12 Homecoming

The morning sun rose over Konoha highlighting the stone faces that made their village famous the world over. Not a very smart decision considering they were meant to be a hidden village but who could they complain too.

The Kumo company off twenty ninja stood atop a hill so they could see the massive wooden walls surrounding the enemy village. The company has yet to move in and officially enrol due to a variety of reasons.

Their sensors picked up some strange Anbu so they captured and interrogated them. Kumo put a lot of emphasis on their speed so they easily caught them.

Naruto and Shura noticed the seals cantered around their skulls so took some time to deactivate them. Shura sent out her garden sized snakes to gather info from influential people as marked by Anko.

Naruto had some fun deactivating the seals; the curse tongue eradication seal was a pretty decent attempt at an intel security seal however it would have worked better if done to the roof of the mouth with a few minor tweaks and a better connection to the chakra network that didn't impact the yin chakra as much.

The false face fatality seal implanted in the teeth next to some suicide and false suicide fluid was a smart idea. Upon death the facial features would be reconstructed so the corpse was unidentifiable hence the need to place it in the teeth.

The final seal was imbedded in some false flesh behind the ear known as the Kuebiko whisper seal. This was one developed by the fire monks to record audio in the surroundings when the users heart stops. Danzo most likely has the activation sequence to hear the recordings. All he would need is the head and he would hear the last moments of his operatives. Enemies tend to get cocky and brag once they secure a kill (or at least morons do) and reveal some key details.

Those three seals connect to form the Koshin formation. This is a secret technique of the land of ash monastery. It relates to the story of the three wise monkeys. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

The formation revolves around three seals placed on the head and linked together using the formation to strengthen their defences and better obscure them. Only an Uzumaki could have reconfigured the formation to fit the three chosen seals as the ash monks have three that differ greatly. Danzo must have stolen this from Mito Uzumaki or Tobirama Senju developed it based on her work for the Anbu.

Naruto and Shura felt like Christmas had come early as they picked apart the seal and discussed theories. The other ninja in the make shift could only look at them exasperated, only sealing nerds could be so happy and picking apart people's tattoos.

Shura left to collect her snakes whilst Naruto recorded his findings and theories to pass them off to his superior officer as well as send them to Arashi Nikaido. She's another Uzumaki member of the squad and is a sealing mistress so she loves to debate with him. He wrote in his vanishing ink journal. A handy artifact he created, write something in one journal and it will appear in another. The Raikage was very pleased when it was introduced to him.

Shura arrived in the camp and called all the higher ups within the camp to the tent to relay the juicy details. Naruto as the jinchuriki and a fuinjutsu specialist was allowed entry to the meeting. Anko and his other teammate Junko Rokku followed him in. Anko was a local to the village so can confirm the info, the men don't want to piss of Junko incase she impersonates them and ruins their social lives. It's already happened a few times back in the village.

Shura cracked open a beer that she had sealed in her storage scrolls. She felt she needed to be mentally impaired after she heard the stuff from her summons.

"Alright everyone! So I learned a lot of fucked up shit. First up I got some plots from the two elders that Naruto mentioned. Next I got some dirt on several councillors, some clan inner workings, civilian trends such as the villages current target for a hate boner and lastly the snakes gathered the detail from our spies."

Some snakes coughed up some scrolls like Orochimaru could. The jounins shook the slime off the scroll before reading it at lightning speeds. Shura walked over to Naruto and wrapped an arm around his shoulder and squashed herself onto his lap.

No one paid her any mind except for Junko who was biting a handkerchief at the sight. "So Naru chan~ I guess you weren't that crazy after all" shura said in her usual teasing tone.

"I'm not crazy I'm just lightly observant." Naruto replied with a fox smile on his face. Shura scoffed "lightly observant he says, Everyone's had to deal with your conspiracy theories and cultish rants at one point or another. Didn't know they were for real though".

She said as her eyes dilated slightly showing her shock. "Is it really so bad that I'm right?"

"""yes""" sounded out several of the people in the tent. Naruto just put a hand over his heart which made a few of them grin or chuckled.

Shura replied "it's actually worrying that no one but you found out any of this shit for years. I thought you were just villafying your village to make the social transition to Kumo easier."

Some of the people in the tent nodded, Naruto chose to change the direction of the conversation. "So who is the current pariah of the hidden leaf?"

Shura smirked "that's a long list, that place is a cesspool of who hates who. The clans hate each other and then there's the internal bullshit. Everyone hates the civialins because their insensitive and arrogant beyond belief. The councillors and elders are hated by the ninja force. The Hokage is bad mouthed behind most doors in one way or another. The kids are being sharpened as political weapons to use against the other members of the village. Then there's all the nasty shit going on." She ranted.

"Who is getting the jinchuriki treatment." Naruto asked calmly.

"Yakumo Kurama, she apparently started several fires in the village because of something called the Ido.

She's being looked after by several women with one being her teacher Kurenai Yūhi. The villagers call her the hazy witch because of the fires. Something about the haze of the fire and her being a genjutsu specialist."

Naruto nodded solemnly, Anko heard one of her friends being mentioned so she walked over and began conversing about what her friends had been through since her departure.

Time passed quickly so the ninja chose their strategy based on the data collected. Long story short Konoha is fucked in the background so they should all stick together. The jounin aren't letting the genin wander alone in case they get mind raped by a yamanaka or kidnapped by one of the three groups running around in the leaf Anbu.

The cloud group checked in with Izumo and Kotetsu who were watching Naruto like a hawk. He waved at them so Izumo approached him. "Kid I've missed you, your little board tricks made my shift pass so much quicker."

Of course those two only cared about skimming through work Naruto thought as his eyebrow twitched. Izumo led the Kumo group towards the hotel.

Naruto smirked when he saw the entirety of the civilians freeze when they saw him. They broke out into not so hushed whispers. "The demon is back?!?" "I thought Sasuke sama banished him to hell after he bewitched the hyuga princess" "quick summon some ninja to kick it out again" "he'll wreck my cabbage stand again" "the fox is going to burn the village down" "I don't know what's worse, the witch or the demon".

Several such things were spread amongst the populace. The Kumo shinobi were flabbergasted, they knew that jinchuriki often had it rough according to Killer B but this is well beyond what they were told about. Naruto is a hero to Kumo because of his sealing innovations and successful records.

He solved the cursed warrior in the land of birds, he defeated Akahoshi in Hoshigakure saving the village, he found Yukie and retook the land of snow ensuring their technology could be sold to Kumo, he destroyed the stone of Gelel which made people into chakra monsters like jinchuriki which would have changed the whole shinobi force dynamic and ensured another war, he protected the royalty of the crescent moon kingdom.

That's only the publicly known missions he has succeeded in as a member of Snake squad. Their mission count is continuously breaking records with their difficulty and number. Konoha treats a guy like that badly?!? How did they not beat them in the wars?!

Naruto smirked to himself "ah home sweet home".