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CHAPTER 17

One month later

"Pein, you need to calm down," surprisingly enough it was Tobi who said it. Nagato had been yelling in a blinding fury. The crippled man had even hefted himself upright enough to glare bloody murder at the speaker. Konan was swirly-eyed at the far corner of the room after being punched in the gut by her old friend.

"Give me one good reason not to end you right now, Madara Uchiha," Pein sneered, his purple rippled eyes were maniacally wide with anger and it would only take a single wrong word that would tip him over the edge into frothing mad hysteria; Obito could already see one of the containers for Nagato's paths creak open slowly, probably his favourite Asura path. He was not in the mood for being turned into a bloody paste at the side of the room so he made motions with his hands, telling Pein to take it easy,

"You need to save up all the strength you have. We can't have you wasting it all when you should be conserving your strength for more worthy things."

Pein snarled to himself and spat. "You're right." He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead to relax. "That child and his country…. They get on my nerves by the day."

He had just received news that Sasori and Deidara had been severely injured by a coalition of Konoha and Wave shinobi from the Star clan and Daku after they had received news of Gaara's kidnapping.

The plan was formerly to keep the Kazekage restrained enough for them to unseal the one tail and seal it into the Gedo statue. Though they had made it to the hideout and were in the process of removing the beast, the cave entrance had been destroyed by a collaborative blow from Daku and Sakura. Sasori and Deidara just barely escaped on one of Deidara's clay dragons and since no shinobi could fly, they focused their attention on getting the weakened one-tail holder back to his village.

When news of the villages and countries Wave was allied to reached the Akatsuki leader's ear he had now fully understood why Hidan and Kakuzu found it exceptionally hard to gain entrance into Waterfall. The Henge negating Waterfall aside, if anyone without the seal tattoo went through the water their chakra would immediately be forcefully syphoned out of their body to fortify an all-elemental trap that would spring up, warning every single shinobi within Waterfall about an attempt to infiltrate the village, as well as every other authorised visiting ninja from Smoke, Chill, Fang, Marsh, Kiri, Suna, Konoha and Wave.

It was a death sentence even for the zombie brothers.

Kakuzu had learnt this the hard way when he had sent two shadow clones to go and test out the defence and just as the light spray from the first Henge negating waterfall touched the clones the trap had been sprung. The chakra leached out of the clones, the earth held them down, and when they managed to break out, they were sprayed with fire, they managed to dodge that but not the lightning field that blocked their exit and caged them. The worst part was that after that attempt the defence had been tightened, if that was even possible. This was the same with any other village Wave was allied to except Kiri, Suna and Konoha.

The imminent threat of Kumo allying with Wave loomed over him when Zetsu had said that there had been a small delegation of ninjas that had visited Wave a week ago. The delegation didn't contain any ninjas to note but after the visit, they did not even look negatively at the country.

"I cannot take this child's insolence any longer," Pein muttered as Konan shakily got to his side once again. Ever loyal. "Notify all of our members to prepare for an invasion of Wave in a week." All the members of the Akatsuki had in one way or another encountered Wave or the other allied villages, they should have an inkling of an idea of what to expect. "How are Sasori and Deidara recuperating, Konan?"

The purple-haired woman said, "Deidara is back to full strength but it will take Sasori a while to restock his puppet army. A few days maybe."

"That will be enough time. We capture the Kyuubi holder first but we take his beast last; I want him to suffer." Nagato's red hair loomed over his eyes ominously and Tobi nodded. Tobi left the room to go and inform the other Akatsuki members.

"Nagato, will you be joining the attack."

"If all goes wrong, which I doubt, I shall come after him myself. I trust you will be by my side." Konan nodded resolutely. "Good."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Inari grabbed a shuriken from his pouch and hurled it forward; the spinning star whirred through the air and impacted a target dummy's right shoulder. The boy's shoulders sagged in disappointment when he heard Kam laughing at his attempt; he spied her target and dipped his head when he saw her lone shuriken in the middle of her target's forehead. She stood confidently despite his lowering mood and this went to an all-time low when Noriko threw his shuriken and it slashed into the target's neck.

Naruto looked at the last two and gave them thumbs up but when he saw Inari's he furrowed his eyebrows.

Naruto had been testing their reaction time on how fast they could draw out a shuriken and toss it accurately. As far as he knew Noriko and Kamlyn had passed but Inari hadn't. Far from it.

He walked up to the dejected boy and put his hand on his shoulder. Inari looked up briefly to see who it was but looked down again, expecting a reprimand of some kind. Naruto smiled and said, "Did you know I'm average with throwing weapons as well." A small, harmless lie, but it was close enough to the truth; his students looked at him with wide, surprised eyes. "Yup. I didn't know how to properly throw one or at the right speed. You know what I did?" They shook their heads. "I found ways to improvise."

"How, sensei?" Noriko asked and Naruto threw his left arm to Inari's targets, five paper shuriken flew out of his sleeve and he twitched his fingers slightly, they changed their original paths from being in a close circle to a vertical line formation. His paper shuriken impaled the head, the neck, the heart and the arms at the major artery located near the armpit. He twitched his fingers again and the paper weapons pulled out, zipping to him and entering his sleeve once again. "So cool…" Noriko murmured and Kam unconsciously nodded in agreement.

"I make use of ninja wire I import from Hidden Smoke. The extra thin kind that is only held together by chakra. They're called Smoke Wires."

"But-but those are expensive. I can't afford them," Inari said.

Naruto chuckled. "I had to start small, you know, with standard issue ninja wire until I saved up enough to get the Smoke Wire." He whipped out three kunai and easily threw them at Noriko's targets, which were the furthest away from him; he twitched his fingers again and the kunai changed direction from going to the stomach to the head, slicing deep in. He made a quick motion with his throwing hand and the kunai dislodged and entered his hand again. This time they noticed the ninja wire. "It all comes back to dedication and timing." The Wave leader stood back and looked over them. "You try it, Inari."

Kamlyn and Noriko watched as Inari fumbled through his shuriken pouch for a single throwing star and a spool of thin, ninja wire; he slipped the wire into the hole in the spinning star and immediately threw the weapon, it whirred through the air and he did what he saw Naruto doing, making a quick, twitching movement with his hand so the star changed direction from the left leg and sliced into the crotch. Kam stifled her giggles and Naruto gave an amused smirk at how red-faced Inari went.

"It's a start."

Team Three was a multi-purpose sort of team that mainly specialised in capture and interrogation, and also infiltration and espionage. Frontline combat was much further down the line.

Naruto had been running drills for them for a month, going through less hard situations he could come up with and taught them ways to power on. That day's lesson was to see if they were able to make a quick draw for their standard-issue weapons, and so far only Inari had a problem.

Next, he had Kam and Noriko keep on practising, leaving clones to watch over them as he took Inari a little bit away from them. He spent the day showing his student a fairly simple sleight of hand trick he could spool wire through shuriken quickly and how hide it in his pouch. The boy gladly took it all and the extra tips on how to change the direction of his weapons, just a little nudge or a tiny tug and they would change formation. Two days of this sort of practice saw them finally engage in hand-to-hand fights with each other, the first match was Kamlyn versus Noriko.

Naruto had looked over Konoha's academy fighting style and applauded the fact that in some way it contained every other fighting style Konoha had in its grasp but to a much lesser extent. He didn't want to copy his former village by teaching it all to the academy students, so he took his time to analyse the stance with Daku testing it out.

Noriko was a Wave-born child, orphaned by Gato from a very young age, so he had to learn how to fend for himself. Noriko had major confidence issues but there were occasional spurts of fire in him that came out little by little after every lesson. He was among the children Naruto had placed in his Orphan Academy Students Fund a month after he had allied with the other villages, where school-going orphans who weren't adults were given a specified amount of money every week until they graduated. How they used the money was up to them. Noriko had spent most of his days on the streets and back alleys, so despite learning the new Wave academy taijutsu style he still couldn't shake off the fact that he had learnt brawling before anything else.

Noriko took a loose boxing stance and bounced on the balls of his feet, a strange style a budding seal master could have but Naruto had noted to himself to change it.

Kam had already been in the academy since she was in Hidden Star, so she already had a fighting stance.

Naruto looked between them silently and chopped his hand down sharply; Kam shot at the boy and punched at his head, Noriko diverted the punch to his head with a forearm and gave a strong uppercut to her stomach, she used the momentum of the blow to spin around and nail him on his head. The less experienced genin shook his head to clear out the cobwebs; he rolled away from a strike to his head again with her fist and flipped backwards, away from another fist.

Noriko charged in with his right fist leading and feinted a blow to her neck but spun around and nailed the side of her head with his elbow. She grunted after the blow and cleared his feet from under him; he fell heavily but rolled backwards as she stomped down, narrowly missing his chest. He stumbled away from her and used his bare forearms to block a barrage of punches, ducking down when his arms couldn't take the attack again so he could send a spinning kick to the back of her head. The blow connected and she fell forward, not moving. He suspiciously crept forward and as he used his toe to nudge her arm. When she remained unmoving, he turned to his sensei. Just then she got back to her feet and tackled him to the ground, holding his head in place with her hands to his neck.

"Winner, Kamlyn." He pulled the girl off the boy by her collar. "You let your guard down, Noriko."

The black-haired boy coughed into his hands. "But she wasn't moving."

"Then you hold her down with your weapon." Noriko nodded and Naruto patted his shoulder. "You did okay, but your brawling style doesn't have a good offence. Defence can only do so much. Try incorporating the strikes from the academy style with it. It would be a great combination and I trust you to master it well."

"Yes, sensei." The boy saluted and sat down under a tree in training ground thirteen, their official team training ground.

Naruto looked at the girl and found her looking up at him with wide, awaiting eyes. He chuckled nervously at her eagerness. "You were using Hoshi clan kata, right?"

"Yes, Naruto-sensei."

"It's a well-rounded style, but in my opinion, it's too rigid, it only works for specific attacks."

"I don't understand, sensei." She cocked her head to the side; her clan taijutsu had been studied and tested by generations of Hoshi ninja.

"The last kick Noriko gave you did more damage than you letting on." He was right. The kick had put her out for a few seconds but the toe nudge brought her out of her daze. "Your sides are exposed but your clan compensates by using their bow staff." She nodded. "Keep practising but learn how to be more fluid with your movements. Don't restrain yourself to the kata."

It was like training Hinata all over again.

The Wave leader put his hands behind his back and looked at the last member who still hadn't sparred. He turned to Kam, wanting his best student to spar against his most promising student while his fuinjutsu protégé observed, but discarded the idea; he had already said the major weakness of her style aloud. Inari might capitalise on this. Noriko as well. He sighed and closed his eyes, motioning for the brown-haired boy to come to him. "I haven't sparred sensei," Inari said, a sly smirk plastered on his face.

"I know. You're up against me."

His smirk immediately cleared off his face and his eyes widened. "Wha-what about the others? They can still fight."

"Maybe another day." Naruto took a few steps backwards and motioned for Inari to come at him. "Give me all you've got."

A few seconds of hesitation later Inari charged. He gritted his teeth and threw his fist forward at him, Naruto leaned sideways and used his right hand to grab the limb, spinning Inari completely around and pushing him back with his foot. The boy's face planted into the ground from this.

Inari growled at how fast he was taken out and rolled forward to his feet, running at Naruto with his fist raised. Naruto looked on and ducked the blow, punching Inari's gut and just as the boy flew back, he pulled him back and swept his feet from under him, planting him on his face again. Naruto slipped away from a kunai slash and used his shin protectors to defend against another sloppy slash; he used the same raised leg to push the boy's face away. Inari just charged in again and went for a flying kick, the blonde sensei easily caught the attack, relishing in the wide-eyed look his student gave him before he twisted his wrist and spun the boy in the air.

He stepped back as Inari hit the ground with a small thud. Naruto slinked forward and kicked the kunai away pointing his fist straight at Inari's face. "That's enough."

The rest of the day was of them running through muscle-building exercises and a group sparring against Naruto so that they would get a feel for their abilities and develop instinctive knowledge on how best to work together. The moment Kam feinted a downward smash with her staff to his head but knelt on the ground in front of him so Noriko could use her back as a springboard to punch him, he knew they were on the right track.

Their team meetings always started at five in the morning with a sprint around outer Wave, then a team spar, then chakra control exercises he would give them a break at noon when he would have to return to the office, leaving some tips and advice until he returned at six in the evening for a team dinner, to create a sense of camaraderie.

Though they could only meet four times a week, the remaining three days were spent on their own lives. During the four days they would meet up they would gather in his office at night, two hours before midnight, to continue training but more mental than physical. The chakra control exercise was when they were given a closed cylinder with a small drop of water inside and moved drops of water from one side to the other without shaking the cylinder; the exercise varied from affinity to affinity but since all the members of his team had water affinity, and wind for Kam, it was fine. On the fourth day of the week, when they had started fighting more as a team by using each other as a diversion he had chosen for the team dinners to be in his home, the leader's tower.

The room he had chosen was one of the smaller, cosier rooms with a table in the middle and four chairs around. Naruto sat down at the head of the table and motioned for his three students to do so as well, and then some servants began flitting into the room and serving food, most that were far above the students' pay grade.

Inari and Noriko had taken Naruto's hospitality by shoving all they could down their throats, while Kam stuffed her mouth with a little more class.

Naruto took some time to reflect on his growing shinobi system; out of seventeen genin teams fourteen had passed and the other twelve genin were on the reserve genin list until the next graduation; they would have to pass the time doing refresher courses until then.

He had DARK operatives hidden around Wave that served as those that protected from the shadows while the police protected in sight. The DARK performed high-ranking missions from time to time and the group was still growing, the Star were not too welcoming of being bossed around but they still recognized Daku as the undisputed DARK commander and Mole as his deputy.

Just last week, he had been sent a message by Temari through her summons that Gaara had been kidnapped by some unknown people. He had sent out Daku and some Hoshi jounin to go and lend their assistance; they had met up with some Konoha ninjas on their way to Suna and had severely crippled Deidara the mad bomber and Sasori of the red sands. From the reports he had been given on their return, they wore red clouds on a black cloak, the same cloak Kisame and Itachi wore when they tried to kidnap him as well, then another message came to him from Waterfall through his communication seal that similarly dressed people, two Kakuzu clones, had been spotted and dispelled by his seal defence. Naruto put two and two together and surmised that these cloak-wearing people were after jinchuriki, for reasons he couldn't guess.

He warned the new Mizukage through a letter since he didn't want to be in the same room as her, about what he had discovered and she had assured him that their jinchuriki were well protected. He had tried to warn Iwa but the village took his message as an insult, saying that he had threatened to kidnap their jinchuriki.

Naruto fully expected an attack from Iwagakure any time soon, probably alongside this mysterious organisation since he was the direct and indirect reason they hadn't captured one yet, as far as he knew. He had passively told the Kumo delegation that had visited a while back about his thoughts and he knew they would take the news back with them to their village.

The genin teams had already started doing E and D rank missions to fill up their mission quota but his team hadn't started because he wanted to cement teamwork into their heads, maybe in a week they would be ready.

The main reason he had time to take on a team in the first place was that some of his workloads were shared with the ever-energetic Daku, while Frog read through the less important ones. With his loyal dark shadow around most of the time, he didn't require that many shadow clones stay in his seats while he looked over his team's training.

He couldn't be present for the team's lower-ranked missions. He sent Frog to represent him. Though for most missions outside the village, he would be there until they turn chunin which he predicted was when they would be able to properly look after themselves. As far as he knew Kam was more experienced than the two boys since she already had three years before being in the academy in Hidden Star. Naruto used this to the fullest by making Kam the team's leader in his place while Noriko was the trapping expert seeing as he was learning seals, while Inari was the muscle with his suicidal fighting techniques.

He smiled at Noriko; he had been helping the boy lay a foundation for his seal work; he was still a level one but it was steady progress for someone who had discovered the art just a few months ago. He would summon the boy to his office well into the night, with his other teammates present, and give the boy lessons on how to draw seals quickly and reasons some basic strokes were paired with other basic strokes. This would help him in the long run since it made Noriko realise how much of fuinjutsu there was still to be discovered, the blonde seal master slowed him down by telling him that even though there was a lot more to seals than met the eye it was still a subtle but incredibly dangerous art, more so than taijutsu and ninjutsu; and that he would have been even more crippled if he weren't an Uzumaki jinchuriki.

Next, he smiled at Kamlyn; the Hoshi clan heiress had been taking night lessons with the rest of her team within his office on how to make proper use of her wind chakra in a fight rather than just blowing around uncontrollable gusts of wind. He wouldn't teach any of them ninjutsu unless they requested and they knew that, so Kam had asked him to teach her Wind Release: Wind Vacuum, which was an A-rank wind technique he had gotten from the Shimura clan library in ROOT, now found in the academy section of the library. Unlike her clan, she was more open-minded about working with Wave-born and she eagerly took to learning with her Wave-born teammates like a fish to water. Naruto helped her with her wind chakra control, alongside her father, the Hoshi clan head.

Most of the time the girl just needed a little nudge in the right direction.

Last he smiled at Inari; the fish-loving boy had made small improvements in his form since he had left the academy as the dead last. He planned for the boy to become a master at espionage and infiltration since he was one of the last to be caught in any tracking drill and the fact that he had the best Henge among his teammates. The boy was able to get a good grasp of who a person was and how he thought he sounded by reading the file that contained general information on the person. Inari had the smallest well of chakra, a disgraceful amount in all honesty but this turned out to be a major blessing; it gave him low jounin level control and he was able to super suppress his chakra without one of Naruto's seals. Naruto had him run drills to increase his capacity and control before he would give him jutsu. In their night lessons in his office, Inari was forced to do gruelling exercises in a separate room just so he wouldn't stink up his office; this was to increase his chakra levels.

All in all, they were coming along nicely.

Inari and Noriko were open-minded to having a Hoshi member, a clan heiress at that. They were initially wary but a month and a week of being a team shut down the doubts. Kam was equally sceptical about having team members that weren't up to her skill level but Naruto had shown her that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing; each member had an individual strength that was amplified when they fought together as seen when Noriko used her as a willing springboard to land a punch on their teacher.

He didn't succeed but it was a good try.

Added to the night lessons was that he showed them ways to perform first aid without medical chakra, but for Inari, he had made it aware that he could learn medical ninjutsu; he assured the boy that he didn't need to be a medic ninja to learn the art but it would technically make him the teams medic.

After the dinner he sent them home for a break, so they would return at ten in the night, escorted by DARK ninja. When he had set them all to their tasks he bent down and got to his work as Wave leader seeing as he had sent Frog home early on a one-week break and Daku was attending to issues that concerned the DARK commander. Naruto sifted through some documents in a hunched position and when he saw that there weren't any to be worried about, he began to write out something he had in mind for a very long time.

He had been planning on making the title of Wave leader a clan title for the Uzumaki, specifically level nine and above seal masters.

This was if he was ever willing to begin a family but he was still far too young to think about that. The reason for this was that after observing that there was a Kazekage clan and how effective it was in administering their village he saw the merits.

The Uzumaki were the closest in line to the first leader, Naruto, so this would have to make them loyal to Wave. If Noriko wanted to become the Wave leader, he would have to impress Naruto enough with his fuinjutsu, ninjutsu and taijutsu before he could be bestowed with the title of honorary Uzumaki. His clan wouldn't be above anyone else, since honorary Uzumaki titles can be given to worthy people, but this was to zero in where to look before a leader can be chosen.

Naruto had read through about every Uzumaki in history from the first ever Uzukage to Kushina and all were devoted to their work, whether taijutsu, kenjutsu or fuinjutsu if the fact that every notable Uzumaki had created at least one new jutsu was an indication, him included.

Naruto looked up when he heard the door creak open and sighed wearily when he saw that it was Temari; the Kazekage's sister had been in his country since the time he had left Konoha, visiting Wave and going on joint missions with Wave ninjas.

The girl was adamant. About what exactly, he still didn't know.

The girl slipped in and sent a small wave to Naruto. He nodded back and she looked at his very focused students; Inari was in another room doing pull-ups, a gruelling task for one his age, but he didn't particularly raise any objection to it. Temari hesitantly walked up to him and smiled. He returned the favour a bit.

"I brought you lunch." She whipped out a small scroll from behind her and unsealed some ramen from inside. She beamed at him proudly. "I made it myself."

He looked down at the noodles and gulped nervously at the colour; it wasn't supposed to be purple or smell like burning tyres. "Why…thank you, Temari." He swallowed nervously.

Temari lilted on her heels nervously. "Well, what are you waiting for? Dig in!"

His students looked over when they heard her exclamation and watched as he slowly swished his chopsticks in the broth. 'You better heal me, Kurama.'

"I'll try my best, kid." Kyuubi sent a mental hand on Naruto's shoulder for support and winced when the boy took some noodles into his mouth. Naruto felt his eyes begin to water after this, a small, quiet sob escaped his mouth but he covered it up and kept on swallowing until he cut the noodles. Naruto sniffled and wiped the tears in his eyes with his wrist.

"This is great," he said shakily, he could feel his stomach roaring against his statement but he silenced it with a strong pat.

She looked at him suspiciously when his students began giggling into their hands. "You're not lying, are you?"

Naruto thought this through before he opened his mouth. "You just need a little more practice." His stomach gurgled angrily and he patted it again.

He could visibly see the happiness seep out of her very being and she looked away sharply, not wanting him to see her shaky frown. "Oh."

"Say something, Kid!" Kyuubi could see the impending danger of a girl in tears and he knew as a fact that both he and his holder could not handle crying girls. Kushina and Yakumo were testaments of this fact. A memory of Kushina forcefully entering the mindscape just to punch him hit him like a train and he whimpered.

"I'm sure Noriko can show you a few things. Won't you, Noriko." Noriko nodded frantically from the glare Naruto sent him. "See? He can even be your taste tester, won't you Noriko." The boy gulped from the glare he was sent but still shakily nodded. "The three of them can taste test for you." He glared at them and they hastily nodded. Inari, still exercising in the other room, had no idea the commitment his dear teacher had forced him into.

"You don't have to do that, Naruto," she quietly said.

"No, it's seriously no problem." He stood up to ruffle her hair and hurriedly walked to the door so he could vomit the toxic ramen he had just eaten.

"Ok!" she said after him, and she skipped out of the office not too long later.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"How are you feeling, Kimimaro?" Orochimaru asked as he used a stethoscope to keep track of the bone-release user's heartbeat.

"I feel…great, Orochimaru," the teen was sitting on a hospital-style bed in the snake Sannin's lab. His shirt was off to reveal the small holes on his collar and his pale, crystalline skin; there was an ominous-looking patch of skin that was spreading over his right arm but didn't enter his torso. The skin was flaky white, a different kind of pale, and it had two red circles on his bicep that glowed slightly. He flexed the arm and smiled. "Thank you, Master Orochimaru."

The man waved it off and handed a phial with light brown contents for the boy to swallow and he did so without hesitating, there was no visible effect but Kimimaro felt the muscles in his new arm tighten.

It was a huge feat for Orochimaru to chop off his arm and another to be quick enough to graft some new flesh on the growing limb.

The snake Sannin had taken the Hashirama DNA from Danzo and had forced the cells to multiply through a variety of hard experiments. He then combined the cells with the developing Uchiha cells from the dead ninja with the dormant Uchiha genes. The First Hokage's cells mixed with the Uchiha cells but couldn't replicate the sharingan in Kimimaro, though it did provide the bone release user with a regenerative ability that rivalled even him.

The Hashirama cells provided Kimimaro limited control of trees, he theorised this was because the boy was incredibly sick and before the cells were put in place, the wood release cells focused on keeping the bearer alive rather than giving him the famed wood release.

That was enough for him.

Orochimaru smiled widely when he saw the boy test out his bone release by having strong bones shoot out of his shoulders and his ribs; Kimimaro was even stronger than before.

"I'll be seeing you soon…Naruto."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Three days later

Wave country,

Naruto felt alarm bells ringing in his head as he relaxed in his living room, a wide spacious room in the leader's tower. It was the weekend and a time he gave his students, and himself, a break from training as well as a small break from being in the office, though sadly he was still scheduled to return in an hour.

Just that morning he had met with the Hoshi clan head, without Kam in the room, and had informed him of his daughter's major improvements in her team. The man was at least pleased to hear that she wasn't making a fool out of herself, Naruto didn't particularly care what the man thought; he was just there to tell him his daughter was an exceptional shinobi.

Next, he met Tsunami and Tazuna, Inari's mother and grandfather respectively, and also reassured them that their ward was growing up well. Since Noriko didn't have any parents or next of kin, Naruto sat down with the boy and brushed up on his handwriting for ten minutes.

He groaned and sat up from his extra comfy armchair, right next to the window where he could look over the whole of Wave; he had just sat down after showing Noriko some quick strokes and now his alarm seals were blaring on his arm. He rubbed his eyes tiredly and absently nodded when a DARK Hoshi ninja flickered to his side, wearing a dog mask.

"Where is the breach, Dog?" he stood up and stretched his whole body, focusing on his 'dead' leg while the male ninja watched on.

"The alarm seals have detected an unknown flying object to the west, twenty-six miles away or so; just outside the barrier range but inside the detection range," the ninja said, still on his knees.

The seal master pursed his lips in reflection at that and whipped out a pair of clear, blue-rimmed glasses. Not the sunglasses he used when he had invaded ROOT headquarters. He used his wrist sleeve to clean the glasses and slipped them on; he walked up to the window and looked out, rubbing the sides of his glasses lightly. The glasses shone a light blue at the rectangular edges as they recognized Naruto, zooming in on where the ninja had said there was a breach. He cursed when he saw red clouds on black cloaks on none other than the Mad Bomber himself and the Desert Scorpion.

"Get every civilian and genin to the underground bunkers. No exceptions." He darted to the door and the ninja flickered away swiftly. Naruto tapped the side of his glasses and Mole dropped down beside him, sprinting alongside him. "We are going to be under attack any moment."

"Yes, Master Naruto, we have caught sight of Hoshigaki Kisame, Uchiha Itachi, Kakuzu of Waterfall, Hidan of Hot Spring Village, and Rai of Kumo to the far west."

"I can only guess who they're after." Mole nodded. "I want every available ninja above Genin to get ready to defend the bunkers. With Kisame's sword, Samehada, he can easily take down our defences." He helped up a girl who had fallen as she rushed past, noticing she was from the Hoshi clan by the symbol on her shirt. He waved and a DARK ninja leapt down, taking the scared girl with him to find her parents. The civilians parted ways for their village leader as he and the deputy DARK commander walked through, bowing and hurrying past to where they were to stay.

He sensed Daku before he even blinked into sight beside him. "Uchiha Itachi has sent a message." He handed a small scroll to Naruto and he looked over it with his glasses, searching for traps, before he opened it.

It was a short message.

Hand yourself over and no one gets hurt. Think wisely, Naruto.

Naruto crumpled the paper and put it in his pocket.

"I want Zabuza, Haku, Mole and you to fight the ones on the ground to the west." He winced when Deidara dropped a large bomb directly over the leader tower but the electrical field protecting wave caught and detonated it miles above them. "I'll handle those in the sky. I trust you all have the Death-Sharingan Seal." Zabuza and Haku met them and walked beside him. Four of the six inner circle members nodded when he said this.

"I'll have Kisame. We have a score to settle." Zabuza grunted as he cracked his knuckles.

"Daku, you have Rai; only you can match her speed."

"Of course, Master Naruto."

They walked up to the gate and the demon brothers bowed politely, they all stared far out to where the lightning field was holding off Kakuzu and Hidan. Kisame was yelling something at them and motioning to his sword but the mad, and electrocuted, jashinist was adamant about using his three-knifed scythe to cut through the barrier.

Naruto unsealed his seal board and dropped it; the board hovered in place under him.

"Don't hold back."

"Yes, Master Naruto!" They all said as one.

"Look alive, Kisame is using his sword on the barrier." He stepped onto his board and zoomed off into the sky to face Deidara and Sasori. While Daku and the rest raced off to meet the other Akatsuki members.

Tobi and Zetsu observed from the shadows.

Authors note

That's it, I guess. Watch out for the next chapter, I smell fight scenes.

Don't forget to drop a review please,

See you all on the flip side,

Foy.