Article: When commenting on Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto said that he designed Konohagakure without specifying an era or location in the real world, noting that the village is "just a place in his head". Without a specific time period, Kishimoto included modern elements in the series such as convenience stores and movies, but specifically excluded projectile weapons and vehicles from the storyline. Regarding technology itself, Kishimoto said that "Naruto" would not have any firearms, yet one appeared behind a shopkeeper's desk on a page in Chapter 19. He said he may include automobiles, aircraft, and "low-processing" computers; Kishimoto specified the computers would "maybe" be eight-bit and that they would "definitely not" be sixteen-bit.
Tome of the Orange Sky (Naruto/MGLN)
- Thread starter CmptrWz
- Start date
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- mgln naruto naruto uzumaki complete
Yes? WWII era radio backpacks (which basically required a dedicated soldier to transport) had a range of three miles which is lower then what even cheap $20 Amazon walkie talkies do. They none the less became standard equipment and were widely regarded as key equipment for the war effort.
Now for Ninja the utility is far less for a couple reasons. The first is that Ninjas just don't generally fight in large engagements that require coordinating thousands of troops spread out across the battlefront. They operate in small units that will generally have an idea of what every other member of the unit is doing. The second is that a couple miles of range isn't very useful when you are fast enough to cross countries in days (Konoha -> Suna in 3 days) and thus just closing the distance and talking is generally easier.
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- none of your business
Not what I meant, but good one
That.....makes a good amount of sense
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- Scotland
@Ardenzian It's also completely and utterly stupid as I've seen more than a few people debunk this. First off, even military grade equipment has a shelf like of perhaps a few decades before it degrades beyond usefulness and that's if stored correctly, if it's not stored correctly you can kiss it goodbye in a few weeks to months. Civilian grade stuff is even worse. Then there's the fact that no-one uses guns or other conventional explosives, AT ALL. Even I, a scruffy nerd, know how to build a basic gun and mix up basic gunpowder so the thought of everyone in the world who knows how to do this suddenly forgetting is ludicrous enough to be a ROFL moment. As for any argument about guns not being effective on Shinobi, well, you might need a slightly larger caliber of bullet to properly work but with their enhanced strength and durability they could easily carry larger guns.
The fact is that for Kishimoto worldbuilding was simply less important than trying to tell a good story so all of us simply have to try and figure out ways to explain the (rather dreadful) gaps in his storytelling. Funnily enough I did hear someone else say that the stories with the worst worlbuilding make for some of the best fanfiction (e.g. Naruto, Harry Potter, Worm etc).
The fact is that for Kishimoto worldbuilding was simply less important than trying to tell a good story so all of us simply have to try and figure out ways to explain the (rather dreadful) gaps in his storytelling. Funnily enough I did hear someone else say that the stories with the worst worlbuilding make for some of the best fanfiction (e.g. Naruto, Harry Potter, Worm etc).
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- Russia
Admittedly, I think that the main issue is less "enhanced strength and durability" and more "a particularly good shinobi can just dodge bullets".
But overall, your actual point is absolutely correct.
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- Georgia
It gets a bit worse when you realize that one of the characters in the anime does use a variety of gun, though it's more of a grenade launcher. It's possible for the knowledge to have faded during the centuries when the ten tails was rampaging, but having a character use one in the story means the idea is still there. Perhaps it's simply that knowing how to make good gunpowder got lost, as it is easy to make gunpowder that will burn, it's a lot harder to make some good enough for use in guns.
That may have been me, as I have made that observation a number of times in various forums. When a creative person sees big problems in something they love, they're likely to have part of their brain immediately start trying to fix it in some manner. I know my head is filled with ways to make all sorts of different settings fit together in a comprehensive whole, where wildly different IPs have common ground for the ways they work.
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Specifically, we only see large scale use of fossil fuels in one isolated country. Even there, the high tech stuff is all based off of chakra rather than fossil fuels. Konohamaru's genin team uses radios inside Konoha, but I don't recall them being used outside of the city. Given the Sarutobi resources, it's possible that radios are just too expensive or hard to make/maintain and his team has them through his grandfather. The Sarutobi clan is supposed to have an impressive library, and might include bits of technology collected over generations.
Why ANBU don't have a few radios for reporting in when something happens and it doesn't matter who overhears is a bit harder to justify, though.
Also to note is that a fishing boat doesn't need to be able to go far or all that fast. It's possible they are running that motor on vegetable or fish oil, rather than imported fuels.
Regardless of authorial intent, readers are naturally inclined to find ways to make the setting work. That he isn't consistent on this is no big surprise, as there is, as I mentioned earlier, one guy who uses a grenade launcher, and if we're talking about "projectile weapons", there are bows in use. That may be a translation error, though. There are multiple powered vehicles in the series, too, though once again, the highest tech stuff runs on chakra.
Suna is also one of the largest nations, likely because nobody's willing to fight them over land that is essentially uninhabitable. The team we saw making that trip were rushing to make the trip that quickly, but they also weren't exceptionally skilled at moving in deserts, and I believe they had to deal with a sandstorm as well. Without those factors, a Suna ninja might be able to cross that distance in two days, which is somewhat supported by Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro getting back to the village to come assist the team chasing Sasuke, though we don't know how far away they were when they got the message.
Unless I'm misremembering and they were still in the village. I think they had already left, but I'm not certain how accurate that memory is.
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MWKillKenny84
Lurking from the Trauma Switch.
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- Vado Ligure
As far as it has been showed, the potential is there, simply there have been no instance of punchsploding people. After all, canon Neji was able to kill Kidomaru via Juken channeled in the web string that connected the projectile that had impaled him to Kidomaro's mouth.
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- none of your business
So theoretically speaking, Hinata could probably end up Juukening someone and then their head explodes?
MWKillKenny84
Lurking from the Trauma Switch.
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- Vado Ligure
In theory, yes. Again, the potential is there, both styles work on similar enough base principles.
And remember, also in canon, Neji was one Juken strike away from killing Hinata via internal damages.
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- none of your business
And if THAT happened, then Naruto would've probably gone Full-On Kurama-Powered His Mom on Neji...........and might've figured out some kinda BS way to completely and utterly rezz Hinata apart from Edo Tensei-ing her.........although he could have used it to get her soul for the resurrecting, but that's just a theory...........unless there's a Fanfic where that happens for whatever reason
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- Scotland
On the subject of 'head exploding via juken strike' I actually have read a fic where something similar happens. In Chapter 8 of Project Naruto: Shinobi X Hinata does something rather graphic to that POS Gato when he pisses her off. It's not quite full on exploding head but it's the closest I've ever seen.
Then we come to resurrecting someone without the edo tensei. I've seen it done once that I can remember but unfortunately for me I can't find the fic again. It involved a Minato Namikaze who, in the future, had been resurrected via the edo tensei but had an experimental seal on him that properly rezzed him. Then he time-travelled to the past when Naruto was just a kid and kinda brought Kushina's spirit with him which he brought to a fleshy form by creating a sort of five-elements clone along with (rather obviously) some seal work. Oh and it turned out that the afterlife was Valhalla which encouraged all the Akimichi to die glorious deaths in battle lol.
Then we come to resurrecting someone without the edo tensei. I've seen it done once that I can remember but unfortunately for me I can't find the fic again. It involved a Minato Namikaze who, in the future, had been resurrected via the edo tensei but had an experimental seal on him that properly rezzed him. Then he time-travelled to the past when Naruto was just a kid and kinda brought Kushina's spirit with him which he brought to a fleshy form by creating a sort of five-elements clone along with (rather obviously) some seal work. Oh and it turned out that the afterlife was Valhalla which encouraged all the Akimichi to die glorious deaths in battle lol.
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- Michigan
Granted reviving a random fish is very different than reviving a sapient being like a human where memory loss from brain damage/death can be a very severe issue that will need to be accounted for to consider the revival a proper success.
Fish can have brain damage too. Wouldn't somebody have noticed?
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
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- The Internet
How would you notice if a gold fish has brain damage?
Generally when it starts behaving like the meme is actually true.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
I've seen some pretty dumb goldfish. Including one that kept trying to eat the reflection of food flakes on the glass of the fish tank. They really can be as dumb as the memes suggest.
Depends on if Souls here work like the Shinto religion says they do (ie everything has one, including animals, trees, rocks, planets, stars....), or if Humans / Known Sentients / sufficiently complex life is / are Special in having Souls.
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Chapter 31 - A New Hokage, Gifts, a Trip to Water
Naruto summoned the rest of the team to the compound after over a month of training and missions outside of the village. Old Man Hokage had asked that they return, even if they'd been doing quite well. They'd almost gotten a mission to escort someone to the village as a proper reason to return, but another team picked it up instead as they were better positioned to meet up with the client's group.
"I wonder if anyone not already in the know figured out that we can send clones back at any time," Hinata mused. "Given that we've been doing hospital shifts the entire time we've been gone."
"Tsunade let us do them in disguise," Naruto reminded her. "And she's been a slave driver when it comes to learning the details instead of throwing chakra at things until they resolve themselves."
She flinched at that reminder. "Yeah."
"Still wonder what the old man wanted us back for. Haven't picked up much going on, unless your parents want to see you or Itachi wants to see Sasuke."
"Are you implying that my parents wouldn't be missing me?" Ino asked.
Naruto snorted. "No, it's just that your parents aren't in the village right now. Nor is Kiba's mother."
"Oh. Do I want to know how you know that?"
"We could've stopped in to say hi to them in that town we passed through yesterday."
Kiba frowned. "Wait. We played a prank on the 'other Konoha nin passing through'. Did you have us set up a prank for our parents?"
Hinata nodded, grinning. "Yes, we did. With permission from Hokage-sama."
"They ran right into it too," Naruto added. "I even got pictures, including before and after the paint hit them. Complete failure to pay proper attention to their surroundings and they probably need some remedial trap-spotting training. Kuromaru is the only one that got out of the way in time."
"We'll pass them out for embarrassment purposes later. For now we need to turn in our last three missions and find out why Hokage-sama wanted us back."
Sasuke looked at them oddly. "Three missions? We only did two since the last turn-in."
Naruto snorted. "By 'permission' Hinata meant 'Old Man Hokage gave us a mission to prank them'. I had to take pictures for the 'successful prank' bonus payment, but it won't be complete because Kuromaru was able to dodge."
Ino and Kiba seemed to be pleasantly surprised that they were being paid for pranking their parents.
Orochimaru's eye twitched as he read a report. Konoha had, somehow, not only recovered enough information on the beast-man project to continue it, but had also advanced it significantly. To the point where they apparently had a zero percent failure rate on shinobi and enough test subjects to determine other details, such as that you couldn't transplant anything out of someone who had been exposed to the formula unless it would never interact with the recipient's chakra. Except that isolating organs was essentially impossible, so good luck there.
Which meant that they were getting a massive upgrade to their forces that were all going to be useless as potential hosts in addition to everything else, on the backbone of his research. That he couldn't even use himself because he didn't have his original notes, three quarters of the genetic samples used, and needed to ensure that when he needed to take a new host body that it wouldn't attack his chakra and kill him. Doubly so because that was probably what actually caused the seals he placed on the three genin to fail, even though he didn't think that should be the case.
It wouldn't be the first time he thought he'd taken factors like that into account and later found out that he'd missed details. He took pride in the fact that it was generally details he'd had no good way of knowing about ahead of time, but it was still something that kept happening.
...at least he had no desire for a byakugan, because it was looking like those were going to be essentially impossible to get your hands on soon.
Getting through turning in missions and other tasks had taken a little over an hour, and then the genin had been sent off to do their own things. Naruto and Hinata then got into line for meeting with the old man, and there was a line...at least until the old man realized they were there.
It was honestly amusing to see the group of mostly jounin biting back grumbling that a pair of chunin got to cut in line, but none of them were willing to be caught claiming that someone who had been summoned for a meeting with the old man was lower priority than those requesting his time instead.
"Good morning Naruto, Hinata," the old man greeted. "My apologies for interrupting your training excursion, extended as it seemed to be from your original plans, but three things have come up. One involves Sasuke, as I managed to convince Shisui to accept the hat and he wants all loyal Uchiha to be in the village to see him accept it."
Naruto blinked. "Huh. I'd have guessed that Itachi was more likely than Shisui."
"He was, and refused. Repeatedly, citing that he prefers to remain the head of the military police. The list of potential successors that I, the jounin, and the daimyo would all accept is...short, and my first three choices all turned the position down."
"Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Itachi?"
"Jiraiya, Itachi, and Hiashi, actually. Tsunade might be seen as suitable by the jounin and daimyo, but I don't feel that she currently has the will of fire."
"Huh. Hiashi?"
"Yes, Hiashi, but he feels that there's been too much upheaval in the clan recently and that he would be more suited to an advisory role. Honestly, I'm lucky that Shisui was easy enough to convince, because the last two on my list would likely turn the hat down as well."
Hinata frowned. "I wouldn't have even thought about Shisui, so I have no clue who else would be on your list."
The old man chuckled. "My personal list is twenty or so people long, but most of them are blatantly unsuitable to the jounin or daimyo. The only overlap left would be Kakashi and Naruto, and the latter only because of the show you two put on to guarantee your promotions."
"Ugh," Naruto said, shaking his head. "No way I want to be chained down to the desk of despair."
"Oooh, that's a good one, but you should know that three out of five people who accepted the hat have only done so upon hearing who else is in the running and what they've stated they plan on doing."
That...actually fit with some comments that Naruto had heard his parents making.
"Still," the old man continued. "I had promised myself that once you made chunin and knew about your heritage that I'd allow myself to retire again, but there are the other two reasons I mentioned for recalling you and your team. Specifically, you two have been requested for two different but related missions that your genin can't join you on."
"...we're just-promoted chunin," Naruto pointed out.
"Which makes you eligible to be sent into an active civil war that we aren't participating in, but your genin aren't eligible at this time."
"Huh, why would we be going to Kiri?"
"Missions paid for by Yagura Karatachi out of his personal funds to either broker peace or win the civil war on the behalf of the 'rebels'. Preferably manage to finish things diplomatically, but crushing the 'loyalists' alongside the rebels is a 'if the diplomatic approach fails or proves to be impossible' mission."
Hinata's jaw dropped for a moment. "The Mizukage wants the rebels to win?"
"He claims to have been mind controlled by the rogue Uchiha and has run out of ways to correct the mistakes made while being controlled in any other way."
Well, that was an interesting turn of events, but Naruto frowned as he thought about it. "If we're being hired to win the war for the rebels, that means we are participating."
"Only if the diplomatic attempt fails. Until then your genin are staying in the village. Should things reach that point then their participation can be revisited."
Over the following few days the preparations for the coronation of the new Hokage consumed the village, but Naruto and Hinata also had to plan for being away from their genin for a bit. A training routine was set up, including all three learning how to play shrine maiden...but only after Sasuke asked about it. Admittedly, being able to play that role had the potential to help on missions involving shrines and temples, but Naruto personally suspected that the boy also wasn't over Yoko yet.
Maybe working with her as a girl would help disassociate things in his head?
Karin had indicated that she'd help out with the shrine maiden part of training, figuring that genin had to be easier to work with than the civilian girls, and had also convinced the three genin to at least attempt basic field medic training. Being able to at least stabilize people until a proper medic-nin could get to them could be invaluable, and Tsunade was angling for all genin teams to have at least one member with such skills. Admittedly, for her purposes Naruto and Hinata counted, but it wouldn't be bad for the genin themselves to know the basics there.
This led to a three-day cycle pattern. One day working on things on their own or with their clans, one at the hospital learning basic medic-nin skills, and one day at the shrine to recover from the previous day. Putting it like that to the three had them...concerned though. They'd get Sundays off for their own use as well, and if things went to 'fighting in Kiri' and Shisui approved things as the new Hokage then the team could be summoned to join the battle.
"Good morning," the old man called, standing above the gathered crowds. "I find myself making history by being the first Kage in the Elemental Nations to pass on my hat twice. As is tradition, I will remain as an active jounin and available to serve as an advisor for my successor for at least a year. In fact, I'll even be taking the occasional mission. The steady paycheck as Hokage is nice, but doesn't compare to mission pay."
There was some chuckling, and Naruto idly wondered how many of those doing so realized that it was no joke. It was another reason to avoid taking the hat unless absolutely necessary, a low-jounin taking a mission a month easily maintained as good if not better income than the Hokage did. In theory because they were putting themselves at more risk by being in the field, though paperwork really should warrant hazard pay too.
"I'd also like to thank my advisors for their service," the old man continued, gesturing to the three standing off to the side. "But for now it's time to welcome the fifth Hokage, Shisui of the Uchiha clan."
Shisui used a body-flicker to appear next to the old man, who removed his hat and outer robes to show a standard jounin outfit. Shisui slipped the hat and robes over his own outfit, then stepped forward to address the crowd. "I thank the third for this honor, for both myself and my clan. I've asked Hiashi Hyuga and Tsunade Senju to serve as my primary advisors. When Hiruzen retires properly again I'll fill in the third traditional slot with another." He turned to the three former advisors. "No insult to the three of you, of course, but working with you would feel too much like working with my grandparents, plus I imagine that you'd also like the opportunity to retire properly."
It was obvious that two of the three were happy with that sentiment, but Danzo's smile was just as obviously forced. Especially to Naruto, who could feel the negative emotions flowing off of the man even as he tried to look jovial, though they didn't seem to be directed at anyone present. Or perhaps they were directed more internally? Hiashi and Tsunade stepped out during this, light applause coming from the audience. Supposedly during a transition a general statement of intended policy was made, and rumors as to what Shisui would say he wanted to do had been flying over the past couple of days. Nobody was going to want to miss that.
Looking over the crowd, Shisui raised a hand to silence the applause. "Previous holders of this position have vowed to improve the village in various ways. From the first who created the village, in several ways quite literally, to the second that set up a structure for the village itself buying information on techniques for the betterment of all the shinobi, to the third who revamped the academy. The fourth never got to complete his goals of establishing better ties between the hidden villages, taken before his time in defense of the village."
Here Shisui paused, and it seemed that most of the crowd held their breath. Looking over the crowd, he stood up straighter before continuing. "I have spoken with many, and checked the village records, and my first goal is to clean up our internal laws. A full two-thirds of our missing nin come from those in clans who could not live as they wished because their clans forbade it. Usually in the guise of protecting clan secrets, but frequently actually just because a clan's elders disapproved. This is a system that allowed the Hyuga and Uchiha elders to treat their own families as near slaves, and members of several other clans feel that things are reaching that point in their own families. Now is the time to ensure that our future generations do not have to flee the village to escape those that would control them for petty reasons, though I will stress that I don't plan to interfere with the laws that allow policies that have a grounded medical or bloodline reason that can be explained and justified to an outsider."
The response to this declaration was very obviously mixed. Most of the 'younger' crowd cheered, but those who were already clan elders or close to it were much more likely to be scowling. They obviously didn't want anyone eroding their power bases, but at the same time they likely knew that all it took was an internal coup in their clans to oust them as it was. Something aptly demonstrated with the Hyuga elders, and there were several older individuals in the crowd that were happy. Possibly those that had to deal with annoying individuals in their elder groups.
Besides, ensuring that clan techniques stayed in the village, even if they made it out of the clan, was much preferred to them going to other villages entirely with a disgruntled clan member.
Kahiko had been shocked when word had reached them that an oasis of life had appeared where their ancient home had once sat, and directed the caravan that way immediately. Along the way it was noticed that Nerugui's eyes had changed color, turning black instead of red, and examination showed that the stone embedded in the ferret's mouth was..wilting, perhaps? The white bleeding out into black and the blue bleeding out into gray.
It was concerning, but the ferret was ancient, meaning that it was possible that Gelel stones just didn't last forever when in use.
When they finally made it to the new oasis they were shocked, finding it much larger than it had been described and almost visibly growing larger, but Kahiko had overcome his shock and slipped away to check on the vein of Gelel under the oasis. He had originally thought it possible that someone had found it and opened it, but instead he found that the key had been burned out from the vein side...and the vein itself was just as 'wilted' as the stone in Nerugui. As though something had killed the Gelel in general, somehow...
Naruto raised an eyebrow as he and Hinata arrived at the gates, Hoshi following behind them. "Hey there old man."
Hiruzen smiled. "Good morning. I see that interacting with Kakashi hasn't made you pick up his habit of being late to missions."
"Wouldn't dream of it, but does that mean that you're the jounin for the missions?"
"Yep, and the one to request the two of you as obvious bloodline holders with enough extra tricks to make it a non-issue if things get out of hand. Let's get signed out so that we can get moving."
They were the only ones waiting to leave, and it only took a moment to sign out before they were gone. The old man led them to a nearby clearing, then stopped and turned to look at them. "So, the other reason I wanted you two is because Naruto is, unofficially speaking, the most recent Konoha shinobi to visit Kiri at all. I've not visited in decades, and for the decade before that I was also generally taking a boat that they provided."
Well, the tracking seals should be good for another decade, but Naruto had since realized that his previous visit hadn't taken advantage of things properly. "How quickly do we want to get there?"
"...I'd prefer as quickly as possible."
"On my previous visit I sent clones to run across the ocean."
"That does sound sensible."
"I ended up needing foxes to camp out halfway there to summon me to make more clones the next day because I didn't think to send a flying clone. They're a lot faster...and I can double a clone's speed, easily."
Hinata sighed. "And I've not quite made it up to the speed your clones seem to be able to manage."
"You haven't been trying much since you got Matatabi's remains bound to you either."
"You're still probably better off going without me to reach the main islands."
The old man nodded. "It does seem to make sense." He then pulled a sealing tag off of his belt. "This contains a portable monkey contract stone. Summon Hinata when you reach one of Kiri's outer islands, and I'll get myself there with the stone."
Naruto nodded, attaching the tag to his own belt before creating a shadow clone. He then cast the Knight Armor and flight spells. "With any luck I'll be there by nightfall."
"Why the clone?"
"Communication jutsu works between clones at any range, using the connection back to the original."
"...that's definitely going to need to be added to a few documents."
Anko had left on her first out of the village solo mission in a while just after the new Hokage had been sworn in. It was due to a mixture of things, like Hinata going on a mission of her own with Hiruzen and the new Hokage wanting to go over the academy in detail before changes continued, but the mission itself was...
Well, everyone had been able to see that it was a trap of some kind. Somehow requiring exactly her skills, just barely edging into 'recently promoted jounin' levels instead of allowing Hinata to take it as a near match, but not enough to warrant sending two jounin or even a chunin to help out. Sure, it had been possible that it was all coincidence, but the likely enemy didn't know all of her new tricks so she'd been willing to spring the trap.
What she found was two idiots that had actually been causing the trouble the mission claimed someone was causing, but were waiting for her specifically so that they could 'prove themselves to Orochimaru-sama'. Using quite nice katars and carrying supposed supplies for a base that Anko was positive wouldn't actually exist if investigated. No, Orochimaru obviously thought that he'd done something that required 'repayment' of some kind and had chosen this route to manage it.
As she flipped through the 'supplies', noting that most of it was easily sold for a profit, she considered her options. It was honestly a waste of time to interrogate the obvious idiots, currently unconscious, but she did have some sealing knowledge she'd picked up from Naruto and Tenten...and remembered how she'd accidentally combined a storage seal and explosive tag into a single array. You could store things with little issue, but retrieving them risked setting off the explosive tag side of the equation...and if she stuck one on each of the idiots' backs and stored another explosive tag in them then her former sensei would get an explosive surprise either way.
Assuming, of course, that she could convince the two idiots to not try to get what she sealed into them themselves...maybe gluing their shirts on would be enough?
To Naruto's surprise, it had only taken a little over an hour to reach the main islands via flying through the air. He found a suitable clearing, secured it, dropped the monkey contract stone, and then summoned Hinata and Hoshi to him. The old man appeared over the monkey stone a moment later, and Naruto tossed him the seal tag to store it again.
"That's even better than the boats," the old man said as the contract stone vanished into the seal tag. "But now we have the hard part of finding the rebels, perhaps while scouting out Kirigakure itself."
"Clones," Hinata replied, grinning. "Naruto and I can probably search the entire region in a few hours."
"I was thinking that we should be a bit less...haphazard. For a number of reasons I don't want to barge in on the rebels without warning, and flooding the area with clones could send entirely wrong signals."
"We're really good at our clones not being spotted. I'd tell you to ask the Anbu, but we're fairly certain they aren't actually aware of how many we regularly have in the village."
"...that does sound like Naruto, at least, but I also don't want to have you two potentially interacting with the rebels without me or a clone of me present." The old man then paused, and looked at Naruto. "I just realized that you've not said a thing about how to find the rebels, and I'm suddenly worried about why not."
Naruto shrugged. "I figured that I could let you two waste time while we wait for Ao, with his active stolen byakugan, and...Mei, I believe, who's functioning as the leader of the rebels if I remember the bounty books correctly. They're only a couple minutes out."
All three of the others stared at Naruto for a moment before Hoshi recovered first, breaking out into giggles.
"How did they even know that we're here?" the old man finally asked.
"I didn't mask my chakra when I landed since the goal was to be noticed by the rebels," Naruto replied. "Since everything I could find on the situation here said that the majority of the sensors were on the rebel side and we were hired by the Mizukage it was only polite to announce our arrival."
"You should've cleared it with me first."
"The mission paperwork you gave us recommended not masking our chakra to get the attention of the rebels. In context it probably meant 'while searching for them', but negating the need to search sounds even better."
"...I should've read my own damned mission paperwork, apparently."
"How do you know they're coming?" Hinata asked, frowning.
"Five rings of clones," Naruto said with a grin. "Advertising the position and not securing it are two different things."
The old man looked around, then sighed. "I can feel the approaching pair now, but even knowing that you have clones out isn't helping me spot them."
"I can't see them either," Hinata admitted. "His shapeshifting is annoyingly complete and even hides seals placed on him when he wants it to."
"It hides seals placed on Tenten too," Naruto corrected. "The sole exception seems to be the shapeshifting seal itself. You can't hide it."
"Oh. When did you learn that?"
"When she asked for help with a storage seal that she inked on her thigh that she couldn't access when shapeshifted. She has to focus on keeping it unshifted for it to react to her chakra."
It wasn't long before the pair stopped, but outside of the clearing. One of Naruto's clones was right next to them in the tree and found the talismans hanging from the man's ears to be interesting, given that the chakra flows looked like they were monitoring the byakugan eye in some fashion.
"They know we're here," Ao said. "Turned to face us while we were a good distance out. No traps that I can see, and they don't appear to be ready to fight, but the two kids..."
"...what about them?" Mei asked, concerned.
"They aren't fully human, animal ears and tails that don't quite look right but are obviously not genjutsu. I think they might be the two that made a big showing in Konoha's recent chunin exam. The girl has more chakra than the two of us and the jounin there combined and the boy has at least ten times as much as the girl."
That...was concerning. "Weren't the two that made a big showing seen using multiple combined element releases after making a collection of solid clones?"
"I believe that is what was reported, yes, alongside them supposedly having the remains of two of the tailed beasts bound to them. One of them is also a Hyuga, and I suspect that the fox I see is with the other."
Which could be a problem if his eye was discovered and they took offense. Fun. Good thing even he couldn't remove the eyepatch on a whim. Though thinking back over things... "Wasn't one of those two genin an Uzumaki?"
"...yes, and the boy is wearing a second forehead protector with what might be the Uzushio spiral on it."
"Be careful then. If anyone other than a hunter nin could figure out how to disable your talismans, it's going to be an Uzumaki." The man stiffened at that, likely not having considered it. "Can you identify the jounin?"
"...no, but they look familiar. As though I should recognize them."
Fun. Three largely-unknown shinobi...and a fox. "Turn off the eye for now. The veins are a dead giveaway and I'd rather not antagonize them too much if they're willing to wait calmly for us."
Nodding, Ao did so, and she moved to land at the edge of the clearing.
"Good morning," the jounin called, and she could tell what Ao had meant about the man looking familiar but being hard to place. "I'm Hiruzen Sarutobi, and these are Chunin Hinata Hyuga and Chunin Naruto Uzumaki. Would you happen to be Mei Terumi?"
Mei nodded. "I am, and this is Ao." Blinking, she finally recognized his name. "Why is Konoha's Kage sneaking into the Land of Water?"
"I recently made history by handing the hat over for a second time."
Well, that was an interesting turn of events. Being out of the news loop was annoying. It had taken nearly a month to hear about the chunin exam finals and that was 'big news'. Who knew how long a peaceful transition of a village leader would take to reach them right now.
Naruto wasn't sure what he'd expected, but the old man chatting with Mei for the rest of the day to explain things wasn't it. Both 'rebels' had been surprised when lunchtime came around and Naruto unpacked his 'field kitchen', likely enjoying their first really good meal in a while over discussions. Doubly so since that was when Mei insisted on being called Mei. As night approached the two had left, and the old man had them set up camp in the clearing to possibly resume discussions the next day after others were consulted.
They ended up remaining in the clearing for three days before the old man convinced them to invite the group to the rebel camp. An escort was offered, but the old man declined as he'd correctly guessed that Naruto had long since found the camp. Ao was unhappy with this, but Mei seemed to have expected it.
"So," the old man said. "I don't know how much you two listened in on despite keeping your respectful distance, but Ao claims to have noticed the genjutsu that Yagura was under and that it has been broken. At the same time, he's skeptical that the genjutsu could've held for as long as it did if Yagura hadn't agreed with it on some level, and Mei noted that the most rabid loyalists will need to be taken out before any meetings can happen at all. She'd like to manage it without killing them, but doesn't hold out much hope for it. Sadly, the only reinforcements we're likely to get are your genin, if that, so I'm open to ideas."
"Yesterday my parents suggested removing the ability of the loyalists to use chakra," Naruto admitted. Because he had been listening in, and keeping the Tome's residents in the loop.
That seemed to confuse the old man. "Sealing their chakra away? As much as that's thrown about as a solution to things, it rarely sticks."
"Er, no. The opposite of what I did to Lee, instead of fixing his chakra I can break someone else's. That's actually easier, but I don't think I'd want to use it too often."
"As I recall, for Lee you needed to build a complicated seal, though not as complicated as the medical chakra boosting ones. I doubt we're going to be able to get the loyalists into such a thing."
Naruto sighed and made a clone, to which he handed a seal tag. The clone then unsealed a stack of tags that he'd had clones make the previous afternoon. "When I said easier, I meant 'one-time seal tag' easier. Though they're incredibly dangerous to make too, because if you screw up your ability to mold chakra vanishes as you make them. That's fine if it was a paperwork clone, but the real you is screwed."
"...are you avoiding handling those yourself because of how dangerous they are?"
"Yes."
Both the old man and Hinata backed away from the clone holding the stack of tags a couple of steps at that, but the old man looked pensive. "Perhaps it's time for Uzushio's Anbu to make another reappearance, swarming the loyalists in the main village?"
Naruto considered that, and what he knew of the main village. "That could work, though might need a twist or two to be believably Uzushio in origin..."
"Come up with something, and we'll call that our backup plan. I don't want to know the full details because then my reactions can be more genuine. Any other thoughts in case that doesn't look like it'll work when we do recon, or just to suggest trying first?"
"My best plan is Naruto and I swarming the village with obvious clones," Hinata admitted. "But we don't know enough about the enemy to not start out with lethal force."
That had the old man sighing. "Yes, that would present a problem with wanting to hold the higher moral ground. The easy options tend to not work well."
"I don't think that a swarm of foxes would work well either," Hoshi added with a frown. "We'd be too obviously a threat and those of us that could hit hard would have to in order to not be overwhelmed."
Over the next three days they got to know the rebels, only half of which had bloodline skills, and scouted Kirigakure itself. Or rather, did the rebel version of scouting and the Team Yurei version, the latter being a lot more effective. They just hadn't told the rebels about it. A message had also been sent back to Shisui, who had decided that he didn't want genin involved...to the annoyance of the three genin when that had been relayed to them.
Several additional plans had been floated, some that the rebels had been working on for a few years. Specific paths into the village being collapsed or blocked killed several, a lack of manpower stopped others, insufficient supplies of things like explosive tags stopped more. Hinata and the old man had come up with a couple of other plans, including slipping in and taking Yagura 'hostage', but they honestly didn't think that any of them would work as well as anything Naruto could pull off in the guise of Uzushio Anbu flying in and using spells to attack, on top of anything else he did.
Not that they told the rebels about that plan, just that they had 'a last-resort option' available that they were reluctant to use.
During this, Naruto had also effectively taken over the kitchen, scolding the previous chefs for their low-quality fare. They'd gone to Mei, offended, only for her to ask if they'd eaten his cooking. Of course, he'd also had to go hunting and fishing, but that wasn't a big deal, and the first meal he'd made had completely reversed the opinions of the entire group regarding having 'outsiders' working with them.
The Akimichi were a fan of saying that if the food is good enough you can get anyone to work with you, and Naruto had no problem learning more and more recipes to cook. Or using paperwork clones to manage the entire kitchen to avoid infighting.
"I wonder if anyone not already in the know figured out that we can send clones back at any time," Hinata mused. "Given that we've been doing hospital shifts the entire time we've been gone."
"Tsunade let us do them in disguise," Naruto reminded her. "And she's been a slave driver when it comes to learning the details instead of throwing chakra at things until they resolve themselves."
She flinched at that reminder. "Yeah."
"Still wonder what the old man wanted us back for. Haven't picked up much going on, unless your parents want to see you or Itachi wants to see Sasuke."
"Are you implying that my parents wouldn't be missing me?" Ino asked.
Naruto snorted. "No, it's just that your parents aren't in the village right now. Nor is Kiba's mother."
"Oh. Do I want to know how you know that?"
"We could've stopped in to say hi to them in that town we passed through yesterday."
Kiba frowned. "Wait. We played a prank on the 'other Konoha nin passing through'. Did you have us set up a prank for our parents?"
Hinata nodded, grinning. "Yes, we did. With permission from Hokage-sama."
"They ran right into it too," Naruto added. "I even got pictures, including before and after the paint hit them. Complete failure to pay proper attention to their surroundings and they probably need some remedial trap-spotting training. Kuromaru is the only one that got out of the way in time."
"We'll pass them out for embarrassment purposes later. For now we need to turn in our last three missions and find out why Hokage-sama wanted us back."
Sasuke looked at them oddly. "Three missions? We only did two since the last turn-in."
Naruto snorted. "By 'permission' Hinata meant 'Old Man Hokage gave us a mission to prank them'. I had to take pictures for the 'successful prank' bonus payment, but it won't be complete because Kuromaru was able to dodge."
Ino and Kiba seemed to be pleasantly surprised that they were being paid for pranking their parents.
Orochimaru's eye twitched as he read a report. Konoha had, somehow, not only recovered enough information on the beast-man project to continue it, but had also advanced it significantly. To the point where they apparently had a zero percent failure rate on shinobi and enough test subjects to determine other details, such as that you couldn't transplant anything out of someone who had been exposed to the formula unless it would never interact with the recipient's chakra. Except that isolating organs was essentially impossible, so good luck there.
Which meant that they were getting a massive upgrade to their forces that were all going to be useless as potential hosts in addition to everything else, on the backbone of his research. That he couldn't even use himself because he didn't have his original notes, three quarters of the genetic samples used, and needed to ensure that when he needed to take a new host body that it wouldn't attack his chakra and kill him. Doubly so because that was probably what actually caused the seals he placed on the three genin to fail, even though he didn't think that should be the case.
It wouldn't be the first time he thought he'd taken factors like that into account and later found out that he'd missed details. He took pride in the fact that it was generally details he'd had no good way of knowing about ahead of time, but it was still something that kept happening.
...at least he had no desire for a byakugan, because it was looking like those were going to be essentially impossible to get your hands on soon.
Getting through turning in missions and other tasks had taken a little over an hour, and then the genin had been sent off to do their own things. Naruto and Hinata then got into line for meeting with the old man, and there was a line...at least until the old man realized they were there.
It was honestly amusing to see the group of mostly jounin biting back grumbling that a pair of chunin got to cut in line, but none of them were willing to be caught claiming that someone who had been summoned for a meeting with the old man was lower priority than those requesting his time instead.
"Good morning Naruto, Hinata," the old man greeted. "My apologies for interrupting your training excursion, extended as it seemed to be from your original plans, but three things have come up. One involves Sasuke, as I managed to convince Shisui to accept the hat and he wants all loyal Uchiha to be in the village to see him accept it."
Naruto blinked. "Huh. I'd have guessed that Itachi was more likely than Shisui."
"He was, and refused. Repeatedly, citing that he prefers to remain the head of the military police. The list of potential successors that I, the jounin, and the daimyo would all accept is...short, and my first three choices all turned the position down."
"Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Itachi?"
"Jiraiya, Itachi, and Hiashi, actually. Tsunade might be seen as suitable by the jounin and daimyo, but I don't feel that she currently has the will of fire."
"Huh. Hiashi?"
"Yes, Hiashi, but he feels that there's been too much upheaval in the clan recently and that he would be more suited to an advisory role. Honestly, I'm lucky that Shisui was easy enough to convince, because the last two on my list would likely turn the hat down as well."
Hinata frowned. "I wouldn't have even thought about Shisui, so I have no clue who else would be on your list."
The old man chuckled. "My personal list is twenty or so people long, but most of them are blatantly unsuitable to the jounin or daimyo. The only overlap left would be Kakashi and Naruto, and the latter only because of the show you two put on to guarantee your promotions."
"Ugh," Naruto said, shaking his head. "No way I want to be chained down to the desk of despair."
"Oooh, that's a good one, but you should know that three out of five people who accepted the hat have only done so upon hearing who else is in the running and what they've stated they plan on doing."
That...actually fit with some comments that Naruto had heard his parents making.
"Still," the old man continued. "I had promised myself that once you made chunin and knew about your heritage that I'd allow myself to retire again, but there are the other two reasons I mentioned for recalling you and your team. Specifically, you two have been requested for two different but related missions that your genin can't join you on."
"...we're just-promoted chunin," Naruto pointed out.
"Which makes you eligible to be sent into an active civil war that we aren't participating in, but your genin aren't eligible at this time."
"Huh, why would we be going to Kiri?"
"Missions paid for by Yagura Karatachi out of his personal funds to either broker peace or win the civil war on the behalf of the 'rebels'. Preferably manage to finish things diplomatically, but crushing the 'loyalists' alongside the rebels is a 'if the diplomatic approach fails or proves to be impossible' mission."
Hinata's jaw dropped for a moment. "The Mizukage wants the rebels to win?"
"He claims to have been mind controlled by the rogue Uchiha and has run out of ways to correct the mistakes made while being controlled in any other way."
Well, that was an interesting turn of events, but Naruto frowned as he thought about it. "If we're being hired to win the war for the rebels, that means we are participating."
"Only if the diplomatic attempt fails. Until then your genin are staying in the village. Should things reach that point then their participation can be revisited."
Over the following few days the preparations for the coronation of the new Hokage consumed the village, but Naruto and Hinata also had to plan for being away from their genin for a bit. A training routine was set up, including all three learning how to play shrine maiden...but only after Sasuke asked about it. Admittedly, being able to play that role had the potential to help on missions involving shrines and temples, but Naruto personally suspected that the boy also wasn't over Yoko yet.
Maybe working with her as a girl would help disassociate things in his head?
Karin had indicated that she'd help out with the shrine maiden part of training, figuring that genin had to be easier to work with than the civilian girls, and had also convinced the three genin to at least attempt basic field medic training. Being able to at least stabilize people until a proper medic-nin could get to them could be invaluable, and Tsunade was angling for all genin teams to have at least one member with such skills. Admittedly, for her purposes Naruto and Hinata counted, but it wouldn't be bad for the genin themselves to know the basics there.
This led to a three-day cycle pattern. One day working on things on their own or with their clans, one at the hospital learning basic medic-nin skills, and one day at the shrine to recover from the previous day. Putting it like that to the three had them...concerned though. They'd get Sundays off for their own use as well, and if things went to 'fighting in Kiri' and Shisui approved things as the new Hokage then the team could be summoned to join the battle.
"Good morning," the old man called, standing above the gathered crowds. "I find myself making history by being the first Kage in the Elemental Nations to pass on my hat twice. As is tradition, I will remain as an active jounin and available to serve as an advisor for my successor for at least a year. In fact, I'll even be taking the occasional mission. The steady paycheck as Hokage is nice, but doesn't compare to mission pay."
There was some chuckling, and Naruto idly wondered how many of those doing so realized that it was no joke. It was another reason to avoid taking the hat unless absolutely necessary, a low-jounin taking a mission a month easily maintained as good if not better income than the Hokage did. In theory because they were putting themselves at more risk by being in the field, though paperwork really should warrant hazard pay too.
"I'd also like to thank my advisors for their service," the old man continued, gesturing to the three standing off to the side. "But for now it's time to welcome the fifth Hokage, Shisui of the Uchiha clan."
Shisui used a body-flicker to appear next to the old man, who removed his hat and outer robes to show a standard jounin outfit. Shisui slipped the hat and robes over his own outfit, then stepped forward to address the crowd. "I thank the third for this honor, for both myself and my clan. I've asked Hiashi Hyuga and Tsunade Senju to serve as my primary advisors. When Hiruzen retires properly again I'll fill in the third traditional slot with another." He turned to the three former advisors. "No insult to the three of you, of course, but working with you would feel too much like working with my grandparents, plus I imagine that you'd also like the opportunity to retire properly."
It was obvious that two of the three were happy with that sentiment, but Danzo's smile was just as obviously forced. Especially to Naruto, who could feel the negative emotions flowing off of the man even as he tried to look jovial, though they didn't seem to be directed at anyone present. Or perhaps they were directed more internally? Hiashi and Tsunade stepped out during this, light applause coming from the audience. Supposedly during a transition a general statement of intended policy was made, and rumors as to what Shisui would say he wanted to do had been flying over the past couple of days. Nobody was going to want to miss that.
Looking over the crowd, Shisui raised a hand to silence the applause. "Previous holders of this position have vowed to improve the village in various ways. From the first who created the village, in several ways quite literally, to the second that set up a structure for the village itself buying information on techniques for the betterment of all the shinobi, to the third who revamped the academy. The fourth never got to complete his goals of establishing better ties between the hidden villages, taken before his time in defense of the village."
Here Shisui paused, and it seemed that most of the crowd held their breath. Looking over the crowd, he stood up straighter before continuing. "I have spoken with many, and checked the village records, and my first goal is to clean up our internal laws. A full two-thirds of our missing nin come from those in clans who could not live as they wished because their clans forbade it. Usually in the guise of protecting clan secrets, but frequently actually just because a clan's elders disapproved. This is a system that allowed the Hyuga and Uchiha elders to treat their own families as near slaves, and members of several other clans feel that things are reaching that point in their own families. Now is the time to ensure that our future generations do not have to flee the village to escape those that would control them for petty reasons, though I will stress that I don't plan to interfere with the laws that allow policies that have a grounded medical or bloodline reason that can be explained and justified to an outsider."
The response to this declaration was very obviously mixed. Most of the 'younger' crowd cheered, but those who were already clan elders or close to it were much more likely to be scowling. They obviously didn't want anyone eroding their power bases, but at the same time they likely knew that all it took was an internal coup in their clans to oust them as it was. Something aptly demonstrated with the Hyuga elders, and there were several older individuals in the crowd that were happy. Possibly those that had to deal with annoying individuals in their elder groups.
Besides, ensuring that clan techniques stayed in the village, even if they made it out of the clan, was much preferred to them going to other villages entirely with a disgruntled clan member.
Kahiko had been shocked when word had reached them that an oasis of life had appeared where their ancient home had once sat, and directed the caravan that way immediately. Along the way it was noticed that Nerugui's eyes had changed color, turning black instead of red, and examination showed that the stone embedded in the ferret's mouth was..wilting, perhaps? The white bleeding out into black and the blue bleeding out into gray.
It was concerning, but the ferret was ancient, meaning that it was possible that Gelel stones just didn't last forever when in use.
When they finally made it to the new oasis they were shocked, finding it much larger than it had been described and almost visibly growing larger, but Kahiko had overcome his shock and slipped away to check on the vein of Gelel under the oasis. He had originally thought it possible that someone had found it and opened it, but instead he found that the key had been burned out from the vein side...and the vein itself was just as 'wilted' as the stone in Nerugui. As though something had killed the Gelel in general, somehow...
Naruto raised an eyebrow as he and Hinata arrived at the gates, Hoshi following behind them. "Hey there old man."
Hiruzen smiled. "Good morning. I see that interacting with Kakashi hasn't made you pick up his habit of being late to missions."
"Wouldn't dream of it, but does that mean that you're the jounin for the missions?"
"Yep, and the one to request the two of you as obvious bloodline holders with enough extra tricks to make it a non-issue if things get out of hand. Let's get signed out so that we can get moving."
They were the only ones waiting to leave, and it only took a moment to sign out before they were gone. The old man led them to a nearby clearing, then stopped and turned to look at them. "So, the other reason I wanted you two is because Naruto is, unofficially speaking, the most recent Konoha shinobi to visit Kiri at all. I've not visited in decades, and for the decade before that I was also generally taking a boat that they provided."
Well, the tracking seals should be good for another decade, but Naruto had since realized that his previous visit hadn't taken advantage of things properly. "How quickly do we want to get there?"
"...I'd prefer as quickly as possible."
"On my previous visit I sent clones to run across the ocean."
"That does sound sensible."
"I ended up needing foxes to camp out halfway there to summon me to make more clones the next day because I didn't think to send a flying clone. They're a lot faster...and I can double a clone's speed, easily."
Hinata sighed. "And I've not quite made it up to the speed your clones seem to be able to manage."
"You haven't been trying much since you got Matatabi's remains bound to you either."
"You're still probably better off going without me to reach the main islands."
The old man nodded. "It does seem to make sense." He then pulled a sealing tag off of his belt. "This contains a portable monkey contract stone. Summon Hinata when you reach one of Kiri's outer islands, and I'll get myself there with the stone."
Naruto nodded, attaching the tag to his own belt before creating a shadow clone. He then cast the Knight Armor and flight spells. "With any luck I'll be there by nightfall."
"Why the clone?"
"Communication jutsu works between clones at any range, using the connection back to the original."
"...that's definitely going to need to be added to a few documents."
Anko had left on her first out of the village solo mission in a while just after the new Hokage had been sworn in. It was due to a mixture of things, like Hinata going on a mission of her own with Hiruzen and the new Hokage wanting to go over the academy in detail before changes continued, but the mission itself was...
Well, everyone had been able to see that it was a trap of some kind. Somehow requiring exactly her skills, just barely edging into 'recently promoted jounin' levels instead of allowing Hinata to take it as a near match, but not enough to warrant sending two jounin or even a chunin to help out. Sure, it had been possible that it was all coincidence, but the likely enemy didn't know all of her new tricks so she'd been willing to spring the trap.
What she found was two idiots that had actually been causing the trouble the mission claimed someone was causing, but were waiting for her specifically so that they could 'prove themselves to Orochimaru-sama'. Using quite nice katars and carrying supposed supplies for a base that Anko was positive wouldn't actually exist if investigated. No, Orochimaru obviously thought that he'd done something that required 'repayment' of some kind and had chosen this route to manage it.
As she flipped through the 'supplies', noting that most of it was easily sold for a profit, she considered her options. It was honestly a waste of time to interrogate the obvious idiots, currently unconscious, but she did have some sealing knowledge she'd picked up from Naruto and Tenten...and remembered how she'd accidentally combined a storage seal and explosive tag into a single array. You could store things with little issue, but retrieving them risked setting off the explosive tag side of the equation...and if she stuck one on each of the idiots' backs and stored another explosive tag in them then her former sensei would get an explosive surprise either way.
Assuming, of course, that she could convince the two idiots to not try to get what she sealed into them themselves...maybe gluing their shirts on would be enough?
To Naruto's surprise, it had only taken a little over an hour to reach the main islands via flying through the air. He found a suitable clearing, secured it, dropped the monkey contract stone, and then summoned Hinata and Hoshi to him. The old man appeared over the monkey stone a moment later, and Naruto tossed him the seal tag to store it again.
"That's even better than the boats," the old man said as the contract stone vanished into the seal tag. "But now we have the hard part of finding the rebels, perhaps while scouting out Kirigakure itself."
"Clones," Hinata replied, grinning. "Naruto and I can probably search the entire region in a few hours."
"I was thinking that we should be a bit less...haphazard. For a number of reasons I don't want to barge in on the rebels without warning, and flooding the area with clones could send entirely wrong signals."
"We're really good at our clones not being spotted. I'd tell you to ask the Anbu, but we're fairly certain they aren't actually aware of how many we regularly have in the village."
"...that does sound like Naruto, at least, but I also don't want to have you two potentially interacting with the rebels without me or a clone of me present." The old man then paused, and looked at Naruto. "I just realized that you've not said a thing about how to find the rebels, and I'm suddenly worried about why not."
Naruto shrugged. "I figured that I could let you two waste time while we wait for Ao, with his active stolen byakugan, and...Mei, I believe, who's functioning as the leader of the rebels if I remember the bounty books correctly. They're only a couple minutes out."
All three of the others stared at Naruto for a moment before Hoshi recovered first, breaking out into giggles.
"How did they even know that we're here?" the old man finally asked.
"I didn't mask my chakra when I landed since the goal was to be noticed by the rebels," Naruto replied. "Since everything I could find on the situation here said that the majority of the sensors were on the rebel side and we were hired by the Mizukage it was only polite to announce our arrival."
"You should've cleared it with me first."
"The mission paperwork you gave us recommended not masking our chakra to get the attention of the rebels. In context it probably meant 'while searching for them', but negating the need to search sounds even better."
"...I should've read my own damned mission paperwork, apparently."
"How do you know they're coming?" Hinata asked, frowning.
"Five rings of clones," Naruto said with a grin. "Advertising the position and not securing it are two different things."
The old man looked around, then sighed. "I can feel the approaching pair now, but even knowing that you have clones out isn't helping me spot them."
"I can't see them either," Hinata admitted. "His shapeshifting is annoyingly complete and even hides seals placed on him when he wants it to."
"It hides seals placed on Tenten too," Naruto corrected. "The sole exception seems to be the shapeshifting seal itself. You can't hide it."
"Oh. When did you learn that?"
"When she asked for help with a storage seal that she inked on her thigh that she couldn't access when shapeshifted. She has to focus on keeping it unshifted for it to react to her chakra."
It wasn't long before the pair stopped, but outside of the clearing. One of Naruto's clones was right next to them in the tree and found the talismans hanging from the man's ears to be interesting, given that the chakra flows looked like they were monitoring the byakugan eye in some fashion.
"They know we're here," Ao said. "Turned to face us while we were a good distance out. No traps that I can see, and they don't appear to be ready to fight, but the two kids..."
"...what about them?" Mei asked, concerned.
"They aren't fully human, animal ears and tails that don't quite look right but are obviously not genjutsu. I think they might be the two that made a big showing in Konoha's recent chunin exam. The girl has more chakra than the two of us and the jounin there combined and the boy has at least ten times as much as the girl."
That...was concerning. "Weren't the two that made a big showing seen using multiple combined element releases after making a collection of solid clones?"
"I believe that is what was reported, yes, alongside them supposedly having the remains of two of the tailed beasts bound to them. One of them is also a Hyuga, and I suspect that the fox I see is with the other."
Which could be a problem if his eye was discovered and they took offense. Fun. Good thing even he couldn't remove the eyepatch on a whim. Though thinking back over things... "Wasn't one of those two genin an Uzumaki?"
"...yes, and the boy is wearing a second forehead protector with what might be the Uzushio spiral on it."
"Be careful then. If anyone other than a hunter nin could figure out how to disable your talismans, it's going to be an Uzumaki." The man stiffened at that, likely not having considered it. "Can you identify the jounin?"
"...no, but they look familiar. As though I should recognize them."
Fun. Three largely-unknown shinobi...and a fox. "Turn off the eye for now. The veins are a dead giveaway and I'd rather not antagonize them too much if they're willing to wait calmly for us."
Nodding, Ao did so, and she moved to land at the edge of the clearing.
"Good morning," the jounin called, and she could tell what Ao had meant about the man looking familiar but being hard to place. "I'm Hiruzen Sarutobi, and these are Chunin Hinata Hyuga and Chunin Naruto Uzumaki. Would you happen to be Mei Terumi?"
Mei nodded. "I am, and this is Ao." Blinking, she finally recognized his name. "Why is Konoha's Kage sneaking into the Land of Water?"
"I recently made history by handing the hat over for a second time."
Well, that was an interesting turn of events. Being out of the news loop was annoying. It had taken nearly a month to hear about the chunin exam finals and that was 'big news'. Who knew how long a peaceful transition of a village leader would take to reach them right now.
Naruto wasn't sure what he'd expected, but the old man chatting with Mei for the rest of the day to explain things wasn't it. Both 'rebels' had been surprised when lunchtime came around and Naruto unpacked his 'field kitchen', likely enjoying their first really good meal in a while over discussions. Doubly so since that was when Mei insisted on being called Mei. As night approached the two had left, and the old man had them set up camp in the clearing to possibly resume discussions the next day after others were consulted.
They ended up remaining in the clearing for three days before the old man convinced them to invite the group to the rebel camp. An escort was offered, but the old man declined as he'd correctly guessed that Naruto had long since found the camp. Ao was unhappy with this, but Mei seemed to have expected it.
"So," the old man said. "I don't know how much you two listened in on despite keeping your respectful distance, but Ao claims to have noticed the genjutsu that Yagura was under and that it has been broken. At the same time, he's skeptical that the genjutsu could've held for as long as it did if Yagura hadn't agreed with it on some level, and Mei noted that the most rabid loyalists will need to be taken out before any meetings can happen at all. She'd like to manage it without killing them, but doesn't hold out much hope for it. Sadly, the only reinforcements we're likely to get are your genin, if that, so I'm open to ideas."
"Yesterday my parents suggested removing the ability of the loyalists to use chakra," Naruto admitted. Because he had been listening in, and keeping the Tome's residents in the loop.
That seemed to confuse the old man. "Sealing their chakra away? As much as that's thrown about as a solution to things, it rarely sticks."
"Er, no. The opposite of what I did to Lee, instead of fixing his chakra I can break someone else's. That's actually easier, but I don't think I'd want to use it too often."
"As I recall, for Lee you needed to build a complicated seal, though not as complicated as the medical chakra boosting ones. I doubt we're going to be able to get the loyalists into such a thing."
Naruto sighed and made a clone, to which he handed a seal tag. The clone then unsealed a stack of tags that he'd had clones make the previous afternoon. "When I said easier, I meant 'one-time seal tag' easier. Though they're incredibly dangerous to make too, because if you screw up your ability to mold chakra vanishes as you make them. That's fine if it was a paperwork clone, but the real you is screwed."
"...are you avoiding handling those yourself because of how dangerous they are?"
"Yes."
Both the old man and Hinata backed away from the clone holding the stack of tags a couple of steps at that, but the old man looked pensive. "Perhaps it's time for Uzushio's Anbu to make another reappearance, swarming the loyalists in the main village?"
Naruto considered that, and what he knew of the main village. "That could work, though might need a twist or two to be believably Uzushio in origin..."
"Come up with something, and we'll call that our backup plan. I don't want to know the full details because then my reactions can be more genuine. Any other thoughts in case that doesn't look like it'll work when we do recon, or just to suggest trying first?"
"My best plan is Naruto and I swarming the village with obvious clones," Hinata admitted. "But we don't know enough about the enemy to not start out with lethal force."
That had the old man sighing. "Yes, that would present a problem with wanting to hold the higher moral ground. The easy options tend to not work well."
"I don't think that a swarm of foxes would work well either," Hoshi added with a frown. "We'd be too obviously a threat and those of us that could hit hard would have to in order to not be overwhelmed."
Over the next three days they got to know the rebels, only half of which had bloodline skills, and scouted Kirigakure itself. Or rather, did the rebel version of scouting and the Team Yurei version, the latter being a lot more effective. They just hadn't told the rebels about it. A message had also been sent back to Shisui, who had decided that he didn't want genin involved...to the annoyance of the three genin when that had been relayed to them.
Several additional plans had been floated, some that the rebels had been working on for a few years. Specific paths into the village being collapsed or blocked killed several, a lack of manpower stopped others, insufficient supplies of things like explosive tags stopped more. Hinata and the old man had come up with a couple of other plans, including slipping in and taking Yagura 'hostage', but they honestly didn't think that any of them would work as well as anything Naruto could pull off in the guise of Uzushio Anbu flying in and using spells to attack, on top of anything else he did.
Not that they told the rebels about that plan, just that they had 'a last-resort option' available that they were reluctant to use.
During this, Naruto had also effectively taken over the kitchen, scolding the previous chefs for their low-quality fare. They'd gone to Mei, offended, only for her to ask if they'd eaten his cooking. Of course, he'd also had to go hunting and fishing, but that wasn't a big deal, and the first meal he'd made had completely reversed the opinions of the entire group regarding having 'outsiders' working with them.
The Akimichi were a fan of saying that if the food is good enough you can get anyone to work with you, and Naruto had no problem learning more and more recipes to cook. Or using paperwork clones to manage the entire kitchen to avoid infighting.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Also without massive property damage and landscaping.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Wasn't that a primary theme of Journey to the West? You know, Monkey King being handicapped against any foes due to not wanting to accidently kill the monk he was suppose to be guarding?
- Location
- Hot Springs
FTFY. In general, it's easier to destroy/kill then to preserve/save. It's when you seek to be better that you find yourself on the hardest road...
- Location
- Scotland
At least Naruto isn't going the Lina Inverse route of diplomacy, as in: "Kill them all in one almighty explosion and let God sort it out."
Well at some point, they should kidnap Yagura Karatachi and let the tome work on destroying number 3. The real question would be who they'd put the upgrade fragment into.
If the go-ahead is given for the backup option, Uzu will be rather feared after this. They'd basically leave them all alive as civilians. That's actually more insulting than just killing them. From Kiri's POV though, they are still useful.
Even if none of them can still be ninjas, their kids can. For Kiri to still be a hidden village, they need that breeding population of chakra welding ninja.
I'm expecting the loyalist to be defeated in a prank war.
If the go-ahead is given for the backup option, Uzu will be rather feared after this. They'd basically leave them all alive as civilians. That's actually more insulting than just killing them. From Kiri's POV though, they are still useful.
Even if none of them can still be ninjas, their kids can. For Kiri to still be a hidden village, they need that breeding population of chakra welding ninja.
I'm expecting the loyalist to be defeated in a prank war.