Chapter 8

Not even a week into being back as Hokage and Minato wanted to just burn this village to the ground and be done with it, after recovering and taking back the hat from Sarutobi, Minato was debriefed on everything he had missed from Sarutobi and Jiraiya. They told him of Naruto's treatment after his death and everything he had missed out on in the twelve years he had been gone. Minato was livid after everything was said and his attitude only became worse as he looked over the state of the village, on the surface it appeared to be fine, only receiving minor and easily repairable damages from the invasion. No the real problem lied within, the inner working of the village, everything was corrupt or broken, every system or service had so much bureaucratic bull shit that he was amazed anything got done within the village. On top of that the ninja academy had to be completely over hauled, as the curriculum had been watered down to involve classes like floral arrangement and ballroom dancing. Seriously how did that help make better ninja? But the invasion also showed some serious holes in the villages defense and showed that the medical ninja that they currently had were not enough or weren't as good as they needed to be. Not to mention that he still had to deal with Suna and eventually Iwa, once they find out he is alive.

Now while the invasion had been a failure that didn't mean that the village didn't take damages. But beyond the property damage the village had lost very little in terms of human life, only a handful of ninja where taken down and the rest receive injuries ranging in level of severity. In contrast with the information that the sand trio gave to Sarutobi and Naruto, the sound village and the sand village had taken a very large hit losing many ninja. Sound more than the sand but the alliance with sand was on rocky terms until things were cleared up since they did break a treaty. He expected a new offer of alliance relatively soon but wasn't not so optimistic to not think about other possible actions the Sand village may take.

The problems that Minato had uncovered in the village he went to work fixing even though he knew they would be highly tedious and require a ton of time. Needing to make sure the shinobi force would be maintained he restructured the academy curriculum.

The first year was general knowledge, math, history, science, reading, writing and those sort of things. Not really exciting but necessary to make well rounded ninja.

The second year would be dedicated to learning the basics of chakra, what it can do and about elements. They would also being training on how to throw kunai and shuriken. Along with learning the academy taijutsu and infiltration tactics.

Third year of the academy was to learn the three basic academy jutsu, otherwise known as the Kawarimi no Jutsu, Bunshin no Jutsu and the Henge no Jutsu. Students would also begin chakra control exercises by mastering the leaf sticking exercise. They would also start to gain combat experience by sparing other students and the instructors. This is also the year when genjutsu would be introduced and students would learn how to break out of one. Supplemental jutsu would also be given to those that exceed expectations or show promise in ninjutsu and genjutsu would be given to students that show promise in that field.

The fourth year was to be a year for refining chakra control by learning the tree walking exercise. This year was also to expose the students to the more advanced fields of in the ninja world. Mainly kenjutsu were students would learn the basics of fighting with blade, fuinjutsu where they would learn how to write sealing scrolls and how to seal and unseal an object and medical ninjutsu which will only be offered to those with exceptional chakra control. There would be other classes offered to specific students depending on ability, with those options being interrogation, torture and seduction. This is also the year where the kunoichi classes take place, what to do if captured and what possibly could and would happen as a female shinobi. This is also where students will be able to take D-rank missions on teacher assigned teams that will change every week, these mission are after school activities and it is mandatory for graduation.

By the end of the four years the genin that come out of the academy should be ready to take on low C-ranked mission and the more difficult D-rank missions right away thus allowing for the chunin more time to take on high C-rank to low A-rank missions and jonin to take the more difficult A-ranks and S-rank missions. Anbu would be used for the most challenging missions. Minato also promoted Iruka to the head master position as he had shown amazing loyalty to Naruto and was an amazing teacher thus he felt he would be able to lead the academy with his new curriculum.

The Medical ninja problem unfortunately Minato had no way of remedying immediately but he knew that he had to get Tsunade back to the village if he wanted any hope of change in that department. He wanted to enact Tsunade's plan of putting a medic on every team thus reducing casualties and creating a trained medics corp. for times of war. But in order to do that he needed someone to train the next generation of medics and someone to help improve the current medics, thus he needed Tsunade to run that program as well as organize the hospital.

The problem with the village defense was quite simple it needed to be upgraded, the seals that created the barrier the allowed the barrier team to detect enemies while impressive was old, created by Mito Uzumaki and an army of shadow clones, but to fix that a team of seal masters would need to create a new seal over the entire village and he didn't have the seal masters at the moment or the time to devise a better seal, so he had to push that off for now. But there also seemed to be a major leak of intelligence. Orochimaru seemed to know how to cause the most damage to the village even if they knew he was coming. Had they not been prepared then the invasion could have taken a drastically different turn.

Minato also dismissed Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado as the Hokage advisors and instead instated Hiruzen and Jiraiya as his advisors. He needed people that he could trust by his side and while Minato believed that Koharu and Homura had the best interest of the village at heart but their knowledge of the world was outdate as they had not left the village in some time and had no knowledge of the new political climate.

Then there was Naruto his most pressing and important issue, Minato had been informed of the villages' actions since his revival and honestly felt like leveling the entire village with Gamabuta's help for what they had done to his son. But that wouldn't help Naruto in the end and Minato owed Naruto for the shit he put into his life. To help the situation Minato had given Naruto his rightful inheritance and the keys to the house that Kushina and he had owned. After Naruto got the keys to the house he had closed himself inside the house and put up the barrier that protected the compound from people entering, he even locked Minato out. That fact that Naruto secluded himself was not the issue it was what he was doing inside that bothered Minato. From the time in Naruto's mindscape Minato had learned that Naruto maybe insane but he was also a genius and an incredibly hard worker. That fact combined with the fact that inside the house was a library and jutsu collection that had every jutsu and technique that Minato, Kushina or the Uzumaki clan ever created, stole or copied. While Minato was alive he managed to copy the entire Hokage library and added all those scrolls the family library. Naruto was basically sitting on an information mother load and Naruto knew about shadow clones special ability.

To add to the trouble Minato had meet with the leader of the rebel faction in mist that was trying to overthrow the current Mizukage. Mei Terumi, the leader of the rebels was very adamant about receiving Konoha's help and potentially a team or two of leaf shinobi and more specifically Naruto. It appears that Naruto's performance in the chunin exams and invasion has drawn a lot of attention. How could things get any worse?

XXX

Baki found himself growing increasingly frustrated as the meeting of the Sunagakure advisory council dragged on. The sheer lack of progress was infuriating and he was currently tuning out his fellow councilors as he skimmed reports of the invasion that he knew was doomed from the start.

"Amazing," he thought bitterly, "We have a situation that requires decisive leadership and none of these old fools can agree on anything. It's fortunate that we have at least managed a ceasefire with Konohagakure but if our scout reports are to be believed, we need much more than that. We need to somehow convince them that we mean more than mere lip service to the idea of an alliance, especially difficult after the recent disaster of an invasion."

The reports on the table in front of him showed Baki that Sunagakure was in a desperate position. The failed invasion of Konohagakure had cost Sunagakure a significant chunk of its best chunin and jonin. The village was already weakened by the fiscal neglect of the Wind Daimyo, Sunagakure now stood as the weakest of the five great shinobi villages by a fair amount. According to the reports from scout teams, Iwagakure was currently probing along the border between earth and wind country. Not a promising sign given the bloody history between the two powers. Historically, Iwagakure was the reason Sunagakure had allied with Konohagakure in the first place.

His eyes widened as he considered that. Perhaps Sunagakure's position wasn't as hopeless as he thought.

"Konohagakure simply cannot afford to allow Iwagakure to conquer us unless they wish to hand Iwagakure a great strategic advantage. Especially with the Yondaime was back in power. Iwagakure will be moving very aggressively against Konohagakure than ever before."

Baki snorted at the thought, no strategist worth his water would allow such a crippling disadvantage if they could avoid it.

It was with that thought that he flipped to the last page of the invasion report and almost spit his coffee out in shock. Clipped to the page was a picture of the Konohagakure genin that had been decisive force in the leaf invasion. Baki had meet the person that had helped Gaara with his seal but as he looked at the picture of the Naruto Uzumaki he realized why the kid had looked so familiar.

"Namikaze!?"

Startled by the sudden movement next to him, Yura glanced at Baki curiously. With only a year of service to the council, Yura was a rising star for his industriousness and loyalty. Still, given his lack of seniority he had only made a handful of statements during the council sessions.

Baki looked at the picture ignoring his fellow councilor and looked at enigma that was Naruto Uzumaki otherwise known and the Horror of the Bloody Leaf. Quickly taking out a recent bingo book, Baki flipped to Naruto Uzumaki's page and looked at the information.

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Age: 12

Alias: Horror of the Bloody Leaf, True Horror of Konohagakure

Village: Konohagakure

Rank: Genin

Status: Active

Skill Level: Low A

Taijutsu: High C – Low B

Ninjutsu: Low B – Mid B

Genjutsu: Unknown

Kenjutsu: Unknown

Sealing: Mid A – High A

Description: Uzumaki Naruto is a ninja of exceptional skill and unbelievable talent. While much of his power is still unknown. His apparent ability to control the flow of battle and be several steps ahead of his enemies is baffling to say the least. Uzumaki Naruto also seems to have a never before seen bloodline that allows him to change his form to anything he desires, that coupled with his unending stamina and chakra makes him a dangerous shinobi.

His most notable feats while under observation was his ability to make a thousand Shadow Clones and transform them into an army of 'demons', which he named the "Parade of a Thousand Demons". The result of this was the complete slaughter of 984 bandits that were in the employ of one Gato, from Gato shipping company and the man himself. He was also seen stopping a Chidori from the famed Hatake Kakashi with his bare hands and suffering no ill effects. After the incident involving the bandits he was seen removing the heads of all the bandits and put them on pikes surrounding the village and claimed it as under his protection. It is believed that due to his actions observed during and after the incident that his mental state should be in question as he appeared to be enjoying himself while he killed in. This was deduced from the laughter that was heard.

He was also observed in a chunin exam that was held in Konohagakure and the invasion which followed. In both he showed an impressive ability with seals and an even stronger version of his signature technique 'Parade of a Thousand Demons' he used to turn the tides of the invasion, using a total of 3000 blood clones transformed into various 'demons'. In his fight against a Hyuuga Neji he showed his impressive ability for seals as well as his penchant for unorthodox plans. During this whole event a smile never seemed to leave his face which seems to only lend credence to him mental instability.

In conclusion, Uzumaki Naruto has proven himself dangerous and is believed to have no regard for human life. It is advised for anyone under Jonin level not to engage until more information has been gained or he is approach in a group of at least nine chunin or two jonin. Any less in rank or number should run instead of engaging.

Yura carefully leaned over nudging Baki. Baki looked up quickly to see who had nudged him. Yura leaned over again and whispered.

"Something wrong Baki? You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

Baki examined his fellow council and decided to share his thoughts.

"I am just a little shell shocked and excited, Yura. It's possible I may have come up with a way for Sunagakure to recover but I'm unsure of its chance for success."

Yura rolled his eyes.

"Come on, it can't possibly be worse than Otokaze's brilliant plan to bribe Tanigakure into betraying Konohagakure and allying with us. Something tells me that they are not interested at all in being our buffer against Konohagakure."

Baki snorted with disgust as he thought of that plan. It had taken some effort on his part but he'd managed to scrap that little disaster before it left the council chamber.

"No, I plan on trying to regain our alliance with Konohagakure. We've shared with them how the Kazekage died and Orochimaru's betrayal and while that stayed their hand, we need a military alliance, not just a truce."

"Really?" Yura whispered back confused. "Given how our last alliance ended, what could we possibly offer as a show of sincerity?"

"I may as well explain my plan to the council instead of doing it piece by piece." Standing, Baki addressed his peers.

"Honorable members of the Council, some new facts have come to my attention and I believe I have a partial solution to our current issues."

Seeing he now had the undivided attention of everyone in the room, Baki braced himself and clasped his hands behind his back.

"The only realistic solution to our current trouble with Iwagakure is to somehow reestablish our alliance with Konohagakure. It is only through such an act that we can buy the time we desperately need to recover and we all know this. The question facing us is, how we go about proving that we won't betray Konohagakure again."

Baki ignored the winces from several of the council members as he reminded them that Sunagakure had indeed betrayed Konohagakure once before.

Ignoring the rising back chatter, Baki considered how to phrase what he needed to say before he thought.

"Perhaps a small Konohagakure history lesson?"

Raising his hands for silence, Baki waited until the room quieted.

"In the past, Konohagakure had an ally it trusted with everything. The alliance between Uzushiogakure and Konohagakure was sealed by a marriage between the Shodaime Hokage and a woman named Mito Uzumaki. That alliance lasted for many years until Uzushiogakure was destroyed by Kumogakure and Iwagakure which is part of the reason that Konohagakure has never really gotten along well with those villages. I believe we can use that tradition ourselves to tie Konohagakure back to our interests."

Ookaze, Baki's self-proclaimed rival on the council fairly exploded.

"You couldn't possibly be serious. We need every shinobi we have! Why would we offer one to Konohagakure and why would they accept even if we did?"

Turning, Baki faced the man directly. Speaking in a calm controlled manner, almost as if speaking to a child, Baki pressed his case.

"Konohagakure will accept because they cannot afford the strategic threat of Iwagakure conquering us. They know that facing Iwagakure on two fronts even if they do have the yellow flash back would be a recipe for disaster and even as angry they are with us at the moment, I believe Iwagakure is a far greater concern for Konohagakure."

Satetsu, another council member, spoke up in a manner that showed he was irritated.

"Baki, you still haven't told us the rest of it, please stop stalling."

Baki picked up his copy of invasion report and waved it at the council.

"I would suggest you fully read this report on the invasion gentlemen, but I will briefly summarize. It states that a single genin managed not only fix Gaara's seal so he would no longer go berserk which made it so we lost a giant advantage in the invasion, but he managed to drive most of the invading forces out with a multitude of blood clones." Ignoring the gasps of shock this produce, he pressed on. "It states that this genin, Naruto Uzumaki, and I do stress that surname, can produce more shadow clones then should be possible, has an ability with seals that hasn't been seen since the Yondaime Hokage's death , and was seen around the village during the month leading up to the invasion with Jiraiya the toad sannin

Yura glanced up after finishing the collective invasion report, "So, do we actually know about this Uzumaki boy? Our pre-invasion intelligence described him as a skilled injafor his age but nothing that we should have been concerned with due to his rank."

"I firmly believe that there is more to this boy then Konohagakure is showing the world." Baki stated with certainty. "The records showed he only enter the academy on the last day and was simply placed on a team, which either shows he was trained outside the academy or that they couldn't keep him around the other students. This indicates this kid must be a power house and with him showing off a mastery of seals and how he can throw around jonin level jutsu with ease I would say he is more than meets the eye. But what really might interest you is his picture which is on the last page of the report."

Yura glanced at the photo, then at the rest of the council.

"I'm afraid I'm not seeing it Baki, and I don't think anyone else is either."

Baki mentally cursed, of course they didn't see it, blind old fools.

"Alright, I want you to look at the young man in the photo and consider the facts. He has spiky blond hair and blue eyes, not common in Konohagakure other than the Yamanaka Clan. He has been seen working with Jiraiya, has a high affinity with seals and is apparently very powerful given that he basically rebuffed two villages trying to invade his home village."

"Sweet Kami!" an elderly member blurted. "He looks just like a younger Yellow Flash without the bandages!"

"Precisely," Baki said with a grim smile.

"Earlier I told you that the Shodaime Hokage married a woman named Mito Uzumaki. The only Uzumaki I remember from Konohagakure was Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero and she died 13 years ago during the Kyuubi attack. Now we have Naruto Uzumaki, age 13 who bears a strong resemblance to Minato Namikaze, which was also reportedly slain in the Kyuubi attack, but appears to have been resurrected and has retaken the position as the Yondaime once again. The boy was listed as an orphan but was enrolled in their shinobi academy sponsored by the Sandaime Hokage on the very last day of class. The boy is now apparently apprenticed to Jiraiya, the man who trained the Yellow Flash. There are far too many coincidences, the boy is most certainly the son of the Yondaime Hokage."

"Very well, I can follow your logic," Otokaze said.

"However, I am unsure where you are going with this."

"It's very simple, really. We offer Temari in marriage to the Uzumaki boy as a gesture of good faith on our part."

"Why Temari? She is the daughter of our late Kazekage and is quite skilled. Couldn't we offer someone who wouldn't be missed?"

"No. We offer Temari to prove our commitment. Her skill and ancestry will make for an irresistible incentive for Konohagakure's leaders to accept our agreement. Any children from the union are likely to be very powerful and we will insert a clause stating that any child must be have a dual citizenship for Sunagakure and Konohagakure. Plus anyone of lesser status might as well be spitting into the face of the Yondaime since this appears to be his son."

The Council members sat back and considered. The proposal would seal the alliance and offered the chance to gain powerful shinobi for the village in the future. The potential benefits were quite large with minimal risks. Seeing everyone in agreement, the decision was made to send a message to offer an official deal to Konohagakure and to send an ambassador to hammer out the details.

XXX

Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze sat in a meditative position in the center a massive stone floor simply organizing the constant flow of information that was bombarding him. He was actually inside his mindscape shifting through the information, while Kyuubi hung on him from behind trying to get him to play with her in the scorched version of Konohagakure. Although Naruto looked to be the picture of serenity all around him was nothing but chaos. Hundreds of shadow clones where reading, working and writing around him in a general cluster fuck. Naruto was currently in his clan's massive library trying to satisfy his thirst for more knowledge. The library was an impressive room that took up the entire second sub-basement of his new house.

The library was organized with all ninja related topic on one side and the more general and civilian topics on the other. The general knowledge books were organized by something called the dewey decimal system according to topic and then by author name in alphabetical order.

The Shinobi side was organized by topic such as taijutsu, ninjutsu, kenjutsu, genjutsu, sealing, and general ninja knowledge. Taijutsu, kenjutsu, genjutsu, and sealing was then organized further by skill level from E to S and then by technique name. Ninjutsu was similar but it was first separated into elemental type, medical or supplemental and non-elemental jutsu before being organized by rank and name. It was an extremely well organized and detailed library that had a seemly endless wealth of knowledge. There were even elemental jutsus for ice, lava, wood and many other sub-elements that Naruto didn't even know existed. It also had surprised Naruto that the library seemed to contain the techniques of every clan in Konohagakure

Naruto had ninety clones actually going through the general knowledge first so he had a large knowledge base to pull from when he was on missions and out in the world. He also had ten clones reading the ninja section each would read a jutsu and dispel so that another group of a hundred clones can start to practice each jutsu in groups of ten. When the jutsu is mastered then the group of ten clones dispels and Naruto creates more clones to replace the clone in the library and the group that was practicing to repeat the process. Basically Naruto was working on mastering ten different jutsu at any given time and he had been doing this for the last week. Naruto had his clones focus on the five main element affinities, whatever medical jutsu he could learn with his massive reserves and other non-elemental jutsu that could help in a pinch.

As Naruto continued his task of reading the entire library a seal next to Naruto lite up and made a soft chime sound to alert him to a person at the front gate to the compound. Naruto's eyes shot open and he jumped to his feet before he shun shined in a flash of flames to the gate. Naruto appeared at the gate to the sight of a team of Anbu on the other side, one of which was a cat masked Anbu that Naruto remembered used to protect him and actually came to his defense of her own free will.

"Hello, animal-sans can I help you?"

The cat masked anbu stepped forward and in a pleasant and feminine voice said.

"Uzumzki Naruto the Hokage is summoning you."

"What the hell could flashlight want?"

"I am not sure to be honest, but we are to escort you there."

"Thanks, but no thanks I can get there on my own."

Naruto once again disappeared this time in is a flash of lightning followed by an extremely load clap of thunder.

XXX

Naruto appeared at the window to the Hokage's office and stepped though waving a greeting to Anko, team 7, the rest of team 8, team Guy and team 10 before turning to his father.

"So what's up flashlight and why is everyone else here as well?"

"Well Naruto, I called you all here for a mission, we might have just been attacked but that is no reason to stop doing mission. Actually missions are more important than ever since the village needs the revenue and needs to show potential clients that we are still the strongest village."

Everyone was quiet for a minute before Kakashi decided to speak.

"Sensei, what exactly is the mission that you are sending us on?"

"All in good time Kakashi, all in good time but first I want to hand out promotions from the chunin exam, since I have yet to actually do that with all the commotion around the village."

All the genin present suddenly became excite to learn who had actually managed to rise in rank, before they could get to loud, Minato waved his hand for silence.

"Alright, well Shikamaru Nara, Shino Aburame and Naruto Uzumaki step forward and accept your flak jackets. All I want to say is that you have done an excellent job so far and I hope you continue to push yourselves to reach even higher. I also want to remind you with this promotion you will have much more responsibility towards your village and comrades."

Shikamaru, Shino and Naruto stepped forward and took a flak jacket from their Kage, Shikamaru put his on while Naruto and Shino simply stored theirs in a storage seal.

"Alright now that that is out of the way we can move on to the mission at hand. I am sure you guy remember the team that was here from Mist village during the chunin exams. Well that team was actually a group from the rebel faction in mist that is currently trying to over throw the current Mizukage."

It was at this point that Sasuke got impatient

"Okay, but what does that have to do with us or the mission."

"Remember your place Uchiha and remember who you are talking too. Anyway the jonin instructor of that team was the leader of that rebellion and has summited a formal mission request to have the leaf village aid in the rebellion.

Everyone was quiet for a moment before Naruto asked with a huge grin on his face.

"Do we get to kill people?"

Minato sighed before nodding his head in confirmation which only served to make Naruto's insane grin larger and make everyone else frown slightly at the thought of death.

"Either way I will be sending everyone here to aid the Rebel forces and hopefully to help bring everything to a close. I am sending all the genin teams because I think it will be a good opportunity for you all to get a lot of combat and field experience that is very hard to find in the relative peace going on right now. I am going to be putting Kakashi in command with Anko as second in command. You will be leave in the next hour and will be meeting a rebel contact once you get into Water Country"

Everyone nodded and Minato handed Kakashi a folder containing all the information on the mission. Kakashi quickly looked it over before turning to everyone.

"Alright, meet at the east gate and make sure to pack your rain gear and you should pack for at least a month long mission, we'll probably be there longer depending how far along the rebels are at over throwing the Mizukage, but we don't want to be weighed down."

Everyone nodded before leaving to go pack, after everyone left Minato turned around to stare out in distain for the village, why Naruto had him retake this position he would never know but so long as Naruto wanted him here he at least owed him to just suck it up and do it. It was at that moment that a ninja from the rookery came through the door.

"Sir, we just received a message from Suna they would like to offer a new treaty of alliance and would like to send an ambassador to work out the details of the treaty."

Minato took the message and skimmed it quickly to verify the information before taking out a scroll and writing a response quickly that basically said that he was willing to hear out a peace negotiations and looks forward to the arrival of the ambassador. Handing the scroll to the ninja still standing there

"Send this back to Suna using our fastest hawk, I rather end this quickly so the faster this treaty can be sorted out the better for my peace of mind and the village."

The ninja nodded while taking the scroll before saluting and walking away.

"Now I know how Sarutobi felt after all those years in office, the general shit that happens to this village is just too troublesome.