The trees shifted and twisted as Naruto moved. His body was built for speed, and endurance, as he flitted through the trees he couldn't help but to feel excited. It had been a while since he'd had a good chase, even if he wasn't at the end of it this time. He leapt forward, the wind blowing in his hair, the evening sun shining above his head. The sweet smell of trees and leaves wafted into his nose, he shifted his head when he heard the beating of little one's wings.

"Catch me if you can, golden boy. You'll need to move faster than a slug to catch me."

"You've got a big mouth for something so little." He crossed his fingers, smiling as he did so. A triumphant grin on his face, a group of clones were formed. They split up, two heading ahead to try and flank the hummingbird summon. He remained with two other clones, forming a triangle he stayed in the tail end off. The two other clones headed to each side of the bird. They were going to catch it, weather It was easy or hard. Chakra blared as the five men ran and shifted, blaring chakra as they speed up and tried their damned hardest to catch the little bird.

"Catch me, catch me, you won't be able to catch me. One, two, three, four, five, even with five, you won't be able to catch me. You'll have to move faster. Faster and faster, the Hachidori clan lives fast, we breathe fast, eat fast, breed fast. You'll have to be faster than that to catch me." The little one's voice was like bells, sweet and melodic ringing through the forest.

Naruto blurred, using more chakra in an attempt to catch the tiny bird. His clones were starting to corner her, driving her slowly towards the first clones he had sent out to route her. His hands started to flash through seals, he grinned internally. The clones appeared suddenly from the trees, they too running through hand signs at an alarming rate. Little one tried to skirt around them, but she failed and so she turned around and attempted to flee back towards the original Naruto's direction. He finished the last hand seal and a web of seals sparked into the air. It circled her, then suddenly it formed a small cuboid cage to hold her in. Naruto smirked down at the little bird.

"I caught you."

"No fair, you cheated!"

"I can't be the only Uzumaki to use seals to catch your kind can i?"

"No…" The bird seemed to pout for a moment, stopping the rapid flapping of her wings to place her beak beneath her breast.

"Come on don't pout. You were so confident a minute ago!"

"Hmmph!" The bird said before pulling his beak from her wing to talk to him. "You pass the test, I shall let Tsubame-sama know. Congratulations Uzumaki Naruto, we've worked with your clan happily for centuries, hopefully we can do the same with you."

The summon unsummoned itself, and Naruto cast a look at the sky. It was getting late, and he'd have to meet back with Atsuko soon. He stopped for a moment, and pondered. When had he started referring to the clone as Atsuko and not his clone? He frowned, then pushed it to the back of his mind. It wasn't worth the effort to think too much about it.

He leapt forwards, leaping from tree to tree as the night slowly started to encroach around him. By the time he had reached Kanagawa it was dark again. He smiled as he slipped through the alleyways of the city to the blue tortious, passing by food vendors whose wares drew his interest with their smells. He found it, and slipped onto the roof. He made a clone, and had it dispel itself. A few minutes later Atsuko walked to the top of the roof behind him.

"That was fast."

"I cheated." He smirked at her and sat on the ground, propping himself up by leaning against one of the railings on the roof of the blue tortoise.

"So what now?"

"You tell me what you've found out before i head for fire country."

"Everybody's too preoccupied with their own things to notice us for a while. The civil wars in Kiri are about to began. Apparently Akatsuki's making its move in rain. Iwa is trying to rebuild its forces after the decimation that was the yellow flash. The Hyuuga incident likely went down not too long ago, and Suna's still having trouble with it's Daimyo. We won't be noticed until things calm down. That give us about a two to four year time rang before the big player start to realize we exist, if all things go as planned."

Naruto sighed. " I plan to slap a mind control seal on Daichi when i find him. I shouldn't have killed Yuto. That was stupid of me..."

Atsuko looked at Naruto and shrugged. "Can't change it now. Besides I think i could run the show just fine. The girls seem to be ambivalent towards me. Though some don't seem to like me too much. THough that likely more a 'the devil you know' situation than anything else...I could keep things in check for about a month, before you'd need to come in and 'officially' set things straight with them. And besides do you have any plans after we get a hold of the blue tortoise? I mean, how are we going to use them? "

" I'm going to send you into Konoha's branch of the blue tortoise. Its on the border of the red light district near the market district and where we, I, lived about this time. We should be a little older than three right about now. We didn't leave the orphanage until around five or so, but i do remember running around that general area when i was about that age."

Atsuko frowned as her eyes scanned her counterpart.

"You think that'll work?"

"We need a way to keep track of young us in Konoha. After Daichi I'm moving on to rain, You'll need to keep track of our younger self and keep him happy, and not so lonely. I mean, we would have killed for just one person to show us compassion during that time, Imagine if someone who knew what we'd gone through just appeared?"

"If we start to get close Sarbatori will start to ask questions..."

"We'll worry about that later. For now though...for now we'll focus on the immediate stuff. On the here and now and how we are going to handle it."

"What are you going to do in rain?"

"I'm going to try to keep tabs on Akatsuki, then i'll head to Taki and grab Fuu. If i remember right, she should be around five or six now. She'd probably come along willingly, but if she won't then i could always just take her by force."

"Kidnapping? Won't that bring us to international attention pretty soon, I mean she's a Jinchuuriki, Taki won't just let us waltz in and take her, and thats if we take her by force. Even if she wants to come with us, they won't just let us leave. We can't do the same thing we're going to do with the young us in Konoha, Taki's paranoid as all hell they'd 'kill' us as soon as we looked like we were getting close to Fuu. "

"Then we just gotta' take her before they notice she's gone. Takis not as large as the big five, or a place like Kanagawa but it's still a decent size. We can do it..."

"I know we can do it, I'm just questioning whether we'll get caught or not while we do it. It'll be hard for me to get close to our younger selves if someone's out there just stealing Jinchuuriki."

"I won't get caught. I know me, you know me. Don't worry." Atsuko cast a glance at her male counterpart and sighed.

xxx-xxx-xxx

Arashi sat back across from the blue tortoise located in Tanzaku Gai. His blond hair was now died an indistinct brown. His eyes matched his hair, and his skin was many shades paler than his normal bronzed tone. His face was an indscript one, a face absolutely forgettable in the greater looks and images of the world. His thin whisker scars we gone. He smirked and he looked at the building. The casino was next to the brothel, a large cream white building with bright neon light. The blue tortoise sat inconspicuously next it. It was the exact same as the blue tortoise in Kanagawa.

"They used the same building plans..."

"It was likely to keep things recognizable. You and you kind tend to have a pension for patterns."

"But still...that's terribly stupid."

"I doubt the internal looks exactly the same."

"I think you misjudge how stupid people can be Kurama."

"I do not. You give me ample example of how stupid people can be."

Naruto grunted and decided it was better to ignore the fox demon, than recognize his jab. He stood up and stretched. His eyes scanning the horizon as he watched the sun set. Lights slowly flickered on, and the sounds of the evening throbbed in the background. He stretched once more, ridding himself of all the kinks in his body. He leapt forward, and landed on the roof of the touched down without a sound. He sat down, closed his eyes and focussed. His mind expanded, peeling back the noise of the city, the smells of the approaching night, and focusing slim sliver of nature energy. He smirked.

There was someone on the top floor.

He leapt from the blue tortoise onto one of the walls of the casino. Swiftly, before anyone noticed him he sprinted to the roof. He made it in a few second, and smiled as he looked around. There was a door left open. He slinked in, closed the door softly behind him, and quickly descended the stairwell. He exited the stairwell into a hallway. It was dimly lit, and unguarded, and he couldn't help but be startles at the blatant lack of security. Yuto had, had a dozen mid chunin level nin running around. But there was no one here, perhaps Yuto had lied? The room went dark.

Shit…

He frowned, and slid a Kunai out his back holster. Knowing his luck things were about to go to absolute shit for now reason. He made a clone and sent it ahead to scout. It died a few second later with a flash of silver, and the grunt of a voice he could hear out of the darkness. He frowned, he'd walked right into a trap.

"That's what you get for being such an over confident bastard."

"Kyuubi, I don't think right now's the time for this…"

"I completely disagree. This is the perfect time. I'm awake, your awake, that doesn't happen too often you know."

Naruto frowned and started to run through seals. A few second later he slammed his hand on the ground and seal script ran across the room in a sudden rush of black. It weaved up and down the pitch black hallway, before finally settling down. He activated it, without hesitation. The hallway light up in light blue light.

Naruto cast a look at his opponent. It was a woman, about five foot two or so. Her hair was blue. Her skin pale. Dark green eyes watched him sternly. She was attractive, in that cute way. Not exactly womanly, or full of what one would call famine curves, but still her face was notably attractive. She carried a blade taller than her on her shoulder. Tight, form fitting shorts hugged at her legs. A looser blouse flowed to just past her midriff.

"You're kind of skilled for someone so stupid." Her voice was soft, yet firm, and easily carried throughout the room.

"Thanks….? Wait, no. No thanks. That was uncalled for."

"Well, it's not every day that someone just waltzes into an obvious trap."

Naruto didn't answer and instead pouted at the women. "Still…" He muttered softly. He smirked at her, when suddenly a clone appeared behind her. She dodged to the left, but it was already too late. The clone grabbed onto her, swung to its right and through her through an opposite wall. She landed in the street. A snarl appearing on her face, and him, both of him, smirked at her. His clone launched himself and her, and he…he turned and sprinted for his target.

xxx-xxx-xxx

Atsuko looked down at the small green haired Fu and smiled. The jinchuuriki however, didn't seem to wish to return the same common courtesy. Yet, that just made her smile even wider.

"Who are you?"

Atsuko wiped a wayward strand of dark brown hair out the way. Blond was to noticeable in waterfall. Once more she smiled down at Fu before placing a small hand out to the now six year old girl.

"My name is Atsuko…I'm here as a friend. Your name's Fu right?"

Fu frowned and looked at the hand in distaste. She didn't shake it. Instead she stepped further back into the shadows of the alley way. She looked left, and right, in anticipation of escape. Atsuko frowned as she realized what the girl was doing. Those weren't the tendencies of small children. She looked more like a cornered animal than anything. How many times had she been trapped that she now looked for escapes at every chance?

"No need to worry Fu-chan. I'm a friend." She stepped closer and the girl took a measured step back. She stopped. Caution was needed…

"Fu-chan…"

"Stop that." Fu's small voice came out. It was feeble and weak.

"Stop what?"

"Stop calling me 'Fu-chan.' You don't know me. I don't know you…if you're going to hurt me get it over with."

She frowned and reached out to touch Fu. Placing a hand on the girl's small cheek. She whimpered under the touch and stood waiting for pain that would never come. Atsuko rubbed a soft hand on the girls' cheek, wiped away the tiny tears that were starting to form and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Then, she knocked her out, and grabbed her falling body and cradled it in her arms.

She sensed around herself. A swatch of ninja heading in a straight beeline for where she was. Just her luck.

"Fuck."

She whispered out to herself.

Xxxx-xxxx-xxxx

Short chapter. Sorry about that. Schools started up for me again and I couldn't write more. Short chapters for all my stories until I have more time. I hope you like this one….well off to do me some of that ap psyche homework.