Stirring the Whirlpool

Rating. T
Pairings. HiruzenxBiwako, Kushina's Parents, Eventual JiraiyaxOrochimaru; possible SakumoxUzumaki!OC
A/N. hey look, more fic i don't need to start right now. ah well. old lady!Mito being a badass is really the excuse to this story, and everyone being too scared to do anything about it. also JiraiyaxOrochimaru interaction, and Sakumo maybe finding an Uzumaki wife. timewise, it's right before the second ninja war/the one that destroys Uzushio. so the sannin are still getting along but Jiraiya is still somewhat resentful and Orochimaru wants to experiment but hasn't quite gone to extremes. also a large part of this story is meant to be humorous, as old lady!Mito is having old lady fun playing match maker and baiting all these young shinobi, whilst simultaneously kicking major ass, cause i figure that Uzumaki longevity must also mean decently preserved physical abilities, especially if Sarutobi can still kick ass when he's old, and he's not from the Uzumaki clan. the humor aspect is why things like Mito leaving the village to visit family are possible. no one from her time is still alive to stop her, and Danzo is too scared of her.

"Mito-san, I really don't think that-"

"Hiruzen!"

The Sandaime Hokage, already well established as the Professor and having several years of experience under his belt, winced and straightened his spine like a chastised five year old. The woman before him, currently overseeing a nurse that was packing a few belongings into one of several travel bags, turned her sharp gaze to him.

Despite the many, many years Uzumaki Mito had been alive, she looked just as fearsome to Hiruzen Sarutobi as the day he had broken one of her flower pots while running around with Danzo. Subsequently, they had both been subjected to the cruelest, most demeaning lecture they had ever experienced. Their teacher had been too amused (and, Hiruzen thought privately, too scared of the redheaded kunoichi) to put a stop it. Hiruzen thus thought it was completely understandable that he still harboured a certain amount of, in his opinion, healthy fear whenever he was faced with the woman. Gathering himself up, the Hokage bravely tried again,

"You must understand, Mito-san, it is highly unusual for a jinchuuriki to visit other villages, it could become an international incident-"

"Don't you lecture me about duty to the village boy, no one understands that better than I," Mito's eyes turned to him with fury, and Hiruzen once more demurred.

"This is my first great-grandniece, and I will not miss another birth! She is the most likely one to inherit my duties, so excuse me for checking that she is a viable host to the overgrown mutt currently living in my stomach, rent-free I might add! Besides, it is just a vacation, I will be back here terrorizing Tsunade and the rest of that incompetent team of yours before you know it," Mito, who had once been hailed as one of the princesses of the Uzumaki, had lost much of her famed patience in her old age. The fact that she didn't have her head-strong husband to serve as a buffer for her outbursts may have also been a contributing factor.

"Mito-san, you know that they are not children anymore, I doubt you terrorize them-"

"Sarutobi Hiruzen! Are you implying I am not a fearful opponent?"

"N-no, of course not Mito-san, you are quite a formidable warrior still-"

"Then there is no problem with me leaving for a few days to visit family, since I can take care of myself and the fluff ball," Mito nodded decisively and, with the conversation over, once more turned her shrewd eyes to the packing process. The nurse shivered as she felt the gaze falling on her back again.

Hiruzen gaped, as he realized he had been had. Before he could collect himself to try and reason with the woman again, the door was pushed open slightly. Hiruzen turned to it, and saw Danzo standing hesitantly on the other side. Very quietly, the man signed, 'did you convince her yet?'.

Hiruzen sighed, holding back the face palm at how childlike they were acting, before signing back 'no, not yet, she's being difficult'.

Danzo nodded, but his brow furrowed as he signed, 'you can't let her go, too dangerous, can't lose jinchuuriki'

'I know that, what do you think I'm doing?'

'Not a good job if you haven't convinced her yet'

'Well at least I'm doing something, why don't you come in here and give it a try?'

'Can't'

'What do you mean you can't? Are you still that scared of her?'

'No'

'Then come help me,'

'No'

Hiruzen pinched the bridge of his nose and looked heavenward in exasperation.

"No, not the bright red, it will clash with my hair, can't you see?" well, at least someone was enjoying this.

"R-right, Mito-sama,"

"Hiruzen, do be a dear and signal to Danzo that if he thinks I can't sense him and all his stupid schemes from a mile away, he's even dumber than I thought," there was a crash in the hallway, before the gust of wind that usually accompanied a hastily executed shunshin. If Hiruzen wasn't still trapped in the room with the Uzumaki woman, he would have laughed at the most graceless he'd seen Danzo since their childhood.

"Mito-san, I understand the situation, and I will let you go, since I clearly can't stop you," Hiruzen gestured at her now packed bag, while Mito dug around her closet, "but at least let me send an escort with you,"

Mito stopped for a minute, considering. Having apparently given it some thought, she continued to dig in her closet before pulling out a dark blue travelling cloak and throwing it over her shoulders. Thus robed, she turned back to Hiruzen.

"Very well, but I'd like to pick my escort,"

"Of course, Mito-san, who would you like?"

"Your two boys, if you please,"

"Jiraiya and Orochimaru?" Hiruzen's eyebrows rose.

It wasn't a secret that the two could barely stand each other, even now that they were chuunin, especially since Orochimaru's jounin promotion would most likely happen any day. But with Tsunade busy working at the hospital, it would be easy enough to assign the two to an escort mission and get them out of his hair for a bit. Hiruzen's eyes narrowed. There must be an ulterior motive for Mito to pick them.

"Yeah, they're already terrified of me, I doubt they'll be much of a hassle, what with the way Tsunade's got them wrapped around her finger,"

…and there it was. Well, Hiruzen would take his victories where he could get them.

"Very well, Mito-san, I'll send word to them immediately, I suppose you'll want them to meet you at the gates?"

"Yes, as soon as they're able to Hiruzen, you understand? Or I'll leave them behind!" the short woman crossed her arms over her chest with a huff.

Behind her, the poor nurse had finally packed all of her belongings in a relatively coherent fashion. She squawked unattractively when Mito simply opened up a scroll and threw all the bags in haphazardly.

"Yes, of course, Mito-san, after you," Hiruzen held the door open for the woman, and followed her out. Discretely, he signed to one his ANBU to follow the escort mission and make sure there were no complications. Wolf signed back positively, and was gone in seconds, most likely to pack his own bags in preparation for the journey.

"You picked a good one, Hiruzen! I've always liked Wolf, thanks for lending him to me!" Mito's voice and laughter startled Konoha's leader, again.

As the elderly redhead walked out of her home, shared for many years with the First Hokage, Hiruzen could not help but wish she would sometimes at least pretend to be human. It was all too easy to forget she was with the way she acted. Hiruzen knew she was a formidable woman, and that at her prime she must have been fearsome indeed, but the truly terrifying fact was that she seemed not to have lost any of her abilities: indeed they seemed to be stronger. Or maybe she had simply given up on pretending to be human, as most shinobi did, after so many years. The Uzumaki longevity may be a blessing to the Clan, but it was a curse to all those who interacted with them, as recklessness seemed to only grow with age.

At least, Hiruzen thought, she'll be someone else's problem for a bit.

And with that, he went to inform Danzo and his former teammates of his failure at keeping their jinchuuriki in Konoha just because an old woman was a thousand times more stubborn and horror inducing than Hiruzen could ever hope to be.

-o-

Jiraiya had been ahem researching when the mission bird appeared. Predictably, this did not go over well with the women in the bathhouse. And his entire day was ruined.

It did not get better when, upon reading the mission, he discovered he would be stuck escorting an old woman to Uzushiogakure to visit family with Orochimaru, of all people. Whoever the woman was, (the wife of the First Hokage or something, if he remembered his history correctly, boy she must be old) she was probably very well-off if she could afford an escort mission for something as tedious as a family vacation, but Jiraiya wouldn't complain about that. He was still stuck on the fact that he'd have to work with Orochimaru, especially since their last mission together without Tsunade had ended with them pretty much at each other's throats. And not even in a fun way, which Jiraiya would be okay with, honestly, since he's pretty sure his favouring of pale skinned, dark haired girls could be traced back to his unadvisable crush on his teammate.

Ah well, Jiraiya thought, at least the Uzumaki girls should be fun, no?

-o-

Orochimaru was not displeased, necessarily, with this new mission, but he was certainly annoyed that it would cut into his time for research. His determination to find a way to break the cycle of rebirth was burning even stronger in lieu of his latest argument with Jiraiya on the matter, and having a delay was not desirable. But alas, if sensei needed him to do something, Orochimaru went.

Besides, an escort mission shouldn't take too long. And the Uzumaki that lived in Uzushiogakure were famously proficient at fuuinjutsu, which may give him some headway into his research.

-o-

Wolf arrived at his family home, as silent as a shadow. He removed his mask, revealing himself to be Hatake Sakumo, the current heir of the Hatake name and rising shinobi. He quickly rinsed himself off and changed his clothes, before packing the necessities for the next few days.

Unlike his other mission companions, Hatake Sakumo had had the distinct honor of watching over Uzumaki Mito in the past. It was one of the first missions given to ANBU, and it doubled as a training exercise, since the old woman could be quite sneaky when she wanted to be. There rumors in the ANBU that Mito Uzumaki could outrun the fastest of animals, outsmart a Nara, hide from a Hyuuga, lose an Inuzuka and strike fear in the heart of an Uchiha.

While Sakumo was not prone to exaggeration, he could see how those rumours may have occurred. From what Sakumo could tell, Uzumaki Mito had been a dutiful daughter and a model wife all of her life, even allowing the Kyuubi to be sealed within her to ensure Konoha would have a jinchuuriki, and then agreeing to live with her husband far from her home. But now, her husband was dead, her brother-in-law was dead, her sons were dead, her granddaughter and grandson were growing up and the rest of her Clan was in a different village altogether. Mito Uzumaki could have very easily faded from the memory of Konoha's residents and into the obscurity of history, no more than as a footnote as the First Hokage's wife. She could have, but she didn't.

At some point in her later years, Mito Uzumaki seems to have realized that everyone else from her generation was dead, and that she was heading that way as well, at a much slower pace. Instead of quietly allowing it to happen, as the demure daughter and wife she had been conditioned to be, Mito Uzumaki snapped and became unbearably loud.

There were shopkeepers in all of Konoha who would complain at length of old, redheaded Mito-san, who continuously bartered down until they found themselves giving things away for free. The orphanage was treated to various visits from the old lady, who delighted in surprising the children by bringing them the goods she had bought at the market or toys from her own children were young. The old woman enjoyed stepping into Academy lectures and absolutely derailing them, insisting that she be allowed to teach the events as they actually happened, stressing how much of numb skull her husband was and how much of a wet blanket her brother-in-law was. She even went as far as to tell the ninja-to-be stories of the current Hokage and his teammates when they were young, and how they were all still terrified of her. The Academy instructors all despaired of what to do with the woman, but before anyone could catch her she was gone, still one of the fastest kunoichi in existence.

But for all that Mito made herself a fun nuisance, Konoha's general ninja population didn't interact much with her. Indeed, unless a ninja was an Academy instructor or an ANBU member, Mito Uzumaki was most likely still nothing more than the wife of the First Hokage.

It was with that mindset that Sakumo suspected Jiraiya and Orochimaru would go into this escort mission. Most likely, it would prove to be a most amusing spectacle for him. But Sakumo was also aware that the woman would be fully aware of his presence. And he couldn't help but be a bit terrified himself, as he could easily see how he would be amusing to Mito Uzumaki as well, who seemed to delight in taking in strays under her wing.

And what better strays than a cold-hearted wolf, a lonely frog and a reclusive snake?

Mito Uzumaki was a fearsome woman indeed.

-o-

As Mito waited for her escorts to appear, she grinned savagely at the shinobi on gate duty. For reasons they could not understand, the two were very unsettled by the otherwise harmless old lady in travelling clothes. When Jiraiya and Orochimaru (and a hidden shinobi in a Wolf mask) appeared, cautiously eyeing each other while introducing themselves to the old woman, Mito's smile grew to include teeth.

Instantly, everyone in the vicinity felt a shiver go down his or her spine.

"Alright everyone, let's go! I'm only getting older, and we need to reach Uzushio before the birth of my great-grandniece!"

comments appreciated.