The Sena and her fellow delegates were sipping tea on a manor on the mountainside. Every treat and comfort was given to them as guests. But unknowingly to their hosts, they were not just going to roll over and over obey without knowing what's happening outside.

Sena, an Iwa specialist in scouting and reconnaissance, sent several small stone ant drones as spies before they entered the walls of Konoha. From her small helpers, she can see the events that are unfurling inside the walls of the village. She sent mental commands to her summons to focus on the current conflict that’s occurring.

As the ants got near the skirmish, they heard the panicking screams of the populace as they ran away from the skirmish.

"What in the world is happening?" she asked aloud while pretending to drink her tea. She focused and issued more orders to her summons to scatter and gather information. She could feel the rumbling and ground-shaking tremors every minute.

From these people, she got a single word that confirmed something in her gut that this was not some normal attack.

“Kyuubi.” Uttering the word itself made her remember the person she always hated in her entire life.

Upon hearing this, she immediately stood and her mind went to overload into thinking the possible scenarios on why this attack happened.

Like other shinobi villages, Konoha has a bijuu of its own. The nine-tailed demon fox, Kyuubi. One time in the past, she heard how it ravaged Konoha and caused the death of their accursed enemy, the Yondaime.

Was the Kyuubi really rampaging? She thought as, through her ants, she never sensed any large quantity of chakra in the area except the large dome of water. Their village had its own bijuu and had experienced its own attack in the past. The amount of chakra it exudes was enormous. But from she couldn’t sense anything similar like that here. Something must have happened for these people to misunderstand that the Kyuubi was released.

Maybe this is the second part of the earlier failed invasion of Suna?

And why did this happen on the same day they entered Konoha?

Was their attendance here needed?

Or does someone wanted Iwa to be involved?

As she walks in circles to focus more, she noticed that her two fellow Iwa Shinobi were still glaring at her.

"What?" she asked.

The two wanted to scold and rant about what Sena did earlier in the meeting with the Hokage but their concern of being monitored inside this manor forced them to quench their anger.

Seeing that her companions refused to answer back, she returned to her summons and refocused them to the large water prison. But before they could arrive and inspect it thoroughly, she saw a bright twinkling star inside, then it expanded.

“What the… a jutsu same as our kage?” she mentally asked but immediately realized that she was mistaken. As she had sensed no chakra from it.

Even with her summons, she could sense the imminent danger coming from it and in split second, she mentally ordered them to quickly vacate the possible blast zone. But it was too late and the blast of water, mud, and heat destroyed most of her fragile summons.

Out of a hundred of them, only three remained intact.

Shit. She cursed.

For several seconds, she was affected by the sudden blast and caused a temporary headache. She promptly returned her eyes to her summons afterward. What she saw was a blast zone of almost no building was left standing. What's left was dried mud and craters there were obviously consequences of the battle. She immediately had her summons survey the area. It took her several minutes of digging into the surrounding rubble that was outside the affected area for any evidence or traces of chakra that was used. But to no avail.

She quickly ordered her small helpers to move to another place where the planned communication and rendezvous location with the Gareki Ishina was situated. Before they left Iwagakure, Gareki and her team were briefed about any worst-case scenario in which they had planned to meet up on a location inside Konoha with the Iwa envoy on the event that they were captured and escaped.

Her ants would await the infiltration team that they sent. Hoping that they would probably have information that they could share with her.

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

Gareki Ishina was sparring with her junior shinobi to kill some time inside their ‘house prison’ when they all sensed a wave of hostile bloodlust. Then ground-shaking tremors were felt. They all immediately went to prepare for combat. Gareki hugged a nearby wall that separated them from their guards outside, followed by her three juniors. With her quick hand sign, she took a ‘glimpse’ on the outside about the current state of their guards.

But to her confusion, their ANBU guards were talking to their superior. Although Ishina can’t hear their words, she could still sense a disturbance in the atmosphere. Which was not good for them. As this could only mean one thing.

Konoha probably decided to kill them.

Then after the ANBU captain left, the six guards slowly walked through their doors.

Shit. These tree-loving bastards weren't even trying to hide it. Ishina gritted her teeth as she quickly put on her armor and sheathed her kunai.

Thankfully, they were idiots to let them use a manor that had stone floors. Were their brains full of leaves instead?

“Kurotsuchi.” She whispered. A wordless dialogue occurred between them.

“I know.” The girl only nodded and made few quick hand signs. T

With that, they were swallowed by the earth and were replaced by clones.

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

Conrad immediately landed back on where he was formerly examined. It was packed with people who were being attended by nurses and medical personnel. His arrival that landed with a splash in his hurry caused panic once again.

“Halt!” several Konoha shinobi went to face him, preparing to cast jutsu and weapons against him if he moves suspiciously. “Identify yourself!”

He quickly unfurled his wings then revealed the unconscious Naruto and Sasuke. He let them down carefully on the grass then stretched out his wings and ordered them.

"These boys needed treatment immediately!" His loud voice echoed. His nephew just fainted and need some good rest on the bed but the other kid he was holding had to be relieved from his current mental state. Conrad thought that these people probably knew how to cure this kind of peculiar spell after seeing the abilities of Inoichi in mind reading and his previous opponent who tried to trap him on his mind, assuming that this was common to them.

Although that only resulted in confusion and caution on the Shinobi that surrounded him.

"What did you do to them?! Let go of them!" The woman who seemed to be the authority of her group of soldiers asked with a pointed kunai on her hand, prepared to lunge at him to take and rescue the two children. “And don’t make any unnecessary movement! Slowly walk away from them, and put your hands where we can see them!”

Suddenly, he decloaked himself from his dragon aspect. Revealing a tall man with blond hair. Which caused a shocking and surprising response to the Shinobi who knew the face. Especially when he was side by side and directly on parallel with the carved stone image of their hero. Making it easy for them to instantly compare their faces.

“Impossible!”

"Y-Yondaime-sama?!"

"The fourth Hokage?!"

It seemed that Conrad forgot once again that due to how they shaved his beard cleanly, he now looked exactly the same as his brother, plus several facial scars.

This reveal however just increased their caution and alerted against him.

"Wait! Who are you?! You must be fucking dumb to think that you will be able to deceive us in taking the face of our former Hokage!" The woman who was in charge growled at him with hostility. These people probably hadn't been briefed about him yet. "You even dared to take up his appearance!"

Damn this shit.

Conrad cursed mentally. He had no time to explain or argue about this.

Then several ANBU personnel and jounin arrived to investigate the disturbance on the treatment facility after they heard an immediate report of an unknown individual arriving with two unconscious Konoha Genin at hand.

One of the jounins that arrived ticked his senses as he smelled something familiar but irritating sweet scent from this individual due to his heightened senses. Then he realized this person's identity. Someone that's on his list on the mental punch-in-the-face note with his brother on the top. He passed the baton in explaining his situation.

"Hey, you female pig. Explain my predicament to them." He pointed at the one behind the ANBU who wore a bunny mask then gestured at the medical personnel who were snarling at him.

This shinobi, on the other hand, twitched on that word and shot several needle-like weapons at him which struck him harmlessly due to his stone skin. The Dragonborn recognized this stick and it was something that was used to skewer a food called, Dango.

"Hey, you bastard! My name is Anko! Do you-" before she could continue her loud complaint from being insulted, the ANBU captain interfered and walked to the medical and shinobi who were guarding the facility.

“This man is under the protection of Konoha from the orders of Hokage-sama.” He spoke to calm his fellows down and added. “He is not a danger. Now inspect those Genin immediately!”

“A-ah! Yes!” all of the medics and shinobi who previously branded their weapons at Conrad now rushed to the two children.

The ANBU just whispered something on Anko which caused her to fume up in anger but still went inside the facility.

“This one was just tired. Send him to Room 14.” The woman who growled at the Dragonborn earlier inspected Naruto and sent him away inside the facility. Then she turned to Sasuke who was still struggling as if he was having a nightmare. “I can sense the traces of genjutsu on his mind. Send him to R43.”

“Yes!” they all hurried inside while carrying the stretchers where Naruto and Sasuke were put into. Conrad was inwardly relieved that he didn’t have to resort to forcing things.

Then the ANBU captain turned and talked to him.

“Harissen-dono, what of the two intruders?”

“Unfortunately, they both escaped. Although there are probably more injured soldiers on the western side of the wall. I don’t have time to check every one of them so I prioritized Naruto and his friend.” Conrad replied while pointing at where he found and rescued his nephew.

“Hm. Thank you.” He took out a radio from his belt and sent a report to his superior about the safe status of the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki and the foreigner. Then commanded a team of medics to be escorted by jounins to immediately recover the injured jounins on where Conrad had reported. He was about to ask Conrad for more information and a request to stay in the area for his safety when it was interrupted by the man himself.

“I will summon some guards to help with the security,” Conrad said it like it’s a matter of fact.

“Eh?” the ANBU got confused at his declaration.

With a burst of purple flames on his two palms, several unworldly portals emerged. Frost, Flame, Earth, and Storm Atronachs appeared, hundreds of them. Filling almost the entire street. Almost causing nervousness to stream across those who witnessed such an event in the treatment facility.

“Surround the entire area and protect those who are inside.” For any onlookers who could hear his orders, it seemed vague. But it wasn’t. Conrad was already a powerful battlemage and even above the archmage level. He learned how to send his inner thoughts and mental state into his summons who would think like him for any situation given. What he considered to be an enemy will also be their enemy. Making them pseudo-clones of himself. This resulted in creating high-quality and effective summons that any other mages that existed.

But it was still not over. Conrad will not be lenient in this situation anymore. He unleashed another hundred gates that summoned more daedra into this plane. Sending them to appropriate positions to cover the entire area under their control, in preparation for any possible counterattack.

“What the-”

“…” the ANBU agents and shinobi who saw this spectacle could only watch with bulging eyes as a few hundred summons strolled through them and patrolled the area. The man in front of them just summoned a small army of alien creatures with ease. Snapping from their shock, ANBU went to calm down the people again inside the facility and on the surrounding buildings that were harmless to them and were summoned to protect them.

Then the two spectral summons and Hakon arrived, with the latter on holding unto the feet of the former while they flew. He spoke in his Tamrielic language. They landed near him, which again caused alert among the shinobi but Conrad gestured them to stand down and walked towards his three summons.

“It seems that you found your nephew,” Hakon said.

“I entrusted them to you.” Conrad glared.

“I admit and apologize for that,” Hakon raised his two hands as if to surrender on his allegations. “I got surprised by the spectacular and strange spells they had. I didn’t expect that the boy would be able to multiply himself into hundreds. There are only three of us and not only that, he is as elusive as a mouse and quick as a cat. My skills are for taking out enemies and raining blood in the battlefield, not a specialty in handling children who wouldn’t listen in any word.”

True but Conrad had to admit also that he may have been stupidly casual prior to the attack of the two strangers. Maybe he got unconsciously nonchalant or overconfident after he singlehandedly wiped out hundreds of these foreign warriors previously. He must mentally write unto his skull that Akaviri may not be much of a danger to him but for his nephew, it was entirely different. He had a child to look out for, which by now, he realized that Naruto had a lot of people who were aiming for his life. For what reasons, he somehow knew that the old man and that blind geezer must have known. And… most of all, Naruto himself. It must have been quite a secret if his own nephew hid it from him.

“Anyways, so what will you do now?” Hakon asked.

“Survey the entire village for any traces of the intruders. If they have accomplices left behind, I will be able to track them with ease later.”

“Well, this isn’t the first time we will be hunting in the oceans of people instead of in the sea of trees.” Hakon grinned, tapping his great battle-ax on his shoulder. Thalmor agents and assassins of Morag Tong were their former prey on this kind of ‘urbanized hunting’.

“I want you to guard my nephew again, this time he is unconscious and restricted on his bed due to exhaustion. So there won’t be any attempt from him to escape. However, on the off chance that he wakes up and tries to run away again, I permit you to use paralytic spells.” Conrad turned to the two spectral summons. “Defend him with your existence. Do not disappoint me again.”

Conrad wanted to stay and guard Naruto himself, yet he had to search for any trail or information about the attackers before they could be erased, as it was also the possibility. Then he faced the ANBU captain who talked with him earlier who just watched while he was talking with his summons.

“I will leave this to you.”

Then cloaked himself once again with his Dragon Aspect.

“MUL!”

Grabbing Hakon with his tail, he flew in great speed as he hovered above the city.

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

He was truly right and would still stand with his previous statement. This was no village, this was a city. The sheer size of the place was obviously no village. He still doesn’t know why they call their place a ‘village’. Maybe a cultural difference?

Conrad was flying over the eastern part of the city when he noticed another familiar scent and face.

Something that he encountered during the time when they landed on this continent for the first time. However, this person was accompanied by several children who seemed to be sneaking around the city due to their peculiar actions. As they were somehow using the earth to camouflage themselves as they stroll through the almost empty streets.

They were wearing different insignia from this city’s soldiers.

The sudden attack of the two intruders who aimed for Naruto.

Their movement and actions were also highly suspicious for someone to be a civilian.

And the individual that he sensed was someone he met that had hostile intentions towards them.

Then something dangerous clicked on his mind and immediately flew towards them in great speed and hostility.

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

Gareki Ishina was using the earth as their cloaks as they tried to avoid people and Konoha shinobi while they sneakingly traversed this village.

“See I told you that these buildings are really bad and useless. If these were structures of rock and earth, it would’ve been easy for us to walk through the streets without any concern of being detected.”

“Your stupid point just proved why Konoha won’t be having any stone structure or building made of earth.”

“Huh? Wait… now that you said it-”

“Shut your trap both of you.” Gareki hissed at them, she was already starting to snap into shouting and scolding her stupid juniors but resisted. They had to escape from the village. They were not running blindly here. Gareki could sense a soft but audible echo of chakra that was usually used by Iwa to communicate. The source was probably nearby.

They continued sneaking and trailing across the alleys and streets, following the echoes. Gareki could sense it more clearly now but they were all coming from all directions. She turned to ask her genius junior for assistance.

“Kurotsuchi, where-”

A sudden blast of rainwater and earth covered their sight as Gareki Ishina disappeared from their sight.

What appeared next was something unfathomable for them. A human-size upright dragon, holding Gareki to the ground.

“Are you the one?!” his voice echoed with anger and bestial animosity.

Her surprised juniors immediately responded by hand signs but were subdued easily before they could even cast a jutsu. Each of them was held by his for wings who elongated and were used as his extra arms. From his recent fight with the strong Akaviri warriors, it seemed that one of their weaknesses was by disabling them from making hand signs that will cast their strange spells. And just to make sure for their complete restriction, Conrad used a low quality but still paralyzing spark spell on all of them, causing them to receive shock damage and paralysis.

“Answer me! Who are you?! And what are your objectives in here?!”

Gareki was helpless in such ambushed and gritted her teeth from pain as she watched the unconscious bodies of her team. Then as her vision cleared, she saw giant jaws of death from something predatorial.

J-jinchuuriki? She asked quietly in her thoughts in seeing something or someone wearing something similar to a demon cloak.

In her silent response to his questions, Conrad gripped her tighter which caused her to scream in pain.

“AAAAHHHH!!!!”

“I will not repeat again. Who are you?! And what are your objectives in coming to this city!”

“Haa… ha…. W-who…?”

“That’s not the answer I was looking for.” Just to test her, he turned to one of the children he caught and gripped them tighter as he did to her. This caused Kurotsuchi to wake up from the pain and struggle then loudly scream from the pain. If these people were truly guilty of harming his nephew, Conrad wasn’t that chivalrous to let that insolence go unanswered.

“AAAH!!!”

Seeing her allies suffering made her realize the true situation.

“Haaa… No… haaa… please… I… I’ll answer….” She begged.

“I did say I will not repeat again,” the maws of the dragon growled at her.

“We… we are… haaa… from the Iwa…gakure… haaa….” Even if she wasn’t held forcefully, its inhuman eyes terrified Ishina. “I… my name is Ishina… Gareki…”

“Continue.” He commanded.

Due to her panicking and horrified state, she almost forgot the other question. It took her few seconds to recall the question.

“…we were… haa… sent… by our village… to Konoha… to find someone…”

That sentence caused Conrad to see red and prepared to crush all of them, except for the woman he was interrogating in anger. He wanted to ask more from her after he unleashes his anger on the other three he had captured. There’s only one person in his mind whom they were referring to as ‘someone’.

Naruto.

But before he could do so, two people arrived at the scene and interrupted Conrad. It was the old man who took care of Naruto but was currently wearing armor instead of his white cloak and strange hat. The other one was someone whom he remembered as Jiraiya.

“Is…is that you Harissen-san?” Sarutobi choked in shock, seeing the monstrous dragon form of Conrad for himself. Jiraiya on the other hand had the same response to those people who saw his dragon aspect for the first time. Bulging and terrified eyes. Both of them assumed the same things as other people did, Harissen was probably a jinchuuriki.

Then the old Hokage forcibly snapped himself and went back to focus on the issue at hand.

“Please let those people go. I don’t know what you are thinking but I can confidently say that you are gravely mistaken about them.” Sarutobi tried to calm him down.

“Gravely mistaken? I knew this woman, she was among the soldiers we clashed back when I first landed here.”

This was new to Sarutobi, yet he tried to reason out with the angry Conrad.

“And that just proves that you are mistaken. You encountered her at that place because she was a shinobi of that country. She is an Iwa Shinobi. One of our guests from the neighboring village of Iwagakure.” The Hokage explained.

“Then why were these bastards sneaking around if they were guests? I could smell that they were somehow involved with the attack.” Conrad growled. And as if to punctuate his point, his dragon eyes glowed with hostility. “And they tried to harm Naruto!”

“Attack?” Sarutobi got confused for a second before getting the point. Using his quick wit and experience as Hokage, he desperately made sure that his message would be sent as clearly as a day to the rampaging Harissen. The deaths of the people he was seizing were one of the last things that Sarutobi wanted.

“Ah, as I would have thought. You are mistaken Harissen-san. These people were neither involved nor even participated in this attack. Those two intruders that you faced were from a different organization that had no ties with the people you are holding right now.” Sarutobi explained.

“The two shinobi you faced were rogue shinobi. People who were classified as S-Class criminals and wanted all over the continent. I can assure you Harissen-san that those two have no ties to the children and woman you are holding right now. They are innocent. They were our guests and foreign agents sent by our neighboring, friendly village.” Jiraiya said it with a matter-of-fact tone.

“Then could you explain why they are here? They confessed that they are here… searching for someone!” Conrad roared.

And that someone is actually you. Sarutobi wanted to answer with that sentence, to be honest, and clear everything out but circumstance did not allow him. He doesn’t know what kind of dangers Harissen had encountered in his homeland that caused him to be highly suspicious and cautious of anything, but this is their land with their own set of rules.

“That is something that we cannot discuss here in the open. Shall we? I will gladly have you attend our talks and I will answer your concerns. Just let them go. I guarantee their innocence from this attack. So please Harissen-san,” Sarutobi pleaded.

This caused both of them to be the target of the glaring, ferocious eyes of Conrad. They had not felt such tremendous power and fear ever since the rampage of the Kyuubi in the past. Sarutobi and Jiraiya could also sense that they were both walking on a very thin line here. They still don’t know much about Conrad and this is the first time they ever saw this side of him, personally.

Thankfully to Sarutobi’s relief, Harissen slowly unfurled his wings and put them one by one into the ground… except for the woman. Sarutobi wanted to insist but was immediately stopped by Conrad.

“After all that happened today, I won’t trust anything until I have an idea of what the fuck is going on. Don’t misunderstand geezer. I actually don’t trust you, especially how you and others were hiding very, very important that is related to Naruto.” Conrad gently loosened his grip over Ishina but quickly turned her around using his two arms. Green flames appeared on his hands. Then cast a spell on her helpless back, which caused her to scream in pain. It was several seconds of a pure pack of burning misery.

“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Harissen-san!!” Sarutobi and Jiraiya panicked at this turn of events, then Conrad tossed the unconscious Ishina who fainted from the pain to Jiraiya. The sannin caught her and noticed the seared mark of a green hand on her back.

This was his original spell. Although strict requirements were the several seconds of undisturbed casting and severely weakened target. Something that the woman fulfilled.

“That is just my insurance and this will force her to remain inside the city while she proves her innocence..” Conrad declared. “It’s a strong curse that will immediately give her excruciating pain if she moves at a distance away, far from me. That will stop her from escaping. And as long as that curse is on her body, she cannot cast any spell. Anyone who will try to take it from her will also be inflicted by the same curse.”

He intentionally didn’t mention that he could also sense if someone will be attempting to remove the curse from her.

“This was not necessary,” Jiraiya said with a frown.

“For me it is.” The Dragonborn quickly spat back.

It was not Conrad’s first time to suspect someone that would be claimed by others as innocent. Most of the time they were truly innocent, but this also gave him several fortunate captures of those who meant him harm and those whom he cared about. This was his common way of ensuring that the suspect won’t be able to leave his vicinity if they don’t prove their innocence. Especially from his experience in the guerilla and proxy war with the Thalmor, which wasn’t uncommon to happen.

After that, Hakon slowly got out of the building beside them by opening the door which caused another surprise for Sarutobi and Jiraiya.

“Oho, it seemed that things finally got de-escalated but I have something even more interesting,” Hakon said.

Conrad actually ordered Hakon to hide in a nearby building to wait and ambush anyone who would be lured to Conrad after he attacks the suspected accomplices of the attackers. The Dragonborn used himself as bait. Then he revealed something to Conrad.

“Boy, it seemed that you are right. Someone was watching.”

On his two palms, were the seemingly alive, three stone ants, held by his ghastly fingers. Unseen by Jiraiya and Sarutobi previously, someone was watching them, secretly. All from what happened from the beginning till the end. But they did not go undetected from the dragon senses of Conrad who already sensed their surveillance before he started the ambush. He sent Hakon to investigate earlier also.

“Care to explain what these are, geezer?” Conrad asked.

Sarutobi could only sigh tiredly in seeing such a small scout summon. He knew such jutsu, and except for the four unconscious Iwa shinobi with them, there are only three people present in the village right now that probably owned these summons.

“I know what those are,” Sarutobi replied. “They were used as scout drones by Iwa shinobi. And I also knew who the probable caster of such jutsu was. But you shall not worry, they could’ve only sent these summons to survey the conflict as they were restricted on their safe house.”

Several Konoha shinobi appeared with ANBU agents. They were immediately commanded by Sarutobi to send the unconscious Iwa ‘genins’ and female jounin to the nearest medical center. They applied for some first aid and went on their way.

Thankfully these three drones were still operational and still running.

Jiraiya took one of them and talked to the drone, apologizing for what just happened and promised to explain everything later. Then got relieved that the drone somehow replied with a small movement that he deemed as a positive reply.

Sarutobi noticed that Conrad was about to leave.

“Where are you going Harissen-san?” he asked.

“I will scour the entire village of any suspicious individuals.”

Jiraiya frowned at that.

“I will allow you to take them into custody but there is a possibility of having my people being wrongly accused. As such, you must avoid anything that can harm them like what you just did. The ANBU will help you arrest those individuals for interrogations on the right place at a right time later.” Sarutobi glared at Harissen. Although this could probably help them capture any correct suspects, this would also endanger the lives of his citizens and may cause panic among them. He felt like he was talking to a ‘Danzo #2’.

“Fine,” Conrad replied.

“I will accompany him just to make sure,” Jiraiya suggested.

“Hmm. That would be the best.” Sarutobi nodded.

Conrad took to the air then which Hakon and Jiraiya immediately leaped then grabbed to his clawed feet simultaneously. They disappeared under the pouring rain.

“I want to retire… please let me retire already…” Sarutobi sighed, speaking out his true feelings.