Naruto Shippuden - part 29

Nearly three days passed before Naruto managed to drag himself out of his depression enough to continue finding a solution to his most pressing issue at the moment. It was a ridiculously short time considering the fact that he'd simultaneously lost five people who had been dear to him, but the constant sense of urgency he felt over his diminishing life force was unaffected by his grief. Coupled with his belief that all five women truly were in a better place now, it allowed him to function again. He would miss them, but he had known that their loss was inevitable ever since he had chosen to become immortal.

So here he was, speaking to Orochimaru about a matter of considerable importance.

"Orochimaru, do you know of any scrolls about the Mokuton that the Shodai might have left behind?"

"There may have been some in the Hokage's vault, but those would have almost certainly been destroyed along with the tower." The snake Sannin answered after a moment's thought.

"So I'm going to have to figure it out for myself then?" Naruto muttered to himself with a slight grimace. Ever since he had gained the Mokuton, he had felt something, like a strange pseudo connection to nature...different, but similar to Senjutsu. His gut was telling him that it was important somehow. Normally, he would have been perfectly happy to figure it out for himself, as it was his preferred method of doing things, but he didn't have time for that in his current situation. hell, even using the scrolls would take too long, but it was better than nothing.

"Well, there is one other option." Orochimaru offered cautiously. He was leery of making the blond any more powerful than he already was, but in the current situation, their lives were tied together. If Naruto died, than so would he and that was something that the snake Sannin definitely didn't want. He had no idea if he could trust the blond to keep his end of the bargain in regards to teaching him that natural energy absorbing trick, but even he had to admit that Naruto had always been very straight forward, so maybe he was actually serious.

Instantly, gold-orange eyes focused on his own yellow ones with frightening intensity, demanding that he explain that cryptic statement.

"There is a shrine hidden in the outskirts of Konoha, far enough away that it may have survived the destruction. This is the Uzumaki Mask Shrine and inside it, the Shinigami Death Mask was kept hidden."

"Why is this mask important?" Naruto questioned with interest.

"Whoever wears it becomes the avatar of the Shinigami and more relevantly, they can release any souls trapped in its stomach if they cut open their own stomach while wearing the mask."

Naruto's mind instantly latched onto the fact that the souls of every Hokage except for Tsunade were inside in the Shinigami's gut. The Yondaime and Sandaime because they had used the Reaper Death Seal and the first two Hokage because the Sandaime had taken them with him during Orochimaru's invasion of Konoha years ago.

If the Shodai could be released, then he could be summoned using the Edo Tensei and Naruto could learn about the Mokuton directly instead of using a scroll. The only problem was that the reincarnated dead weren't obligated to speak. They could be compelled to act as long as the summoner was strong enough to force them, but they couldn't be forced to speak.

Somehow, Naruto doubted that the Shodai would be eager to spill all his secrets. Aside from that, even if he was willing, it would still take a lot longer than he was comfortable with. Not as long as scrolls, but still too long.

Fortunately, there was an alternative. It was a line of research he had pursued and abandoned during the training trip with Jiraiya, believing it to be too risky. Since he was already living on borrowed time though, he was willing to chance it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The two sages made their way across the destroyed village, both of them quietly marveling at just how absolute the devastation was. Everything was crushed into the ground and littered with debris from the meteor. The village was basically pulverized and buried under a mountain of rock, with massive cracks spreading across the ground in all directions due to the powerful impact.

They had teleported into the area with a Hiraishin beacon that was near the village, the ones inside it having been either buried or destroyed. They were both equipped with chakra suppression seals to hide their presence and they didn't even enter the village proper, as their target was hidden outside it.

Naruto, there is a subtle but powerful Genjutsu in effect here. Xanna warned, being much better at sensing such things than him.

Naruto narrowed his eyes in consideration, having not even noticed anything. The Genjutsu didn't affect him at all, but the fact that it was being used was telling.

"Uzumaki Mito had this shrine built in secret and protected it with powerful Fuinjutsu that would make finding it extremely difficult. It took me years of searching before I managed to pin its location, despite knowing that it was somewhere around here." Orochimaru spoke up.

"Ah, so that Genjutsu that has just started trying to affect us is some kind of seal that causes people that enter this area to instinctively turn elsewhere." Naruto said in realisation. "Very clever."

"A Genjutsu?" Orochimaru asked, startled. He'd never noticed any kind of Genjutsu.

"Yes, you were probably able to overcome it because you knew what you were searching for, but because you didn't know its exact location it still turned you away. Once you found it, it stopped affecting you." Naruto theorised. He had to admit that it was quite the masterful piece of seal work.

Orochimaru nodded, his mind full ideas of using a seal like that to hide his bases. They'd be impossible to find!

A short time later, they were making their way out of the dilapidated shrine, Shinigami mask in tow.

"That was surprisingly easy." Naruto mused, having expected that something as dangerous as a mask that allowed a person to become an avatar for the Shinigami to be harder to get to.

Orochimaru made no comment on that and instead asked a question on a different subject. "Is there anything else you wanted to do here? Foreign shinobi are probably going to be coming here soon, so if you had anything else you wanted to do here, now would be the time."

Naruto looked over at the ruin that was just barely visible from their current location and thought it over. Mostly he was thinking rather nostalgically of the few people he could call 'friend' that had died here aside from the girls.

His relationship with the people he'd graduated with was practically non-existent(Sakura, Hinata and Tenten not included), as his strength had long since eclipsed theirs. He was friendly enough with Neji and Lee, but he rarely spoke with them.

Kakashi wasn't very sociable, so their relationship had become a bit more distant in recent months and the three year training trip before that hadn't helped either. All in all, Naruto wasn't all that upset about his former sensei's death, especially since he was quite sure that the Jounin wasn't particularly bothered about dying.

He was probably more injured by the fact that he couldn't read his Icha Icha in the afterlife than actually dying.

He wasn't even sure if Jiraiya was dead or not. His godfather tended to move around so much that it could really go either way on that one. He wasn't going to waste time thinking about it until he could confirm it one way or the other in any case.

The ones he felt the most sorry for were Anko and Kurenai to be honest and it wasn't just because he had a soft spot for females. Aside from their plans of starting a family through adoption, there was another reason that Madara was a bastard for killing them.

How dare he take such a hot example of girl-on-girl action away from the world.

The ridiculous thought helped cheer him up a little.

Konoha itself meant nothing to him, nor did any of its people aside from those he had just thought of, so the devastation didn't inspire any reaction from him.

My parents would probably be horrified at my apathy about the village being destroyed. He thought with amusement.

Wait...my parents... He suddenly realised that he could bring them back both now, at least for a short while.

You cannot be serious. Xanna said flatly.

How would you like to meet your in-laws my dear? He responded with a mental snicker.

You CANNOT be serious. This time her tone was full of incredulity. The idea that he would drag their souls out of the pure world just for that was more than just a bit hard to believe.

Oh come on, can you just imagine the look on their faces when they learn that the demon they died to seal is now married to their son? Naruto cajoled.

Xanna was silent for a while, but he could definitely feel that she was tempted. Both of them knew that the slackjawed looks would be something to see.

Weren't you the one who determined that it was unwise to reincarnate the dead for trivial reasons and that it would be better for them not to know the kind of things you were up to?

Yeah, but that was for people I care about. I never knew my parents and the only thing I feel for them is gratitude that they sealed you in me. I couldn't really bring myself to care what they think of me, but I would like to meet them and thank them for that.

If she could have, Xanna would have smirked. Most people would be bitter or resentful about having a difficult life, but Naruto disregarded all his past misery as insignificant in the face of the fact that she was with him because of it.

Not that her thinking was really any different on this subject. Fifteen years of being sealed was a small price to pay in exchange for the joy of having a companion who loved her unconditionally. Now they just needed to fix their current situation, kill Madara and then restart their interrupted honeymoon. She knew that Naruto was still grieving for his recent loss and he would need time to truly put it behind him.

"Yes, there is actually one more thing that we're going to do in Konoha." Naruto said with a slight grin.

Orochimaru directed a questioning look towards the blond. He'd been silent for a while now and the snake Sannin had figured that he was talking to the Kyuubi.

"We're going to dig up my parents graves." They had to get that DNA after all.

"But why?" Orochimaru asked in confusion.

"Why not?" Naruto responded, amusement coloring his voice.

Orochimaru just stared at him until Naruto gave him an answer that made some kind of sense.

"Oh fine, we're doing it because I want to see the look on their faces when I tell them that I married the Kyuubi."

"That...is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard." The snake Sannin said flatly. He really wished he could kill the stupid blond or at least leave so that he wouldn't have to deal with this idiocy anymore. Unfortunately the seal plastered on his forehead prevented that.

"Well we're doing it anyway, provided that the graveyard isn't buried too deep under the rubble that is."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"All of my hate Naruto, you have it." Orochimaru hissed furiously as he continued digging and tossing aside large boulders that had once been part of the meteor.

Naruto grinned at the bitching, highly amused that the snake Sannin didn't call him 'Naruto-kun' anymore. Apparently his fellow sage was too pissed off to bother with honorifics.

Who knew that all you had to do in order to turn Orochimaru into a grumpy bastard was slap an enslavement seal on his forehead and make him do manual labor?

They'd discovered that the graveyard was in fact buried, but not badly enough that Naruto would be stopped from digging it up and so they had spent the past two hours performing manual labor and were just now starting on digging up the graves. Orochimaru had wanted to use Ninjutsu, but with Madara lurking about with his overpowered sensing ability, they had to keep a low profile, which meant doing it the old fashioned way.

Normally, Naruto wouldn't have bothered doing something so trivial when he was already running out of time, but he was honestly out of ideas for how to restore Xanna and this interlude of physical labor was at least giving him time to think.

The problem with the ninja world was...they always thought of how to destroy things. This meant that Naruto couldn't really expect anyone to know how to help with his current problem. Even Orochimaru hadn't been of much use in that. Certainly, the addition of the Shodai's cells had been quite a boon and the Mokuton was something he was glad to have, but neither one of those really fixed his problem, merely delayed it.

The research into the Edo Tensei had so far proven only to be something that would perhaps be useful when...if...he could restore Xanna.

At the very least, this trip had proven useful for draining the last of the natural energy in the area, however little of it remained.

Both of their heads snapped towards a group of rocks when they heard the distinct clatter of small stones tumbling across larger ones.

Mere moments after that, two swift shadows jumped away and ran into the distance as if their lives depended on it. The shadows were dressed like Konoha shinobi.

"Survivors?" Naruto asked, rather surprised that anyone had survived the annihialation of the village.

"More likely shinobi who were on a mission when Konoha was destroyed." Orochimaru said.

"Ah, I forgot all about that. I suppose there would be quite a few people out on missions at any given time."

"You know that they're going to blame the destruction of the village on us if we don't kill them right?" The snake Sannin asked.

"Eh, who cares." Naruto said with a shrug. His reputation was really not something that he would have cared about normally, much less in the current circumstances.

After that little incident, they had no further trouble desecrating the graves of the Yondaime Hokage and his wife and gathering the required DNA for performing the Edo Tensei. Naruto did put their bodies back though, even though he was of the belief that the body was just a sack of meat once a person died.

Why did he bother burying his big sister, little sisters and Tsunade if that was his belief? Because he was something of a hypocrite on this issue and he knew it. It just made him feel better about their deaths to bury them somewhere close.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Senju Hashirama blinked in slight confusion as he realised that he was back in the world of the living again. The last thing he remembered was Hiruzen sealing him away into the death god, which meant that he definitely shouldn't be here. He was glad that he didn't remember what went on with a soul in the Shinigami's stomach though. It was more than likely unpleasant.

"Ah good, it worked." A very big and intimidating looking blond man said in a pleased tone of voice as he observed the reincarnated Hokage. Next to him was the same pale man that had summoned him last time and a young redheaded girl with glasses with a weird hairstyle.

Seeing as there was no obvious combat going around, Hashirama felt it safe to assume that he hadn't been summoned in order to fight someone again, which was something to be glad about at least.

"Hello, who are you and why have you summoned me?" He asked with cautious curiousity.

"Uzumaki Naruto and I've summoned you because I need to learn about the Mokuton." The blond replied easily, writing complex seals on a large, flat stone that was no doubt prepared with Ninjutsu.

"An Uzumaki?" Hashirama exclaimed in pleasure, glad to see a member of that particular clan. "How is your clan doing? Wait...You have the Mokuton?!"

Naruto looked oddly at the excitable zombie, having expected the Shodai to be someone somewhat more serious.

He hasn't changed much at all since I met him. Xanna said, slightly amused. She hadn't told Naruto anything about the former Senju clan head because she'd known her husband would assume that the man had been stoic and serious when nothing could be further from the truth.

"Wiped out except for me and Karin here." Naruto answered flippantly with a gesture towards the girl. "And yes, I have the Mokuton."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Hashirama said solemnly, proving that he could be serious.

"Don't worry about it, it happened before my time." Was the dismissive answer. He was almost tempted to tell him that the Senju were extinct as of a few days ago, but that might be needlessly cruel.

"But that's so cool! How did you get the Mokuton? Are you my great grandson? Is little Tsunade-chan your mother? How long has it been anyway?" Hashirama jabbered onward , connecting the blond hair and Mokuton to form a guess and also shattering the briefly serious image.

Naruto once more leveled an odd look at the man, slowly getting used to the idea that the Shodai Hokage had probably not been the brains of any operation, but rather the heart of it.

"I got the Mokuton by implanting your cells into myself, so no, Tsunade was definitely not my mother, though I wouldn't have minded sleeping with her." Naruto finished musingly. "And she was fifty four years old when she died a few days ago." This was said with a wave towards the five nearby graves.

Hashirama sobered up upon hearing that, even ignoring the comment that this clearly much younger man wouldn't have minded sleeping with his fifty four year old granddaughter. He even put aside the fact that he had apparently stolen the Mokuton.

"How did she die?"

"Madara killed her in an attempt to get at me." Naruto answered distractedly as he continued carefully placing seals on the stone, Orochimaru and Karin peering at them curiously.

"But Madara is dead!" Hashirama protested.

"He got better."

Hashirama spluttered momentarily before he got his composture back and asked another question, starting to wonder about the point of this summoning. The blond had said he wanted to learn about the Mokuton, but all he'd done so far was absently answer his questions while writing seals, something that he was rather familiar with from his own wife when she got into one of her projects.

"How could he have gotten better after I killed him?"

"You didn't kill him, he faked it and stole your cells, implanted them into himself, gained the Mokuton and the Rinnegan, made a convoluted plan to get resurrected after he died of old age and is now trying to enslave the world in an eternal illusion by remaking the Juubi, becoming its Jinchuuriki and reflecting his Sharingan on the moon."

The reincarnated Senju stared at the blond, stunned and trying to process what he'd just heard.

"So now you need my help to stop him and the only way to do it is with the Mokuton?" Hashirama guessed after getting over his shock. "I assume that you're a Konoha shinobi? Who is Hokage then? Or are you the Hokage?"

Naruto sighed in slight irritation. Couldn't the man see that he was busy and just shut up?

"I'm actually a Konoha missing-nin even though Tsunade tried to make me Rokudaime Hokage. She was the Godaime by the way and she was also the last Hokage that Konoha will ever have."

"What do you mean?" Hashirama asked with a feeling of foreboding.

"Madara destroyed it right after he killed Tsunade, summoned a meteor to crash into it actually. Konoha and most of its people are flatter than a pancake." Was the answer, completely lacking any kind of empathy for the destruction of the man's life's work, not to mention the death of his granddaughter.

"But we founded the village together, how could he just destroy it like that." Hashirama protested weakly. Even though he well remembered Madara's bitterness during their final battle, he hadn't thought that his former friend and rival would be able to destroy Konoha.

"Because he was suffering from a buildup of sexual tension due to being unable to get into your wife's panties. It drove him insane and now he's trying to make a dream world where he can plow her all the time while making you watch helplessly."

Now, Naruto very much doubted that Madara's interest in Uzumaki Mito was the full cause of the man's unhinging, but there was no need to tell that to the reincarnated man. For one thing, this constant questioning was slowing down his seal work and for another, it was funnier this way.

From the twitching of Karin's lips and Orochimaru's carefully blank face, they must have thought it was funny too. Heh, who would have thought that the pale Sannin could actually find something funny?

Honestly, he probably should have prepared the seal before bringing Hashirama back from the dead, but he hadn't wanted to spend all that time writing out a seal if the resurrection didn't work. He'd put the mask on himself, not wanting any of his prisoners or Orochimaru to have the power of the Shinigami, however briefly. Cutting his gut open had sucked, but his healing ability had been able to handle it easily enough. Despite somehow knowing that the souls had been released, he still hadn't been sure if the Edo Tensei would work.

He'd tried to do something to the Gedō Mazō while he was the avatar of the Shinigami, but no such luck. Apparently the death god had no power over inherently immortal creatures, even if they were nothing but dried up carcasses. The Reaper Death Seal had probably only worked because it only required the Shinigami to grab hold of Xanna and stuff her into the seal, or maybe it was because she didn't have a physical body or any number of reasons. Either way, the death god was useless in this situation.

Hashirama stared at him with a slack jaw for a good long while before his brain rebooted enough that he was capable of speech again.

"But that's...Madara had a crush on Mito-chan?! I never knew."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Orochimaru muttered, having rapidly lowered his opinion of the legendary shinobi in the past few minutes. Karin nodded in agreement.

Hashirama had apparently heard the muttering of the snake Sannin and sank into a depressive funk that would have been quite familiar to anyone who knew him, making all three look at him strangely again. Apparently the Shodai was a bigger weirdo than they'd initially pegged him for.

Naruto was just glad that the man had stopped asking questions so that he could finish writing out the complex seal in peace. It wasn't that he had anything against the former Senju clan head or anything like that, he was just aware of the fact that the knowledge was entirely wasted on the man because he was dead already. He just didn't want to deal with the hassle of arguing with him about it.

At least it had been slightly amusing.

"What's that seal you're making anyway?" Hashirama asked, having shaken off his depression after a few minutes.

"It's a seal that will make a copy of all your memories and transfer them to me." Naruto answered easily, putting the finishing touches on the seal.

Hashirama's eyes widened slightly, finally understanding why he hadn't been asked any questions about the Mokuton. It also confirmed his rapidly escalating suspicion that the blond Uzumaki may not exactly be a good man.

"Are you so greedy for the power of the Mokuton that you would steal my memories?" He said disapprovingly, his earlier childishness gone. He knew that he couldn't do anything to stop this, seeing as he hadn't been able to move no matter how much he tried.

"No actually, I don't care about the Mokuton one way or another, but it might be useful somehow for saving my wife. We're both dying you see and I'm in a hurry to find a way to prevent it. You were known as the greatest medic to have ever lived, as well as a sage and a master of the Mokuton, if stealing your memories improves my chances to save her even the slightest bit, then I'll do it in a heartbeat."

Hashirama frowned in confusion. He didn't see this wife that Naruto was talking about anywhere, nor did he understand why he said that they were both dying, much less how the Mokuton could help. He knew for a fact that no Uzumaki had ever died of anything other than old age or battle and the blond didn't look old. He could certainly understand the desire to save one's wife, but this seemed more than a little extreme. There was a lot going on here that he didn't understand, but it didn't seem as if he was going to be finding out.

"Now no more questions, step into the middle of the sealing circle and stay still. I'll send you back where you belong as soon as this is done."

Having no choice but to obey, Hashirama did as he was told.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto opened his eyes after over a day of keeping them closed and sighed in relief at the fact that he could easily recognise himself as Uzumaki Naruto instead of Senju Hashirama or some mixture of the two.

The memory transfer seal was one of his more harebrained schemes for gaining power and something that he had abandoned with good reason. He'd first thought of it when he'd been contemplating the shadow clone memory transfer ability during the training trip with Jiraiya.

However, shadow clones were still only copies of the original and most of their memories were the same, so the danger of mental overload was only when using mass amounts of clones that were doing different things.

When taking the memories of someone else, especially someone older, things became more problematic. A different person had a different sense of identity and it was unwise to mix that with yourself for obvious reasons. There was a very good chance of never being the same again after absorbing the totality of someone else's life into yourself.

Fortunately, the emotions held in the memories were blunted with age instead of fresh, or else it likely wouldn't have ended as well as it did. That and the fact that Xanna was able to act as a sort of mental lighthouse, keeping him from drowning in the memories he'd stolen.

Either way, he now knew everything that Senju Hashirama had known. His techniques, the secrets of the Mokuton, how the man's personal Sage Mode worked, the fact that Uzumaki Mito had been a total dominatrix in the bedroom and much more.

He now knew that his problems with the Mokuton stemmed almost entirely from his extremely weak earth affinity. He had gained a slight predisposition for it when he'd taken Hashirama's cells into himself, but it was nowhere close to the level that his water affinity was because he'd never trained it.

Since Mokuton was governed by those two affinities, it was shoddy and imbalanced because of the discrepancy. That problem wouldn't be too hard to fix now that he had Hashirama's memories about training his earth affinity, but it wasn't going to be an instant powerup either. Even if his mind knew how it worked, his body and chakra didn't.

The other thing he'd learned about the Mokuton was that it wasn't like other elemental bloodlines. The thing that had bothered him about it for some time now was obvious in retrospect. Mokuton manipulated life, created it from nothing and made it move in ways that it normally wouldn't have. Seriously, since when do tree roots swing swords? No other bloodline that he could think of did anything even remotely similar.

Hashirama's version of Senjutsu also wouldn't work without a mastery of Mokuton, as it relied heavily on the bloodline to provide a link to nature. On the plus side, it also heavily empowered the Mokuton once achieved.

He was intensely curious to see if he could somehow combine his own Senjutsu with Hashirama's.

XXXXXXXXXXX

While Naruto shut himself away from the world in his quest to save his wife, the general state of affairs in the Elemental Nations deteriorated quite quickly.

News of Konoha's destruction was delayed due to the sudden nature of the event. Many felt the shaking of the ground as the meteor landed, but waved it off as a random earthquake. It was only when various Konoha shinobi that had been on missions returned to the village or clients looking to hire came to visit and saw the devastation that the news spread.

The two shinobi that had caught sight of Naruto and Orochimaru digging up graves were not the first to have returned, but it was close.

It didn't take long at all before word spread to the other villages, both greater and minor and everyone wanted two things. To know what happened and to profit from Konoha's downfall.

Nobody quite managed to learn what really happened, but it became a generally accepted theory that Uzumaki Naruto and Orochimaru of the Sannin had become allies and layed waste to their former home.

Even before anyone had any kind of theory on Konoha's destruction, everyone was already moving to take advantage of it.

Kusagakure and Tanigakure, being the closest minor villages capable of acting on this, wasted no time invading Fire Country and expanding their borders.

Onoki, having already been nearly finished assimilating Amegakure after hearing that it's leaders were dead, sent more troops to speed it up and take the land of their long time enemy.

Gaara, having received several dozen requests for sanctuary from suddenly homeless Konoha shinobi felt compelled to investigate properly to find out what happened to their allied village, as something about the whole thing was suspicious to him. Naruto might be a missing-nin now, but he didn't believe that the blond was interested in wanton slaughter. Unfortunately his forces got bogged down fighting shinobi from Kusagakure, Tanigakure and Iwagakure.

Iron Country did what it always did when war broke out, it closed its borders and forbade entry to all shinobi.

Takigakure elected to assume a defensive position instead of getting involved, only making minor ventures into the land of their destroyed ally.

Kumogakure bowled over Shimogakure with the superior number and skill of its shinobi, eager to get their piece of the fertile and resource rich Fire Country.

Kirigakure also moved to take a piece of their neighbour across the sea, seeing it as an opportunity to get a foothold on the mainland as well as speed their recovery after the civil war.

Each Daimyo fully approved of the respective invasions, seeing it as an opportunity to expand their power and take the spot as the strongest country in the Elemental Nations. The Fire Daimyo and his family was rapidly forced to go into exile, their samurai force being no match for the shinobi that came swooping across his country.

Kumogakure swiftly proved to be the strongest, as each of the other shinobi villages had their separate issues.

Sunagakure shinobi fought best in the desert and they had always been the weakest of the great five. In addition, they ended up in the unenviable position of facing three enemies, even if two of them were minor villages. Though Kusagakure was nothing to scoff at, as it was a minor village on the cusp of being one of the great five.

Iwagakure had needed many years to recover from the losses inflicted on them by Namikaze Minato and even though they had replenished their numbers, many of their shinobi were lacking combat experience as they had never been in war. Additionally, Onoki had made heavy use of Akatsuki, as their services were relatively cheap and their performance excellent. Though profitable in the short term, it was proving problematic in the long term.

Kirigakure had to cross the ocean to reach Fire Country, which made it more difficult to sustain supply lines and project a strong force on the mainland. There was also the fact that they had come out of a long and bloody civil war only a few years ago and were not at full strength by a long shot.

Kumogakure had been the most militaristic of the shinobi villages, even during the long time of peace since the end of the third great shinobi war, which left them in an optimal position to take advantage of the sudden outbreak of the fourth. Not to mention that they were the only village to still have a Jinchuuriki, which made everyone leery of engaging them. With all of this in mind, Kumogakure had the greatest amount of success with their invasion and swiftly claimed large portions of the now defunct Fire Country.

Within two months, Fire Country had been carved up like a steak, leaving only the innermost parts of it independent, but everyone was aware that it wouldn't last long. They had no military force worth mentioning and therefore no ability to defend themselves from being annexed by one foreign power or another. The civilians in general didn't care as long as the invaders weren't pointlessly cruel, the only exception were a few die-hard patriots, but those were very few in number.

In the middle of it all, Jiraiya of the Sannin had no idea what to think. He'd lost his home, Tsunade was dead, his faith in the toads had been shattered after his last talk with Fukasaku and according to rumor, his godson was a village destroying mass murderer that had taken to working with Orochimaru.

He'd gone out to try and track Naruto down, hoping to talk to him and get a clearer picture of things and suddenly everything went to hell. Grieving, heartbroken and confused he went into isolation to try and get his head on straight and figure out what to do.

Eventually he decided that the best he could do would be to make his way to Sunagakure and talk to Gaara about the future. He couldn't trust A or Onoki and even though he had heard good things about Terumi Mei, he didn't know her. Gaara at least had always struck him as a good Kazekage and more importantly a good man. At the very least, he could try and help the surviving Konoha shinobi get used to their new situation.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In an inn at a small port town on the eastern edge of the mainland, a large man was hunching over his table to make himself look smaller. Very little could be seen of him because he was hiding his features behind a brown cloak. The only thing that could really be seen was a fall of snow white hair that hid his face, giving an impression of great age that was only reinforced by skin that seemed to become more gnarled the more it moved.

The town used to be part of Fire Country, but the coastline had been taken over without opposition by Kiri ninja in the opening week of the war. The inhabitants of the town didn't really notice any difference, aside from the Kirigakure headbands on the shinobi that passed through.

Naruto sighed tiredly as he slowly ate the food he had ordered. He was quite likely one of the most wanted men in the Elemental Nations at the moment, but nobody could possible recognise him unless they saw his eyes, fangs or claws, which were feature that he made sure to keep hidden. He looked far too old to be Uzumaki Naruto after all.

His twenty second birthday had come and gone, but he looked and felt more like a man that was over a hundred.

He hadn't brought his parents back to meet their demonic daughter in law, opting to wait on that until he could get Xanna free...if he could get her free. They could both use a few laughs.

It had been months since he had taken Senju Hashirama's memories and he still hadn't found a way to save Xanna. He had been forced to travel around the Elemental Nations and absorb any and all natural energy that he could find to buy more time and this was his last resort.

The countries of Wind and Earth had barely had any natural energy worth mentioning, so he had accomplished nothing but wasting time there. He really wished that he understood why exactly places like Myobokuzan were so abundant with the stuff but Fire Country's forest weren't. Unfortunately, no reasonable explanation had presented itself. Well, not like it would have really mattered in any case, the situation was what the situation was.

The areas around Lightning Country had been drained of it in the same way that he was doing, but he knew that it hadn't been him. Unfortunately he hadn't been able to investigate more closely because of the frequent patrols by Kumo shinobi. Oh sure, he could have fought them, but that would have just brought more of them down on his head and would have exposed him.

He was really starting to get frustrated by the need to keep a low profile.

He hadn't succeeded in tracking down Jashin either, which was another point of frustration. How the hell did anything that fucking ugly keep a low profile?

The islands of Water Country were the only places that he hadn't been so far, so here he was, waiting for a boat to take him there.

He would have waterwalked, but with the war going on, he would have been accosted by Kiri ninja long before he got there. That was why he had resorted to knocking a man out and replacing him as part of the crew by way of his special transformation technique that allowed for a full shapeshift. That man was currently lying unconscious in a crate and wouldn't wake up for quite a while.

Well, he wasn't transformed at the moment, but he would be once the ship was ready to go.

He had lined the nondescript brown cloak with the same chakra suppressing seals that his regular coat had, seeing as he couldn't wear that one and remain inconspicuous. It was most fortunate that it blocked the chakra emanations of his transformation, because as was usually the case with him, it used insane amounts for an E-rank technique, more than enough to be sensed.

"Would you like anything else sir?" A cheerful voice asked, making Naruto realise that he had been staring at his empty plate blankly for quite a while already.

Looking upwards and squinting his eyes to hide them, he took in the sight of the brown haired and brown eyed teenaged girl. She'd been the one to bring him the food as well and her upbeat attitude reminded him so much of Ayame that his heart constricted with emotion.

He missed his big sister.

"No thank you dear, I was just leaving." He replied with a lot more familiarity than he had any right to if he was perfectly honest, but she didn't seem to mind. Besides, he was old, he could damn well get away with something so trivial.

You're even starting to sound like an old man in your head. Xanna mocked.

Naruto didn't respond and instead got up and payed for the food. Besides, his wife was right. He did sound like an old man.

"Sir wait! You've given me too much." The girl called out when she figured out he'd overpayed.

"Think of it as a tip." Naruto replied mildly. She really was too much like Ayame.

"But this is over five times what you owed." She protested.

"It's a big tip." He answered in the same mild tone and left before she could try to protest any further. He wouldn't need that money and it felt good to give it to such a nice girl. He didn't mention that the money had come from the people he'd been using for his Edo Tensei experiments, somehow he doubted she would enjoy knowing that.

Speaking of Edo Tensei experiments, he'd pretty much exhausted that line of research, leaving the criminals of the world temporarily safe from being used as fodder for that kind of thing, though he still had a few of them in stasis back at the wolf tribe valley. He now had a fairly good idea of how to lock his soul into his body and force it to regenerate even if he was completely destroyed. The only problem was that it seemingly required a damn near infinite chakra supply to do it.

Not really our biggest problem right now though. He mused with a sigh, sitting down on a crate in an out of the way alley, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head and leaning against a wall. He still had about two hours to wait before the ship left and he wanted to spend the time alone with his wife.

Indeed it isn't. Xanna agreed, the earlier teasing mockery gone from her voice to be replaced by a more melancholy tone.

Two weeks, three if they were lucky.

That was how long they had before their time was up and that was including their best estimates of how much natural energy they might be able to get from the various islands that comprised Water Country. They'd tried to track down Shikkotsu Forest to take the natural energy of the slug summons, but without Tsunade to summon Katsuyu, there had been no success on that front. Not that she was likely to do it if she knew what he was intending.

With the Gedō Mazō remaining stubbornly unreactive no matter how much he tried to force out the Bijuu's chakra or what seals he tried using on it, things were looking bleak. Orochimaru and his supposedly genius level intellect had similarly been entirely useless in that endeavour. The only thing Karin had been able to tell them with her sensing was that they were failing to accomplish anything in a spectacular manner.

We'll figure out something. He affirmed to the demoness.

And if we don't? She asked back, notably lacking the optimism she had a few months ago. The endless, repeated failure had slowly eroded her belief that they would be able to get out of this one.

Naruto gave another tired sigh before answering. His life force had never been this low before, which consequently left him feeling tired all the time. Then I guess we'll die together.

And if that happened, he would make sure to bury the Gedō Mazō in the deepest, darkest hole he could find and layer it with so many seals that Madara would never find it in his lifetime. It wasn't that he particularly cared about what happened to the world after he died, but he would do it out of sheer spite, just to make sure that the Rinnegan wielding Uchiha wouldn't be able to complete his plan.

Is there even any purpose in dragging it out? We haven't been able to think of anything new in weeks.

I'm going to keep trying to the end, you never know when something might come up.

So stubborn. She murmured fondly. That was the kind of strength that she didn't have, because she'd never needed it. Unlike Naruto who had needed to constantly pick himself off the ground when life got difficult, she'd always been at the top of the food chain. If it wasn't for his constant bullheaded determination and belief that something could always be done, she might have given up already.

Though her words were true, they really hadn't made any progress nor had any new ideas in weeks. Naruto had done some training with his earth affinity to bring his Mokuton up to snuff(It wasn't really anywhere close to being mastered, but it was better than before) and he'd nearly managed to fully master the Hiraishin, but there had been no tangible progress on actually preventing their slow death.

He had even been desperate enough consider reviving Nagato with the Edo Tensei, despite the possible danger of Madara being able to sense the return of his first Rinnegan. Xanna had cautioned against it, but he had been intending to do it anyway...though he was careful enough that he would have done it somewhere other than the valley. The point became moot when he was unable to get a DNA sample from the deceased Rinnegan wielder due to the fact that his body had apparently been disposed of.

"Hey old man, how about you give us a nice big tip too?" A voice drawled in a manner that its owner probably thought was intimidating.

The words jarred Naruto and Xanna out of the simple pleasure of enjoying each other's warm emotions, which was what they'd been doing ever since they'd stopped talking.

Naruto scowled, instantly in a foul mood at having one of the few pleasure that he and Xanna could still enjoy together interrupted. Obviously the three goons in front of him had seen him give the overlarge tip to the cheery waitress at the inn and were looking to rob a generous old man.

Despite appearances, Naruto was neither old nor generous. In his currently weakened condition, a strong Jounin would definitely be problematic, but these three thugs didn't even register as a threat.

"Sorry, I already gave it all to your mother last night. I'm sure you know how hard she works to provide stress relief to everyone around here."

The leader's expression darkened at the insult and he pulled out a kunai that he had almost certainly picked up from one of the recent shinobi battles. Naruto could easily guess that he was probably thinking that the murder would be blamed on a random shinobi.

He was probably right too, or would have been if he'd actually succeeded in doing any killing.

Naruto easily grabbed the arm holding the kunai and sent the thug careening down the alley, grabbing the other two by the neck before they could do anything more than stare stupidly at how easily their buddy had been tossed aside by the frail looking old man.

Though, now that he wasn't sitting down, he didn't look so frail anymore. They had only enough time to notice the baleful glare of a pair of slitted eyes before their necks were broken.

The surviving thug shook his head in an effort to clear the daze that getting thrown against a wall like a ragdoll had given him. He didn't even make it to his feet properly before he was being pressed against a wall with an elbow pushing into his throat just hard enough to prevent him from breathing, but not hard enough to crush his windpipe.

"You just had to do it didn't you? All I wanted was to enjoy a quiet moment with my wife before getting on a boat and continuing my increasingly desperate quest to save her, but you just had to show up and ruin it for me."

The thug scrambled frantically in an attempt to dislodge the arm that was choking the life out of him, but failed to budge it even slightly. He had no idea what the crazy old man was talking about, but it was hardly a pressing issue when you were turning blue from lack of air. The easy way that his friends had their necks broken shattered any kind of idea that the old man had a problem taking lives.

Naruto kept glaring at the struggling man and pressed his unused right hand into the thug's breastbone, forcibly expelling what little air he had in his lungs just for the sake of making his death extra painful because he was in a bad mood.

At the very same moment that he felt something under his right hand, Xanna sensed it too and he eased up on the choking just enough to let the thug take in some critically needed air. Immediately, he started gasping and coughing for air as his windpipe was unblocked.

What was that? Naruto asked, intensely curious. He'd never sensed anything like it.

I don't know, try feeling around if we can pin it down. Xanna replied, equally curious as her husband.

If he could, the thug would have recoiled in horror as the old man ripped his clothes off and started running his clawed hand along his chest in a gesture that a casual observer might have labeled 'molestation'.

Naruto was blissfully unaware of how it looked, being utterly focused on getting to the bottom of this new mystery.

Just as the thug had gotten his breath back and tried demand to be let go, Naruto absentmindedly blocked his windpipe again to keep him quiet. He settled his hand over the man's heart where the feeling was the strongest and focused hard on it.

It's his life force! That's what we're sensing! Xanna exclaimed in surprise.

But I thought you could always feel the life forces of others? Naruto asked in confusion.

I've lost that ability along with my chakra, I could only sense yours because I'm so closely connected to it, but I'm clearly sensing it from him now. The sensation is weak, but I would know it anywhere.

But why is the feeling strongest over his heart? Naruto wondered and froze as soon as he asked the question.

The Death Gate was located in the heart and even closed, even in a civilian, that was the widest channel through which the life force of humans flowed.

What are you doing? The demoness asked curiously, as Naruto placed his right hand more firmly over his captive's heart, ignoring the man's struggles completely.

Naruto didn't answer as he focused a(for him) small amount of chakra to his palm and forced it towards the man's heart, causing considerable pain with the forced opening of Tenketsu and the influx of super dense chakra into never used coils.

The thug was frothing at the mouth by this point and would have been dead within minutes due to the rupture of his chakra network, but Naruto wasn't done quite yet. As soon as his chakra was in place, he pulled, using all the experience he had accumulated with the manipulation of his own life force to draw on that of another.

The man with an extremely poor choice in mugging targets started withering away rapidly until he was nothing but skin and bones, with some wispy white hair sticking to his skull.

Naruto dropped the newly made corpse to the ground and looked at his hands, seeing that his skin looked younger and his hair had regained some of its golden color. He wasn't anywhere close to being at full strength, as his body had become used to far higher levels of life force, but that wasn't important.

He had found an alternative to his reliance on ambient natural energy.

His time limit had once again stretched into the indefinite future...provided that there were always enough humans around to feed on. This new ability still needed testing to see if it could be used on anything other than humans, but it was still a magnificent find.

He couldn't stop the laugh that rose up from his throat, unable to stop himself because of the irony of a bunch of pathetic muggers providing him with this opportunity.

It never even crossed his mind just how ghoulish it was to rip out the life force of others, all he saw was the fact that he no longer needed to resign himself to the possibility of being helpless as Xanna died.

Oh, he would make sure to use this on criminals, the same as he had used for the Edo Tensei but he didn't delude himself into thinking that he wouldn't use it on the innocent if he was out of other options. He would prefer not to harm the innocent, but it would be a small price to pay if it would save his wife in the end.

He he he, I've become a fuck mothering vampire. Naruto chuckled, still a bit giddy at the discovery.

Don't you mean 'mother fucking'? Xanna asked dryly. Her husband truly had the luck of the devil himself to stumble on such an ability by accident.

Trust me on this, it's definitely 'fuck mothering', but more to the point, I know exactly what I want to use this on next.

Oh? Xanna inquired curiously.

The Gedō Mazō.

If she had eyes, they would have widened at the implications. She well remembered sensing the virtually infinite life force of the Gedō Mazō. If he could drain it from the statue...then that would easily mean an endless source of life, as well as the possibility of using this to rip out the Bijuu chakra from it. That might just be wishful thinking on her part, but her husband's latest breakthrough had reignited her flagging hope for a way to escape certain death.

Xanna didn't care one whit who he used this on. Mortals were such fleeting creatures anyway, so what difference did it make if he sped things up?

"Halt murderer! Turn around slowly and keep your hands where we can see them!" A voice called out, shocking the both of them out of their pleasant daydream. They'd been so excited about the possibilities of using the life drain on the Gedō Mazō that they'd completely failed to pay attention to their surroundings.

Naruto turned around, seeing a four man shinobi squad with Kirigakure forehead protectors.

"It's Uzumaki Naruto!" One of them exclaimed in shock and fear, apparently recognising him despite his somewhat aged appearance.

"Well, that's not going to improve my public image." Naruto muttered to himself, suddenly realising what the situation looked like.

He shook his head in slight amusement at the way that he kept getting villainized due to extenuating circumstances. Someone must have seen or heard something and informed the local garrison. He knew that there was no point in explaining, especially since he had actually killed these fools, so Naruto just teleported away, causing the Kiri ninja to huddle together in paranoia, thinking that he was going to suddenly appear in their midst and cut them apart with the infamous technique.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't show up again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"FUCK!" Naruto roared at the sky, infuriated at the fact that he was unable to drain the life force out of the Gedō Mazō, much to the confusion of Orochimaru and Karin, who had no idea why he was so angry.

He was able to feel it easily now that he knew how to look and the vastness of it made his palms itch with the desire to take it for himself, but he couldn't drain it. Something was still missing. It felt alien to him somehow.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, Naruto told himself that it was no big deal. The answer would come to him in time. At least he knew what to do now, which was worlds better than floundering in the dark and hoping to get lucky the way he'd been doing for months now.

Prevented from taking the main prize, he settled on the consolation prizes. The dozen or so people kept unconscious by stasis seals who had originally been meant as test subjects for research into the Edo Tensei but had become redundant a little over a week ago.

The snake Sannin watched in utter fascination as the prisoners were reduced to dried out husks and Naruto was restored to his youthful appearance.

Karin watched in horror, suddenly feeling terribly afraid of her 'big brother'. She was no stranger to various atrocities, having worked for Orochimaru and all, but the lengths that Naruto went to chilled her to the bone.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You've been avoiding me."

Karin flinched at the words and at Naruto's sudden proximity, still feeling afraid of him.

"You've been smelling of fear whenever I approach ever since I drained all the prisoners."

The teenaged redhead couldn't help shuddering at the memory. Her sensing ability had gone completely off the rails at how wrong it had felt when the blond had done that and the worst part was that she knew he was going to do it again and again for as many times as he had to.

"I'm not going to hurt you Karin, there's no need to be scared." He tried to reassure.

"What if there was no one left but me?! What if I was the only one you could reach in time?!" She demanded slightly hysterically. She'd always thought of her powerful sensing ability as a blessing, but just then, the insights it offered made it a curse.

Naruto stayed silent as he considered the question. Could he sacrifice Karin if it would save Xanna?

Guiltily, he had to admit that he would do it. It wouldn't do his sanity any favors, but he would do it.

Karin started shaking at his continued silence, the valley that had been a shelter from the outside world suddenly feeling like a prison.

"I can take you to Sunagakure if you want. The Kazekage is a good man and he wouldn't have any trouble taking you in. You could even ask for Jiraiya of the Sannin and explain things to him if you wanted. I can even write a letter and ask him to take care of you. I've heard that he's apparently keeping loose ties to Suna." Naruto offered with a sigh. It hurt to see her so terrified of him, but it was understandable. He'd known that Hinata, Sakura, Tenten, Ayame and Tsunade would be horrified to know that he was using the Edo Tensei, so it came as no surprise that Karin would be upset by his newest ability.

It was almost enough to make him glad that those five girls would never know what he was doing. Their tolerance for his actions could only go so far and at some point even they would have called him a monster. He had the distinct feeling that they would have drawn the line at sucking the life out of other people.

He wasn't worried about Karin telling people about what he was doing. It wasn't like anyone could stop him or find him. By now, he had Hiraishin beacons planted all over the Elemental Nations and there was no real pattern to his movements. Additionally, there was a war going on, which made it all the easier for an individual to hide his actions in the chaos.

Shakily, Karin nodded at the suggestion and Naruto left to prepare things for her departure. Once again, he was letting a little sister do as she wished even though she would be safer staying with him. But he wouldn't force her and Madara wouldn't even know about her being in Suna, so she wasn't likely to be in any danger.