"Now, bank?"

"Yes, I stopped to the casinos. And Naruto has the same luck I did. I have a scroll for him too. I know the bank would have a fit about him opening an account with this type of money. Probably try claiming it was stolen."

The Hokage sighs and nods. An ANBU heads off and the bank president arrives at the Tower. The new account is opened, Kiriko giving him the paperwork when she walks into the store where he's busy moving the new supplies that they had gone to purchase.

"How are we on supplies? Beyond the meal scrolls?"

"Good, the emergency rations take a hit whenever a team is stuck working the sewers." Tio says. "We'll have to buy more the next time you go shopping for the store and the others."

"Yeah, that should be after the first of the year."

"Any problems keeping up with a team?" her father asks.

"No, Gai looked concerned a second but relieved when I immediately took to the trees and was able to keep up with them."

"Keep up? You were beating us half the time." Naruto snorts. "I know a lot of the more stupid ninja would be howling at you showing them up and the civilians would be complaining about you playing ninja."

"The civilians need to get a damn life. Like that fool woman complaining because her baby was dirty and tired after cleaning the building they're only out for power. This is a ninja village, not a civilian village. They want to be in charge, they need to go somewhere else." Kiriko snorts. "That's why I only deliver to a limited number of stores on my trips, the others would complain too much, they can pay through the nose of getting their supplies later."

"Or the clan just opens a similar store and buys them out when their business goes under." Her father snorts. "Oh, you're going to be losing Tio at the store in a few months. Shuisui was helping Tenten's father with some special orders. He's going to be working there after classes and his schoolwork with an eye at taking over the business. Tenten doesn't have the gift for working with metal." Kiriko nods. "I was looking at Madi coming in anyway."

Her brother and father think a moment and nod. She's getting old enough to have a job.

Kiriko settles into the water in the bathing room at the compound when they return home, the hot water relaxing muscle she didn't know was tense. Traveling with an escort is different than traveling by herself. The other clan members laugh but nod in agreement. "You like working on your own. Being part of a group is different. You weren't in charge, Gai was."

Kiriko nods. "Has anybody heard rumors about the train coming this direction?"

"It would make travel more comfortable. Most civilians don't leave the village they were born in because things are too difficult."

"What's going on?" Kiriko asks a couple days later when she sees people working in one of the areas they don't normally use.

"We've been hearing rumors that there's going to be an attack on the village and we're putting together a bolt hole."

Kiriko sighs. "I'll start getting in supplies once it's finished, I might have to hit another casino." The clan elder snickers at her, patting her on the shoulder. "Should we pass this along?"

"Not until things come closer one way or the other."

"What about our friends?"

"Most of them are ninja and would be right in the middle of an attack."

Kiriko sighs again and closes her eyes. The clan elder pats her on the shoulder again. "We still have time to change things, start with getting our ninja friends better weapons. That's one of the reasons Shuisui and Tenten's father have been getting special orders from the Hokage. And getting Naruto a competent teacher. Kakashi is suited for other things than teaching, the Hokage might be sending him and that little bastard Uchiha on a suicide mission. He's got enough semen stored from him and the other former clan members to rebuild the clan if they need to, Without the whole, the last of my clan bs."

"I think most of the 'greater' clans in Konoha could be wiped out except for a few people." Kiriko snorts. "Or at least the bad apples weeded out or killed off. Hyuga's case in point." She looks at the elder. "Is the old tunnels still under the village?"

"Yes, but all the access points were blocked up. But yes, the civilians in town could take shelter there in case of an attack. They closed them up because they were too close to the sewers and the smell bothered people."

"Let them get their fool asses killed then." Kiriko drawls. "Is there a time limit?"

"Three years. We've seen it happening during a chunin test."

"Here?"

"Yes. We're up for it."

"Don't have one here for a few years then, cite the fact we're rebuilding the academy curriculum. It doesn't hurt the story that last year's graduates all failed their tests or were forced from their teams and this years doesn't look to be much better. And really, all you're doing is showing off. Winner gets the promotion. Big whoop, get a battlefield promotion. If Kakashi was still Naruto's teacher, I see the fool putting them in it for the chance to not have to teach them anymore."

The others listening to her nod.

"I'll go talk to the Hokage, see if he wants to make multiple scrolls of the medical supplies to have on hand."

"Yes." the Hokage says firmly the next morning when she asks the question. "I'll get you the funds, Naruto's team can go off with you again for the supplies and we can use the academy students to fill the scrolls. And to create them."

Naruto looks at Kiriko when they get the escort mission assignment.

"The Hokage wants to make multiple scrolls of medical supplies, beyond what I sell at the store. He's paying me to go get the supplies to make them and the students at the academy will be making the scrolls and filling them."

"Will the teachers be overseeing this?"

"Along with some of the medical nin, including your former teammate Sakura." Naruto snickers despite himself. "Yeah, that was my reaction."

They return a week later, Kiriko dropping an extra large scroll on the Hokage's desk. She accepts a scroll in return that she slides in her clothes to read later at his look. Quickly making her way home before the storm that looks like it's going to start blowing in she hands the scroll to her father since his name was on it.

"Do I want to know?" She says at the look of pure glee on his face that has been seen on her brother's face more than once.

"No, not really." He hurriedly grabs some other clan members as she heads for the bathing chamber to soak. These trips with an escort are *not* the same as going on her own. She *aches*. No, this is just more proof she was never meant to be a ninja.

Yelling from the street a few days later has her running to the door.

"What's going on?"

"The arena, it collapsed and caught on fire during the night. They found bodies in the debris." A civilian says, running down the street.

Nope, didn't want to know she thinks quietly, sliding behind the counter again and picking up the paper she'd been making notes of for a new, improved medical scroll for the hospital. Oh perfect, here's Sakura now. Reaching under the counter she hands her a special scroll at her quiet words and slides the page across the counter. "Look that over and see if it would work in emergency supplies for the hospital?" Sakura blinks at her, looks at the page, reads it then stops and reads it again. "I need to show this to the others."

"Yeah, they'd be the ones creating them and using them in an emergency when they can't get to the hospital." Kiriko says. "Something like this. . ." she waves a hand at the men and women still running down the street. "Made me think of it."

"That, natural disasters when the hospitals are overrun or gone, and times of war." One of the other medical nin sighs when Sakura brings up the topic of the new scroll when she returns to the hospital. "She gave us a good groundwork to build upon."

"Why would Sasuke have broken out and torched the arena?" Naruto asks quietly the next day when he arrives at Kiriko's shop to work helping fill scrolls of supplies for teams going on missions.

"Just meeting him when he came to the shop he came across as a spoiled brat who thought the world owed him whatever he wanted. He would never be able to be able to become a chunin, hell he wasn't even a genin now. He was being held responsible for his own actions, just like the former Hyuga elders. And he hated it. If he couldn't be a chunin, neither can anybody else. Just like they hated not being able to hurt Neji after they were so stupid as to throw him away when he couldn't be a ninja anymore."

The end of the year comes and Tio moves from being at the shop to working with Tenten's father. Madi replaces him as a part-time helper at the shop when she's out of school and she sends her off with a list of her regular customers to tell them it was nearly time for her regular trip out of the village to go shopping.

"Dad, can you and a couple of the others handle the shop while I'm gone? Normally Naruto could handle it with Tio but he's working with Tenten's dad."

"Yeah, we can take turns being there until you get back."

She wraps her arms around him in a hug and takes to the trees. At her usual stopping place she sets up her camp and settles in the tent after her meal.

A week later she returns and drops onto the ground at the farm. The others come out and she grins. "Much easier not racing a team." She pulls three large scrolls from her clothes. "Main house." A girl takes in and grins. "Shuisui's forge." That gets taken as well and placed on the door. "The working buildings." Again it's taken away. "This is for the bolthole, I know it's not needed yet but I figured get it ahead. And it can be used elsewhere."

The clan elder looks at her and she rattles off the list, the other woman nodding in satisfaction and putting it away until needed as Kiriko takes to the trees again, dropping down by the gate. The guards grin at her and welcome her back.

Her father is at the counter when she arrives after stopping at the bank and he grins and gives her a hug. "Stopped at the farm first?"

"Yeah, I dropped off all our supplies there." She hands him the receipts from the latest bank deposit and he shakes her head and laughs, taking the scrolls of supplies and putting everything away with Naruto and Neji in the back and the other building.

"How are the orders coming along?" She asks her father. She'd been gone when they first started going out.

"Good, the scrolls are delivered weekly to the tower along with the dishes and silverware being returned." The scrolls are kept in a locked room in the other building that only two people have keys to, herself and her father.

She makes the rest of the deliveries the next couple of days, looking around the village and smiling. The more annoying civilian shops had to raise their prices as the cost of getting in supplies had been increased by shippers. But nobody was buying their products when the same or something similar could be brought at another store and they were losing money.

"I know this is a longshot Kiriko, but do you know anybody who sells fabric when you go shopping?" One of the working women asks a couple weeks later.

"A number of places. Let me know colors and fabric and I'll make a trip out. The elders have been talking about refinishing furniture at the farm so I was looking at making a special trip that direction anyway."

Two weeks later she takes to the trees again, returning two weeks later with a number of scrolls. Half of them are dropped off at the farm and she walks to the bad part of town, emptying the scrolls and getting kisses on cheeks and thanks from the women who inspect the fabric in glee.

Hiruzen just looks at Kiriko when an ANBU drags her off to the tower. 

"One of the working women asked me if I knew anybody who sells fabric on my trips since the stores don't *like* their business." Hiruzen sighs as the ANBU silently snickers behind their mask. "I said several and the clan elders are getting ideas about refinishing furniture, painting. . ." Kiriko makes a and so on and so on and so on gesture that everybody who is married is very familiar with. "So I was going anyway and was coming back from delivering the fabric for them when I got hauled in."

"I had wondered why you were going off schedule."

Kiriko tips her head back to look at the ANBU. "Do I need to schedule a trip out for your people?"

"Let me talk to the bosses. We've got floors of costumes and other clothes to sort through."

Her father looks at her when she exits the Tower. They walk to the gate, the guards nodding at them as they walk out of sight before taking to the trees.

"The Hokage wanted to know why I left off schedule, everybody just sighed when I said the shops don't like the working women's business so they asked me if I knew places that sell fabric and I was going anyway because the clan elders are getting ideas about redecorating. When they're in that mood, it's easier to just nod and tell them to give you the money and the list of what they want."

"Time to look into taking those stores over too." Her father snorts.

"I also asked the ANBU who took me to the tower if I needed to make a trip out for them. They said they'd talk to their bosses, they have so much clothes to sort through." Her father nods as they arrive at the farm, dropping to the ground.

"The civilians would be horrified to learn the working women get their clothes made by the ANBU." 

"Has anybody heard any rumors about the old Uchiha district being up for sale?" one of the clan women asks at dinner.

"Not up for sale, but that little fool lost his precious heritage when the bastard attacked Sakura. The ANBU went in and cleared everything out after the massacre and again after he lost it, putting anything useful away for any future Uchiha." One of the elders says. "I've been in talks with Hiruzen and we're in the lead of getting the land since we plan on using it for homes and businesses instead of the other clans who just want to enlarge their compounds."

A list of businesses that can move out there if the buildings are suitable is quickly made and the next morning Kiriko's father drops it on the Hokage's desk. He looks it over and nods in satisfaction. "The land is yours then, cost is one ryo per year for the next ten years. And the ANBU inspect everything again."

"Deal, and the new graduates can get the jobs of cleaning up the buildings and tearing down any that need it. I'll send Kiriko off again to destroy some more casinos for the money we'll need to create the shops, I know the Daimyo's wife will be happy to be able to come to the stores and look at clothes and buy stuff."

"So will some of the richer merchant's wives. Those you haven't bankrupted yet." Hiruzen snorts. "Off with you and thank you for giving the village another way to weed out the more useless graduates from the academy. If they whine about cleaning buildings and doing basic work, they won't make it as a ninja." 

"We got it." He tells his daughter when he enters the store. "I'll have the elders get a list together of what we need, how much money it will take to do everything, and you can head off in a couple of months. Maybe even your usual trip."

"Okay."

Naruto looks at her in a silent question from where he's getting a month's worth of food scrolls. Gai is there buying his own as well. 

"We're looking at opening a few more stores. Dad said we got the land, now we're just working out the details on what I need to buy and how many casinos I have to hit. Yes," he says at his opening mouth. "I can hire your team for an escort mission. I know even working here you're not getting the money the more active teams are who are off getting bounties."

"Those teams are also dying young because they have bounties of their own." Kurenai snorts as she walks into the store with her team. "Our teams don't get the big money but we're working for the village just like the rest of them." Gai nods.

"Quick question." Kiriko asks quietly. "Is any other village going to be holding a chunin exam now that Konoha is out with the arena destroyed? While I was off buying fabric I was hearing complaints from merchants who were looking forward to making money from the nobles and other people flocking to Konoha." She scowls. "I'm disgusted to say I've heard similar complaints from merchants here in the village."

"Who?" Kurenai snaps. Kiriko pulls her and Gai in the back room and lists off merchants, many of whom her clan is actively destroying. "I know Ino's mother at the flower shop has heard them too."

"Damn, we're going on a mission." She looks at Gai.

"We are off, I can bring this to the Hokage's attention." He says. "And talk to Ino's mother if she's heard them."

Ino's mother nods firmly when she's pulled to the Tower. "Yes, I have." She lists off most of the same names, listing a few more. "Kiriko did not mention them." Gai says slowly.

"Kiriko's store is basically geared towards ninjas, the type of people complaining would never lower themselves to shop there." She says. "They buy flower arrangements, candy, fancy soaps. . ."

"Like that fool woman who wanted to join the council for the power."

"Yes, but being on a civilian council in a ninja village would be beneath them. They picture themselves as being the Daimyo's companions." Ino's mother snorts. "With the idea of becoming Daimyo themselves no doubt. The poor dears would be horrified at the simple shopkeeper they look down upon is richer than they can ever dream of being."

"Yes, because her clan works for what they have. While most of them inherited their money." The Hokage sighs. "I see I will need to deal with them."

"That was evil." Her father says, shaking his finger at her later that night. "It was the truth." She snorts. "I just happened to drop an innocent question in the right company."

"And it gets them out of our hair and we can buy the shops if they haven't been ruined by their greed and stupidity." a clan woman snorts. "I *still* say our clan runs the village, we just let Hiruzen deal with the whiners."

"And the paperwork." Somebody else laughs. 

A couple of weeks later Kiriko's father leans in the shop, catching his daughter's eye and motioning towards the back room. Since Naruto had just brought back dishes she busies herself filling the dishwasher and running it before looking at her father.

"Hiruzen needs a major distraction that will involve the ANBU and a good portion of the ninja force while he orders others to take out those complaining about not getting what they wanted with the chunin exam out of Konoha for the forseeable future. Do you have any ideas?"

Kiriko starts to say something then shakes her head. "Wait, maybe I do. I saw a game when I was traveling. At the time I thought it was just a ninja wannabe thing but now. . ." She leaves her father and Madi covering the shop and hurries to the Tower.

"I have an idea, what is the timeline?"

"Ideally six weeks, but I can hold out longer."

"It will be *tight*." She says slowly. "Summon Asuma, I think he might know what I'm talking about."

"While you part of the Daimyo's guards, did you ever hear of a sport called paintball?" She asks when he arrives. He blinks, then moans. "Oh dear gods, yes. The idiot nobles played it constantly."

"Give me a noble package then. I'll travel to the capital and buy the supplies, complaining that the backwards nation where I am forced to live now knows nothing of the sport. What team would be better as an undercover escort as my underlings?"

"I'd say Kurenai's and mine combined if you do as underlings and you hired a ninja team as escort." Asuma says slowly. His father nods. "Kiba and Shino would stand out as underlings but as an escort. . ." His father nods again.

"Hinata, Ino, and Tenten as my female companions with Kurenai as our escort. The boys as Ninja escorts along with you and Gai. I can hire a carriage in the capital to make an entrance."

"Taking the train will cut a week off coming and going."

"Yes."

Kurenai, Gai, and their teams are summoned to the Tower and given the assignment.

The girls shake their heads as they dress in the fancy clothes before getting on the train, how can people move in these outfits? And how does Kiriko turn herself into a vapid noble so completely?

"Yes, the area I have been *banished* to knows nothing about paintball. I need *everything*." Kiriko drawls in a bored noble voice at the store. "I mean *everything*."

Three weeks later Kiriko slumps onto a seat, she is tired and even the ninja are dragging. She tosses the scroll on the Hokage's desk. "Seventeen dozen pallets of paintballs, there's eight cases in each pallet and each case is two thousand paintballs divided into four bags of five hundred each. Each hopper holds two hundred paintballs and the air cartridges that power the guns will need to be pumped up. There's six dozen cases of guns and each case holds a dozen guns. There is nothing more to be had in the city, I brought it all. Stopping at every store there and at any larger vilage that might have supplies." Hiruzen nods in satisfaction. "Thank you my dear, now off with you. Your father is probably already on his way since the news you had returned made its rounds."

"Okay, how are we going to handle this?" Asuma asks his father after Kiriko and her father have left the office. The door opens again and Kiriko looks back inside. "Academy.Graduation.Exercise." She says slowly.

Asuma blinks and starts laughing despite himself while his father puts his head on his desk and *moans*.

"Look at it this way, the students can also be put to work cleaning everything up afterwards." She says.

"Go.Away.Kiriko," Hiruzen moans. "I already have a headache."

"The teachers can grade it as an exercise while we handle everything else." Asuma tells his father. "And as Kiriko said, they can scrub the damage."

"Do you, Gai, and Kurenai know how to operate these *things*?" His father asks, his head still on the desk.

"Yes, and so do the genin. I swear I saw Hinata's eyes glowing as she was aiming at targets. There can be an area set up with extras, the students will be 'out' if they cannot make it the safe areas to reload their weapons."

Iruka and the other teachers at the academy start to complain but stop and start thinking about how this can be turned into lessons. "Plain coveralls including face masks so nobody knows who another student is? An enemy that you have to shoot or be shot?"

"Teachers and jonin shadowing them to count them as out?"

"Yes, I brought our own. So did Naruto. And Hinata. And Tenten." She says at her father's look when they've returned to the farm. "I see the new genin doing a lot of scrubbing for a few weeks." The others snigger despite themselves. 

"I suggest we put a couple bedrolls upstairs in the store if we can't get away."

"Already have them upstairs as part of our emergency supplies." Tio says.

Naruto leans in the door of the shop one day and 'looks' at Kiriko. "Madi, we're closing a little early." she says calmly, shutting up the shop and walking towards the gate. Asuma nods as they walk past.

The following morning Tio and Madi are pointing and staring at the new decorations as Kiriko shakes her head. She can see welts on various people and snickers silently, the students must have found them just as annoying as she does it seems. Unlocking the door and shaking her head as the nearly paint covered windows she turns the placard to open and sits down to wait for the others to arrive. The clan members who work for her slowly trickle in, shaking their heads in dismay.

Two weeks later a team of the academy students arrive at her store, starting to scrub the paint off the windows and doors. One swears and picks up a rock to throw, Kiriko immediately grabbing her arm and pulling it behind her back. Walking her off while she swears and bringing an instructor running.

"What happened?"

"This stupid little shit didn't like having to clean my windows and picked up a rock to break them instead, this way her work was done for the day." She says, repeating what the girl had been whining.

"But you have such big windows. Why?" She wails. "It's not right we should have to clean them."

"Fucking idiot." A passing student with bucket and cleaning supplies snorts in disgust. "Your family has a shop, should we go break *their* windows so we don't have to clean them?" The academy student stops in disbelief and starts screeching.

The instructor grabs her by the collar, dragging her off. "I have the feeling she just failed."

"Yeah. She was an annoying brat who thought her parents money meant she was so much better than everybody else, even the kids from major clans. All the students hated her and she kept trying to say we were making her fail. Her own stupidity made her fail." the student says, putting his supplies away with the others for the next day.

She returns to her shop to find the other four scrubbing the windows. They pause when they see her returning, almost seeming to sigh in relief when she's alone.

"Are you *stupid*? The woman who owns that shop is the richest person in the village. And you tried breaking her windows because you didn't want to scrub them? You little brat." her father yells when he's summoned to the academy.

"But she has such big windows and I'd been scrubbing all day already." she whines.

"And just what do you think happens when you're a kunoichi?" Her teacher asks in disgust. "You can't just say, I'm tired, I wanna go home. You're a ninja the rest of your life no matter what you're doing. And you know this is the type of mission you get as a genin."

"Fucking idiot. Only in it for the power." Kiriko sighs that night at dinner.

"Like too many students until reality sets in. That's why so many new students fail their teacher's test. That's one area where clan students have an edge, they know they're in it for life. The civilians just think its all fun and games until it's not fun anymore."

"Damn, I didn't realize how many stupid civilians there were in the village." Tio says a few weeks later when he sees shops still closed because their owners are nowhere to be found in the city. The damage to the buildings from the paintballs had been fixed and many shop owners had decided to paint their buildings. 

"At least there's nothing in there that will go bad with the buildings shut up." Madi says as they drop onto the street to go through the gate. The gate guards nod at them and once they're out of sight they take to the trees again. Kiriko is off with the list of what they need for the new land as well as the orders from her usual customers and what they need to take over the closed businesses and Naruto's team, the new genin that had been cleaning the buildings after the paintball palooza as one of the older genin had termed it now set to cleaning the buildings in the new Izuno land.

Two weeks later Kiriko slumps into a seat in the Tower, pulling a scroll from her clothes she slides across the desk. "From Lady Tsunade, Shizune, and Jiraiya. Expect the paintball scenario to show up in one of his books, they just *moaned* when the story was told. Even with finding out *why* it had happened."

Hiruzen sighs but nods.

"Bank?"

"Yes, both myself and Naruto." She pulls out two scrolls. The money is double counted and deposited into the accounts, she takes the receipts and yawns.

"Off with you then, I'm sure the news the team already made it to your father."

"Worrywart." she says fondly when she finds him waiting at the bottom of the tower. "I saw the other while I was there. They sent reports. And there was the bank deposits."

"Ahhh." He says, nodding in understanding. "Ichiruko's?"

"Yeah, drop that and the shop's orders off and take care of the others over the next couple of days."

Naruto is at the shop and she hands him his receipt. The supplies are put away and Naruto heads off with new meal scrolls.

"The new land." She says, handing her father one scroll. "The new shops." she says, handing him a second. He nods. "The land and buildings are nearly done. We've already got people interested in the new apartments."

"What's the latest on the other shops?"

"We're slowly taking them over and reopening them when the Hokage makes the announcement that the former owners are. . .missing."

"No relatives?"

"None that have come forward to ask what happened to my family?"

"People like that don't have families. They expect to be headed for bigger things and kids would slow them down." A clan elder snorts. "Unlike most civilians who know they're going to need somebody to take care of them when they're old. Clans have kids, they know they're probably going to die young."

"Yeah, it's only the special ninja like the Sannin and the Hokage that grow old."

Kiriko finishes delivering the last of the supplies, getting money from the others in thanks and heads to the new land, looking over everything in satisfaction. The clan women are already putting soap and other beauty items on the shelves in the new building and people are moving into the apartments.

"Grief, that idiot Uchiha could have done so much if he'd pulled his head out of his ass." Tio says as he comes through with a crate that goes into another building destined to be a store.

"Doing that would have made him a human being, not a high and mighty Uchiha. Same reason you don't see the Hyuga doing something like this. Or being medical nin beyond private ones for the clan."

"Yep."

"You've got medical nin in your clan?" Naruto asks quietly.

"Yeah, three of them live at the compound in the village permanently."

Two months later Naruto and the other genin from his year walk onto the Izuno farm grounds with their senseis. Tenten and Lee might not be familiar with this type of work but they quickly settle into their assignments with the others.

"You didn't hire any of the newer teams?" Asuma asks Kiriko's father quietly.

"They all need too much work, your teams have been working together for years. You know the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates. I'd rather spend more money for your teams and have things go well than pay less for the new genin and have to babysit them and their teachers all the time." Asuma snorts but nods. "Not to mention you all are making sure everything is saved, I'd probably lose half the potato harvest with them not bothering to check the soil." Tenten tosses three potatoes she'd just pulled from the ground into the cart Lee and Naruto are pulling. Looking at the potatoes they head to the cellar to dump this load.

"Yes, especially if some of the new genin that had washed out were still in training." Kurenai says, rolling her eyes. "I do hope this new class is better, they'll be the first ones graduating since the new classes were introduced at the academy."

"You and everybody else who went through the academy before the council started dumbing everything down." One of the clan elders says as they come over. "Lunch." he bellows. Everybody gratefully takes a break and washes up with the handpump before bringing out their scrolls with their meals to eat at the tables on the grounds.