Naruto ch 10

 

                                                                            Chapter 10

 

 

Smiling at Haku as he went through the new chakra exercises slowly, Naruto gazed at the sweat covered form for a few minutes with a smile on his face; Haku had jumped into the training with a glee that had him wondering if more than abilities had been merged to his DNA that night. Clearing his throat Naruto jumped off the porch of the dojo into the clearing that was the Uzumaki training grounds, “You are really getting the hang of those exercises, I think you ready to start learning our healing aspect.”

Letting the circling stones drop to the ground Haku nodded with a smile as he grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat of his face and head, towel around his shoulders he gladly dropped to the ground in front of where Naruto was sitting. “That is a lot harder than it sounded like when you explained it to me; keeping all three pebbles circling at a steady rate takes a lot out of a person.”

“Yeah…” Naruto leaned back as he remembered when he first learned that exercise, chuckling he looked in Haku’s eyes, “I remember yelling at the tapes of my parents when they explained that it was so easy and mother demonstrated it for me. I’ve come to believe they did it on purpose so I would work harder.” Shrugging he pulled out a Kunai of the next demonstration, “now I know you know how to mold chakra to your hands, and you’ve been practicing with one of the exercises I showed you to move chakra around your body. The healing factor we have can be influenced by us when we send a large amount of Chakra to the injured area. Which means if I cut my hand and then send my chakra to it my healing factor will use the chakra and take off at an amazing rate.”

“I really hate this part, it hurts like a bitch,” Naruto whispered before using the sharp edge of the Kunai to slice his hand down to the bone, ignoring the shocked exclamation from Haku he molded chakra into his hand as he held it out for the young man to observe how quickly it healed. “The only problem with practicing like this is it hurts, so when you first start keep your cuts small and shallow until you get the hang of it. It sometimes takes a minute before you can work through the pain to mold chakra to the injury. Eventually you will be able to do this almost instinctively, the more you practice the more instinctive it becomes, during sparing sessions if you get into the habit of pushing your chakra towards the pain you feel, even if it only a slight one you can avoid cutting yourself all over your body.” Dipping his hand into the bucket of water he brought it back out and held it out for inspection, it was completely healed without a scar. The only other drawback tour healing ability is that you will not build up callus’s, that’s why fingerless gloves are one of the Uzumaki trademarks, parts of our uniform.”

Flipping the Kunai around so Haku could take it Naruto smiled at him, “You try now, and remember shallow cuts at first until you get the hang of it.”

Nodding Haku hesitated a moment before taking the Kunai and running it along the pad of his thumb, only hard enough to break the skin and draw blood. Channeling chakra into his hand he was amazed to see it heal over, looking up with a very pleased expression on his face, “It worked.”

Laughing Naruto leaned back on his hands, “You better believe it did.” Standing up he brushed the twigs and grass off his pants, “Only practice this half an hour at a time, and unless you are with someone please don’t cut too deeply, I don’t want anything happening to you.”

Nodding absentmindedly Haku cut his thumb again, this time a little longer than the last time and watched it as it started to heal slowly, even without molding his chakra into his hand the bleeding had already stopped and the wound started to look hours old instead of just seconds. Channeling chakra into his hand he watched as the wound glowed blue for a second before there was no trace, looking at the Kunai and the blood on the ground he grinned, this was a blood limit he could get very used to.

Naruto chuckled as he turned around and went back into the house and out towards the front door, walking across the bridge to the Citadel he stopped mid span and looked down trying to find any clues on why the bridge was this far down, it just did not make any sense to him. Continuing on he made the short trip to his office, mind on this morning’s schedule. Luckily for him he thought he could get it over with in about an hour so he could get some serious training time in. “Good morning Jiga, has anything unexpected crossed my desk that is going to piss me off.”

Laughing Jiga remembered back three years to the one Saturday morning when that did happen; they had slipped in a surprising interview without telling him about it in advance. That was also the day they found out Naruto-sama had a temper, one to rival any angry red haired Kunoichi during that time of the month, needless to say no one wanted to see that temper ever again. “N…No nothing unexpected that you have to deal with today,” he stuttered out quickly. “There is a representative from Wave that came into the outside town to see if talks could be arranged to see if you would agree to an alliance, they want to avoid a possible situation that Gato took advantage of in the future. They would have gone to Konoha or the Kiri since both are closer, but as you were the one to free their country they decided to try us first.”

Naruto looked up from the four stacks of papers on his desk that he was rapidly signing off on as he glanced through them to make sure they were unchanged from when he last looked through them, “Really…” moving to the last stack he dug through it until he came across the paperwork with the report of the Wave representative, scanning through it he nodded as he moved it to the to do today list, “I’ll meet with them at three. We have to be here at four to meet with Ayako to discuss the first round of candidates so we can do the greeting and getting the niceties out of the way before scheduling the lengthy talk I’m sure will be needed.”

“Hai, Uzumaki-sama…I’ll send a note to the outside village and have the representatives brought in to the valley,” Jiga smiled, knowing very well that Naruto-sama disliked making abrupt decisions; he preferred to think about things first and explore them. It had come about from learning the job, but once he had learned what he needed to know he kept it, saying it was a very good habit to have.

Finished with the first stack Naruto poked at the small second stack ,spreading them out over the top of his desk he looked through them, these were mission assignments for today, well at least those C-Rank and higher. Pulling out his list with teams and their skills and abilities on it he glanced over to the wall to see who was not already out on a mission before quickly going through the missions once more and assigning them to the appropriate teams before rolling them up and stacking them in the tray that Jiga would take to the outer office to hand out assignments.

Looking at the third stack Naruto glanced through the notes of his meeting today and the teams that were supposed to return from doing the C-Class and above missions, he noticed something right away, Kodochi’s team was three days late. Picking up the report and sitting back in the chair he went through the original mission request and briefing before looking out the window in thought, “Kodochi’s team is late, and for what he was assigned he should have been early.” Turning away from the window with a frown on his face Naruto looked at Jiga who was staring at him with all his attention, “Get me a hunter team in here now.” Getting up from his desk he took the mission paperwork over to the wall that had the map of the elemental nations and countries drawn on it in its entire colorful splendor.

The hunter team rushed to his office, assembling behind him, watching him as he looked between the paper in his hand and tracing the most logical route on the wall, “Kodochi’s team is overdue,” turning around he looked at the masked foursome, “I want them found, and if need be you are authorized to show my displeasure at the ones who are keeping them from their duties.” Tapping the map showing the border of Iwa and Whirlpool, the most logical path for the team to return home by, Naruto pointed to the black pouch on the table, “take my personal kit, the reactive tags in there are on the unique side since they can be chained together with chakra sensing wire to activate them.” Handing over the mission briefing as he walked back to Jiga’s desk he signed and stamped the mission before nodding, “Any questions?”

The lead Hunter looked at his team before shaking his head no and bowing slightly, “No Uzumaki-sama.”

“Good, leave as soon as you are prepared,” going back over to his desk Naruto rearranged the briefings on his meetings into the order they would happen before glancing over at the fourth pile, he had an hour to read through tomorrows meetings and mission requests before his first meeting.

Jiga looked over after a few minutes of quiet to see his lord with his elbows on his desk, head in his hands as he stared at the front wall, from where he was sitting he could not tell if he was looking at the map or the active duty listing, “Is there a problem Uzumaki-sama?”

Startled out of his thoughts Naruto twisted his head slightly without moving too much, “I’ve been thinking, the first of our Genin under the new training program will be graduating soon.”

“In nine weeks actually,” Jiga stared at Naruto trying to figure out where he was going, “And I along with most of the other Jounin instructors are very impressed, most of the students will be almost at Chuunin level when they graduate. That above all else surprised and silenced some of the academy instructors who did not like the changes being made.”

“The problem is while they might be close to Chuunin level they won’t have the experience to back them up,” sitting up and staring at the map Naruto racked his mind trying to find the answer, thinking back to his last mission for Konoha, “we need to come up with a way to give them that experience in a controlled manner without dumping them head first into C-Class missions or sending them back to D-Class missions they have been doing to build on the concept of teamwork.”

“Your last mission, the C-Class that should have been an A-Class if the bridge builder had been honest, or if the Konoha council was not so greedy and allowed them to make payments,” Jiga made the connection as he nodded then stared at the map like his lord, as if it would give them the answer. And seeing the section marked the wilds he smiled, it just might. “What if we gave them several months of special C-Class mission, missions to the wilds where they would have to match wits with dangerous wildlife, thus gaining experience before having to match wits with humans?”

Moving closer to the map and staring at the section highlighted in yellow an idea began to form in the back of Naruto’s mind, “Build an outpost here,” his finger marked a spot on the wall where two small rivers joined into a much larger one. “Staff it with several medic-nin’s and support Jounin, those needing some downtime before they are ready to go back on active missions,” turning around and coming face to face with Jiga who had come up behind him to see the location Naruto chose. “The question is what type of mission could we send them on that does not smack of outright survival training, after all they have to have a goal.”

Nodding Jiga thought back to his history class, “Actually there are a lot of useful things found out in the wilds, heck the apothecaries and several other guilds would jump on having a Shinobi escort into the wilds while they harvest what they need, the few that go into the wilds make a fortune from what they bring back. If we offer the guild cut rates, say down to a D-Rank for the mission for say five percent of the profit we will have more than enough mission requests to carry on for years.”

Nodding with a frown Naruto went back to his desk, “And if we randomly assign different species of animal threats as disable instead of kill we won’t depopulate the wilds of the very danger we want them to face.” Pulling a new scroll out of the bin where his top drawer would normally be he quickly sketched out the idea before rolling up it, “the builder’s guild will be happy for some new construction, though they might be slightly afraid of where it is going to be built. Once they get back to us with detailed plans and crew numbers I’ll know how many teams need to be assigned to protect them as the center is built.”

Taking the scroll Jiga noticed the time, “I’ll get this sent out first thing,” gathering up the mission scrolls he started to leave to go to the next floor down, the mission office. “I’ll also let the academy Chuunin know what we plan so they can start to work it into their lesson plans subtly.”

Nodding Naruto looked at the last pile of paperwork on his desk before glancing up at the clock, pushing the intercom button he said, “Send Morimoto-san in please,” the sooner he got done the sooner he could get some training in.

 

Walking back into the citadel with Haku at his side Naruto laughed at the comment he had made, it felt so good to be himself all the time, and the people here helped to keep him from hiding behind made up personalities. Spotting Jiga walking into his office with six of the Jounin he sent out after one of the hidden treasure troves he raised an eyebrow in surprise, “I did not expect any of the teams I sent out back for another week,” going around to the back of his desk he sat down pointing to the empty chair at the long table where Jiga normally sat to Haku. “So did something happen to cause you to abort?”

“No Uzumaki-sama,” Shin the leader of team Sato bowed slightly as he and his team moved forward and placed the scrolls on Naruto’s desk. “we took a page out of your book and tried something different, we took two reverse summon scrolls with us so once we were finished we could transport ourselves back to the outside village and make our way home.”

Seeing the interest in Naruto-sama’s eyes Tadashi explained, “We have been practicing with some of the seal sets you have released to the village. And we found a way to make the reverse summoning Jutsu your father came up with workable in scroll form, and for safety’s sake we split the seal onto two different scrolls like a lot of the villages do for their Chuunin exams.”

Mind flashing with possibilities Naruto looked thoughtful, “How much time did it save you, and how hard was it to get it to work?”

Shin motioned for Moriko to hand over the scrolls, placing them on Naruto-sama’s desk he unrolled them cross wise before lining them up, “They’re big enough that all three team members can fit inside the seal circle. If you notice we changed this set here so you do not have to pre-charge the seal with chakra to activate it, the chakra is added during use, which any of the team could channel through their foot to activate it.”

“And I would say it knocked six days of our return journey,” Tadashi looked thoughtful as he rubbed his chin.

Staring at the scroll Naruto glanced sideways at it before rolling them up and weighing them in his hand, “Where did you get these?” looking over at Jiga he asked, “how many seal masters do we have in the village?”

“I made those scrolls Uzumaki-sama,” Shin got slightly nervous as Naruto stared at him suddenly.

“We changed things last year after you released some of your fathers sealing techniques, “We now require all of our Elite Jounin to be able to create three different types of seal sets besides the rest. They must be able to create reactive tags, sealing scrolls and now the transport set to be called truly elite.”

Tapping the scrolls against the palm of his hand Naruto smiled causing those in the room to relax when he chuckled in mirth. Unrolling the one scroll again he grinned evilly, “I see you included a self destruct once it’s used. Good…Good job. I can see the testing for my Dragons is going to be very interesting.”

Tadashi felt like jumping with joy when he heard Naruto tell Jiga, “I’m going to release part of my father’s sealing library to the dragon library. Anyone who is wanting to try out for the Dragons can sign up with you to gain access to the library, I am going to require that any Dragon show me at least one new application of a sealing technique, even a brand new one if they have it in their arsenal. I’ll have the scrolls moved over sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

Glancing back at the two teams he pondered the pile of sealing scrolls as he pulled out the file with the pay vouchers inside, “Did you find anything interesting in the cave?”

“A few good quality Katana’s and a large number of cheaply made weapons we can sell for scrap, the red scroll has all eh files we could find in it, other than that there was nothing to really comment about in the mission,” Shin shrugged.

Placing the vouchers he had signed and stamped at the edge of his desk Naruto grinned, “Good then you have several weeks to train if you are planning to try the Dragon test, the next three days off for sure.” Pointing to the six stacks of two vouchers, “your pay as promised, including the bonus for a job well done.” As the teams took their pay vouchers Naruto chuckled at the surprised looks when they saw the amount of the S-Class pay voucher, as they were leaving he stopped them, “I really like the idea of the transport scrolls you came up with, but before word gets out and they become common place we need to add in a security feature somewhere so they don’t fall into the wrong hands, if you come up with an idea let me know.”

“Hai, Uzumaki-sama,” Tadashi grinned as he looked at Shin, “meet you at the Onsen after going to the bank, I might have an idea or two.”

Once the teams had gone Haku looked over at Naruto, “Naruto-kun I have heard you speak of the Dragons before, what are they?”

“Most villages have Anbu to guard their Kage, the best of the best, and handle certain types of missions, mostly S-Rank.” Naruto pulled the file out with what information the representatives from wave provided, flipping it open he smiled at Haku, “Our Elite Jounin are mostly Anbu level and the best of the best in our village are the Dragon’s, the guardians of the Uzumaki.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Haku looked around as he thought about it, “it almost sounds like I’m missing something.”

“I think it is because in Whirlpool the Kage and the Daimyo rest in the same person for now, but almost always in the same clan,” Jiga volunteered.

“Like how the Fire lord has the twelve guardians that watch over him and his family?” Haku wondered, and then smiled when he got a nod back telling him he was right.

“Exactly,” Naruto nodded with a smile, “the last time the Dragons were staffed was for my grandfather, before the war devastated the land and my parent’s rebuilt Whirlpool.” Naruto clasped his hands on top of the open folder and looked at Jiga, “Please bring in the delegation from wave.”

Nodding Jiga went over to the door and slipped through a moment later Naruto slid the folder over to Haku to look through, after all it was his hope that someday Haku took over the job of Kage. Hearing the door open and Jiga escort the delegation in he wiped all emotion from his face except polite curiosity, “Please be seated.” Seeing a familiar face he glanced at the group before greeting him, “Tazuna-san, I’m surprised to see you here, I would have thought after seeing a Shinobi work you would have stayed away, far away from Shinobi.”

Snorting Tazuna leaned forward as he smiled, “You don’t fool me young one, I know about the heart you hide.” Sitting back he noticed the thin smile cross Naruto’s face, “besides when we found out you were the lord of Whirlpool we knew we had to at least try, you being the strongest Shinobi I’ve ever seen. Even Zabuza told me you were…how did he put it, ‘the scariest person I have ever met, to go up against him means certain death’, and for what Wave needs you are the person for the job.”

Nodding slowly Naruto looked over at the map on the wall as he thought about what his people had discovered about the wave delegations mission, he wondered how it would be possible, there were too many country’s in-between them, unless. Nodding he brought his attention back to the group, “may I ask why you need the scariest person several people know?”

Tazuna grinned, he liked the outspoken young man in front of him, “As you are aware Wave does not have a Shinobi village, but the whole Gato invasion has proved that we need to be allied at least, if not having our own Ninja outpost.”

Naruto hid his smirk, his intelligence teams were dead on with their assessment, standing up he moved over to the map and glanced at the countries displayed there, “Marsh and Water countries are between Whirlpool and Wave. With your bridge to Fire country why would you chose us?”

“The Mizukage has been replaced by one of the seven swordsman of the mist, I believe you know him, Momochi Zabuza,” Tazuna grinned, “And his self proclaimed adopted son was in a sense married into your clan, so you have very strong ties…”

“And if the rumors are true, the new Mizukage has threatened the Daimyo of Water, that if the killing keeps going on he will step in and hand over his village to Whirlpool,” Yuri snorted in amusement, “The rumor has it that the Daimyo locked himself fin the family’s hidden safe cellar on hearing that. It might have to do with Zabuza-san mentioning that to go against the Uzumaki clan means death and there was no way he was going against your order to stop the blood line eradication.”

Naruto blinked, looking at haku to see if he heard what he had, he put his finger in his ear and wiggled it to try to clean it out, “What…did you…he did what?”

Haku giggled as he nodded his head, “That sounds like something Zabuza-san would say.”

Thunk…the sound of Naruto hitting his head against his desk in the quiet office was very noticeable.

Hearing Haku giggle Naruto stopped hitting his head and looked up to the heavens as if asking why him, he’d deal with this much later, like maybe the year after hell froze over. “Okay, someone will send word to you tomorrow around breakfast time so you can meet with my advisors, between all of you, you can hammer out if it is possible and what it would take if I decide to do as you ask. In the meantime I’ll think about it and we’ll meet up again in three days time to go over everything and see where we stand.” Standing as the delegation got ready to leave he smiled evilly, “And if any of you can find a way to douse Zabuza-san’s underwear with itching powder that will be points in your favor.”

Tazuna could have sworn he heard mumbling coming from behind him as he left, something about pranking the hell out of Zabuza for using him as the Water’s version of the boogey man.

Seeing her lord’s expression, and the giggling coming from Haku-sama Ayako laughed as she pushed the cart with all he folders on it into the room.

Hearing a laugh that reminded him of a demented mental patient Naruto froze, before slowly peaking over his shoulder, when his head was mostly turned so he could see who was laughing, the he spotted the cart she was pushing filled to overflowing with files, “Ayako…” he said very slowly, “What are those?”

Putting her hand on her chest as if surprised Ayako pointed a finger at the cart, “These little things…” seeing Naruto-sama was not in the mood she pouted before pushing the cart to the long table, “These files, Uzumaki-sama are the candidates between the age of fourteen and eighteen.”

Jiga quickly rushed out of the room after seeing the stunned and disbelieving look on his Naruto-sama’s face; after all he did not want to be around when that infamous temper surfaced.

Naruto stood up straight as he ignored the evil cackling coming from his aide as he ran down the hall, eyes narrowing he would prank the traitor later. Moving slowly as if he was on the way to the gallows he pulled the chair next to Haku out and sat down. A sinking feeling hit him as he noticed the files being placed in five piles in front of them, “Are you sure all these are volunteers?”

Opening one of the folders Haku turned red from his blush, the photo was more than explicit, it was downright pornographic, and turning the page he took one look at the photo there and snapped the file shut with a snap.

Naruto hearing the snap glanced at the blush, eyes traveling down the full body blush until he got to the hands clenching above the file, curious he firmly tugged the file out from under Haku’s hand so he could find out what embarrassed him. Opening the file he glanced at the first page, then the second before he quickly flipped to the center where the medical profile was located, “H…Ho…How many…” taking a deep breath he looked at Ayako, “how many of these volunteers are as perverted as this one?” The image burned into his mind had his inner self denying that you could do that with the handle of a Kunai.

Chuckling Ayako sat down after building the piles, peaking at the hidden photo even she had to raise an eye in surprise, “Well most of them wanted you to have an idea of what they could offer, but it seems that one went a little overboard.” Peaking again she nodded, it was doable but iffy, “Yep, slightly overboard.”

Naruto looked at Haku in dawning horror, both of them shuddering as they stared at the piles of files as if they were bombs about to go off if they opened the folders. Clearing his throat he looked to his right, towards haku, “I think it might be wise to look at the photo section last, once we’ve gone through all these files.

Nodding in horrified agreement Haku picked up another file and carefully flipped past the photo section, secretly glad when Naruto mumbled something about making a pile for perverts as he dropped the folder as far away from him as possible.

Ayako grinned, this was going to be so much fun. Laughing as haku made a small ‘eepping’ noise she turned away before she got yelled at as Haku handed to Naruto with a trembling hand, “This one is another pervert.”

Naruto looked at the clock, they had been at the two hours with Ayako narrowing down the search to an even ten candidates, picking up the ten folders to take with him for study he gazed at the fifth pile they created, who knew that Kunoichi were as big of perverts as the Shinobi, and that so many of them wanted into his family. Shuddering with one last look at the pile he held onto the files and grabbed Haku and hastily retreated to the bridge, seriously considering barricading the gate to his home until he could make sure all those from that pile were safely on long term missions, somewhere far, far away. Ignoring the evil cackling behind them they rushed into the house closing the door behind them, both thinking the same thing, women were evil.