The(questionable) burdens of leadership of a troll Emperor by Noodlehammer

Chapter 8

After the raid on which Naruto had met the Tok'ra, things proceeded in a relatively routine manner for some time.

Babies were born, the periodic raid was conducted, the Empire expanded, infrastructure was built and other such things happened.

Oma still hadn't made a reappearance, causing both Naruto and Xanna to wonder if they'd scared her off for good, but they didn't seek the ascended woman out. If she didn't have the fortitude to return after getting a little inside look at Naruto's head then she wasn't worth playing with anyway. They expected that she would show up eventually though, as they had occasionally sensed her looking in on the planet.

It was on one of those lazy, uneventful evenings that found Naruto and Xanna reclining together on one of the spacious balconies of their palace that overlooked the city underneath.

Erius apparently had a smaller axial tilt than Earth, resulting in smaller temperature deviations around the year, though the difference wasn't too big. The area that they were situated in was about analogous to Greece as far as distance from the equator was concerned, though there was less ocean nearby since it was not a peninsula.

The weather sometimes slipped to uncomfortable levels...uncomfortable for most people anyway, since they were quite impervious to such pedestrian discomfort and Akitsu was perfectly capable of cooling herself off if it got too hot and had an absurd resistance to cold. Aside from those uncommon times, it was mostly mild and comfortable, though you would be hard pressed to notice that at the moment with the furious thunderstorm that was going on.

Naturally, this meant that Naruto and Xanna were getting soaked in the downpour, but since that was the idea, it was all good. They weren't bothering with clothes and simply enjoyed the rain and wind while they cuddled.

Xanna was laying with her back to Naruto's chest and both had their sopping wet hair tossed carelessly out of the way. Naruto had a hand draped across her chest, but there was nothing sexual about it for a change, just a married couple enjoying a lazy day of doing nothing.

Frequent lightning strikes cast odd shadows over the city, the rain fell in thick sheets and the wind howled violently. This region of the planet didn't get storms like this often...in fact, this was by far the worst one to have happened since they'd taken over.

It was the type of weather that could drive a man to introspection, and that was exactly what it did to Naruto.

Thinking over the time they'd already spent here, Naruto realized that he had to be over fifty years old by now. He'd lost track of the exact number since the year on Erius was longer than it had been on Earth or in the Elemental Nations, about 20% longer if his estimation was right.

Almost as old as Tsunade when she died. He mused, using the hand that wasn't draped across his wife to touch the crystal necklace she'd given him.

She'd have been laughing her oversized tits off if she knew that I made myself Emperor after refusing to be Hokage. He thought wryly.

Ironically enough, it looked like he would also be fulfilling Jiraiya's dream of making a world without war, something that he hadn't given even two seconds of consideration when the man had told him about it. It just wouldn't be the world that the Toad Sage had had in mind. Well...Erius at least wouldn't have any wars fought on it...the rest of the galaxy was a different story.

Over thirty years had passed since their apotheosis and the time spent on Erius was the first significant time span that Naruto had spent around the same group of mortals since then.

It had been odd, seeing them grow old. Tia, that would be assassin that he'd played psychiatrist for, was now a mother with teenaged children of her own and she should be approaching fifty herself soon. He was glad that the way she'd transferred her case of Stockholm Syndrome onto him had blown over fairly quick. That had certainly taught him to tone down somewhat on the double entendres or else have some women start thinking that he was actually interested in them.