster of the two. Kira-chan was the pugilist preferring taijutsu as her bread and butter. She liked the way bodies crumpled when her chakra-reinforced fists struck them.

It was therapeutic especially after spending the last few months being sexually starved by her master. That meant this filthy swine was going to suffer appropriately.

He barely blocked her first salvo but Kira enjoyed the way his eyes cringed after the first contact. He wasn't expecting this slip of a girl to be that strong.

Good.

Kira-chan turned up the heat and began a quick-turn salvo of heavy-handed fists followed closely by open-palmed tiger strikes. Whenever possible, she slipped in a number of quick jabs to joints and soft tissue to keep him honest. Inside of thirty seconds, her opponent was cursing and hopping backwards to open up space or flat out evade her fists.

Kira paused to gloat beneath her mask. Stepping backwards a few paces to reset her stance, left leg forward, right hand up high to guard her face, left hand forward in an open claw facing her opponent.

Sakon was not amused and promptly slipped into his Stage I cursed seal to help Ukon mitigate some of the damage he'd taken from the first encounter.

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

"She's fast, brother."

"Perhaps now you'll stop playing around and finish this?"

"Pssh! I mean to enjoy this one brother. Have you seen her body?"

Ukon could only suck his teeth in annoyance. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep but it was looking more and more like he'd have to get involved.

"Come, brother. I'll even share her once we get her back to Oto."

Ukon didn't share his brother's disgusting habits but even he had to admit the woman's body - as he couldn't see her face - was enticing.

"Make this fast Sakon or I'll let you handle this by yourself."

"Of course, dear brother."

*-oOo-oOo-oOo-*

When they charged back in to face the shorter female, Sakon's Stage I speed was almost even with Kira's own. Still, she wasn't concerned. At least she wasn't concerned through another half-dozen exchanges of fists, that is until an extra arm grew out of her opponent's body and clamped onto her wrist right before a fourth hand grasped her other wrist (allowing the pervert to cop a feel) and a third foot shot out of his body and slammed into her gut. The force of the blow slid her backwards breaking her free from Sakon's "extra" grasp. Between gnashed teeth and narrowed glare, she noticed the second lump on her opponent's back had shifted over his right shoulder and now sported a second set of disdainful eyes.

A second head was sneering at her and that extra appendage owned its own pair of limbs.

"Give it up, girlie," Sakon crowed in utter confidence. "I am the leader of the Sound Four for a reason." Sakon ended his rather self-pleased remark by overexaggerating the act of sniffing his palm that dared to grasp her body where only her master was allowed to touch her.

Kira smirked, crossed her arms over her chest (much to Sakon's disapproval), and molded a healthy dollop of chakra right before releasing the resistance seals she enjoyed having her master paint on her freshly scrubbed body. Then she vanished from Sakon's sight a split second before a bone-crushing overhanded right rattled his sight and sent the perv spiraling into a normal-sized tree hard enough to crack and splinter the bark.

With a heavy sigh, Kira turned to walk away.

"Ahem."

She paused to look up and lock eyes with Nissho-chan. "Huh? What did I forget?"

The normally silent purplette lifted one dainty hand, the hand of a very accomplished assassin, and pointed back over Kira's shoulder where two armor-clad Oni were rising from the ground where she'd deposited Sakon just a moment before.

"Oh, for the love of fire..."

A quick glance back to the other hatchling showed that, "I told you to never leave an opponent unless you were sure they were dead" look.

Kira merely nodded her head and turned to face her now two opponents, her hand reaching into her sash to unseal a vicious pair of spiked brass knuckles. The spikes across her fists were easily as long as senbon but heavy enough to climb stone walls with if necessary. At the top of the fist, a particularly nasty rooster's claw stuck straight up in the air to serve as both a guard for her fists and a raking tool to rip open jagged wounds for people that refused to stay down.

In her annoyed mind, Sakon was turning into one of those people.

As the Twins spread out to try and box her in, Kira stepped into her guard and set herself for round two.

With Sandā and Jirōbō...

"I'll give you one chance for a quick death, trash."

Jirōbō's sneer was obviously well-practiced and it showed. The big man's mouth held its marginal upturn at just the right angle to compliment his snooty uplifted chin showing his disdain. His sumo-like fighting stance was firm and lightly balanced for a man of his girth and the Earth Sect hatchling could recognize a competent fighter when he saw one.

Too bad for Jirōbō his opponent wasn't a fresh initiate into Konoha's infamous Komodo Squad.

Unlike poor Kaen who had only begun her official Komodo Squad training regime during the break between Phase II and Phase III of Konoha's Chuunin Selection Exam, he'd been at this for over a decade and more than earned his S-Ranked combat rating. He'd bled, fought, and murdered his way across the shinobi world at the behest of the mighty Keina-sama and now he continued that fine tradition beneath the last known Walker of the Uzumaki Clan. The orange mohawk-wielding nin before him was blissfully unaware of the one-hundred and seventy years of murderous experience staring him in the face. Sandā, despite his normally easy-going nature, was extremely efficient at what he did.

He also knew a thing or three about Oto's premier squad of shinobi.

Of the Sound Five, Kimimaro - when using his Cursed Seal to full capacity - was a certifiable high-to-elite A-Ranked threat. Without it, he was a mid-Jounin-level shinobi that specialized in his Dead Bone Pulse and Kenjtusu repertoire. He was solid enough to stand on his own, which was good considering Orochimaru's seal was an absolute abomination incapable of sustained combat often leaving the user worse off than they wore, to begin with.

Furthermore, those incremental boosts weren't enough to take a true novice over the barrier to their next rank. It lacked the battery capacity to effect significant change. At most, it could boost the user two maybe three steps, those steps being recognized in varying degrees in the shinobi ranking system, of which each village had its own variety.

Novice, or Rookies, sat at the bottom. Then came the Low rankings. Above that was the Middle tier. After that came the High caste and rounding out the pay scale came the Elites, the true elites and not the self-proclaimed title Sasuke slapped after his name every time he wanted to feel better.

A Stage I cursed seal could temporarily kick you one-and-a-half rankings in the shinobi scale. A Stage II cursed seal could get you another one-and-a-half step increase. Anything beyond that caused physical degradation and pain to the user often taking them out of commission until medical help could get them back in fighting form.

Sandā had been and was currently comfortably entrenched in the middle of his S-Ranking combat level and proud of his accomplishment.

He knew according to their INTEL that Jirōbō was the weakest member of the squad despite being the strongest physically. The physically larger hatchling found his hubris grating feeling that someone not even worthy of the Jounin ranking without his cursed seal should watch his mouth around other warriors he knew nothing about. To have the gall to insult someone because you were complacent in the strength of your master?

The Raiton user felt a permanent lesson needed to be taught here to the Oto Chuunin.

Looking now as the barbed wire tattoos spread across the hefty boy's skin, Sandā opted not to give him the chance to get in a lucky strike. Calmly, almost lazily, the large hatchling drew his Fang right before his body burst into a massive amount of electrical energy.

His Oto opponent managed to blink once in surprise.

There was an explosion of sound shortly after the sword-wielding hatchling drew his sword and when he stopped, Jirōbō's headless body dropped to its knees before falling flush to the ground.

Naruto

"You should comfortable with this by now, shouldn't you?"

The blond's deep blue eyes narrowed as he took in the controlled chaos as his personal guard methodically decimated the Oto contingent. 'I haven't heard from you in some time.'

He could almost picture the casual shrug of the chakra entity's shoulders.

"There has been plenty to keep me distracted in your life. I felt no need to inject my observations but your introspection piqued my interest. Now stop dodging the question."

Naruto still felt it odd being so cordial with the Nine-Tails so early in their cohabitation. He couldn't deny that he enjoyed the lack of hissing and snarling in his direction. Too bad he couldn't capture this moving into the final slide.

'I've never enjoyed watching people bleed on my behalf.'

"Perhaps you should spend some time analyzing this reluctance prior to re-establishing your clan as this will not be the last time you will be forced to do so."

He could feel the lazy shift of her body as the connection severed signifying the end of their conversation. It didn't mean that she was wrong, however.

Having conducted two slides relatively successfully, he'd survived multiple conflicts and their semi-altered variations on subsequent passes. He'd both fought on behalf of his village and ordered others to do the same with no more than the usual dread of sending comrades off to potentially die. None of this was new to him making his personal irritation all the more galling, like an annoying itch in the middle of his shoulder blades that he simply could not scratch. Naruto would admit that his first foray as a leader in his original life had been less than stellar but he'd adapted well enough to the stumbling start. So why the hesitancy now?

His eyes turned from Sandā's professional dispatch of his opponent to Kaen's more involved all-out slugfest with her own and his heart clenched for just a moment. Brushing aside the internal struggle, his eyes narrowed dangerously as he watched Kira-chan's battle with the conjoined Sakon, a snarl bubbling up at the back of his throat at the bastard's lecherous behavior.

With the Nine-Tails...

Deep inside her vessel, the Manifestation of Malice observed his reaction while reading his thoughts and emotions hoping that he would finally begin to understand that the warm uncomfortable feeling in his chest wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

'Stupid males and their lack of emotional depth.'

With Soyo-chan and the Kaguya...

His fight wasn't turning out anything as he'd planned. His opponent should not have been worth the effort needed to murder her and yet she continued to defy him.

Despite her matching pale complexion and slender, yet annoyingly curvy frame, this girl suffered from both a distinct height and reach deficiency. When you coupled that with the ridiculously oversized weapon she wielded, he should have been able to overpower her or slip within her guard to end her life.

"Should have been" being the keywords there.

Unfortunately, she swung the blade as if she'd been born to it, the heavy metal wooshing with that deep sound of significant mass bifurcating air with ease. In addition to her disgusting strength, the length and size of the weapon made up for her lack of reach balancing out the disparity.

It was sickeningly frustrating and Kimimaro had to regretfully admit that she was more skilled with the blade than he was. Oh, the inhumanity.

Ignoring the growing grin on the face of the specter watching off to the side, the pale swordsman tried to focus on the deadly dance of steel being spun by his opponent as he tried to compensate for her awkward fighting style by using to bone blades instead of one.

We are waiting for you, Kimimaro. Join us!

Fighting down another cough, the sole surviving Kaguya bit back a curse then flowed into the second stance of his deadly Bone Pulse Kenjutsu. The entire time that he shifted his weight back and forth from his lead to the trailing leg, he tried not to notice the growing number of chips appearing in the weapons he gripped in increasingly sweaty palms.

'No one can cut my blades!'

High then low, spin clockwise then backslash with the off-hand, Kimimaro continued to ebb and flow rattling off stances and forms in his mind. At the end of each parry, thrust, or riposte, his silent opponent met him without fail and without emotion. It was infuriating!

That's it! Give in to the rage! Join us!

"It is not my time!" he snarled back in response, his eyes flickering to the ghost-like figure only he seemed to be able to see and he nearly faltered a block earning a cut along the thin flesh of his left arm. It was not enough to incapacitate the limb but he could, to his shock, see the chunk of protective bone nicked from his flesh.

'Impossible!'

Still, they danced on, their blades a blur as his eyes tried to discount the extra dead images of people from his clan standing off to the side observing his duel. No matter how much he kept telling himself that they weren't real, these horrors from his past continued to leer on at his struggle and make odd comments clearly designed to entice and distract.

It's time, youngling. Do not resist...

Join us in the eternal rest!

Embrace the final release of an honorable death!

Kimimaro tried to block them out, his body's hacking-coughing response worsening as the continued strain ate away at his lungs. This female was pushing him to the limits of what he could take without Kabuto's medication, his regular doses having long faded with the medic's untimely death in Konoha.

The strain was beginning to show.

His arm shook under another heavy blow even as his second arm shot up to block an even larger blade, one cloaked in vibrant electrical energy. If he hadn't been in the middle of a hacking fit of coughing, he might have noticed his first opponent disengage just prior to the second attack. It might have prevented the nerve-searing pain of Raiton chakra invading his nervous system, the fact that his entire body was wreathed in hard-as-metal bone only making the attack more effective.

The unearthly scream that was torn from his lips as his entire body seized up chased birds into the sky for miles.

The final electrical discharge punted the Kaguya back several dozen meters before a tree could catch him with the splintering of wood. Once his swimming vision cleared and he could stand steadily enough, he noticed both opponents waiting peacefully for him to regain his wits, something he found further insulting to a warrior of his skill.

His glaring as this fact sunk in was broken by another bloody coughing fit, once worse than before, as his vision blurred briefly to reveal both unaffected warriors and another half dozen ghosts. His time was ending and he knew it but he could not fail Orochimaru-sama.

His pride would not allow it.

With one final shuddering breath, Kimimaro reached deep inside and drew on the Cursed Seal of Earth resting over his sternum. His skin darkened as large bones began to sprout from his body...

With Naruto...

"Walker-sama," Umi happily chirped out fresh from battle, even if his opponents were less than satisfactory.

"Yes, Umi-kun?" The blond tore his gaze from the albino's final moments as he engaged Taifū and Sandā in a violent burst of Raiton energy.

"Should we help Kaen-chan wrap up her battle?"

The blond did not miss the concerned look shared between Umi and Ishi. A quick glance showed the angry redhead standing over one of the Twins, he couldn't tell which, as she punched repeatedly into what was becoming a bloody mound of flesh. Each violent thrust of her fist was accompanied by an angry shriek of justifiable feminine fury as more blood spurted from the pale pile of limbs into the air and all over the front half of her body.

He grimaced knowing she'd be a pain to get cleaned up later.

A quick glance found a second pile of burning... material... not to far from where she was doing her own impersonation of a hulking green behemoth.

"I think we need to calm her down so that we can return home. I'd rather not be discovered by a wandering Oto patrol."

With a sharp nod, the two larger males set off to restrain their angry teammate without sprouting new holes of their own, hopefully.

Naruto sighed softly as he turned back to the other two Guardians high-fiving on their way back to him. They'd sealed away the Kaguya's corpse and soon the rest of the slaughter would be just as buried as their base camp. If they traveled through the night, he could be home, bathed, and in bed by early dawn.

Maybe he'd even get a couple of hours of sleep before they had to set off for Tetsu Summit in the morning.

Maybe.

~III~

---

[Jutsu Used In This Chapter]

[*] Form 16 refers to a common exercise kata in Tai Chi. Used in this story, this form is used as part of an ANBU conditioning and rehabilitation exercise practiced during convalescence periods. If you are curious, google Tai Chi Form 16 and you can watch any number of instructional videos available on the internet. I referenced a video posted by Master Gio Barque for this chapter.

[1] [C-Rank] Katon: Endan (Fire Release: Flame Bullet): This technique is executed by the user gathering oil (or some other flammable liquid) in their mouth which is created by chakra, spitting it out, and igniting it. This technique simply shoots a flame bullet at the enemy. If the amount of liquid that is prepared is kept down, the time it takes to invoke the technique is reduced. This allows the enemy to be stricken unaware, allowing the flammable liquid-containing flame bullet to burn them up completely. It is also possible to shoot out a series of flame bullets by partitioning the fuel, or a continuous flamethrower. If this technique is fired after covering the enemy with oil using the Toad Oil Bullet, it has the power to wound or kill. This also keeps down the consumption of chakra.

[2] [B-Rank] Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Release: Water Formation Wall): This is a defensive technique that creates a wall of water around the user. Enemy attacks are completely intercepted by a fence of water (normally) blown out from the mouth and is raised from below with tremendous might. The water is blown out in the form of a circle around the user, and it makes for a defense without openings. It is also possible for the user to control the amount of water and duration at will. The wall's strength and resistance change following the quantity of chakra poured down into the water, so a skillful shinobi will be able to build a sturdy one. Furthermore, because the field of vision is maintained even while defending one can easily go on to the next move, which is a great advantage. The wall can also be formed from a pre-existing water source. Umi, like all of the Guardians, is capable of channeling and forming jutsu through his bonded blade due to the hidden seals hidden beneath the pommel geared to their specific element.

Tobirama Senju was able to produce one without a pre-existing water source, which was a testament to his skill and one of the reasons why he was selected as Hokage. In the manga, the hand seal sequence for this technique ends in the same seal that activates the Byakugan, though Tobirama needs only one to use this technique. Furthermore, the anime creates a completely original and far more elaborate set of hand seals when Tobirama uses it in the form of having the right hand cupping the left hand with a thumbs-up.

[3] [A-Rank] Doton: Yumi Numa (Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld): The user creates a swamp by changing the ground beneath a target into mud, which the target sinks into. The mud is infused with chakra to make it sticky, ensnaring the target and preventing escape. The size and depth of the swamp are determined by the user's skill and the amount of chakra used; ideally, it will be made large enough for targets to become completely submerged. It is most effective when used against multiple and/or particularly large targets.

[4] [A-Rank] Fuka Hiden: Sairen no Kisu (Secret Hatchling Technique: Siren's Kiss): This technique would later become the basis behind Takigakure's Water Release: Water Blade Technique. As applied by Umi, it is an A-Ranked technique that draws moisture from the earth to coat a weapon with a highly condensed layer of water. Once so applied, the creator uses their chakra to vibrate the blade turning the weapon into a hydroponic saw blade capable of cutting through most thin layers of metal and up to six inches of hardened stone.

~III~

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[Items Inspired by History]

[A] The Tsuwamono Seal was inspired by an old term used to reference soldiers popularized by the great Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō (born in Iga Province as Matsuo Kinsaku, he lived from 1644 to 1695) in haiku. It translates to "vessel, tool," or as referenced in this story, "pawn" implying that the seal renders the person so branded "disposable."

~III~

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A/N: Been a while since I've posted anything. I blame the plot bunny one-shot I'll be posting soon that refused to let go of my attention. Despite most plots being overwritten in this genre, I may have found a little-used (I've not found one like it yet) option and I'm admittedly excited about the chance. Let me know what you think of it should you give it a glance.

After wandering about between different points of view, we come back to and end the chapter with our main protagonist. We are building to a nice conclusion at this point so strap in avid readers and I'll see you at our next update.

~Siva'a