Chapter 6: Growing Business

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other references mentioned in this fanfic.

Chapter 6

"The total will be 870 ryo."

"Here you go, keep the change!"

"Thank you, have a great day!"

Kenji waved the ecstatic kunoichi goodbye as he began placing the money in the cash register. He was interrupted however when something pulled on his sleeve.

Glancing to the side he saw Akame glaring at him while nudging at a clear glass jar with the word 'Tips' written on the side. The jar had a cartoon version of Akame surrounded with carrots.

Kenji held the crisp bill tighter as he matched her glare. "No. I already bought you something just yesterday, this tip is mine."

The small bunny rapidly thumped her leg against the wooden counter top in agitation.

"You scratch that, and I'll skin you alive. This entire counter is worth more than your miserable hide will ever be," the fat boy say taking out a kunai from his sleeve, letting the light shine menacingly against the blade as his face gained a ominous look despite still having his ever present smile.

Akame stopped her tantrum reluctantly, but she still glared at him.

Closing the register, the boy leaned on the counter and looked at his partner, "Also, why aren't you wearing the uniform I made for you. Show some pride damn it! You are part of 'Moon Artifacts' now, as the mascot you should be happy to represent it."

There was a heated glaring contest between the two but eventually Akame bowed her head and scurried to the bedroom.

She came back carrying a bundle of colorful red and white cloth, and with Kenji's help she was dressed once more. She was dressed as a tiny shrine maiden outfit, with red hakama pants, a white haori, and some tabi socks. There was even a small hole made at the back that allowed her fluffy white tail to peak out.

"There, now don't you just look adorable," Kenji gushed as he scratched her under the chin only to get a bite when she got annoyed. "Ow!" The rabbit turned her head to the side, a sign that Kenji took as her being embarrassed.

It had been a little more than a week since he had met Akame, and a lot of changes had occurred.

Thanks to Tsume, he had finally gotten that cloning technique that he had always wanted. He would usually summon a couple every morning to man the shop, while he either trained outside or made more products for the shop in his room. The only real downside was that each clone took 1/10 of his total chakra and memories couldn't be transferred when they were dispelled. So, he would usually wake up in the middle of the night and make them before going back to sleep to replenish his chakra and then order them to take careful notes on all the sales that happened when he wasn't there.

The extra help was also greatly needed since Tsume and Hana had been true to their word and came back the very next day with more clan members. Tsume used the clan funds to purchase a large number of Chastity Rings and armor, as well as some supplies.

It would seem that Tsume had called a clan meeting after she got home. Many of the elders and veteran shinobi were rather interested in the weapons and armor, while their canine companions looked at Kuromaru with awe and envy, complimenting his fierce appearance before demanding their partner buy them some armor as well.

It seemed that almost the entire clan had gathered outside his tent the very next day. The entire day had been hectic and Kenji had been forced to spend the entire day in the forge while his clones manned the shop and took down the different orders. At some point some of the clan members had decided to celebrate and made a return trip to the village for some BBQ supplies. They partied the day away, many using their newly purchased weapons to hold a mock battles, at that point Kenji knew that he would never get his deposit back. He used all that growing resentment to pound the metal even harder even as the smell of cooking meat made his mouth water.

That day, he had made a large number of sales and even had to spend the next couple of days filling in orders and restocking some of his supplies. Even now, he was still backed up with orders.

His chakra levels had raised by a large amount during this time on account of upgrading all of the equipment. Kenji had finally reached Genin level reserves when he passed 500 Chakra Points.

After a week the number of customers had slowed down to only a handful, something that he was grateful for, since he had been running on fumes for the last couple of days.

With the extra money he had gotten he was finally able to give his shop the image he always wanted. He dubbed his business Moon Artifact on account of his shop's specialty, talisman blessed by Kaguya, and Chakra Artifacts created by him. A picture of Akame dressed as a shrine miko was the official logo.

Kenji gave a sigh as he dreamed of the day when his small makeshift shop would become the leading authority in all goods through out the entire Elemental Nations, then he could retire to a tropical island resort and spend his carefree days away from all the danger in the world.

Seeing an earth clone leading a customer to one of the display cases he decided that he was in need of a break. "Come on Akame, I think we can leave this to my clones," he said as he picked up the rabbit in his hands before exiting the tent.

He was dressed in some Han style clothing, like those from Ancient China, a red silk robe with wide open sleeves that partially covered the white baggy pants underneath. They were made from the best materials available with the silk alone being enough to make the past Kenji spit out blood. The seamstress practically had to tear Kenji's fingers off when they wear unable to release their grip on the ryo bills. Kenji cried himself all the way home but it was all worth it in the end.

Han Style Robe +10

Quality: Low-Human

Defense: 40

+ 800

10+: Able to absorb a portion of chakra from Fire jutsu and give it to the wearer. 100% resistant to fire or heat.

Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 340

Han Style Pants +10

Quality: Low-Human

Defense: 30

+600

10+: Leg speed is increased by 500% for 5 seconds.

Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 300

As he had guessed, the better the material, the better the chance for it to be upgraded to a higher level, especially if it was made of natural materials like silk. The large flowing clothes not only helped to make him look more important, but it was also great in concealing all manner of hidden items on his body. Being the cautious person that he was, he still wore chain mail mesh underneath and solid steel plates around his shins and forearms.

Reaching into the sleeve of his robe he pulled out a scroll and unrolled it on the floor. With a simple hand sign a white marble table appeared in front of him in a puff of smoke.

He unsealed a chair and some snacks before sitting down with Akame.

"I can't wait until I have my own shop, then I can finally start working for real."

The white bunny looked at him with bored eyes as she munched away at some baby carrots.

"…"

"You're right, I should take things slow. No point in worrying about the future when I can enjoy the present. Still wouldn't it be great to have our own little place to call home. Nothing too big but something grand."

"…"

"I see, I see," Kenji agreed while nodding his head in agreement, "that's a good point. Why dream at all if you can't dream big! Okay Akame, new plan! We buy a large deserted island, build a resort, make a village, and then with careful marketing we start a chain of hotels in every country until we take over the world!"

"…"

"You know, this would be much easier if you could talk or if you would at least respond to me," the chubby boy said as he opened a bag of chips and began to shovel them in his mouth with a depressed sigh.

(Scene Change)

"Here is the report, Hokage-sama," a man wearing a white Anbu mask in the shape of a bird said from his kneeling position as he placed the folder on the aged ninja's desk.

Hiruzen Sarutobi leaned backwards in his chair as he closed his eyes and took a long drag of his pipe, taking a moment to savor the feeling of the tabacco rich air filling his lungs before exhaling. "You have done well Hawk, you can return to your post."

The Anbu disappeared without a sound.

The Third Hokage opened up the manila folder to show a collection of pictures showing a plump 10-year-old boy doing different activities. Behind that were countless report given from different Anbu explaining what they had seen.

A little over a week ago, he had received a message from one of Madam Shijimi's handmaidens with a request in protecting the boy in question with clear warning that Danzo Shimura should not be allowed within 100 ft of the him.

While the letter had had come as a request, he knew very well that it was intended as an order. The Daimyo had been more than generous after the Kyuubi attack, the taxes that the village need to pay to him were put on hold until they could get back on their feet. They were barely able to pay off the first of the payments earlier this year but they were still dancing on the razor's edge. The finance specialists wear pulling out hairs and drinking enough caffeine to give an elephant a heart attack just to make the books match.

All of that good will however would disappear faster than a pile of meat in front of an Akimichi if they were to deny his wife a simple request.

He put his best Anbu on 24/7 watch on the boy, while he ordered an in-depth investigation on the him.

Despite how jolly the woman seemed, there was a reason why she was made the daimyos wife, when there were much more beautiful candidates. She possessed a sharp and analytical mind that was perfect for politics. The only reason why the current Daimyo was still in power despite his fickle and indecisive nature had to do largely with the fact she had crushed every possible opposition with ruthless political tactics. It was safe to assume that she was the one that ultimately made the decisions. Underestimating her was only something fools would do, as was the reason why he was investigating this case. If she had already laid claims to the boy, then Hiruzen needed to know why.

'It looks like the changes started almost two months ago. Witness reports state that Kenji Yamamoto collapsed on the ground on his way home with no apparent cause. The caretaker of the apartment complex he lives in noted a clear change of behavior in the following days. Shin, a local weapon's smith and retired shinobi revealed that he sold him some equipment… along with a side note saying that the boy seems to have no working taste buds. Interesting?' Hiruzen thought as he stroked his goatee.

'Looking over the report from his academy teacher, it says that Kenji started showing remarkable improvement in all aspects showing a particular interest in history. He frequents the civilian library and from what the librarian says, he surrounds himself with books on law and medicine. Perhaps he has an interest in being a medic?'

Finally he took a flyer from the pile of papers, it was one of the original flyers that Kenji had made.

"Now the only problem."

He had already sent a group of Anbu to comb the inside of the boy's apartment for any clues. They found a manner of different tools used for crafting and even some supplies but nothing overly dangerous, although those sandwiches that were left inside of the fridge would come close to being called a biological weapon. Week old tuna and jam, yuck!

The only things that wear out of place was a home-made shrine set up in one corner of the room and the large amount of chakra residue inside of the bathtub.

He had sent some undercover shinobi to the so-called shop to gather some intel, and what they had brought back was startling to say the least. The research and development were going crazy over the items that wear brought and more than one of them had to be stopped from jumping off the Hokage Monument when they were unable to figure out how they worked.

From the sales reports given to him by the local shops, it was clear that Kenji had been buying up ordinary items and somehow changing them into something new.

He had some Hyuga members try to peak into the tent to see if they could find the exact process used but all attempts seemed to be futile. The byakugan was somehow blocked, by nothing more than by what seemed slips of paper with some writing on it. At first he thought that the boy had acquired some sealing tags that were powerful enough to block it, but looking at the pictures he could tell that they weren't fuinjutsu at all. The Hyuga clansmen also said that almost all of the items inside of the shop had a strange chakra-like aura that they could only see when they stopped paying attention to the item in question but would disappear whenever they tried to focus.

Taking another page from the pile he read it in a fraction of a second, a skill developed through countless hours of paperwork, and moved on to the next.

He snorted while rolling his eyes. Many of the people he sent to buy something wrote less than flattering things about the boy. There was all manner of names that they used but some of the ones that frequently showed up were: 'black hearted', 'silver tonged', 'greedy', 'piglet', 'greedy pig', 'money grubber' and so on. Seeing the prices of some of the things they bought, Hiruzen had to agree. He could just tell that the finance department would be spitting out blood when they finished reimbursing them.

'So it would appear that the boy either has developed some new secret technique to enhance regular items or more likely, he has some sort of kekkei genkai involved with the manipulation of chakra. It would also appear that he has already made strong connections between himself and the Daimyo's wife as well as the Inuzuka Clan.'

Placing the last of the papers back in the folder he stood up to stretch his legs. Walking toward the open window, he once more cursed himself for retaking the position of Hokage. It was a beautiful day, and he wanted nothing more than to spend time with his grandson Konohamaru at the park or maybe enjoy a bowl of ramen with his pseudo-grandson Naruto. Unfortunately, there was still work to be done if wanted to maintain these times of peace.

"Hawk. I have a new mission for you."

(Scene Change)

"They're getting smarter," a worried Kenji commented as he dropped a small green gecko into an oversized fish tank before hurriedly closing the lid. He watched as the lizard stood up on it's hind legs like a person before repeatedly hitting the glass with a clenched fist. (Think of that Geico gecko from the commercials)

Tap! Tap! Tap!

The space he was in was at the very bottom of his backpack, hidden away from prying eyes.

After the events of Akame, Kenji had taken to booby-trapping his stash of chakra dust. This was just the latest attempt by the mutated animals to get his special dust.

Usually Akame was the one to take care of them in exchange for a treat, but this latest attempt had caught his interest. The darn thing had waltzed into the shop on two legs before taking out a senbon needle strapped to its back before roaring in challenge and leaping at him from the entrance, Sparta style.

Kenji was so dumbfounded that he didn't even realize when he had grabbed a boot and thrown it at that gecko-thing until it was too late.

Thankfully no one else was in the shop at the time, he couldn't have people spreading rumors that he was being challenged by small bipedal reptiles after all, it would be bad for business.

"I really wish I knew where these things kept coming from. If I had know that the dust would have this affect beforehand, then maybe I would have taken better care in disposing of it instead of just flushing it all down the drain," the boy said in frustration rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Turning to leave, he called out to the small rabbit before taking hold of the rope attached to the opening of the bag, "Come on Akame, stop bothering the lizard thing."

While Kenji was climbing out, Akame was having a silent staring contest with the mutated gecko. Then her expression changed into one of extreme arrogance as she looked down on the small reptile behind the safety of the upgraded glass cage.

She turned to leave but not before throwing it a smug look and a visible snort as if say, 'What did you expect from a weakling.'

The gecko proved to be intelligent enough to recognize the look on the small white bunny and began to pound harder on the glass in clear indignation.

Kenji worked hard on his chakra control at every given opportunity convincing himself that there was always something else he could do to improve. That however was unneeded as, unknown to Kenji, he had an unnatural talent for manipulating chakra thanks to upgrading all manner of different objects.

Chakra: Genin

Chakra Points: 445/580

The reason for the large increases to his chakra reserves had a lot to do with him abusing the upgrading system for the passed week. After creating the clones to man the shop in the morning he would take some chakra pills to restore his chakra and begin upgrading the next batch of equipment before passing out, then he would wake up in two hours and begin the process again, only stopping when he needed to eat or make more pills.

He had already lost 7 pounds from just this week alone from all the work. Thankfully all of that hard work had paid off and he only had a handful of custom orders he needed to make before he could go back to enjoying himself.

Taking out a slip of white paper he placed it on the counter and coated it with a thin layer of chakra. Taking a deep breath he tried to levitate it without actually touching it.

From all the sales he made with the Inuzuka clan, he had acquired a rather size able amount of Ryo and jutsu scrolls. While he wasn't interested in learning the more destructive jutsus, he was on the look out for those that would increase his chances of survival in the world. He almost shed a tear or two when he finally managed to obtain a copy of the Body Flicker Technique, the best running away technique in his humble opinion. While he knew that he would never come close to using it to the same mastery as experts like Shisui, he hoped that he could at least be competent enough to escape the average jonin.

He was even able to acquire some rather interesting chakra control exercise from the clan.

With furrowed eyebrows, the pudgy boy tried to take his hand away from the paper while still leaving behind some residue chakra. Surprisingly, Kenji found that it was far easier than the scroll had described, "It must be because I'm already used to doing something similar everyday."

Now that his hand finally left the paper he could feel a slight connection between himself and it.

"Let's see, the scroll said that I should picture myself picking it up, almost as if I had an invisible hand."

Again, prior training helped in this regard, because he just relied on his training with the basic clone jutsu to picture another arm.

With batted breath, the paper finally began to wobble before finally raising a few inches from the counter's surface.

"I did it already?" Kenji said confused. The scroll said that it would usually take months of practice to master this move, but he had only been at it for a couple of minutes. "Perhaps I missed something?"

The technique was a basic one that many clan members new about since it was often used to manipulate sealing tags, usually by sending a barrage of exploding tags to the enemy from a distance. Despite that, not many actually learned it since it was much easier to just attach a kunai to the tag and the amount of chakra control needed to actually control even just one was absurd. Worse still was that it could only be used on sealing tags since anything heavier than paper would be impossible to control, only chakra strings could achieve that.

"Did I perhaps get cheated, and only handed the first part of the technique?" Kenji said with a frown.

With a bit of more practice, he managed to get three slips of paper to orbit around the crown of his head, "Looks like three is my limit."

Giving a disappointed sigh, Kenji released his control on the paper and they fell back down to the counter.

Signaling an earth clone, he headed towards his bedroom to check on his latest experiments.

To the side of the small enclosed place was a set of 11 small potted plants showing different levels of growth.

Picking up a spray bottle and a notebook from his nightstand he began to record his observations.

"Experiments 1-5 have been sprayed daily with growth formula mixed with some chakra dust. Pots 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 have all been planted with soil that has chakra dust mixed inside. Pots 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 have dust sprinkled directly on them every 12 hours," he said as he took out a measuring tape and began to measure the size of all of the stems.

A week ago he had gotten the idea of planting strawberry plants in order to find out more about the capabilities of the chakra dust. It had only been 8 days but almost every single seed had matured into a 2-4 week old plant. The control group, which didn't have anything added only now showed signs of germination as was the norm. From this he could conclude that chakra dust definitely had a large impact on plant life not just animals.

'I'm curious to see if the fruit produced by these plants will also have special properties? Since Akame seems to be able to digest chakra dust I'm sure that she will also be able to eat them. Although I should also see if it's safe for people to eat as well? I should be okay since I finally finished creating a detoxifying pill, but even still I should real get down to studying those healing jutsus that Hana gave me,' he contemplated before noticing Akame trying to nibble on one of the plants containing the chakra dust. "Akame! You stop that right now! I already gave you some dust this morning!"

Akame looked like she was considering the risks of not listen to him before she snorted angrily at his direction and jumped on his bed.

Seeing as he was already in his room, he took out the pill furnace and began the process of pill refining. He was constantly experimenting with new plants and techniques, trying to find new combinations. He would fail about 97% of the time, even when he used good luck talismans, but with every success his recipe book was slowly getting bigger.

Almost half his income was devoted into researching pills and elixirs while the rest was used to buy new equipment or improving his shop. Expansion was his goal, so that meant that he couldn't afford to waste all of his hard-earned money on frivolous things like he wanted to.

He spent the entire day cooped up in his room, leaving closing the shop up to his clones.

Before using up the remainder of his chakra in upgrading artifacts, Kenji made sure to leave a plate of hand made moon cakes in front of the newly built shrine he had made for Kaguya. He offered a quick prayer and fell asleep as soon as his chakra reserves dropped to zero.

(Next day)

Kenji was currently sitting perfectly still on top of the man-made lake in a meditate pose. Akame was on the shore observing him with a bowl full of ripe lettuce leaves since she didn't want to get her fur soaked.

With eyes closed the young academy student breathed in a calming breath and slowly all outside influences began to disappear one by one.

He began to leak out a minuscule amount of chakra from his hands, paying careful attention to the tenketsu, or the chakra points, located in his hands.

Once he felt them, he tried to reduce the number until he could only feel one chakra point still active.

Taking another calming breath, he focused specifically on this one point, familiarizing himself with it, trying with all his might to memorize the position and feel as the chakra traveled from his reserves through his chakra network before finally being released from his hand.

With every inhaled and exhale he would release or cut back the flow, trying to make it second nature. Once he had accomplished that, he would move on to the next chakra point.

As a blacksmith and as a person it could be said that he valued precision above all else.

While strength did play a part in molding the metal, without precise hammer strikes it would be the same thing as a monkey hitting it. The memories from the Adult Kenji had taught him that.

Kenji A's grandfather had always been proud of his heritage and expected all of his descended to have equal pride, going so far as to 'educated' them when it looked like they would disagree. When 13-year-old Kenji A had first made his opinion of being uninterested in the art of blacksmithing, his grandfather had proposed a test.

He was given a hammer and a long plank of wood with two hundred 3-inch nails and told that if he didn't want to be a blacksmith he needed to pound each nail all the way into the wood with a single strike. If he were to fail even once, then he needed to start all over. The deadline was until the end of summer break.

For weeks Kenji A would spend all his time pounding nail after nail into the wooden board, but no matter how good he had gotten there would always be one nail that would either bend or snap in half. Throughout this, the Japanese boy had finally found his passion to be a blacksmith and accepted his fate to take over the family trade. It wasn't until years later when he was close to being an official master that Kenji A finally found out that his grandfather had purposely placed some defective nails into his pile to make sure he failed.

The current Kenji had a great time reviewing some of the original's memories, taking a particular interest in the relationship that the adult Kenji shared with his kooky grandfather.

He was finally able to control all of the chakra points in his left index finger by the time that lunch time had arrived.

Taking a bite from the sandwich that one of his clones had made for him, he glanced at Akame that was currently eating a salad made of fresh greens topped with some crushed nuts and berries.

"Would it kill you to do something productive. All I've ever seen you do since arriving is eat and sleep. If you aren't making money, then you're wasting it, and I won't have that you hear. So either do something, or else I'm going to have to cut back on your meals!" Rubbing his chin in a thinking position he thought out loud, "Three carrots a day should be plenty."

Akame growled at him, which was more cute than anything else, before crouching down as if getting ready to pounce on him.

A knife fell into his awaiting palm from the depths of his sleeves, which the young boy waved menacingly in front of him, "Oh! You want to go!? Bring it you little furball? I've been meaning to see if I could upgrade a lucky rabbit's foot, maybe then you might actually make me some money!?"

The rabbit saw the glint of greed shine through the slit like eyelids that showed that he was actually considering the idea.

She back down quickly and used her more powerful technique, the Moe-no-jutsu. Throwing herself on her back she exposed her white fluffy belly and looked at him with a set of big round innocent eyes as if trying to say, 'you wouldn't hurt someone as cute as me, right?'

Kenji's response was a deadpanned expression before placing the kunai back in its hiding place. "Whatever. Knowing you, it might actually cause me to have bad luck."

He was just going to take another bite when he saw someone walk into the clearing. This person had a ugly green jumpsuit, hair cut into the shape of a bowl, and the thickest eyebrows he had ever seen.

In front of his shop was none other that the Green Beast himself, Maito Gai.

A/N: Finished ;)

Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

So to answer a question that was asked. Will Kenji have summon contract?

The answer is yes and no. While he won't get a contract from an already existing clan, he will eventually make his own comprised of all the spirit beasts he encounters.

If you haven't guessed already, the first batches of chakra dust were flushed down the drain, meaning that they were dumped into the ecosystem where countless animals and plants could be exposed to it. So expect random spirit beasts to pop up, just to challenge him for some dust.

I like all of the ideas for upgraded equipment in the comments, and I'll be sure to use some of them in the coming chapters.

As for the matter concerning Kaguya, she is fine with only observing him for the moment since she is curious to see what he is capable of.

Remember that Kaguya has been asleep this whole time, the reason why Naruto and Sasuke were able to beat her originally was because she was unaware of what shinobi could really do. She didn't know any jutsu besides the ash bones and a few others, so everything that was thrown at her was more or less a surprise.

Expect a meeting in later chapters.

Kenji also still has to come up with a method to cultivate since he will be the first cultivator in history after all, but he will be getting there soon.