56

A week after the finals Naruto had received a package via courier-nin...from Orochimaru. It was labeled as such, and he was obviously quite cautious in opening it. This proved to not be necessary as it didn't seem to contain anything actually dangerous. Just a handful of sealed Uzumaki scrolls. Three copies of space-time notes that had required three hours and four applications of blood to unseal and one copy of the paperwork clone.

How the hell that name for the technique had been kept essentially secret when it seemed like they left copies of the scrolls sitting around everywhere for people to find was unknown. The only thing keeping the secrecy making sense was that they were all showing up sealed so that non-Uzumaki couldn't open them. Naruto had so many at this point that he'd given a few copies to the village to be used as 'is it safe for you to learn this?' checks since they had the secondary protection of not opening for those without enough chakra.

The space-time notes explained things that Futo had been trying to get through to Naruto regarding the Hiraishin, but from an entirely different direction that clicked better. Several warnings about what not to do, time travel being incredibly dangerous and not to be done accidentally, were also included.

This led to starting over on the Hiraishin. Again. But with better knowledge of what needed to happen and why.

The junior team had also earned promotions, Ino making full jounin while Kiba and Sasuke only made special jounin. Anko-sensei had volunteered to do the 'show them the jounin bunkers' dance, but unlike Naruto and Hinata the three were also getting some of the semi-hazing missions. Escorting the most annoying nobles in particular, or so it seemed, and helping Anko-sensei at the academy.

Anko gestured to the trio of new jounin, even if two were only special jounin. They'd been shown the jounin bunkers and dealt with a couple of the really whiny nobles that visited the village monthly, and now got to help test academy students. "I've recruited these three to test all of you on your skills from last year. They're going to be seeing which of you can properly fake documents and which of you can't."

"You just signed over the responsibility to us without any actual verification that we'd do a good job," Sasuke corrected.

"...okay, technically true. The verification side of the paperwork was too much hassle and I figure that your sensei did a good job teaching you."

"We've already failed them all," Kiba replied. "Much easier than testing them."

"Stuck their records in cabinet six," Ino added. "Grab them when you're compiling their grades at the end of the month."

Anko blinked a couple of times. "That's...harsh?"

"They don't look like they bothered paying attention in your classes, so designing a proper test would be a waste of time."

"Huh. Oh well. I suppose you're probably right, since most of them didn't seem to think that any kind of infiltration type work was interesting or useful."

It was only a couple of hours later that Anko realized what the trio had done and was kicking herself for not picking up on it immediately. To not fail the students would have to get into cabinet six, find their failure record, and forge a passing one before the end of the month. By being dismissive and 'failing them all' they'd just challenged them to prove they could find, forge, and replace paperwork. Sure, there was a chance that one student would help others out by forging a passing grade for them, but it was incredibly unlikely that any one student would do so for the entire class.

Naruto entered the meeting room used by the Council of Clans when they met alone, absently noting that the seating arrangements had been changed. The 'noble clans' no longer had fancier and slightly elevated seats in particular. Even the Senju seat, which Tsunade was currently occupying, had been made equal to the others, with only the Hokage's seat being set apart now. There were also more seats than before, but all the new ones were currently unoccupied.

"Good morning," Shisui greeted Naruto. "And thank you for your time on such short notice."

"Impossibly short," Tsume noted. "How did the Anbu sent to find you get word to you in half a minute?"

"He stepped outside and yelled as soon as the door was shut," Hiashi answered. "Naruto appeared nearby fifteen seconds later, befitting someone who has infiltrated the village itself to ludicrous degrees. Whether this is the actual Naruto or one of his clones is a different matter."

"I came personally," Naruto answered. "Though obviously I didn't bother to get out more formal attire."

"You likely know that we only bother when the Daimyo is meeting with us."

Shisui nodded. "Indeed. Still, you've been called here for multiple items. The first of which is in many ways the most troublesome, for three clans owe you bloodline debts. I'd thought it would be four, but have been assured that no such debt exists with the Hyuga."

Hiashi nodded. "Indeed. I understand that Naruto and Yoko share the problem my eldest has, having too much chakra to turn off their byakugan abilities."

That seemed to be a shock to most of the clan heads, who alternated glances between Hiashi and Naruto, but the Hokage continued. "Thank you for informing the others, as it was not my place to reveal that. However, the Inuzuka, Uchiha, and Yamanaka clans have similar debts owed, and those debts haven't been repaid. We would include the Hatake clan, but the sole remaining member has indicated that they have no intention of having children and as such the debt is a personal one instead of a clan one."

"Though now I'm curious if the sharingan can be copied like the byakugan apparently was," Itachi interjected.

Naruto shook his head. "No, everything I know about it indicates that it connects to...something else. Connecting to whatever that is seems too risky to attempt."

"...and now I suddenly find myself worried about whatever that 'something else' happens to be, but it seems obvious that you have no clue. I thank you for the extra information anyway."

"Definitely," Shisui agreed. "Even if I'm suddenly wanting to tear my own eyes out in paranoia. But that doesn't change the matter at hand."

Choza stood, immediately followed by Inoichi and Shikaku, and then spoke. "For generations, the Akimichi have protected the Nara and Yamanaka clans. A long-standing alliance...that has, in its own way, kept those we've protected from growing in their own ways and yet also limited our own growth. We served as the physical might to their more mental abilities in a pattern that has gone on long enough that enemies of the village have documented several strategies for how to overcome us."

"They rarely get a chance to," Shikaku noted. "But they know how, no matter how we try to mix things up on occasion, and only through pretending to be Inoichi have I been able to make it out of a couple of ambushes."

"We have, after discussions with the Hokage, decided to change fifteen generations of tradition going back to the wandering clans era. The bonds between our clans will remain, but take a different form. The basic techniques in our clan libraries will be shared, with only the higher-level variants kept private, as none of them are tied to an actual bloodline. My own clan's techniques lend themselves to specific body types, but that is something we have to work at and not something we are born with."

Inoichi then pulled a scroll out of his pocket. "We're also changing our oaths to be more working with one another for the betterment of the village in a more general sense than the previous ones stated. While the Akimichi have previously stood for all three of us in most political contexts, we shall now each stand for ourselves, but still together. To that end, we have compiled techniques from all three clans for you to help repay you for the gifts you gave Ino. From my clan, a longer-range version of the communication technique you already know and the basics of how to share senses and memories with others."

Shikaku nodded. "I contributed additional medicinal information beyond what was already provided to you, and the basics of how to manipulate your own shadow. Nothing that explains how to manipulate someone else's shadow, but I'm sure you'll find lots of potentially interesting uses for manipulating your own and you may be able to recreate some of our more advanced techniques yourself."

Choza sighed. "Unfortunately, the calorie conversion technique used as a basis for all of our more advanced techniques is considered far more hazardous. Instead, I've provided several recipes and the theory behind our multi-size techniques. You may have enough chakra to find a way to utilize something like them without converting calories into chakra as the full techniques do. Despite that, we hope that the combination of items from our clans will serve as payment for the gifts given to young Ino."

Naruto accepted the scroll, bowing. He'd rather say that no payment was needed, but knew that wasn't going to fly. "I accept this as a suitable payment."

The three clan heads bowed back to him, then sat back down. Tsume then stood up and pulled a scroll out of her own pocket. "The Inuzuka are...atypical for a clan. While I function as the clan head, we aren't structured in the same way, and almost all of our clan secrets are tied up in our cooperative techniques used with our ninken. Everything that doesn't require a ninken has already been placed in the village archives. At the same time, you haven't gifted a clan heir by the same measures, though it seems likely that Kiba would be strong enough to take leadership when I step down. I've gathered information from various members of the clan instead, personal tricks they use, and combined it with the theory of joining with a partner into a larger combat form. You will need to turn that into your own technique if you desire to, though it may or may not be usable with your fox summons."

That scroll was also accepted as payment, Tsume sitting down and Itachi standing up. "Unfortunately, I believe that you already have a copy of our clan's archives that do not rely on our dojutsu, which complicates things from our end. This is only slightly alleviated by Izumi carrying a child that will be my heir, but has still incurred a debt. Luckily, I have realized that the Uchiha have retained an ability that no other clan in the village has, at least unless Tsunade has children of her own to bring the Senju back from the brink of extinction." Two scrolls were pulled out of his pocket, but he instead turned to Shisui. "Hokage-sama, the Uchiha clan recognizes that the Uzumaki clan no longer has a village of their own, despite their allied status still being recognized. Konohagakure holds seven living members by village roll, eight including Tsunade by blood, as well as acknowledged marital ties to two former Hokage. This, combined with their recent contributions to the village in both security and medical bloodlines for all those who wish to learn to use them, allows the Uchiha clan to officially move to register the Uzumaki clan as a full clan of Konohagakure instead of as merely an allied clan, headed by Jounin Naruto Uzumaki. Included is the traditional gift of land from the Uchiha holdings, as required by the village charter, to go along with the existing Uzumaki and Namikaze holdings in the village."

It appeared that this was as much of a surprise to the rest of the room as it was to Naruto, who knew that getting new clans formally recognized in the village was a several year process normally. One that would likely have required waiting until he or Karin had kids at that. Shisui took a minute to react before taking and checking the scrolls, obviously reading over both and even activating his sharingan for a moment on each. Eventually he nodded, and looked towards Itachi. "This appears to be in order." Then he turned to Tsunade. "With no other members of the Senju clan remaining, you can't initiate such a registration, but you can either veto it to force a vote of the Council of..."

"Or I can approve it and negate the option for it to be voted down by anyone," Tsunade interrupted. "Hand over the scroll so that I can sign the damn thing and make it irrefutably official."

Shisui did so, but Tsunade did read the scroll before signing it. Once she did she handed it back, and Shisui confirmed that she'd filled it out correctly before turning and looking at Naruto. "Allow me to be the first to offer my congratulations for being the newest recognized clan head of Konohagakure. Which both nicely negates the provisional clan status that I'd expected to be presiding over a vote for, though we will need to get a formal plaque for your seat."

Itachi removed a plaque with the Uzumaki clan symbol on it from a seal. "Already had one made."

"Convenient. But this also means that I'm going to need to find a different third advisor now that Hiruzen has fully retired. I'm supposed to have at least one individual not on this council in the three and was hoping that Naruto's...unique views on security would be of more assistance there."

"You wouldn't have wanted to pull him from the field anyway," Asuma replied. "Pops warned you as such, or so he told me. Hell, I'm already annoyed at how much desk work being made head of the clan involves. Almost wish that I'd kept a team to not be able to have the responsibility thrust upon me."

A couple of other clan heads chuckled at that, but Naruto was quickly seated at one of the empty seats with the new plaque in front of him. He wasn't looking forward to needing to attend these meetings more regularly, even if he knew it was technically a significant honor to be considered an officially recognized sitting clan head...especially at his age. The rest of the meeting covered things he had little to no interest in or was already well aware of. Then again, he'd also known that the bulk of the things this council dealt with were informational.

Being dragged into a celebration by several of the other clan heads after the meeting had been slightly less annoying...but only because they'd not objected when Hinata had shown up to join them.

Suddenly being a clan head had involved a significant amount of paperwork. Itachi had apologized for the 'several weeks of headaches' that was likely to cause Naruto...approximately an hour after the paperwork had been completed. There were significant benefits to being a master of the paperwork clone, and the twitching of the man's eye upon hearing that it had all been completed was amusing.

The new piece of land was a small one bordering the Uzumaki compound, disconnected from the rest of the Uchiha holdings and purchased by Itachi only days before giving it to the Uzumaki clan. Technically following the rules without necessarily following them in spirit. There was only a small and largely-unusable shop sitting on it currently and Naruto had worked with Futo and Odoroki to design an underground bunker-like area with a storefront and apartments on top of it. Of course, plans changed when in the process of starting excavations they'd accidentally discovered that there was a long-disused bunker under the existing Uzumaki compound and shrine.

One that Odoroki had never been shown by Mito, but happily contained documentation on all of the protections in place across the entire shrine and compound. Including the privacy seals that had kept them from spotting it before now.

Rebuilding the existing bunker to be usable, expanding it under the new property, and fixing the broken latches on the hidden basement doors that were supposed to be an easy way in and out had taken a couple of weeks. This included adding two more ways in and out of the compound, one through the new property and another near the shrine that didn't require surface-sticking. Futo, Odoroki, and Miho had immediately claimed apartments in the new building, with Ren 'reluctantly' deciding to share Miho's. Not that he had anything to store in the apartment, unlike Miho with her collection of clothing she'd claimed or purchased, nor did he like to be out and about anyway.

At the beginning of October, Naruto and Hinata were called to Shisui's office. "Good afternoon. To start with, I'd like to discuss team composition."

"You want to attach Ino to us again because nobody else is suitable for her skills and Yamanaka techniques are on file as requiring teammates," Hinata guessed. "Even if she uses clones to overcome those issues."

"...yes, though you don't usually monitor things in the village well enough to spot private discussions like that."

"She's been waiting outside your office for twenty minutes and we were out there with her for ten," Naruto pointed out. "Now, admittedly we only got her ranting and didn't have time to discuss things, but the mention of problems finding suitable teammates for her skills with Kiba and Sasuke looking to take on genin in the next graduation cycle did make guessing easy."

"I might be spending too much time looking for hidden answers and ignoring the obvious details like you talking to former classmates and/or students. That aside, while she wouldn't be a perfect fit at all times or for all missions, I think officially working with you two would be for the best. She has skills you two don't that can significantly help with infiltration as last I knew you two can't pull information out of minds."

Hinata frowned. "I don't think she's at that point either."

"...okay, but she at least has access to clan resources for learning it and Inoichi says she'll be starting on it in the next year."

"And she can already get past blood-and-chakra seals that we'd have trouble with," Naruto pointed out. "Assuming she can take over someone authorized to get in, anyway. At the same time, she won't be as much help on anything that simply needs lots of clones or chakra."

"Very good points, but they don't tell me if you're willing to have Ino join you two, at least when you aren't just spamming clones at a problem?"

Naruto looked at Hinata, who shrugged, and then turned back to Shisui. "I don't think we'd have a problem with adding her, or backing her up on occasion depending on the mission. Hinata is frequently skipping out when I'm handling a bunch of seal-related items anyway."

"Thank you. Given that, you might as well call her in."

Calling Ino in and explaining that she was being teamed back up with the two of them, at least for missions where it made sense to, made her happy. But then Shisui pulled out three scrolls, indicating that it was time to get back to business.

"I have three primary missions I'd like you three to handle," Shisui explained. "As a group, paired off, or as individuals doesn't matter much to me so long as they're all completed." He picked up one of the three scrolls and tossed it to Naruto. "The first is more of a maintenance task, in that I'd like all the satellite villages to have their administration and training facilities rebuilt. We've not overhauled any of them since just before the last war and they're long overdue for improvements. Several of them are already familiar with you and Hinata and are likely to be happy to see you, especially if you help them out with training at the same time. A standard records check is included while you're there anyway, though I imagine you'll go much further as you rebuild the record rooms too."

Reviewing the scroll didn't take long. It had requirements for each of the three 'grades' of satellite village, all locations provided, and references to where to find the information on records checks. Naruto frowned at how little was actually to be done for the buildings themselves though. "Surely they should at least have a bunker to retreat into in case of attack?"

"I'm not about to tell you to not do more than the minimum felt to be necessary. What you have there is the minimum the village has been able to justify doing based on expected costs compared to returns and anything beyond that is up to you, though there is a maximum compensation amount for materials per site." The other two scrolls were picked up and tossed to Hinata. "As for the other two missions, they are heavily related but for regulation reasons are individual missions. The only two major villages we don't have your brand of information gathering for are Iwa and Suna, and I want to correct that. How you get in and out is up to you, as well as if you do those before, during, or after your work on the satellite villages."

Ino pouted. "None of those sound like I'd be exceptionally useful."

"More points of view for distracting the satellite village members with training would likely help," Hinata retorted. "And we can definitely treat the village infiltrations as teaching experiences. You weren't that good at things in Kumo and could use more instruction."

It was honestly amusing as she visibly shifted between 'annoyed' and 'resigned' while thinking about that.

Officially gathering the relatively small amount of materials needed had only taken a couple of days. Various chakra releases to create materials on-site worked wonders for this kind of project...and Naruto wondered if he could manage something more impressive as well. His birthday was celebrated in a low-key manner, gifts being more 'token gift' than anything more impressive due to nobody knowing what to get him, and then they'd then headed out of the village and to the first satellite village. Ino hadn't visited these before, but had heard of them and knew why they existed. Ino and Hinata joined a couple of Naruto's clones in working with all of the trainees, genin, and chunin present.

Most of the initial effort was 'temporary storage and quarters built off to the side'...which was actually of higher quality construction than the existing buildings. If they'd just left those in place then it was likely that there wouldn't have been any complaints at all, but Naruto tore down the existing structures and excavated a much larger hole than he thought anyone was expecting. The local leader had been able to take a look and see that part of what he was doing was preventing a future issue by sealing up a forming sinkhole though, which was obviously appreciated.

Building a sizable seal array around the hole was where all pretenses of training instead of watching went away. Even Hinata and Ino were now far more curious about what was being done over the two days Naruto and his clones worked on the seals. Eventually they finished, and he powered them up. The seals built up an illusion of the entire desired structure that Hoshi had helped with back in Konoha, from the sizable underground bunker and connected barracks around the outer edge through to a taller tower than had existed before in the center. The latter now had the option of sticking a lookout or four on top, and included a pole that could be raised up to either run up signal flags or tie an airship to.

Satisfied that was correct, Naruto pulled out a string of beads and placed it in a circle that existed for that purpose in the seal before placing his hand in the middle of the beads and pushing more chakra through them into the seal. This was much more draining, probably two to three times as much chakra as fully charging the arena, but as the string of beads glowed the illusion became more and more solid. Thirty minutes later the seal disintegrated, leaving behind the complete new structure, and Naruto picked the beads up and put them back in the tag he'd removed them from.

"What the hell was that?" Ino asked.

"I think Naruto used what he learned from building the new arena in Konoha to instantly build the replacement structures," Hinata answered. "But I'm sure you felt that the chakra requirements were a little nuts."

"It's all one structure underground," Naruto corrected as a set of clones moved into the structure to examine it. "Six times the capacity, independent water...oh good, embedding the seals for that worked too and they just needed a quick pulse of chakra to activate. And the reinforcement seals too, but the security seals need keying...where was I?"

"More capacity and then you got distracted with the water."

"Oh, right. Independent water instead of relying on the wells, hot springs in the basement, far more storage, and a number of defensive tricks."

"...you gave them defensive zombies."

"Yep. Need to test those, key the security seals, rebuild the training fields. Maybe stick a simple zombie seal or two in those too, since they're good for target practice."

Ino looked between Naruto and the new building. "This is probably more in one building than you were supposed to do for the entire set of satellite villages."

Hinata sighed. "You know that Naruto was offended by the minimum requirements. That they were set based on what the village was willing to pay for construction teams to come out and do the work instead of sending us doesn't really matter."

"Can we back up?" the leader of the satellite village asked. "Because there was something said about hot springs?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, in the basement. I'll show you how to access all of that once my clones are done inspecting and we've gotten all the equipment and records back into the tower. I recommend having the genin start carting things back into what appear to be the outer buildings while we handle the tower, actually, but I'll need to have clones ready to warn them where not to put things so they aren't blocking the secret entrances to the bunker."

Hiashi looked over the reports from the satellite villages. "Naruto is...going significantly overboard."

"He's standardizing the satellite villages in a manner we only could've dreamed about before," Shisui replied. "And I didn't exactly disagree with how little we've been doing for those villages before being an insult, so I'm not about to complain about doing things right for them for a change."

"You sent a team to examine the first one and they're reporting that it's war ready, complete with a high chunin zombie swarm defense system."

"Every other permanent structure he's built so far has been war ready as well, so I don't see why that's a surprise. All indications are that the temporary structures he was asked to leave in place are significantly higher quality than what was there to begin with too. We've got two of the villages planning on using them for temporary housing when people are rescued from bandits and a third that's already housed a noble passing through."

"You'd better be clearing the maximum payout for him," Tsunade said as she accepted one of the reports from Hiashi. "Because I'm betting that this severely improves retention alone."

Hiashi shook his head. "Not to mention the issues they've found in the paperwork, redesigning the entire filing system at each village, and the additional tools that are likely to get the satellite villages up to a higher standard than before."

"Doubly so since I don't think he told the villages about the chakra-boosting seals in the barracks."

"...the what?"

"His reports mentioned 'drain and refill' arrays in the barracks areas that should, if I understand the function of his worn chakra-boosting seals, be operating on the same principles. We're probably going to see significant boosts in chakra capacity in the satellite villages over the next couple of years."

Shisui dug into his desk and pulled out one of Naruto's reports, skimming it. "Ah, I see. I'd misunderstood that part of his report. With all the new tools they're likely to assume that it's just better quality training as well, so the other major and minor villages aren't likely to spot what's going on either."

"Maybe you should have Jiraiya swing by one of them to take a look."

"His last report indicated that he'd already done so but couldn't find most of the seals, let alone make sense of them."

"But he was able to prove they were there," Hiashi noted. "Or so you claimed when ranting about Uzumaki sealmasters the other day."

"True. Did I mention the suspicion that's started to spread that he's got items from the Sage of Six Paths letting him pull the 'instant building' trick?" Tsunade joined Hiashi in blinking and then turning to stare at the Hokage. "Guess not. None of his reports say what the string of beads he's been using is, but to observers it seems critical to the process and there are legends of the Sage both having what could be described as bead-like items and turning illusions into reality."

"...somehow, I wouldn't be surprised if the Uzumaki had some artifact of the Sage hidden away in Konoha or the old temple nearby and he found it. But I also wouldn't be surprised if he and his magic book simply made something that could be easily mistaken for such an item."

Tsunade sighed, then went to the window. Hiashi joined Shisui in watching in curiosity as she opened the window, looked around, and...likely signaled someone? A moment later a bird swooped in, landed, and poofed into Naruto. This had to be a clone, but Tsunade seemed shocked.

"I could've sworn that the cat was a clone," Tsunade said after a moment. "But whatever. We've got a couple of questions about strings of beads."

Naruto nodded. "Effectively external chakra control and conversion devices for different elemental bloodlines and similar."

"...what?"

The clone held his hand out, and Yoko appeared. Also likely a clone...but possibly not. She was holding a string of beads though. "These are like Hashirama's necklace, but instead of serving as a helper for wood release they help with elements and their combinations." She paused, then tapped one of the beads. "Well, this one helps with wood release. Originally they just had the combined elements and a couple of other items, but we added the base elements recently as well so that they could be used by seals. Ended up working differently than expected, admittedly, but we think you could use any of the elemental combinations while wearing them."

"We haven't tested that," Naruto admitted. "Since you know we have ways to make such things unnecessary, but those don't work for seals. The beads do, so we made a few extra sets. One set is very well secured in the arena's seal array, for example."

"You put some of what could be the single most valuable things in the elemental nations into a seal array to make the arena turn illusions into reality?"

Yoko shrugged. "They're unproven as far as working with people goes, and like Hashirama's necklace they're simultaneously impossibly expensive and worthless."

Naruto nodded his agreement. "Something that would cost more than anyone is capable of paying might as well be worth nothing as you're never going to find a buyer."

"And due to their use with seals we've now got a couple hundred full sets of beads. When sealed into things like the arena we do ensure that they're destroyed if you try to remove them from the seal array though."

...Hiashi honestly wished that Tsunade had left it as a mystery. But as he looked at the unassuming string of beads he had a thought. "I find myself thinking that the Uzumaki clan could still benefit significantly from one string of beads by giving individual beads from the string to different villages."

"We're considering sticking individual displays with elemental bloodline beads in them at the shrine to see how long it takes someone to try to steal them."

"As soon as we can figure out how to let people safely tell that they're real and test them out," Naruto added. "But before that we're going to need to have someone test them in general and just haven't asked anyone to."

"I'll ask the Anbu commander to dig up a couple of volunteers," Shisui said. "If only because I'm curious."Last e