Once Tsunade was back to her snappish self, the team was back in business. Jiraiya clapped his hands to assemble his comrades in front of him. "The first thing we have to do is disguise ourselves," he told everyone. "So take off everything that proves you're a ninja." He untied his headband, slipped off his gauntlets, and tossed them onto the ground. Tsunade and Orochimaru, together with Jiraiya, threw down shuriken, kunai, all weaponry that would convict them the moment they were caught. Reluctantly, the genin dropped their weapons onto the pile, too. Jiraiya noticed their uneasiness. "These tools are a central part of our life as ninja," he stated the obvious. "But they're not the only weapons we have in our arsenal." He meant to bolster their courage, but Ryoji squirmed. Anko didn't feel confident, either. It may be very well and good for a ninja who could summon toads and utilize senjutsu, but she felt exposed when her kunai sheath was gone.
"Will we come back for them, Sensei?" Kazuko asked.
"Only if our route brings us back here, answered Jiraiya. "Now we're going to alter our appearances. For obvious reasons, Tsunade and Orochimaru and I can't afford to be recognized. . ." Anko knew why: the Prodigal Shinobi Three were in the bingo books of almost all the surrounding territories. "And you five look a little too much like genin to go undercover just yet." He rummaged through his voluminous backpack. "So let's get you disguised." Tsunade removed her hair from its pigtails and pulled it into a bun. She did the same with Shizune.
"You'll be staying with me, Shizune," she told her student. "We'll be keeping our medical supplies and posing as traveling doctors. 'When going undercover, let the ninja use the tools of his own trade to mask his face.' "
"You know, if you really want to hide your identity, you should go as someone's fiancée," Jiraiya suggested out of the blue. "Or bride." His smile was suave as he eyed Tsunade, and it wasn't hard for everyone to tell what was on his mind. Tsunade herself obviously knew exactly what he was thinking, for her eyes flashed dangerously. Anko waited for her to swing her fist in Master Jiraiya's direction, but instead—to everyone's surprise—she grabbed Orochimaru's arm.
"Fine," she snapped. Although the tone of her voice was angry, she twined herself around Orochimaru like an infatuated schoolgirl. Anko couldn't believe her eyes, even as she watched. "I'll go as a married woman. And Shizune can pose as my daughter. Will that make you happy?"
It was only too obvious that Jiraiya wasn't happy at all. His lower lip stuck out in what Anko could have sworn was a pout. But all he said was, "You're going to regret that."
"Undoubtedly," agreed Orochimaru, sneering at Tsunade, who glared at him as she dropped her act and disentangled herself from close proximity with him.
Jiraiya was now pulling articles of clothing out of his pack and holding them up experimentally. "Here, Anko, put this on," he said, handing her a beige jacket. So Anko shrugged it over her shoulders, but it was too large for her. The long, trenchcoat-type jacket reached to the ground, and the sleeves covered her hands. Grinning, Jiraiya coaxed the band out of her hair that held her ponytail in place. He rumpled her hair until she looked thoroughly mussed. "There you go. You'll be our little ragamuffin. And let's see . . . Kazuko . . . Kazuko can go with you." He pulled out a simple skirt and coat next, and handed it to his kunoichi apprentice. "You two look a lot alike—almost as though you could be from the same clan. Hmm. You'll go as sisters, or cousins."
Kazuko sidled behind a tree and giggled as she put her new outfit on. "Sisters?"
"Sisters . . . orphans . . ." Jiraiya murmured more to himself than to her. "You'll go in as a pair . . . and Ryoji . . ." He stopped to think, and went on, "He should go with Tsunade and Orochimaru. And Minato can go in last, alone." Anko couldn't help noticing that Minato was the only genin that Master Jiraiya would allow to travel by himself. She frowned but said nothing.
While Jiraiya began finding clothing to suit his other two apprentices' needs, Tsunade was busy explaining in great detail to Shizune how to be a medic while not revealing that one was a medic ninja. "It's all right to say that you've treated ninja," she told her student, "but remember, as far as they know, you're not trained for combat. Don't use your scalpels as kunai. Don't use your hypodermics as darts. Even when treating wounds . . ." She withdrew into the woods, still lecturing, but Anko stopped listening when Orochimaru took her by the shoulder and drew her close. He took fragrant leaves and began rubbing them over her clothes and exposed skin.
"Um, Sensei?" she asked. Not answering, Orochimaru reached behind himself without looking, pulled Kazuko over by the arm, and did the same to her. He then put the leaves into his robe and pulled out new ones. "Sensei. . ." Anko said again. Unlike the last leaves, these didn't smell at all pleasant. Orochimaru put his hand on her head to keep her from going anywhere as he rubbed her face with them. Anko coughed.
"The scent of these herbs will hide your Konoha scent," he said. Once he had subjected Kazuko to the foul-smelling foliage, he switched herbs twice more, massaging the girls with them. "Now go and bathe," he told them when he was finished.
"Sensei—you mean we have to wash it all off now?" complained Anko. Had they gone through this for nothing?
"Let's do what he says, Anko," Kazuko urged her, pulling Anko along. The two of them went behind the bushes to a secluded pool and started to strip their clothes off.
"Orochimaru knows what he's doing," added Jiraiya before shooing his own apprentices over to Anko's sensei. Minato held his arms high and did everything he could to make it easier for Orochimaru to rub him down. But Ryoji clearly became more nervous the closer he got to Orochimaru, who coolly ignored the tense apprentice. Anko almost had to laugh as she watched from behind the bush. Ryoji was practically cringing when Orochimaru grabbed his collar and brushed the leaves over his face and bristly hair. He could be such a chicken sometimes; he wasn't like the other members of his team at all.
"Anko, come on. You're supposed to be in the water, not hiding behind a bush," Kazuko reminded her.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Anko grumbled.
The boys bathed, too, but Tsunade and Shizune didn't do so. Kazuko sensibly pointed out to Anko that it was fine for medics to smell of herbs.
Anko was annoyed when, just after she had scrubbed herself so carefully, Tsunade used subtle strokes of her manicured fingers to smudge dirt over her and Kazuko's faces. Thus the effect of the twin "ragamuffins" was achieved.
Jiraiya was in charge of their wardrobe. He changed Ryoji's appearance entirely by fastening a scarf over his head. Anko watched in fascination as he worked on Orochimaru. She expected her sensei to resist, but he was quiet as Jiraiya handed him different articles of clothing to try on. They eventually found him a gray robe that made him seem less threatening than usual. When his black hair was pulled back from his face, he looked completely different. And Orochimaru wasn't the only one. Tsunade had removed the red paint from her nails and the lipstick from her lips. With her hair in its bun and her pink dress faded almost to white, she looked like a poor but level-headed young woman who had nothing at all to do with ninja. Shizune was wearing boys' clothes that neither suited her nor fitted her. Minato had on a nondescript shirt and pair of pants, as did Jiraiya. The Toad Sage had tucked his long white hair under a broad-brimmed hat, and Tsunade helped him paint over the red lines on his face. Anko hardly recognized any of them when they were finished.
"No one can guess who we really are now!" she crowed.
"Not by looking at us, that's for sure," agreed Jiraiya. "But what about how we act?" His eyes were uncharacteristically shrewd as he looked at her. "What will you be doing when you get to the village, Anko?" Anko blinked: she hadn't thought about it.
"My sensei—"
"Wrong!" Jiraiya shouted forcefully. "You and Kazuko are going in alone together. Don't even look Orochimaru's way, and never call him your 'sensei.' That goes for you, too, Kazuko. You've never even met me. I'm a complete stranger to you, understand? The only one here you know is Anko. You're 'sisters' now, so you'd better act like it.
"And Minato, you won't have anyone with you. Stay sharp. I'm counting on you to come back safely." Minato nodded once, serious. "Shizune and Ryoji, you'll be 'siblings,' the 'children' of Tsunade and Orochimaru—and don't look at me like that, Ryoji!" he yelled at his pupil, for Ryoji was looking more than a little afraid of the task he was expected to complete. Jiraiya took his shoulder. "I'm not asking you to be the ideal 'family.' But I am asking you to act like Tsunade's your mother, Orochimaru's your father, Shizune's your sister. Can you do that?"
"Yes, Sensei," Ryoji replied at once.
"If you can't," Jiraiya pressed him, "you have to stay behind. You have to make your act convincing, or you endanger the mission. And worse, you endanger yourself."
"I-I can do it, Sensei," stammered Ryoji, eager to please. Jiraiya smiled despite himself.
"I know it won't be easy," he said softly to the boy, "especially with the team that you were assigned."
"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Tsunade demanded to know from the background.
"But you have to do it," Jiraiya went on. "Pretend you're no longer Ogawa Ryoji. Think of yourself as a different person."
"You'll be fine, Ryoji," Tsunade reassured him. "Infiltration is what being a ninja is all about."
Jiraiya drilled them on concepts and drilled concepts into them for the rest of the day. He gave everyone his own false history, detailing everything from unique skills to early childhood memories. He tested them all on this fake knowledge, and tried to trip them up by tricking them into saying things only a shinobi would know. He was especially hard on Ryoji, as he ran them through acting sequences to get them to behave as naturally as possible around one another. Tsunade and even Orochimaru easily slid into their roles, but it took the five genin a long time to get the hang of things.
"If you can't master this technique, how can you call yourselves ninja?" Jiraiya asked them at one point. "And Ryoji, stand tall like the shinobi you are." Ryoji had the constant nervousness about him of a boy who wanted nothing more than to stay unnoticed. "No one's going to believe your act if you're afraid all the time," Jiraiya chided him, exasperated. "This is standard stuff—going incognito is something you all studied at the Academy. It shouldn't be that hard for you."
"Jiraiya." Now it was Tsunade who sounded impatient. "Stop being such a dunce."
"What did I do now?" Jiraiya indignantly demanded to know. Tsunade frowned, bent close to him, and said in a low voice,
"It's not the façade he's afraid of. It's Orochimaru." Jiraiya turned to glance at Ryoji, obviously skeptical of what his kunoichi teammate said. As if on cue, Orochimaru touched Ryoji's arm, and the apprentice jumped. Jiraiya rubbed his chin.
"Why didn't someone tell me?" he complained.
"All this time, you didn't notice?" Tsunade seemed almost unsurprised. "I wondered why you put Ryoji with us."
"But he has to go with you!" Jiraiya insisted. "What guise would I use if he came with me—uncle and nephew? It's pretty obvious I'm his teacher. When he's with you, he won't stand out."
"Maybe. At this rate, people might think that Orochimaru and I are kidnappers," Tsunade observed dryly. Ryoji proved her point as he unconsciously edged away from Orochimaru.
"He can do this," Jiraiya said, his voice firm. "I'll talk to him."
Ryoji could never fully master the art of acting at ease around Orochimaru. Eventually he settled on neutrality, which for him was a significant accomplishment. The sensei could neither fault him nor praise him for this; so the day's training came to an end after dark with at least some progress. The Toad Sage was being a veritable taskmaster, a position he was quite adept at even though he was normally so easygoing. Anko was glad when they were allowed to bed down for the night and sleep.
The Sannin sat together for a long time reviewing plans and tactics in the darkness. Before they went to sleep, Jiraiya scratched his white head and said to Orochimaru, "Look after Ryoji for me, will you? You know how he is. . ."
It was a mistake for him so say this aloud, for Ryoji was still awake. And Orochimaru's answer didn't ameliorate matters.
"Stop worrying so about your brats. This is war. And they're not helpless." His words may have been like a joke, but his voice was deadly serious. Anko had no way of knowing that Ryoji, lying next to her, was thorned with jealousy of her for her sensei.