CHAPTER THREE: Out of the Blue

"The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward."
― Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams


Tsunade felt like throwing someone out a window. While it might be frowned upon, it would definitely make her feel better. Of course, a nice bottle of sake would probably do just as well. But unfortunately, she was the Hokage now and she wasn't allowed to drink herself unconscious whenever she wanted to anymore.

Tsunade sighs and drops her head against her desk with a bang. Being the Hokage sucked. And to make matters worse, since she had become Hokage, Shizune had gone from disapproving of her sake-drinking habits to becoming the Sake Police. It was embarrassing that a Sannin like herself couldn't even manage to hide a bottle of sake from her assistant.

She lifts her head off her desk and growls when a few of the never-ending papers stick to her forehead. She is sorely tempted to crumple them up and throw them away, but with her luck, they were probably submissions from the civilian shop-keepers asking for a ridiculous amount of money for repairs for the damages they had sustained from the impromptu attack from Oto and Suna a month ago.

Thinking about that also made her want to throw someone out a window. Or drink an unhealthy amount of sake.

Which brought her back to the initial reason of why she wanted to throw someone out a window; or more specifically, a few people. Those few people being some of the Council. She had always known her sensei hadn't been particularly fond of the village's Council, but she hadn't known that they were this bad. It seemed like they were purposely trying to undermine her authority and make everything much harder than it had to be.

Of course, having their precious Uchiha defect from the village hadn't helped their attitudes.

Tsunade had never really known the famed Last Uchiha. Taking up the mantle of Godaime Hokage and trying to clean up the mess Orochimaru had left had taken all of her attention and resources so she had had no choice but to delegate the task of retrieving the Uchiha to Shikaku's kid and his team. When the dust had settled, the Uchiha had gone his own way. And though she had never met the boy, she was already pretty biased against him; in the extreme.

Sure the boy had defected from the village, which she was the leader of. That was a big deal in itself as it could be taken as a personal slight to herself. But it wasn't for that reason that she didn't like the genin she had never met.

It was because he had hurt him.

He had hurt one of her few precious people. The one who had brought the light slamming back into her life. She had personally seen the damage the Uchiha had done to her precious brat. She had seen how Naruto had almost died to bring his teammate back.

If she ever came across the Uchiha, she would rip him a new one.

A knock sounds on her door and she almost cries out in joy at the welcome distraction. With a yelled 'Come in' Tsunade attempts to reign in some of the chaos that has taken over her desk.

An ANBU, whose name she honestly can't remember right now, walks in. "Hokage-sama," he says with a bow. He coughs.

Tsunade waves her hand through the air in a dismissive manner. After the Council and paperwork, the bowing was the next thing on her list of Things to Destroy. While people had been bowing to her ever since she was coined one of the Legendary Sannin, she had been traveling for years from place to place with a young face and civilian clothes and had become used to people not recognizing her. The recurrence of the constant bowing got old after the first week.

"What?" she snaps. When the ANBU starts to cough again she immediately feels guilty. It wasn't his fault that she was so stressed out. "My apologizes," she says, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. "I'm just a little tired. Please, continue."

"Inoichi-sama says that he's ready when you are, Hokage-sama," the ANBU says.

She nods, her mood instantly improving. "That's a nasty cough you have. Schedule an appointment with my assistant Shizune and I'll take a proper look at you. Dismissed."

With a nod and a bow, the ANBU leaves.

Despite the bowing, Tsunade finds herself smiling. If there was one thing she enjoyed it was a challenge; and the patient that she was about to go see was the very definition of challenge. After she had somewhat stabilized the village after her ex-teammate's attack, she had gone through the more private and classified files the village had, hoping to find something that would take her mind off of her sensei's death. And she had hit the jackpot.

Patient number U15399 was a gold mine for her med-nin side. Brought in about three months ago, just before the Chunin Exams had begun, the preliminary and follow up test results within the file had been utterly incomprehensible. She had almost thrown the file out, assuming it was a filing error, but at the last moment she had noticed Inoichi Yamanaka's signature scribbled on the bottom.

When she had performed her own personal exam her results hadn't been much better. A lot of her techniques just didn't work on the man. Short of slicing the man up, there wasn't much she could do. The only thing she really knew about the man, medically, was that he was in pristine health. Which should have been impossible considering his history. If the initial damage report was to be believed, the man should have been at least a hundred feet under.

She and Shizune had spent countless hours hypothesizing about the man's seeming miraculous recovery. That the man had some kind of rapid healing bloodline was the most probable conclusion.

When U15399's body made a full recovery a few weeks after he was found, ANBU had placed him in one of the more permanent Torture and Interrogation cells. However, it was quickly decided that it would be for the best that when the patient woke up, he woke up in a comfortable hospital room.

And if he decided to stay in Konoha and spread this unique bloodline then that was fine too.

Tsunade leaves her office behind with good riddance and makes her way through the village towards the hospital. Inoichi had been the initial attending for U15399 and had been adamant about being the patient's sole caretaker, besides herself of course. Apparently, Inoichi had a slight fascination with the man because, according to him, it was the first mind he had encountered which he couldn't break into. And if Inoichi Yamanaka couldn't get into someone's mind, then no one could.

Tsunade just hoped the man wasn't from another shinobi village or else they would have a serious problem. If it wasn't a blood line and was instead some sort of new village technique and there were enemy nin out there that were able to close off their minds as completely as U15399 was, then there was no telling what trouble that would spell for Konoha.

Yesterday, one of her jutsus on the man had registered that he had woken up for a moment. It couldn't have been more than a second; when she had arrived minutes later he had been unconscious again, just as unresponsive as ever. So today, Tsunade was going to take a risk and try and wake the man up. Normally she wouldn't dare do something so risky, especially after the patient had almost died, but it was because he had almost died and was now fine that she was going to attempt it. Healing so quickly wasn't exactly normal so she figured the man could take it. If she succeeded then Inoichi was to try to break into his mind again. Hopefully it would be easier if he was conscious.

Tsunade knew that they should probably wait, not only could they accidentally fry the man's brain, but it wasn't exactly polite to invade someone's mind the second they woke up. It kind of negated the whole 'we are friendly enough to have offered you a comfortable bed to rest in while you recovered' thing. But Tsunade was just too damn eager and she knows that Inoichi was excited for today as well. They would deal with the consequences later.

And there was something else unique about UNKNOWN15399; something more interesting than him being able to heal at inhumane rates. More interesting than him appearing from nowhere, in the midst of a S level fight.

Patient U15399 had no chakra.

None.

Not even the barest of sparks that civilians had.

Never, in her entire career as a med-nin or in all of her travels, had she come across someone with no chakra. Even when ninjas were exiled and had their chakra sealed, if you were skilled enough you would be able to pick up on the barest impressions of chakra.

The man she was going to go see was very interesting indeed.

Tsunade walks through the white winding corridors of Konoha's only hospital to U15399's room. Inoichi is already waiting for her, leaning against the door with his eyes closed.

He opens his eyes and gives a small, respectful nod, but doesn't bow. "Hokage-sama."

Together, they walk into the small one-man room that holds the object that's piqued both of their interests.

Tsunade looks down at the man on the bed. Dwarfed by the bulky white sheets, he appears painfully young, perhaps in his early twenties at most. His high cheekbones, arched eyebrows and thin, straight nose give him an almost feline appearance. His tanned, unmarred skin complements his long red hair nicely. Tsunade purposely doesn't think about his hair. There are a million other things more interesting about the man than the shade of his hair. Red hair meant nothing.

Inoichi pulls a chair up by the man's head and sits down. "I'm going to try and break through one more time before you wake him, just in case," he says, gently placing both hands on the man's temples and closing his eyes. A second later he reopens them with a sigh of disappointment, but there's a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Still nothing. It's incredible really. Usually when there's something blocking me it's a jutsu or a seal of some kind that manifests a physical barrier in the mind or erases parts altogether. Even if someone has had their mind entirely wiped clean there's still emptiness there, like a blank white space. But this guy," Inoichi waves vaguely in front of him, "this guy, it's like there's nothing there. I might as well be trying to read a chair's mind. Fascinating really."

"Yes, well, as fascinating as all that is, it's a problem. The man is either a shinobi, has some powerful shinobi enemies or is some combination of the two. If he is an enemy shinobi then this new technique, or whatever it is that they've managed to develop that allows their nin to hide their minds so efficiently, is a major threat. Who knows what of danger this man potentially poses," Tsunade says.

"Yes, yes. Then again, it might just be an isolated incident related only to this particular man. A blood line or forbidden jutsu maybe?" Inoichi asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Hm, two blood lines? Maybe, we won't know until he wakes up," Tsunade says walking around to take Inoichi's place by U15399's head.

Waking a person from an unconscious state was relatively easy. Depending on how deep into unconsciousness the person was, different methods were used. The best solution, in Tsunade's opinion, was a simple chakra reinforced whack to the back of the head. However, seeing as that was sometimes detrimental to the patient's physical well-being, Tsunade usually had to employ more gentle methods.

The most effective method was for the med-nin to take a small amount of their own chakra and push it into the patient without any intent; otherwise known as blank chakra. Simple, yet potentially dangerous. If the chakra that was pushed into the patient wasn't completely blank and without motive then a severe backlash would occur, drastically draining both the medic and the patient of their chakra. It required the strictest concentration. In addition, they also had to factor in how much blank chakra they were pushing in. If the patient had small chakra reserves and they pushed too much in they could accidentally fry the patient's chakra coils.

Which was usually why smelling salts were used. Simple, yet effective. However, if a person was too far from consciousness, usually in a coma-like state, then it was usually better to wait it out than to risk trying to wake the person up. However, if you had an exceptionally skilled med-nin then the blank chakra method could be used with relative ease; being able to wake a person who had been in a coma for years.

Today, there just so happened to be the best medic ninja in the entire Elemental Countries in the room.

With a smirk, Tsunade places glowing green hands on each side of the man's face and sends a short but powerful blast of blank chakra through the man's chakra coils. Coils which she knew were there even if there was no chakra flowing through them. And judging by their development, the missing chakra was enormous. She doesn't think about red hair and large chakra reserves, instead absent-mindedly noting that this is the first time she's actually made physical contact with the man.

Nothing happens.

Tsunade gives an undignified huff and sends another, more powerful, burst of chakra through the man. He should have woken up screaming bloody murder.

Nothing.

"Tsunade-sama?" Inoichi hesitantly asks.

"Maybe it's not working because he has no chakra to begin with? Usually when this method is used, the chakra that is pushed into the patient acts as a catalysts and jumpstarts the patient's entire chakra system. Since there's no chakra in his body, there's nothing to jumpstart. Idiot! I should have thought of that earlier!" Tsunade scowls, mentally berating herself. In hindsight, it was pretty obvious that it wouldn't have worked. She had let her eagerness get in the way and cloud her judgment.

"So then we'll just have to wait for him to wake up on his own then, huh? I can continue trying to break in, but I doubt it will do any good. It's like I don't even have anything to break into." Inoichi sighs, his disappointment written clearly on his face.

Tsunade doesn't blame him. She's been looking forward to this all week and to have nothing happen is a major let down. She stands and makes her way towards the door, Inoichi right behind her, when she suddenly feels like a bucket of cold water is being dumped on her. She tenses and spins around, chakra already gathered in her clenched fists.

"Show yourself!" she yells at the room.

No ANBU come at her sudden spike in chakra. Patient U15399 was confidential and only a handful of people knew of him; her ANBU guard had been discretely ordered this morning to take a few hours off.

"Tsunade-sama!" Inoichi exclaims, jumping backwards and holding his hands up in the air to show his innocence. When he realizes she isn't glaring at him he too turns around and searches the room. "Hokage-sama?" he whispers warily, slipping into a more formal address.

"We're being watched," Tsunade grits out. She doesn't know by who or from where but she trusts her instincts; she wasn't a Sannin because of her looks.

Tsunade can feel the malice, the hate in the air, almost as if it were a tangible thing. And though she would never admit it, it's making her nervous. She whips her head to the right when she hears indistinctive murmurings.

"I can hear you! I order you to show yourself this instant or else I will use force!" Tsunade yells into the air again. The murmurings come from the left and she jerks her head that way but there's still nothing.

"Hokage-sama, I don't sense or hear anything. Should I call for backup?" Inoichi says, kind smile gone, replaced by his no-nonsense jounin persona.

No. She doesn't know why, but she doesn't want to call for her ANBU guards. Why? She should. It was just common sense. She was the Hokage and she needed protection against enemies even if she was powerful; all it took was one mistake to get yourself killed. So why wasn't she signaling for her ANBU? She opens her mouth but nothing comes out, something screaming inside of her to not call for backup.

The voice is getting either louder or closer and she can't tell if it's male or a female. She can't even really tell what direction it's coming from. She glances at the man on the bed. Was he doing this? Was the voice a friend of his? Or were they after him?

"This is your last warning! Show yourself or face the consequences!"

Tsunade increases the chakra flow to her fists and abruptly realizes there's more than one voice. There's half a dozen? A dozen? How did so many intruders manage to get into the village? She tries to make out the words they're saying to each other, or are they talking to her?

It's her.

Tsunade freezes. She heard one of the voices clearly that time, it was still faint but she had clearly heard the words. It had sounded like an older male. Was he talking about her, targeting her? Tsunade glances at Inoichi, who is standing protectively in front of her, but he gives no indication that he's heard or was hearing anything. It had to be some kind of genjutsu then that was making only her hear the voices.

She says a silent 'Kai!' and disrupts her chakra flow.

Yeah, she was on that rock. One of the voices, a younger male this time, says, voice just as faint.

Godaime Hokage. Precious. A female this time.

Finally, why the hell did it take so long? A grouchy male's voice.

Idiots! A new voice yells, louder and more clear than all the others. Be quiet and keep healing!

The constant murmuring that Tsunade has been hearing ceases but she only tenses more. Whoever these people were they knew who she was. She opens her mouth to question the hidden enemies again.

Hold your tongue woman! The clear voice says again.

"Excuse me?" she yells out in anger.

Inoichi turns around and gives her a questioning look. Belatedly, Tsunade realizes she probably looks like a fool talking to no one.

Are all you humans this dense? I said hold your tongue woman! Tell the Yamanaka to leave.

Tsunade's eye twitches at the command. Who the hell did this person think they were, telling her what to do. She opens her mouth again to give him a piece of her mind, appearances be damned, when a low threatening growl reverberates through her mind.

Tsunade's jaw snaps shut, her instincts telling her to err on the side of caution. She's not some green-faced genin, she is more than capable of gauging a situation and acting accordingly. And that growl wasn't something born from a human so Tsunade complies with the creature's wishes.

"Forgive me Inoichi-san. I must be more tired than I thought I was if I'm starting to imagine things. Why don't you head on home? I'm going to stay with the patient a little longer to run a few more tests just in case I overlooked something."

Inoichi frowns at her but it isn't his place to question a not-so-subtle order from his Hokage. With a wary bow and another cursory sweep of the room with his eyes, he backs out of the room and leaves.

For a moment nothing happens.

"Well, what do you want with me? I'm alone now, so stop hiding like a coward and show yourself."

Tsunade's proud that her voice holds no hint of her trepidation. She isn't sure what happened to the other voices but if they chose to attack her, she knows she isn't eager to fight with any of them. She narrows her eyes at the unconscious man lying on the bed, oblivious to the world. She just knows that this was all connected to him; coincidences aren't that common in the shinobi world. She can't wait for the man to wake up so she can beat the crap out of him for causing her so much trouble.

There's no need to speak aloud Godaime. Merely think your words and I will hear them. The voice says.

Tsunade hesitates at the voice confirming that he knows who she is; a month of being the Hokage wasn't long enough for her face to be well known. However, she can't just stand here without getting any answers. So, feeling incredibly foolish, she thinks: How are you communicating with me?

When you pushed your chakra into the kid I pushed some of my own into you, establishing a link so I could contact you. We have been waiting a while for you.

Are you the unconscious man? Who is we? There were others earlier, where did they go?

There isn't an answer right away and Tsunade has to stretch her patience well past its limits in order not to punch something to release all of her pent up nervousness and confusion. She hates not knowing what's going on. She really needed that sake about five minutes ago.

Neither I nor my kin are the man you see. We are merely…a part of him. No more, no less. Do not ask our names for I will not tell you now nor any other time. We would not have made you aware of our presence if the kid had been awake. But his soul is shattered right now and it's taking everything we have just to keep him alive. As humiliating as this is, we need to ask for your assistance for there is only so much even we can do.

Tsunade takes a moment to process the rush of information. If the voice was to be believed, then the man lying in the room with her, the man who looked to be in perfect health, was almost dying. And not only that but he supposedly had voices, possibly separate beings, inside of him. Tsunade massages her temples. First things first: the welfare of her patient.

What's wrong with him? My tests show that there is no internal or external damage. His body, or his physical being at least, is perfectly fine. We haven't been able to assess his mental state as even our best can't get a read on him.

Tsunade walks back over to the unconscious man and sits down next to him. She studies him again, her curiosity drowning out any other emotion. What had she missed?

He recently went through an…ordeal. While we managed to heal his body and mind, his soul has been strained. It was almost ripped from his body and it's just barely holding onto his physical being. If his soul loses what little grip it still has, he will become nothing more than a shell. As powerful as we are we cannot do much in the matters of human souls. But another human can.

Tsunade turns his words over in her mind for a moment. It certainly was a lot of information to take in, assuming the voice is telling the truth. She knows a little about souls, the result of Jiraiya studying their ex-teammate's leftover research, and she's pretty confident that she would be able to help heal a strained soul. Though what the hell had the man been doing to mess with his soul?

Orochimaru's face flashes through her mind and she grits her teeth. He was the only person in the Elemental Countries that dabbled in such forbidden jutsu with any modicum of success. Had this man been an unfortunate byproduct of one of his experiments?

You said his mind was healed. Why can't we access it then?

We have not let you. Is the simple reply.

Tsunade grunts in acknowledgment. From what she can conclude so far, whoever these people are, though she doubts they are people, they were living inside the young man. Parasitically or symbiotically? At least now she knows the reason behind the man's fast healing. And it's almost a relief that the redhead with large chakra reserves wasn't directly responsible for his fast healing. The less coincidences the better. The only question was: what could heal a person like that?

Tsunade only knows of one thing that can heal a person and that lives inside of a human. She looks down at the man. While it was possible that the man was a container for a bijuu, it couldn't be true. There was more than one voice/being inside of the man. Tsunade had never heard of more than one tailed-beast being sealed within a person before. She had certainly never heard of a demon being able to communicate with a person that wasn't its container.

So the man wasn't a jinchuuriki. The fact that all nine of the bijuu were currently sealed within known humans helped support that fact. So it had to be some other kind of self-aware power source inside the man. But she hadn't seen any seal markings when she had examined the man. Then again, according to Jiraiya, most seals on humans didn't show up until their chakra passed through it. Then again, this man didn't have any chakra right now so if he had a seal it wouldn't have shown up anyway.

Tsunade rubs her temples again and sighs. She isn't used to thinking this much this early in the day.

How can I help?

Healing the man had been her intention all along, she reasons. She had taken an oath when she first became a med-nin, and though she had been neglecting it the past few years, her return to Konoha was supposed to mark a new beginning for her. Either way, she would have to keep a closer watch on the man, seeing as she now knows that there are multiple beings sealed within the man.

Place your hands on the kid's head like you did before and we will let you in. Then you can begin healing him.

Tsunade places her hands on the man's head and can't help but be a little wary; this was Ibiki and Inoichi's field of expertise, not hers. She also isn't too keen on meeting the multiple powerful beings inside the man. And Tsunade just knows they are powerful, you can't just hide a person's mind from the Head of the Yamanaka Clan on a whim.

Tsunade sits there for a second and starts to feel foolish when nothing happens. She chews her bottom lip and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to imagine herself inside of the man's mind. She mentally curses herself for not paying more attention to Inoichi whenever he went on one of his long boring rants about the intricacies of the human mind.

Her patience at its end, Tsunade opens her eyes to yell at the voice when she realizes she isn't sitting in the hospital room anymore. She slowly stands up from where she's sitting on the cold floor (wasn't she just on a chair?) and looks around.

Now, Tsunade has never been in someone's mind before, so she can't really tell if this is the norm or not. However, she can tell you that if someone were to go looking inside of her head it would be nowhere near as…clean as this man's is.

From what she can tell, it looks like she's standing in the middle of a giant lake. As far as she can see there is nothing but clear water. She looks down at her feet, and though she can see that the water comes up to her shins, she doesn't feel wet. She looks up and frowns. Instead of seeing an open sky like she expected, about a hundred meters above her is a pure white ceiling. She squints to get a better look. Are those pipes up there?

Tsunade can only conclude that she is in the world's biggest and cleanest sewer. A logical conclusion.

"Walk straight ahead until you come to the gate." The voice says, only this time it isn't echoing in her head. The voice, easily twice as loud and deep as before, reverberates through the sewer.

Tsunade looks straight ahead and sees only water. Her eye twitches. "I don't see a gate. How far away is it?"

An irritated growl echoes around her. "Not far. Just walk in a straight line. As high a pedestal as the humans have placed you on I had assumed that you would able to follow such simple directions. Do you need me to draw you a map, Hokage?"

Tsunade's other eye twitches. Biting her tongue to keep from lashing out at the irritating voice and conveniently forgetting her earlier reservations, Tsunade stomps forward, the water splashing around her. She can't wait to give that conceited thing a good beating. Teach it a few things about respecting their elders, powerful non-human be damned.

So engrossed in trying not to make a snarky remark, Tsunade doesn't notice the gate sticking out of the water until she almost runs into it. She takes a step back in surprise.

Saying the gate was giant was an understatement. Colossal was a more fitting term. She should have been able to see it from miles and miles away. And she was certain that she hadn't been walking for that long, a few minutes at most. How she hadn't seen the gate sooner was baffling.

The gate looks like it's made out of some kind of black metal. The bars, set about a meter apart and thicker than a person, stick up out of the water and extend all the way up to the ceiling. She looks to both sides but can't make out were the gate ends, it just seems to continue on indefinitely. She's not even sure she would call it a gate, a gate implied it could be opened and she doesn't see any indications of an entryway.

One thing she knows for certain is that whatever is on the other side of the gate has to be huge. She can easily slip through the bars, which kind of made the whole gate thing moot. She can only see a few feet behind the bars, any further and there is only darkness.

Tsunade takes a closer look at the bars and notices that they aren't smooth like she had first thought they were. She gently runs a finger along one of the bars and feels slight indentations. Tsunade leans closer and squints to get a better look. She abruptly realizes the indentations are engravings and pulls her hand back as if she's been shocked.

... the hell?

From what little fuinjutsu she knows, mostly from Jiraiya and Minato, she can tell that the engravings on the bar are some kind of seal. An advanced seal; far more complex than anything she's ever seen before. She quickly goes to the next bar over and sees more engravings. In a daze, she goes to the next bar.

More engravings.

As far as she can see, each and every bar has seals engraved into them. She can't make out any repetitions.

Tsunade's eyes widen. The entire gate was one giant seal. She feels slightly lightheaded as she tries to comprehend the implications that such a large seal has. The sheer amount of power that the gate-seal itself probably contained had to be greater than the combined power of all of Hokages. What the hell was behind the gate?

"Finally, thought I would fall asleep before the woman made it here." A grouchy male's voice says.

The voice is fainter than the one who had been speaking to her before, but it echos around her all the same.

"Shut up! Who gave you permission to speak?" The loud, stronger voice says.

"Oh, don't be such a bore. I don't remember nominating you to be our spokesperson. Why can't I speak to the lady?" A female's voice this time; faint like the grouchy male's.

"Because I was here first and I'm smarter than all of you so shut up and watch the kid!" The strong voice says.

The voices are all coming from the other side of the gate but Tsunade can't make out any forms but the disembodied voices are clearer now that she's closer to where they're originating from. She still can't tell how many beings there are but she knows for certain that there are at least five different voices; with the one male's being the most clear.

They sound big.

"Just let Mr. Grouchy over there have his way or else he'll get his tails in a twist and we'll never hear the end of it. Frankly, I'd rather let him handle this situation than do it myself." A different male's voice; faint like the other two.

There's a short moment of silence before a hysterical, slightly crazed laugh fills the air, making a shiver run down Tsunade's spine. The laughter goes on, bouncing off unseen walls. Tsunade swears she hears a few exasperated sighs.

"Then I vote for Oh-Great-One to take the lead." The voice says, gasping between insane giggles, it's voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

"Idiots! You should show me more respect. It's because of me that you are all even here in the first place!" The strong voice says.

The moment the words are spoken the voices all protest in outrage, roars and growls blending into one deafening noise. Feeling like her eardrums are going to burst, Tsunade quickly covers her ears to block the noise but even then the sound penetrates and she can't help but wince. The voices don't show any signs of quieting and as nervous as Tsunade has been up till now, she has to get them to stop or her head is going to explode from all the racket.

Besides, wasn't the whole point of this little unexpected adventure because they needed her. And instead of paying any attention to her they were bickering with each other like children and it was seriously grating on her nerves.

Not wanting to risk taking her hands away from her ears Tsunade does the only thing she can think of.

"HEY!" she yells as loud as she can.

The effect is immediate. In contrast to the deafening noise a few seconds ago, a deafening silence settles around them. Only to be broken by another round of insane giggling. A quiet thump followed by a 'yip' and the creepy laughter stops.

Taking the silence as her cue to continue talking, Tsunade takes a deep breath and tries to see beyond the bars into the darkness. The only thing she can make out are vague areas where the darkness seemed to shift, but nothing definite. "What am I supposed to do now?" she asks aloud, trying to ignore all the squabbling they had just been doing. Their childish fighting was kind of ruining her image of the all-powerful beings she had been building up in her head.

"Get the kid." The strong voice says, assuming the leader role again; this time with no complaints.

"I am assuming you are the leader among you all. How do I address you?" Tsunade asks. The more information she can get the better.

On the other side of the gate, something starts loudly splashing. The water, which had been consistently at her mid shin, begins to rise up to her waist as a wave passes through her. When the ripple passes, the water level falls down to her ankle. Another ripple approaches her; whatever is displacing that much water has to be huge. When she had walked, the water had barely rippled.

"Make no mistake Godaime Hokage, if it weren't for the situation we are in we would not have contacted you. As we need your help, it is unavoidable. We are uncertain of how the kid wants to proceed but given his condition we had to make the decision for him and hope that it is what he would do."

Tsunade slowly nods, a few pieces coming together. Whoever she was talking to, they clearly took orders from U15399, or at the very least respected him enough to want to do what he would want. Was he their master of sorts?

The strong voice pauses for a moment, as if choosing its next words carefully. "We have been deliberating since our arrival about what path we should take. The best option we have right now is to reveal the truth to as few people as possible; ideally only one person. It would be beneficial for the kid if it is someone he trusts, preferably in a high social position who has the influence to allow the kid to do as he needs. Our only problem is that we also need someone who is also be able to heal him, which severely limits our options."

"And no one fits the bill better than me, right?" Tsunade asks.

"Correct."

"But I don't know this man or you, so how could he trust me?"

"You may not know us, but we most certainly know you , " the voice says. Amusement seeping through, though it mostly just sounds snarky.

Tsunade frowns. It's true that a lot of people know her for her role in the War as one of the Sannin, or more recently as the Godaime Hokage, but she has a feeling the voice means it on a more personal level. And it also hasn't escaped her notice that the voice hasn't given her a name to call him.

The waves are gradually getting bigger. Tsunade hears low, rhythmic 'thuds' followed by the floor vibrating, as if some giant creature were walking towards her. The endless darkness on the other side of the gate shifts slightly and, for the first time, Tsunade can properly make out something.

Stepping out of the darkness, easily five-stories high, is a glowing red mass in the shape of a giant ape. The being isn't completely solid, made up of what looks to be solely chakra. She can almost see straight through it, and looking through the giant ape's chest she sees something that makes her gasp out loud.

The giant ape has four tails.

Tsunade will go to her grave trying to convince herself that she doesn't stumble back and almost fall over in surprise. "Y-Yonbi," she whispers, barely believing her eyes.

It wasn't possible. When Jiraiya had first become aware of Akatsuki's objectives he had gone out and confirmed the identities of all the jinchuriki. She can't remember them all, but she knows the Yonbi jinchuuriki is an older man from Iwa; and Tsunade knows that it would take nothing less than the end of the world for Iwa to allow their weapon anywhere near Konoha. She might not remember any of the jinchuuriki's names, but she's seen profile pictures of each of the nine containers and she knows that this man isn't one of them.

Had the previous Yonbi jinchuuriki been recently killed? It would have had to have happened within the last month though as Jiraiya's last update had been right before he and Naruto left for their training trip. And U15399 had been brought in well before Jiraiya's last update, so even if the Yonbi jinchuuriki has been killed there's no way he could have gotten his hands on the Yonbi.

How could he be the Yonbi's jinchuuriki? Was Jiraiya's network, which had never failed him before, wrong? But then how could Iwa cover something this big up? They could probably hide that one of their jinchuuriki died but that they had lost the new one? They would have scoured the country searching for him if he really was the Yonbi container. None of this was making any sense. She's missing something.

"I have a name you know!" the Yonbi says, irritated.

Tsunade can only gape at the giant ape.

"Pah! Not that you humans would care about something like that! And it's not like I'd tell you it anyway! But it's a good, strong name I'll have you know!" the Yonbi says, puffing his chest out.

His voice, like all but one, is slightly faint; as if they are farther away than the one with the strong voice. Could that mean they were weaker than the leader? Who would the Yonbi even follow?

Tsunade's brain jolts. If the Yonbi is one of the beings behind the gate, then who are the others? What could you stick in the same cage as a bijuu and not have said bijuu destroy it? Could there be—? No. Tsunade mentally shakes her head. She isn't even going to think about something like that. It's impossible after all.

The Yonbi kneels as close to the giant gate as it can. The water sloshing even more and rising up to Tsunade's neck before falling back down again, leaving her as dry as before. The Yonbi brings forward cupped hands and Tsunade notices for the first time that the demon is actually holding something. With a gentleness that Tsunade can't wrap her head around, the bijuu gently lies a tattered body down next to the gate.

The moment the prone form touches the water, the water level lowers till it's no higher than a few inches.

The body is an exact replica of U15399. Everything down to the last hair is exactly the same, but for one major difference. Whereas the U16399 she has been treating has umarred skin, this one has lacerations of various sizes covering his body. What skin she can see is painted a mosaic of black, purple, yellow and green. He looks like he's been through a blender.

The Yonbi gently slides the battered body through the bars with his pinky.

Tsunade rushes over to the man and kneels at his side. "My god," she whispers as she takes full stock of the injuries. "Is this-?"

"His soul, yes. We have been able to keep the fundamentals of it intact but fully healing it is something we cannot do." The strong voice says.

The Yonbi turns and walks back into the darkness, his glowing red form seeming to melt back into the pitch black.

"I- I'm not sure I'm qualified to deal with this," Tsunade protests as she looks down at the soul. How the hell is she supposed to fix something like this? Was healing a soul, when presented like this, the same as healing a body? Would healing jutsu even work on a soul, or inside a person's mind? She has no previous experience to call upon to help her even set up a basis of where to start.

A few growls emit from the darkness and Tsunade involuntarily flinches.

"You will heal him!" a faint female voice snaps.

Tsunade grits her teeth. "I'm not saying I won't try! Just don't expect me to fix him up right away!" she yells back at the darkness.

Low thuds resound throughout the sewer and the water starts to ripple towards her again, barely noticeable due to the shallowness. Something is moving towards the gate again; something heavier than the Yonbi.

Tsunade can't stop her eyes from bulging as red-orange fur emerges from the black, the contrasting colors jarring. She'd known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that this was a possibility. As improbable as it was, it was one of the only conclusion that made some sort of sense. Still, there really was no way she could have prepared herself for the sight of the Kyuubi.

As tall as the Yonbi, the Kyuubi is a frightening sight. But unlike the Yonbi, the Kyuubi has a solid form that showed off its gleaming fur and glowing slitted eyes. The giant fox lowers and turns its head to the side so one large, horrible eye is level with her. It bores straight into her and sends every instinct Tsunade has on high alert.

"You will heal him." Its voice is strong, its words an order.

She can't tear her eyes away from the terrible eye in front of her. It paralyzes her and it takes all her will just to slowly nod. Ah, she vaguely thinks, the Kyuubi is the one who is the leader.

The Kyuubi lets out a snort, its nostrils flaring, and rises back to its full height, glaring down imperiously at her. "Well?"

"Right." Tsunade mumbles, looking back down at the soul-body.

She gently arranges the man so he's straight on his back and moves to sit next to his torso. She gathers chakra into her hands and gently places them over his chest, where the worst of the damage seemed to be at. She decides to skip over the basic healing jutsus and forces one of her own advanced healing jutsus on the soul. One she developed in the midst of the War when she had been tasked with healing shinobi that every other Healer had declared a lost cause.

For a long moment nothing happens so Tsunade urgently pushes more chakra into her hands. The very last thing she wants is to fail in healing the man. Even without the two bijuu who would probably kill her if she failed, she still would have put her all into this. Because this was new and this was interesting. She might have forgotten it for a while, but nothing was more satisfying than doing the impossible. And it had long become evident that awakening this particular man would be nothing short of a miracle.

Even as Tsunade pours as much chakra as she can into healing the damaged soul, nothing seems to happen. She sits back for a moment and wipes the sweat off her forehead. This isn't working. She bites her lip and tries again, this time pouring in blank chakra to assist in a self-healing process rather than trying to force healing on the soul.

Again, nothing.

Tsunade can hear the beings behind the gate shift restlessly. A low growl comes from the Kyuubi who os attentively sitting as close to the gate as he can without touching it.

Tsunade takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, and tries to come up with a new approach. Chakra healing and self healing didn't work. Next step would be to just make new organs and skin.

She'll be damned if she lets this stupid bijuu collector get the best of her. She will heal this man and then force an explanation out of him as to why the hell he has not only the Yonbi but also the Kyuubi sealed away inside of him. A Kyuubi which she knows for a fact is currently sealed inside of a certain loud-mouth blonde genin. And like hell is she going to ask the Kyuubi.

Sweat is practically rolling off Tsunade after few minutes and she grits her teeth together as she takes a moment to catch her breath. Why the hell is nothing working? If she knew this morning she was going to be doing this kind of work she would have made sure she was properly inebriated before coming.

The movements behind the gate are getting more agitated and Tsunade can practically feel the multiple sets of eyes boring into her.

"If there is one thing that I have observed in the past few years, it's that human sentimentality can play a defining role, often making the impossible possible." A soft female voice says.

Carefully avoiding the eyes of the Kyuubi, Tsunade looks incredulously into the darkness. What? That's not exactly helpful.

The water falls still and the subsequent silence is deafening. She looks to the Kyuubi but it's eyes are focused somewhere in the distance. Even though none of the beings are talking Tsunade swears they are communicating with each other. She turns to, once more, try to heal the soul when the Kyuubi's strong voice breaks the silence.

"The man who lies in your hospital. The soul you are healing. While he may be different in appearance, you still know him."

Tsunade stares down at the battered soul-body again and feels a lump rise in her throat. It's been bugging her ever since she first saw the soul, since the Kyuubi had revealed himself. It's ridiculous, utterly insane even, yet she can't quite shake a nagging thought in the back of her head.

This soul is vaguely familiar.

"What— What is his name?" Tsunade asks, her voice strained as she can no longer deny what is right in front of her. Because a soul, a soul in its purest and simplest form, cannot lie.

There's a pregnant pause that seems to last for an eternity and all Tsunade can hear is her heart pounding in her chest. Then, that insane giggling starts again, echoing all around, seeming to mock her. Almost as soon as it starts it's forcefully choked off by something, but the damage is already done. Tsunade just knows that laugh will stay with her long after she leaves this place.

"You know him as Naruto." The Kyuubi says.

The answer should have had more of an impact on her, but she had already known, known the moment she had touched the soul-body. But the rational part of her had rejected the idea because it hadn't made any sense. Naruto was a thirteen year old genin who was currently traveling with Jiraiya, not some twenty-something year old man who's been in a coma for the past three months. And most certainly not someone who has two bijuu sealed inside of him. But hearing it said aloud forces Tsunade to accept what she's tried to ignore. Soul's cannot lie, after all.

Tsunade turns back to the soul-body of Naruto and resumes healing; but this time she adds something different to her chakra. Though she still isn't sure what all is going on and she has no idea how this is even possible, Tsunade knows she has to heal the man who is an older version of the brat she loves. With that in mind, she pours all her fondness and love for Naruto into her healing.

A thrill of excitement shoots through her when one of the scratches on the man's chest slowly, so very slowly, knits itself back together. She allows herself a small smile before going back to work with renewed vigor. She will heal the brat till he's as good as new and then she's going to beat him up until he gives her a good explanation for what the hell is going on.

The waters around her shift as the beings within the massive cage move closer to the gate where the Kyuubi is attentively sitting. The pounding of their footsteps shake the entire sewer but Tsunade doesn't turn around to look. She already knows what she will see. Her forced acceptance hadn't been just about the one she is healing.

Later, when Tsunade has exhausted herself of chakra, when her limbs are heavy and her head is dizzy, she allows herself to look at the gate. And sure enough, she sees exactly what she had suspected.

Nine demons huddle together against the gate, looking down to the human who they are all sealed within. Eight of them glow with a bubbling red liquid and are nearly transparent. The Kyuubi alone has a solid form.

And if the first thing that Tsunade does when she goes home for the night, after promising legendary demons that she will be back in the morning to continue the healing of a man who shouldn't exist, is drink herself into unconsciousness, well, she's pretty sure she's earned it.