It was a well known fact in the Elemental Nations that shinobi and civilians traveled in very different fashions.
The most obvious difference is that shinobi tended to not only travel faster and lighter but in far more straightforward routes than their counterparts. Often literally going over obstacles in their paths, like mountains and rivers. Even the occasional large lake or small ocean if you had enough coin to make it worth their while. And while Konoha was particularly well-known for their tree-hopping style of travel, any shinobi worth a damn could take a ride on the 'forest highway' when available.
While in stark contrast to shinobi, most civilians moved at a snail's pace at best. Most often on foot with rickety hand carts, but horseback or wagon were other popular options, at least for the few who could afford a wagon and the animal to pull it. At their fastest, with a small well mounted party, they still averaged half what a shinobi could do at a sedate pace.
They also preferred to take the 'safe and sensible' routes around obstacles, i.e. the slower way. They were almost entirely reliant on pre-established well-traveled paths. And they needed to make far more frequent and longer stops, which only grew exponentially with the size of your traveling party.
Merchant caravans were a particularly disliked offender in all of these categories, and many many more. Though they were quite far from the only bane to a hyperactive workaholic like Uzumaki Naruto.
As he was now learning, traveling with nobility was worse than merchants by a factor of ten. Huge convoys of wagons with supplies, carriages full of people, and something Naruto could only compare to an actual house on wheels, which was of course aptly named a 'wheelhouse'. Five of the monstrous carriages in total, with the largest one located in the center containing their current employer.
Easily over a hundred courtly attendants and politicians; the type of politician with the funny hats who were often buried beneath their own papers, not the ones with long flowing robes and empty self-serving words; all accompanied by two or three times as many common servants and the like.
Their armed escort was no slouch either. With seventy-five veteran samurai of the Fire Daimyo's personal guard sent in addition to the 'normal' twenty samurai retainers of their client, fifteen armed caravaneers, two very dangerous Konoha shinobi, and one captain with a deep distrust of all things ninja.
Overkill was an almost inadequate definition for the military firepower that currently protected the long snaking column of weary travelers. Yet, even with their relatively new escort of a full one-hundred-man company of Iron samurai, they were still stretched thin providing adequate coverage.
The non-combatants and various other unarmed travelers that had joined their train still outnumbered them three-to-one. So in addition to being about the worst possible way to travel if you wanted to get anywhere quickly, it was also one giant line of exposed civilians lurking with possible assassins, that even a small army had the occasional trouble protecting.
Which partially explained the presence of two so-called 'heavy hitters'. Shinobi meant to act as a probing defensive force against incoming attacks. Keeping them away from the main column and giving the larger mass of more 'traditional' soldiers more time to better organize and defend the civilians. If it couldn't be squashed solo, that is.
Which, of course, they always could be. As no amount of poorly armed untrained bandits would ever amount to anything against someone like Naruto, let alone the oddly terrifying toad sage.
Their charges' newly enlarged personal retinue alone could siege and overthrow a town or very small city with little effort, which explained why the Land of Iron would send an escort of veteran samurai. At least in Naruto's mind. Yet it did not explain why they had changed their original route from the large mountain pass directly to Iron Country's capital city to the much longer and slower route around the base of the first, and largest, of the great mountains surrounding the city.
Only four true attacks had even been mounted against their massive caravan, an actual statistical miracle regarding how big the thing was. And all but one while traveling. None had ever gotten close enough to even be heard by their less violently inclined travelers, he and Jiraiya mopped the brigands and lowlifes up in what was the only ten minutes the young man hadn't been bored since they departed.
Naruto thought their many previous successes would be proof enough that their originally planned route, and their additional small army, would be plenty of protection. But no, the paranoid old bat that captained the samurai guard was adamant. The main road was 'far too dangerous' and a 'perfect ambush setup'. So instead, they added another week to their already incessantly long three-week trip from the Fire Capital.
The spiky-haired Uzumaki's head bobbed along with the plodding motion of his horse while he grumbled beneath his breath. His 'positive attitude' and 'mental stability' had vanished long ago. Having already spent nearly two weeks in the capital doing nothing but etiquette lessons, studying the mission parameters, and waiting to hear if their client was ready to depart.
So hearing of their trip's extension was the equivalent of ripping out his brain and stomping on it. Except Naruto may have preferred that, seeing as how it would end sooner.
This was supposed to be a 'quick reprieve before they could head to Uzushiogakure.' But he had spent more time avoiding a nonexistent ambush than he had thought the mission would take in total, and his patience had worn rather thin.
"Ambush? Ambush?! Who would ambush us?" He threw his hands up in the air with mock sarcasm as he half-whispered half-thought to himself in his internal ramblings. His quiet words not dampening his loud movements one bit. Something he had been doing more and more as they traveled the much less steep, yet still significantly slower, highway around and up the mountain to Iron's capital city, Kotetsu.
"Nearly a hundred fuckin samurai, a Sannin, and a living weapon." The blonde grumbled more, earning odd looks from mounted samurai around him and even some of the many courtiers walking nearby. Yet they paid him little mind, the samurai were too disciplined, and the others were royal attendants and the like. A.K.A, people who knew when to keep quiet and unassuming or else fear the tortuous consequences.
Noticing their disconcerted glances, Naruto found it hard to reign his annoyance in. Every moment he sat atop this stupid gray horse was agony. He had been strictly barred from doing anything that might distract him in any way. So he was prohibited from reading or writing or training in any form. Even something as simple as training his chakra control could 'leave him tired' for a possible attempt on the stupid client's life.
Seeing as how that 'stupid client' was the Fire Daimyo's daughter, an attempt on her life would not be good.
Actually, it would be an act of war, which is a bit worse than 'not good'. Something Jiraiya had drilled into his head quite relentlessly. If anyone were to actually attack her that was a definitive act of war. The area got more gray with distance, but their job wasn't to argue semantics.
He just knew that for a member of the Daimyo's family like her, even threatening her life could, and almost certainly would, result in a full-scale declaration of war from her father. Something that rarely sat easy on one's conscience, even as a hired killer.
But it had been seven extra days, seven extra kami-forsaken, mind-numbing, psychosis-inducing days of complete and utter boredom. Atop the back of a beast that Naruto had long since concluded despised him. If he wasn't a shinobi, and a damn good one at that, he would have died a handful of times at the hooves of his mount already.
The dastardly thing was constantly skittish around him and had either lost its footing or tossed him from the saddle a few dozen times because of it. Not to mention two separate instances of the beast trying to kick his skull in using its hind legs with no provocation.
The first time it happened, a stable boy remarked that Naruto had spooked the large animal. But the blonde knew better. The beast despised him and would stop at nothing to let the Uzumaki know.
It was with a panicked whinny muffled by its rigging that his ignoble steed decided to strike once more. It bucked forward first, something it had never done with Naruto in his saddle, causing the blonde to overcorrect his posture to stay balanced and be once again flung from his seat as the horse finally threw him back.
With a seamless mid-air turn, Naruto stuck the landing, foiling yet another assassination attempt by the dappled gray steed from hell.
He managed to land and keep walking at the nightmarishly sedate pace of those around himself, something much easier given the wide berth the others had already given the odd shinobi and his mutterings. All while his not-at-all murderous mount somehow perfectly calmed down and managed to regain its odd grace as if nothing had even happened.
"I would buy you just to sell you to a glue factory. I would buy a rendering plant so I could watch as they melt down your-" Naruto's oddly detailed threats to his gift horse were cut short as their caravan suddenly screeched to a stop, the front must have finally reached the city. He was currently behind the train of wagons and wheelhouses, so his physical view of their front was obscured, but from the whisperings being passed along those around him, it sounded like they had reached the gate.
He wanted to climb atop the one directly before him, but he had been expressly told not to do that either. Apparently, the occupants did not much care for it, and the owners of the massive horse-pulled wheelhouses hated it even more. But with his senses extended, he could feel their charge in motion and Jiraiya at the front, so he needed to stay toward the back unless called upon.
A few shouts rang out, out of discernable earshot for most, but Naruto could hear the faster hoof-beats and occasional yells of 'make way!'. A particularly loud shout is what finally got his attention fully off his equine nemesis. In only a few more moments the messenger had reached him. It was Oda, with his silver armband marking him as the second in command to the overprotective captain Kusunoki.
"Uzumaki, you are needed." Naruto could nearly kiss the man. Not waiting to hear the rest he took off towards the front. It took all of his self-control to not just propel himself to the front with a single leap, but instead, he maintained a healthy jog. Which even without chakra was still well faster than a normal horse's gallop, let alone their average pace of a light whispering breeze.
He took great care to slow himself before he was within sight of his master or anyone else near the front of their traveling party, but he couldn't contain the joy on his face as he came strolling from the wagons that made up the head of their long snaking column. Even at speed, he could weave through the human and animal obstacles easily, at this pace, it didn't even require thought.
What Naruto hadn't expected to see as he finally came into view of their destination. Was a fully manned garrison built into the large stone wall, next to a gate that was obviously meant to be just large enough for supply carts, it was a trader's gate.
A trader's gate with what looked to be, at least, another hundred samurai stationed on its fortifications. Naruto felt a lot of people within the garrison, but far too many too close together for a proper count, and there were even more within the city so close beyond the large gatehouse. Differentiating between it all was rapidly becoming more difficult.
It only took the slightest slip for the plummeting spiral to begin.
All the people and animals alone, so much life. It was all noise, a cacophony so loud that it threatened to split his head. Crashing against him more and more violently as it went on.
So he had to dial the radius back down, dial it down closer and closer to zero, bring it nearer, keep it real low and real close. Like a conductor with his symphony or a smith with a blade. Keep it nearby and listen for what's important. Listen for the individual instruments, find the tiny imperfections in your material. Then seize the moment.
'Step back. Feel for Jiraiya.'
Less a thought and more of a well-trained reflex. Like an involuntary flinch. But it was enough for him to gain some real traction. Even as Naruto tried to keep everything close to himself, the very existence of the outside when he withheld himself from it could often be more pressure than just realizing it. Or, at least he thought that made sense, in one of Jiraiya's annoyingly poignant philosophical ways.
Naruto just knew he needed to balance the two. Learning that had been, and still was, the only truly difficult part of his little connection. Balancing between perfect awareness, complete understanding, and his own inability to handle any of it. Because every primal and power-hungry part of him constantly screamed and tried to overwhelm him from the moment he opened the door, and that incessant yelling and wanting didn't stop until the lock clicked closed when he shut the door. It was almost commanding him to take control and hold on, to grab the reins and bridle this endless ocean of power.
Hear the hammer, not the clang. Naruto reminded himself with a breath, his power reasserting itself once more to maintain the odd balance. Chakra stretching out and grabbing on. And suddenly, as if only a singular moment in time had elapsed, everything was ok again.
His range was still wobbling, but it was slowly getting better as he finally calmed the internal storm of existence that threatened his fortitude.
Brief overstimulation and migraine aside, he could see the tall imposing figures of Jiraiya and the captain of the princess' guard amongst others Naruto cared about much less. They were being received by the samurai of Iron Country with open arms. Literally. Weapons drawn, arrows nocked.
"Good, now that the boy is here we can begin." Naruto recognized not the man, nor the gravitas of his voice, but the insignia upon his armor. It was of Iron country's royal house, with the man's personalized seal of office inlaid. Ore and blade, blood and stone.
So they were greeted by a hundred or so well-armed warriors trained nearly from birth to fight shinobi and samurai alike, alongside their rightly feared general, Mifune.
"You will of course also have to submit to a full search before we allow you in. Shinobi are known for their-" Surprisingly the man was cut off by a feminine voice Naruto did not recognize.
"They will undergo nothing of the sort. As part of my entourage and guard, they act as fire guardians. They will not be searched, or stripped of weapons while they are here with me." Naruto craned his neck up and then down, angling himself to see the origins of the strict voice. An incredibly short individual stood, more like nestled, between Jiraiya and the samurai captain, so short Naruto hadn't even noticed her beneath the hulking samurai in full armor.
Oh shit, it's the princess, he realized suddenly with a bone chilling fright.
In the jumbled mess from overextending his senses, he had lost her, and she must have moved to the front with Jiraiya. He had learned her signature but never actually seen her before. Jiraiya had misplaced the only photograph of her alongside most of the mission dossier almost immediately upon leaving the village.
"How long was I…" But he was interrupted before he could even finish the thought, let alone figure out how long he had internally struggled.
"Hime, I know they are your guard, but you must understand." The great warrior stood there, in his full formal battle armor, two swords hanging from his hip and a strung bow strapped to his horse behind him, as he searched for the words to make this girl a third his size understand what he wanted to say. Before realizing there was no possible way he would win this argument.
In the short moments it took the Fire Princess' slender finger to come up and point in his face, Mifune had already visibly resigned himself to a punishment he knew all too well from his close dealings with Iron Country's own royal family. A very public 'informal dressing down'.
Then Naruto watched for five more minutes as a veteran of more than a few wars and many, many battles, got his ass chewed out by a princess who had never seen combat, let alone witnessed death.
Soon the Uzumaki even began to find himself in the incredibly odd position of feeling bad for someone who was going to take away his weapons, a phenomenon Naruto did not enjoy in the slightest. Though he was also certainly coming to like the princess he hadn't known existed until a month ago.
Finally, the captain managed to calm his ward down, catching her with a few calming words in-between breaths. Mifune just seemed thankful for it to be over and got on with his proceedings far faster than he had originally intended. They would no longer be directly searched or screened, just like her samurai guards, though the old samurai made the shinobi's lack of any similar code of honor known to all who would listen. His ornate facial hair bobbing comically while he did so.
But the rules would all be the same ones Jiraiya had already told him, so he mostly tuned the man out. All forms of shinobi techniques were illegal, though what Mifune and Iron Country considered shinobi techniques seemed to differentiate from what Naruto, or most others for that matter, would consider shinobi techniques.
Forms they claim far predate the much more recent and modern 'shinobi arts'. Its use in hardening muscles and enhancing the body internally, for one, was completely legal and standard taught to the nation's own samurai.
Though they lacked much of a concept of things like chakra stores and chakra control. Naruto had surmised it was mostly just an odd form of simple minded meditation wherein they would imbue their muscles with their chakra through a basic form of diffusion. Not quite adhering to traditional chakra pathways, or focusing on specific muscles.
Another was their form of chakra smithing, something Naruto had researched quite extensively since he had become interested in the topic. Not that he ever ascertained much about the man who was widely considered to be the greatest living mind on Chakra Smithing or exactly how far in the process the man was.
Even with the added resources Orochimaru had begun putting at his disposal, he struggled to get his hands on anything insightful. Only able to get his hands on what they believed to be the man's poorer works, probably made in-part by initiates or others still being instructed. Their simplicity and significant age were the most likely reasons they were even allowed to be sold outside Iron's military, let alone leave the country where a squad of eager Sound ninjas could retrieve it.
Though that was all mostly conjecture on the part of Naruto and Orochimaru. Mixed in with spoonfuls of limited gathered intelligence.
All the blades were of very high craftsmanship to be sure. He assumed only the most promising smiths were ever taught the art. Yet they only displayed, at best, the earliest stages of chakra smithing, and had obvious signs of normal forging and hammerwork techniques. Things Naruto had figured out before he had even graduated.
Soon Naruto had all but tuned out Mifune explaining the rest of the rules, mostly just specifics and exceptions. He and Jiraiya were allowed to utilize shinobi techniques while in the princess' employ when necessary. Though 'necessary' seems to be an entirely subjective term in this instance. They also needed to pledge some oath about not harming something or other and act with honor at all times, which Naruto continued to entirely ignore.
The one thing the man made clear explicitly and repeatedly throughout was that their immunity ended the moment she was married, and officially under the protection of Iron Country. His haughty expression made it known that the man obviously believed it the superior option.
Nevertheless, the stern samurai soon stood aside and motioned for the gates to open. Finally, the sounds of weapons lowering and being sheathed filled the air, much of the tension leaving as swiftly and suddenly as it had arrived.
Their initial party could ride into the city while those not under the exception were searched and people were 'accounted for'. Politics beget politics, Naruto mused as he walked by all the poor unfortunate souls who would be stuck at the gate for hours, and the poor saps who were left behind to guard them.
It wouldn't surprise the blonde if it took even longer for them to get in because the princess made such a direct fuss about the issue. Iron already didn't like the inclusion of shinobi guardians accompanying her 'to the marriage bed' as they so eloquently phrased it, but they had given in anyway. Probably creating even more paperwork in the veritable tsunami of paperwork and legal agreements that came along with a political marriage of this importance.
The favored daughter of the Fire Daimyo, the second youngest out of eight, was to be married to the Daimyo of Iron Country's second son and heir. A big affair for many reasons. So a deluge of courtly politics, paperwork, and whispered messages, were to be expected.
Iron Country's royal family, like the rest of the country, stayed very neutral in the continent's politics. Mostly marrying with the other, lesser, nobility of their own country, or nobility of smaller nations without shinobi ties. Making a dynastic union of this scale pretty abnormal for the nation and its ruling family as a whole, let alone a marriage tying them to what was arguably the most powerful nation of the day and age.
Two-hundred and eighty or some odd years ago, actually, was the last time it had happened. The previous dynasty that had ruled Iron country had married his eldest son to a lightning princess. The alliance drew them into a decades-long war that resulted in their family's extinction, and ended with Iron's original capital city sacked and burned.
The current Daimyo's twice or maybe thrice great-grandfather had been the head of a loyal retainer clan that led a rebellion to dethrone the puppet Lightning Country had propped up. Partially based on the claim that his clan was supposedly a distant offshoot of the now extinct dynasty. So he was of more divine blood than some 'shogun conqueror' placed there by a foreign power.
Their study of history was one of the only parts of his mission preparations that hadn't bored Naruto to tears. Brief as those moments seemed to be.
A page gave the princess a hand to mount her horse, though the rest of their party seemed to be on foot. Her floral red and green Kimono soon made sense to the blonde as they transitioned from the bleak gray and sparsely wooded mountains to what appeared to be a lush and classically designed village, that just so happened to be a sprawling city home to hundreds of thousands.
Nestled between three mountains, high and safe, they had built a city of cities. Even the 'ugliest' outer ring in which they had entered was a serene landscape of smaller buildings interspersed with more natural environmental features, small ponds, orchards, and the like. Naruto struggled to keep his mouth closed.
The trees and foliage were abundant and perfectly matched her chosen outfit and jeweled accompaniments. Even as they pushed forward to more inner rings and a less foliage-based main street, filled with shops and carts that felt a bit more normal to the Uzumaki, her colors blended in with those of the people and even their architecture.
They passed through another gate, one of large stones and ornate masonwork creating cover for archers to fire down on those outside. The top of the gate also seemed to function as some sort of bridge, with throngs of people moving across it carrying everything from produce to children. Just going about their lives.
As the population very quickly grew much more dense and urban, the colors made themselves apparent in less natural ways. Potted plants were grown in the everpresent colors, their pots were painted to match, paper walls and even things like window shutters would be startling shades of orange and soothing deep forest greens. Nearly everyone he saw was dressed like her, although much less formally, their plain clothes were still those of the same autumnal hues of reds, greens, and oranges.
The outfit and demeanor most likely part of a well-choreographed effort, Naruto noted cynically in Orochimaru's voice. The visiting foreign princess wants to show how she'll assimilate and fit in. Even as she was doted on by a plethora of servants and separated by more than two dozen samurai surrounding her party, sworn to die for her.
Naruto fell in formation towards the back of their group, included within the loose ring of hulking armored men by duty, not by birthplace or right. He found himself watching, alert, as handmaids would go off in groups of twos or threes to any one of the many shops and stalls they passed into the beautiful wood and paper city. Returning with odd trinkets, jewelry, perfumes, candies, sometimes even with their arms full of various fabrics or dresses.
Naruto watched these supplicating attendants approach from his peripherals, his eyes seemingly unwilling to shift from the princess. Attendants would scamper up to the princess, eyes lowered, arms extended upwards with their offering, before she would nod her permission, and they were allowed to meet eyes and hold up the gift they had found for her.
Naruto moved to where their wall of samurai had parted wider than normal to let a gaggle of handmaids through, none of the young women even noticed him slap away the hands of a pickpocket who was overflowing with disdain and arrogance. The thief disappeared fearfully into the crowd and down a side street, not that Naruto would pursue something so petty, having already returned to his spot. Blue eyes never once leaving his charge.
Watching her smile in response to the supplicants, as she was a proper lady of course, before maybe shaking her head and politely declining the gift, or accepting it with a nod. But she always thanked them.
If she didn't like it, he would watch them disappear into the crowds with the gift in tow. Off to return it perhaps, or give it away, he rarely saw.
Most often though, when she liked something, another one of her attendants, the plain-clothed ones that were somehow always nearby, would take it and stash it in a saddlebag somewhere. Or they might disappear down the street the way they came with the item, most likely to return it to her belongings still outside the city.
It was an odd performance, almost like a ritual, and Naruto got to be an outside observer for once. But he just couldn't seem to decipher the code. Obviously it was some aspect of court life and royalty that Naruto couldn't comprehend. It was just such an odd thing for a boy who had grown up an orphan, poor and hungry and desperate.
Jiraiya's voice brought him gently out of his musings. A habit the man had. "If your attention is slipping this bad." He said, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder. Letting his statement hang. Tsunade's threats were rarely idle, and he rather liked his finger bones.
"Four pickpockets have placed hands on a few of her people, though sight of the samurai scared most of them off fast enough. And you've stopped to check out no less than eleven 'beauties' since we've passed through the gates." Jiraiya gave a mock laugh.
"Ha ha." He laughed nervously before clearing his throat. "You're not gonna tell Tsunade I did that around the princess, are you? Because I didn't."
"Except you totally did." Naruto pointed out flatly.
"Well that's my word, the word of her old teammate and the village's premiere spymaster, against yours." He retorted.
Naruto didn't even need to defend himself. They both knew who Tsunade would believe.
"You wouldn't lie about your favorite sensei. Would you?" Jiraiya said with feigned fear leaking into his words, shielding himself from a faux punch as if his old blonde teammate was currently here and within striking distance.
"Just proving a point. I promise." Naruto said amicably. "Besides," he added nonchalantly. "You being in the hospital makes it a lot harder to get any real training done."
Jiraiya nodded at his student's heartfelt and loving words, as he feigned brushing a tear from his eye, and followed his student's eyes to the odd ritual of people bringing the princess gifts. All while they still made their way up cobbled streets lined with shops. Waves of normal citizens were parted by a wall of armored samurai around the bulk of their party. Many of them were enamored with the same display Naruto was, though for different reasons.
They saw the beauty and majesty of royalty like the stories come to life. Naruto Uzumaki only saw the odd display of opulent wealth, and often waste. Maybe it was because he didn't grow up hearing those stories? Maybe it was due to his meager upbringing? Or maybe his life as a shinobi made him more cynical?
"Why did Mifune back down like that back there?" The student asked, leaning a shoulder into Jiraiya, yet never taking his eyes off their charge.
"Are you kidding? The Daimyo is old, she could be his superior sooner rather than later." Naruto cocked his head slightly, his eyes still steady on their target, he hadn't thought of it that way.
The blonde felt a group of her attendants approach with what looked like handfuls of something. They were hard to see in his peripherals.
It wasn't until the princess reached into one of their hands and plucked two out and began affixing them to her ears that Naruto realized they were pearl earrings. These young girls, barely older than him, were running around and giggling with fistfuls of pearls.
Fists full of pearls. Naruto nearly laughed out loud.
The princess then waved her hand oddly towards the commoners walking around them. An odd smile grew on his face as he then watched the handmaidens run into the crowd and begin divvying them out to people in twos or threes.
Eyes leaving his charges form for only a fraction of a second, he watched all the calloused hands gently take and then clutched the pearls like a gift from the heavens. Word spread ahead of them quite rapidly. They were soon greeted by the constant calls of love and well-wishes. As well as blessings for her marriage and future heirs.
She appeared even more radiant after that.
The Uzumaki's confusion grew as he watched others not from their party join the line of royal servants and courtiers offering the princess gifts. At first, it seemed like shopkeepers and stall owners, looking to offer her their choicest cuts, freshest fruits, and their finest wares. Currying favor with the future wife of their sovereign, or advertising their wares to potential customers watching.
Not that it wasn't a hassle for all of her royal guards, having strangers walk up so close to her. Naruto could even see Kusunoki angrily, yet at a reasonable volume, shift more of his men around and even pat a few people down himself. Not that he seemed happy about it.
Not long after though, everyday people joined as well. Offering up meager gifts, all of which were politely refused by the princess who would reach down to hold a hand or pat the head of a child being lifted to 'meet' her or even just catch a brief glimpse of her. Soon the press of people began to grow more dense, and Captain Kusunoki gave an order and his men began to close ranks, fewer people were being allowed through, dwindling back down to only her people.
"Do you think she understands?" He asked his master another question. Eyes never leaving, more came with gifts, and she tied a ribbon of almost see-through fabric into the braids of her brown hair.
"How odd this is? Yes. This is probably a bit much, even for her, but a scene is a scene." He said wistfully as if that counted as an answer.
"Is everything pageantry to them?" Naruto asked, annoyed.
"It's a political marriage meant to seal a military alliance. Is the pageantry the part that's really confusing you?" Naruto guessed Jiraiya sounded right, nodding along. But that had never stopped his mind from wandering. His vision still focused on the princess, opposing Jiraiya's own shifting gaze.
"Was our armed greeting pageantry then, or real?"
Jiraiya actually needed to think about that one for a moment. Before he eventually just shrugged it off. " I can't blame 'em, we were a rather late addition to the roster. They expected two of the Daimyo's Guardians, not me and the container that can now famously control metal."
Finally, Naruto's attention seemed to leave the princess, though his eyes never did. Was that why they had been so overprepared? A hundred men weren't needed to escort seventy-five friendly samurai, it was for the metal controlling Jinchurikki.
"Kami, I'm an idiot." Naruto almost wanted to smack himself. His master's poorly concealed chuckling was not helping the matter. Before adding, "Famously?"
Master chuckled at his apprentice once more. "Yes, yes you are. You're an idiot who's been staring too long." Jiraiya said, confusing his student, until Naruto realized what he meant.
The princess was now looking straight back at him. "Great!" he thought to himself, now he had probably offended a princess. He wanted to avert his eyes, but she had already motioned for him to approach anyway, the exact same way she would one of her attendants bearing gifts.
Not that he had anything to give her.
Not knowing what to do, but thinking it would somehow be worse to stop now he just approached the person born at the polar opposite of the spectrum from himself. She gave him the same practiced yet reassuring smile she had all the others, this was when he was supposed to step up and show deference. Instead, he awkwardly stepped past asking permission by waiting and averting his gaze, approaching her side immediately.
Yet as soon as he approached all of the etiquette training Orochimaru had drilled into his thick skull abandoned him. He was left with the correct angle to bow at and for whom, and something about starting with the smaller fork.
"Do you need something? My lady?" The second question seemed to be more for himself as he guessed at what to say to her, up on her well-behaved horse, this giant of a woman who was half his size.
A stern look developed on her features. "You should address me as Himari-Sama, Hime, or kami." It was said with all the presence and power with which she had berated Iron Country's head samurai in front of his own men.
Naruto was visibly startled, both by the expression and by the correction, but soon noticed a smile perk up, starting at the corner of her lips. Soon she even laughed at his confused plight.
She had a melodic giggle, covering her mouth as she did so. The same laugh he had seen her give a thousand successful servants who had found chocolates or jewelry she might like. Only this time he could hear it like it was real. Even after she played a joke at his expense, he couldn't control his teenage hormones, and his face flushed.
Finally, he averted his eyes from her own, looking towards the cobbled streets they slowly traveled over. Not meeting her eyes again until she spoke, a good tactic for royalty, he had begrudgingly learned.
"I am sorry, Naruto-kun, I find it hard not to push buttons." Her eyes searched for his, though he struggled to look back. "You may address me as Himari." She spoke softly as if they were the only two within earshot, old friends meeting up again, and not surrounded by nosy attendants and grizzled samurai who watched him as much as they did the crowds around them.
He looked back up, but still had no idea what to say. "Uh, thank you. Himari." He stumbled with the awkward formality still coating him, instilled through fear tactics by his sensei. Only he had forgotten all of the formalities, and only the fear remained.
She stayed quiet as she studied him, walking along beside her mount. It lasted for a few more moments than Naruto was apparently comfortable with because his hand came up to tousle the hair on the back of his head. "You know my name." More of a statement than a question, but one doesn't often come up with great ideas while drowning.
"I make it a point to know the names of anyone in my employ. Though I did know of you before." Naruto raised an eyebrow, it was odd speaking to someone through a facade you both knew was there, the blonde only found it more odd that she almost seemed to enjoy it. Or at least she enjoyed using it for some lighthearted amusement.
Obviously she enjoyed using her mask of nobility to play pranks. Whereas Naruto's often felt more like a muzzle.
Because he was certain she was playing some sort of joke on him, that or Jiraiya had put her up to this. Or, was it even slightly possible that the princess of Fire Country actually knew who he was?
"Really? You hear about stuff like this in court?" She nodded and if the Chunin wasn't smiling before, he certainly was now.
"I heard about it from my father actually. He quite likes you after the Chunin exams and your diplomatic meeting in Suna." Naruto visibly cringed at the mention of Suna, or more specifically, what he had said to the future Wind Daimyo causing the boy to flee Sunagakure earlier than expected. Before he realized what she had said.
"He… liked it?" She giggled again and he found himself surprised even by his own words.
"Oh yes, very much. He still tells the story often, he even framed the letter from Naito-Sama requesting that you be reprimanded." Naruto managed to look a little surprised.
"Honestly I didn't think he would tell anyone, let alone his dad. Not deigning to stoop to my dirty low-born level." Naruto had to stop himself, he was already getting too casual as it was. Focus.
He breathed in. The hand he had placed on her well-trained mare was removed, his back straightened ever so slightly, and life seemed to internally flow through him again as he opened the door back up. Much more limited than previously, but he still stretched out his odd senses.
Even at close range, he could already easily feel hundreds of different individuals. It took immense effort to dull himself even slightly so that the very existence of every ant, flower, and beetle within the city wasn't beating themselves bloody against his skull. Like a hammer against steel.
The hammer kept clanging out its deafening ring as he brought the sensation in tighter and tighter, with only a hundred or so humans nearby. Less loud, yet still so brutally intense. Naruto felt as if his very core shook under the power of each hammer blow, threatening to snap him like he had so many brittle spines. He didn't need the small things either, toss those out as well. Each ring grew less painful as they became less percussive.
With invisible stretching or pulsing, he could get a better feel for his set range. More clanging and striking, steel ringing loud and true. Where everything was exactly in relation to him, elevation, distance, intention, but that was static. Clunk clunk, the worn wooden handle slipped in sweaty calloused palms missing its strikes. Hear the hammer. Grab it.
He flexed and life pulsed around him, bouncing back clearer and clearer every time. A little bit tighter, a little bit closer, and Naruto was back atop himself. Back atop this new environment. New people, new traditions, and new ideals. More complexities, like the fractals of a spider's web, but only if it grew infinitely smaller and finer the closer it was inspected. It was all more noise that needed to be blocked out.
He finally exhaled. The noise now properly filtered. Himari noticed his distancing, though she had not the ability to discern his other shifting and heightening senses.
Her smile lessened, imperceptibly so to the naked eye. But Naruto, with his senses drawn so much tighter and more potent, knew immediately. He felt her almost doubt herself for a moment, a trained reaction from a life lived in politics most likely.
Still, she maintained her outward appearance without missing a beat. "Of course, he went to his father. As Naito's only natural-born son, and his heir. He's been babied his whole life, running to his father is all he knows."
Naruto shrugged, not disagreeing with her or her added insight. "Whereas you would have handily beaten me in a duel?" He asked dryly. Splitting his attention between feeling almost everything for a hundred or so meters, and conversing with his charge.
Another laugh. But he knew she didn't quite mean that one as much, it was screaming off of her now, like a trumpeter heralding her royal arrival. "No, I would have never challenged you so openly." She paused to look around, before turning back to him and saying. "Rather. I would have a man slit your throat while you slept."
She spoke it with such a serious gaze that he almost believed her.
But he didn't, and they both laughed instead.
Finally, it was as if the trance was broken and he could speak to her in their odd manner. Both through a mask of duty. Twin pillars of the only society they've ever known.
This continued for the half-hour it took their group to reach the rather beautiful home tucked within the outside wall of the Daimyo's palatial complex. Still not within the true Palace, but certainly not mixing with the common rabble they had passed getting in here. A city of tiered rings built around the Daimyo's palace and treasury, they were just outside in the second innermost ring.
Well, Naruto called it a home, but he overheard a samurai call it a manor. Either way, he thought it was fucking huge.
Two rooms for hosting dinner guests, four parlors, too many rooms for Naruto to care for let alone count, spacious private grounds including a large walkable garden, and all of it was just a very very small percentage of the inner two rings, which are all technically within the walls of the Daimyo's palace. Which was really its own miniature city, located at the highest point atop the tallest peak within the actual city.
They arrived in a courtyard of cobbled stones and a covered grass pavilion. Opening into a much larger 'garden' of grass that bordered the wooden walls demarcating their property.
It was in this moment of awe as he fully took in their lodgings that Naruto felt the niggling at his senses. Not that he could understand any of it yet. If the disorientation he felt earlier was just a little noise, then this was a deafeningly short tune. So potent and abrupt his mind was unable to even properly register it.
Yet even unaware of the message, the feelings still gripped him tightly.
Horsemen, heralded by the off-rhythm beat of their many mounts hooves against stone streets, quiet as phantoms.
Death was mounting their walls. He felt four of the specter's icy forms sluggishly scramble their way up the only twenty-foot wall that demarcated what was now their Princess' property from the rest of the manors, homes, and buildings that made up the outer palace. Even more lined up outside, many more, waiting with muscles taut like bowstrings.
Silence, as startling as it was sudden and poised. Contrasting against the once noise of high born travelers without their protective walls.
As if he was the wall, Naruto felt their determined calloused grips settle against the weathered wood of the mostly decorative property marker, holding steady below eyesight where the seams met upon the top. He could feel the cold indifference of the loose cloth masks drawn over their faces, and the steel at their sides. Chokutos, a little old, yet tried and true.
Intertwined so intently with death, directed only at the young princess, that they were briefly difficult to differentiate. They were lighthouses to the young ninja's still fledgling, and easily overwhelmed, new senses. A thousand beams of light where only one would suffice, blinding the Uzumaki like so many desperate ships and sailors before dashing their hopes against the rocky shores. Forcing them into death's cold embrace earlier than once planned.
A moment of finality washed over the blonde. Where his mind was still uncomprehending, but his body had begun to feel the panic.
Himari had only just begun dismounting with the help of Naruto and Captain Kusunoki, softly yet authoritatively directing servants and other various members of her staff around even as they helped her down.
She had just directed two much older women to begin the welcoming preparations for the Daimyo and his guests, what clothes she would need, the arrangements of their new gardens, even which scents should be periodically sprayed throughout their manner. Naruto thought the Lady might even tell them what the weather should be like for each dinner course when he was first able to properly contextualize the information that had so haphazardly flooded his senses.
Immediately he tightened the hand he had proffered to steady her and instead pulled her quickly down onto the ground, yelling for others to take cover. Hoping that at least Jiraiya would be able to understand and react.
With the same motion that Naruto pushed himself away and towards the wall, he grabbed Kusunoki's well-armored forearm and pulled the man off-balance and down to cover Himari's lithe form completely. Turning the veteran warrior into a crude but rather effective, if not confused, human shield. Protecting their shared charge from the small volley of arrows that had just crested the wall.
Not that Naruto would be around to hear the captain's complaints. Dashing off before the veteran even knew he was falling. Loosing his still-sheathed Jinshaku from his waist as he rapidly closed the distance between himself and the first group of men dropping over the wall.
He knocked others out of the path as he ran by as best he could, those close enough at least, noticing Jiraiya behind him beginning to move as well. The Uzumaki just hoped his master could save more of those still under the threat of the hail of missiles. But he knew that letting these mystery attackers get to their feet and establish a foothold would be far worse.
The first four men had reached the ground, landing in awkward rolls, a second wave of four had nearly climbed over as well, all before the first volley of arrows had even landed on the princess or her retinue.
Whoever these infiltrators were, they were extremely well-coordinated and disciplined. To have such tight timing while completely silent, they would need extensive practice with one another. Naruto had to squash the quieter more analytical voice in his head, there would be time for that sort of problem solving later.
The blonde was on the first four as they recovered from their stumbled landings and readied their blades, his own steel flashing out from its scabbard the moment he was within reach. Starting in the middle of their group, careful to keep them mentally and physically between himself and the wall, he set himself to work.
Low to high from right to left he cleaved straight through the first man's weapon and body. The snap of the movement was so brutal Naruto swear he felt his hips snap as they twisted with the lightning fast movement.
Normal steel stood no chance, not even shattering, cutting clean in two and landing with a muffled ring. The first man's dark brown eyes hadn't even registered the Chunin's strike, only his own failure to prevent it, as they faded from their once alert intensity to a dull brown.
Without even a pivot Naruto struck out at the next man. His own weapon skipped along the attacker's shorter raised blade, like wind, to make perfect contact with his throat. The thud of the second body dropping is nearly indistinguishable from the first.
With a roar one of the remaining attackers, freshly drenched in the blood of his accomplices, stepped into the Uzumaki's guard and lashed out with a powerful overhead blow. Judging by the awkward form and stance, it was obviously meant to be delivered with a heavier weapon. While the second man to his right tried to step into his blindspot, most likely intent on a quick stab.
The plain black leather and wood scabbard he had been given to cover his weapon within the city whipped out from his free hand to meet the roaring man's face. More specifically, it met his open roaring mouth, effectively gagging him. More than enough pause for Naruto to 'blindly' strike backwards and impale the sneakier man, before swinging back around and swiping straight through the man's unguarded gut.
The second four landed with the sound of their compatriot's innards, the whole exchange had been so fast that the second wave didn't know the first was dead until they hit the ground. Yet Naruto could still feel more black-clad men mounting and cresting over the wall as a second rain of arrows soon followed with this third wave. He did not pause for very long after killing the fourth man, perhaps only a hundredth of a second. That was still more than enough time to come to the brutal conclusion required of his mission.
Fewer people in front of him needed to draw breath.
Their very existence at this moment was an affront to the highest lord in the Land of Fire. The first volley of arrows was already a crime worthy of summary execution. A fact that had been explicitly drilled into his head when training for the assignment.
So he struck out again and again, striking while new waves were landing, while they tripped each other up in their landings, as they drew their weapons, even when those who managed to survive grouped together and began to strike back. 'Honor' amongst warriors of any kind was nowhere to be found. At some point, he caught a glimpse of white hair sailing over the wall, but the Uzumaki's song of steel never ceased ringing throughout the courtyard.
Feeble though their counterattacks may have been, Naruto gave them no respite. Every attack he needed to dodge or parry was immediately met with deadly strikes they had no hopes of escaping. Every free movement he had was spent disarming and disemboweling his opponents. Honor and humanity were crushed under the steel resolve of duty.
He cleaved straight through weapons like they were unfired clay, always following through into the wielder. Most of them had learned to stop blocking, moving to dodging and parrying, but it didn't provide them much help.
He allowed them no rhythm and kept no one single strategy. From dodging and redirecting blows to swift and brutal repartees ending with the disconnected feeling of their death. Of their absence from Naruto's senses. Speed and strength were once again his guide, albeit under the guise of intensely practiced fluidity and grace.
Yet the thuds and grunts of men, as thick wooden sandals hit the earth, kept coming, audible even through Naruto's own thundering song of steel on steel. Though the remaining assailants had abandoned their four man wave groups as they began clambering wildly over broader sections of wall, falling towards the earth at much faster intervals.
He could feel their fear and panic push into himself as he instinctively repelled it from his psyche and forced it back into theirs as the attackers nearly flung themselves over the apex of the wall and towards the earth below. True panic having taken hold of them.
The feelings all briefly threatened to overwhelm him. Shocking like a mouth full of blood. But he crushed them like cheap steel in his grip, swallowed, and only refocused himself. His clanging rhythm of battle never once ceasing throughout, his turmoil never showing.
Steadily though, the invading thuds were being drowned out by the thuds of bodies and limbs and bloody chokuto clattering to the soft grass under the shadow of the wall.
Naruto strained lightly to roll and redirect the weight of a man who had climbed the wall and jumped down straight toward his head. Tucking his sword tip back between his arm and body so as to impale the falling man in the same motion as he pushed the bloody soon-to-be corpse towards the last two men still standing.
The taller of the two men tried to catch their thrown compatriot, perhaps to help him, maybe it was just to push him out of the way. No one would ever know. With one well practiced lunge Naruto impaled his blade through the falling man's back and into the taller one. Stopping the falling man's screams dead, and causing the tall one to gasp in shock as the air was driven out of his lungs.
The curve of his katana made the impalement an oddjob, but it didn't matter. He released his tight grip with the handle of the blade and continued his momentum forward through both men. Their deaths were already assured, but one more remained, and Naruto had questions.
The man lashed out quickly with well practiced strikes of his Chokuto, but they sailed by the much faster Uzumaki. A hand lashed out from the blonde and grabbed the man's wrist, preventing the shorter blade from impaling his abdomen. A light squeeze from his calloused blacksmith's grip sent it clattering to the ground and eventually elicited a yelp from the surviving assailant.
Naruto didn't stop there. Twisting and pulling he easily overpowered this full-grown adult and brought him to his knees. But the assailant had one last trick up his sleeve, or in this instance, dagger in his waistband. With his free hand he tried to drive the long slender blade up under the blonde's chin, but Naruto only had to slap it out of his hand to send that one skittering away as well.
Another quick jerk and he had the much older man face down on the ground and was binding his hands behind his back with ninja wire.
He left the man face down against the stone like that, semi-conscious, as he noticed Jiraiya enter the compound over the wall. Dropping and landing similar to how the attacking men had before, only landing far quieter and more gracefully. "Oho, I see you had a little energy to work out."
Naruto almost visibly balked at his master's unnecessary antics. His nonchalance looked very out of place for their current environment. That being samurai shouting and hustling about dealing with the aftermath of an assassination attempt on their princess. He had mostly tuned them out during the fight but now that it was over he could hear their loud shouting of orders and information and general scurrying about. Alongside the noise of the city's garrison arriving, it was turning into a very overstimulating event for his still hyper-charged senses.
The captain in particular was loud, as loud as he had been during the attack while rallying his ambushed men to mount a defense as well as calming the civilians.
Naruto was just thankful the man realized that the smartest thing to do was let himself and Jiraiya handle the problem. Positioning most of his men in a semi-circle behind the blonde to corral the invaders back against the wall. Acting like the lid on a nightmarishly bloody, one-hundred-percent Uzumaki steel, kitchen blender.
"How many were outside?" Naruto asked his sensei.
"Well about half of them practically ran straight up the wall to get away from me, not that this side turned out any better for them." He said in his oddly gruesome manner as he surveyed the aftermath, the same one he often used in true moments of professionalism. "About a dozen bodies on that side of the wall. Kusunoki's men have already started moving them from the streets."
Naruto nodded, but it still wasn't quite adding up. "Over thirty men then. All of them adept swordsmen."
Jiraiya snorted at the descriptor. Naruto rolled his eyes at the derisive noise.
"Either someone with some very deep pockets wants her dead, or someone with a lot of men at their disposal and no common sense," Naruto said as Jiraiya studied the Samurai moving the bodies.
"Care to enlighten me then?" The man asked as if he hadn't reached a similar conclusion already. Probably before Naruto. But with the danger over, he had already reverted to his more jovial role as sensei.
"Well, there's a few things to consider. For one, they were rather well organized and knew enough to plan very effectively. Knew about where Himari-Hime would dismount, and the archers could accurately hit the area on the first attempt." He pointed to where Himari's once very well behaved steed now lay dead in the courtyard, one side of its body peppered with arrows from the waves that had been fired.
The spot where he pulled the samurai captain over their princess was actually the only part of the rather large radius of arrow fire that wasn't covered in the failed missiles. As Jiraiya had thankfully managed to move the others out of the way while Naruto had charged forward.
Naruto paused for a moment, only to hear Kusunoki give a particularly booming shout over the now more settled din of people working. His voice rang out clear. "Shinobi!"
The man was walking back through the ornate red painted wooden gates of the estate, the noticeably dulled glint of the sun hitting a headband held high in his hand. "I should have known they were shinobi." It was almost more growl than speech, but Naruto heard him perfectly fine.
"They weren't shinobi. Shinobi aren't anything like this." The blonde rebuffed, but the older man only scoffed at the boy.
"Of course they were shinobi. No samurai would stoop so low as to kill a young lady like this." He gestured to the pile of bodies and arrows. "Their coordination and precision smells of significant training, and their methods and goal reek of shinobi."
Almost as tall as Jiraiya, and even larger when armor was accounted for, Naruto nearly had to hop to swipe the headband from the captain's hands. Yet he almost immediately regretted it, staring at the dark cloth and tinted metal sound village hiteate in his hand.
"Shit." Was all he could muster.
Jiraiya looked confused before looking over his apprentice's shoulder to see the hiteate. The symbol for the sound village, with what looked like a very deep gouge ground through above the right eye.
Both master and apprentice's faces darkened as Naruto flipped it over to inspect the back.
The cloth surrounding the plate was crusted over and still somewhat damp with blood, more noticeable once it was unfolded. Engraved on the backside of the metal plate was a poor rendition of the Uzumaki crest with a big X carved through it.
The additional engravings almost obscured it but Naruto could just barely make out the serial number finely pressed underneath. 0912-001. That was the division number and unit ID of a captain from one of the teams Orochimaru had given him limited command of.
0912, 0912, Naruto repeated to himself internally as he thought back to their plans. "They should be in Wave." He had figured a friendly port would be a good place to start making connections for material suppliers. But the blood was still so fresh, a day old at best, if not much less. He didn't fool himself though, he knew the man was dead for certain.
Though Naruto did not know his name, he knew he was dead.
The depth and intensity of the gouge in the front of the plate made the power and direction of the strike quite clear, and it was most definitely a killing stroke. Samehada? He questioned internally. He didn't have anything to compare it against, but he had been struck by the weapon enough to have a general feel for it. And a certain fear for it as well. It was hard to forget, the feeling as the legendary weapon shaved away at his body with each blow.
Jiraiya gave him an odd look when Naruto rubbed a finger over the serial number. "Someone you knew?" Though he found himself more confused by the need to ask the question, than he was looking for an answer.
"Not his name. But I sent him to his death all the same." The confusion spread, infecting the captain now, as those gathered all but scratched their heads in his somber silence.
Kusunoki looked awkward, perhaps for the first time in his life while in armor, before he eventually broke the long pregnant pause. "Putting subordinates at risk is always a tightrope walk for any commander. Especially for one so young."
Naruto only brushed his words aside, not waiting to hear the wisdom. "It was for fucking copper." Saying it so dispassionately that the older man was taken aback. "And tin, and iron. A good source of raw materials. But they didn't die for that. They died for me."
Kusunoki very much looked as if he was going to rebuke the younger man's statement, to comfort him, but a rather stern look from Jiraiya told the man this was way above his pay grade.
Jiraiya laid a hand on his shoulder, a tight grip to keep the blonde from removing it. At least not without maiming him. "Naruto none of this is your fault. You could not control your circumstances any more than you can control some rogue shinobi."
Soon though the blonde recovered, both his face and his attention.
"I still don't think they were shinobi. And I know that these are not their hiteates." Naruto gestured to the five additional sound headbands the Captain had been handed by one of his men.
"The sound village is under Konoha's chain-of-command, this isn't proof they were chakra wielders. They didn't wear these, they had them." Jiraiya nodded his agreement, taking a headband to silently inspect. "It's a message. And those men were not ninja." Kusunoki's men dropped the final body in a pile two or three high, layered with dark cloth soaking in fresh blood.
Just as they had finished their gruesome task, the gates swung open with a heavy iron creak. Allowing a covered wagon to pass within, its cloth top just low enough to clear the ornate metalwork just above the gate.
"Clever." The blonde thought to himself, absentmindedly. As Jiraiya seemed to take over the conversation with the troublesome captain.
"A covered wagon can be piled high, and still no one in their pretty little city will need to see the corpses." He was almost surprised at the thought, even as the odd exhaustion settled over him. His posture still alert, only perhaps a little less eager. That didn't stop him from thinking about it. "You never can escape the stench though, can you?"
Eight large men got off the backs of the wagon, these men were not armored, nor were they dressed in the fine silks of rich or courtly men. They were dressed in the traditional simple black shirts and pants of their caste, marking them as coming from Iron's class of untouchables. This was probably the best job they could hope for. He had read somewhere that most worked in the mines.
"Blind assurances aside. What makes you so certain? Just because they did not wear the traditional garb means they certainly aren't ninja? As if you've never taken yours off for a cheap disguise." Jiraiya nudged his student to get his attention back, gesturing for help in convincing the stubborn warrior.
"It's a shinobi illusion alright, and you idiots are tripping over yourselves to jump in." The smith looked over and pointed at one of the uncovered dead bodies. "Look at them. Their sandals, their builds, how they dressed, their weapons, plan of attack, they didn't do a single thing like a ninja."
"I've seen plenty of shinobi that looked just like them, hell I've seen shinobi look much bigger than that." The captain pointed out correctly.
"True, but have you ever seen thirty of them that all have the exact same build resulting from intensely similar training? Shinobi strength often comes from our incredible diversity, which rarely results in uniformity like this, especially across people of such varying size and shape." Naruto gestured to the others, who even despite some stark differences in height and weight, all did look very similar in build.
"Your own Hyuuga clan, if I recall, all tend to look alike, or your own Anbu corps even." Kusunoki replied quickly.
"Exceptions that prove the rule. The Hyuuga all look alike because they are related and share an intensely similar training. Nearly since they can walk they are taught the gentle fist, and only the gentle fist. Resulting in their striking uniformity. While the Anbu's uniformity is just another shinobi trick, the same as this one." He looked at the corpses again and sought to briefly amend his statement. "Although rather different in their technique and execution."
The veteran samurai was visibly being won over by the Uzumaki's evidence, but it didn't seem to be enough. Or perhaps he just didn't want to believe another shinobi at all. Not that Naruto was finished.
He was studying the battleground he had left behind. More stains than real damage, a few chips in the stonework. Save for a few spots against the wall where some of the men had tried to retreat in their fear and panic. Where their foot spikes had torn at the wall before Naruto cut them down.
So he walked over to one of the bodies and uncovered it, nudging the feet with his own to move them around. "And I've never seen a shinobi need these to climb a wall. These things are practically older than chakra."
Kusunoki looked very confused at that. "You do not?" He asked simply. "But I've seen you lot climb straight up walls with only your feet."
"We use chakra to stick to walls. No one would use something like this. Way too clunky for one. And likely to slow your footing down enough to become minced meat against any opponent who didn't get the terrible shoes memo." Naruto kicked the odd bracketed metal climbing spikes a final time. These were the reasons his opponents had all been so heavy footed and awkward in their landings.
The veteran samurai looked incredulous. "Really? I mean, we even use them from time to time." He said as he gestured to himself and some of his more senior men gathered around. Naruto and Jiraiya only mirrored his confusion, causing him to explain further. "What? I'm a soldier, and sometimes soldiers need to climb things. And they are standard for any true Iron samurai."
He clearly didn't enjoy defending his profession to two people he saw as little better than contract killers.
But Naruto looked around and Kusunoki's words were proven correct. When he saw the garrison of Iron samurai intermingling with the Fire samurai, Naruto could see the odd attachments over their grieves. In their current flipped up position, they seemed to mostly lock into place over the foot, almost giving the appearance of horned feet.
Naruto then saw a set of men quickly kick their feet out and the 'horns' swung over their toes and clicked into place below the feet. In one smooth motion, as if chakra walking, the men walked up the wall and began inspecting it from atop. Seemingly very interested in the eaves the attackers had used to hold themselves in preparation.
"They were samurai." The Uzumaki most likely said his realization all too loud. Judging from Kusunoki's shocked face, and the muffled noises of their prisoner beginning to struggle against his restraints and gag only a few feet away. The beaten man didn't seem to like their line of thinking. As if his struggling would amount to an obstacle for them, or would drown the blondes' words out wholesale.
"These cutthroats?" Kusunoki said brusquely. "Men like this are not samurai. Especially not here." He said in a broad gesture of their location in what amounts to the capital of samurai culture and power. A place full of idyllic storybook honor, at least in his opinion. So he continued.
"If they are not shinobi. Then they must be hired brigands and bandits. Lost men who would do anything for a few coins." Even as he made his arguments the aged samurai knew they were futile.
What sort of broken or lost men could organize something like this with such quiet efficiency and accuracy. He glanced again at where the arrows had peppered his prone body earlier. Where he had curled himself around his charge as a desperate human shield, a girl he had known since birth, and sworn to protect to his death. Praying to Kami and anyone else listening that his armor held, and if it didn't that his body would be enough to keep her safe, praying at all costs that nothing slipped through to her.
A hand came up to brashly brush away the tear before they could form at the thought. Kusunoki's hand hadn't even left his stubbled cheek before his face had hardened once more.
"I take it that shinobi are not commonly adept with bows, neh?" He asked rhetorically, tone subdued. Jiraiya and Naruto both shook their heads. Far from unheard of, but it wasn't anywhere near a ubiquitous skill like it was to samurai.
Hands rubbed away at his eyes, weary with sudden stress. They all knew what this most likely meant. And if proven correct, it meant they were surrounded by possible enemies on all sides.
A horn sounded. Interrupting their darkening conversation. It blew four times, each note higher and longer than the last. As soon as the blasts settled the gates swung open once again. Allowing another column of formally armored samurai decorated with bands of metal gold around their helms and a purple seal of Iron's Daimyo upon their ornately armored breast.
Unlike the other samurai Naruto had encountered up until now, these were in their full regalia. Traditional kabuto helmets all adorned with detailed menpō masks depicting various ghoulish figures. Even their horses were trimmed in red silken tassels and golden trims.
The first two rode matching stark white mounts, carrying what Naruto could only assume was the battle standard of their regiment on two long wooden poles, a winged serpent coiled around what was probably supposed to be the base of their great mountain. He couldn't even begin to guess at what it was supposed to represent.
Behind them, the line of mounted men rode two-by-two moving through the gates at impressive speeds to keep under control. In the middle of their column was a palanquin, carried by two massive men robed in all-white kimonos. It was impressive, even for a shinobi, watching them carry the massive wooden box in such formal wear without the slightest falter.
The herald who had trumpeted their arrival followed on a much smaller horse, directly between the palanquin and the rest of the column trailing behind them. "Attention!" The man began, tucking his golden instrument between an arm. "His grace, the crown prince of The Land of Iron, Hiko Koseki."
Naruto heard the clattering as dozens of armored men kneeled in near unison. Leaving only Jiraiya and himself standing in the courtyard as a young man parted the shades of his palanquin and stepped out.
The blonde almost felt let down by the boy he saw appear. The wind prince had been rather handsome, in a very pretty way, with high cheekbones and well manicured extremities. But whoever exited that royal procession just looked like a lanky teenager in very fine silks.
Naruto could make out the tell-tale sign of muscle and steady poise born from kenjutsu training, while not the intense results of a true soldier they did display a level of genuine dedication. His dark hair was pulled into a bun, though it was tied with a plain knot, unlike the fanciful fabrics and golden threads Naruto had witnessed adorning the hair of local nobility.
The only sure signs that this was the crown prince was the deference everyone seemed to devoutly pay him, and the two retainers trailing after him. One carrying two blades for his lord's use, and the other with two blades slung across his hip for his lord's protection.
He looked at the Uzumaki for a brief moment, eyes half-mired in confusion and apprehension. But it disappeared as soon as Naruto picked up on it. Replaced with the confidence he had originally expected of someone in that station.
"Where is Himari-Hime?" He asked and a dozen heads rose at once. But before any could call out, the woman currently in mention stepped out from onto a balcony.
The young prince brushed right past the blonde as if he didn't exist at all, rushing towards his betrothed. Naruto couldn't decide if it was all an act, or if it was simply a part of the show, playing it up for onlookers and the rumor mill. Either way, he figured it couldn't get any worse than this.
Well god damn. Sorry about that, again. This was supposed to be a really short chapter that would allow some time to pass and Naruto to progress so that Uzushiogakure could happen, and now I'm having to split it into two parts because it just kept going further every time I tried to sit down and end it.
I've been taking so long to finish it that I figured I should just cut it somewhere so you know I'm not dead while I actually polish off the second half. Hopefully I won't go too far again, but who knows? This part isn't even perfectly edited but I felt like I just needed to put it out and force myself to pick a god damned path.
Also I've been playing around a lot still with how I'm framing the story and shifting POV, so I know it's not exactly a perfectly cohesive vision. I also wanted to maybe know how you all felt on re-writes. Is it preferable if I just finish the whole thing and then go back and patch it all up so it doesn't sound like drunken ramblings? Is it better if I just finish it and mostly leave it as is and just re-write a second one so it's slightly difference and more cohesive and you guys have both versions? I'm all for media preservation, but I really doubt any of you people care that much.
As always, thoughts appreciated. Thanks for your time. And I'm sorry you waited so long for a guy to still not give you the rambling story he said he would.
Quick update two days later because I never replaced the prince's name, oops.