Nindō: Dominion

"Unbelievable …" Temari couldn't help but mumble after Maki had left the room, the weakness finally taking over the woman as she leaned on Naruto to keep herself upright. "All it took was some words from you … I guess that's where the famous charisma of Naruto Uzumaki comes from."

The clone couldn't help but chuckle, "Sure, if you say so," he said. "I merely laid out the facts in front of her; the rest was all her own understanding."

Temari knew that things were far more complicated than just that. What Naruto had done in a single sitting was an impossibility. Considering the woman's deep drive and long-drawn motivation, talking to her to change her plans shouldn't even have been an afterthought, but the Hokage made it work. He had undone years' worth of preparations in a single conversation that barely lasted an hour, convincing Maki to turn over a new leaf.

What she didn't realize was that Maki had already understood that the situation was completely hopeless. With the Kazekage gone and Suna bereft of their Tailed Beast, it was going to be impossible for any of them to resist the Hokage's will. Mix that hopeless feeling with Naruto's downright generous offer of setting her as the second-in-command for the village. She knew that she had to accept it.

"How did you know that her master made her peace with the betrayal?" Temari asked.

"I had to pull some information from the main body," Naruto said. "Konoha has an almost perfect recollection of the entirety of the war."

"Even though the Ten-Tails destroyed the headquarters?" Temari asked with a raised brow.

"We recovered all of the information recorded by them eventually. Ino played a big role in it. But that's not the focus here. What matters is your recovery. You will need to lay low for a few days until you're able to cast at least some basic jutsu by yourself," Naruto said.

"Are you going to leave?" Temari frowned, feeling a little insecure about the situation.

"Soon, I have a certain Ōtsutsuki to track down and already have someone on his trail," Naruto said. "But you don't need to worry about your safety. Sai and the Anbu are still going to stay here for a prolonged mission as your guards. Only when things have completely settled down will they return. Until then, they will make sure that —"

Naruto's words were interrupted by a loud sound of metal scraping against metal, followed by multiple similar sounds, indicating that a fight had just started outside.

"What's going on?" Temari looked at Naruto with a frown before hearing a growl that sent a shiver down her spine.

…

Outside the room, after Maki had just exited the room, she had a defeated yet contemplative expression on her face as her second-in-command approached her. Sai and his Anbu were all on full alert, ready to burst into action at a moment's notice. They knew that whatever news she brought them could lead to a dangerous situation.

The dangerous situation indeed occurred as the second-in-command pulled out a kunai and stabbed Maki before anyone could react. Both sides instantly burst into action as they started battling. Sai quickly engaged almost half of the enemy forces with two large drawings that took half of his chakra to make. He couldn't sustain the consumption, but he trusted that Naruto would soon join in. He merely needed to make sure that no one got hurt for a few seconds, and the man would take care of everything, suppressing everyone.

While Sai was correct in his assumption, he wasn't expecting the extreme reaction that was shown by Naruto.

A deep, wrathful growl resounded throughout the building, even spreading outside, waking almost half of the village up from their slumber. Moments later, a mass of gold burst through the walls and made the entire building collapse, including the surroundings.

A massive gold wolf with nine tails burst through the building and roared at the moon that was at its peak. The entire village was roused as the fearsome monster awakened, fostering deep terror in the masses of the village. As for the now-collapsed building, most of the occupants were now unconscious while wrapped in a thin sheen of golden that protected them from harm. Sai was pulled up through the massive wolf that dwarfed the village and stopped at its head.

"Hokage-sama," the man deferentially got down on one knee as Naruto indifferently overlooked Sunagakure.

"You did good work, Sai," Naruto said. "Get up. I'll take care of things here."

The man nodded and stood up, finally noticing Temari standing behind Naruto, enveloped in the golden chakra that seemed to allow her to stay upright. He also saw the leader of the rebellion, Maki, who, while unconscious, was also enveloped in a similar yet deeper gold chakra that closed up her stab wound.

As the wolf continued to roar, striking fear in the hearts of the citizens of Suna, a large amount of sand seemed to approach him, circling around the wolf.

"Calm down, Hokage," Gaara's voice resounded through the village as the sand formed a platform for him to stand in front of the Kyūbi's maw. "Let us have a chat in my office."

The entire spectacle disappeared as if it had never even existed, leaving nothing but a few ruined buildings and their inhabitants nowhere to be seen.

…

"How troublesome …" Naruto's clone mumbled to himself as he finally bid everyone farewell. After giving Suna's people a little show and establishing his prestige in the hearts of their shinobi while also making a decoy of Gaara with Shukaku's help, he felt that the situation was stable enough that his presence in the hidden village was no longer necessary, allowing him to leave after giving Sai some instructions. With Maki healed and on their side, Konoha's Ambu Commander had enough manpower and support to establish himself in Suna until Temari and Kankuro were healed. Naruto had perfunctorily said that he would most likely return to check up on the situation in a day or two, but Sai didn't hold out much hope for it. He knew that the Hokage was a busy man.

The next destination for the clone was Urashiki.

"I'm going to ask for some overtime payment from him once I'm done. This is literally clone abuse, man …" The clone mumbled tiredly to himself while traversing the desert under the moonlight. At this point, the clone felt that he was running on fumes, which was true. Considering the amount of work he had done in the span of the past few days without a speck of sleep, he should've been dispelled long ago.

Almost an hour passed in travel as the clone finally heard the sounds of fighting. "There you are," Naruto's pupils transformed into crosses as his chakra cloak formed over him, along with black markings over his whiskers. Instantly, Naruto's speed increased by an insane margin as he left the sand flying off in his wake, even generating a sonic boom as he continued to gain speed.

Sasuke and Urashiki were embroiled in a taijutsu battle when they both sensed a spike of chakra close by. While a faint smile made its way to Sasuke's face, Urashiki frowned at him. "Troublesome ninja …" He growled as his usually red tomoe-filled Rinnegan mutated into a blue one as the tomoe all disappeared. Just as Naruto's punch hit his jaw, almost causing his head to fly off of his shoulders, Urashiki disappeared, appearing behind Sasuke as he stabbed his fishing line at the man.

Sasuke was extremely surprised at the speed at which Urashiki was able to dodge Naruto's attack, but still reacted timely to the attack, deflecting the line with his sword.

"You either have a premonition-type ability with those blue Rinnegan, or you can warp time itself," Naruto said with narrowed eyes. "You couldn't have dodged my attack otherwise …"

"Damnit!" The Ōtsutsuki growled frustratedly as his aura changed. The glowing crimson chakra rod moved at an insane speed as it targeted Sasuke, who dodged to the side, deflecting it with his sword.

"Huh?" He frowned as the impact that was supposed to come never came, and instead, the line stabbed through his back, making him groan.

Naruto's Rasengan came just in time, blowing the Ōtsutsuki from his location. Even as he tried to use his newly displayed ability to dodge it, a clone appeared right beside him and sent him flying with a painful attack right in the gut.

"Hang in there, buddy, I'll take care of him," Naruto's clone said as he cast the Shadow Clone jutsu to create a hundred copies of himself, overwhelming Urashiki with numbers.

"Damnit …" Under the horribly efficient assault of so many synchronized clones attacking him, Urashiki was getting beaten up from all directions.

"You can slip through time with that ability or something, right?" Naruto asked with an amused tone. "You couldn't have reacted to my attack otherwise …" Even under his musing, Naruto's clones were plain bullying Urashiki.

"I'll see to you in time as well, Kyūbi," the alien growled as Naruto put him under the assault of multiple Rasengans before he disappeared with his dimensional ability.

"Can you track him down, Sasuke?" Naruto asked. "I would rather get rid of him once and for all," Naruto said as he looked at Sasuke, who was being helped up by his clone.

"Yeah …" He groaned as his Rinnegan released an aura that Naruto's clone could somehow sense. It was faint, but he was able to sense some kind of ethereal energy being released from the Rinnegan as a small black rift formed in space. Just as it started expanding, it destabilized and fizzled into nothingness. "Fuck …"

"It's fine," Naruto said. "Rest for a while. You were forced to pause your investigation in Ame because of this guy's appearance in Suna. Now, all of your chakra has been sucked away. I'll lead you back to the village."

"Yeah …" Sasuke didn't say much, merely grunting as the uncomfortable feeling of chakra deprivation left him feeling tired.

"Your daughter is going to be excited to have her father home. Especially after I told her that you might be gone for a longer while," Naruto laughed, changing the somber mood a little as Sasuke faintly smiled as well.

"I guess you're right about that. Don't tell Boruto that I'm in Konoha just yet. I want to spend some leisure time with Sarada before I leave again …" Sasuke said heavily, having difficulty even speaking.

***

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