The lost soul..

The air was cold and heavy with tension in the thick morning mist that blanketed the land of Kiri. As one pauses a faint sound, so faint it is almost undetectable by human ears, could be heard through the fog.

Several squads of Kiri ninja rushed through the forest, taking both the tree tops and the forest floor.

The commanding unit, an Anbu with a blue dolphin mask stopped on one of the branches letting his troops fall on ahead as his second in command landed next to him. He turned to the new arrival signaling him to move on ahead with hand signals. The man nodded before continuing ahead. The commander placed two fingers over the two way radio on his ear. "Command, this is advance unit alpha we are re…" He was cut off as a gauntlet covered hand wrapped around his throat from behind, cutting off his oxygen and lifting him effortlessly from the ground. He tried to reach behind him to grasp the arm holding him, only to grasp air.

Soon enough as sickening crunch was heard along with a bloody gurgle before a body fell to the forest floor with a dull thud.

Naruto observed the dead Anbu fall with cold apathy, his blue eyes slowly turned from his limp body to the retreating backs of the Kiri nin. He raised his two way radio and spoke into it, waiting for them to step out of his sight. "Proceed."

Less than three seconds later a great explosion blanketed the forest, where the ninja had vanished, with fire and ash. The harsh wind and dust hit him, ruffling his cloak and hair in the wind.

"Naruto-sama, are you alright?" Came a static filled voice from he radio.

"I am returning now, send the patrols. Kill any that survived."

A pause.

"Of course Naruto-sama.

Temari sighed as she wiped her brow from the sweat that had formed there due to the heat of the Suna sun. It was abnormally hot today, even by Suna's standards. She glanced at the restaurant down the block and decided to make her way towards it.

As she neared voices began making their way toward her, escaping the wooden walls of the stand. She faintly recognized them, it was only a second or so before she entered the stall that she was able to put a face to them.

Inside were the five gennin of Konoha.

"So Sakura, what have you been up to lately?" Kiba asked wolfing down some Bar-B-Q'ed chicken as he looked to his former teammate.

She shrugged. "Nothing much, I've been volunteering at the hospital and one of the older medics there, a retired med nin named Chiyo is helping me learn some new med techniques."

Kiba nodded. "That's cool." He looked to Chouji, Ino and Shikamaru "What about you guys?"

Shikamaru shrugged "We've mainly been training with our family scrolls, with one of the Jounin that…came with us." He chose his words carefully seeing his teammates hide their respective flinches.

Chouji ate some more BBQ as he spoke. "Yeah, I've already gotten the hang of two more Jutsu." He looked to Ino. "How'bout you Ino?"

She smiled, while she was still rather subdued in comparison to what she was back in Konoha, slowly she was regaining her former spunk. "I've mastered one and begun to master my…dad's Mind scramble technique, he invented it and left some pretty good notes so it's pretty easy.

Chouji smiled and nodded as Sakura gave them both a pat on the back, since she was pretty much sitting in between them.

Kiba smirked. "Yeah, that's cool, my sis has been training with me but since she's the oldest, she's had to take over the clan duties. She's been meeting a lot recently with the Suna council, wont tell me why though." He shrugged as an afterthought.

"She's been wanting to get you guys a secure Suna citizenship." Temari said from her table across from them.

Each of the Konoha gennin turned to face her. "Huh, hey wait your that Suna-chick." Kiba said bluntly making Sakura hit him over the head for his disrespect.

"Sorry, Temari-san, my teammate here needs a lesson in manners." Sakura said glaring at him from the corner of her eye.

Temari waved her off. "Cut the formalities. Anyway, like I said your sisters been trying to secure you a Suna citizenship."

"Why would she do that?" Chouji asked swallowing a mouthful of food.

"Because she knows that if any Konoha ninja come searching for you then we'll have no choice but to hand you over." Came a new voice entering the stand making everyone turn to see Gaara walking in and sitting down next to Temari.

He looked back to them his sea green eyes blank and expressionless. "As of right now Suna has absolutely no custody over you, and despite the fact that our standing with Konoha is less than favorable since Orochimaru tricked us into attacking the leaf during the chuunin exams, harboring you while you do not have Suna citizenship will work just as well as an open declaration of war and informing him falsely of your whereabouts will allow them a wide opening to spread propaganda against us to the other villages. Should that happen and we would seek an alliance with another village, chances are they wont even touch us if word like that got out."

Kiba stood up glaring angrily at the Kazekage "What? Our parents gave everything they possibly could to get us away from that bastard and you'd just sell us out if he comes knocking at your door?"

"Calm yourself Inuzuka." Gaara spoke to the raging boy. "I only said it is a possibility and it is the truth, while I would like to grant you citizenship, I have very little say in the matter since the council are the ones that mainly deal with civilian matters."

Kiba glared but huffed and looked away. "Of course you have very little say. Your just a gennin."

"Actually." Temari spoke, getting sick of Kiba's attitude. "He's going to be taking the title of Kazekage in two weeks."

The blood drained from Kiba's face as the entire group of former leaf gennins glared at him.

Shikamaru looked to the Kazekage. "So…are you willing to give us the citizenship?"

Gaara took a sip of the herbal tea they had just served him before he spoke. "At the moment I am undecided. On one hand, adding the famous Ino-Shika-Cho clans to our village would be a great asset, as well as the fact that Chiyo has reported miss Haruno here having a rather rare talent for medical ninjutsu and the Inuzuka clan abilities cannot be underestimated either. All of these could add great strength and prestige to our village…"

"But…" Shikamaru continued. "Your not sure if you can risk open war over this especially not with this…Demon of Konoha character."

Gaara nodded silently sipping some more tea. "Indeed." He looked to Shikamaru as he spoke again. "This...Uzumaki…is not someone I would like to count as one of my enemies."

"You'd prefer to have him as an ally." Shikamaru stated simply.

Gaara sipped his tea, his whispered words not reaching anyone but Temari next to him. "No…that I would want even less."

The shouji screen door slid open silencing the occupants on the other side as Naruto stepped in.

His red eyes scanned the room the scrolls, maps and other documents were littered over a table in the center of the room. Shibi and Shino sat out in the balcony in meditative positions as they listened to the messages their respective hives of Kikaichu relayed back to them and then they relayed the messages to the chuunin couriers who then relayed it to either Kakashi, Kurenai, Hinata, the Kiri woman, Mitsuko Ginchiko, or her second in command, Hidetada and then they would relay it to him.

That was quite an intricate and, on normal circumstances quite foolish, but this, as many things he did, served a purpose, while Shino and Shibi both had the majority of their respective hives sweeping the enemies camps and headquarters gathering information, a small portion of each of their hives were crawling around this very base and listening in on conversations the Kiri nin might be having that would indicate a conspiracy against him.

So far, there were only two individuals of any real importance.

Ginchiko and Hidetada, the two most powerful of the remaining four swordsmen.

If he could eliminate one or the other, then neither would ever really have the strength, politically or physically to defeat him. He just had to do it…quietly.

The other two remaining swordsmen, a man named Guan Suo and his apprentice, an aggressive girl, worthy of Zabuza, named Tachibana Mika, were not on good terms with either Ginchiko or Hidetada, and while they did not particularly like his takeover, they were mainly keeping to themselves leaving Ginchiko and Hidetada to conspire and fend for themselves.

So…the next order of business, was to eliminate either Ginchiko, or Hidetada.

Now then, how to do it.

"Naruto-sama."

The blond haired youth turned and found Shibi. The Aburame clan head looked emotionless as usual but by his body language Naruto could tell he was anxious which was alarming in and of itself.

"What is it Shibi?" He spoke rounding in order to face him fully.

"I believe this information, you may want to hear yourself before it reaches the other's ears." He placed a hand on the blonds shoulder and leaned in whispering the information into his ear.

As Shibi pulled back he could swear Naruto was smirking beneath his mask.

"Thank you Shibi, you may return to your duty."

The Aburame clan head bowed before he turned and left.

Naruto turned to one of the Kiri ninja in the room and spoke. "You there, bring me Ginchiko, Hidetada, Guan, his apprentice Mika and Hyuuga Hinata, now. They are needed.

The chuunin hastily bowed. "Yes Naruto-sama." Before he scurried away.