Chapter 23
The next day Naruto could be found in the kitchen of the Kazekage mansion and the room was filled with many different tantalizing scents which drew down all the occupants.
Temari had offered to help but the younger blonde declined, Kakuro knew he would just throw Naruto off her cooking so he sat and showed or pointed where the things she needed were. Gaara came down at the very end to see the large variety of foods she had prepared and Sasuke stood behind him due to the narrow staircase.
When they all moved to sit down Sasuke was the first to say something, “There’s nothing inside this right? No poisons? No weird concoctions that’ll do weird things to kekkei-genkai?” he asked her warily, recalling the time she had accidently mixed up a powered poison for spice that had his sharingan wacky for weeks.
She slapped the back of his head, cheeks dusted a feint pink, “There’s nothing wrong with my cooking. The sandaime checked all my things and separated the poisons from the spices.” She stuck her tongue out and moved Gaara’s plate before he could put anything on it, causing all brows to raise.
Except Gaara’s of course, he had none.
Ignoring all the looks she was receiving she gave him a plate she had already made for him and placed a small box wrapped in black paper. He looked at the box and then to her and she realised he probably didn’t get it, “Its January 19th. Happy birthday Gaara.”
She gave him a bright smile, ignoring the incredulous faces of his siblings. After a whole twenty seconds of staring Temari hit the back of Gaara’s head, “Well open it.”
He blinked a few times before reaching to open the small parcel, delicately working around the black wrapping and saw it was a box. Opening the lid he saw a necklace with a circular red pendant which had a black swirl in the middle.
The Uzumaki swirl.
The three siblings looked to her confused why she would get him and Uzumaki necklace. “I know you don’t belong to the Uzumaki clan and that I’ll be marrying into the kazekage clan but I… I just wanted something to remind me of my dead clan. All of Konoha’s chunin flak jackets have the Uzumaki clan symbol in the back and the swirl on our headbands in the Uzumaki swirl as well so…”
“You’re so adorable!” yelled Temari as she hugged the shorter blonde to her chest and Naruto was very happy she wasn’t wearing her breast plate or that would have hurt. “You can paint the whole mansion- well except the office- in Uzumaki swirls if you want.” She cooed to the younger girl who was having a hard time breathing.
Gaara saw her struggle and used his sand to remove his sister, “Stop suffocating my fiancé.”
Naruto withheld her glee at the comment and instead looked back to the red head, “So… do you like it?”
Instead of answering he raised the necklace and put it on which was when he felt the heat coming from it. “It’s… warm.”
She giggled, “I’ve infused it with my chakra. It’s made of glass and was cut out by Kakashi sensei and together we managed to get the swirl in place and then I infused it with my chakra. It really doesn’t do anything till you break in which case Kurama’s chakra and mine will leak out and attack any hostile entities within a two miles radius.” She nodded sagely as she spoke, taking a bite out of her own plate of food.
She looked at everyone and saw the sand siblings hadn’t eaten, “Do you guys not like my cooking?” she asked, slightly hurt by the prospect of someone not liking her cooking. She worked hard to get where she currently was with her cooking skills and would continue to do so if they didn’t like it now.
The three sat back down and began eating their food, each stating it was heavenly compared the food they usually ate here in Suna, to which she replied most of the ingredients she had bought with her from Konoha. The rest of the meal was a quiet affair before the three siblings prepared to leave for their training session to which Naruto stated she was going to see Suna council and Sasuke said he was going to have a look around the village.
.
.
.
“My lady. I understand your need to make your future home… more homely but these changes are rather drastic.” Spoke a male council member, she didn’t remember his name nor could she see his face.
“Drastic as my changes may seem they will in the long run benefit your nation. You do not have many if any water users here and due to the fragile relationship between the nations, you have not asked for any to aid you. You require more water here in Suna and we can connect a tunnel to the valley of end and other water supplies on Konoha.
“My hand in marriage is not just going to be on a piece of paper. I will be a shinobi of Sunagakure and I wish to help. Right now I’m pointing out simple things that can be easily rectified but I need permission to start doing them.”
“This is a desert, and we are desert people. We are used to it.” Replied a shorter, female council member.
“But are your new-borns used to it? Are your infants used to it? Why subject the new generation to the same pains you were subjected to just because you refuse to accept the help of a Konoha shinobi?” she looked at all of them in the eye and found something she hadn’t seen before, “Or is it because I am the daughter of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki, both of whom did severe damage against your forces in the third war?”
“You speak of matters you know nothing of!” yelled a chubby person. She couldn’t identify their gender.
“Looks like I hit the mark to me.” she muttered under her breath before clearing her throat. “Look, I get it. You’d rather see me dead than see me fix your village or married to your jinchuriki but you’re gonna have to face the fact that you can’t do jack shit about me nor my relationship with Gaara, Temari and Kankuro. So. How about you all get off your high horses and accept. My. Help.” She stared at each member slowly with her eyes bled red, Kurama’s hate feeding into her chakra labouring her breaths as she tried to keep it from releasing into the air.
The people of Suna were used to the hate of Shukaku but not the hate of the nine tails- two completely different things.
‘Eight whole tails worth of hate difference.’ He said through growls.
“Never in my life have I been so disrespected. You will learn your place and you will learn to respect this council!” yelled another member.
‘This lot are more volatile than Konoha’s council and we have Danzo.’
“I don’t usually care to do this because why use someone else’s work to your advantage but with you lot I’ll make an exception.” She realised she was making no sense but continued anyway, “I am the daughter of the yondaime hokage making me some glorified princess. Now if I were the fire daimyo and you spoke to me like that, we’d have problems but I’m not. I am jinchuriki to the most powerful bijuu. I am a seals master who helped you all do something none of you were capable of doing.” She looked at each of them, her nails growing into claws and her teeth to fangs, “I helped you to control the demon you crappily sealed into your yondaime’s son. So tell me, why can you accept my help to help him but not accept it to improve your village?”
She didn’t realise she was releasing KI and when she noticed she didn’t care. They were being prideful bigots that she wished she could knock some sense into.
When someone spoke it was someone Naruto had yet to have heard anything from. Lady Chiyo. “She has a point. I was always told that a person must change with the times or they will be left behind. This is one of those instances. Konoha has thrived and is still thriving, not because it is the first village nor because it has the most powerful shinobi but because it evolves. I am willing for the princess to change our home for the better, what about the rest of the council?”
Naruto felt like hugging the woman and bringing back her grandson just so she could slap the boy silly as a present for backing her up. But alas, she couldn’t do but she made a mental note to thank the village elder at a later time.
It took a while but the majority of the council agreed to her propositions as long as she was assisted by Suna shinobi and as long as she kept them up to date with her plans.
Accepting their demands she left the room with a withheld smile as she left to go to the kazekage mansion and set everything up.