The Protector - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

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7/26/25

"Not this again…" he thought, as another portal opened.

Naruto did the only thing he could think of at the moment, he caught whatever the small object was, preparing to throw it away should he have to quickly, and it was only then that he got a good look at it.

It was then that he realized that it wasn't an object in his hands, not an explosive or a weapon, but potentially dangerous.

Confused, he was left staring at what he realized to be a child…

One with turquoise green hair on its head.

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Chapter 4-

It was a strange thing, the feeling of confusion.

Ironically, it was a mystery.

The feeling of not knowing, the feeling of knowing you were ignorant. You didn't know what to do, as the list of things you thought were possible was expanded, leading to a new perspective forming.

Whether that was good or bad or not would remain to be seen.

But for the slightest of moments. When confusion overtakes you, you don't know what to do. When the synapses in your brain cease to function. It's as if you are trapped in your own body as a prisoner, with no jailer in his office to let you out.

This, of course, was a surprise to Naruto, although he wouldn't say it was an unwelcome one.

Honestly, he thought after all the things he's seen, all the people he's fought— he fought a freaking goddess for kami's sake! He would have thought he wouldn't get surprised.

But that was before the world began to tear apart, leading beings from another world to enter their own.

Hollows, as one of them had called themselves. Strange, humanoid-like creatures that were adorned in animalistic features and bone masks, as well as being composed entirely of energy, rather than having a physical form or a corpse to leave behind when they died.

Giants had attacked the village where he was staying, beings with great power. But it seemed the smaller ones were even stronger. An Ajuchas is what his previous opponent had called himself, a title perhaps? Or a rank given that indicated their power.

But the strangest thing of all, despite everything that happened. Was that in the lull of battle, just when he was starting to get his bearings together, a new surprise happened?

One that utterly shocked his current plan of action. And that was, in fact, the other type of being that passed through a portal that night…

A child.

An adolescent with short green hair and a cracked ram-skull upon her head and a red mark across her nose, wearing what looked to be a green robe that seemed so small, yet it looked oversized on her small frame.

It was strange, as while he had seen these hollows as resembling humans, he wouldn't have expected one to be so young in age. As a portal opened overhead, delivering the form of a small child, no older than a six-year-old, right to his feet.

Like most children who dropped from over a three-story height, she didn't seem to be doing well after. The correct term is unmoving—unconscious if you will— which to be fair was better than how most children would fair given such a fall.

And so there he was, confused as Kiba was when he found out that most people take showers more than once a week, with a child who was injured and had just come out of a portal through space and time. A child who was not just any type of child, but a being that could shoot lasers off of their body at any time, and possibly had a hunger for human souls.

Great.

He didn't know what to do. There weren't enough pages in the shinobi and ANBU handbooks combined to describe what to do in this situation. In other words…

He didn't get paid enough for this shit.

Of course, his quick thinking and honed instincts took charge a moment later. And he decided the best course of action for now was to make sure there were no traces of him being within the area, and no clues left to follow him.

Naturally, that included the small green-haired child who was in front of him.

He found that the child was still breathing, fortunately, and was very much alive. Just injured from what he could tell, although there was a chance that things couldn't remain that way for long.

He wasn't a medical professional, and he didn't know how the human body functioned apart from the vast ways you could put an end to it. He didn't have any knowledge to fix it, or even tell what was wrong with a person apart from the standard resuscitation practices taught to every shinobi that left the village gates.

Sakura wasn't here with him— ever the bookworm, she would know what was up with the girl within just a few seconds, and it would take her not even a minute to supply a working treatment. But he wasn't like her; he couldn't heal people—not like he did in the war. All he was good for was killing; he was a shinobi after all.

So that meant he needed to find a real person who could help, one who would be inconspicuous enough to not alert his target to his presence, and disinterested enough to not ask any questions.

Ideally, an underground doctor would be nice, but at the moment he had neither the means of contacting one on such short notice, nor the trust that one would no be affiliating with his target to not give word that he was within the area.

So he needed to find somewhere he could go, a place with no ties to the greater public and an incentive to keep their mouth shut.

Luckily, it seemed he had found just the place.

Being taught by the world's premier spy-master, you had a skill to ask around and find backwater locations most people weren't keen on finding.

He was led to a small clinic on the edge of Komegashima, one that seemed to have been vacant of all use, except for one doctor who lived seemed to the same building. Which was good, more staff that were present meant more witnesses, which is what he didn't want.

Appearing at the clinic in the dead of night, he showed up at the doctor's doorstep, and after giving her some… incentive, to open up her clinic for his unexpected companion that needed her aid, she agreed to help him. As he proceeded to pay not only for her services but for her silence as well.

His cover was a wandering journalist, as well as a writer. Giving her the excuse that he was rather famous and would prefer if word did not go around of his presence within the town, as he wanted to get a more authentic view of the area. He had arrived later than expected as he wanted to come to the town late at night. It was then he encountered a young child, who had fallen off a nearby cliff, and was uncertain of her condition and had decided to bring her to her clinic specifically as he wanted her to get the best treatment given the fact that he knew the hospital had little during this time of night.

That was the story he had given her, enough to keep any curiosity satiated for the time being, so as not to raise suspicion about his actual identity.

Which is where he was now, a small clinic in the city he was investigating, awaiting daybreak, as he was left to contemplate what had happened the night prior. All the strange occurrences, all the unexpected sightings, not to mention the newest thorn in his side, are interrupting his mission. The problem was right in front of him.

"You seem anxious," a voice broke out in the middle of the room.

They were in a small clinic, with little room and cloth that separated the walls to make even more space. Several pictures you might expect were all around him, motivational posters, drawers and cabinets, and small tables. The smell of antiseptic filled his nose, an unpleasant smell he had hated ever since his youth. Being ever the hyperactive child, he hated places like that confined you to one room and forced you to stay there for an extended period.

In front of him was a small gurney with an alone figure atop, the child who dropped into his life unexpectedly.

"Huh?" Naruto asked, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Oh, yeah… Sorry," he apologized, not letting the woman know what was going through his mind.

"Don't worry about it, it's late, and you're probably tired, kami knows that I would be asleep if you hadn't shown up at my doorstep," the doctor told him.

"Right, sorry," he apologized again, somewhat solemnly since he had shown up rather unexpectedly. He was just lucky she took the money from him when she did, as he didn't want to injure the girl even more from her transport.

The blonde looked at the woman, a doctor, in front of him. She was a brunette woman with short chin-length hair, a heart-shaped face, and wide, green eyes. For an attire, she was rather informal, choosing to wear a black pencil skirt and black stockings. As well as wearing a pink blouse that was low-cut under a white lab coat, seemingly thrown on in haste, given the fact that he had haphazardly shown up at her doorstep.

He was honest enough to admit that she was very attractive, with ample breasts that she was showing, as well as her wide hips and legs that seemed to run on for miles. It was honestly surprising that she had gone into the medical field. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but he could easily see her as being some concubine or wife of some noble without a care in the world. Why she became a doctor, he wouldn't know, nor ask about.

But what he did ask for was far more pressing for their current matter. "So… Mrs. Yuuki, what did you find?" As he stared at the unconscious girl.

"Miss," she corrected, although not with a passion. The woman reached into her pocket, unveiling a pack of cigarettes she had kept there, as well as a lighter. Taking a drag from her fingertips, he did take note of the golden ring on her left hand, as the embers of ash fell to the floor. "Want one?" the woman inquired.

Naruto merely shook his head, "No, thanks, I don't smoke," he told her. Although it wasn't out of some dumb reason like they were unhealthy or some other bullshit— he was a shinobi, he knew the likelihood he would live till retirement was very slim. He just didn't like the taste; they sucked, and that was all there was to it.

"Suit yourself," she shrugged. "And don't call me my last name, it's much too formal. And don't give me any of that 'doctor'-crap, you can just call me Mikado," she told him.

"Alright then, Mikado," he nodded, finding her unprofessional nature quite amusing, different from the usual people who kept his company. She kind of reminded him a bit of his grandmother figure, Tsunade, although she seemed to be a bit younger, still older than him. If he had to guess, she was around her mid-to-late twenties.

"Very well then…" Mikado Yuuki stated, taking another drag, before she then got to work. "The girl you found seemed to be quite interesting as far as where her physiology is concerned."

"Oh?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"Yes," she nodded, getting right to the girl's bedside, giving notice to the girl's head, particularly the strange deer-like skull atop the young girl's head, much like the other hollows he had seen before. "In terms of a physical perspective, it seems she does not exist, she doesn't have a body, and nearly none of the equipment I have works on her. From what I found, it seems that her body seems to be made up entirely of yin chakra..."

"Yin chakra?" Naruto questioned, seeing as how he had to play the part of a civilian.

"Spiritual energy, it's what humans produce in their chakra coils, deriving from one's consciousness," she explained.

Although he, of course, knew what the theory was. Yin chakra is the spiritual energy that comprises exactly one half of the formula needed to make chakra. As your body naturally produced it within your spirit, although with physical energy, this combination allowed the life energy to flow through your body, breathing life and allowing shinobi to use the techniques they used.

Without physical energy for chakra, your body naturally started to die; that was a fact, as even civilians produced the tiniest amount to sustain themselves.

To think that these creatures wouldn't produce any at all, the thought was inconceivable. And yet, he had the feeling that he should have known all along, as he had sensed that the strange energy they used was familiar to him.

That fact about them was interesting, and yet he felt that wasn't everything special about them.

"Additionally, there's this…" she pointed to the cracked bone-like mask upon her head, fingering it and acting as if she were trying to pull it off, but it would not budge at all. "At first, it seems to be nothing more than a strange costume, but it appears to be a part of her body, or at the very least, grafted to her skin, and removing it seems nigh impossible. That alone is somewhat worrying, but that is not even the strangest part…"

"And what's that?" he asked, as the woman then proceeded to pull out a set of photos.

"The nearly six-inch diameter hole inside her chest, for one,"

"A hole?" he questioned, acting shocked. And he partially was, the other hollow creatures had holes in them, but from what he could tell, this girl didn't have a hole anywhere on her body.

As Mikado showed him the photos of said hole, she had taken, it was a hole right in the middle of her chest, inside her abdomen… on her heart, or where it should be "I had to use the specialized equipment we use to graph a person's chakra coils specifically; the normal X-ray I used didn't work since there is no matter for the radiation to pass through," she explained.

"From what I can tell, said hole isn't causing any harm to her body. It seems as if her body is functioning completely, even with 40% of her heart removed. Although that's not the case, as it's rather the opposite from normal people, as instead of her heart keeping her body alive, her body is alive, therefore her organ function, not the other way around."

It was like a reverse chicken and the egg situation, rearranging the order of life and making it far more complicated. Naturally, a person's organs kept them alive; that was how it worked. And yet this girl defied that principle, as she was seemingly alive for no reason other than being alive. Her organs followed, seemingly for no reason other than to resemble some former life. Yet they weren't necessary for her continued existence, making her exponentially more durable than most. The logical, researcher side of her questioned how far the limit would go in her life, and how much damage she might be able to incur before he life decided to give out. Limbs? A chunk of her side being torn open? Perhaps she might even be able to survive being cut in half given enough willpower? Of course, that was purely speculative, and she wasn't crazy enough to actually test her theories.

But one thing was for certain, and that was this child was a medical miracle beyond all measure…

And that she needed a drink when this was done, the strongest she could find.

"I have never seen anybody like this, perhaps she is an inheritor of a bloodline limit of some sort?" she questioned her working theory.

She knew most Kekkei Genkai changed their users' anatomy; hell, from what she had heard, there used to be a clan from Kirigakure that could meld and shape their bones, giving them a complete layer of bone all across their body like an array of muscles along their skin. And yet she would not have guessed a bloodline could cause such drastic changes to the human body. To the point, it would make them question just what it meant to be alive.

From what she could surmise, a person with such a biological make-up would have a lifespan that was dramatically longer than their own; they didn't require food, they didn't require sleep. Their bodies were just… different.

And she did not fully know what that meant.

"From what i can gather, given her body's injury, she might be in a small coma, and should wake up in the coming days," she told him. From what she could discern, this was her body's natural response to traumatic injury, like a hibernation state, that would greatly increase her body's healing factor. Which was at an even more accelerated rate than their own. Which, if she hadn't seen the other things her body was capable of, she would have been astounded by. Now she was used to being surprised, and it had become expected.

A medical miracle indeed.

"I see…" Naruto said, even he was in disbelief at the ordeal. To think the creatures he had faced in the forest just a few hours prior would be so unbelievable.

He would really have to thank Doctor Mikado when this was over, maybe send her an even more egregious sum of money. She had more than proven her worth and expertise as far as he was concerned.

Although that would be after he returned to Konoha, as of right now… he still had a mission to accomplish.

"I have to go now," he told her, as he made to leave the small clinic, trying to do some more recon work. "Let me know if there is any progress on the girl waking up," he told her, really hoping that the girl wasn't as hostile as the other creatures he had faced; that would be unfortunate.

As he made his way out, he gave one final look at the clinic, seeing its unused state. He absentmindedly wondered how this place had ended up this way. A clinic with no patients, a doctor who didn't aid anyone, in a city of gambling and sin.

Looking for the head doctor, Mikado's office, seeing her personal filing cabinets and the expected posters that were similar to the rest of the clinic. But there were also a few picture frames that had been placed on their face, leaving the photographs completely unreadable to anybody. A recently dead relative, perhaps?

Perplexing, although he supposed it wasn't any of his business; he had his own job to do.

As the blonde shinobi left, the doctor kept staring at the young girl, lost in thought, as she continued to take a drag of her cigarette, as the greyed ash started to fall onto the tile floor. She did not mind, as she merely threw her used tobacco on the ground and crushed it with her heel.

Everything was getting far too troublesome for her liking.

XXX

He felt as if he were running out of time; this mission was too slow, too unnatural. And he was used to things going south; that was basically the way every mission he went on turned out. Yet this was different; this town was different.

For some reason, he had a bad feeling about everything, everyone. The people in this town were closed off, guarded, and reluctant to speak about what he truly wanted to know. Careful prodding didn't help, and even when he tried to pay a few of the more loquacious fellows in need of monetary compensation. Everyone needed money in a gambling town, and yet the locals didn't budge an inch. Something was keeping their mouths shut.

It reminded him of how the people were in Wave Country before they stopped Gato. Before the people were free.

And yet, here he was, within a town in fire country, with the same effect.

He needed to know what was going on within this town.

He was running out of time; the longer he spent within these borders, the longer he risked getting caught. And so he did something risky, going into the alleys of the streets, hidden in the darkness, away from prying eyes. Summoning a set of shadow clones, his signature jutsu, and the technique he had spent years mastering.

He was the world's premier master in all things cloning techniques, performing the technique even better than the initial creator of the jutsu, as he had proven when he had met the second Hokage during the war. He had mastered the technique to the point where even with his high chakra reserves, the amount of excess chakra was so minute that there was little to no chakra used as excess. That was good, if there was a sensor within this town, they likely wouldn't be able to detect he had used chakra within the area.

After their summoning, he sent most of them to investigate the town, one to break into the local police station, and two of them to go to two of the casinos in the town. As he went to the third, the casino and final in the city. Trying to scope out if there was any information he could find on his target or the Sato corporation.

As he entered the building and resort, hoping to find a client list of some kind, detailing whether his client was in the building. Seeing that the personnel list was stored in the area designated for staff only, and with the security in this place, he would need a distraction. He couldn't risk getting caught, lest his presence potentially alert his target that he was in the area, and flee the city.

Luckily, he knew just the thing that would get people's attention.

Heading into the casino, his vision was flashed with the familiar neon lights he was used to seeing in gambling resorts and casinos. Having visited his fair share from when he went traveling to find Tsunade, back when he and his old master Jiraya were searching for her to bring her back to the village.

Times were good back then, different from what they are now. He was different back then…

He saw the numerous lines of slot machines lining the walls, as well as a few tables for various card games, among other things. But more importantly, he saw the people. The people within casinos never changed; they were always the same.

There were the people with hope in their eyes just entering the building, entering the building with a glint that said they were trying to win it big. Then there were those who had won a moderate amount, more than they spent. Yet the green devil had overtaken them; they were not content to keep their winnings, no, they wanted more. Then those lost everything, the ones who were unfit to cope with the fact that the house had won, and that they had won nothing. Then some left the building, finally ready to accept what had happened. Only for them to gain some more money, and come back once again, hoping to win back more money than they had put into the resort, only to fail again.

A vicious cycle of grief it was, and yet most people couldn't see it.

When he was younger, his sensei had explained to him the three vices for a person. The three things a man could get hooked on, which would consume their whole lives, should they not be careful.

Money, alcohol, and women. Of course, his master was an enthusiast of all those things, and at the time, he had called him out for it. But now, looking back, he was grateful for the lesson, even if his own sensei hadn't taken it to heart.

Jiraiya had wanted him to be better than him in many ways. He wanted him to keep his youthful hope untarnished.

If only he could say that was something he had managed to accomplish… if only.

Finding the type he wanted, someone who was still riding the high, hopeful of hitting it big. They were usually the ones easiest to talk to. He saw a man at a slot machine with dark hair and a youthful appearance, perfect for the distraction he needed

He walked up to him with a friendly greeting. "Hey man, how's it going?" Naruto said, masking his face into a presentable smile, as he treated him like an old friend. He looked around, spotting three security cameras overhead, one over the man before him.

"Uhhhh… hey?" the man said, slightly confused as to why a random man was talking to him. Before he rolled again, it landed on a losing roll, taking the coins he had put into it, and leaving him with nothing. "Damn it!" he shouted in rage.

"Having trouble?" the blonde questioned. As Naruto leaned over his shoulder, standing at an angle to where the camera above them couldn't see what he was doing exactly.

"Yeah, I am…" he sighed. "I've been at this all day, maybe I should just cut my losses."

"Maybe you should," Naruto agreed. "But you see, there's a trick with them. Where are you from?" he strangely asked, distracting the man, as he discreetly grabbed the machine's lever and pulled it.

"What? Oh, I'm from rice country…?" he said, distracted. As the slots rolled themselves.

"Rice country? I've been there a few times, lovely scenery," Naruto told him. Of course, he neglected to mention that the only times he went to the country were to destroy Orochimaru's old sound bases. Mostly destroying the illustrious scenery he had just mentioned.

As the slots rolled themselves, Naruto stepped back, and each of the three slots landed on a single image.

7. 7. 7.

The winning numbers, as he had just hit the jackpot.

"Yeah… wait—what?!" The man stated, as the lights started flashing, signaling to the whole casino what he had just won.

"Good talk…" Naruto muttered as he walked off. The staff soon corralled around him, as well as any prying eyes, many of which were envious of a forgotten possibility. Many of which soon turned to looks of hope, reinvigorating the thought that they too could hit it big in the casino.

As for what he had done? It was rather simple.

He didn't use any sort of lightning technique to short out the slot machine at the right moment, or use chakra to stop the machine's slots in place. No, he used a gift far more natural to him than any of his abilities.

He simply had the devil's luck.

It happened to him anytime he laid his hands on a slot machine, he would always hit it big on his first try. And he knew it was a constant; he and Jiraiya-sensei had very much tested the limits of their ability when they had gone on their training trip so long ago.

It was as if he were blessed by Kami herself to always be lucky.

Of course, that didn't correlate into luck with his missions, as the number of missions he could count that went absolutely smoothly in his career would probably fit on a single hand.

Nevertheless, he was banking on this skill of his to cause a decent distraction as most of the staff went out to congratulate and perhaps interrogate the man who had just won the jackpot. This also made it so most of the security were distracted, even on a subconscious level, the guard paid more attention to the man who had won it big, wishing they were in his place too.

He could use this distraction to get into the back rooms of the building, where only the staff could go undetected. Motioning himself near the front desk, where the door was, he paid attention to the guards, who were looking away. The security cameras also swiveled in a pattern, observing the room from a distance. He had tracked the pattern ever since he had arrived in the building and had spotted a single blind spot that left no cameras along the door. He used that blind spot and the momentary distraction to make his way into the back of the building, looking for the list of residents who were staying within the resort. Odds are he was using a fake name or using one of his associates' identities. That, however, wouldn't be a problem, Konoha's spy network had compiled a list of identities Iwatashi Sato.

People tended to work in patterns, and a man like Iwatashi was a man who did not change.

Building up these aliases' and their clientells was hard enough, so the likelihood that he would be changing them this time around was very low.

Weaving his way around the hallways, he took extra care not to be seen by any camera or staff members.

Now, usually, he would just use a camouflage technique, like the one Jiraiya showed him on the numerous occasions he wanted to spy on the women's bathing area in the various hot springs they visited. However, the thing with casinos was that they were special. They had adapted to the times of shinobi, as many of them— the ones that were rich enough to afford—had specialized seals installed. Making it so that it detected any unusual fluctuations of chakra in a person's body from the moment they entered the building. On more than one occasion, shinobi were known for using their developed skills specifically to have the edge in the casinos. Of course, many of the casino's management weren't too keen on them shifting the odds in their favor, which is why they would often commission seal masters to create these seals, making it so if anyone were to use chakra in the building, they would be notified, and things would get alot more complicated from there. That was why he made his clones outside, and why he had neglected to use any jutsu once he stepped inside. Since they were autonomous, they did not alert the other casinos of what he was doing.

However, it also meant he had to do things the old-fashioned way, without the use of chakra to aid him in sneaking around, making things far more difficult. But he was a shinobi; he could handle breaking into a little resort without being seen, no problem. He had faced gods and Juubi jinchurki before; this was child's play.

And he did just that, finding the room where they held the records, trying to find if his target was still here or had checked in within the recent past… only he found nothing. No traces of his target, and no record of him being within the area at all.

As he felt his clones relay a message, each one of them performed similar acts to get into the back rooms of the other two resorts.

Their results were much the same, which was troubling. Maybe the tip that Iwatashi Sato would be in the area was a ruse, which meant he was likely having his meeting somewhere else, and that… would make things even more complicated. He hoped things didn't turn out that way.

Before he could process his next move, he weaved under a couple of filing cabinets, as the dark room he was within spontaneously erupted into light.

"Hello, is anyone in here?" A male voice questioned, as Naruto hid. The man was questioning if he had heard something. Before he shrugged off his earlier suspicions, he figured it to be his imagination. As he then did his business, opening the cabinet he wanted and retrieving a few documents.

Although it was at that moment that Naruto noticed something odd about the man's appearance, the fact was that the man's uniform was different from the usual hotel worker he had seen before. No, this man was wearing an all-blue uniform with blue slacks and a blue cap. He also saw a golden badge on his chest pocket.

A police officer.

But what was the local police doing in the building? He wasn't sure, but it was something his intuition told him to investigate. It further, and he did just that.

XXX

Following the police officer in a way he would not be spotted, he was led to the resort's loading bay. The place where a casino would transfer the various objects, like food supplies, cooking equipment, cards, tokens, and money. All the items it would need to sustain itself.

As he watched the police officer he had been following walk up to several more police officers, clipboard in hand, with the sheet of paper he had retrieved. Hiding behind a set of crates off to the side, he saw numerous forklifts moving about, transporting several crates across the area, much more than they normally should.

"Alright, I got it, the inventory list we need. Let's make sure we get these things loaded correctly, for Sunofureku-sama," the cop said, grouping up with his fellow policemen.

Naruto was surprised, questioning why so many officers were within the building. Did the other casinos in the city have the same types of operations within them? And who was Sunofureku-sama— translating to Lord-snowflake. An alias his target used, perhaps? He hoped so, that would make his life far easier.

He shuffled about, trying to get a better vantage point to see exactly what was within the crates they were moving. Hoping that would shed some light on the hotel's mysterious operation, they had gone. But as he did, one of the forklifts stuttered for just a second, but that was more than enough for it to be thrown off balance. This caused the crate it was transporting to fall out of its grasp, landing on the floor and cracking open, revealing the contents inside.

Naruto was left to witness numerous vials of ink, as well as strange paper that was within the boxes they were carrying.

Sealing paper, he realized, as well as the ink.

Just why would a casino in a gambling town need so much sealing equipment? It wasn't like they would be able to make any use of it.

It was then that a new voice entered the room, one that surprised him. "What the hell are you doing?! Be careful with those, they are more valuable than you can possibly imagine." A raspy voice spoke, sending chills down all of the workers' spines, as they diligently picked up the supplies at an even faster pace than they had before.

As a new figure stepped into his view, it was a man in a dark outfit, with black skin, much like the people of Lightning Country. He wore a mask that covered half of his face, resembling Kakashi's. And he wore a black shinboi pants and sandals. He also had a strange swirl tattoo on his face, which resembled that of the Uzumaki clan symbol. This man was obviously a shinobi; he could tell just by the way he carried himself. The more obvious indicator was the silver hitai-ate above his head with a cloud-like symbol… the metal having a slash through it.

The indicator of a rogue shinobi.

This was getting far more complicated.

He had heard Iwatashi had employed rogue shinobi; this man must be one of them.

And it was just then that the dark-skinned male turned around, as Naruto hid right before the man spotted him. He could feel the man's eyes lingering, staying on the area he hid behind, as if trying to discern if he was there. Before he looked away, grumbling about incompetent workers.

Naruto inwardly felt a sigh of relief go through him, even as he kept his breathing at a minimum, holding his breath and allowing his body to make a sound.

He realized he needed to get out of there.

He needed to discern his next step, and he did just that.

End Chapter.

An: This chapter was interesting because I wanted to explore several of the aspects of the shinobi world. Like how modern doctors acclimate to aiding shinobi.

Mikado Yuuki, the doctor; was inspired by Mikado Ryouko from To Love Ru, I was reading it at the time and thought she would fit the story. But for the purpose of this fic she's basically an OC.

I changed Nel/Nelliel's hollow hole location as well, just for the future.

I also wanted to explore hollow physiology a bit, because I think it's interesting to see why spirits can survive so many hits. Hiyori was cut in half after all, even with Orihime, that would likely kill someone pretty quick.

It's just my interpretation of it; though.

Plus I focused a bit on gambling. I thought it would also be something to explore. I mean, if you have hundreds of superpowered shinobi, are you going to tell me that at least one isn't going to try and scam a casino? Tsunade likely tried hundreds of times.

I just think it would be interesting as a concept to see how they would handle it, like you see in this chapter.

The only thing I wasn't 100% on was Naruto winning through luck, but i decided to keep it because why not?

The town, Mikado, and the mysterious shinobi will br something I explore in the next few chapters.

Like I said in the summary, this will be a bit of a slow burn, but hopefully the payoff will be there to satisfy.

Be sure to favorite this story if you like it, this one doesn't do all too well and it would really help my motivation with this.

I do have another chapter of this planned, and that should come out within the coming weeks.

Please leave me lots and lots of NICE reviews.