I appreciate the reviews and look forward to more as I work to get more of this story out of my head and onto the screen.

I don't own any part of either franchise in this story.

If Naruto had learned one thing in his travels with and without Jiriya, it was that you can never truly have excess supplies and equipment as long as you aren't encumbered. So, as he turned in the air and banked towards Konohana, planning to make a visit a year earlier than expected, he pulled three small pills out of the bottom of a pouch slung on his back. "So, I'm just going to call you little sister until you can tell me your name. Can you wake back up for me long enough to swallow some blood pills? You have to chew them first but they will help replace some of what you've lost." Fu, injuries and several kinds of exhaustion taking their toll, was sound asleep and not waking up. The blond sighed as he tore towards Konohana high in the air.

The young man blushed at what he was about to do, but was convinced that his fellow jinchuriki was in need of the medication with the amount of blood that she had apparently lost. Taking two of the red pills into his mouth he carefully crushed them with his molars and felt the slight fizzing that meant the medicine was activating. In an embarrassing display, made more embarrassing when Fu briefly groggily tried to fight him off, not understanding what the Uzumaki was attempting, Naruto managed to get the crushed blood pills to the back of her mouth and down her throat via a thoroughly unpleasant french kiss.

That done, Naruto took his own, and looking down for land marks, adjusted his heading slightly. "You should feel better soon sister. Just rest for now, I think we can make it to Konohana in a few hours if I speed this up a little." "I just hope my chakra reserves hold out that long. Maintaining flight is difficult enough without having used those techniques earlier."

Miles of forest stretched beneath them, but they remained high enough for most ground launched attacks to be rendered useless. The pace Naruto set was hard, the energy tendrils doing their job, even though the technical explanation of how they work went way over his head when the armor had been gifted to him. He did grasp the most important part, which was that, when active, the tendrils created a field through the armor that interacted with gravity. Forward flight was achieved not so much through thrust as a kind of pull, the armor's field moving through the air by creating attraction and repulsion. Naruto was just glad the stuff worked as well as it did.

Flight was an incredibly rare advantage in the ninja world and Naruto planned to make the most of it. Even at the rate the armor was burning through his chakra he didn't dare to land for fear of Kakuzu finding him. While younger ninja are usually fascinated by explosions, he didn't wait until the smoke had cleared to turn around and flee. Three kunai were still stuck in him, they must have had barbs or they'd have fallen out by now.

Trying to stave off boredom and fight the exhaustion that was slowly creeping up, the blond thought back to the battle and pondered how he could have done better. "Right off the bat I could have used explosive tags, but that might have hurt my new friend. I also just assumed they were dead. I've seen enough to know not to make that kind of mistake, but their appearance made me think they were normal people. Well, as normal as S-Rank ninja come anyway. Seems like all the powerful ninja are off in one way or another.

"I think I did okay for the rest, but like my master Salt would say, every problem can be solved by sufficient use of explosives. I didn't use enough, truth is I didn't have enough on me. I didn't even have one of my blood tags on me. I will be prepared next time, and those two will die by my hand. Salt and Scara would be disappointed in me otherwise, only a poor hunter lets the hunted live."

Two hours later, and chakra exhaustion was setting in for the flying blond. He was reasonably sure he wasn't being pursued by the two he'd fought earlier, but he couldn't walk with those kunai in him. His beautiful, gleaming armor was very useful, but it did prevent him from using the Kybui's chakra, so he couldn't refill his chakra by going into his one-tailed state. "At least my body's fought off the poison on those kunai. I think it was designed to destroy chakra, just something else to leech off my reserves. At least I only have another hour or so to go. Lucky for me sister's fight was in the Land of Fire, or else I'd have never found her on my way to meet up with Ero-Senin."

Naruto's eyes closed for just a moment and he lost some altitude. A barbed kunai shot out of the forest and nearly hit him, giving him an adrenaline boost and kicking him awake. Exhaustion now battling with his will, he returned to his previous altitude.

Thus a pattern began. Naruto's exhaustion causing him to briefly lose consciousness and the regain it quickly to avoid more poisoned projectiles. Finally, when the Uzumaki and nameless girl reached the outer wall, his mindset had deteriorated a bit. He was so tired he could only think of finding his Tsunade and getting help for his friend and maybe get the three kunai out of his backside.

Tsunade was in the middle of a conference several suppliers of food and textiles for Konohana when something she did not expect came crashing through the window of her office. Suddenly four ANBU agents surrounded her, expecting an attack on their Hokage. After several seconds passed with neither figure on the floor moving she pushed past them and took in the copious bloodstains on the both of them, and the small but expanding pool coming from the figure in armor.

"Bear, get me Shizune and a medical team here now. Wasp, take my guests back to their hotel, we will continue this discussion when there aren't two people bleeding out on my floor. Elk, assist me in triage until the medic team gets here, focus on stabilizing the girl."

Panicked by the sight of blood, the three merchants were eager to flee the scene. The ANBU with a white mask painted with a set of distinctive antlers immediately began a simple diagnostic jutsu on Fu, hands glowing green as Tsunade rolled back the cowl on the other prone figure. "Naruto! What on earth is going on, he should be with Jiriya right now!" She began to run the same diagnostic jutsu as Elk, but was stopped by the armor not allowing chakra to penetrate it. Turning her voice to the last person currently in the room, she loudly gave another order. "Wolf, come help me get this armor off, I can't work with it on and I'm having trouble finding the clasps. Start with the boots."

Almost instantly another figure was feeling around for catches on the armor as they tried to get Naruto out of his shell. They managed to get both boots and the right arm's gloves and bracers. Tsunade was relived to find a weak but steady heartbeat in Naruto's wrist.

"Tsunade, Uzumaki has several kunai in his back side penetrating the armor. Should I remove them?"

"No Wolf, leave them in for now. Pulling them out before we get this armor off and the rest of his vitals taken could cause him to bleed out. They stay until I say otherwise."

Naruto was soon stripped, revealed wearing a bodysuit of mesh armor with a burnt sleeveless orangeshirt and black pants. No one mentioned it, but with the froth of sweat and blood inside the armor there was quite a smell. Now sure that the three kunai could be removed without killing or leaving more than a scar on him, Tsunade smiled at the thought of tasking her newest apprentice with getting him cleaned once the wounds were stitched shut.

"Elk, report."

"Yes, Lord Hokage. The girl is in bad shape, I believe she has shrapnel in wounds that have already healed; she also sports many broken bones, contusions, and cuts of varying depth that have begun to heal. With your attention she will survive. Disturbingly she has two seals on her, though I can only recognize them as seals and not their purpose."

Just then, a man in his early twenties raced into the room, wearing the traditional chunin uniform of the village. "Lord Hokage, the barrier team reports an intrusion by air! Two people flew above the western wall high enough not to be seen by sentries." Now irritated, Tsunade began working on the mint-haired girl while leaving Naruto to Shizune who had walked in, followed shortly by a team of medics covered head to toe in their uniforms.

"Shizune! Get those knives out of Naruto then let one of the team seal the wound and start picking glass out of him. Everyone else help me stabilize the girl. We'll be moving her in a few moments when I look at the seals on her. Chunin Brok, tell the barrier team they need a proposal for changes to speed up detection alerts to me by the end of tomorrow or you'll all be running D-rank missions for two weeks." A true professional, the leader of the Leaf Village gave out orders while carefully removing a small piece of shrapnel from Fu's upper chest cavity, never losing her sense of calm and purpose.

"Master, Naruto's got a bad case of chakra exhaustion! How on earth did that happen! I'm giving him a soldier and blood pill before I remove the kunai, they've got barbs on them."

"I have no idea! Jiriya is so dead when I find him, and I think I know what these seals are. She's a Jinchuriki, and there's a second seal, some kind of restriction, but I can't get it off safely without two people versed in seals, so it'll have to wait until either Jiriya shows up or Kakashi gets back from his mission."

Medics worked like busy bees around the two nude and bloody teens, not noticing the two new sets of wide eyes taking in the scene from the doorway, one emerald green, the other white and pupil less.

"N-Naruto…" Preceded the thunk of one Hinata Hyuga hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes. In her defense, the sight of her not so secret love interest lying on the floor, covered in blood smears and remains of his clothes was not a pretty one.

Two days and three hours later, Naruto began to slowly wake up to a sensation somewhat puzzling to his still-booting brain. Something cool and wet was dragging across his stomach. Eventually his eyes opened and the blond Uzumaki saw himself in a two person hospital room, his "little sister" across from him, his armor and weapons arrayed on a stand near his bed, cleaned and polished, (The barrier team failed to deliver in time to the Hokage, and one of them got stuck cleaning Naruto's unique armor, inside and out.) and Hinata, in a nurse's uniform cleaning his front with a medical sponge.

Naruto immediately let out an undignified and girly "Eep!" and quickly got himself under the covers of the hospital bed. Neither teen dared to gaze at each other for several long moments, both fighting down blushes as best they can.

"How is she?" Naruto gestured to the hint haired girl asleep on the other bed across from him, honest concern evident in his voice.

"Lady Tsunade thinks she will be fine in the long run, she was beaten within an inch of her life. Who is she?" The pale skinned and eyed girl asked cautiously.

"I don't know her name, but she was in trouble when I found her. I think I just barely managed to get the two of us here, can't actually remember landing." The last Uzumaki said with a shrug. "I'm glad she'll be alright."

With a faint smile on her lips, Hinata explained to him that he hadn't actually landed, but had fallen through the glass in the Hokage's office, during a meeting.

Hinata's smile suddenly turned slightly viscous. "You know, you do have some explaining to do." She pulled the hair that covered the back of her head, revealing a round, ugly purple bruise. "I know someone wearing that armor tagged me with a rubber-tipped arrow, would you happen to know anything about that? Or why everyone in the Konohana eleven, save Shikamaru and yourself, has this bruise on them now?"

"Hehehe," Knowing he was busted Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I was planning on telling everyone at once, then apologizing and giving out gifts to make up for it. But since it's you, I'll make an exception."

"You see, I finally got some really good blackmail material on the old pervert, and I called in a favor to one of the dynamo that owes me. I was entered into the Chunin Exams so I could get my vest, finally, but there was a problem. I didn't have a team, and being on the road constantly, I couldn't get one. Going solo in the Exams is frowned upon apparently, so as a kind of handicap to advance to the third round I was required to get an absurd number of scrolls to advance. I needed fifteen, but I only collected ten before the exam was called off."

With wide eyes revealing her shock, Hinata was silent for a moment. "Ten, is impressive. My group managed to get two when we woke up. Thank you for propping me up in the shade, by the way. My clan tends to burn, not tan."

Sensing he was almost out of the proverbial doghouse, Naruto motioned to his gear. "Could you pass me the scroll with the kanji for burnt on it? It has my clothes. I'd wear the armor, however it sucks chakra like crazy and I don't think Baa-chan would take kindly to me stressing myself out soon after waking up." Naruto watched the way she moved towards his equipment pile, Hinata had always struck him as being incredibly graceful, but today she was not. As she handed him the scroll, he inquired about it.

With a sigh and shake of her head, Hinata answered him in the bleak hospital room. "I've been training with Lady Tsunade, I tried to block when I should have dodged." Understanding her pain, Naruto gave a wince. "The injury was minor until my clan training damaged it further." Already reading the concern in his eyes, she cut him off before he could speak. "I will heal completely, it's just painful in the meantime." "Very painful!" She thought with a wince."Lady Tsunade said this will help me to dodge next time."

After accepting the scroll, Naruto bit his thumb, then wiped a little blood on the scroll's seal. He unfurled it almost to the end, revealing a number of separate sealing arrays. Unsealing a full set of clothing, the blond Uzumaki turned to Hyuga and blushed. "Ero-Senin says I need to get over being embarrassed in front of girls, but I don't think dressing in front of you would be appropriate. Mind stepping out and sending out a nurse or someone to tell the Baa-chan I'm up and awake?" Receiving a nod in reply, Naruto beamed at her with a real smile, glad to see a truly friendly face. "What to give her? One of the special bows for sure, but what else? She was the first of my peers to believe in me, and I can't remember her ever putting me down. I have two armor sets to give away, maybe I'll give one to her."

Changing out of his hospital gown, Naruto felt sorry for whoever gave him the first sponge bath. He had come off the Chunin Exam's second round when he found Fu's battlefield and decided to investigate. With the desert heat, he'd sweat so much he absolutely reeked by the time the test was called off. Climate control seals for the inside of his armor were next on his list to learn or try to invent, Ero-Senin might have to help him study the Uzumaki scrolls again.

Feeling a bit cold, Naruto donned a gray shirt, pants, and tall hiking style boots. The pants were made out of two layers, with a base layer for protection, and an outer layer to control the temperature. On the sides, holes had been cut out of the outer layer and replaced with orange and black stripes on the sides, from Naruto's hips to his ankles. His boots were gray leather, same shade as the shirt and pants, but the shoestrings were orange, as were a few highlights on the boots. Orange stripes, fading into crimson near the top adorned the long sleeved shirt, with the orange flowing from the pants. The shirt itself was padded with soft armor like a chunin vest, giving the appearance that Naruto's shoulders and chest were broader than they were. A crimson Uzumaki spiral was displayed proudly on the back, swirling with the stripes in a way that seemed as if the colors were being drained out of the shirt into a whirlpool. Overall, the clothing set used stripes of orange, red, and black to give an impression of a tiger shadowed in mist.

It was a far cry from the jumpsuits he once wore, and a hell of a lot more expensive, but it mixed function and form in a way that suited the Uzumaki heir. (He and Jiriya had done some bounty hunting for Naruto to learn how that system worked. Suffice it to say, they had made a considerable amount of money.) The last touch was his forehead protector, now with a burnt orange cloth tie, replacing one that had been lost. Flecks of white metal had been added to the grey, filling in small nicks and scratches to make the metal smooth again. Naruto felt good in his new apparel, he wasn't pleading for attention like when he wore his old jumpsuit, now he was better suited to hiding in the shadows, at least when he chose not to wear his armor. Naruto Uzumaki had learned the hard way that an arrow in the back often was a more effective battle stratagem than rushing in with clones. Not that he didn't still rush in with clones after the first volley, the blond was just a little smarter about it now.

Now dressed, he walked over to the girl whose name he still didn't know. She was sleeping soundly, her injuries now closed but not fully healed, leaving ugly scabs and scars crisscrossing the visible parts of her form. "If she's anything like me, those scars will heal quickly enough, she won't be marred forever. It would be a shame to do that to such a pretty face."

Naruto snapped out of his reverie when the door opened, revealing the Hokage herself flanked by her two apprentices, Sakura Haruno and Hinata Hyuga. All three were happy to see him awake. "Baa-chan, I know I'm in the hospital, but do you mind if I summon a messenger for Ero-Senin? At this point he's probably going nuts trying to find me, especially if I've been sleeping for two days." Receiving a nod in reply, Naruto bit his thumb, ran through some hand signs and slammed his palm onto the ground. When the smoke cleared, a five foot tall orange toad with purple markings around it's eyes was standing in the hospital room.

"Yo Naruto." Gamakichi greeted as he looked around the room. "Hey Tsunade, pinky, Hinata." Swiveling back around to Fu, "What's wrong with her?" He asked.

"Akatsuki happened, they almost killed her. I managed to get away and both of us back to Konohana in time though." Said whiskered teen, already trying to downplay the scale of the battle to save his godfather from Tsunade's wrath.

"So, you found another jinchuriki, saved her from two S-rank ninja, carried her to safety, and she looks pretty enough. Dude, you're so getting laid when she gets out of here." In response the last Uzumaki dropped his head, blushed, and started mumbling about his, real, honorable intentions towards Fu.

Sakura Haruno didn't wait for a real explanation, assuming dishonest intentions on Naruto's part and made to punch those ideas out of him. As she moved silently in Naruto's blind spot behind him, his instincts kicked in. The blond swiftly dodged to his left, caught the incoming fist by the pinkete's wrist, turned the wrist until it broke, then began to swing her over his back. While that was in motion, his left hand made a short jerking motion outwards and then grasped a kunai that wasn't there. As Sakura hit the floor hard enough to vacate the air from her lungs she was "stabbed" in the heart by Naruto's kunai that wasn't there. Everyone in the room was shocked, including Naruto. "How long have you been using a spring loaded kunai, brat? Jiriya's been training you well if that's your response to an attack from behind."

"About eighteen months now Baa-chan. I actually cut myself up pretty badly the first few times using it."

"That's to be expected when you're using that kind of equipment kid. Now Sakura, before you try that again, try to remember that seasoned ninjas develop that kind of response, and you're really lucky he wasn't wearing any gear. Hinata, get to work on Sakura's wrist. I know you don't think you're ready for setting bones yet, but try anyway. I'll clean up if you make a mess of it."

Suddenly Hinata's inner monologue became a debate regarding Sakura's long standing treatment of Naruto, her unprovoked attack and the amount of effort to put into setting and healing the wrist. Her conclusion: do her best to heal Sakura's wrist, but "forget" to use a pain-numbing jutsu. As the two of them filed out, Naruto and Hinata said goodbye.

There was no explicit apology, as Tsunade's words were true. Naruto's body language and facial expressions were all the indicators needed to show his inner feelings of guilt and shame.

Walking over to him, Tsunade ruffled his hair that had gotten considerably longer in the two years he'd been gone. "Is Jiriya teaching him the Lion's Mane technique?" It now hung just past his neck. "Now that the three of us are alone, maybe you can open your eyes and tell us who you are. It's hard to fake sleep to the greatest medic in the world, girl." Both Naruto's cerulean and Tsunade's brown locked with Fu's solid orange as her eyes opened slowly.

Her voice sounded more like a croak, various injuries still not having healed completely. "Where, where am I?"

"Konohana, the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Naruto brought you in half-dead. A little more than half actually. He's just woken up so both of you can brief me on what happened. Since Waterfall is an allied village, I'll send information to Shibuki and an escort to take you home when you've healed."

"Home! I don't even get to live in my village, I'm just a living weapon to them. Only Shibuki actually cares." Fu thought to herself. "And I'm not sure even he would pick a fight with two S-rank missing ninja to save me like this guy, who apparently has been in a hospital as long as I have."

"My name is Fu, no surname, just Fu. I was here a couple of weeks ago to participate in the Chunin Exams. I made it through until the exams were called off after the attack on the Kazekage. My group spent a few days in Suna to rest before we headed back to Waterfall. The trip was going smoothly, we checked in with a Leaf border patrol team as we crossed into the Land of Fire, since that was the most expedient way home. We camped near the border and moved out early the next day. That was when they attacked." Her voice caught and hacked out a few shallow coughs. "Two men in black cloaks with red clouds… my escort was no match at all, and neither was I."

"They beat me down at my strongest, tore down my special powers, made me look like nothing." Fu's voice cracked, and it was clear her voice was almost gone. "They beat me until I couldn't move at all. Then as they dragged me away, one of them told me exactly how long and painful my death was going to be, and all of the, all of the things he was… he was going to do to me." She was tearing up, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. (Outside, Sakura and Hinata had their ears pressed against the door, both looking at each other with wide eyes. Terrible things happened to kunoichi sometimes, but Fu's situation would have been especially scary.) Naruto walked up and put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a forced smile. Fu returned it with a small one of her own.

"I was…" her voice was cracking badly at that point. "I was sure he was telling the truth, until these arrows came out of nowhere, three vital points in both monsters. I passed out for a moment, and then I," she coughed again, "was in his arms and then we were running. He was so strong, and, *cough* he saved me." Tsunade walked over with a shushing motion and placed glowing green hands onto Fu's throat.

"That's enough for now, get some rest. Naruto can tell me the rest. (Outside, two teenagers swiftly and silently departed.) Naruto, we'll continue this in my office, you have some explaining to do, especially regarding where Jiriya is." Naruto's face cringed when Tsunade mentioned his teacher, trying to figure out how to negate the consequences for his godfather while keeping out of the fire himself. "I also want an in-depth explanation of how you can fly, where you got those weapons and armor, and how on earth you gave yourself such a bad case of chakra exhaustion."

Naruto smacked his head on the hospital doorframe, letting out a groan. So much for keeping some things under wraps. Quickly sealing his armor and sword into a special white blood-sealed scroll, he walked out after promising Fu he'd be back to see her soon.

I appreciate any feedback readers are willing to offer. I know the chapters are short and slow, but part of my efforts to improve my writing are increasing the speed I put out at. Next chapter explains a lot, and then the plot should really get moving.

As a question, if the Uzumaki Clan had a sealed vault that survived, what do you think would be in it? I have an idea I'll use in this story or the next that's wholly original (At least it's not in anything I've read so far.). Naruto has a set of scrolls in this story that teach the Sealing Arts, but they're of limited use without a teacher that understands all of the principles.