Naruto looked at the great big walls of the hidden leaf village and was oddly disappointed at how small they now looked when compared to when he was younger. Sure they were unscalable having been built by chakra absorbing rock, but they just weren't as impressive as they once were.

"Yo Kotetsu and friend, how are you guys doing? Successfully warding off those S rank threats with your imposing presence still ?" he said lightly, not trying to hide the mocking from his tone at all.

"You're a prick Naruto" Kotetsu's friend spoke, indignation saturating his tone. The man looked to his friend for support.

"Yeah naruto, ever since you became a ginger your attitude has become real lackluster" Kotetsu drawled.

"You guys are just jealous because I, one of the reserve genin, became a jonin sooner than either of you two could." Naruto paused at the gate, peering ahead toward the rest of the village. "And shouldn't you guys be referring to me as sir, given my higher rank and all ?"

"Well in that case, may I see your papers sir." Kotetsu sang sweetly.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me man, you can see that its me" naruto said indignantly, waving his arms up in frustration. "Both of you have been calling me by my name this entire time!"

"Well you can never be too sure you know, you could be some master of henge and be completely duping us and the gate seals." he said, a wry smile never leaving his smug looking butt ugly face.

Naruto began fishing through the pockets of his coat, frustratingly only finding his papers in the very last pocket. As he handed the papers to Kotetsu he heard a small pling as something hit the ground below the gate guards.

"It looks like you dropped something there man, and i'm not going to pick it up for you" he rubbed gently at his chin in a poor impression of a thoughtful expression. "You're going to have to come around here and search the ground yourself."

Kotetsu's friend. ' Mayhaps lover?' Handed him his papers back.

"I'll be right, i'm sure it's just a rock or something that i picked up on my journey, no use at all fretting over" naruto waved his hands at the men dismissively. "See you around chumps."

Walking away from the duo without another word, Naruto quickly made his way into the main street of the village. Looking around at the crowds of civilians bustling about something felt different about them, there was an odd air of worry and concern obviously, but there was something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He'd just put that away for later, no sense worrying about it now, he was here to relax.

With that thought Naruto made a quick seal and heard a joyous chorus of shouting back at the main gate. Looking back he saw his handiwork in all of its glory. Kotetsu and companion, as well as some of the other guards, innocent to his gripe as they were, were covered almost completely in green and blue paint. Ah sweet sweet relaxation.

"Tell me Naruto, how exactly is the frontline at the moment? from your personal perspective."


"Not great sensei. honestly, most of what the ancillary lines have been dealing with is just insurgency on a level that most leaf ninja aren't really that capable of dealing with" Naruto looked over the desk seeing a small scrying orb nestled at its edge. "The mist village trains there rank and file ninja in subterfuge to a degree that we only really expect of our anbu."

The old man rubbed at his shoulder, kneading it firmly a while before responding.

"Do you believe that the fronts need to be more heavily manned yet?"

"More competently I would say, the chunin and genin there have been next to useless really, other than tending to the injured."

Naruto eyed the room briefly, god the place was dingy and damp. Why was it that they always had to have their meetings in such dinky little shitholes of late? Sure he could understand the overall need to have them in out of the way quiet areas so no important information could slip through to unwanted ears, but they could do that in a fucking hotel room if they wanted, not out of the way abandoned apartments underground inside of alleyways.

"If we had more anbu, and 'anbu adjacent' men there, we could be away with the need for obvious campsites, forgoing any of the easy slippage we have been experiencing." Naruto said, exasperation evident in his tone, though his face remained impassive.

"Then we'd have a new problem, not showing our strength at the frontlines could have the effect of emboldening the mist, they may send more and more powerful ninja." his sensei then grunted as he hit a particularly sensitive spot in his arm. "Heavier frontlines draw the war out, attrition is our friend here, they don't have the manpower to contend with us in that kind of game"

"So what, a guaranteed slow victory is better than a risky decisive one. What if another village were to be drawn into the fray. I mean the cloud aren't exactly our friends, not to mention anything of stone."

"Cloud won't be making any moves, I have seen to that personally." He said, pride edging its way into his voice, how rare of the man to show any emotion. Though if it had to be one, naruto supposed he would expect pride. Or anger, the man always did have a short fuse. "I hear you are to be sent to the heavy fighting in the east, it'll be a good show of strength for us."

Naruto eyed the wrinkled face before him, the deep lines casting shadows over the thing in an eerily sinister expression of a man power hungry for his own good. Why did he still put up with this guy again, he'd been freed from his contracted training with the man a whole year now.

"I'm sure you had your hand in that as well sensei." Naruto's tone wasn't very accusatory, more matter of fact than anything else. "How did you convince the hokage to do that?"

"Believe it or not it was his idea to do it, I just helped the rest of the war council to come to terms with the idea. The helping hand so to speak." his hand moved from his shoulder down to one of the drawers at the small portable desk he was sitting at. He presented Naruto with a small manilla folder. "These are your mission objectives while you are there, read them over and burn them once you have them memorized. We can't afford for any of these to fail, do you understand?"

Standing at attention and desperate to leave this little hole he had been brought to, Naruto saluted.

"Absolutely lord Danzo, when have I ever failed you before?"


A good drink with friends was always a great reward for killing men and women whose only crime was being born to a different country or village. Though not the most rambunctious lot, Naruto still enjoyed his current company.

The small dive bar they were in was about as dingy as a place could be without being called outright rundown. A favorite for shinobi, civilian presence was almost non-existent here, so they could talk about real things in the world without having to keep their voices to hushed whispers.

Eying Choji to his left, the man was well into his drinks at this point, his speech slurred and posture hunched in a manner only a drunk man could achieve, lopsided as he was, given that after his last deployment he now only had one full arm to lean on. To his right Shikamaru was sporting quite the sexy new scar across his cheek, oh the ladies would swoon. Though looking rather dour, Naruto knew the man was enjoying himself at the moment, talking of his recent victory against one of the hired mercenary nin from the hot springs village.

Across from him, looking rather enamored with one another, sat Joru and some random girl he had brought over for the evening festivities. They were ignoring any and all conversation around them, lost in their own little world. Though he could see Joru peeking small glances at Mimiko, passively ignoring him and the new woman, with a face made of pure steel.

'So he's still trying to vye for affection through jealousy. Not going to work Joru, I think she's about as asexual as a person can get.' Naruto thought with great amusement.

Shikamaru caught his attention with an interesting little tidbit.

"Did you guys hear that Sasuke's bingo book entry has been updated."

"No, but how is that interesting Kakashi and Sasuke's entries get updated all the time." choji slurred, scratching at his beard before taking another quick swallow of the swill they served here. "The demolition duo of the leaf, going behind enemy lines to sabotage supply chains tends to earn you quite a few updates."

"It's interesting." Shikamaru drawled. "Because apparently they got in a little kerfuffle with the mizukage and came out alive."

"Oh really, that's some high level shit." Mimiko interjected. The excitement in her voice, so unlike her normally. She must be getting quite drunk at this point.

"Yeah apparently it was one for the history books." Shikamaru paused, thoughtful. "The anecdotes of the history books though, just a paragraph maybe."

"Anyway the mist village has updated her entry to A rank now." he continued, patriotic pride in his tone. "Father says that it's one of the quickest climbs somebody has made in this war so far."

Joru perked up at this, finally coming to attention in their little party.

"The other being big red over here eh." he slowly dragged his fingers up and down the leg of the girl beside him. His voice took on an almost conspiratorial inflection. "He made A rank about a year and a half ago now."

Shikamaru chuckled, barely audible above the din of the bar.

"Doesn't count for him though does it." Shikamaru eyed him playfully.

"How the fuck doesnt it count, i'm not letting you take away my victory over that bitch just because im the village jinchuriki Shikamaru." Naruto said, almost growling the words out. The raging volume of the bar had quieted significantly after his little outburst.

"Relax Naruto, jesus. It doesn't count because that was during the skirmishes, the war hadn't even actually begun until after. Plus you got that for the accomplishment of one of your standard missions, not wartime activities." Shikamaru said, his tone never shifting from his usual bored one. If he didn't know any better he would have thought that Danzo had conscripted to the ROOT program at birth.

Calming himself with a deep inhale, and even slower exhale, Naruto rubbed at the back of his head.

"Sorry Shika, I guess you're right, it doesn't really count, does it?"

Choji began laughing uproariously, snapping everyone else in the bar out of their concerned states and bringing the bar's life back.

"And here I was hearing that you had become a consulate professional. And here you are, still a short tempered knucklehead." he laughed again pounding his fist on the table repeatedly before slowly sliding down onto the ground

Chuckling, Shikamaru slowly dragged himself up from the table to help Choji off of the ground.

"I think this is our cue to leave, the big fella here probably won't be able to get himself home if we don't leave now."

"Give my best to Asuma and Kurenai yeah?" Naruto said. Those two were still together he hoped, otherwise that would've been an awkward thing to say.

"Will do, have a good night Naruto, you too Mimiko." and with that the duo left the bar, stumbling into people on the way.

"Kinda rude for him not to say goodbye to Joru and his lady friend." Naruto said, still looking after the two.

"Joru left with his little trollop a while ago, Naruto, it's just us now." Mimiko responded.

Looking at the girl Naruto noticed the slight fidgeting of her hands and her downcast eyes. What was wrong now? Well time to get out of here before she goes into one her little monologues about how badly their team got along with one another.

"I'll see you later Mimiko, have a safe trip home." and before she could say anything else he left for the door.


The streets at night weren't anything particularly special, drunk people swaying back and forth as they made their way to their homes or to another bar. More ninja were drunk than normal however, the war had been taking its toll on the shinobi of the village, and they were clearly taking the hustling nightlife for all the therapy it was worth.

Turning into an alleyway for a shortcut to his apartment, Naruto's path was blocked by a purple haired anbu in a cat mask.

"Oh hello there, what brings you to this shady part of town?" Naruto asked, a knowing smile on his face. Taking a quick sniff, he noted she smelled like lavender. How fitting given her hair color. "Could it be me that brought you all the way over to this part of town?"

"Shut up naruto." she seethed, holding a finger in front of her mask where her mouth should be. Grabbing his hand she dragged him in the direction of his apartment.

"You're that keen huh, really missing me?" Naruto laughed. Idly letting her lead him.

"Naruto, I said shut up. Otherwise you won't be getting any tonight okay,"

Successfully chastised, Naruto decided that as much as he liked to talk shit and annoy people, having sex was significantly better. Especially with Yugao, she was so damn flexible.

"Alright, I'll shut up."