Chapter 1:

The beautiful Koyuki Kazahana, Daimyo of the country of spring was waiting at the port for the ship that would come from the empire of the rising sun, and to say that the woman was dying of nerves would actually be an understatement, and a very big one no less, she was at least three levels above the nerves, it was no wonder after all Shiori Todoroki, who was in charge of the white lotus trading house in her country had assured her that the tournament would have the distinguished presence of the emperor himself and at least one or two of his wives as well as his favorite daughter.

And for that very reason she was scared to death, like everyone on the elemental continent she knew that this place was wild and inhospitable, just thinking that a single man had managed to not only raise a town of simple potters, conquered six other kingdoms to found a powerful nation and on top of that get involved in the mother war of all wars, emerging victorious and not only that but he had achieved what was thought to be impossible, completely pacifying the great outside world... imagining a man like that, well, the closest thing she could think of was a being out of her own nightmares, no matter how much the manager assured her otherwise, if she herself had stated that he was a rather cold man as a general rule but he was not a monster, even if he was a mountain of muscles almost two meters tall, in fact he could even be considered a gentle and noble man in certain aspects, not to mention that he was an incredibly handsome man... even if his way of dressing made it clear that he had no idea about fashion.

In addition to the daimyo herself, she was accompanied by Tsunade, her assistant Shizune, and Shiri herself, who was currently the focus of attention of a good portion of those present... and the occasional passerby.

The woman in question was a young woman who couldn't be more than 25 years old, she had heterochromatic eyes, one brown and the other cerulean blue, and hair that was half red and half albino, while that was something that would catch almost everyone's attention, the truth is that her outfit was much more striking, after all she wore a short navy blue skirt, matching sneakers, black stockings and a black top that revealed her flat stomach, she looked incredibly beautiful don't get her wrong, but... that wasn't the kind of clothing someone would wear in a climate that was currently around twelve degrees below zero in the middle of winter, in fact it was the outfit someone would wear for a rather tropical climate... in summer.

-How can you dress like that in this weather? Finally, after she couldn't fight her curiosity any longer, Shizune asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

-Inherited from my mother and father. The girl with the two-tone hair answered in a monotone tone with a shrug. – Half of my body is able to withstand temperatures even below this, this is inherited from my mother, while the other half is so hot that for me it is always cool, that comes from my father… I guess you could say that I have a double Kekkei genkai in your terms, because the cold half of my body can generate ice and the right one generates burning flames, and I can use cold fire if I use both of my halves at the same time… the emperor calls it exotic.

That answer actually surprised both Shizune and her mentor quite a bit, neither of them expected the latter to have a surprise like that.

Not much more time passed since her explanation when everyone heard the powerful engines of the imperial vehicle above them, and sure enough when they looked up at the sky about a kilometer away they noticed something suspended in the air, it was at least 400 meters in the air if not more if perspective was playing tricks on them, from what the girl next to them was telling them it was a mobile intelligence base of operations destined to never remain static in one place to prevent hotbeds of insurrection from detecting it and also to help war-ravaged areas get back on their feet, much to everyone's relief, they had only used the fort for the second use so far… though she conveniently chose not to tell them that that was because insurgent groups were destroyed as soon as they were discovered by one of the sky kings or any of the other warriors of the empire… they certainly didn't need to know about the internal problems of the empire after all.

Finally, the gigantic ship landed, apparently it could move both on sea, air and land. Who would have thought? And soon it began to sail until it was less than two hundred meters from the port, together with its gigantic escort fleet. When everything was calm, the enormous doors of the vehicle opened, giving way to a small frigate where the emperor and his two wives who had signed up for this expedition were traveling, as well as the fighters of the tournament.

The entire show was shown to the actress and her companions. Ten minutes later, the emperor got off the boat, displaying the monstrous level of strength that the man possessed at the same moment that he put a single foot on the port's wood, which cracked at his mere presence. Shortly after, his family and the rest of the members of the empire's entourage got off... and I swear I heard one of them say that "he was not paying for the repair of the port."

But returning to the subject of the emperor, he now understood why Shiori claimed that the emperor and fashion were not friends, the man was dressed quite strangely and he was sure that what he had around his shoulders was definitely women's clothing, in fact, the only accessory that certainly suited him well was the white and red blindfold he had tied around his eyes.

As for her companions, except for the metal helmet with what she assumed was fur on the youngest's head, they dressed relatively normally, at least normally for female warriors, or a prime minister in the case of the black-haired man who swore he was the one who said he wasn't paying for the port repairs.

-Your Highness, it is an honor to be in your presence. Koyuki greeted, bowing slightly to the man who was currently considered the most powerful man in the world.

-The honor is all mine. The man returned the gesture with a bow, she would swear that she had heard his voice before, but that was something she chose not to investigate, after all she had met many people who had a similar tone of voice and she honestly couldn't remember them all even if she wanted to… not to mention that she doubted that this man was an acquaintance of hers considering his history.

-I'd like you to meet my friend and director of the medical program, Tsunade Senju. Koyuki made the introductions that, unbeknownst to her, were completely unnecessary.

-Tsunade Senju, a doctor of such reputation that she has left the best doctors in my world wanting to meet her… though that is something that could be arranged. It was not an empty compliment by any means, the doctors of her kingdom were impressed that she achieved so much in a continent where electricity was considered a novelty, and not the norm.

Tsunade actually had no fucking idea how or why the people of the empire knew about her and she honestly wasn't sure she wanted to find out, and the fact that she had flattered the woman implied that the woman was in the emperor's good books, which unbeknownst to them… at least at the moment, caused a certain pervert to feel like his days were numbered.

Back to what was important, the emperor introduced his two wives and the over-edited sugar ball he had the pleasure of calling daughter, with those exact words, as well as the man who in every sense was his brother in everything but blood, as well as each and every one of the fighters of the empire, who while the emperor went to the feudal palace, were led by Shiori to their place of lodging.

And of course the cold-hearted beauty actually almost couldn't help but feel sorry for the imbeciles of Konoha… or any village seeing how bloodthirsty most of them were, at least they had been lucky that Pickle had chosen it to be a good time to hibernate or they would have had to deal with a primitive cannibalistic beast although something inside her told her that they had actually put the man to sleep to avoid a diplomatic incident, most likely to the slight disappointment of the emperor himself… sometimes she wondered if the man wasn't secretly a god of vengeance or something along those lines… he was considered by a certain Ghoul to be the god of war so it wouldn't be far-fetched given how gods worked that he was actually the god of vengeance as well.

XxxxX

-two days later, tournament registrations-

Many did not know why it had been allowed, but due to the sponsor, the rules for this tournament had been greatly modified. Normally, the tournament would feature 32 participants who would be chosen in a previous elimination round, however, this year there were only 16 places since the other 16 had been directly assigned to the fighters of the empire.

Also, and for some reason that no one understood, there was an age limit for contestants, set, to the great frustration of many of the inhabitants of the elemental nation, between 15 and 27 years of age, curiously only two years older than the emperor, as far as many understood.

However, with that restriction alone, Konoha's best cards, such as Gai, Kushina, Hiashi, Tsume, Kakashi and Minato himself, were left out of the tournament, as were Han and Roshi from Iwa, or A from Kumo himself along with his brother and Jinchuriki.

So to Konoha's slight concern his fate fell on the young shoulders of Menma, Shio, Hashirama and Mito Namikaze the children of the Hokage, Hinata, Hanabi and Neji Hyuga, Rock Lee, Kiba Inuzuka, Sasuke Uchiha, and Maru Sarutobi formerly known as Konohamaru who, with the support of his mother, the now 20 year old Jounin had legally changed his name as he was disgusted by a name related to a nest of traitorous rats.

-It doesn't matter, Konoha will still take the victory! Exclaimed Mito who was really excited at the prospect of being able to demonstrate her skill and potential, the 18 year old girl was actually burning with desire to kick some Imperial ass, to at least earn some of Maru's respect.

Things between the Namikaze family and what remained of the twelve of Konoha as they called themselves, were not exactly pleasant, in fact, quite the opposite, Menma, Naruto's younger brother, was very insistent in asking Hinata out on a date, who had rejected him in every way imaginable, and some that he had invented solely to make it as clear as possible, many although they did not like the comparison it was almost like remembering the constant rejections that Sakura received when she tried to court Sasuke without a clan.

(you have no idea how much I enjoy writing that, almost as much as I used to enjoy bullying Hinata)

Only with something a little worse in the mix as there had been a couple of times in which Hinata had beaten the young man within an inch of his life without him being able to get the message, much to the young man's misfortune and the annoyance of Kushina and Shio, this had occurred during their fight in the chunin exams the year after the banishment, where Hinata had crushed the one called by his parents... and by no one else, Prodigy Namikaze, and to a certain level of vindication of Neji... or not so much due to the more than different circumstances of the fight in question, the young Hyuga prodigy had been the one to defeat his twin sister Shio who had fallen in love with young Neji, not that that was ever going to happen, to begin with Neji had the blessing of his uncle to go out with his teammate Tenten, plus the Hyuga prodigy couldn't even stand to be in the same room as her for more than five minutes.

That day after crushing Menma Hinata saw him haughty and defiant as a certain black-haired young man had done in the past towards the Hokage box almost as if he was telling them "for this they left him behind?" Menma couldn't be more different from his brother even if he tried, he could dye his hair jet black like Naruto had done all his life, he could hide his eyes behind his hitayate like his brother would have done, and still he wouldn't be even close to being like his brother, Naruto was distant it's true but he was always polite, Menma was conceited, Naruto helped whoever deserved his help even if he didn't like them, Menma was petulant, Naruto was tenacious, brave and despite everything he would never give up on anything being willing to give his all, Menma was a coward and if things weren't going 100% in his favor he tended to give up.

And to prove the point, it was enough for Hinata to hit him twice within an inch of his life for Menma to give up, especially sad and pathetic considering that he had a much greater offensive arsenal than his brother, and yet he was unable to do anything against a Kunoichi from the same clan who was said to be unbeatable in Taijutsu, again sad considering that Naruto surpassed Neji in a Taijutsu fight and Neji was superior to Hinata in every aspect, the only good thing that came out of that battle is that Hinata was able to take it out on him, every ounce of anger and frustration she felt was released in that fight.

And it is that half a year after her return, she and basically everyone else had found out that of the triplets only Naruto had a minimal real ability to have been able to control the Kyubi Chakra due to his body replacing the special chakra that Kushina had inside her, while her brothers being half-breeds between Uzumaki and a simple civilian, powerful yes but a civilian at the end of the day did not have the special chakra that Kushina possessed so they could not access the Kyubi Chakra without completely losing themselves in anger allowing the beast to take control of their bodies, in other words, they abandoned Naruto for Nothing and because of that, and following the village policy of "take it out on those who do not fear her or owe her" Menma became Hinata's scapegoat.

Likewise Shio was crushed without much trouble by Neji and a couple years later Hanbi and to the surprise of many Udon who had become stronger than one would expect from him, had managed to humiliate the two younger Namikaze brothers, thereby showing the family that they had bet on the wrong horse, after all Naruto while he might have lost in battles against better prepared opponents at least he wouldn't give up until at least and in his words said to Zabusa in his time "I may die here today, but at least I'll take you with me to hell" then Cat broke his contract with said man and the rest is history.

As for the rest, well the relationship between Lee and his teammates was never the same again and he found himself pushed back by them, even with Gai's many attempts to reconnect them, a similar situation occurred in teams ten and eight with Kiba and Ino, although there it was a little worse since the dissidents also did not forgive their sensei for their actions, as for Sasuke and Sakura, well Sasuke was a grade one idiot and Sakura his faithful lapdog... plus nobody wanted anything to do with a "clanless" one, something that Neji especially enjoyed reminding him of, after all most of Sasuke's ego came from being an Uchiha, which he was no longer.

-Brave words, spoken by a loser. Maru simply couldn't help but cut the Namikaze's illusions, even if he had no idea that she wanted to score points with him with those words, and only wanted to bring her down from her pedestal.

-Konohamaru, that's no way to talk to the Hokage's daughter. Asuma scolded him.

-You didn't bite your tongue, Uncle Asuma. Maru answered with venom in his voice. After all, it was well known that Asuma had said sharper and more hurtful words to Naruto in his time. – Also, unlike others, my words come from the truth, after all, she has never defeated Moegi, much less Hanabi, so let's call things by their name.

No one could argue with that logic, or rather they didn't want to as they didn't really need to make a scene so they simply went to the registration site where they signed up with as few incidents as possible, only to then split up to find a place to stay... without much luck for most of them I must say.

XxxxX

The next day, those registered for the tournament prepared to go compete, everyone had arrived early at the arena where the preliminaries would take place, once inside, a very pretty woman with black hair and amber eyes explained the rules to them, however her eyes were not exactly what caught their attention even if they were quite pretty, what really caught their attention besides the red cap and her more than perfect body, was that she had black cat ears on her head and a kind of belt that to many rather looked like two equally black tails wrapped around her waist.

-Alright, this year we have a record attendance from what I've been informed, and I want to go take a nap so I'll be quick. Her voice was surprisingly sensual for someone who clearly didn't want to be there. - Due to the number of participants we have, we're going to divide them into blocks. Just as she said that, a beep sounded in her ear and shortly after she simply had to sigh. - I'm not going to see most of them again, why do I have to introduce myself? ... courtesy is for diplomats Shiro-chan, fine, fine you win. Many were shocked by the one-sided fight that was taking place between the woman and that Shiro. - Well, since my little sister thinks I should be formal, the name is Kuruka Toujo, I will be the main judge for this part of the tournament to avoid controversies and shit, now the damn rules. Yep clearly a woman who loved her job… unbeknownst to them the people in the empire actually found that scene broadcast worldwide terribly funny, hence her younger sister had scolded her after all the public rarely likes a presenter who is clearly bitter. – due to the number of people they will have a time limit of ten minutes, if there is no clear winner they both leave. Of course the protests did not take too long to arrive, however, a look from her bright eyes was enough to silence them. – the use of any kekkei genkai is also prohibited. Again more protests. – oh be thankful we did crybabies, many of the imperials have family techniques that destroy at an atomic level. And that was enough to silence them, certainly with what was known about that place in hell that was credible and a fortune that they were not allowed to use them. – obviously for similar reasons the use of weapons or Jutsu is not allowed, also and although it is not penalized we ask you not to kill, this is being broadcast live and there are children watching it… I don't know why this is legally rated R. A new beep reached his voice. – What do you mean it's not R? They are guys beating each other up for love of Qin, Shiro, people have lost eyes and ears to this before.

And everyone chose to ignore the girl and her argument with Shiro, mainly because they weren't understanding a shit of what she was saying right now. Ten minutes later the discussion came to an end and finally Kuroka resumed the explanation. - Getting this back on track, if your opponent gives up, falls off the platform, becomes unconscious, if their injuries prevent them from continuing, or we detect that they are cheating, they will be out and that's it, and believe me they chose me as a judge because I can see things that many others can't see, and since the emperor himself backs me my decision is final... although they are forcing me to be impartial. For some reason that nobody understood she had said that while looking towards Konoha.

However, everyone else nodded in understanding, all having the idea that it would be very, very difficult to earn a spot in this tournament.

-Now, we will draw you by order of registration in one of the eight blocks for the fights, only the finalists of each block will go to the final round, where in the order of the block they will be assigned a number, the winners of block one are finalists one and two and so on until reaching the 16 places, once that is done on the day of the tournament you will be paired to fight against the fighters of the empire of the rising sun who have obtained the same number as you. with this she finished her explanation. - Doubts? She ignored the arms that had been raised, she wasn't paid for this... it's okay they did it simply she didn't even want the job to begin with, it had been given to her because you're pretty, and your dry comments will entertain the audience, and the fact that she was in a bad mood actually helped said dry comments... that her younger sister cut her off in mid-sentence on several occasions helped too of course.

XxxxX

There were more participants than Kuroka herself had thought there were, about 300 dozen more or less but she didn't want to count them and honestly it wasn't her job to keep track of who participated and who didn't, but getting back to the subject due to the frankly ridiculous amount of participants, the natives of Konoha really had a very, very bad time being the talk of both the judges of each block and the fighters... and in general of the city itself.

In fact the situation got to such a point that in the hostel where they were staying they cut off the water and electricity, in the restaurants they refused service and where they finally decided to serve them they charged them triple alleging "idiot tax" or any other ridiculous tax they wanted to charge them and that they could not refuse to pay since oh surprise there was a celestial king roaming the city, to make sure there were no problems being said celestial king none other than the damn Zeref Dragneel, and the man simply told them "pay or go away I really can't and don't want to do anything for you because of the resentment of the people that one day with luck you will forget" it had especially hurt the Namikaze couple, after all those without the man knowing it, were exactly the same words that the Hokage had said to his son many times, and thinking about that only made them sadder since they had to think about how much he had to suffer and endure without going crazy. Which continued the vicious circle since it only made them sadder.

(curious how they didn't give much importance to the fact that the "hand of the emperor" was hovering around the tournament)

Fortunately for Konoha, they showed that they were still one of the villages with the most powerful shinobi and that they still had the specialty in Taijutsu par excellence since they were the shinobi nation with the most contestants in the final, the result being quite promising for Konoha.

With Kiba, Neji, Menma, Maru, Shio, Lee, and Sasuke they had a total of 7 fighters in the tournament.

The Hyuga sisters and the two younger Namikaze had narrowly missed out… or just plain bad matchmaking luck, Hinata was simply unlucky to face Neji in one of the early rounds, and Hanabi with him in Hinata's words, Lee's brute animal, Maru had actually had luck on his side after all he had beaten Hashirama like a punching bag, unknowingly much to the amusement of a certain blindfolded raven-haired man, while Mito had gotten overconfident in her skills and lost early on to Shizuka who she already hated for calling her brother Menma Pathetic… it was just unfair everyone was comparing her brother to her other brother who was in simple terms a true power monster even if his chakra was weird.

Now back to the topic of Shizuka, a few years ago, she and her bodyguard Tokiwa came to the village so that the Toad Sannin could fulfill a certain promise he had lost, and she challenged her apprentice Menma to a fight... which she lost, by the way.

At the end of said fight he had disdainfully demanded to fight the prodigy trained by the Sannin... although training was too strong a word for what Jiraiya had done for Naruto... it was being too kind to the dirty old man, back to the subject if he didn't fight Naruto then they had to pay a penalty, due to obvious reasons he had had to do precisely that reluctantly... as for the promise the Sannin had made them, suffice it to say that Kushina had almost beaten him to death for making that promise without her consent, although to be fair that promise was made before he was Minato's master and he really couldn't have seen this whole situation coming, not to mention that he had genuinely forgotten about the promise, leaving that aside hence why she held a grudge against the beautiful Amazon, although something inside her told her that she would get along quite well with her brother Naruto.

-Virtually half of the Hidden Nation's participants are from the village. Kakashi smiled as he saw that seven of the final round participants were from the Land of Fire, and due to the age restriction that would undoubtedly make it clear to the other shinobi powers that Konoha was still alive in the game. - It's a shame you two had to face each other in the preliminary rounds. Little did they know that that had actually been quite on purpose after all - the Emperor didn't want his wild brutes to hurt people who hadn't really done anything to him, though Mito and Hashirama were simply lucky to benefit from this fact.

-Even if that is so, I am concerned about the fact that we don't know who they will fight in the first round. Shikamaru being the pragmatic type couldn't help but make his point of view of the whole situation known. - Some of the other fighters have some reputation like Darui from Kumo, or Raizo from Ame, against them we can come up with ways to win, but as for the empire… we only have rumors of their fighters and we are not sure who they are.

-True, true. However, Hashirama, the youngest of the Namikaze brothers, couldn't help but dismiss the Nara's concerns. – But as long as my brothers fight, they'll win the tournament.

-You know making fun of you used to be fun, now it's just annoying and sad. Maru didn't even bother trying to make fun of you anymore, because there were only so many times you could make fun of someone's stupidity before even that became annoying. – Even if we ignore the fact that 25 years gave some of them time to fight in the unification war, Shizuka is fighting in this tournament and she already beat the shit out of your brother years ago and I doubt she was sitting on her ass this whole time, so I wouldn't count on them frankly speaking.

-Maru, I'm already getting fed up with this disdain towards my children. And certainly Kushina was already quite fed up with Maru's behavior and his constant lack of respect towards her and her children on the part of the boy. – I don't know what kind of manners your mother instilled in you, but I will teach you some if not…

-If you're going to teach me how to abandon my son like trash you can skip the talk. – Unbeknownst to the boy, in the daimyo's palace a certain black-haired man had actually felt the urgent need to hit someone at that very moment. (Not for the insult to his "mother" but for indirectly calling him trash) – Again, up until now I've limited myself to telling the truth. It's not my problem that it hurts them, and to be honest, those of us who have the best chance of winning are Neji, Rock Lee and myself, since we specialize in Taijutsu.

That was a truth they couldn't really deny, not that they could deny any of the boy's truths since the reason it hurt them was because they were always the absolute, rawest and hardest truth, and although his clan was not based on using that art, since he denied basically each and every one of his clan's traditions and being a hypocrite, after all the true will of fire like the one the first two Hokage truly valued would never allow an innocent to suffer like the other two had done, because of that and although he knew elemental Jutsu... it was simply stupid not to know them, hell even Neji had a few in his repertoire in case of emergency, he simply refrained from using the ones created by his clan and had been training in Taijutsu with Neji, managing to become a very good Taijutsu master of the monkey and drunken fist styles... the latter much to his mother's disapproval but she calmed down when she found out that unlike Lee he could use it without needing to be drunk.

At the new verbal hook, Kushina simply had to shut up again, something that was sadly becoming routine, especially when talking to those who had seen her son as a true friend, or in Maru's case a mentor.

-Well, well, I propose that we celebrate that 7 of us have entered the tournament. Jiraiya was actually just trying to disperse the more than awkward moment that Maru's attack on Kushina had left. – I just received this month's royalty payment and although there are many of us, there should at least be a food stand where we can celebrate.

It hurt his false pride quite a bit to say that, but due to the treatment they were given, he had no doubt that that money would not last long anywhere, hence if they wanted to save some they had to celebrate in one of the smaller stalls, and when he had gone to an audience with the young Daimio to complain about the abusive treatment they were being given, not only did he have the bad luck that the celestial king Zeref Dragneel was there so the idea of influencing her went to waste, but she herself had also told him bluntly that he was making them feel at home because that is the way her village treats heroes, so they had no choice but to endure the mistreatment if they really wanted to take the prize money home.

And speaking of audiences, thanks to his little foray into the palace, he had learned, and with it everyone else, that the emperor had arrived a few days before the preliminaries began to do a little sightseeing with two of his wives and "his firstborn" as well as to review the situation of the commercial house in the country.

Obviously many had tried to get an audience with the man but all were denied by his older brother King Zeref, after all if the man granted one audience then he should grant them all, and according to the man himself this was a pleasure trip to see the sights and enjoy the tournament not for business, and from what his few spies on site had managed to tell him, including Koyuki, he hadn't spoken to him about anything beyond a petty business matter between the two nations... and he wasn't even referring to the empire as a whole but to his home country of China of which he was still king in addition to still being the emperor of the known world, and Koyuki was the host of the event, however given that the emperor was not only the most powerful man in the world hands down, and that his brother was known not only as "the dark magician" but also as "the death magician" no one really wanted to bother the king.

Though from what he'd heard, if an audience was wanted, Zeref would be more than willing to schedule them an appointment for any time after the unification festival, since his younger brother's schedule was already full before then. He was sure she was lying, but he wouldn't argue with death magic.

XxxxX

-feudal palace, eight days ago-

The daimyo invited the emperor along with the royal family and the tournament participants to a gala dinner where everyone ate and had a great time, said dinner of course had also been attended by those in charge of the trading house, because obviously in addition to Shiori herself, her older brother Touya had been designated as the woman's bodyguard, it went without saying that like his sister he wore clothes that did not fit the climate at all, only he showed less skin, apparently his body was specifically designed to withstand the cold, but it was extremely weak to heat... particularly sad if one took into account that his offensive power was the blue flame, a particularly hot fire.

Fortunately for the man the empire's medical technology made it possible for the man to heal himself whenever these became bad enough to be noticeable, that alone had made the man be in their good books after all he genuinely cared about the health of all his subjects even if some of them had special conditions like the white-haired young man had, who according to his own sister before that had not had a good appearance while now he was quite good looking.

When dinner was finally over, the fighters went to their hotel to rest from the long journey, while the emperor and his family went out exclusively in the company of the Sannin, his attendant and the daimyo, to take an evening walk through the palace garden, which was quite beautiful at night.

-May I ask you a question? The Sannin began the conversation a little more timidly than she would have liked.

-We all have the right to ask them, and we all have the right not to answer. The Emperor's voice was calm, making it clear that she could ask whatever questions she wanted, but whether she answered or not depended entirely on her will.

-Why are you always so ambiguous? The first queen, a woman with beautiful golden hair and green eyes, asked her husband, who simply shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know why she spoke that way.

-Have you ever come across a child with blue eyes as bright as stars?

The question could be very specific after all eyes like those were unique, and if she asked it it was for two reasons, number one, black was one of the most common hair colors in the world, if not the most common, and distinguishing a single individual with those characteristics in a world thousands of times larger than the elemental nation was directly impossible, and two, she had been present when Jiraiya had informed them that Naruto had jumped over the great wall and since the Uchiha family tapestry still showed his name, she hoped that the emperor had known him, a hope that the actress and Shizune also shared.

The emperor for his part simply hummed for a few moments as he watched his wives and best friend having some sort of silent conversation between them.

-Why do you want to know about Naruto Uchiha? Finally, Arturia chose to ask the first question. – We certainly know where he is, but given how they saw him in his village, I don't think they're looking for him for something good. Arturia had always been the closest to Naruto, the most stubborn to never leave him alone as well and although he himself had told her that Tsunade was always kind to him, Iruka Umino had done the same and turned out to be little more than a dirty, vile, miserable traitor. And that was why she wouldn't trust anyone outside of Konoha. Which is why she brought the nuclear bomb with tits on this mission, better known as Nealie From Uruk who, although it hurt her pride, was much more powerful than herself and had a bad temper so her philosophy was, kill them first, finish them off later and find out sometime in the future if you remember. It must be said that until now the third part had never happened.

-Naruto Uchiha would have been treated like a hero if he had come to take refuge from that ungrateful village. Koyuki intervened, earning what seemed to be a raised eyebrow from the emperor. - For me, he is my hero and a great friend, he is also for many people, if he has the idea that it is not so, he is wrong, I know that Suna would have welcomed him with open arms, just like the waves, the birds, the uncle, the moon or the springs. If you know where he is, if you know him, and he asked you not to say anything about where you live, we understand and we will never insist that you tell us, but please, could you at least tell us if he is okay?

The Emperor did not show any expression, something that was noticed by both the Sannin and the actress and her companions, of course he knew from the bottom of his heart that during his exile his friends from other towns and countries would not abandon him, but he would not put them in danger for a selfish desire to belong, he had few friends and that is why he valued them more than his own life, that is why he had asked Fury, his director of the intelligence center with such a long name that they had left it in the acronym of SHIELD, to infiltrate as the white madman's trading house to simply keep them watched and cared for at all times.

A king's strength lay in his people, and a friend used all his strength to protect his true friends, and Naruto was the best friend of all. At least in Zeref's words… and speaking of such.

-Oh okay, and he's the luckiest, most unfortunate, and annoying bastard I know. Zeref said with a sigh, filling the women with hope and making them smile a little when they heard the affectionate way in which the emperor's hand referred to the now man.

-I love you too you crazy immortal suicidal lolicon emo. The emperor replied causing the women to gasp in surprise. He didn't take off the blindfold, he didn't like to do it, he simply lifted the right side of it slightly to allow Tsunade herself to see that bright star-like eye she had seen once before ten years ago. An eye she could never forget in her life. – and because it was unfortunate.

-Elfrieden Incident. Naruto didn't have time to respond to that.

-Na... Naruto! Well, before he could do it, the Sannin practically hugged him tightly and held him in that grip for a while.

-I should be jealous, the tallest, longest-haired queen asked her shorter-haired, shorter-statured namesake.

-She's old enough to be his grandmother so I don't think so. Arturia whispered that in a low voice, after all you should never mess with a woman's age, besides this scene was quite cute, it was a shame she didn't have a camera right now... little did she know that near the wall a certain Naruto fanatic Ghoul had been following them for several hours and taking photos of the man's best moments.

XxxxX

By the time Tsunade finally released him from the hug and after proper introductions… and Mordred befriending the now named Sir Tonton of Camland much to Arturia's dismay and the amusement of the other three members of the empire, the adults were all caught up, on several counts. To start with the matter of Naruto actually lying to them in a way by revealing that he actually had better training that he didn't show to anyone since they tried to kill him when they thought he was weak and he didn't want to have to deal with the consequences if they found out that he was stronger than even some of Konoha's low level Jounin at the time.

None of them could really blame him for hiding his true strength even if Koyuki had been a little upset to know that he could have actually solved her uncle's problem without much trouble.

They for their part told him about how Konoha had been suffering since his departure, not that he seemed very affected by it, in fact, he only seemed worried about the Ichiraku family but they were sure that they would do something to help them if things got really bad.

Another thing they told him was how, with the help of the Sannin, Koyuki had demanded payment for having stayed a week at the best SPA in her country. Something that left him quite baffled.

At least until they explained to him that besides the D to S ranked missions, there were some missions that typically didn't appear in the academy's teachings, which were the X and R rank missions, although Zeref told them very, very frankly that prostitution with a client was not a real mission, even if it was authorized by the shinobi in question and the confidentiality agreement was signed… Naruto had to agree with that and in fact he wondered if he wasn't a product of one of those missions, after all there were rare cases of twins with different fathers and he certainly didn't dye his hair, and he was very different from his brothers.

The R missions, on the other hand, were more of a kind of reward... and Naruto had no qualms about saying it, these basically consisted of an extremely satisfied client for a mission and he gave compensation to the shinobi who in the past carried out a mission for him.

And she had sponsored an R-class mission, where the entire team 7 was paid for to spend a week of relaxation at the best SPA in the country, free of charge for them of course.

However, Kakashi, Sakura, and clanless Sasuke had all wickedly tricked Naruto, not that he would have believed them however he preferred not to have much to do with them outside of missions, even if Tenzo, an ANBU captain and close friend of Kakashi was a good liar, they had tried to make him believe that they were going on a specialized mission that required them and the ANBU himself, while Tengo had tasked another ANBU with keeping Naruto busy with D-rank missions under the pretext that they were missing from his mission log, not that the boy would have obeyed the ANBU in the slightest telling him "it's not my problem if you idiots can't mow your own fucking lawn" which was virtually a nuisance to the single ANBU who intended to use him to do their housework since they themselves didn't want to, and since Tsunade was not Hiruzen they could do nothing to force him to work without pay.

The daimyo was told that Naruto went to a festival in the Land of Waves as a guest of honor because he had also saved them, but they had not invited him and that was why he had chosen to go to the Land of Waves and had been kind enough to give his place to Tenzo. It was not a lie because Naruto had told them that since he did not plan to work for free with the ANBU, he had gone to the Land of Waves to visit old man Tazuna and it just so happened that he arrived in the middle of a festival by pure chance, which is why the incident was not discovered until much later since she had not been foolish enough to blindly believe a ninja, they were liars by nature after all.

However, when the Sannin arrived in Spring, they both noticed while talking that a deception had occurred since the main beneficiary had not gone due to a deceptive lie, even if ironically he had spent a rather pleasant week in another country by simple coincidence, even so Koyuki sent an invoice for the stay of the loafers, and went to Konoha to demand payment for the stay.

Of course Sakura and Sasuke, by then without a Clan, claimed that they deserved the vacation, but the feudal reminded them in great detail that Sakura was more of a hindrance on that occasion and that Sasuke did not do anything significant and Naruto had not only done most of the work so because they had left out the true hero of their country they had to pay the bill for his stay ... with interest of course. Interest that she regretted not making compound when Naruto explained to her how they worked and how he used that to keep his biggest opponents under control who were indebted to him or his associates. Koyuki had to give it to her, the boy was a born politician even if he was not corrupt.

As for the bill of course Minato had forced those involved in the matter to pay, seeing only one more of the many injustices that had been done to Naruto in the village, there was everything on that list, from withholding sixty percent of his payments for missions because it was the "demonic tax" charged for living in a seedy hole that was his home... not that he had ever paid the rent once he told his supposed landlord that no one would want to live where the demon child lived anyway. Or the exorbitant prices at which they sold things to him... for Minato to discover that his team had stabbed him like that was a particularly hard blow, for Naruto not so much it was something that he had actually expected.

Getting back to the topic they had evenly divided the bill between everyone involved in the scam, it had taken them around four years to pay their share due to the deterioration in the economy due to the drop in missions added to the interest that she now regretted had been simple and not compounded from the bill, which had originally been two hundred and fifty thousand Ryo but had grown to two and a half million, oh the idea that with compound interest it would have been at least double or even triple made her want to go back in time to tell her past self how they worked.

Naruto having to tap Neal when she was about to speak made her think that this was actually possible, but it would have consequences.

As for the debt issue, it had been pretty bad for Tenzo who wasn't close to anyone and still couldn't pay his share, something that made Naruto innocently suggest of course that he inform her that for non-payment the debt would be charged a compounded annual interest of five percent, backed of course by the White Lotus and therefore the empire, if he wasn't married she could have kissed him right there, not that his wives would have prevented it. However as for Kakashi he actually lived off of charity from Gai, Asuma and Kurenai... Naruto whimpering at that last name was something that caught Koyuki's attention and the "I knew there was a reason he didn't want that name" said by the man only made her have even more doubts. Sakura for her part still lived with her parents because she didn't have the money to become independent, and Sasuke... well even if he didn't have access to the Uchiha clan funds controlled by Itachi no less, the people of the village kissed his ass and paid the debt for him, and let him sleep and eat wherever he wanted completely free.

When the story was over, Naruto told them about his journey to the East… quick recap, the wall is to keep the westerners out… back when they were weak and didn't have the technology to get through it like they did now of course, and it wasn't designed with the intention of keeping shinobi out, he just climbed the wall and then came down it by sliding on a damn surfboard that some apparent extreme sports business had provided him when he saw "a shinobi with balls climb the damn wall for the first time in 20 years"

-Wait... what did he mean by that? Tsunade asked, of course she believed the boy, damn he was a terrible liar, that's why she believed him when he told her that the shinobi didn't go through the wall because of fear and the outer ones because they didn't give a damn about this continent until now, and that was only because of his association with Naruto, but what was that about in 20 years?

-That's a longer story. Naruto muttered before telling them about one of his kings of heaven, who they nicknamed "the redhead."

End of chapter.