Naruto woke up.
It wasn't the alarm, and it wasn't the sun. It was the silence. A deep, soft, almost velvety silence.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling wasn't his usual damp, gray one. This was dark, polished wood. He was on the softest futon he'd ever slept on.
It's... too quiet. This is super weird. It gives me chills.
He sat up. The room was huge, traditional. He could hear the sound of a nearby stream in the garden.
This is how rich people live? Wow! My luxury cell has an incredible view.
He felt... safe. Protected. It was a strange, warm feeling, and it made him itch a little.
Well, at least I know no Akatsuki is going to knock on the door!
He looked toward the shoji paper door.
Not with Grandma Tsunade, Shizune neechan, Sakura chan, Hinata, and Karin...
He paused.
He stared at the door, processing that list.
Wait a second.
A cold sweat ran down his neck.
My personal guard is five really scary women?
Tsunade, who could split him in two. Shizune, who probably knew a thousand ways to poison him if he pissed her off. Sakura, who would definitely split him in two. Hinata, who was quiet but moved faster than him. And Karin... well, Karin is Karin. She's harmless, I guess!
I'm the most protected and simultaneously the most endangered guy in all of Konoha!
BOOM!
A dull thud shook the entire house. The floor trembled beneath him, and the glass of water on his nightstand tipped over, spilling water on the impeccable tatami.
Naruto leaped off the futon, his heart pounding so hard in his throat he could barely breathe.
"They're here! I knew it! Akatsuki!"
He got tangled in the sheets.
"Crap! Pants! Where are my pants?"
He realized he was in his ridiculous orange pajamas, which had a matching sleeping cap with a tassel.
"Forget the pants, no time!"
He ran down the hall, his bare feet slapping the polished wood.
"We're under attack! Grandma, wake up! Sakura chan! Everybody wake up!"
He rounded a corner, almost crashing into a vase that was probably worth more than his old apartment.
"Come on out! I'm ready to kick your asses, you bastards!"
He reached the inner garden and skidded to a stop, almost slipping and falling on his face.
The scene was not an invasion.
In the center of the rock garden, Hinata and Sakura were sparring. Intensely. There was a smoking, car sized crater where Sakura had just landed after dodging something. The beautiful, tranquil sand garden was destroyed.
"You almost got me, Hinata!" Sakura said, breathless but smiling from ear to ear. She wore training clothes soaked in sweat. "That 'Flowing Step' of yours is cheating! I can't even keep up! You move too fast!"
Hinata was in a Gentle Fist stance, perfectly calm. Her own training suit was spotless.
"Your strength is impressive, Sakura san, but you still telegraph your center of gravity before you leap." Hinata's voice was quiet, but sharp. "I could see your intention half a second before you moved. You focus too much on the impact point."
Sakura laughed. "Half a second! That's a new record for me!"
She saw her intention? They're training like elite Jonin! And I'm here in my pajamas and nightcap! And that crater...! Hey, that was my favorite spot to sit!
"P-Please, stop!"
A red figure shot out from behind an ornamental bush, which was now split in half.
Karin appeared, her red hair a mess. She was wearing glasses and purple pajamas, looking like she was on the verge of a panic attack.
"Are you insane!?" she shrieked, her voice sharp with anxiety. "I put up twenty! Twenty sound barrier seals around this garden! They're supposed to muffle sound, not absorb explosions! Do you want all of Danzo's Root to know where we are!?"
Sakura rubbed the back of her neck, looking a little embarrassed. "Ah, there were seals? Sorry, Karin. We got a little excited."
"A little!?" Karin hissed, trembling. "You broke the main barrier on Hinata's third stop! I've been up all night repairing the perimeter security net and you're using it for target practice!"
"HEY YOU GUYS!" Naruto yelled, finally finding his voice. "What the hell is wrong with you!? You scared me half to death! I thought it was Itachi and the fish guy! I was already planning how to use my pajama hat to strangle one of them! It was gonna be awesome!"
Sakura turned, wiping sweat from her forehead. Her smile vanished instantly.
"Speaking of scares, Naruto! What was all that noise last night!? You sounded like you were trying to digest a whole cow! Your snoring made my futon vibrate! I thought it was an earthquake!"
Hinata nodded shyly at her side. "It was... rather loud, Naruto kun. I thought the house was being attacked by some kind of beast."
Naruto turned bright red.
"WHAT?! I don't snore!" he yelled, offended. "That was... that was strategic breathing training! Exactly! I build up chakra while I sleep! It's super advanced! You wouldn't get it! It's a Senju secret!"
Karin rubbed her temples, looking exhausted. "Well, that 'breathing training' was really loud. And after... someone...!"
She stared hard at Sakura, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.
"...decided to take a shower for an hour! One whole hour! You used all the hot water! ALL OF IT! Do you have any idea what that's like? I had to wash my face with ice cold water! Do you know what that does to my pores?"
Sakura blushed, but her blush was from fury.
"My hair is a disaster after training with Hinata! It's not my fault this fortress has a plumbing system from your great grandfather's era! The water heater is the size of a ramen bowl!"
She pointed an accusing finger at Karin.
"Besides, you, Karin, used all the tea in the kitchen! The ENTIRE pantry! I went to make myself something after my shower and there was nothing left except some weird dry leaves that smelled like feet!"
"I had to make sure Danzo hadn't poisoned our supplies!" Karin shouted, shaking a fist. "It's a basic tactical move! I checked every single leaf! You Konoha people are too trusting! What if the chamomile tea was laced with liquid senbon needles? Huh? You didn't think of that!"
"You drank half the 'evidence'!" Sakura shouted. "I saw you!"
"That's part of the process!"
"You guys are the weird ones!" Naruto broke in, his stomach growling loudly. "Fighting over water and tea while I'm starving to death! You woke me up from an awesome dream about limited edition ramen! Where's breakfast!? I'm the Jinchuriki! And the advisor! You're supposed to feed me!"
"Good morning, everyone..."
Shizune's voice was ghostly. She appeared in the hallway, looking like she hadn't slept in three days. Her hair was a mess, and she had dark circles under her eyes. She was holding a tea tray that was visibly shaking. Tonton, the piglet, walked weakly at her feet, a tiny nightcap askew.
"Could you... please... stop yelling?" she whispered. "Naruto's 'strategic breathing training' last night... made Lady Tsunade think a bear had gotten into the kitchen. She threw her desk out the window."
Everyone winced.
"She... just fell asleep an hour ago and..."
"IF YOU ALL DON'T SHUT UP IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS, I WILL USE THAT GARDEN AS YOUR GRAVE!"
Tsunade's voice boomed from the back of the house.
Naruto, Sakura, Hinata, and Karin froze. They didn't even breathe.
Naruto swallowed. The sound seemed impossibly loud in the sudden silence.
Shizune exhaled slowly, closing her eyes.
"Tea is ready in the dining room," she whispered, with a small, exhausted smile. "Please... be civilized. I don't want to have to clean anyone off the walls."
********
The Hokage's office in the Senju fortress was, if anything, worse than the one in the tower. It was a chaos of scrolls, reconstruction reports, materials requests, and empty sake bottles.
Tsunade was sitting with her bare feet on the desk, reading a report with an expression of profound boredom.
Naruto was on the floor, cross legged, surrounded by a mountain of D Rank mission scrolls. It was his "Advisor" job. Or, as Tsunade called it, "The Kid Who Reads the Boring Stuff So I Don't Have To."
"Don't even talk to me, Grandma," Naruto said, just as bored. "This is worse than the academy!"
Tsunade tossed a scroll over her shoulder. It bounced off a pile of books and landed on Tonton's head, who was sleeping in a corner.
"'Find Tora the cat.' 'Paint the councilman's fence.' 'Help the academy count shuriken!'"
She slammed her palm on the desk. "I swear, Naruto, if I read the word 'cat' one more time, I'm going to declare war on the Land of Claws just out of boredom! That's a threat!"
"And that pile is wrong!" Naruto said, not looking up from his own scroll. "That's the 'Farmer Complaints' pile. The 'Lost Cats' one is on your left... Hey, it's burning a little!"
Tsunade glanced over and saw the ash from her pipe had lit the edge of a scroll. She put it out with her hand, unfazed.
"Besides," Naruto continued, yawning, "Tora is a Konoha tradition. The Third Hokage used to say it builds..."
"If you say 'builds character,' I'm throwing you out that window," Tsunade interrupted. "The Third also let Orochimaru build a human experimentation lab under the village. I'm not in the mood for his 'character' lessons."
She leaned back, putting her hands behind her head. "And you. What are you doing exactly? Are you really... organizing them?"
"Someone has to!" Naruto muttered. "You're putting the weapons requests in the 'catering' pile! Last night you almost approved three tons of kunai for the dango shop! Shizune neechan asked me to make sure you didn't accidentally start a war before lunch. Though that would be more fun than this!"
"It would have been more interesting than this. 'Request to review the Academy's curtains.' Seriously? Who complains about curtains?"
"The same councilman who wants his fence painted. He thinks the color 'shinobi blue' is 'too aggressive' for the kids."
"I'll show him 'too aggressive'..."
The door slid open.
Shizune entered. Her face was pale.
The mood changed in an instant. Tsunade's laziness evaporated. She sat up straight, taking her feet off the desk. Naruto stopped sorting his scrolls. The air in the room went from boring detention to an operating room.
Shizune carried a single black scroll, sealed with red ANBU wax.
"Lady Tsunade. It just arrived. From the border intelligence unit."
Tsunade said nothing. She just held out her hand.
Shizune handed her the scroll. Tsunade broke the seal. Her eyes scanned the text.
The room seemed to cool several degrees. Naruto watched Tsunade's knuckles turn white where she held the scroll.
"Grandma... what's wrong? You got serious all of a sudden," Naruto asked.
Tsunade said, her voice neutral, too neutral, "They're here."
She tossed the scroll onto the desk. Naruto grabbed it and read.
Sighting confirmed. Land of Fire, border with Tea Country. Two subjects. Black coats, red clouds. Kisame Hoshigaki. Itachi Uchiha. Stopped at an inn in Tanzaku Town. They are not advancing.
"Tanzaku Town!" Naruto repeated. "That's where we found you!"
"I know," Tsunade snapped.
"They stopped?" Naruto said, his mind racing. "That makes no sense! Why stop? Why go to an inn? Akatsuki don't take vacations!"
"Maybe it was a false sighting..." Shizune suggested, her voice trembling. "Those two..."
"No." Tsunade shook her head. A dangerous, humorless smile formed on her lips. "It's not false. They stopped because they're smart. Smarter than Orochimaru."
Naruto looked at her. "What?"
"Orochimaru was loud and arrogant," Tsunade said. "He came here expecting Konoha to crumble. Akatsuki is a knife in the dark. They're at the border, watching. Re evaluating their strategies."
"The invasion failed," Naruto understood. "The Third Hokage is still alive. And... you came back!"
"Exactly." Tsunade stood and walked to the window, looking at the now destroyed garden where the girls had been training. "Their intelligence is outdated. They expected to find a broken village, led by an old man or a weak council. They expected to walk in, take the Jinchuriki, and walk out."
"They didn't expect to find you!" Naruto said. "They didn't know the legendary Sannin was back in action!"
"What I do know is they don't know I'm rejuvenated," Tsunade said. "They don't know about the Falna. They don't know my apprentice can shatter the ground with a finger. They don't know the Hyuuga heiress can move like a ghost. They don't know my 'advisor' isn't just a loud mouthed brat."
She turned. "They know nothing. And that's why they stopped. They're going to wait for us to lower our guard."
This is bad. Very bad. From what I remember, they should have come directly because they thought Konoha was weak. Now... now they're going to be careful. And a careful Akatsuki is a thousand times more dangerous.
Tsunade punched the window frame. A contained blow, but it shook dust from the wood.
"Damn it! So they're out there, watching us! Waiting! I hate waiting! It's worse than this damn paperwork! It's... irritating!"
Great. A bored and probably hungover Sannin, and now she's paranoid about Akatsuki. This house is going to explode.
"We should go," Tsunade said suddenly, turning to Naruto, her eyes shining with an almost youthful light of boredom and frustration.
Shizune turned pale. "Go... Go where, Master?"
"To Tanzaku Town! Right now! Leave the village, find them in that stupid inn, and smash them. Boom! Problem solved. We'll be back for dinner."
"YES!" Naruto leaped to his feet, his eyes shining with manic energy. "That's the best plan I've ever heard in my life! Let's go kick their asses! We'll give 'em a surprise beatdown!"
He slapped his hand against Tsunade's, who grinned fiercely. BOOM! The sound of the high five echoed in the room.
"Naruto kun!" Shizune looked like she was going to faint, pulling at her own hair. "You're supposed to be her advisor! Your job is to stop her from doing crazy things, not encourage her! You two are terrible! Lady Tsunade! You can't leave the village! You're the Hokage! And we can't start an open war with Akatsuki in neutral territory! It would be an international incident!"
"Technically, I'm the Provisional Hokage!" Tsunade shot back, pouting. "And it wouldn't be a war if we win in five minutes! It would be a 'vigorous border dispute'!"
"Exactly!" Naruto backed her up. "'Vigorous'! We'll hit them so hard Itachi will run home!"
"Tsunade-Sama! Naruto!" Shizune shrieked.
"I'm bored, Shizune! And angry! It's a bad combination!" She grabbed a heavy scroll from her desk, one that read 'Konoha's Annual Plumbing Regulations', and with a growl, threw it across the room, straight at Naruto's head.
"You're my Secret Advisor! So advise me! Advise me on something fun, right now! Something that isn't signing complaints about chickens!"
Naruto ducked the scroll with a tilt of his head. The projectile crashed through the shoji paper wall behind him, landing in the hallway with a heavy thud.
"Agh, fine, fine!" Naruto said, his enthusiasm visibly deflating. "I guess going there now is stupid."
Tsunade glared at him. "Careful, brat."
"No, seriously. It's stupid," Naruto insisted, crossing his arms. "But only because Itachi is too strong! And he's with that shark guy who has a sword that eats chakra! And you're gonna go alone?"
"I wouldn't be alone! You'd come!"
"That makes it even stupider! I'm the one thing they want! It'd be like ramen delivery! Although I still think we could take them!"
Tsunade grunted, but she couldn't argue with the logic.
"So, what's your brilliant advice, 'Advisor'?" she asked, crossing her arms. "We sit here and knit?"
"No!" Naruto said. "We let them watch!"
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Keep talking."
"Let Akatsuki send their spies! Let Danzo think you're busy signing papers and drinking sake! They think you're the only threat! They think they know what's going on!"
"And?"
"And they don't know anything about the girls!" Naruto said, grinning. "They don't know anything about me! They think I'm still the same academy idiot who couldn't make a clone! Perfect! Let them think that! Let them underestimate us!"
"And in the meantime?" Tsunade asked, her impatience growing again.
"In the meantime!" Naruto said. "I advise you to let me go to Ichiraku for some real ramen! This stress is making me starving! This healthy fortress food is killing me! And... approve that training budget for the girls! Sakura needs more explosive kunai! Apparently, she loves 'gardening'!"
His face turned serious.
"And... we need more information before we run off to punch an elite Uchiha. Itachi isn't like Sasuke. He's the real deal. We can't fight him blind." He turned to Tsunade. "We need the Pervy Sage!"
Tsunade stared at him. The youthful frustration faded, replaced by the calculating look of the Hokage. The brat was right.
"Fine. You're right." She sighed. "Damn it, I hate it when you're right. It's annoying."
She rubbed her face, suddenly looking tired. "You're right. They have the information advantage. We have to take it from them. Or... give them the wrong information."
A slow, dangerous smile, a gambler's smile, spread across her face.
"It worked!"
"What worked?" Naruto asked.
"Your advice! You gave me an idea! A fun idea!"
"Shizune!"
"Yes, Master!" Shizune nearly jumped.
"Cancel my next meeting with the trade council. Tell them... I don't know, Tonton is sick. He has swine flu. I don't care."
"Master!"
"And prepare the Level 4 sealing training hall!"
Shizune froze. "Level 4? But Lady Tsunade, that place hasn't been used since... since the Second! It's sealed!"
"I know." Tsunade's gaze was fixed on Naruto. "The brat is right. We can't go in blind. If Itachi is coming for you, you're not going to face him with a Rasengan and good wishes. You're going to face him with something not even his Sharingan will expect."
"What?" Naruto said, excited. "What are you gonna teach me!? The super destructive punch!?"
Tsunade smiled. And it was a terrifying smile.
"Something better. I'm going to teach you and the girls some combat techniques. It's time you learned how the Senju always deal with arrogant pests!"
******
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