Naruto x Sekirei - Part 16

Miya awoke and immediately knew that she had overslept because it was too bright. The last thing she remembered was thinking that she would need to go prepare breakfast soon, which could only mean that she had finally dozed off only to wake up too late. She still felt pretty tired and knew that she probably looked terrible, but she didn't want to go back to sleep. If she hurried, she might even be able to cobble together a half decent breakfast before the others woke up.

That plan was ruined as the sounds of conversation drifted to her from the dining room. Miya's lips thinned in displeasure as she recalled what exactly had been going on the night before. Still, it wasn't as if she could do anything in particular about it and she would hopefully get Takehito back this day.

Quietly, she made her way towards the ruckus, listening intently as she went in case anything of note was said. She couldn't hear anything distinct, more like the general chaos of a lively conversation where multiple people were talking at the same time, getting progressively louder in order to make themselves heard. She could hear Uzume's clear voice teasing Chiho about something, with the deep, growling tone of Naruto joining in occasionally. There was an occasional exclamation made by Musubi and followed by the almost inaudible reply by Minato. Kazehana, Matsu, Homura, Takami and even Karasuba said something every so often as well.

Finally giving up on the idea that she was going to learn anything, she entered the room, feeling absurdly awkward in her own home. She wasn't used to being the last one up.

"Good morning." Miya greeted in a somewhat subdued tone, taking in the scene. Naruto was apparently levitating a plenthora of fruit around in the air and using his abilities like a super powered blender to make smoothies for everyone in a needlessly showy manner. It was an impressive, if rather frivolous, display of power.

Most of the room paused in surprise, returned her greeting and then went back to their various conversations. Only Naruto and surprisingly Xanna grinned at her, clearly amused that their antics had caused her to oversleep. Naruto also created a smoothie for her and slid it over to her.

As Miya sat down at her usual spot, giving a cautious nod of thanks to the horned man for the fruity treat as she did so, she took note of her guests and tenants as they conversed.

Homura, Karasuba and Kazehana looked much the same as they had yesterday, though Karasuba had apparently regained some of her prickly personality and occasionally aimed a glower at Naruto when he teased her over something. A glower that was often returned with a mock scared look that was sure to provoke the Black Sekirei.

Miya found it hard to believe that anyone would be so tolerant of Karasuba's moods, much less deliberately provoke her, but she would admit(to herself) that she was not exactly unbiased where her former subordinate was concerned.

Takami looked to be in a fairly good mood, having a slight smile on her face as she conversed with her awkward looking son and nursing a cup of coffee intead of a smoothie. Though there was no coffeee in her kitchen, there wasn't that much fruit in it either, so it didn't take a genius to guess where it had come from.

Minato too looked a bit different. Still timid and rather shy, but he didn't project quite the same terrified air around his mother as he had the previous night. Miya refused to consider that this might have something to do with what he and Musubi had gotten up to last night.

Musubi was...well...Musubi.

Matsu was as usual chuckling perversely at various interesting parts of the conversation rather than participating herself, though she did shoot the occasional hungry look towards Naruto. It didn't take too much imagination to figure that one out.

Akitsu was looking even more sleepy than normal and seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness as she cradled her smoothie. Obviously the poor girl was exhausted.

All in all, the scene looked rather happy and relaxed and there was no indication that it had been preceded by a night of shameless debauchery. Miya wasn't sure whether she was relieved or annoyed by that.

"Well since Miya has finally deigned to show up, we can get on with things." Naruto suddenly said with a supremely pompous tone.

The landlady's eye twitched at the words as she tried to stay calm. Naruto had learned how to push her buttons far too quickly, speaking as if she had committed some sort of faux pas by oversleeping a little inside her own home. She didn't even know what they were up to.

"Would you care to begin my dear?" He continued, speaking to his wife and completely ignoring Miya's irritation.

"Certainly beloved." Xanna said agreeably and continued in an officious tone. "Since we both got equal amounts of pussy-" Here she was briefly interrupted by Uzume and Minato choking on their drinks. "-last night, the competition now goes towards who stole the better set of panties."

Miya's face went stark white and the table made ominous creaking noises as she grabbed the edge of it hard enough to cause damage. Several people glanced at her aprehensively, but quickly looked away as they saw the familiar dark miasma forming behind her.

Naruto ignored her entirely as he took over speaking. "As you are a contestant and we both did Akitsu, neither one counts towards my final score. Incidentally, neither one of you wears panties anyway, making it a moot point."

"Ah...they itch." Akitsu contributed quietly, stealthily stealing Matsu's smoothie because the Brain Type was not paying attention to the treat. No sense in letting it go to waste.

"And they get in the way." Xanna added in a tone of confirmation. "How any of you can walk around in those things without tearing them off in frustration escapes my understanding."

There was a sound of snapping wood as Miya ripped off two chunks of her table in anger, making most people's heads snap towards her. The cloud of negative emotional energy around her was thick and dark by now, making most everyone except for Karasuba, Akitsu and the horned duo cower.

Seeing that Miya was being a party pooper, Naruto waved a hand towards her and inverted the energy of her aura, turning the black and purple cloud into some rainbow colored monstrosity of positive feelings. In a way, it was even more creepy, but it certainly didn't make anyone want to flee anymore.

Ignoring her even increased rage, Naruto continued to speak. "Seeing as I finished banging Takami before you finished with Uzume and Chiho, I'll go first."

"Mom?! You slept with...him?!" Minato burst out in shock, timidness forgotten for the moment.

Takami wasn't really sure what to say to her son on the subject. She didn't particularly regret it even though the current situation was definitely not something she had counted on or wished for. Not that she was particularly shocked over it...more like resigned really.

That still left the problem of what to say to her son about the matter though.

Fortunately, Naruto handled it for her. With an eyeroll and a waspish response. "Oh grow up you big baby. You're nineteen, your mother is hot and you had sex with Musubi last night, if the idea of your mother having sex shocks you, I'm going to see if she'd be willing to have another go at it, this time on film for your viewing pleasure."

"Can Musubi watch too?" The fist fighter asked innocently.

"Of course you can." Naruto reassured .

"Yay!" Musubi cheered with a fist pump. She had demanded to have her bond to Minato restored first thing in the morning and it had been done, causing her slight resentment for the horned duo to vanish as if it had never existed.

"Forget it, I've got no intention of even sleeping with you again, much less letting you tape it." Takami growled.

"You had no intention of sleeping with me the first time either." Naruto snickered.

Takami glared at him venomously but said nothing. He may be right about that, but just because he'd managed to seduce her once didn't mean that she was going to let herself be taped. Another go at it she might not mind sometime in the future, but she would not let herself be taped under any circumstances.

She very much suspected that it was entirely irrelevant either way, as the annoying bastard was just doing this to wind up herself, Miya, Minato and anyone else who cared, while simultaneously amusing himself, Xanna, Matsu, Kazehana, Uzume, Karasuba and quite possibly also Akitsu. That girl was too hard to read, but she was paying close attention.

"What ever happened to respecting me in the morning?" She finally asked in a dry tone. The question she'd asked him just before sleeping with him had been a joke for the most part, but she'd be damned if he left her speechless.

"But I do respect you," Naruto countered with a grin. "if I didn't, you'd have ended up like Minaka."

"Speaking of Minaka...where is he? I haven't seen him for a while." Takami asked suspiciously.

"I have no idea, maybe he got lost in time and space." Naruto shrugged carelessly and continued talking over Takami's suspicious muttering. "By the way Minato, did you know that your mom is actually a very vulgar woman? As soon as that post orgasmic relaxation kicked in, she started cursing like a sailor instead of keeping it all bottled up."

Seeing her son's constipated expression at the Too-Much-Information, Takami deduced that Naruto was definitely doing it to wind people up.

Meanwhile, Miya was doing her very best to calm down, knowing that the more upset she got, the more gleefully these two deviants would discuss the sordid details of the previous night. But it was so very hard to stay calm. Despite the fact that modern day Japan was somewhat more relaxed about such things, Takehito had been more of a traditional type of person and the same had appealed to her. Naturally this meant that she was of the belief that such things should stay in the bedroom and between lovers, not be bandied about in the open like this.

There was no point in trying to stop them, she had neither the leverage, nor the power. The only thing she could do was endure it and attempt calming down.

"Getting back on topic, I present my first prize, Takami's panties!" Naruto announced grandly, showcasing the underwear. "I designate Akitsu as panty judge. If you would sweetie? On a scale of one to ten."

While Takami buried her face in her hands and muttered something uncomplimentary, the Ice Sekirei perked up and looked at the panties he was showing. They were a plain white set, modest without being one of those saggy granny panties.

"Ah...three. A bit boring." She finally uttered shyly. She didn't want to give him such a low score, but Naruto and Xanna always wanted her to be honest and Takami's panties really were kind of boring.

"So low!" Naruto exclaimed in a mock scandalized tone, holding his heart as if Akitsu had mortally wounded him with her proclamation, which made the Ice Sekirei bite her lip uncertainly.

"Do not allow his pouting to sway you Akitsu, he is merely trying to get you to give him a higher score." Xanna said before Akitsu could start trying to convince herself that she should give him a higher amount of points. "I will present Chiho's panties next, as she was the first to pass out."

"Please don't!" Chiho pleaded, her face on fire with embarrassment and wanting desperately to prevent her underwear from being put on display.

"Yeah, that's mean." Uzume piped up, more for Chiho's sake than her own really. She knew that her cute little Ashikabi was easily embarrassed by these types of things even if she had agreed to last night's orgy.

"So am I." The horned woman countered. "Besides, it is just a pair of underwear. it's not as if I am asking Matsu to replay the recording of our activities."

Matsu received a great deal of heat for this from quite a few people, causing the lurking pervert to break out in cold sweat.

Meanwhile, Kazehana and Homura watched the entire spectacle with wide eyes, occasionally glancing at Miya and wondering why the purple haired woman didn't say anything. Clearly she was actually doing her best to calm down instead of attempting to stop it, which completely went against her usual behavior. Whatever she and Naruto had talked about, it must have been something earth shaking to cause this kind of change in such a short time.

"Now Akitsu, how would you rate these?" Xanna asked, showing a similar plain pair of underwear as the ones Takami had worn, but they had the addition of a cute kitten printed on them.

"Ah...five. Cute kitty, but still boring." Akitsu judged hesitantly, not sure if she was being too generous or too harsh. Having to make a judgement on something where her two lovers were in competition against each other was causing her no small amount of distress, even if the competition was quite silly.

"Haha, only a two point lead, I've totally got this in the bag." Naruto boasted confidently, certain that Matsu's panties would win the day for him, even if he didn't know what Uzume had been wearing.

"Do not count your chickens before they hatch husband." Xanna warned.

"Ooh, ooh! Do mine next!" Uzume said with a fist pump, getting into the weird competition.

"Uzume-chan!" Chiho protested, upset and embarrassed.

"Just go with it Chiho-baby. Yours aren't going to be making another appearance anyway, so you might as well enjoy it." The cloth using Sekirei reasoned.

Chiho still looked a bit dubious, but subsided to the 'logic', twisted though it was.

"Uzume's panties are indeed next." Xanna confirmed and held up a pair of panties styled into very short shorts with a multitude of soft frills.

Akitsu dithered for a while, unsure of what kind of score to give them. If she gave too high a score then Naruto would lose, but if she gave a too low score, then Xanna would lose. It flustered her and she wished that they hadn't picked her to decide, as she was a lot more comfortable just going along with whatever they wanted as opposed to actually making decisions...even if they were about a silly contest over who stole the better panties.

"Ah...seven. " She finally said, picking a fairly high score both because she actually liked them and because she had an idea on how to escape the need to pick a winner. She just hoped that Naruto had a nice pair of panties for last so that it would not be too obvious "Pretty."

"You see husband?" Xanna said smugly, smirking at him. "You will need a truly impressive set of underwear to win now."

"It just so happens that I do indeed have a rather impressive set of underwear." He said confidently, but was inwardly less confident than he appeared. He hadn't thought that Uzume would have been wearing something that would have appealed to Akitsu that much. She hadn't seemed like the type to go for sexy frills.

"Taken from Matsu's crotch, I present to you the only thong in this competition and a very tiny thong it is." He announced grandly, much to Matsu's shameless amusement, and presented a very small, mostly see through lace thong of a deep red color.

"Ah...nine, very sexy." Akitsu pronounced with a touch of relief, rather more quickly than she had for any of the others.

Both of the horned duo frowned at the draw and Naruto spoke with some suspicion. "You wouldn't happen to have given the thong a nine instead of a ten just to make it a draw would you Akitsu?"

"Don't be ridiculous husband." Xanna scoffed. "The question you should be asking is whether she gave it a nine instead of an eight for the sake of forcing a draw."

The Ice Sekirei fidgeted nervously and forced down the sudden silly urge to poke her index fingers together. Instead of that, she clamped her lips around the straw of the smoothie she'd stolen from Matsu and started blowing bubbles into it, pretending that she didn't hear what they'd just said. She was the most comfortable with a draw because she just couldn't bring herself to say that one of them lost based on her decision.

"Musubi has panties too! What score do I get?" Musubi suddenly exclaimed with great eagerness, waving a pair of plain white panties in the air energetically, with utterly no idea of what the game was actually about.

"You get a three on the panties, but a ten for attitude." Naruto told her with a grin. Musubi was always fun and Minato's panicked expression at having his Sekirei drop her panties in front of everyone as amusing as ever.

The fist fighter poked her tongue out in concentration as she added the two numbers together and then cheered as she realized that her two numbers together were higher than what Naruto or Xanna got.

Several people hid their grins behind their hands, wary as they were of Miya' eerie stillness. The purple haired landlady might as well have been a statue for all the emotion on her face or the movement of her body for that matter. It was one of the creepiest things that they'd ever seen and would have had the majority of them running for the hills if Naruto and Xanna's antics weren't shattering the tension the way that a wrecking ball shatters a glass window.

"Well, since Akitsu has conspired to create yet another draw, I guess we will just have to decide on a winner by punishing her for being so cheeky." Xanna said with a sigh, with Naruto nodding in agreement.

Akitsu ducked her head to hide the growing blush on her face, remembering past 'punishments' and adjusting her legs in an effort to soothe the sudden heat blooming between them. The previous night had been exhausting and she could do with some more sleep, but either Naruto or Xanna always made sure to soothe any lingering aches, leaving her physically ready for more. She would likely lose consciousness during the 'punishment' and the only thing she liked more than that was waking up before they did in the wee hours of the morning so that she could quietly confess her love for them without causing any undue awkwardness.

"Fuhuhuhu, and how is Akitsu-tan punished?" Matsu asked with foggy glasses and a blush on her cheeks. Most of the room was also clearly interested, though some(such as Minato) were trying and failing to hide it.

"Your question would be better served if it were directed at Akitsu herself." Xanna said pointedly, knowing that the Passive Ice Sekirei had picked up some of Naruto's habit of saying things that were technically true, but often horribly out of context and very easily misunderstood. Though in her case she mostly did it because she preferred to speak very little and thus offered too little information, but some of it was also because Akitsu knew that both her and Naruto enjoyed playing games with people and did it for them.

"Ah...they make me scream and cry." Akitsu said forlonly as everyone turned to her, staring at the depleted smoothie in her hands. She wanted another.

None of those present took her words at face value, seeing as she was looking rather cozy leaning on Naruto. Doing anything but giving off the air of someone in an abusive situation.

"Naruto-san, may I speak to you in private?" Miya's tightly controlled voice cut through the banter. Much as she didn't like to admit it, even she had to concede that the unfortunate Ice Sekirei was being well treated now and seemed happy with her situation.

"You sure dropped the formalities quickly." Naruto snickered without answering her question. "Too hard to say it when there are other people present?"

Miya's lips thinned in frustration as everyone looked at her curiously at the horned man's question. Yes, yes it was hard to acknowledge him as Emperor in front of others. The promise of Takehito's return had been more than enough for her to capitulate to his demands, but she was still a very proud woman and was discovering that she had immense trouble giving up that pride. Given his dislike of formalities, she hadn't thought that he would even mention that she had reverted to using the 'san' honorific instead of the royal 'Heika' that she had used after yesterday's conversation.

Clearly she had underestimated just how difficult he could make things. She shouldn't have been surprised really...the annoying man seemed to thrive on social awkwardness and people's offended sensibilities the way that fungus thrives in a damp environment.

"Will you agree to speak with me in private with regards to our bargain?" She repeated tensely, ignoring his question the same way that he had ignored hers.

"I know what you want to ask and you don't have to worry about it, I'll resurrect your husband today." He waved off, smirking at her even more pinched expression at the careless way he'd revealed that.

A series of exclamations issued from the others, the loudest being Homura's "You can bring back the dead?!"

Instead of answering, Naruto turned to his wife with a long suffering look and spoke with a sigh. "We keep telling them that we're gods, and yet they're always so surprised when they learn about some other thing we can do."

Xanna shrugged without saying anything. She had stopped being astounded by how easily impressed mortals were a long time ago. Few among them bothered to think about what they're told and what they saw.

"You mentioned a bargain." Kazehana said slowly, joining the conversation for the first time that day. She had been a bit disappointed that Naruto hadn't visited her as well last night, but not particularly surprised. She liked him and would have found it quite simple to fall in love with him eventually, but he obviously had no such interest in her. At the very least she could respect that he had enough decency to make it clear where the line was instead of stringing her along.

"Oh indeed. Miya here has, in her capacity as the Sekirei pillar, formally ceded guardianship of the Sekirei and ownership of the Sekirei spaceship to me, as well as recognizing me to be her Emperor in return for the resurrection of her husband." Naruto confirmed, leaving out the whole story of why the Sekirei were even on Earth to begin with. He'd tell them about it eventually, but it was a long story and he didn't want to get into it right now.

If Miya's expression could close any further, it would have done so. There had been no need whatsoever to tell the others any of that and she had no idea why he had done so. Perhaps he didn't consider it important, or perhaps he was merely using the opportunity to make things even more difficult for her.

Unbeknownst to her, Naruto had done it simply because he preferred to have things out in the open. He could operate in secrecy and he could do it very well at that, but if given the option, he would always choose to be open and upfront about things.

Except in war. War required practicality and honesty was neither practical nor expedient.

"You...bartered us away in exchange for getting Takehito back?" Kazehana continued to ask slowly, as if having trouble believing her own words. She knew that Miya could be an incredibly ruthless woman, but she didn't want to believe that she had done something like that.

It wasn't that she had any sort of problem with the arrangement, having come to trust that Naruto didn't have any nefarious intentions for them, but it still stung that her old commander had given them up for personal gain.

Miya hid a wince at the pointed question and answered diplomatically. "I was a poor guardian to my feathers and he has done more for you in the short time he has been here than I have in twenty years. Besides, he would have taken you all, along with the ship, with him whether I agreed to it or not. I felt that it was the best decision for everyone."

Abrasive, perverse and annoying in the extreme he may be, but she couldn't deny that he had done right by the Sekirei. She did not mention the fact that she wasn't sure whether she would have done the same or not even if he was less benevolent.

Would she have still given them up like this in exchange for her husband had the situation been different? Miya couldn't answer that question and was glad that she didn't need to.

Karasuba smirked at Miya, the subtle evasion of the question not lost on her.

"Well I suppose we might as well get to it since you've gone and ruined the mood." Naruto sighed and stood up, motioning the purple haired woman to follow him.

Her insides quivering with barely suppressed anticipation, Miya didn't even register the dig at her as she walked after him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Miya was feeling uncomfortable. She was walking next to and just half a step behind Naruto and he hadn't said a word since they'd left Izumo Inn. While it was refreshing that he wasn't acting like a living obscenity, it was also disturbing and felt unnatural to have him be so quiet. She might have assumed that he was angry at her for interrupting his fun earlier, but he only seemed to be deep in thought.

Naruto was indeed deep in thought, and contrary to Miya's ruminations, these thoughts had nothing at all to do with the scene that they had just left. Instead, he was contemplating the ideas he'd had for playing with Miya and how most of them had ended up being abandoned.

Originally, he had intended to provoke or manipulate her into a battle, preferrably forcing her to cooperate with Karasuba just for kicks. That idea had been aborted when he'd seen that she was fully capable of playing nice with the silver haired Sekirei if she really had to, as well as her disappointing lack of fighting spirit. She might have been a warrior once, but now she really was just a widowed landlady, if a very powerful one.

Her greater strength in comparison to Karasuba was irrelevant, as she was still just an ant to him. He'd thought that she might still have some of her old fire hidden under the gentle facade, but as it turns out, the facade had become reality for the most part.

With all of this in mind, getting her to fight him lost its appeal.

His other idea had been to seduce her, thinking that underneath that prudish exterior, a suppressed beast was lurking. Only, it had turned out that this was one of those times that you could judge a book by its cover and be 100% correct.

His final idea of playing with her was verbal sniping and prodding that very prudishness and making her react. However, when Miya got upset and knew that her usual methods of retaliation wouldn't work, she merely endured it silently and did her best to stay calm. The most he'd gotten out of her in the way of verbal sparring had been that mock psychiatric session last night, after that she had simply refused to react any further.

Quite honestly, if he'd known about all this in advance and had he not been so curious about why the Sekirei came to Earth, he probably wouldn't have bothered even speaking to her and simply done as he pleased.

It might be a bit mean of him to be basically poking a cat and then being disappointed if it didn't bite him, but it was mostly harmless to the people he did it to(if annoying) and he hadn't needed his wife to tell him that you needed to find some way of amusing yourself when you were a supreme being to prevent going mad.

That would be bad. For him, but mostly for everyone else. Entire regions that had been scorched bare in one of Xanna's rages or bored tantrums testified to this. Though Naruto knew himself to be both more tolerant of people's foibles and more respectful of random innocent's right to live, he also knew that he wasn't that much better about it than her.

There was also the other important factor of Takehito being a world class scientist that would be very useful to his and Xanna's empire.

A rather self serving and callous reason for bringing him back, but if he wanted to revive people out of the goodness of his heart, then there was an uncountable number of people who had it much worse than Miya and would have given up everything they had in exchange for a resurrection.

In comparison, Miya was getting her husband back in exchange for telling a story and having to silently endure some behavior that she objected to. All things considered, she had nothing to complain about and she knew it perfectly well.

"Where are we going?" Miya finally asked after several minutes of silence, hiding her discomfort.

Naruto snapped out of his thoughts and turned to look at her with a wry smile. "The graveyard of course. Where else do you think a resurrection would take place?"

Miya almost missed a step in surprise, having not expected that to be their destination, though it seemed obvious in retrospect. "You intend to dig up Takehito's grave?"

"Pretty much, I need a DNA sample from it." He answered.

"What for?" She asked, her curiousity roused. She'd thought that he would simply...bring him back, a rather simplistic view in retrospect, but it wasn't as if she had any information to go on.

"I've never met Takehito, his soul is unfamiliar to me. " Naruto explained. "It would take me forever to find him among the dead. His DNA fragment will allow me to rip his soul out of the Pure World without having to search for it."

"This act will not harm him will it? Or damn him when he dies again?" Miya asked with worry, recalling his words from their discussion the previous day. The long defunct religion of Kouten also had the concept of a blissful afterlife, but lacked the accompanying imagery of Hell. However, her exposure to Earth and more recently Naruto had her questioning whether there really was a place of eternal damnation or not.

"Oh no, nothing of the sort." He chuckled and explained. "'Hell' as such doesn't really exist and 'Heaven' or 'the Pure World' is little more than a bunch of disembodied spirits floating about with no true consciousness and even those tend to disperse after a few centuries. The closest thing to either one is what you would call Limbo, a self created place of solitude where the recently dead come to terms with their deaths before moving on and where some remain rooted by some powerful emotion, unable or unwilling to move on."

The explanation did much to soothe Miya's sudden worry that Takehito's resurrection would be damaging for him in the future, but it also made her wonder how come he wasn't in Limbo. She knew that he had loved her deeply and surely, that would be a strong enough emotion to root him there.

"Are there many people stuck in Limbo?" She asked instead, pushing aside the bout of insecurity.

"Thousands." He said simply and continued without regard for the disturbed look on her face at such a number. "And don't worry about Takehito's love for you. Love is a powerful emotion but it doesn't have the focused intensity required to strand a person in Limbo. Most of the people stuck there are weighed down either by hatred or guilt, with a smattering of regret. Mind you, not every universe has the same setup, but the one here seems to work fairly similarly to the one in my original dimension."

She wanted to inquire further on the fascinating subject, seeing as he was being so strangely bearable for a change and rather free with information, but went silent as she saw that they were nearly at the graveyard.

The day that had previously been sunny was now overcast with thick and heavy dark clouds that flashed with occasional lightning. The day had turned almost dark enough to seem as if it were evening instead of just slightly over noon.

They proceeded silently to Takehito's grave and stopped before it with Miya shivering slightly, both because of the chilly wind that blew through her traditional haori and hakama, which were designed with warmer weather in mind, and because of the incredibly creepy atmosphere. There should have been other mourners present at this time of day, yet the graveyard was deserted and the rustling of the fallen leaves of early autumn in combination with the darkness and wind made for something you'd see in a horror movie just before people got eaten by zombies. A fact made more poignant by what they were actually here to do.

Unbeknownst to her, the creepiness was entirely Naruto's doing, who was of the opinion that it was necessary. Honestly, who the hell raises the dead on a sunny day?

"Well, might as well get to it." He said with a shrug and pointed a clawed finger at the grave.

Immediately, the stone over the grave broke and the soil shifted as the urn was raised.

"Cremation huh?" Naruto said musingly as the urn floated to his hands, after which he shook it to check if there were any bone shards inside it, nodding in satisfaction when he heard the clanking. "If I was still a mortal this would be a problem."

He supposed it made sense, since pretty much every Japanese citizen was cremated, but he'd been hoping for an actual body, if only to creep Miya out when he tore off a finger or maybe the skull.

"Why is that?" Miya asked tightly, her face pale at the casual defilement of Takehito's grave. She knew that she would be getting him back soon, but it was still hard to watch it happen right in front of her and do nothing.

"Because fire tends to destroy DNA duuuh." Naruto snarked. "Fortunately, the bone fragments will act as a good enough anchor."

"What now?" She asked, swallowing down both her irritation and the sense of outrage at his callousness.

"Now we need a a living sacrifice to pull Takehito back to this plane as well as to make a new body for him to occupy." He said cheerfully.

"You didn't mention anything about a living sacrifice." Miya said in alarm, staring at him in horror.

"What, did you think I was just going to snap my fingers and he'd be back?" He asked with sarcastic amusement. "Every act requires sacrifice, small acts require small sacrifices and great acts require great sacrifices."

"But don't worry, I doubt you'll object to my choice of sacrifice." He said placatingly as she continued to stare at him in mute speechlessness.

Miya turned wide eyes on the nearby ground as Minaka suddenly fell through a portal that had appeared in the air without warning. He was bound, gagged and looking around in wild incomprehension, clearly having no idea as to what was going on.

"I figured it would be suitably ironic to use him to resurrect Takehito, since he was the one to have him killed in the first place." Naruto explained.

Minaka tried to crawl away like some kind of oversized earthworm upon hearing that but chains rose from the ground and pinned him down after rolling him onto his back.

"No point trying to run away Minaka, you've been a dead man ever since I came here, you've just been allowed to live for laughs." Naruto said indifferently and dumped the contents of the urn on the bound man, covering him in ash and bone fragments, after which he tossed the vessel carelessly over his shoulder where it impacted the marble steps of another grave with a jarring clang.

"Can you not show some miniscule respect for the deceased?" Miya asked tersely after flinching at the noise, feeling mortally ashamed to have come here in the company of someone with such a callous disregard for the dignity of the departed.

"We came here with the intention of graverobbing and are about to sacrifice a man so that we can bring another back to life." Naruto pointed out. "We've crossed the line of disrespecting the dead so far back that we can't even see it anymore."

Miya looked away at that extremely valid point which she had refused to think about thus far, a feeling of more poignant, personal shame welling up inside her.

"Besides, they're dead. What are they gonna do, complain?"

"Just...hurry up." She finally said, clenching her fists tightly and stubbornly ignoring the sense of wrongness that now seemed to permeate everything. She wasn't going to flinch away at the very end, not when her husband was about to be returned to her and she'd already come this far.

Naruto grinned at the resolute set of her jaw. Her scruples over the whole thing were honestly rather amusing to him, but then again he'd grown up in a society where arson and stealthy murder were considered valuable profession skills and he'd been more than a bit unscrupulous about his methods even by those standards.

"Edo Tensei(Impure World Reincarnation)."

Miya watched with a sort of sick fascination as the panicking Minaka was released by the chains and then covered in what appeared to be even more ash and graveyard soil, until Takehito lay on the ground.

With her heart hammering wildly in her chest, she slowly approached her disoriented husband who was already picking himself up from the ground. She couldn't see his face as he had turned around, but she knew that it was him. She would recognize his silver hair and thin figure anywhere.

"Takehito?" She said almost pleadingly, a desperate hope in her voice.

The confused mad spun around in surprise at hearing her voice and made a shocked exclamation. "Miya?!"

The purple haired woman stepped back in shock at his appearance, the cracks in his skin af if he was made of clay and the dark sclera of his eyes. It made him look inhuman.

"Why is he like this?!" She spun around and demanded harshly, glaring at the amused looking horned man.

"Miya, what's going on? Who is he?" Takehito asked insistently, his eyes flitting from his obviously distressed wife to the demonic looking man.

"If you two could calm your tits for a second, I can explain." Naruto told them sardonically. "But please do panic if you want, that's always fun to see."

In spite of Miya's distress at her husband's condition and Takehito's confusion as to what was going on, they did settle down and look at him expectantly. Absently, Miya took hold of Takehito's hand, ignoring the unnatural, porous feel of it.

"Good, now to begin I'll answer Miya's question first." Naruto began. "Takehito is currently inhabiting a body made of ashes and dust powered by a living sacrifice, his soul kept shackled to it by the technique I used. In essence, he's a fully sentient zombie and almost impervious to being destroyed."

Miya was going to ask(demand really), why he hadn't been restored to true life instead of this mockery, but a quirked eyebrow from Naruto told her that he was waiting for exactly that, so she pursed her lips and stayed silent.

"On that note, are you sure you want to complete the resurrection? He never gets exhausted in this form and I'm sure you've got a lot sexual tension backlogged due to your refusal to masturbate. Wouldn't be any fun for him since he can't feel anything though."

Miya fumed in silent humiliation and pretended she didn't see her husband staring at her while she ground out her answer. "I believe I will manage just fine Heika."

"Why do you call him that? Who is this...man?" Takehito asked, more calmly than before as his highly analytical mind struggled to make sense of things.

"It's all very simple." Naruto interjected. "Your wife bargained with me to have you resurrected. I'm sure she'll explain the details of it to you, but for now, there is one last thing that she agreed to do before I return you fully to life."

"I made no such agreements." Miya argued with a frown, wondering what he way playing at.

"But you did. You agreed to do anything I asked in exchange for his resurrection, remember?" Naruto pointed out.

"I see." She said simply, her frown deepening. A technicallity, but a solid one that she couldn't argue. Sighing in resignation, she spoke again. "Very well then, what do you want me to do?"

"Simple, I want you to gargle my mayonnaise." He leered at her, his implications clear.

Miya could almost feel herself losing color. That he would demand something like this out of the blue, in front of her husband, just when she had tentatively assumed that no such degradations would be asked.

She had feared that he might want something like this when she had first agreed and had been prepared to force down her revulsion at the idea if it would get her Takehito back, but to lull her into a false sense of security only to demand it at the worst possible time was like suddenly finding a sword impaled in her chest.

"You cannot be serious." She protested weakly, refusing to look at Takehito even out of the corner of her eye for fear of what she'd see on his face.

"I'm dead serious." He said seriously and threw her a jar of mayonnaise. "Get to it."

Miya blinked incredulously at the condiment, the thought that he literally wanted her to gargle his mayonnaise having not even crossed her mind, leaving her completely nonplussed. "Oh...I thought you meant..."

Naruto gave her his very best look of honest confusion(something that was very hard to do right then) and replied to her stammered words with a similarly confused tone. "What could you possibly...?"

Then he widened his eyes, as if in sudden realisation. "You thought that I wanted you to...? In front of your husband?" He cut himself off, as if too embarrassed to say it and continued in the most snooty tone he could possibly muster. "Well I never! Here I am, bringing your husband back from the dead and you think so low of me."

Rendered utterly speechless at the turnaround, Miya could only stare numbly as he clapped his hands together in an irritable manner.

"Gedō: Rinne Tensei no Jutsu(Outer Path: Saṃsāra of Heavenly Life Technique)."

Takehito fell to his knees with a grunt as flesh and blood replaced ash and dust and newly created nerves flared to life painfully.

"There, I've kept up my end of the bargain, now good day to you! I have no desire to spend any more time in the company of a twisted pervert such as yourself, who would fantasize about performing oral sex on another man in the presence of her husband...and your cheesy come ons weren't very subtle either! You may keep the mayo." He huffed and stormed off.

Almost a full minute later, Takehito had recovered from his resurrection and Miya had recovered from how massively she'd just been played.

"I hate that man so much." And she couldn't even do that properly because of how enourmously grateful she was to him for the return of her husband.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Takami sighed gustily and with much impatience as she stared out the windows of the MBI director's office, keeping her coat wrapped tightly as a shield against the wind. The window had been replaced since the time that Naruto had thrown himself out of it, but it was currently wide open.

About a week had passed since Takehito's resurrection(something that she still had trouble wrapping her head around) and things had been remarkably dull. Most of her time for the past week had been spent gathering up and saving all of MBI's technology and research, as well as any pieces of tech that had been removed from the Sekirei's ship. Now she was just waiting for Naruto to show up so that they could leave.

MBI would likely collapse after she was gone, but she honestly found it hard to care at this point. Yes, she'd had a hand in raising the company from the ground up, but it had long since deviated from the original purpose of advancing science into a tool for Minaka's sick games.

"Hurry up already you annoying oaf." She muttered to herself.

"He will be here soon." Came Xanna's unconcerned voice from where she was sitting in the chair that ostensibly belonged to MBI's CEO. She was leaned back into the extremely expensive leather chair, resting her bare feet on the desk with her heavily customized kimono riding so far up her thighs that she was essentially naked. Not exactly the image of a traditional Japanese lady...or any other kind of lady for that matter.

The horned woman was also the reason for the window being wide open, as she apparently enjoyed the breeze.

"We've never actually talked have we?" Takami commented somewhat awkwardly. She might have some sort of bizzare, quasi friendship with Naruto, but very soon he would also be her Emperor and Xanna her Empress. Not that she had any intention of suddenly becoming respecful to the big lunkhead, but it would still be prudent to get at least passably familiar with the horned woman.

"No." Xanna responded simply, offering nothing to go on.

Takami sighed a bit at the uncooperative reply and wondered whether it was worth the effort to try talking to her. Every impression she'd gotten of Xanna so far was of someone who thought herself to be better than everyone else, an opinion that was dangerous to attempt disputing given how powerful she was.

"I know that Naruto is doing this because he wants to create a safe place for the Sekirei, but I'm curious as to why you want to create an empire." She plodded on, trying to get a conversation going.

"Because I want to rule." Xanna said dismissively. "My last two attempts ended badly and I want to do it successfully for once."

"I suppose you think that Earth would be better off under your rule too?" Takami commented, remembering the conversation she'd had with Naruto some time ago.

"Of course." Xanna said in a tone that clearly stated how stupid she considered that question to be.

"Figures." Takami muttered to herself, not really intending to be heard.

"Do not misunderstand me, unlike my young and inexperienced husband I know that the current state of the world is paradise compared to how it used to be...for most of the world at any rate." Xanna cautioned.

"So you don't believe that the world is 'rotten', like he does?" Takami asked curiously. She had always figured that the two of them were in agreement on pretty much everything based on the way they acted.

"Of course it is rotten, " Xanna responded with amusement in her tone, as if the scientist had just said something very funny. "it is a human world, shaped by human leaders and human leaders are subject to the same influences as everyone else. Most importantly, the vast majority of them have the dangerous habit of being convinced that they are right and everyone else is wrong. this is especially true for the stupid ones. Thus, the world cannot help but be rotten, Naruto has merely not bothered to take a more extensive look at things to form a more accurate opinion."

While Takami had to concede the point on stupid people, she couldn't help but give the horned woman an incredulous stare at her assertion on people thinking that they're always right, considering her own arrogance.

"You humans are interesting creatures in a way." Xanna continued, paying no heed to the look she was being given. "At first I was merely curious about you, then I came to hate you, eventually that faded into dislike and finally into the realisation that you are simply flawed and cannot help yourselves."

"Gee, thanks." Takami said sourly, feeling rather offended both personally and on the behalf of her species. She made a mental note to herself to avoid conversations with the horned woman in the future.

"You are offended." Xanna stated, eyebrow quirking in amusement.

"What gave it away?" Takami asked sarcastically.

"I was actually not trying to insult humanity for a change, merely stating facts. Humans are subjected to a multitude of influences as they grow, many of which give them a narrow minded, skewed or sometimes outright nonsensical world view. I was always an outsider to your race and can see more clearly because of it. Naruto is much the same since I was the one who shaped him the most while he grew, the only thing that he truly gained from his own kind was a predilection for girls, especially young ones and a corresponding hatred of rapists and child molesters."

"If not for that last part you'd have made him sound like a pedophile." Takami said while mulling the words over. She supposed they made sense if you took into account that the horned woman considered herself to be better than humans. At any rate, she wasn't a psychologist and couldn't think of any decent counter-argument.

"And he would gleefully pretend to be one as long as there are no children nearby." Xanna smirked.

Takami could only sigh at the truth in that statement. The contrary lunatic would probably give piggybank rides and let girls braid his hair, only to explain it later to some third party with truly horrible double entendres.

"Shouldn't he have been here by now?" Takami asked after a few minutes of silence.

"He is occupied by a problem of his own making." Xanna sighed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Come on out of there Kuu-chan." Naruto cajoled, looking under the bed.

"Kuu don't wanna go!" Kusano protested, hiding as far back under the bed as possible and clutching at the plushie of a nine tailed fox that Naruto had given her some time ago.

He'd gotten a few exasperated looks over it from Xanna, who had categorically refused to to have anything to do with the Sekirei child despite his suggestion to try getting to know her. Unlike him, Xanna was generally unmoved by cuteness and considered children to be annoying, whiny, needy and a host of other uncomplimentary adjectives. Not that she thought that they should act differently, they were children after all, but she had no interest in dealing with them either.

"Why not?" He asked, puzzled as to where this sudden resistance came from.

"Yukari-nee said that onii-chan was going to be Emperor." Kusano answered unhelpfully.

"Well...yes, but what does that have to do with you not wanting to get out from under the bed?" He asked further, even more puzzled.

"Onii-chan won't have time to play with Kuu anymore." The Green Girl pouted.

"Now where did you get that idea?" Naruto asked, confusion turning to amusement.

"Yukari-nee said that Emperors are always busy."

"I'm going to need to have a talk with Yukari about engaging her brain when she explains things." Naruto facepalmed. Clearly the pervy teenager had forgotten that he could clone himself at will. "Don't worry about that Kuu-chan, I'm not going to be that kind of Emperor and I'll always have time to play with you."

"Really?" Kusano asked hopefully, poking her head out from under the bed.

"Really." Naruto confirmed and helped her extract herself, offhandedly cleaning off the dust that she had mopped up while she'd been hiding. "In fact, I think that you're going to be the one that isn't going to want to play with me anymore."

"Nuh uh, Kuu loves onii-chan." Kusano protested and hugged his leg.

Naruto sank his fangs into his lower lip to prevent any unmanly exclamations from escaping him at the cuteness.

"I love you too cutie." He said once his little self-control issue had passed and then lifted the tiny Sekirei on his shoulders, where she immediately grabbed hold of his horns as per usual. "Now lets get going, I bet you'll like our new home."

"Will there be plants and flowers?" She asked curiously.

"Lots of of them and types that you've never seen before." He confirmed.

Kusano had just finished ooh-ing and had been put into temporal stasis in the Interdimensional Storage Locker when there was a sudden knocking on the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A little bit earlier.

Yuno, Shou and Naoki were on their way to the penthouse once again, though this time it was not to deliver food, but simply to see if they could catch Naruto before he left.

Hotel management had been freaking out since the previous day when he had suddenly canceled the use of all the extra rooms and was even now in the process of vacating the penthouse. Naturally everyone had assumed that they had somehow offended their clients with the limitless pockets and been extra conscientus in their attempts to get them to stay. Once it had been learned that it was simply time to go, they had stopped but were still disappointed. Naruto's and Xanna's brief stay had seen the hotel make more money than any hundred others put together and that was not counting the tips.

All three of them were planning on quitting now that Naruto wasn't going to be around anymore and they knew that they weren't the only ones. More than half of the bellhops and several chefs were intending to do the same, simply because they'd made so much money from Naruto's tips that they could easily afford to either find a better job or a at least one where the management staff wasn't such a pain in the ass.

But that had little to do with their current destination. No, their intent was to finally ask Naruto what the deal was. Their best guess so far was that he was some kind of alien overlord who had come to Earth to collect all these women with special abilities for some unspecified purpose.

They weren't altogether sure that he was even still in the penthouse, but it was worth a try.

They were both relieved and nervous when he opened the door after their knocking.

"What are you guys doing here?" He asked in amusement, smirking at Naoki in particular. He had gotten a good few laughs out of the little debacle that had happened with Seo the other day and Naoki's following stroke of luck with the twins.

"We want to know what you are." Yuno declared before she could think better of it.

"Horny. You wanna help me out with that?" He leered back, causing the female bellhop to splutter incoherently while the other two snickered.

"But seriously, what are you guys doing here?" He repeated once the trio had calmed down.

"We've been trying to figure out what you're up to with all these beautiful women, but we haven't been able to make any decisive conclusions. Since you're leaving anyway, we figured that we might as well ask you." Shou said, deliberately avoiding any mention of 'what' exactly Naruto was to prevent him from using that corny joke again.

"I'm a god with an overactive libido and a fetish for little sisters who has come to this dimension specifically to adopt a few and now that I've done that, my wife and I are going to move on to the next dimension, raise an advanced cilivization for them to live in and then conquer the galaxy for shits and giggles." Naruto said with an utterly bland tone.

The three bellhops exchanged looks of consternation, clearly trying to decide whether he was honest or if they were being fucked with.

"I can't tell if he's being serious or not." Naoki finally admitted.

"I'm as serious as you're ever likely to see me." Naruto assured them. "You guys wanna come along?"

"To another dimension?" Yuno asked dubiously. All three of them were willing to suspend a lot of disbelief when it came to the horned man, but this was really pushing it.

"Yes, where I will be Emperor...or God-Emperor more than likely and I fully intend to make it the best possible place to live."

"I don't know, I kind of like Japan and I wouldn't want to leave my parents or girlfriend behind..." Shou said awkwardly, not really believing that Naruto was even being serious.

Naoki and Yuno made similar statements, the idea of going off to places unknown with a man that they didn't really know too well aside from the fact that he was absurdly careless with his money being just a bit too much for them.

"Ah well, no matter. I'm sure you'll do fine for yourselves." Naruto waved off, he'd only asked them because they happened to be right there at this particular moment anyway. "By the way, I think there might still be a box of diamonds lying around somewhere in case you want it. I stole it from some drug lord in Brazil for grins and then forgot about it."

The bellhops exchanged alarmed looks, suddenly fearing that they were going to become a target for a host of criminals that might be after those diamonds.

"No need to look so scared, the guy and everyone who knew about the diamonds is dead." Naruto rolled his eyes at their panicked reactions. Then he frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose I should say that I looted the diamonds from his dismembered carcass, it would have been more accurate."

Funny how things work out. He'd seen a picture of guns made of gold(a hilarious thought to be sure), supposedly once owned by a drug lord and he'd gone to pay a visit to another one with the intention of extorting the man for more money the way that he was already doing to the local yakuza. Then he'd seen that the man had some young girls working on drug production in his compound and then the local plant life had become inexplicably homicidal. Funny how these things happened.

The three now rather frightened bellhops were reaffirmed in their decision to reject his offer. The casual way he spoke of these things was seriously disturbing to the regular person, such as them.

"Well, I hope you three have a good life from here on out, I'm going to meet up with my wife and then we're leaving. Goodbye." He finished with a wave and disappeared in a minor distortion of air.

The bellhops let out relieved sighs at finding themselves alone.

"Damn, that was creepy." Shou muttered.

"You think he was telling the truth about the diamonds?" Naoki asked.

"Probably." Yuno sighed.

With another exchange of looks, they started searching the penthouse for the overpriced, shiny rocks.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Finally." Takami huffed when he appeared in the office.

Naruto raised a bemused eyebrow at her impatience as she stalked towards another end of the office and picked up her laptop.

"I've got all of MBI's research saved on my laptop and backed up on this flash drive." She said and gave the aforementioned flash drive to the horned man.

"All the Sekirei tech and the experimental stuff that MBI was working on is down in the vault, you just have to pick it up." She continued and paused in front of him, giving him an almost angry stare.

"There's no need to be nervous you know, you won't feel a thing." He said amusedly.

"I'm not nervous, I just don't trust you not to muck something up, either by accident or on purpose." Takami snarked.

Naruto grinned. She totally was nervous and he knew exactly how to fix it. Far faster than she could react, he wrapped her in a hug and gave her ass a thorough groping.

"Let go of me you perverted -" Her tirade was cut off as she was put into temporal stasis to await revival at the proper time.

Naruto snickered to himself. That was going to be fun when he woke her up again.

"You are so easily amused." Xanna sighed and got up from the chair.

"That's exactly how I like it." He replied.

It was the work of a few seconds to clean out the pre-prepared vault, after which they returned to the office to look out the window for a few moments.

"So, Mutsu has rejected your offer as I told you he would." Xanna commented, leaning up against his side.

"Yep, even after I unwinged him, he wouldn't leave because Mikogami was too terrified of you. He just begged me to put his wings back and wouldn't even consider leaving." Naruto answered.

"That leaves a total one hundred and six Sekirei, since Yume could not be saved." She continued.

"Minus the twenty three psychotic ones that we killed and we're left with eighty three."

"Twelve of those are still deactivated, leaving seventy one active ones." She reminded him.

"True, but we'll revive them so it doesn't make much difference." He dismissed. "We also have the six Ashikabi who were decent enough and wanted to come along."

"I wonder if they will ever realize that the bond no longer affects their emotions." Xanna mused.

"Probably not." Naruto concluded. "The only ones that we rewinged were those who already had loving relationships, with the exception of Yukari and Shiina who were test subjects for the altered bond. Still, even those two show no signs of splitting up unless some major disagreement happens between them."

No way was he going to leave a mind altering bond in place without tweaking it, but telling the Sekirei involved would have caused hissy fits, so it would be kept secret and they would be allowed to think that nothing had changed and if it turned out that they weren't good for each other, the Sekirei wouldn't continue to stay blindly in love with her Ashikabi.

"The view from up here is really quite beautiful." Naruto commented after some moments of silence.

"You don't care about the view Naruto, you're just stalling because you think that being Emperor isn't going to be any fun." Xanna replied with a smirk.

"Can't blame a guy for trying." He muttered, much to her continued amusement.

"It was a really bad try."

Naruto grunted but didn't disagree. He could've done better if there was anything left to do.

Everything was already done, all the Sekirei accounted for and every loose end taken care of. Even Akitsu was safely in stasis, though she had all but begged to be brought out of it as soon as possible, uncaring of everything aside from the fact that she didn't want to be separated from them.

"Well I guess it's time to go then." He sighed and they prepared to leave this dimension.

Just before they could do so, they heard someone sprinting towards the office and turned bemused eyes towards the door.

"WAIT!" Came the shout as Natsuo crashed through the door, his usually neat suit in rumpled disarray.

"And what do you want?" Naruto asked with a frown, staring at the breathless man. He quite honestly hadn't thought about the man in quite a while and had pretty much forgotten his existence.

"You can...bring back...the dead...my lover...please!...will do...anything." Natsuo gasped out, struggling to talk and breathe at the same time after his mad dash for the office.

Naruto and Xanna exchanged looks, both of them figuring that he must have seen Takehito in the past week and drawn the correct conclusions.

"You see husband? This is what happens when you are too generous with the use of your powers and too nice in disposition. Suddenly, everyone desperately needs a favor." Xanna said with an eyeroll.

"I guess." He sighed and turned back to the anxiously expecting Natsuo. "Come over here."

Natsuo practically tripped over himself in his haste to approach, his heart hammering wildly with hope.

Hope which was brutally extinguished when Naruto pushed him out the window and sent him screaming to his death.

"Whiny little motherfucker." He scowled.

"I haven't seen you do something so ruthless in a while, I must say that I missed it." Xanna commented amusedly, staring after the falling man until he hit the concrete.

"That guy just kind of pisses me off with his Uchiha logic." Naruto explained. Honestly, hating the whole world because your lover died? Go kill yourself if it was that bad and spare everyone else the melodrama.

"I suppose it really is Uchiha logic." Xanna agreed. The Uchiha clan had always been well known for producing people that didn't deal too well with reality. Possibly the reason that they were so good at Genjutsu. They also tended to overreact and would burn down a forest if they stubbed their toe on a tree root, though that could also have something to do with their hatred of the Senju.

"Well, now that the mood is well and truly ruined, we might as well get going." Naruto said and took hold of her hand.

"Indeed, it is past time that we do something more constructive than your gleeful ruination of other people's plots."

"I assure you that I have no idea what you're talking about."