Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I'm going to have a child and get ultimately get him/her unhealthily interested in ninjas, to the extent that he/she makes me hunt down a modern ninjutsu dojo for him/her to join.

…If nothing else, that kid will dominate all at hide-and-seek.

Chapter 17: Into the Deep

Naruto, Tenten, Shino, and Hana stood at a precipice overlooking a canyon that looked more like a quarry. Despite the vast size of it, this was most certainly not natural. It was man-made, with levels of earth scooped out to form shelves too perfect in formation to be something that occurred in nature. Not in such a short time.

"This... was never on any of our clan's maps," Hana whispered, frowning as she checked said map over. They had been using the maps that Naruto's party had brought because they were newer, but nothing like this had been on it.

Tenten could see how put out Naruto was at the whole thing. Minato had bought those maps for him on his last birthday. They were as new as could be expected, only four years old, but he had been given a set that covered most everywhere in the Elemental Nations. They had served them well thus far.

Shino however, was all about functionality and getting the job done, and thus brought everyone's concerns to attention, conflict be damned, "I hope you don't mind my asking Naruto-san," The bug-using shinobi said, "Why you wonder? Because I feel I must ask, how old are those maps?"

Hana frowned and turned it over to look at the date it had been marked with after its completion, "Not that old at all," She said, impressed, "We don't use maps to travel very often, or tend to stray into places we're unfamiliar with. Every Inuzuka has the entire Hi no Kuni countryside memorized," She reasoned, folding it back up to stash away.

"We're not in Hi no Kuni anymore though," Tenten said in return, "But I get it. No need to waste resources and put yourself at risk mapping out a place that you're never going to go."

Hana sighed and kneeled down to rub the heads of her three ninken, "We don't get a whole lot of business outside of our area to begin with. It's rare. Our clan isn't exactly rich. Definitely not enough to pay for mapmakers every few years."

Either way, they were at a gigantic quarry-looking place that didn't look like any sort of excavation site. The only reason they figured that it wasn't one was that there was a full shanty-town of shacks spread out across the leveled layers. There was no work being done, or anything that would make it a real quarry, so it was a mystery as to what this place was for.

Naruto shook his head, "There's no way all this would just pop up. We would have heard about it from someone, somewhere, right? But this can't be that old if it's not on the map."

He wanted to rant, but he wasn't going to start a rant on maps. Not in front of someone outside of their inner circle at least. That was a friends and family sort of action.

It was a pain to think about, and in the end it didn't matter. Naruto eventually shrugged his shoulders and started on the way down. They weren't going to get anywhere just standing around. Hana's dogs said that this was the right place, so it was up to them to check things out for themselves.

They didn't necessarily have the luxury of waiting around for someone else to gather their information for them. Taking the canister from the Uchiha Clan was a temporary fix at best. They would get more once they found out it was lost, and they would do it soon. The only way to for the Inuzuka Clan and subsequently anyone else it would be used against to fight against the virus inside was to find the antidote and find a way to produce their own.

XxX

Being on the ground level with the sprawling flock of shacks, things were even worse than they thought they were from afar.

Even with her nose broken, Hana's nose wrinkled at the unpleasant scents she had been picking up from the squalor. It wasn't clean. What amounted to homes for hundreds of people were comprised of sheets of scrap metal and anything else that could be used to create walls and a roof. Doors and windows were nothing more than sheets hung over the most gaping openings in these shelters.

There was nothing around resource-wise for a full two square miles, and very few of these people seemed to be trained in any sort of martial art or survival. They were civilians, through and through. Families, both full and partially fragmented. Lone travelers trying to make it all alone.

It was a dusty hole in the ground with people living there. That was all it was. People with hollow looks in their eyes, all mistrusting everyone else not directly associated with them. All staring at the four strangers. The healthy, fit newcomers. Not a mark of sickness, blight, hunger, thirst, or anything on them. If only everyone else could be so lucky.

"God," Naruto said, getting an eyeful as he looked around at everything they were passing. Dirty, disheveled men gathered in packs. He could see a few of them carrying short blades underneath their clothes. Mothers sat alone, huddled with their kids, holding their wailing babies, "...What's happening in this place?"

"I've seen this kind of thing in the past," Tenten said, holding a hand on her own shoulder as she walked, "You've never seen a refugee town before, have you?" Naruto shook his head, wondering why Tenten's tone was so somber, "When the wars happen, and a town is in the way, it stops being a town as far as both sides are concerned. It's a point of contention. They'll fight over it. They'll fight in it. Block-to-block, street-to-street."

And Naruto didn't need to be told that a lot of the time, the town didn't survive the battle. Even if it did, the people who did have their homes, livelihoods, and their possessions destroyed would oftentimes have nowhere to go or much else to their names.

Tenten clearly spoke from firsthand experience. The hollow look in her eye at bringing up the topic clearly put her in a place she'd rather not have gone, "I spent time in a place like this during the last Senju-Uchiha war. After my parents were killed, I just started following the other people that were running away from the fighting too, and one wound up springing up," She explained, "When it started breaking up, and people started leaving, looking for another one to take refuge at, I left. I had to. That place would have killed me."

Not just because there was nothing there for people to subsist off of. The entire atmosphere, it was like an aura of doom hung over it. No way out, no way back to the way things were when they were better. Just, no hope all around. There were worse things around there that they were seeing, that Tenten hoped she wouldn't have to see again.

When she was young, she wound up near the town that Naruto and Kakashi wound up stumbling across her in, and fortunately had a work ethic from a farming family. She did small odd jobs for various shops, households, and merchants that passed through, likely pitying her until she proved she could actually work. That was how things had been, at least until Minato showed up and taught her a little about being a shinobi. Enough so that she could at least learn how to trap small animals, find food of her own, survive.

They were little things that wound up adding up for her. Little things like that always wound up working out in some kind of fortunate break eventually, as long as she worked hard enough and believed she could find a way. It was an outlook she'd always kept when things started looking up.

Caught in her thinking of worse times, she noticed Naruto staring at her, a concerned look on his face, "What?"

"Nothing, it's just..." Naruto didn't know quite how to say it without fearing that he would offend her. Tenten was tough, and she didn't like being pitied for anything, "We don't hear you say anything about how things used to be before we met. You don't talk about it much; about what happened, I mean."

Tenten bit her lip before putting on a smile that she dropped upon seeing his frown. He knew it was fake and she didn't bother keeping up the pretense, "Yeah. It's hard to think about. Those weren't... good days. It's over now though, so don't worry about it," She assured him with a nudge, "But anyway, yeah. This place is a refugee town. A big one. It's weird though."

"What is?"

"When places like this pop up, it's usually around something," Tenten told them, "Like a body of water with a ferry that comes through to take people to the other side that can afford it or outside of a town or city that's actually doing well. Those sorts of things. But what the hell could be here to gather around?"

There was nothing. It was just a huge dirt ball. No trees or plant life of any kind. No drinkable water source anywhere nearby. No city where charity and assistance might come to help them. No method of getting themselves farther away from whatever ills had befallen them elsewhere.

It didn't make any sense to Tenten, who knew a thing or two about this sort of happening. These kinds of places didn't just come together around nothing.

"None of you look like people trying to run away," A person suddenly said, getting their attention, "You actually look more like the types that people like us try and run from."

It was a teenager, a bit older than most of them, clearly a refugee like the rest of the people of the town.

"Run away?" Hana asked aloud. As far as she and the rest of them knew, there wasn't any kind of conflict going on at the moment that would suck anyone into it who needed to escape, "Run away from what? I didn't know there was a war going on in this part of Hi no Kuni."

The young man shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, "Hi no Kuni isn't the only place with these problems, you know," He said with a scowl, "Nobles from your country do hire ninja clans to go into other countries to strike at their political rivals. And then they hire clans of their own from their country, and there you go. It really isn't any deeper than that."

Go get paid to inadvertently start a war with another clan trying to protect the holdings of the noble you were hired to take shots at. It was something that happened more often than anyone wanted to take note of. In cases like this, war was business. It was payment that would become blood money when your bid to cause trouble inevitably led to bloodshed.

Naruto wished there was some overarching, grand, true reason for why so much fighting occurred, but there really wasn't in most cases. It was disappointing, "You sound like you know a lot," He told the refugee youth.

The young man smiled wryly, "More than I really want to, I'll tell you that much. Either way, you don't look like you're here to cause trouble," He said after sizing up Naruto, Shino, Tenten, and Hana, "Couldn't imagine what you'd want to for anyway. There's nothing around here for you shinobi types. So welcome to town."

As though there were much to see.

"This is a town?" Hana wondered, "...It looks more like hell."

The young man wasn't offended, and neither was anyone else that heard her say it in passing. He simply nodded in understanding, shoving his hands in the pockets of his holey trousers as he fell into step with the ninja contingent, "You can say what you like. Just think of it as waiting on the outskirts of hell for a shot at getting into heaven."

Intrigued, Shino raised an eyebrow behind his sunglasses, "What do you mean?" That was an interesting turn of phrase.

At this, light came into the young man's eyes, "A place where the fighting happening all over the continent won't touch, can't touch. A place with enough food, water, security... for everyone. The Deep," A smile almost came to his face as he talked about it.

Naruto squinted and shaded his eyes with a hand, trying to peer out over some kind of distance to see if there had been anything they had missed before coming down into the pit, "If there's a place like that here, where is it? And why aren't you there instead of here?"

The young man didn't seem to have a problem with answering these questions at all. This was clearly the hope that all of these people were gathered for, "You have to be let into The Deep. No one gets in without an invitation. And from what I hear, only so many people can live there at one time. Makes sense, doesn't it?" He pointed down underneath his feet, "It's underground."

Now Tenten's eye had a sparkle to it. One of vested inquisitiveness, "An underground city?" Her interests as an inventor, tinkerer, and a designer were all piqued at the prospect of such a place, "What does it look like? How do they stay supplied? Why is everyone so certain about the quality of life down there? What kind of architecture allows for a comfortable living area there? Who runs it? Why? If people only get invited down there, how do-? Mmpph-mmph!"

She was cut off from her line of rapid questioning by Naruto grabbing her and covering her mouth, moving her back far enough to give the young townie some room. She had been progressively shortening the distance between the two of them to an increasingly uncomfortable degree as she continued to speak. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.

And in this case Tenten's curiosity would scare off one of the few people they had come across in the shanty-town willing to talk to them about anything. He knew her well enough to know that left unchecked, she'd have grilled the poor guy until he did feel bothered by their presence, something he didn't seem to be at the moment.

Naruto pulled her back far enough before removing his hand from the pouting girl and chuckling sheepishly at the young man in front of them, "Sorry, heh-heh..." Naruto said, "But yeah, what she said."

"No one up here has ever seen it for themselves. But we've seen people go in there and come back out. People like us, that were out here, waiting. We've seen some of them go in, and when they came back out, either to invite other people down, or to go off to get supplies or whatever they do, they look completely different."

Strong, clean, and healthy, instead of a good number of the people waiting outside. Well-fed, well-nourished. With purpose and confidence in their eyes, and the belief that the tribulations of the past were over with and done.

It wasn't a restored sense of hope that the ones who went down and later came back out for recruitment or for other purposes had. Hope was what had led people there in the first place. It was what came to their eyes every time the topic of The Deep came up in their presence. It was something else. Something better.

But it all seemed too suspicious, especially since this was the place that Hana's ninken had led them to, as far as the last scent on the bioweapon canister.

Believing in the noses of her trained partners and valued friends, Hana asked the question that had been sitting on the tip of her tongue since they had been told about the place, "So do you think whoever runs the place would let one of us go down there for a look?" She asked, only for everything to seemingly stop. Not only had their guide ceased leading them along, the looks from the surrounding populace became that much harsher, "What? Did I say something wrong?"

The young man who was their guide took a deep breath as though he were counting to ten and turned around, willing to explain. Almost a little too happy to explain, "No shinobi are allowed into The Deep. Period," He told them, "It's supposed to be a sanctuary. A safe haven for people like us with no stake in all of the fighting, no way to get away from it. If shinobi were allowed down there, how would that make it any different from the rest of this rotten world?"

It was an accurate enough sentiment. One that had been admittedly well-earned over the years, but also one that Naruto was sad to hear. Still, when one's ilk had turned the world inside out for as long as anyone could remember, was it really that surprising to hear that shinobi were so feared and disliked by any particular set of civilians?

But there was something wrong with that. If there were no shinobi allowed in The Deep, how exactly were the people inside planning keeping them out if they were letting people in periodically?

Hana grabbed onto Naruto's arm, pulling him back a bit, Tenten and Shino picking up the slack to cover for them as their guide continued leading them, "This is definitely the place," Hana said to Naruto discreetly, "There's more to this... 'Deep' place than what this guy is telling us."

"Or more than what he knows," Naruto commented, "He's never been there, if you want to believe him."

"Do you?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, much to Hana's surprise, "The way he's acting when he tells us anything, it's like he's talking about the land of milk and honey or something, you know?"

Hana grumpily conceded the point. Everyone didn't have to be out to get them all the time, "True. You can't really fake real enthusiasm for something like that. But that just means we've got to figure out how all of this works so we can get down there ourselves."

Naruto looked away somewhat sheepishly, not meeting the older kunoichi's eyes. He knew all he would find there would be expectations. Expectations he could not fulfill at that particular moment.

"...I'm working on it."

For some reason, that didn't fill Hana with much confidence, and Naruto couldn't blame her. She had only been around them for a few days and she apparently already got the picture when it came to the group dynamic. Naruto wasn't the 'plans and solutions' kind of guy. That had never been his strong suit. It was something that Minato hadn't been able to pass down genetically. He was more of the 'figure it out as we go along' kind of guy.

XxX

"Mama, why is 'Ruto-nii always gone?"

Kushina had taken Kanako away from any sign of danger to meet back up with Minato while Naruto took care of his job for Inuzuka Hana. Of course, this eventually led to the questioning that was expected to come from an inquisitive child.

Somehow, saying that Naruto had run off to find a mad scientist just as willing to experiment on him as shake his hand and get the cure for a destructive virus that could wipe out an entire clan within days didn't seem like it would help Kanako sleep easily at night.

"Naruto has a mission right now," Kushina assured her, smiling down at Kanako, "He's just helping the lady with the puppies. He'll come and meet up with us again soon."

That answer didn't sate Kanako in the slightest. It was here that Kushina forgot that Kanako was much sharper than Naruto was when he had been three. When Kanako asked why something was the way it was, it wasn't just childlike curiosity or a way to annoy the adults around her. She wanted a legitimate explanation that she could understand, damn it.

Kanako knew where Naruto was. She always knew where he was. He always told her, either before he left or right after he came back. She never knew what he was doing of course, he was smart enough to omit all of the violent facts of his sojourns, but where he was, yes. He kept her informed of his whereabouts when he could.

"No," The miniature redhead said with a pout as she continued to hold Kushina's hand, "Not now. I mean all the time. Daddy's gone a lot because his job's so important, but I see daddy more than 'Ruto-nii."

Kushina sighed, wondering just how to explain this. Kanako knew what a jinchuuriki and a biju was. She knew that Naruto was a jinchuuriki. It was information they gave to her early on so she would be used to it before it ever affected her. But that just meant that Naruto's circumstances were normal to her.

She didn't understand just why any of those things about him were significant, and hopefully she wouldn't for a long time.

Even so, she had asked a question, and when it was about Naruto, Kanako wouldn't take the parent sort of because-I-said-so response. If she had to, she would seek out Naruto's friends, or God forbid Anko or Kakashi whenever they ran into them and get her answer from them.

"Your brother is... special, to your father," Kushina said, wondering how she was going to put this. How did Naruto always do it? Kanako always ate up everything he ever told her.

"O'course he's special!"

A grin spread across Kushina's face at the loyalty of her youngest child, "That's not what I mean," All of a sudden, it hit her. Whenever Naruto told Kanako anything he wanted her to remember he tended to make it a story, "Okay, a long, long time ago, before you were born, something happened to Naruto that made everyone think he was a bad, scary, dangerous person."

Kanako furrowed her brow fitfully, trying to wrap her mind around Naruto being anything other than the awesome person she that knew him to be, "But 'Ruto-nii isn't bad or scary!"

"We know that, but a whole lot of other people don't. Either that, or they don't care," Kushina muttered, remembering how infuriating things had been back with the Uzumaki Clan after Naruto had become Kurama's container, "Anyway, one day your daddy climbed all the way to the top of a tall mountain to talk to a wise old monkey man who knew everything."

"Why?

"Your daddy wanted to ask him about how to make his village that'll bring everybody together. And the old monkey man told him lots of things. One of the things he told him about was Naruto, and Kurama."

Kanako knew about Kurama. Naruto told her about Kurama all the time, and how he was a gigantic fox that Naruto used to hang out with when he was younger. But only Naruto could see him because he was inside of his body. That wasn't fair. She wanted to see Kurama too, "How'd the old monkey man know about Kurama?"

"I told you, the wise old monkey man knows everything," Kushina could see why Naruto liked turning everything he told Kanako into a story. She could explain almost anything she didn't have the time and Kanako didn't have the comprehension for her to go into with storybook logic, "This was after the bad thing had happened to Naruto. The wise old monkey man told your daddy that the world would never think that Naruto wasn't bad and scary, so he said that your daddy should use that to help get people to work with him."

Minato and Kushina had discussed using Hiruzen's advice for Naruto's status for so long. And by 'Minato and Kushina' discussed, Minato had been the only one speaking. Kushina screamed for most of the conversations. In the end, Minato had been able to convince her that it was for the best and that Naruto was tough enough to take it.

He shouldn't have had to take it, but her baby was a fighter.

It took a while for her to figure that Naruto had perceived just what was to be done about his situation with Kurama, and had accepted it.

And so Kushina and Minato's eldest child was to be the next real-life boogeyman of the ninja world. Kushina hated it, but Naruto never complained, nor did he let his role consume him.

Naruto was willing to endure whatever the world thought of him for something out of his control, just as long as it was helping his loved ones.

It was while thinking about this that Kushina realized Kanako was still waiting on the rest of the story, "…So Naruto goes out on missions all the time for daddy, talking to other ninjas, trying to get them to listen to daddy's idea. And whenever real bad people show up to hurt him or someone he loves… well, Naruto shows them he's even badder, and lets everyone know it when he does."

He was a jinchuuriki for show. In the end he was still a son, an older brother, a friend. He was still Naruto.

Kanako was lost. She had followed Kushina's story in its entirety, but there was a part that she didn't understand, "I don't get it. How can daddy use people thinking 'Ruto-nii is scary?"

Probably the hardest part of the explanation/story.

Kushina stopped and kneeled down, as close to eye-level as she could get with the tiny girl, "People are scared of things they don't understand… and no one understands much about Naruto."

Even himself unfortunately. There was almost nothing to go off of when it came to learning about jinchuuriki. It was entirely undocumented. According to the head of the Sarutobi Clan, only lost, dusty old tomes that they didn't have access to would have anything sort of information on jinchuuriki function.

Naruto and Kurama had been trying to work out how to make their odd partnership work all on their own, and their success in that department had been limited to say the least.

No one understood.

"I do," Kanako offered, tugging at her mother's hand to get her moving along again in a particular direction. She didn't know why, but for some reason she felt like she would find Minato if she went that way, "'Ruto-nii's my big brother. He can do anything. He's even stronger than daddy."

"Oh really now?"

Kanako let out a gasp and ran for a shady tree along the path that she barely saw Minato standing underneath, "Daddy!"

Minato stepped out into the light, a massive grin on his face, "Hi baby," He kneeled down to hug his little daughter who came rushing at him. Minato took her in and held her close, "And just where'd you hear that Naruto was stronger than me?" He asked in a joking tone.

"From 'Ruto-nii!" She pulled her face out of Minato's chest long enough to give him a look as if daring him to dispute her.

It warmed his heart that she was so loyal to Naruto. He sincerely hoped that things would always stay that way, "Well he might be one day," Minato offered before getting serious, "But you heard your mother's story, right? No matter what anyone says, no matter what other people think, no matter what you ever see him do someday, don't ever be afraid of Naruto."

The thought was absolutely foreign as far as Kanako was concerned. It had never entered her mind.

XxX

(Ta no Kuni – Refugee Town)

Tenten rubbed her arms uncomfortably as she stood in the longest line she had ever waited on in-person. She was all by herself, transformed into the appearance of a refugee girl for the sake of blending in, all for the sake of finding out more about just what The Deep was.

While being led by their guide, a call amongst the refugees had come up that 'selection' would occur today. Everyone immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed as quickly as they could for a single location, their guide included. It was there that the plan had come together to try and blend in with the general population. Since Tenten was the only one of them who had ever known what it was like to be a civilian, she had taken it upon herself to volunteer.

She still felt uneasy about being around anything that reminded her so resolutely of how her life used to be before she had become a shinobi, but it was for the sake of the mission. Plus, being anxious actually helped her with her cover.

'Ugh,' Tenten thought to herself, shifting around in place as she stood and waited in her disguise. For what, she didn't know, 'What am I doing? I make weapons, and hit people with them. I don't do subterfuge.'

But she was the best person equipped for the job. After all, she was the only one that didn't have a hive of insects living inside of her, or had distinct, hard-to-disguise animalistic features, or a being of nigh indescribable chakra living inside of her.

Tenten was the least suspicious by far. All of the others had been raised to be more than someone in the crowd. At least there had been a point in her life where she had known what it was to be a regular person, which was why she could fit in.

That wasn't exactly the case for the group of ninjas watching over the entire situation from one of the quarry shelves overlooking the desolate landscape.

Naruto, Shino, Hana, and her ninken kept themselves out of sight, maintaining a watchful eye over anything funny potentially happening down below.

At least from their elevated position they had finally gotten a look at the entrance to The Deep, not too far away from where the people were lined up. From just the looks of the way inside, the place seemed to live up to its name.

A great concrete, circular hole in the ground, covered by an impenetrable iron door.

That door opened, and suddenly the formerly listless refugees sprang to life, standing straight-backed, at attention, trying to look their absolute best as though they were on display. In a way, they were.

Three men exited, coming up from the staircase within the entrance to The Deep, their eyes sweeping over the people gathered for their appraisal.

Naruto immediately smelled a rat.

"I thought shinobi weren't allowed in The Deep?" The blond jinchuuriki said, upon seeing the 'welcoming committee', "Those guys are fucking shinobi. I know a ninja when I see one."

Shino nodded in silent agreement, though he had figured that something like this would be the case. Someone with the resources to construct something akin to the sort of idea that The Deep was, would have likely had to have something to do with the military classification that reigned over most of the Elemental Nations. There had been a better than ninety percent chance of it.

"Alright everyone, line up," One of the shinobi said. He had had dark brown hair with black eyes. His outfit consisted of a purple loose fitting vest that showed his chest. The rest of his midsection was covered with bandages. He wore a light blue wrap around his neck and black wrist-warmers with tan pants. His demeanor was calm and pleasant enough, but to the three on the hill, and Tenten below, they knew he was a ninja, no question, "There are five places open in The Deep this time around."

Murmuring started amongst the gathered folks, but much to Tenten's surprise, despite the conditions and the tough-looking demeanor of some of the people around her, none of them were muttering anything about storming the door to get themselves in.

'As a matter of fact,' Tenten thought to herself, fretting as she maintained her transformation, 'Why isn't the town built closer to the door?'

Apparently there was some kind of decree in place courtesy of the shinobi that existed down within The Deep. There had to be, otherwise the shelters would have been crowding the entrance. It was the way these places were usually set up.

The speaker continued as he and his associates seemed to inspect the people, one by one, outright passing most of them by without taking a single look. "For those of you who have never been through this, we need you to remain in place until we either pick you out or head back in through the entrance. As you all know, there's not enough space to accommodate everyone," He said, the laid back tone in his way of speaking convincing those waiting that his words were honest and true, "If you're not selected this time, don't worry. The Deep is always expanding, and soon there will be enough places for you all. We always let more in, don't we?"

And so it went, the welcoming committee walked along the line, ignoring the vast majority of the people amassed as they looked for... something within the subjects before them. Apparently they found it, as a nudge from one of his partners stopped the speaker, directing his attention to someone.

Leaning out of the lineup, Tenten was able to see that the smiling person brought out of the long queue was the same person that had been speaking to them earlier that day. The look of complete elation on his face couldn't have been faked. She would have felt good for him, had she no sneaking suspicion of something odd going on.

Either way, the transformed kunoichi went back to seemingly minding her own business, waiting for them to get ever closer, this time with her group's previous guide around the shantytown following along with them.

Nearby, out of sight and above the flatland level that the selection process was taking place on, Naruto, Shino, and Hana continued watching over the scene. They had also noticed that their guide had been the one selected first, and due to their previous close proximity to him, one of them had managed to notice something significant about the young man in the short amount of time he had been in their presence, something relevant to what was going on.

By far the most attentive of the group, Shino's insects inside of him told him something that the others wouldn't have been able to know themselves, "Naruto-san, that person has a significant amount of chakra," He revealed, speaking of the man that had just been accepted, "By that reasoning, I believe the criteria for being accepted into The Deep is a level of chakra acceptable for a person to train as a shinobi."

Really? Now that was what Hana called shady, "Most of these people are adults though," Which meant a very miniscule amount of them ever had a chance of getting in to begin with.

If you weren't trained to access your chakra as a child but did so after reaching adulthood, you wouldn't have a very impressive reservoir of it and chances were that you never would. It was like a muscle, a sensitive muscle that needed to be well developed over time. It was why people couldn't just take up arms one day and out of the blue decide to be a shinobi. It took peak physical and spiritual conditioning to do.

Pleased that Hana was onboard with his line of thinking, Shino continued to elaborate, "Exactly. Which is why they are selected instead of the first few healthy people in line being taken straight out. If my hunch is correct, I believe Tenten-san will be one of the people selected today."

Something like that simply sounded too good to be true, or too bad to be possible, even for their combined fortunes.

"How can you be sure?" Naruto asked, "They could always find someone else in the line with good chakra before they get to her."

They didn't seem to be good enough to just outright peg who had good chakra and who didn't without getting close. Close enough to look them in the eye to get a good feel for what they had. The welcoming committee was still a long way from Tenten, though they didn't seem to be any closer to slowing down or stopping than they had been previously.

Shino quickly debunked this line of thought, holding up his hand with one of his kikaichu on his extended index finger, "Of three spots available, only two people down there have any significant amount of chakra. Tenten-san is one of them."

That would be a stroke of luck, both good and bad, that none of them could have possibly expected. But it was also much more danger than Naruto had expected he would have subjected Tenten to as well. Outside, while she was Henged on the ground level getting a firsthand perspective of the selection process, she still had Naruto, Shino, and Hana covering her from afar. If she was selected and wound up going down into The Deep, they wouldn't be able to follow her. Once she was down there, if something went wrong, and it was almost certain that it would if they were being realistic about their chances, she would be all alone.

Naruto's foot drummed on the ground nervously as he thought of how to approach this.

Tenten could get in, most definitely. If there was a sensor there, they wouldn't select a shinobi for reasons unknown to them. They would pick a civilian. Out of the four of them, Tenten's chakra most closely resembled that of a regular person because of her lineage because she was first-generation. She had no shinobi in her family line that would pass down any chakra signatures to her, and what she did have wasn't exceptionally overwhelming.

If this worked right, they would sense her chakra and find her to be nothing more than a gifted young woman.

Whatever they did, the call would be on Naruto, and he needed to make it fast, as they were scouting through the people at that very moment. He was the one in charge, so he had to choose correctly. Risk Tenten being selected to go into The Deep and trust in her to improvise and make it out, or pull her out now. They would lock it down, of course, but they could take what they had learned here and try to find another way in.

'What would dad do?' Naruto wondered to himself before Kurama chimed in helpfully.

"What does it matter what he would do? You don't think like him, you don't work like him. What your father would do is irrelevant."

With his biju friend's prompting, Naruto clamped his jaw shut tightly and shook his head, banishing the previous thought from his mind, 'No, you're right screw that. What would I do?' That was what really mattered. With that in mind, he turned to one of his closest friends for council, "Shino, how much do you trust me?"

"With my life," Shino answered succinctly and honestly.

"How much do you think Tenten does?"

"More so, I would venture."

"Does that extend into believing in yourselves as much as I believe in you guys?" Naruto asked, confusing the young ninja at the roundabout choice of wording in that statement, "I mean I'm trying to say, do you think that she thinks she could make it if we let her go down there?"

"…" Shino took a moment to think about the question and what he knew about the girl that they had in harm's way down below, "…I believe she would have no doubts that she could survive in this situation. Why? Because I would think that she knows you would never knowingly put her into a situation where you thought she would die."

He wouldn't, and there went his answer. Naruto let go of a deep sigh and turned his attention back to the lineup. Somehow at that moment, Tenten looked up and he could have sworn she locked eyes with him and smirked, if only for a second. That drove it home right then and there. She could do it. She knew that she could, and she wanted to make sure that he knew she was capable of handling herself.

"We'll let her go," Naruto ordered begrudgingly as he watched Tenten be chosen from the line, just like Shino had suggested she would have been. No pretenses, "But goddamn it, we're finding another way in there."

"Of course," Shino said in agreement, as though there were never any doubt. Hana gave a determined little nod. They were all in agreement as to what would be done. Now everything just needed to be executed.

XxX

(Northern Hi no Kuni)

Sasuke stood in front of his brother, back ramrod straight, eyes set to the ground.

He had sent three runners from his squad back to the war camp to brief Itachi on the situation, but he hadn't expected Itachi to return with them, to hear things from Sasuke's own mouth.

He also hadn't expected Uzumaki Naruto's group to outpace them so much. They had left the Uchiha contingent in the dust, causing them to have to make up more ground than Sasuke had originally anticipated they would have when he told his forces to retreat outside of Seaside Village.

Sasuke hated the feeling of being the little brother in the shadow of an older one such as Itachi, but even as he did nothing more than stand in front of the man, Sasuke could still feel the sheer presence that Itachi commanded just from being around. He was a man to ignore at your own risk.

Having been told the story of the missing canister on two separate occasions, Itachi simply looked at Sasuke with his impassive expression.

"It is of no concern," Itachi said, dismissing Sasuke's nerves at the situation. He could immediately see the tension drain from Sasuke's posture, "You are going to retrieve it as we speak. Aside from that, I feel father's decision to order the bioweapon be brought in was a hasty decision to begin with. Walk with me Sasuke."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the odd request, and at Itachi's open questioning of the orders that had come from their clan head. Still, Itachi was his brother, and the man that Sasuke looked up to more than any other, so he listened to the request, taking a short stroll with Itachi through the streets of the small one-road outpost town they had stopped in.

They walked far enough away that Itachi felt Sasuke would be comfortable having a candid conversation out of earshot from their clansmen, "Please, know that I did not come out here to emasculate you. You are a fine shinobi. Everyone knows it," He assured him, "I merely came here to warn you."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, "I know that the canister has been taken out of our clan's usual area of operations," Sasuke told him, wondering why Itachi was concerned. It wouldn't be the first time he went abroad for a mission, "We can handle ourselves."

That wasn't what Itachi wanted to warn him about. He stared at his beloved younger brother for several seconds before speaking again, "Sasuke, why is it that you seek glory?"

Somewhat stunned by the sudden question, Sasuke took a moment to carefully regard how he would respond, "For the clan, Itachi. Like you," He said. A fine, textbook answer. If his father had asked, he would have gotten a nod of acceptability for the political answer he had given.

Really though, he just wanted what Itachi had. The respect of being one of the best, and if he were to be honest with it, a bit of the fear as well. Everything Itachi had done since the day he had first taken to the battlefield... He had been putting the Uchiha Clan back on the map again after decades of decline at the hands of the Senju Clan.

Itachi found himself disappointed at Sasuke's cut-and-paste answer, "I don't fight for the glory of anything Sasuke," His motivations were always mistaken for the wrong reasons, "Not for the glory of the clan, nor my own glory. I fight because I hope to one day put an end to all of the fighting. Does that make sense?"

It didn't. Not to Sasuke. It was their job to fight. All of their lives, it was all they had been prepared for growing up. Sure, Sasuke wanted to send the Senju Clan into obscurity once and for all, but other than that…

"I don't see where you're coming from," Sasuke disclosed, "Itachi, this is what we do, and we're the best at it."

Itachi reached out and poked Sasuke in the forehead with his index and middle fingers, eliciting a scowl from the younger Uchiha, "Sasuke… there are still so many things about this life you haven't witnessed yet. Haven't taken part in yet. I hope you never do, but I know that you will."

He didn't want Sasuke to be like him, but the way things were going, not only would Sasuke be just like him, he would be worse. Because unlike Itachi, when the atrocities of his actions began to pile up, would Sasuke even see them as such?

"When you've seen your first innocent town burn before your eyes, set by your own hand, I want you to think of what I've just said to you."

Sasuke wanted to talk more, but Itachi broke apart into a murder of crows that flew away into the sky.

His wise older brother's words echoed in his head, but Sasuke quickly shoved them out of mind. He had work to do, and nothing Itachi had said was relevant as far as he was concerned. Just an awkward attempt at bonding.

"Tch," Sasuke scoffed, turning on his heel to return to the rest of his clansmen, "We don't burn innocent towns. We're shinobi, not monsters."

XxX

(With Tenten – The Deep)

It took all of five minutes for Tenten to truly question whether or not she had bitten off more than she could chew.

After being selected from the lineup, a few more people were chosen, with much less care than her and the guide that had been selected first. It just seemed that they had been pointed at randomly, with nowhere near the scrutiny that she had endured at their hands.

At first she figured that they had focused on her because they had seen through her Henge, but she hadn't altered herself too much from her actual appearance. Nothing that you could tell by touching or looking, and definitely nothing that could be easily disturbed. She had only changed enough so that their guide wouldn't make her if he happened to see her.

That hadn't been it, as the issue had never been raised. Though she had been scared out of her mind when she and the young man that had been her group's guide in the shanty-town were separated from the others that had been taken.

Which was where she was now. She had been put into a sterile, white room with a shower and a uniform waiting for her inside, told to remain there until someone came to get her. Only she and the guide had been sent off into these rooms, while the rest of the people brought in had been herded off elsewhere.

"I really don't like this," Tenten said to herself after dressing herself in what she'd been given. To keep from transforming too much of herself and putting herself at more risk of being discovered, she had changed into refugee rags that she had found in the shanty-town after the people had gone to gather at the entrance.

Naruto had asked her where she'd gotten the clothes. All she'd told him in return was that there were plenty of people not using what they were wearing anymore. That drew the train of conversation to a grinding halt.

Either way, she was out of them now, and into her new threads, hopefully temporarily. If nothing else, she could try and be somewhat herself. With that in mind, she put her loose brown hair up into her favored twin buns.

As she did, a knock came at the door before the same man that had been recruiting outside came in, smiling at her, "I see you've freshened up and changed into what was left for you."

"Thanks," Tenten said, finishing up her hair before looking herself over. They had given her a skintight black bodysuit that she was to wear underneath a long, grey/light purple tunic with a dark grey belt, 'These feel like fighting clothes.'

Rank-and-file uniforms.

This wasn't supposed to be a place for shinobi?

"Well, come with me," The easygoing man said, motioning for Tenten to follow him. She figured him to be her guide, but he wasn't saying anything to her. He was simply leading her along through the winding stone hallways and corridors lit by candles. It made her feel claustrophobic, "I bet you're wondering, what you're here for."

"To live here, right?" Tenten said, trying to play up her role as the clueless regular person, "That's what The Deep is for, isn't it?"

The man turned back to her for a second to get a look, his smile never leaving his face before he returned to being silent and leading her along. Eventually, the hallway opened up into a large chamber with a massive snake statue sitting on one side. The fire in its eyes illuminated the shadowy room.

Dirt covered the floor, and in the low light, Tenten could see blood staining it. A better look at the other side of the chamber caught her a view at two attendants dragging a body out. A cursory glance at the face of the corpse revealed to her that it was the guide that had been taken first along with her.

The expression on his face was the unmistakable look of horror, surprise, and betrayal.

Goosebumps rose on Tenten's skin. All of a sudden, a chill filled the chamber, and she wasn't so sure it was because she was underground.

"What happened?" She asked, guardedly, and rightfully so.

Her new 'guide' only kept smiling at her. It wasn't nearly as comforting as it had been for the people outside, "He wasn't worth the spot," The man said, "Hopefully you are."

"What am I supposed to do then?"

"Survive."

...This wasn't supposed to be a place for shinobi?

A hand reached for her from the shadows, but Tenten had been aware of shady happenings from the moment she had walked in. She avoided the grab and turned around, quickly backpedaling away from her assailant as he attempted to strike out at her with open hands.

Tenten dodged blow after blow, heart thumping in her chest. She knew things weren't as they seemed, but she didn't think they'd figured out that she was a spy. Not so soon. She had assured everyone that she could handle things on her own. She had kept Naruto from charging in to get her out and keep her from taking the risk. Dying so quickly wasn't supposed to be on the table.

"Son of a bitch!" The kunoichi in disguise cursed to herself. She had brought some of her things, but they were all sealed away in a single storage scroll that she had hidden on her person somewhere... rather sensitive. She wasn't going to be able to get to it in a timely manner, and even if she did, her cover would be blown.

Well there was nothing incriminating about knowing how to handle oneself in a fist fight, and all her enemy was doing was taijutsu.

Tenten moved out of the way of a few more strikes before lashing out with a jump kick to the body that drew a pained grunt from her target. Aiming her fist at his throat, she found her punch stopped by a strong grasp around her wrist, and subsequently felt her energy leave her as she dropped to her knees

The worst feeling of nausea and depletion filled her senses and it only increased when she felt his other hand touch her throat and slam her to the ground. Flailing her head around to keep him from grabbing, she was able to get his fingers by her mouth and bit down on them. Hard.

The man let out a yell and he pulled away, letting Tenten scamper to safety, albeit temporarily.

'This guy drains chakra!' Tenten thought to herself in a panic, having felt her lifeforce drain from her body. Having so little chakra in comparison to Naruto and being forced to keep up with him quite often, she knew what chakra exhaustion felt like. While she hadn't been brought to that level in the few moments that she had been touched, she knew that it had been coming if she had remained in her previous situation.

It explained why the young man who had been dragged out as a corpse had no visible wounds on him. This person had drained him dry.

With her hands in the dirt and sand as she crawled away, Tenten's hands brushed across something hard. Immediately, her eyes widened at the feel of a weapon in her hand. There were weapons hidden in the dirt.

Getting back to her feet in a hurry, Tenten turned to face down her enemy once more. Now able to get a good look at him, he wore some sort of veil over his face and tiny sunglasses covering his eyes. Honestly, she didn't care what he looked like, and he didn't care that she hadn't the slightest look of fear or humor on her face. Perhaps her dislocating three of his fingers with just her teeth had something to do with it.

He shouldn't have been playing with his food, so to speak.

The veiled man charged right at what he thought was a civilian girl once more, only for Tenten to stomp down on something in the dirt, pushing up the business-end of a spear that she grabbed and seamlessly used to run the man through, up and underneath his rib cage with one stroke.

Her aim wasn't just perfect when it came to throwing things.

Tenten followed through as the body fell, jabbing the spear all the way through on the way down. If he got back up from that, he would have had to be a zombie, and even if he was, she'd kill him again regardless.

It hadn't been a difficult battle. Just unwelcome. This had happened to the poor fellow who had come before her. A young man that had been so hopeful. He probably felt as though he had finally been somewhere safe, only to be thrown into a death game he'd been given no warning for.

Tenten shut her eyes and said a silent prayer for him. Hopefully the next life would be as peaceful as he'd hoped it would be. She didn't spare the same gesture for the man she had just impaled. He didn't deserve the courtesy.

"Huh. You killed Yoroi," The man who had led her into a situation meant to end her life said, mildly interested in the outcome and not put off at all that she'd disposed of his hitman, "...You weren't supposed to be able to kill him."

Wasn't she now?

"Well if you didn't want me to kill him-," Tenten said, twisting the blade into her victim's body for emphasis and pulling it out with a scowl on her face, "-You shouldn't have sicced someone on me in the first place. The world up there sucks, and I'm not some pushover."

"I didn't say you couldn't kill him, I just wasn't expecting you to," The man said, before rolling his eyes at the sight of Tenten still ready to fight him, "That's it. It's over. You passed the test, and then some I'd say."

"Test?" Tenten spat disgustedly, 'This was a fucking test? People don't want to come down here to fight and kill. They're trying to get away from that! They don't deserve to come down here into a meat grinder!'

She hadn't said anything, but the man before her spoke as if he was certain he knew where her questions would lead.

"No one deserves anything just because they've had a hard time of it," He said, causing her heart to leap. Had it been all over her face, or too much in her voice, "Life isn't about what you deserve, it's about what you want, and what you can take. And down here, if you want a place where your entire life isn't directed by every little clan scrape and dust-up, you have to be strong enough to be of worth. You are. The other one wasn't."

Why was he talking about just her and the other person that she saw dead on the ground not too long ago. Other people had come down there as well, and he didn't make it sound like any of the would be getting the 'opportunity' that she had.

Tenten bared her teeth for a moment before scoffing and tossing the spear to the ground, "Whatever. Are we done? Do you want me to run a whole gauntlet, or was that the only guy you want to send out to kill me? I could have stayed up top for this."

"No, you're done," The man said, "You're going to fit in just fine if that's what you can do without any jutsu. Welcome to The Deep. You can call me Rinji."

Tenten wanted to stab him in the face. She wanted to wipe that stupid easygoing look off of it and make him feel like what that young man had felt when he had been put to the test.

But she couldn't.

There was more to this place than just the sick little gladiator games it took to apparently get in, and before she started letting her sense of morals cloud her judgment, she had to remember that the fate of an entire ninja clan likely rested on finding a cure to the biological weapon that had already taken down a minimum of two clans.

Hana said the last person that had interacted with the bioweapon canister was down there in The Deep. Tenten was going to find who it was, find the antidote, and then from there, who knew?

...Then she could try and bring the whole thing down on her way out. Preferably with lots of well-placed explosives.

That thought put an honest smile on her face.

"Glad to be here."

XxX

(With Naruto)

Hana went along with Naruto and Shino, her ninken keeping a nose out for any unwanted company, as they still had possession of the bioweapon canister that the Uchiha would undoubtedly be coming after. It was too important a resource to forget about for multiple reasons.

The group traversed a hilly, woodland area, doing just as they had sworn they would; find another method to enter The Deep. Tenten would not be left by herself down there, no matter what.

No one spoke about their concerns, but it was written all over the face of Naruto. Hana had noticed that he was poor at hiding his feelings. Even if he didn't say anything, whatever his mindset was could be read just from looking at his expressions.

"If there is another way in, I'm certain that my insects can find it," Shino said, him of all people being the one to say something in order to try and break the tension between all of them at letting one of their teammates go at it alone, "Insects can find their way into just about anything."

Naruto also had clones of his own scouring the nearby countryside, but if he had to put money on it he would have bet on Shino finding something before him, "Eh, I'm not worried about that," He said, throwing on a grin and patting the bug-user on the back, "If it's you looking Shino, I definitely know we'll find it."

Hana bit her lip, wishing that her own nose was of more use. Alas, it was still damaged enough from her injuries that she couldn't smell things out very well, "Do you really think she can handle it?"

Naruto spared her a side glance, his supportive grin dropping from when he'd last been talking to Shino, "Tenten'll be fine," He told her with complete certainty in his voice.

Hana didn't outright understand it, how he could have so much confidence in that one lone girl, "But she's not a-."

"-She can handle it," He repeated in a way that said not to underestimate Tenten because she wasn't a shinobi with a clan pedigree. She had gotten enough of that over the years, everywhere they had gone. He wasn't going to do the same after she'd spent so long proving that it didn't matter, "...Trust me."

Skeptical as she was, Hana left it alone. She would trust their judgment, for now at least until it was proven to be wrong to. It wasn't as though she were in a position to do otherwise. Even if she went off and tried to do things on her own, she doubted she would get far.

"What in the blue hell?"

Naruto's exclamation grabbed her attention. He had stopped and turned his head in one particular direction with no feasible stimulant to make him do so. Without warning, he took off running, and Shino followed via some sort of unspoken understanding as to why he had left so abruptly.

"Hey!" Hana called out after them, giving chase until they both stopped by a rapidly moving river. Following their gazes, she caught what they were looking at; a body caught between two jagged rocks. If Naruto's clone had dispelled to alert him to that find, she could understand his being startled by it.

The body was one of the people that had gone down into The Deep with Tenten. To be more exact, it was the one that had been their guide through the shanty-town beforehand.

Naruto immediately jumped from rock to rock until he was able to get to the body and pull it free, partly hoping that he was still alive, but he knew better. The blue-tinted, clammy skin and the wide-eyed look. He was gone. Even so, it was just common decency at that point to fish him out of the water.

And it was fortunate that he had, because Hana's nose worked well enough from a close range to something to pick up a trail off of it. The body hadn't been in the water long enough for the scents of those who had handled it to wash off. If she could smell it, her ninken definitely could, and better yet they could find where it came from.

"There's still a scent on him," Hana informed her temporary allies, "I think if we move quickly we can catch up to whoever dropped this guy off. I don't think he was thrown in that far upriver, so we can still get a trail leading back to wherever they came out from."

Naruto let out a sigh and formed a clone to at least try and bury the body of their guide properly, "He was definitely one of the ones called down there, just like Tenten," They could probably catch up to whoever dropped the body. If their job was only to dispose of it and they were lazy enough to just throw it in a quick-moving river, they probably weren't hustling back either, "If this is what happened to him and it's just five hours afterwards, what's that place supposed to be?"

What did he let his closest friend head down into?

Major Clan Information

Inuzuka Clan
Leader: No Uniform Leader

Population: 2.5/5
Military Strength: 2/5
Economy: 1/5
Notable Traits: Slight animalistic features (sharper canine teeth, vertical slit pupils, sharper than normal fingernails). Extremely dangerous melee combatants. Skilled in taijutsu. Enhanced smell and hearing. Extremely territorial. Knowledgeable at the geographic layout of Hi no Kuni. Main business comes from scouting, guarding, tracking, etc. Mostly subsist by living off of the lands their clan populates.
Area of Operations: Southwest Hi no Kuni.

Alright, how do you like them apples?

So, for those of you that know, unfortunate news dropped this week that Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth died from a reaction during a standard medical procedure. That just blows. He was only 33 dude, and damn innovative. I'm a fan of the man's work.

Anyway, that's the chapter folks. I hope you enjoyed.

Kenchi out.