The upheaval caused by the changes to the Land of Snow, and Konoha suddenly having multiple fully-functional airships and a pile of other stuff, caused things to 'calm down' for a bit. Team Yurei Junior was getting a number of smaller missions, but Naruto and Hinata weren't in the same demand. Some of this was likely partially intentional, nobles traveling to Konoha in hopes of getting their own mobile houses and it being better if Naruto was around, but it had been quickly determined that he wasn't going to be much help with most of what they'd gotten from the Land of Snow.
Apparently the Tome was not good with technology. Chakra or magic, depending on how you wanted to look at it? Excellent. Technology in general? Not so much, beyond incredibly straightforward basics. Naruto had a better grasp of things than the Tome appeared to most of the time, despite using the Tome's world to learn much of what he knew. This meant that one of the only things the Tome had really figured out from examining stuff from the Land of Snow were how the chakra flows worked in some of the chakra-powered items and that the crystals used in the technology were somewhat similar to some of its internal components.
At this point Naruto had a running theory that there might be rules against the Tome figuring out how to build more things like itself. Those rules were also likely heavy-handed enough to prevent it from truly understanding anything beyond a specific technology level, and the Land of Snow had exceeded that. As had Uzushiogakure, for that matter, based on the lack of progress that had been made figuring out things they'd done in the Land of Hot Water. Also telling was that the Tome could tell you that it had repaired itself, and even the names of components repaired, but couldn't provide any more detail than that.
All combined, it meant that if Naruto wanted to understand any of the stuff, he had to figure it out himself. And he wasn't all that interested in most of it, beyond that specific forms of the crystals could store insane amounts of chakra. So he was slowly working on figuring out how those were made and how he could use them with seals. Being able to just slot a new charged crystal into any number of things would be a much nicer way to power remote seals back up.
Of course, he was also finally making Kurama and Matatabi puppets as well, tired of the whining that he'd only made a Shukaku puppet so far. Multiple tails was proving to be slightly complicated to make work though, at least past two. Getting nine in was in many ways an exercise in frustration right now.
"...you want us to make clones with different appearances?" Naruto asked, blinking. They were holding a mini-meeting of sorts in the Tome world, though it had started as him and Yoko working out a potential puppet modification before trying to build it for real.
"Why?" Yoko asked.
"We're expecting to be able to manifest 'real' selves outside of the Tome," their mother replied. "Ones that will last until someone kills them or they're reabsorbed to let someone else out."
"Only three at a time," their father added. "The relevant system can only maintain three connections. But having the three manifested be recognizable would be...unwise."
"Especially in our cases," Kurama continued. "...though Matatabi is lazy and doesn't want to participate anyway. Having human forms that aren't historically important would be useful, though obviously including animal features won't be a problem these days."
"Despite not being one, I think that having all of the forms be teenagers and look like they're Uzumaki would be for the best to help explain where we 'came' from to the general public. Just not siblings...and we should probably pick different names to go by."
Naruto nodded. "I suppose that does make sense if you're going to be around more often...but does this mean that we're going to have to arrange for a place for you to stay?"
"We have options," his mother noted. "Even beyond just staying in the compound, but unfortunately we're also unlikely to be as...flexible in moving around as you are."
His father nodded. "Yeah. We're unlikely to be able to properly use summoning contracts at all due to our connection to the Tome. Maybe if our original bodies had survived to use as a template, instead of basing things on reinforcing paperwork clones, but as it is we think it's unlikely that we'll properly interact with the summoning network at all."
"They're trying to not mention the other side effect of doing this," Matatabi piped up. "Specifically, the fact that doing this will cause their forms in here to change as well. Which is part of why I want nothing to do with it."
It was obvious that this hadn't been intended to be brought up originally, at least based on the sighing.
A week later the argument about 'replacing' the physical forms of those in the Tome that wished to have their forms changed had ended up resolved in favor of changing things, entirely on the basis that Naruto and Yoko did not want the attention that would come about from having their father around looking like himself. Extending it to the other three was trivial after getting that concession from the pair.
Their father was going to appear to be the most traditionally Uzumaki, to further disguise things, with the bright red Uzumaki hair in particular. He'd go by Futo Uzumaki going forward. Their mother was going with a more reddish-brown hair color, as though things had been diluted through other family lines, and the name Odoroki Uzumaki. Neither of them were going to have animal features, and both would look around eighteen.
Of the tailed beasts, only Kurama and Shukaku were participating, and would generally be the ones 'trading places' in the three slots available. It was no surprise that Kurama wanted to have fox features, but had insisted on them being closer to Naruto's original ones than those of Yoko and Karin. Then further tweaked to be biologically possible instead of seemingly tacked onto the human form. Aside from that, the body would be male with darker red hair and fur, would look to be around thirty, and would go by the name Ren.
He insisted that it meant 'lotus' and not 'love', but they'd have to see how he wrote it.
Shukaku had decided to go in an entirely different direction, asking for a female body that looked around fifteen. Blonde hair, a bit of a tan, no animal features, way too much time spent getting the voice 'just right'. Some of this was justified with things like females generally having an easier time controlling their chakra or being smaller meaning that it would be easier to work in tighter spaces when drawing seals. Matatabi had commented that Shukaku just didn't want to admit to having a preferred 'type of hairless ape'. Regardless, Shukaku had also picked the name Miho.
Ensuring that everything was in place in the Tome had taken two days after the four clones had been absorbed into it. The four forms were to have access to different chakra net nodes, for different reasons. All would have the enhanced medical chakra node, but not the 'bite-to-heal' additional one. Ren would be the only one without the 'seals' node, not caring to dabble in the field. Odoroki and Miho would have access to chakra chains, as something that normally manifested in female Uzumaki but not males. Ren and Miho would have what they felt was the likely-artificial 'demon chakra' node, fitting their personal heritages. Even if it was incredibly rare that it was needed.
None of them were going to have the added chakra sensing or infusion nodes, nor the 'wood release' specialty node.
"Huh," Yoko said after the first manifestation of Futo, Odoroki, and Miho. Hoshi came over and started sniffing around them, likely to ensure that he knew their scents for the future.
"That might be a problem," Naruto agreed, ignoring how Odoroki was going 'mom-mode' on him. They'd agreed that she didn't have to resist doing so...just resist referring to them as her children.
"...what might be a problem?" Miho asked.
Yoko gestured at the compound gate. "I can feel that the protections don't think you belong."
"Wait, we don't register as being Uzumaki? We each triple-checked those parts!"
"I guess the protections are more nuanced than we thought," Futo commented. "Hmmm. Perhaps they're rightfully treating us as artificial clones that someone grew based on Uzumaki genetics that shouldn't have access instead of as paperwork clones of the kids like they were when that's essentially what we were?"
"...that would be hard to correct without making us register as their kids, and that probably wouldn't work well either."
"Yeah, but at least the basic problem is solvable. We just need to be keyed in like any other visitor. Won't let us access the secure areas of the shrine, but that shouldn't be a problem. It isn't like any of us are capable of having children either."
"Actually, that might be another explanation for why the protections twigged on us."
"...possibly, yeah."
Naruto shook his head. "Your chakra networks were recreated from scratch by the Tome and didn't properly interact with mine during that, so you didn't get the seal-based 'taint' that was supposedly injected into the Uzumaki families to use as part of identification."
Odoroki shook her head. "No, we duplicated that too."
"It didn't stick," Ren sent from the Tome, voice feeling a bit wrong without seeing the new physical form to trigger infiltration-originating mental identity adjustments. "No sign of it at all now in you three, just in the kids."
"...we thought we'd duplicated that. Apparently it doesn't survive attempts to duplicate it, even with a direct sample to pull it from."
"So are we applying seals to you three to let you shapeshift?" Yoko asked.
Miho shook her head. "No. Our connection to the Tome makes that unwise, which is why we needed base forms that wouldn't cause problems. We're technically still not entirely human, even if we're going to seem it to most people. For that matter, we can't use anything that anchors to the chakra network properly either, so no incredibly well-hidden weapons for us."
"I guess that simplifies that," Naruto said. "Which means that after we get you keyed in we're heading to get you registered?"
All three sighed at that. "...yes."
"Your scents are weird," Hoshi finally said. "I can't place it, but I bet the Inuzuka will be able to tell that there's something weird about you too."
"Their chakra feels a bit like the Tome does," Yoko pointed out. "Which is probably to be expected, and I bet what you're picking up is that they smell a bit like the Tome too."
It was obvious that they weren't entirely happy about having multiple 'tells' like that. Things got slightly weirder when they were keyed into the compound though, as keying in Miho seemed to key all three of them in. Likely keying the Tome itself in, instead of the individuals.
Nagato looked over the assembled group through the Deva Path, struggling to manage that much. He'd not been able to pull on the energy reserves of the statue since its destruction, and some work with Orochimaru had revealed ancient lies that helped explain why that seemed to be a problem. Who was responsible for the lies was currently unknown, but Madara was very high up on the list of suspects. Where the Sannin had gotten Madara's DNA from in order to compare it to provided samples was another question entirely, but that had conclusively shown that Nagato's rinnegan was not his own.
It was...unlikely that Orochimaru realized that was part of what the testing was to prove, and the question of where Nagato had gotten a sample of Madara's DNA had also come up. No answer had been provided, but the Sannin already had suspicions about the 'masked man'...who wasn't Madara, but was likely an Uchiha and Madara's descendant according to the same run of tests. Of course, at this point it was likely that all Uchiha were descended from Madara, so that didn't say much.
The entire thing made the 'reborn Sage of Six Paths' assumption Jiraiya had made years ago fall flat. All of the pain, suffering, and failures stemming from that unknowing lie couldn't be blamed on the world. No, that was entirely on the one who had implanted someone else's eyes in Nagato. Actually resting properly, with none of the rinnegan's abilities really active, was going to be needed soon.
Konan came in, signaling that there was no sign of 'Madara'. He had indicated that he was going to be spending the next few days attempting to follow a lead to either Zetsu or the reborn Uzushiogakure, having left the night before, but trusting anything that the man said was foolish.
Still, there was only so much that could be done there, so he began. "We have...suffered many setbacks. I do not yet know if the rings were directly destroyed or if they simply could not remain functional without the statue, but I do not feel that we have any hope of fulfilling the original plan, or even most of the contingency plans."
"Little hard to use tailed beasts when they all seem to be dead," Kisame agreed, sounding annoyed by the prospect. "And we don't have a guaranteed-loyal infinite army anymore either."
"Indeed. If the rumors about three individuals being sent off from Uzushiogakure with seals on their backs are accurate, and admittedly we have no reason to doubt them, then it is likely that those seals served a different purpose than we originally assumed. Even if that isn't the case, without the statue we can no longer reliably utilize any remaining tailed beasts. Further, Zetsu is almost certainly dead in coincidence of timing that makes me...concerned about the original viability of the plan. I now suspect that we were being used for something else, though what that would be I cannot say."
"Personally," Orochimaru said. "I think that it's about time that you realized that the entire set of original plans were never likely to be the actual goal. What the masked man really wants is a mystery."
"...how long have you known about the masked man?" Sasori asked.
"Since, oh, about three months after I was forcibly recruited, I believe it was? He wasn't very good at hiding when coming back for meetings, once I had things properly in place to monitor."
The rest of the group other than Konan looked confused, but Nagato nodded. It only made sense that the two that were best at information gathering had known about 'Madara' for quite a while. "You are correct. I am being...encouraged by him to essentially declare all-out war on the reborn Uzushiogakure, despite no solid evidence as to where or even if it exists. That shift caused me to reevaluate a few things, and I was able to test a couple of theories in the process. Still, does anyone have any ideas for how we might continue?"
Sasori gestured dismissively. "If Uzushiogakure is out there, the best chance of finding them is still following their agents protecting Konoha's Uzumaki. However, upon reflection I do not see that as being a viable path forward."
"Oh?"
"The boy is far too skilled to need protection, and the Uzushiogakure Anbu equivalents have proven to be highly skilled at not being seen moving around. Some of that can probably be tied to summoning. Konoha now has the ability for those on certain contracts to summon themselves to the village at any time. Jiraiya has used that with the toad contract, and I have reliable information stating that young Naruto has signed the same. It makes trapping him far more troublesome."
"I see."
"Without the tailed beasts we will never be able to fully undercut the hidden villages," Kakuzo contributed. "We are not, and likely will never be, trusted in several countries, whose villages will continue to flourish. Others will maintain strength for the sake of maintaining strength, and there will always be those willing to pay a premium for perceived quality and trustworthiness that we can't provide. Starting and ending wars with the tailed beasts would have served to help negate that, but at this point we would need to individually destroy each hidden village. Uzushiogakure's likely intervention makes that...problematic."
Nodding, Nagato waited to see if anyone else had something to say. Hidan was...noticeably silent, though it took a moment to identify that this was because the man's lips were sewn shut. And his arms were currently bound to his sides, even. Must have been particularly annoying to Kakuzo today. Deidara was also silent, but contemplative, which was...unusual. But nobody seemed to have anything else to contribute, so Nagato continued. "At this point, I would like to propose something...drastic."
"Abandoning the lies the organization was built upon and doing something actually productive?" Orochimaru guessed.
"...essentially. I wish to meet the reborn Uzushiogakure, but do not desire to antagonize them by forcing their hands. To that end, I would like to continue searching for them, but to get a message to them. For personal and professional reasons, since they seem to be the most likely to enable peace without the need for large-scale violence. Outside of that, I would like to move towards targeting more...corruptive influences. Sasori could tell us plenty about the plans of the late Danzo Shimura and his foolish attempts to 'strengthen' his home village, but there are others like him. I have come to feel that these people, and not shinobi in general, are the real barriers to peace."
"That man was inept at best," Sasori spat. "Getting access to even some of his records after his death made that quite clear. No true long-term thinking at all, and I can point at several others that are almost certainly just like him in the other hidden villages. Suna is the hardest for me to do so with, as I personally killed those I knew of when I defected and have not been able to find out if anyone replaced them, but my network knows of others."
"Ruining the plans of these individuals, and eventually taking them out, is the direction I would like the organization to switch focus to. Does anyone have a problem with that?"
Hidan very much seemed to dislike this idea. This was not unexpected, and several others in the room seemed to be ready to shut him up. But as this had been anticipated, Nagato had a better solution. The Human Path came up behind the immortal, grabbing his head, and extracted his soul. This was more draining than it should've been, even with recent troubles due to the lack of the statue, but eventually the soul was removed and the man's dead body fell over.
...and the secrets behind becoming an immortal follower of Jashin were honestly quite disgusting, causing Nagato to scowl. "It appears that it may also be of use to wipe all mention of Jashin from the face of the elemental nations."
"Now that sounds like a worthy cause," Kakuzo said, his tone showing more willingness to engage in something that wasn't money-related than expected.
"I will not force anyone to work in pairs from now on. While this has worked out nicely for some of you, for others it has not, and we no longer have the tailed beasts as targets where partners are essentially required. Sasori and Orochimaru, I ask that you help identify targets and continue to be on the lookout for information on Uzushiogakure. The rest of you may feel free to use Amegakure as a place to stay and a base of operations for missions to take on the targets they identify."
"I'd like to continue working with Sasori, hm," Deidara finally said. "If only because we both appreciate the young Uzumaki's art."
"...that is unfortunately a good point," Sasori admitted. "You've been more...tolerable since meeting the boy."
"He inspired you to get off your lazy ass and get back to improving your own art, hm."
It was...telling that Sasori did not attempt to refute that, merely gave a glance at Deidara before continuing. "That aside, I'd like to directly approach Konoha in the near future. A...friendly mentorship of sorts with the boy in puppets is far more likely to result in being able to get a message to Uzushiogakure through him than most items I can think of, and the Land of Fire has some of the least likely to result in 'attack first' problems with Deidara and I."
Nagato considered that, before nodding. And then remembering to have the Deva path nod. "That does seem like a worthwhile endeavor."
"Chunin?" Odoroki half-exclaimed once they were secure in the compound again. "We're only down as chunin?"
"Be fair to the Hokage," Futo said. "On paper we're essentially unknowns that happened to show up with legitimate Uzumaki forehead protectors and got the okay from the local clan head. We can't be given any more authority until we're officially trusted."
"At least you two got chunin," Miho added. "I'm essentially down as a genin."
"All three of you are weaker than I expected," Naruto pointed out, causing all three to pause and then turn to him for explanation. "What? Unless you're suppressing your chakra, you don't actually feel like you'd make anything beyond special jounin right now based on that alone."
That caused the three to look at each other, before Odoroki scowled. "We're getting the chakra meters out and checking that."
Half an hour later the three were grumbling about their poor showings on the chakra meters. They'd proven that Naruto was either not picking up on all of their chakra or was a bit biased on things, as they'd made a better showing than most non-Uzumaki likely would. Unfortunately, only filling the first three 'capacity' scales was an 'abomination' and supposedly a sign that they'd done something horribly wrong in building the forms, at least according to Odoroki. The other two didn't have as much of a negative reaction there.
"You're all balanced on your elements," Naruto pointed out. "And feeling like you have less chakra than you actually do is a good thing."
"With the privacy limiters off I should've filled the capacity meters," Odoroki retorted. "Like Naruto and Yoko do."
"When you were alive and bound to Kurama you would've," Futo pointed out. "You've since died, Kurama has been killed and the remains bound to Naruto, and now you're an echo of your former self semi-reincarnated into a new not-quite-human body with none of your former training."
"Bah."
"I'm more interested in the...separation of our knowledge sets," Miho said. "Now that we've done this it feels like I no longer just know everything you two did. Putting me closer to my original self in what I know, perhaps?"
"I haven't even manifested and I noticed that too," Ren chimed in.
"And I'm questioning my lack of desire to participate," Matatabi added. "Or rather, that it was my personal choice and not the Tome slotting me into a different role entirely."
"That doesn't surprise me," Futo admitted. "Especially as I'm fairly certain that part of this was the Tome replacing something else it had lost."
"When you three manifested the 'Guardian Knight System' was marked as having been repaired. I think you're actually using three 'cores' that were stored away in that system, and nothing based on your original selves, which is why Ren can't manifest. Actually, it might be that with all the prep Ren will have trouble manifesting at all. Miho took the third 'core' and I think it's now assigned to her."
"No, I'm fairly certain that I still have a claim," Ren retorted. "But only to swap with Miho. I don't think I could trade with the other two."
"Well," Naruto said. "We need to get you registered too, so perhaps now would be a good time to test that?"
The full Tome was pulled out, and Miho allowed herself to be pulled back in. A few minutes later Ren appeared, nodding as he did so. "Definitely only with Miho. I think the stupid thing sees us as parts of a whole instead of as full people of our own."
"A side effect of our former natures," Miho agreed. "We're probably lucky that it didn't mash the two of us and Matatabi into a single gestalt from the start."
"Unfortunately, you're probably right. But that doesn't mean the kits are stopping their work on making a puppet of my glorious former self."
Matatabi snorted. "Your 'glorious former self' was killed by a book and its very existence spat on the hopes and dreams of our father."
"...shut up."
Naruto had been a bit surprised when the Anbu commander had requested that he go in to get an official Anbu tattoo. No mask, but the tattoo was actually a key seal that allowed access to various Anbu facilities. Included in that were the bunkers outside of the village, which were supposed to have security seals preventing those who didn't have the tattoo from gaining entry. The reason it didn't jump out as being a seal when observed was that you had to push chakra into it in order to activate it for it to serve that function, being inert until then.
Being a seal also helped explain why it didn't seem to get distorted when placed on someone at a young age. Every time it was activated it corrected itself.
Once having the tattoo, the first request made of Naruto was to fix the seals that were supposed to keep non-Anbu out of Anbu areas of the village. Apparently the same individual who had wrecked the archives had sabotaged that and Jiraiya hadn't been able to fix it. In the end it turned out to be a clever bit of sabotage, adding a single stroke to the detection portion of the central identification array to ensure it never 'failed'. Using a transparent ink, and thus only really visible if you could see the chakra flows. Scratching it off had fixed things across the entire village.
That had led to another 'visit all the bunkers' trip, but this time it was just Naruto and Kakashi visiting all the Anbu bunkers. Most of which had 'unofficial additions' put in place by various current and former Anbu members, unlike the jounin bunkers that hadn't been modified much at all since being put in place.
"So what do you think about your parents deciding to take on different identities," Kakashi asked.
"They'd been talking about how it probably isn't healthy to be clinging to their echoes for a while now," Naruto admitted. "What their plan was to change that just took us a little by surprise, but I think they're regretting it more than Yoko and I are."
"Oh?"
"Something about being 'guardian knights' has capped their chakra levels. Odoroki very much dislikes that, Futo doesn't feel that he's lost much beyond having major problems getting Hiraishin working again, and Ren isn't a fan of being mostly human."
"...I notice you said nothing about...Miho, was it?"
"She's delighted with having human-sized hands and a small enough amount of chakra to get precise with it while working with seals."
"Ah. So the only one of the four that sees this as a net positive?"
"Yeah."
"Huh. Wouldn't have thought it would end up that way."
"How are you handling it?"
"They warned me that it was coming before we left for the Land of Snow, and Minato-sensei was quite insistent with me from the start that they were only echoes of their former selves and not the real thing. In a way this just helps prove that, but they were close enough to get more closure."
"Bit more warning than we got."
"For better or worse, they didn't want you fretting about it in advance. Made me promise not to bring it up as well. Though now you have me wondering what they've been up to while we've been out here."
"Mostly training. Odoroki has been helping with the shrine, Miho somehow ended up teaching basic sealing information in the academy. Futo has been working with Hoshi on a few things when the little guy isn't also helping in the shrine."
"Seems like Hoshi decided to help in the shrine more than anything else since the Land of Snow mission."
"He helps in the hospital too, trying to increase his ability to put people back together, but honestly I think he decided he likes Suzu and is using 'help with the shrine' as an excuse to stick around her."
Kakashi nodded. "That makes sense. You and Hinata are probably two of the worst-choice options for summon usage in the village right now, with how summoning is generally a giveaway when doing infiltration."
"The foxes and toads don't mind with me, nor do the snakes mind with Hinata. They all like that we use them more for training than fighting, and the snakes definitely like that Anko-sensei and Hinata aren't in the habit of using them as living shields. Really, except when showing off we're currently in 'summon them to counter someone else summoning' territory. Well, I do somewhat rarely use messenger toads to send messages to Jiraiya and messenger foxes to send messages to others."
"...who would you be sending messages to with the foxes?"
"Every so often I'm asked to send messages out to teams in the field that I'm familiar with. Usually the junior team, but the day before we left I was asked to send a message to Shikamaru's team. That works better with the foxes than with the toads, who generally function better with sending messages to their summoners or known endpoints."
"I see."
"Now, do you think we should keep the third level of this bunker?"
Kakashi blinked. "Third level?"
One of Naruto's clones opened a hole next to the bunker. "Someone added a private area under the other added private areas, but I don't think anyone has used it in at least two decades."
"Of course they did. How much trouble would it be to expand it to match the second level?"
"Not much, but it might also make a good hot spring area."
"...you've added a hot spring area to every bunker so far."
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Because these aren't supposed to be luxury hotel rooms?"
"Anbu are much more likely to use them on missions if it isn't a chore to do so and seals make it reasonably easy to add many of the comforts of Konoha."
"They're going to be spoiled."
"...you're just jealous that you never had bunkers like this before, aren't you?"
"...maybe."
