Weirdly enough you can all thank rathish rosario and his bizarre sexist comment for this chapter, and for me finally posting. I do this thing where, about once a month, I'll go 'okay, next story to get a review get's updated'. And he reviewed on this story, about my pathetic, crybaby mc (who the fuck calls them mc's?) at the right time.

Itachi didn't know what he was expecting when he knocked on the door. In fact he had been hoping that by knocking he would give the Uzumaki children time enough to flee for their lives. Or something to that effect.

Instead, they opened the door.

They opened, the door.

Itachi looked down at the twins before him. They were taller. Rin had grown her hair until it was almost to her knees and Naruto was still wearing orange. If nothing else it looked like someone had managed to convince him to darken it and add black.

They were at least smart enough to replace themselves with clones but for gods sake. What were they doing?

"Are these the brats, Itachi?" Kisame asked, glowering at Naruto. He didn't like being called a fish. If the look Rin was giving her brother was any indication, she had picked up on that as well.

"We're not brats," Naruto objected. Rin elbowed him in the ribs.

"S-rank criminals, deary. Shutting up would be smart," she scolded.

"I'm not the smart one. You are," he retorted. Without pausing Rin nodded her agreement. Their originals didn't seem to be going anywhere, or even hiding their chakra. They were each standing on one side of the door. Naruto to his right, Rin to his left, behind the door itself.

"Naruto," Itachi cut in, "Rin. You're coming with us," he declared. He watched them look at each other before the two clones stepped forwards. Kisame scoffed from his side.

"The real ones," he prompted. Itachi wondered where Rin's apparent intellect went when the clones dispersed and the pair stepped through the smoke. The real ones. What were they doing?

It had to be something. Rin was smarter than this, Naruto was smarter than this. He had seen what they could do with a package of gelatin mix and fish crackers. So what was going on?

What were they planning?

"It would be annoying if they tried to run away," Kisame said from his side. "Maybe we should cut off a leg or two."

Itachi didn't look away from Rin, who stared defiantly at his eyes. He knew she knew not to do that. Naruto was keeping watch on his partner. The blond blanched but Rin's mouth twitched like a smile. She had something up her sleeve.

'Something' ended up being a card.

She flung it in Kisame's face and threw another one at Itachi's stomach. Both were caught, away from the razor sharp edges.

"What was that supposed to do?" Kisame demanded, looking down at the metal. Itachi saw three intersecting circles on it. His eyes narrowed just a bit and turned the card over. There were different symbols on the back.

Rins fingers twitched. The sign glowed. Itachi pitched his away in time with Kisame, letting them explode down the hall. Smoke filled his vision but that didn't make it harder for him to block the kick thrown by another clone. One of several that the pair summoned. He caught it and threw it into another, and when another tried to slap him he caught her hand.

As the smoke was clearing the clone grabbed the wrist of the hand that had pulled it off its feet and a burst of chakra happened before it exploded. Something else fell, a scroll the size of his thumb, into his pocket.

Itachi pulled his hand back to look at it. There was that same intersecting circle on his wrist.

A glance over showed that Kisame had been spared that treatment.

"Leave us alone or I'll blow your hand off," Rin threatened.

That couldn't be right. Rin had miles more tact than that. She was the epitome of a ninja, dark and clever and subtle. Four years wouldn't change her so much that she would give such obvious blackmail.

"That's not the sign you used on the explosives," Itachi told her blandly. The girl frowned and glared at him.

"You don't know what my seals do," she snapped. "You left before I could perfect them."

"So for all we know they aren't perfected at all," Kisame reasoned easily. The pair looked at each other.

It was Rin who said, "Well shit. I hadn't thought of that."

"You need a bigger reputation to bluff, kid," Kisame told her, helpful as always. Itachi sometimes suspected he liked teaching, other times he was fairly sure he hated children. It was paradoxical.

"And you need a bigger dick to have that sword," Naruto retorted smartly. Rin and Itachi both just stared at him while Kisame appeared to contemplate his murder.

"Itachi!" The voice that cut through the air had every head snapping towards the end of the hallway. Itachi's eyes widened, just a fraction, to see his brother standing there. He hadn't thought to run into Sasuke once they were out of the village. He didn't even know how the boy had tracked them down.

He was so much taller now. He looked exactly like their father, except for his eyes. He had their mother's eyes, filled with fire that burned so brightly it threatened to blind him. It was not an inferno of fury. It was a raging course of protection.

"Get away from them!" His voice cracked and he gripped his wrist and for a moment Itachi worried that it was hurt. Except he knew that pose. He knew the electricity that crackled in the air.

And he knew the sudden flash of red and orange that left the door way.

Rin appeared at Sasuke's side, holding Naruto's hand, and between the twitch it took Kisame's legs to move him across the room they were already gone.

"It appears," he said slowly, "That this will be more difficult that we thought.

"I'm not going back to the village."

"You're not coming with us."

Jiraiya glared at Sasuke, who glared back just at hard. Rin sat next to them on a log, poking the fire idly while her brother paced back and forth. He didn't know how he kept getting stuck with all these kids. It was like trying to lead a genin team all over again, except none of his students were ever this particular mix of stubborn, stupid, and brilliant.

Which, of fucking course, described all three of them.

Naruto, who was amazing with traps and plans that didn't look like plans and could change a person's whole life's philosophy with half a conversation. Rin, who loved so fiercely and hated so darkly it blinded her to possible victories, but her plans were detailed and her physiological abilities were as impossible as her seals. Sasuke was the strongest, physically, and the most driven of all. He was advanced, he threw himself into everything he did with everything he had and dragged himself through barbed wire if it meant keeping his loved ones safe.

Jiraiya would have rather been stabbed in the foot than drag all three of them on this trip to Tsunade, but it was looking like he didn't have a choice.

Fuck him, and fuck everyone involved in this quest.

"Keep up," he snapped grumpily and stood up suddenly. "Come on, brat's. Let's move it."

The trio grinned at each other (Or one grinned and the other two shared freaky half smiles that almost made for a whole one) and fell into a bizarre triangle formation behind him.

He was reminded of what Rin had said, so long ago.

"It's supposed to be Unity. Mind, Body Soul. Past, present, future. Creation, Preservation, Destruction."

Creation, Preservation, Destruction.

Orochimaru, Tsunade, Jiraiya.

Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke.

Minato, Tetsuya, Yui.

He wasn't sure where Rin's team fit into that criteria. Rin was not preservation, by any means, but destruction wasn't quite right either. Creation…

Jiraiya shook his head and stepped on. He had more important things to work on right now. Like training these kids, and protecting them from the Akatsuki.

Sometimes, he really hated his life.

"How much trouble do you think they're getting into?" Sasuke asked, staring out the window.

I looked up from my seals, brush in one hand while my yellow bells sleeves were tied back in one of the eight or so pony tails I kept around my wrists. They came in handy sometimes, like when I convinced Sasuke to hold still long enough to put his hair into stupid designs.

"Oh, a lot," I assured. "I can only imagine what kind of a pain in the ass Jiraiya is being."

"Not Naruto?" Sasuke asked, his voice lighter than it had been for days. Since we had seen Itachi. I was worried about him.

"Naruto knows how to get out of trouble as easy as he gets into it. Jiraiya sucks at it," I said flatly.

Sasuke snorted. Normally I could have gotten some kind of laugh out of him. It was worse than I thought. Shit.

I put my ink pot away and let the scroll dry before turning to look at the boy on the bed. I stood and went to join him, sitting close enough to lean against his shoulder. The lights of the city shone through the window.

"I'm fine," he said without me asking.

"You're a terrible liar," I elbowed him.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, voice growing harsher. "That I'm angry? That I'm scared? That I'm mad that you dragged me away my brother before I could get answers out of him?"

I sighed. I figured it was something like that.

"We both know that none of us could have taken him and his partner," or him on his own, "Live to fight another day."

"How many times have you told me to be patient?" Sasuke asked suddenly. "How often do you tell us not to be selfish? Isn't that just you being selfish? Like a, a coward."

I drew back sharply, his words stinging even as they rung true.

I didn't say anything as I stood up and crossed the room to sit in the chair. I wouldn't leave Sasuke alone, but I was no longer talking to him. Immature, I know, but who gives a shit? I was technically twelve.

Sasuke stared at my back, I could feel him, and in the reflection of a painting I saw his mouth open and close a few minutes before he lowered his chin and ground his teeth. So hard I heard them creak.

"I've already forgiven you," I said quietly. "I'm just mad. Give me a couple hours."

His reflection nodded before turning away and laying on the bed.

This was going to be a long, long, trip. And Orochimaru hadn't even shown up.

The gambling den was thick with smoke and the smell of alcohol, hanging around us in a thick, unpleasant cloud.

I let Jiraiya go on to the back, where a head of blond hair was sticking out amongst the crowd. I couldn't see much from where I was at the door, but I could glimpse a few drunken leers and men with less attention on their cards and more on Tsunade's chest.

It didn't see much more before the crowd swelled and my window vanished. I shuffled through the room, ducking around elbows and legs and tables until I popped up on the side, where the bad was.

Technically, they would sell me a drink. Shinobi were given ID cards and the laws tended to follow 'old enough to kill, old enough to drink'. It was horrifying, but honestly, the whole world was.

If nobody blinked twice at child soldiers, who gave a fuck about underage drinking or their mental development?

I hopped up into a spinny stool. Naruto and Sasuke were both somewhere outside, across the street and in the alley outside. Waiting. This wasn't how I remembered things going, but nothing was going quite the way it had been. Most of my foreknowledge was shot at this point.

For what I had gained at the price of the future, it was fine with me. Even if i was scared shitless.

"A water, please," I said politely. It was surreal that the man didn't do any kind of double check or scowl or hesitate to hand over a glass with just tap water. Anger bubbled under my skin but I ignored it. Instead I spun around to watch the room.

There were three men losing badly at blackjack, and a group of women playing backgammon in another corner. I watched someone start to reach for a knife on their elt when they lost but they thought better of it.

A ruckus started in the back where Tsunade was shouting about her loss, tipsy and flushed. Shizune, holding a little pig in her arms, tried to calm her mistress to little avail. The woman stumbled to her feet and swayed on her way over to the bar. Over to me.

And Jaraiya had disappeared.

Oh boy.

Tsunade dropped down next to me on the short counter top. Where was that useless sage?

I looked at her, caught. None of my plans had involved this. What the fuck was I supposed to say? To do? Anything?

For the first time in a long time I was filled with so much self doubt.

I ended up blurting out, "If you're hemophobic what do you do when you have your period? Or are you menopausal."

Tsunade stopped mid order. She looked at me, her brown eyes narrowed. She looked young. Blond and pretty. If I had lived longer, would I have looked like her? I hadn't had the boobs for it, gymnastics didn't really allow for that kind of thing.

"You're a kunoichi, aren't you?" she asked shorted. "Don't you know they can stop your period?"

I faltered. "Huh?"

"In your arm, they stick an implant. It blocks the hormones. No baby, no period until its out."

Then, after dropping that information on me, she turned and walked away.