“Hokage-sama, the Iwa delegation is at the village gates,” the chunin told Sarutobi.

I won’t be the Hokage much longer.

Sarutobi wanted to correct him but decided not to. He accepted this last job as his Hokage to meet with the envoys of the Iwagakure.

His lost leg was now replaced with a fake, light metal one. He still haven’t got used to it so he had to use a cane for now.

“Good,” Sarutobi said, taking a drag from his pipe. Sitting in his office was getting more tiring by the day. He reminded himself that all of this was just for a little longer. “What about our honorable guests?”

“They’re being taken to the tower as we speak.”

“Escort the delegation here, ensure that there are no accidents on the way,” he ordered. Konoha really didn’t need any issues during this meeting. He would relax only when the Iwa-nin, all of them, had been escorted to the border. “One more thing, where is Harissen-san?”

“Still at the safehouse, according to the ANBU team shadowing him.”

“Ensure that he goes nowhere near the delegation.”

“Yes, sir,” the shinobi said before leaving the office. Sarutobi had been wrong.

The last thing Konoha needed was Iwa believing that the Yellow Flash was still alive because someone saw his long-lost twin.

Hopefully his little plan would distract the Nord long enough.

:x:x:x:x:x:x:x:

Conrad sighed, checking himself in the mirror.

His facial hair was still too short. It was more akin to glorified stubble than a proper beard. It would take many more months before it was back to an acceptable length again.

He finished washing his face before going back to the kitchen area, ignoring the loud sound of feet running as Naruto and Ta’Sava fought to be first into the bathroom. Shinobi skills proved to be the decisive factor this morning.

“Hahahaha! I win!” Naruto crowed ungraciously, as Ta’Sava grumbled outside.

“Not fair! Ta’Sava is not as fast as Naruto!”

“Too bad, the bathroom is mine now!”

Back in the kitchen, Conrad was welcomed by the sight of Sven making a steaming teapot float across the room with his magic. With great concentration, the young wizard poured the hot liquid into five cups before letting it land on the table.

Sure, it wasn’t perfect, the teapot had come close to falling from the telekinetic grasp a couple of times, but that was still better than what Conrad could do when he had been studying magic at the Winterhold College, at a much later age. Still...

“Sven, don’t practice that with something that contains hot liquids,” he reprimanded. “You could hurt someone.”

“Nobody was in the kitchen, Master.”

“You were in the kitchen,” Conrad pointed out. The young Imperial just rolled his eyes, in perfect teen fashion.

Was this what he’d have to look forward to with Naruto one day?

Eyerolls and being ignored?

That would require Naruto staying a part of his life by the time he turned into a moody young man, though. Which seemed to depend on what Sarutobi’s successor, whoever that may be, would say on the matter. Either that or ask the boy if he wanted to run away with him. That was an option, too.

The temptation to simply whisk him away without asking was stronger than Conrad wanted to admit.

Before Conrad could start mulling through a few possible plans for benevolent and totally justified kidnapping, he was distracted by someone knocking at the door. He went to answer and there was Inoichi, who stepped inside at the unspoken invitation.

“What are you doing here?” Conrad asked.

“Good morning, Conrad, what a warm welcome,” Inoichi deadpanned.

“Hello, Inoichi,” he said in a matching tone of his voice. “What are you doing here so early?”

The last time Conrad had showed up with some bottles of sake at the man’s house, he had been told that the Yamanaka clan leader was very busy. If that was because he was supposedly the head of the entire Interrogation department or because his wife wasn’t happy with the two of them having a few drinks he wasn’t sure. In his defense, Conrad wasn’t willing to talk about daedric lore without some drinks in his body, and the booze they had here was not very satisfying for his taste.

He couldn’t wait for his mead to be ready.

“I’m afraid I’m here just for a delivery,” Inoichi said, putting a scroll in Conrad’s hands. “Straight from the Hokage. He would have delivered it himself, but he’s busy today.”

“Thanks…?” Conrad said, looking at the scroll uncertainly. “Why did he send me a letter?”

“It’s not a letter, it’s a sealing scroll.”

Conrad looked to the scroll, then back at Inoichi. “A what?”

“Wait, you don’t… of course you don’t know, sorry. I should’ve realized. It’s a sealing scroll, it’s used to store things.”

“What kinds of things?” Conrad asked, turning the scroll over in his hands. It didn’t look capable of holding much inside of it, being a literal roll of paper and whatnot.

“Whatever you might need to keep somewhere safe,” Inoichi answered. “In this specific one, things that apparently belong to you. The Hokage wished to deliver them.”

Conrad stopped inspecting the scroll and opened it, revealing a complex array of runes and symbols. Given the way Inoichi was looking at him, he decided this was probably an example of weird Shinobi magic. He could always examine it later.

“Just ask Naruto to push a bit of chakra in the seal to activate it,” Inoichi explained before Conrad could ask. "By the way, you and Naruto are invited to dinner tonight, at Chouza's place."

"Who?"

"Ah, you met us both during the invasion, I guess you weren't properly introduced. He was a friend of Minato's too, so..."

"I see, very well," Conrad agreed.

"Come to my place a little before dinner, the Akimichi clan is not far from there," Inoichi told him, before opening the door again and facing him. "I’m afraid I really have to go now.”

“Already? Are you that eager to get inside someone’s head?”

“My job isn’t just poking around in peoples’ brains, Conrad. See you soon.” And with that, Inoichi nodded farewell and left, leaving Conrad to stare at the scroll. He wasn’t sure what Inoichi meant about it containing his things. He’d already gotten his weapons, armor and other belongings back. Even his staff.

After the kids had showered and everyone had eaten, Conrad took Naruto off to the side while his apprentices practiced their spellcasting outside. He asked Naruto about these scrolls with seals in them.

“Oh, yeah! Kakashi-sensei showed one to us once,” Naruto said. “Never had to use one before, though. Why’d the Old Man give it to you?”

“Apparently it has something that belongs to me inside it,” Conrad responded, trying to bite back a groan. This was probably the Hokage trying to be mysterious by proxy. “Inoichi told me something about you having to push some chakra into it to open it.”

In his opinion it didn’t seem like a very helpful way to give instructions to use an unknown shinobi thing. Still, they put the scroll on the table and after unrolling it Naruto touched it, closing his eyes. There was a puff of smoke which made him cough a little bit. Before he could ask if that was what was supposed to happen, he saw how the scroll was now covered by a pile of objects. A heap of loot, clearly from Tamriel, was strewn all over the table, spilling over into the floor.

Conrad’s mind nearly went into overdrive trying to figure out how this was possible. Magic, of course. But what kind? How did it work? Did the scroll contain the items through some sort of… shrinking spell? No, that didn’t make sense. Maybe the items were turned into a scroll, and… no, the scroll was clearly still on the table, underneath all the other things.

Reluctantly, he decided that he’d have to figure it out later, his attention moving to said items from Tamriel laying in front of them. Valuable things.

Steel armor, slightly rusted and well worn, but forged splendidly nonetheless. A ring with a bright gem. A few books, some of which were on the floor now. A coin purse that, given the size, probably held a dozen golden septims tops. And a single ebony blade, lovingly engraved with traditional Nordic designs.

“Whoa,” Naruto said. “You didn’t tell me you had all this.”

“It isn’t mine,” Conrad said, his voice thickening with sudden realization. “These are my mother’s things.”

“Grandma’s things?!” Naruto shouted, in shock or excitement Conrad didn’t know, but the boy was loud as usual. “Wait, how do you know that?”

“It’s the only explanation that makes sense. I didn’t arrive with these items, and I doubt the Hokage would give them to me without a reason,” he explained, his eyes not moving from the gaping gashes and broken mail rings in the armor. “I guess that your Hokage thought I’d appreciate the gesture.”

“Yeah, of course we do… right?” Naruto slowly asked, sounding uncertain after looking at Conrad's expression.

Conrad tried to think about how he, a grown man old enough that some of the other adults he knew had been children when he had killed his first dragon, could explain to a young orphan that had been starving for affection his whole life why he didn’t appreciate being given some mementos of his dead mother whom he’d never met. He couldn’t see any way to do this successfully or with the proper tact such a discussion would require, and opted to mumble something vaguely affirmative while picking up the books.

Even if they were his mother’s, it didn’t mean they deserved to stay on the kitchen floor. Urag gro-Shub had taught him better than that.

Just as he finished placing them on a small pile on the table, he saw the boy’s hand drifting closer to the ebony blade, and lightly slapped it.

“Don’t touch anything until I tell you it’s safe,” Conrad ordered after Naruto retracted his hand.

“But... they’re Grandma’s things. Why wouldn’t they be safe?”

Conrad suppressed a sigh. It was a reasonable assumption for a child to have. But still one that could get him killed or maimed if he ever found himself to deal with magic in Tamriel.

“Look… This stuff is from my homeland, it may be magical,” he explained. Actually, Conrad was ready to bet on it. “Some magic items can be downright nasty.”

Naruto scrunched up his eyes in confusion.

“Nasty? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Some items have magic that can be dangerous if you don’t know how to use it,” he started explaining. “Others may be cursed.”

“Cursed?” Naruto asked disbelievingly.

“It means that bad stuff may happen if you use them, or touch them, or…”

“I know what cursed means!” Naruto exclaimed. “Just, what kind of bad stuff?”

“It depends. Some may just be annoying… Once, I found a quill that would write on its own, but that only wrote down swear words.”

“That doesn’t sound so ba―”

“And another time, I found a guy who had been killed by the ring he was wearing: it had sucked out all of his blood.”

At that, Naruto leaned as far from the table as his chair allowed him to. “Ew. So... no poking the things.”

“No poking the things until I poke them,” Conrad corrected.

“But Uncle, why do you think that Grandma might have had some cursed things with her when…?” Naruto trailed off, uncertainly.

“When she died?” Conrad completed the question. “I’ll admit that it’s… improbable. But not impossible.”

Maybe it was petty of him, but if he had to deal with his mother’s belongings, he was going to treat them the same way he treated any loot gained during his trips around Skyrim and beyond.

“So… why is that sword black?” Naruto asked, pointing at the nordic blade.

“Ebony. Very rare, very strong.” He picked it up carefully, using a rag to avoid touching it directly and hefted it, testing the balance.

“What’s ebony?”

“The strongest natural metal in existence. It’s hard to forge and even harder to find, since the biggest veins in Tamriel are unreachable thanks to a volcano.”

Naruto looked at the sword appraisingly. “And Grandma had something like that?”

Conrad shrugged. “Looks like it. I don’t know much about who she was or what she did, but she must have been pretty good if she had a blade this rare.”

“Yeah, Grandma must have been the strongest!” the boy cheered.

Conrad carefully ignored that. He had just said that the woman had probably been skilled, after all… and it wasn’t like he didn’t know already. One of the very few things his father told him was that his mother had been a very skilled warrior. He just had not seen proof of it until now.

Conrad moved his hand along the blade, being careful not to touch it. He felt... yes, there was something in this blade. Something that had been mostly spent by now, the soul trapped in the blade was almost gone. It probably had a good fight or two left. Still, what kind of enchantment was it…? Conrad tried to remember the lesson that he had not been that interested in.

Closing his eyes, he tried to reach the magic inside of the blade. He felt a disconcerting warmth that contrasted to how cool the blade was supposed to be. There was a drive to consume... no, not consume, damage, destroy, in the magic. Destruction magic, then.

If his mother had been a swordswoman, and given the almost-spent charge inside of the saber, Conrad was fairly sure that the weapon wasn't cursed. He carefully grasped the hilt in his right hand and held it tight. He felt as the blade stirred under his magic, unnatural embers sparking to life across its surface, glowing bright in the runes carved into it.

"Flame enchantment," he said to Naruto as fire spread along the blade. "Anything cut with this will burn."

"Whoa!" Naruto exclaimed, mouth hanging open.

"First time seeing a magic weapon, boy?"

"Well, yeah! Can I have it?” Naruto asked, briefly surprising Conrad. He should’ve expected such a question. He had been a kid too once, and spent quite a few afternoons pretending that a stick was an enchanted sword out of some legend. Except Naruto didn’t want to pretend.

“Do you even know how to use a sword?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. He had still not seen many shinobi using blades, with the exception of those masked guards and some of the invaders he had killed. He wondered why. Going around without a proper weapon just seemed… odd. Those overly small knives the Shinobi seemed oddly fond of didn’t count.

“Well… no,” the boy admitted. “But Kakashi-sensei could teach me?”

“Not with this weapon,” Conrad shook his head, putting the sabre back in its sheath, smothering the glowing runes and flames.

“Aww, come on…” Naruto whined.

“It’s not for practice, boy,” Conrad scolded. “You do not learn to use a weapon with a magical one.”

“But isn’t your axe magical?" Naruto asked, looking at it. “Does it fly back in your hand or something?

"No, it's not," Conrad answered, picking up the axe and freeing it from its leather sheath so that Naruto could inspect the weapon for himself.

"But…” Naruto hesitated, clearly confused when no magic appeared on the axe’s edge . “Aren't you a wizard, I mean a mage?"

"Battlemage" he corrected.

“Battlemage were fare more flexible than mages. We can switch our attack range at any situation. Switching melee and range were no problem for me,” in a tone that made it clear the boy was just stating the obvious as he re-sheathed his axe.

"Then why isn't your weapon en... ench... ?" Naruto tried, struggling with the word.

"Enchanted," Conrad helped him. He just hoped he didn’t mess up the translation, it would’ve been embarrassing if a scholar found out.

"Yeah, that."

"Because everyone remembers someone going around with a weapon that spews fire or lightning or pure evil energy or whatever was available when the weapon was enchanted. Nobody bats an eye when they see someone with a completely normal weapon. Do you understand?"

"Not really, Uncle,” Naruto admitted. “Wouldn't it be better having an axe like Grandma's sword?"

"It's... it's a bit like when you shinobi go around, being sneaky and unseen," he said, picking up the rag again and trying to figure which item to take a look at next… the ring would do.

"Oh," Naruto said, realization dawning on his face.

"Besides, I’m not very good at enchanting things," Conrad told the boy as he examined the ring. Sure, there was also the fact that seeing the Soul Cairn had squashed whatever remote interest he’d had in experimenting in the field until he managed to get it out of sheer stubbornness, but that place was something Naruto didn’t need to know about until Conrad figured out if it was possible to get Minato’s soul out of it. Or if it was impossible.

The ring was a simple band of gold, with a square-cut ruby in the middle. Absolutely unremarkable, similar to many rings Conrad had used as a more portable substitute for a heavier sum of Septims. He didn’t care for the ruby or the gold though, he was more interested in the specks of magic he could feel even through the rag.

Whatever had been used to enchant the ring had been a powerful creature once, that’s sure. He slowly moved his fingers closer to the ring, trying to listen through them to the sorceries bound to it. A soothing sensation that only he could feel reached his senses, singing in the language of the Restoration school. A soothing choir of healing and good vitality.

He grinned when he realized exactly what the ring did.

"Here, boy. Put this on and keep it on."

"What? Why?" Naruto eyed the ring dubiously. "Aren't rings girly?"

“Girly?” Conrad asked, bewildered.

“You know, for girls!”

"Don't be stupid. Rings aren't girly.” Honestly, where did that logic even come from?

“They are!” Naruto insisted childishly.

“Look, it belonged to your grandmother, and I’m giving it to you now. It’s yours,” Conrad said pointedly, looking Naruto in the eyes. If he had to use his mother’s memory to let the boy keep something that would make him less keen to die, so be it. “Now, wear it."

"Alright, alright! But why do I have to?” Naruto whined, putting the ring on his finger and grimacing all the while.

"This ring has a very strong magic that makes you heal faster, and given how much you wind up getting hurt, clearly you need it."

Maybe with this Conrad wouldn’t have to worry about rushing to his bruised and battered nephew’s side with all the potions he could carry. Of course, it’d be best if his nephew simply never got hurt at all, but something told him that was a tall order.

"But I already―" Naruto paused and very deliberately stopped himself from saying whatever he was about to say.

Conrad eyed him suspiciously. "What, boy? Spit it out."

"Nothing," Naruto muttered, taking the ring and slipping it onto his finger, taking a moment to inspect it. "It still looks girly."

He got a curious look on his face.

"How much faster can I heal now?"

“I’d rather not test that any time soon, but if I’m right, enough to allow you to get back on your feet after very little time. Like a troll.”

“And a troll… heals quickly?” asked the boy.

“Yes, very quickly. That’s why you need to kill them with fire, or by chopping them apart. Even then, just to be sure, you should set them on fire. Understand?”

“Uh… yeah... I don’t think I’ll ever see one, though.”

“Who knows? Life is unpredictable,” Conrad snorted, thinking back at what had happened in the last few months. At least the boy seemed to be receptive when it came to good old Nord wisdom. He glanced at the pile of books. Just a few volumes that would easily fit in a traveller’s bag… a large one, at least. They didn’t look magical, or at least they didn’t look anything like the evil tomes from the Apocrypha. Granted, Hermaeus Mora didn’t have the exclusive on evil tomes.

“Ugh, books…” Naruto lamented as Conrad checked the first on the pile. It seemed to be a simple herbarium. Nothing too fancy or concerning exoting plants, just what someone would find in most of Tamriel.

“What’s wrong with books?” he couldn’t help but ask as he noticed some corrections and notes presumably added by his mother, who seemed to have a strong opinion on authors that didn’t do their research correctly or were lazy and didn’t write all the potential uses for a mushroom.

“They’re boring, and… hard to read,” the boy explained, deflating on the table.

“They can be, yes,” Conrad conceded, guessing that for a little kid a book wasn’t as exciting as… running on rooftops? Sparring? What did Shinobi children do for fun anyway? “But how’re you going to learn if you don’t read?”

“But I’m not in the Academy anymore, Uncle,” Naruto said.

“The Academy?” Conrad asked, glancing up from a particularly scathing cluster of notes. “Isn’t that your Shinobi School?” He remembered Inoichi explaining something about it in passing.

“Yeah, I’m a genin now. I don’t go to classes anymore, so I don’t need to study.”

Conrad paused and looked up from the book, staring at his now squirming nephew.

“Are you telling me you haven’t read a book since leaving this school?”

Naruto squirmed even more, realizing he may have just doomed himself. “I… I just don’t like books?”

Conrad closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh, and then closed his book. Children, honestly.

“Next time we’re going to buy groceries, we’ll pick something up for you to read.”

Naruto immediately started whining. “Do we have to?”

“It’s important,” Conrad tried to think of a way to put it so that Naruto wouldn’t just get bored and rebellious. “You want to become Hokage, right?”

“Yeah, of course!” Naruto exclaimed. “And I need to be strong for it! How’s a book gonna help me become the strongest?”

“You don’t seriously think that Sarutobi, or your father, got their… hat, I guess, just by being strong?”

The look on Naruto’s face was not encouraging.

“... kinda? I mean, the Hokage is the strongest and most respected Shinobi in the village! If I became Hokage, everyone would have no choice but to respect me!”

How had the child made it this far with nobody setting him straight?

"A ruler isn't just the strongest person, they're also in charge of keeping everything running. And that requires studying," Conrad pointed at the book for emphasis.

"But that sounds boring," Naruto complained, his face scrunching up even more at the unfairness of it all.

"Yes. Work is boring, and being a ruler is a lot of work," Conrad nodded. "Still, you should read and learn as much as you can, regardless.”

“Why?” Naruto demanded, voice filled with childish petulance. Was Conrad ever this stubborn with his own father? He must have been. This had to be his own punishment for being a difficult child.

“Because it’s good for you! You may never know when you may need some knowledge about herbs,” Conrad explained, pointing at the book in his hand.

“I don’t know, I mean, I guess that Haku knew about herbs, but―”

“Or history, or geography, or legends,” he continued, opening a book after another. “Or spells!”

“Spells? But I’m a Shinobi!”

Instead of answering, Conrad rigidly looked down and realized he had opened an honest-to-Julianos spellbook without checking if it was safe first. He was briefly grateful that the author had not inscribed some explosive runes or something nastier in it, then he noticed the now familiar calligraphy.

“Huh,” he said eloquently. “My mother was also a battlemage.”

That was... unexpected. Especially since Conrad remembered way too well his father's stance against magic. Which actually explained a lot, now that he thought about it. Not a proper Nord thing indeed.

"Is that weird?" Naruto asked, unaware of the sudden turmoil in Conrad’s mind, peering down at the spellbook but thankfully not poking at it like he clearly wanted to do. Well, at least he was taking an interest in books.

"It is for Nords, yes,” Conrad replied, his fingers tracing over the arcane patterns.

"Why?"

"It's... complicated. Mostly because it's not seen as something warriors should use," Conrad told Naruto. He didn’t really feel like giving the boy a whole lecture about the cultural reasons behind the legendary dislike his people had for magic.

“I don’t get it,” Naruto said after a moment of silence, sounding very confused.

“Yeah, me neither,” Conrad nodded, flipping through a few pages of his mother’s spellbook before closing its cover. Maybe he had more in common with his mother than he wanted to admit.

He’d dwell on it later, after he had checked the rest of her things. Conrad grabbed the pouch and shook it, hearing the sound of metal clinking. Aah, septims, always a welcome addition to his belongings. As he emptied the coin purse, he briefly thought that maybe he’d reconsider his opinion regarding his mother.

Then he saw the black soul gem rolling out along with the various coins.

“Boy?” he said, breaking a silence that may have lasted just a few seconds or minutes.

“Yes, Uncle?”

“I’m going out for a walk,” he said, putting the gem back in the pouch and securing it to his belt. “I need air.”

“Can I come too?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Can we go eat ramen for lunch later?”

“Maybe,” he quickly said, as he put on the large hat and cape he used to go out.