Yeah, I have no excuse for the extreme lateness of not only this chapter, but any and all other chapters.

Legal Tender: The owning of Naruto , I do not.

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It was nearly night when Naruto regained conciseness in the hospital, a near week and a half since the incident that had set the delicate balance of bijuu and host at odds. Constant watch by Jirayia over that time had put the elder villagers and ninja at edge, the reminder of thirteen years prior now fully pulled to the front again. Small cuffs with seals kept the blond chained to the bed on both his arms and legs and brought a darkened scowl to boys face. Once again events beyond his control left him in a familiarly bitter and dark place. A phantom ache in his wrists reminded of the one night he had tried to fully end his life.

A desperate sigh escaped the blond as he looked outside at the rising moon over the village. He could feel himself getting antsy and pent up, he needed to be outside and moving. He was not aware of the old sannin and teacher sitting in the room observing him until the sudden seal release and removing of one of the restraints keeping him prisoner on the bed.

"Jiriaya-sensai, what are doing," Naruto asked in a forced whisper, trying not to let the surprise affect him. The old sannin only held a finger to his lips to let the blond know to keep silent for the moment. With a scowl the blond nodded knowing well enough not to argue with his long-standing teacher. Once all the seals and restraints were removed the sannin went through a series of hand seals and activated ones on the door leading out and motioned for his student to follow. It took only a moment for Naruto to realize that Jiriaya was breaking him out of one of the hospitals high security wards used for criminals and dangerously unstable ninja that had returned from missions.

Naruto gave a hard swallow following his mentor as the two navigated the slightly darken corridors making sure to stay close to his teacher. The long time spent as his infamous counterpart and the ingrained skills and movements from training as such now fully kicked into high gear. Each new corridor and doorway was treated with extreme caution; Anbu stalked the halls in regular intervals with ease and purpose that Naruto had a familiar and grudging respect for. It was taking took long to get to an exit Naruto felt, as tension was starting to slowly sink into a painful pull on his body. Advanced healing or not, his body had been comatose for a near week and a half and now he was feeling the painful side effect's of being physically inactive as long as he had been.

Naruto stopped as he notice Jiriaya had taken him into a darkened dead end hallway and frowned until the sannin pointed to the floor and made motion to have him help pull up a section. Realizing what the sannin meant Naruto smiled, secret passage into the subterranean tunnels below, an exit not requiring a window or the front doors out. In a matter of minutes the floor was moved around to give the two access out of the hospital and into more secure territory for movement and talking. Dropping down after Naruto, Jiriaya secured the secret entrance back into place to assure no one would follow as well as to keep their secret passageways a secret for a while longer.

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Twenty minutes, it had been twenty minute's Kakashi noticed while standing beside a very angry, and scared, Anko looking at the two clocks, one in Naruto's empty hospital room and the one directly outside in the hall. Non-standard burnt out seal runes lined the doorframe around still active hospital security seals. Someone had purposely-broke Naruto out of the hospital and had somehow known how to circumvent the seals that Tsunade had demanded be put in place years before during her brief stint as head director for Konoha's hospital.

Anko was sitting on the bed were her student had been kept, knee's pulled up to her chest and held in place by her arms, an angry scowl marking her usual grinning face. Several Anbu had been in already since the discovery of Naruto's absence by a night nurse and her Anbu accompaniment. Ibiki's scowl matched Anko's, but for Ibiki, his anger was with what happened to the Anbu who had been stationed outside of Naruto's room. Both had been found stashed in a medical supply closet with paralysis seals attached to them. It was the same story given by both, a nurse with an Anbu escort had arrived to check on Naruto and then the next thing they knew they were being pulled out by Ibiki and Anko.

The hokage however, was a steady calm as he examined the parts of the seal that were still legible and not burnt from the forced deactivation. It was too early too tell, but it looked like one of the seals that Minato and Kushina had developed but never used. The handwriting of the seal was practiced and professional. Jiriaya's handwriting, if Hiruzen had to guess; but why kidnap his godson out of the hospital? Despite the unrest that was present since the incident there had been no resurgence on the villager's part of want to go after Naruto.

The hokage's eyes eventually strayed towards the two bodies that laid next to the rooms window. Each was mark with the symbol of Anbu Root, the sub-division that Hiruzen had purposefully and personally ordered Danzo to disband. Even though he didn't show his anger, it was there. This was the last straw for the old Hokage, if Danzo wanted to make a power play to undermine all that which the village had been built upon then the man would find nothing but a blade in his heart and his ashes scattered to wind.

The Hokage would let his student keep Naruto for now. Jiriaya, dispite his bad habit's and legendary reputation as a pervert was still one of the greatest active ninja of Konoha; and politics be damned right now if the elder Sarutobi was going to let the blood of ninja and civilian be shed again as an alternitive to one man's unbased belief of an oncoming civil war.

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Ino felt sick and rubbed her arms as she followed her father and several of the elders of her clan down into one of the interrogation quarters deep within the anbu headquarters. Her father had done a small summon on her to assure the security of the place and had briefly informed her of what was taking place. A pair of traitors had been killed attempting to kidnap Naruto for some unknown reason and had been killed in the process. Their job was to retrieve the needed information from the dead ninja. Aside from Ino and her father there were four elders, each being a direct sibling to each other. The family technique that was to be used required six members of the clan with an immediate family member and since Inochi had no immediate brothers or sisters to help him, Ino was to be his acting partner in the jutsu.

"Try not fret so much Ino," Natsume said with a comforting smile and a gentle squeeze on the heiresses shoulder," just remember me and Naru will be here with you as well to help with the process. I do wish that we had been given more time to help give you a more thorough understanding." Ino nodded, feeling slightly better. The jutsu required a group of four or more clan members to safely enter the mind of an already dead ninja, within the time span of twelve hours before the mind fully lost all of it's collected experiences and memories. Since the mind had no conciseness to defend it there was no struggle to pull what was needed, but the degradation of death and lack natural body current meant that every second wasted was information lost and a greater chance of one of the clan members dying themselves if they were unable to be pulled back when the brain and body hit the no return point.

Ibiki and Anko were waiting at the door of the prepared cell that was to be used. It was cold on the inside, Ino realized, looking at the two bodies, each lying in the middle of an elaborate seal array naked and covered with freshly applied seals for the Yamanaka to help them do their required task. Looking at the faces of the two bodies Ino absently noted that neither face held any kind of distinctive mark on them, like they were made to look as plain as possible. She was vaguely aware of her father letting her know it was time to begin and soon found herself roughly going over the seals she had only learned a month before as a precautionary measure for this day, which she was glad was not on a family member, but terrified because of it being the first time she had to do so.

At first it felt like nothing had happened until she felt herself go deathly cold and felt the suffocating blackness around her. It took what felt like an eternity for her to feel Natsume and Naru next to her, their consciousnesses were comforting to her and Ino soon settled into a small comfortable silence with her elder clansmen. Their duty as of right now were to provide a mental anchor station for the others as they attempted to find whatever information they could from the minds of the two traitors before it was permanently lost.

Time had not meaning in the place were they were so Ino was unaware of the events outside her body or the cell for that matter. However Anko and Ibiki were very aware of the events outside of the Yamanaka's jutsu. Several Anbu had suddenly dropped next to the cell were the even was taking place, two of the Anubu were sporting injuries from trained attacks and put the two master interrogators on immediate edge.

"Ibiki, we have a problem," Wolf, a lead anbu captain, stated," There are root agents in the facility, they are hostile and we believe they are here for their comrades. Total number of Root agents unknown"

"Understood," Ibiki replied," Spread the word to every known loyal Konoha anbu member; kill on sight and give no mercy. Make sure what few files under our protection stay hidden and protected. Those are the standing orders until we can either drive them out or kill them." A chorus of yes sirs was heard before the small contingent of anbu spread out in pairs to spread the given orders leaving the Anbu head and Anko alone with their personal group of anbu to assure that the Inoichi and his kin could get the much needed information they needed.

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Touta Koi, code named Fox, of Anbu moved silently and alone in the structure of her current place of residence, training, and missions. Four root agents had dared to enter her domain with ill intent of taking what wasn't theirs. Everything Touta did was practiced precision and lethal in her fights with those who dared to fight her. Her tounta was still sheathed on her back, a kunai held in a reverse grip sat in each hand coated with fresh blood and five root anbu still standing tense and in practiced postions.

"Pathetic puppets," she thought," so thoroughly stripped of emotion and personality they can't adjust fast enough to the rest of us. They don't understand the why of what they're fighting for." Such thoughts were not uncommon for the woman as two of the root agent's charged at her while the other three readied to bind her during the distraction of fighting. Pity they missed the two other Anbu in the area who made short work of the would be trapper's with slit necks from behind on two and a shattered wind pipe from two well placed blows from both of the Hokage loyal anbu members.

With the flick of trained hands Fox flicked her held kunai at her charging opponent's who deflected the projectiles giving the woman enough time to dash close to the nearest root ninja and rip her blade away. The sudden movement and disarmament by Fox left her opponent off balanced and open for a destructive jab to the neck as Fox rammed two of her finger in the front of the neck and forced chakra through them destroying several nerve clusters in her opponents spine killing them instantly. With a sudden turn and the feeling of a blade tearing into her protective vest into her side Fox gave a shattering blow to her attackers shoulder causing him to stagger back in pain leaving his tonta caught in Fox's vest.

Fox, with a pained grunt, freed the small sword from her flacked vest and made movement to kill her opponent who turn to flee strait into the readied blade of Wolf. With a wheezed gasp the man fell dying quickly from the severed artery that Wolf had hit. A relieved sigh escaped the small group of present when the heard the all clear signals from each of their respective groups. The attacking raiders were either dead or turned away empty handed.

"Thank the gods we've managed to survive this," Fox whispered, a small amount of emotion escaping the otherwise stoic anbu.

"Indeed," Wolf said in agreement," but not all of us. We lost to many as it is."

"Do we know what they came for," Pumba, one of the greener anbu members questioned," do we have any idea why Danzo would attack now of all things?"

"The corpses of their comrades," Wolf replied," The Yamanaka's are pulling information out of them now."

"Oh," Pumba replied with a slightly disgusted tone," if it's corpses then they're going to be using the tomb walker technique."

"Tomb Walker?" Fox asked lifting her mask slightly to take a blood regenerative pill as other anbu started gathering.

"Yea, it allows one of us to pull info out of the recently deceased depending on how fresh and undamaged their brain is" Pumba explained.

"Us? Oh. You're a Yamanaka, forgot about that," Wolf said looking at Pumba who only shook his head with an amused snort.

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And that is it for this chapter. I know it's not the best but it's a set up for the changes that are happening now that I've been hinting at for the past couple of chapters.