23 The plan
Evening settled over Konoha by the time Naruto returned from the market. Temari had gone back to her hotel to finish packing, her departure hanging quietly in the air like an unfinished sentence. Tomorrow, she would return to Sunagakure.
Naruto, for his part, had one last errand of his own.
He was waiting for Tsunade to finish her work so she could open the village vault and let him choose a blade. Until then, he sat cross-legged in an empty training room, eyes closed, breath steady. His awareness slipped inward, past flesh and chakra, into the familiar red-lit space behind the seal.
Kurama was already there, lounging against the bars.
"So," Naruto said calmly, "tomorrow it starts. You ready?"
Kurama snorted. "I'm always ready, brat. Just don't trip over your own plans."
Naruto frowned slightly. "That's exactly what I'm worried about. Are we really sure we shouldn't just strike first? If Shukaku gets sealed, they're already ahead. I only know the timing for Gaara. I don't know when the others fall."
Kurama's tails flicked. "You rush in blind, you lose control of the board. You already decided. We deal with what's in front of us. Akatsuki, Uchiha, puppets, whatever crawls out."
Naruto nodded. "If the Uchiha shows up, I'm not wasting time."
Kurama huffed. "Relax. Itachi isn't a god. Mid-tier S-rank at best. Orochimaru overhyped him."
"I don't care who praised him," Naruto replied flatly. "We handle him first. Then we save Gaara. And your idiot brother."
Kurama grinned, sharp and feral. "Now that sounds like a plan."
There was a pause before Kurama tilted his head. "Still curious though. Why the sudden obsession with a sword?"
Naruto smiled faintly. "Not just a sword. Wind chakra changes the equation. I have ideas."
"Wind armor would be safer," Kurama said. "No backlash. My healing covers the rest."
"Not yet," Naruto replied. "Can't show all our cards at once. We need secrets."
Kurama studied him for a moment. "So. Walk me through it."
Naruto took a breath. "First priority is Gaara. I'm taking Shizune with me, not Sakura."
Kurama raised an eyebrow. "Still don't get why you're ditching the pink screamer."
"Because she's a liability," Naruto said bluntly. "She talks. I don't want my jinchūriki status spreading beyond those who already know. And emotionally, she's unstable when Sasuke is involved. I can't afford that during the mission."
Kurama hummed. "Fair."
"And more than that," Naruto continued, "Shizune is protected. Those elders won't dare touch her. If they try, Tsunade will erase them. Sakura doesn't have that shield."
Kurama's eyes narrowed. "You've been thinking."
"I've been watching," Naruto corrected. "Shizune's been training hard these last three years. Her chakra control is clean. Her speed is better. I'm confident she can develop an antidote faster than Sakura ever could. That alone saves us time."
"And Sasori?"
"We beat him," Naruto said. "But first comes the Uchiha."
Something dark flickered through his eyes. "I'm going to make him regret surviving that night."
Kurama smiled widely. "So the Uchiha finally gets dragged through the mud."
Naruto exhaled slowly. "I never understood why my world worshipped him. Bad boy image. Tragic story. People forgot he killed children. His own blood."
Kurama snorted. "If there's an afterlife, his clan's already waiting to tear him apart."
"Killing your family isn't ideology," Naruto said quietly. "It's monstrous. Fugaku and Mikoto weren't saints, but they weren't planning a massacre. This village belonged to the Uchiha as much as the Senju."
Kurama's voice dropped. "He got played. By Sarutobi. By the elders. By Obito. Three hands pulling strings until the clan snapped."
Naruto opened his eyes inside the seal, resolve hard as steel.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we change the script."
Outside, the evening bells of Konoha rang softly.