Temporary Author's note:

I am a bit embarassed to report that the reviewer who asked about Shizune
caught me. I completely forgot about her. After some brainwrecking, I
found the perfect way to weave her into the story (thank goodness someone
spotted it so early, since leaving her out isn't exactly an option, eh?).
Anyway, for this I read the first chapters again, and I spotted a minor
inconsistency, and then a larger implausible thing, and then I got this idea
that will be real cool in later chapters, promise, and one thing led to
another, and that kinda led to me rewriting parts of the first three chapters,
including a rather major point. Sorry for you guys who already read the first
three chapters. If you don't want to read them all over again, the gist of the
changes follows:

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO REREAD THE FIRST CHAPTERS INSTEAD!

Okay, first of all, Sasuke was killed by Naruto in the Valley of the End. The
reason for this is that it makes 1. Sakura turning on Naruto, 2. Naruto's
exile and 3. Naruto's personality change much more plausible. Instead of
fearing that Orochimaru will send Sasuke after Naruto for the Mangekyou, they
now fear he may come after him out of spite, since he becomes rather vengeful
when things don't go his way (I have the Sandaime-chooses-Arashi-over-
Orochimaru-then-Orochimaru-comes-back-to-kill-his-sensei incident backing
this).

Second of all, Tsunade dropped something about having sent Shizune and Kakashi
to Wave Country to build an outpost near the Sound. For this, I claim that
Wave country is the small island just east of Fire Country and south of Rice
Field country (Look up "Naruto geography" on Wikipedia to see).

YOU CAN RESUME READING HERE!

This note will be removed when I post chapter 5, by which time I hope
everybody who already read the first chapters has seen it.

That said, on with the story!

DISOWNER: I don't claim Naruto.

Chapter 4 - Animals

Jiraiya's plan was foolproof. Naruto summoned Gamakichi practically every
other day, unless he was too busy, and with recent events, he would have both
an overabundance of spare time and longing for company. It was only a matter
of days until the message cycle would be established.

Unfortunately, foolproof plans have a tendency to fall apart in the presence
of people other than complete and utter fools.

Jiraiya was a patient man, and not one easy to worry. Had he been, he couldn't
possibly have endured teaching Kazama Arashi, much less Uzumaki Naruto, who
resembled him so much. He was, however, just a little superstitious, and he
had been seeing bad omens all over the place lately. He told himself that it
was because of the tension recent events had built up in him, but when he
summoned Gamakichi the day after splitting with Tsunade and Hinata, his fears
were confirmed. In Gamakichi's place sat his slightly retarded, gluttonous
little brother.

"If you want me to play with you, give me a snack." Gamatatsu said in a voice
that didn't sound quite as cheerful as usual. If even he was affected,
something was afoot. Prepared as ever, Jiraiya took a bag of various roasted
insects laced with honey out of his pocket in an attempt to console Gamatatsu.
"Thanks, Ero-sennin."

Pushing back the thought that Naruto had a bad influence on the toads if they
started to treat him, the Great Toad Hermit Jiraiya-sama, with such blatant
disrespect, the Sannin got down to business. "It's good to see you, Gamatatsu,
but...I was hoping to speak with your brother. Where is he? We agreed to meet
today."

He regretted his direct choice of words when Gamatatsu's face fell.
"Gamakichi-nii-chan is sick. Nobody really knows what happened. He was
summoned when we played yesterday, and when he came back, he...I don't know.
He just fell and I couldn't wake him up. Ero-sennin, I...I have to go back,
please? What if he's..."

Jiraiya just nodded and unsummoned Gamatatsu. He would have to summoned a more
literate toad to get the details, but after what Gamatatsu told him, it didn't
seem that he could get any useful information at all, and he didn't want to
risk summoning a toad away from helping Gamabunta's son. That, and he needed
time to think.

There was only one person besides him that could summon toads.

The day before:

The little desert fox cocked its head in confusion at the strange creature in
front of it. Uncertain what to make of this, it walked over and sniffed. The
creature smelt similar to a fox, but sure didn't look the part. The fox
blinked, then gave a questioning look to its human friend.

What Naruto saw when the smoke settled was unexpected. No, scrap that. It was
downright freaky. It was...sort of...toad...ish. It would have qualified as a
toad, only toads normally didn't have fur, as far as he could tell. Nor a
fluffy tail. It also looked vaguely familiar. He eyed the, uh, whatever it
was, from all sides, but try as he might, he did not recognize the animal. How
was he supposed to know zoology?

Just as a strained expression began to spread over Naruto's face, the fox-toad
chose to speak, greatly startling him. "I know you...I think. Namazu? No,
that's not quite right. Um...I can't remember. This is weird." It raised a
paw...hand...paw-hand to the back of its head. "Could you tell me your name?"

"I'm Naruto." He took a closer look. "Wait...Gamakichi? Why do you look like
this?"

"I'm Gamakichi? Er, right, right, or, erm, not. I'm not sure, it feels kinda
right and kinda wrong. All I know is I was just playing with my brother...or
was I hunting with my uncle? This is confusing..." The fox-toad blinked. "Do
you mind releasing me? I think I have some things to figure out here..."

"Uh, sure. Sorry, little guy. I hope this works out." Naruto sent his most
puzzling summon ever back to its plane, slumped on his bedand crawled the
small desert fox behind the ears. Half to himself he said, "well, he's not the
only one who has a riddle to solve. Mind to tell me your thoughts?"

Predictably, he got no answer; the fox just curled up in his lap and went to
sleep. 'Maybe you have the right idea there.' Naruto thought, and decided to
hit the sheets early today. A certain furball had a lot of explaining to do.

On Tsunade's end, things didn't look much better. Granted, Hinata did have a
better start at summoning than Naruto, if Jiraiya's stories about days and
days of tadpoles were any indication, but she apparently could not muster
enough chakra to summon even the smallest of talking toads. This in itself
would not have been all that much of a problem, but in Hinata's case, the
cause of it would be difficult to overcome.

Simply put, chakra is a mixture of physical and spiritual energy. Hinata, much
to Tsunade's initial surprise, did not lack in the physical department. She
wanted to prove herself, and therefore her drive in training almost rivaled
that of Rock Lee. Well...maybe she was exaggerating a bit there, but Hinata's
dedication did remind her of the green-clad taijutsu specialist. Every day,
when Tsunade already called it one, Hinata would spend at least an hour
beating up helpless trees, and performing elaborate chakra exercises the likes
of which even Tsunade could not easily do. However, while Hinata always
started well, it would only take a short time for her to falter. Her punches
would become weak, and her chakra would go out of control. She knew how, and
she was able, but something was holding her back.

No, her problem was not physical energy, it was her spirit that lacked. Had
Tsunade not cursed the Hyuuga name before, she would have started now. Hiashi
had done a thorough job of breaking his daughter, and the only person she
could think of who might stand even a remote chance of mending that was the
very boy they were looking for.

...which posed a completely different problem. Should she tell her? How would
she take the information? Not well, duh. Even though the bastard hadn't
treated her like family, she was still Hiashi's daughter. Her infatuation with
her loud-mouth brother was in plain sight, but that could make this all the
more difficult. Depending on her reaction, this could either solve a whole lot
of problems for both Hinata and Naruto, or it could deal a finishing blow to
both their already fragile psyches. Tsunade cursed under her breath. If only
she had found out before telling Hinata to come, then she wouldn't have
brought her along. But backing down was not an option, or the secret would
have come out right away.

In a gesture that had become more and more natural to her during the last few
days, Tsunade massaged her temples to relieve the headache. In order to save
what remained of her sanity, she decided to leave Hinata in the dark for now.
Contemplating what she could do to bring the former Hyuuga heiress out of her
shell, she joined her student.

Tsunade was no Naruto, but she would have to do.

Naruto gulped. Today was the day, and he could only pray nothing would go
wrong. Because if it did, chances were it would go horribly wrong. Two
nights ago, he had spoken to the Kyuubi - he would have to find a way to talk
to him outside his sleep - about the summoning incident. As it turned out,
the demon fox had no experience with summons whatsoever. Demons didn't dabble
in human ninjutsu, and while some demons called upon their kin in fights, it
wasn't something kitsune usually did. It might be possible, but Kyuubi never
felt the need to summon aid from creatures weaker than him.

After some guesswork that effectively didn't lead anywhere, they came to the
conclusion that it had to be related to Kyuubi allowing Naruto free reign over
his powers, so they decided that Kyuubi would hold it back like he had done
before, and giving whatever effects it had a day to disperse. Then, Naruto
would summon Gamabunta for answers. That was today.

Because of all that, and the uncertainity of his friend Gamakichi's fate,
Naruto felt vulnerable and agitated. Not to mention that Gamabunta would not
likely be in a good mood if something had happened to his son, or worse, if
the same mistake happened again. 'No use dragging it out, is there?.'

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Well, the first part, at least, succeeded. Before Naruto stood Gamabunta, in
all his glory. The look on his face, however, did not bode well.

"Oi, gaki! Give me one reason why I shouldn't burn your contract and kill
you where you stand! What have you done to my son?!"

'Damn. Damn, damn, damn.' Or so Naruto would have thought, had he not been too
shocked by Gamabunta's imposing appearance, and too worried about Gamakichi.
As it was, he found it hard to form a coherent thought, and instead of an
answer, he only opened and shut his mouth in a fish-like manner.

Gamabunta's eyes narrowed. "So it was you. Explain, and depending on how
helpful you are, I will decide what to do with you."

Naruto took a few deep breaths to calm down - not an easy task when a very
angry Toad King is questioning you. Somehow, he managed enough to talk, and
retold, albeit in a shaky manner, the events that took place two days prior.
After that, Gamabunta calmed down a little bit. Oh, he was still angry, but at
least he didn't want to rip Naruto apart anymore. At least, not instantly. His
furious expression was replaced with a thoughtful one.

"At least we can heal Gamakichi now. Listen, brat, there has not been a dual
summoner since the very first contracts eons ago, for reasons you should now
understand. It shouldn't be possible anymore, because we made the contracts so
that they reject anyone who can already summon. Why the contract accepted you,
I can only guess. Most likely, you only gained the ability to summon foxes
when Kyuubi submitted to your control, but I cannot say for sure." Gamabunta
took a deep drag from his pipe and exhaled. "You will refrain from summoning
until I spoke with the Kitsune. If you try to summon a toad, I will answer the
call myself and make sure you never do it again, do I make myself clear?"

Naruto nodded furiously.

"Good. I will alert Jiraiya when the talks are over. I will alert Jiraiya
when the talks are over, and send him to the Sand, so make sure you don't move
around too much."

With that, Gamabunta left, leaving a relieved Naruto behind. He would live to
see another day after all, and Gamakichi would be fine. Of all the ways this
could have ended, this wasn't so bad.

Gamabunta's thoughts were different. Why did that damn brat have to be so
likeable? He should have torn him apart, and scattered his remains all over
the continent. But he couldn't. The brat was...too much like him. 'No time for
that now.'

Even though Gamabunta had confidently stated he could heal Gamakichi now, he
was worried. The records of that time were scarce at best, non-existent at
worst, and while they mentioned a cure for his son's predicament, there was,
after several millenia, no clue how well it would actually work. To make
matters worse, there was no telling how the kitsune would act. Did they even
know what happened? Did they know that, and how, it involved the toads? Ever
since he himself had helped to seal the Kyuubi inside Naruto, toads and
kitsune weren't exactly on friendly terms. If this played out wrong, it could
mean war with one of the most powerful clans in Makai, and he would not, could
not, allow that to happen, lest the toads be annihilated.

Should war break out, he knew, the situation would be dire. The only reliable
allies the toads had were the slugs, through Jiraiya and Tsunade, and they,
while a large clan, were healers not cut out for war. Perhaps the tanuki could
be persuaded to help, because of their one-sided rivalry with the kitsune, but
they weren't all that powerful. All three together might stand a fighting
chance against the kitsune, but to make matters worse, the toads' specialty,
fire attacks, did not work well against the foxes, and the snakes would
jump at an opportunity to get back at the toads, even if their "allies" would
look down on them. No, war had to be avoided at all costs, and if the cost was
to be his pride, well, then so be it.

After a talk with the medics that treated Gamakichi, Gamabunta sent a messenger
to the slugs, just in case, and set out to what could become the most difficult
diplomatic mission of his long life.

Authors Notes:

- Namazu: Catfish (since Naruto means fishcake, it would be possible to
confuse the two. Well, for a merger between a toad and a fox that has to
make sense of what it even is, anyway) - Makai: Demon Plane.