Konoha: Naruto of Sekiro

Under the watchful eyes of numerous Amegakure ninja, the five individuals slowly walked to the forefront.

Nagato's hands flew through seals. "Earth Style: Earthen Rising Platform!"

A flat, elevated platform slowly rose from the ground. Once he ensured everyone present could see clearly, Nagato gradually stopped the output of his chakra.

At a nod from Naruto, the eldest elder, Kazuhiko, took a few steps forward and cleared his throat twice:

"I have an announcement to make. The position of Leader will be taken over by Lord Nagato of Akatsuki."

After speaking, he paid no mind to the reactions of the Amegakure ninja below and directly returned to his spot.

He inwardly sneered at the dissatisfied looks from the two Akatsuki members. Did they really think holding a blade to his neck could force him into submission?

"I've relayed the message, and I've announced the appointment. What more do you want from me?" Kazuhiko shot Naruto a look that clearly said, my hands are tied.

Naruto met his gaze, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. After weighing the pros and cons of cutting down this old scoundrel on the spot, he slowly lowered his hand.

"Even Hanzo didn't dare kill me." Kazuhiko scoffed at Naruto's killing intent.

Amegakure simply couldn't function without his management. Even the 'Demigod' Hanzo of the Salamander had to tolerate his existence.

So what if you're strong? Do you know how many missions a hidden village handles in a single day? Do you know how to resolve disputes when clients come knocking after a failed mission? Everyone has their specialty! Years of management experience—that was the capital he relied on!

"From this moment on, I will assume the position of Amegakure's Leader." Nagato gave Kazuhiko a deep look, then stepped forward to face all the Amegakure ninja. Just as Naruto said, this old scoundrel would cause trouble.

"First things first: I killed Hanzo of the Salamander!"

As soon as these words were spoken, it was like a bomb had been detonated in the crowd. The Amegakure ninja burst into discussion, and some even directly threw kunai at him.

"Bastard!" "How dare you slander Lord Hanzo!" "…"

But strangely, all the kunai thrown at Nagato stopped dead in mid-air.

"Bansho Ten'in!"

From the crowd, several Amegakure ninja slowly rose into the air. Separated from the others, they were exceptionally conspicuous.

"Second thing: you can seek revenge against me, but only if you can bear the corresponding consequences." Nagato's tone was as calm as ever, but combined with the scene, this calmness sent a chill down everyone's spine.

"For example… like this."

The moment his words fell, the levitating Amegakure ninja suddenly accelerated, and the kunai suspended in mid-air slowly turned around.

Hanzo of the Salamander breaking his promise had made him understand: being too kind-hearted leads to no good end.

"Ahhh!!" "No! Don't!" "I was wrong!!"

Watching the approaching kunai, the faces of the few Amegakure ninja, once ferocious, twisted in terror. Pleas for mercy and cries of despair rang out.

But to make an example by killing the chicken to warn the monkey—if the chicken didn't die, how would the monkeys be frightened?

Under Nagato's control, the kunai and the ninjas' vital points slowly met. The sight of blood flowing, the gradual approach of death—it made everyone instinctively fear the red-haired youth on the platform.

Even the three elders standing behind them couldn't stop their eyelids from twitching.

"Last thing." After using Shinra Tensei to toss the corpses aside, Nagato, his expression unchanged, continued to recite his prepared speech. "Amegakure will continue its operations as usual. The advisory council will oversee all criminal activities."

He pointed towards Naruto.

According to their earlier discussion, until all Akatsuki members arrived, Naruto and his shadow clones would continue to maintain basic order.

"Then, can we go back now?" After a long pause, an Amegakure ninja tremblingly raised a hand and asked.

"Groups of ten. I will be responsible for taking you back in batches," a Naruto shadow clone spoke up.

On the way back.

Naruto slowly blocked Elder Kazuhiko's path.

"What, you want to put a blade to my neck again?" Kazuhiko glanced at him. "If you knew it would come to this, why did you even bother before?"

"If you had shown me proper respect from the beginning, that scene just now wouldn't have happened."

He needed to make these two understand his value. These two greenhorns clearly didn't quite grasp the principle that even a mighty dragon can't crush a local serpent.

"Just now, you didn't keep your promise." Naruto's eyes narrowed as he slowly drew the long sword from his waist.

"Our agreement was that you needed to ensure, to the best of your ability, that Nagato could smoothly take over Hanzo's authority."

"Young man, you need to understand that the current Amegakure cannot function without me!" Kazuhiko threatened in turn.

"Having forcibly seized power from Hanzo, you will not gain Amegakure's recognition!"

Puchi!

The long sword flashed. A head, its face frozen in disbelief, flew into the air.

"Without you, Amegakure will still be Amegakure." Naruto flicked the blood from his blade and turned to the remaining two elders. "Elder Mimura? Elder Shinba? Wouldn't you agree?"

Gulp…

The two men gently wiped the cold sweat from their foreheads and nodded frantically.

Fortunately, they hadn't entertained the same idea as Kazuhiko of holding out for a better offer.

"Then I'll leave the upcoming management to the two of you," Naruto said with a smile.

"It is our duty. Of course, of course," the two chorused, nodding.

Time flowed on, and a new year was approaching.

Washed by the currents of time, Amegakure gradually adapted to Akatsuki's presence. After all, life now wasn't drastically different from the era of Hanzo of the Salamander.

In fact, under Lord Nagato's management, Amegakure's economy had seen a visible improvement.

Various merchants also began to bustle in all corners of the village.

If there was anything they weren't accustomed to, it was perhaps the omnipresent Leader's Advisor—Uzumaki Naruto.

All of Amegakure's people wondered why, every time someone committed an offense, the Advisor was always the first to arrive and apprehend the culprit on the spot.

Sensing a sudden surge of malice, Shadow Clone Naruto Number Thirteen, who was meditating cross-legged in a room, opened his eyes and instantly vanished.

On the street, two merchants were arguing over the size of their stalls. Though it was a trivial matter, the mutual malice between them during their standoff was even more terrifying than that in some ninja battles.

However, the Naruto shadow clone didn't immediately step forward to stop them.

His Mind's Eye of Kagura for large-scale chakra perception, Kurama's gift of malice detection, and strategically positioned shadow clones—these three combined were his method of surveillance over Amegakure.

This method of supervision had been chosen entirely because Akatsuki had lost most of its capable members in the previous ambush. This directly resulted in Akatsuki's own supervision being far inferior to Naruto's in terms of both efficiency and deterrence. Plus, the chakra consumption of shadow clones was negligible for Naruto.

So, this rather unorthodox system of supervision continued, with Nagato and Yahiko's insistence.

Of course, maintaining order in a hidden village through the efforts of one person was not a sustainable long-term solution. Nagato and Yahiko understood this point as well, so they had intensified the training of Akatsuki's remaining members, striving to rectify this imbalanced supervision in the shortest possible time.

After several months, they had achieved some modest results.

Minor disputes like the one below were now mostly handled by Akatsuki members.

Seeing an Akatsuki member arrive on the scene, the shadow clone used a Body Flicker Technique and also vanished.

How vast could a hidden village's ninjutsu reserves be? Naruto hadn't seen Konoha's reserves and wasn't clear about the collections of the Five Great Hidden Villages. But he had a profound understanding of Amegakure's ninjutsu library.

Perhaps there weren't many forbidden-level jutsu, but D, C, and B-rank ninjutsu alone were enough for a ninja to spend a lifetime studying and practicing just to potentially learn them all.

Since he and Nagato had taken charge of Amegakure, Naruto had also been filling the gaps in his own ninjutsu arsenal.

Besides non-elemental jutsu like the Body Flicker Technique, he had also taken up supplementary training in Fire and Earth Release.

Unfortunately, neither was his innate chakra nature, making it difficult to progress to deeper levels of chakra nature transformation practice. Thus, C-rank ninjutsu was already his limit for them.

Higher-level ninjutsu often required a more demanding mastery of chakra nature transformation.

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