Chapter XXVI

The low buzz in the room died almost immediately as the Godaime entered the room. Some of the examiners sat straighter once the one who was, maybe arguably, the strongest woman on Fire Country got to her chair, at the head of the large, round table. Accompanying the Hokage came the Toad Sage Jiraya, sporting burnt clothes and dishevelled hair that left more than just a few of the examiners staring in surprise.

Tsunade sat down, unperturbed by the attention her former team-mate seemed to be gathering, and asked to the table in general.

"Your thoughts."

Immediately, half the table exploded in considerations, some speaking in an uninterested, professional monotone, others with a lot more enthusiasm. The Godaime raised a hand and it said something about the power she held that the entire room immediately fell silent.

"One at a time, please. I have a headache." turning to one of the ninja, she asked, "Toji?"

The man stayed silent for a moment, before answering, "I believe they're good enough for, at least, Chuunin rank. They have power, they have abilities; it's time we start giving the ranks to the students based on skills rather than on the whims and susceptibilities of the nobles."

There was a general murmur of agreement and then another ninja spoke his mind, "That's without saying that we could use a few more engagement teams; basing graduating tests on the ability to command and 'comradeship' is all very good, but we'll need some serious fighting power if the worldwide situation keeps turning for the worth..."

A scarred Chuunin with a spiky dark hair in a ponytail shifted in his seat. The Godaime spared him a side glance and asked, "Do you have anything to contribute, Iruka?"

The academy teacher coughed slightly, "Yes, actually. Regarding leadership abilities, I don't think we'll have to worry too much. Although the test didn't actually evaluate those skills, Naruto has shown to be capable to both guide and teach fellow ninja. I'm sure Ebisu could testify to that; he did after all, teach Konohamaru..."

Said person adjusted his sunglasses, which he wore even inside the room, and agreed, "True. Konohamaru has shown to be able to perform both Kage Bunshin and the Yondaime's Jutsu, Rasengan. When I asked him about it, he informed me that it had been Naruto who taught him those. This was shortly after he disappeared." the trainer of Hokage paused a little before continuing, more slowly, "I am more worried about his partner. That girl, Kyuu, was it? Showed a bit of instability when the incident happened. What was that, by the way? Do we have info on it, already?"

"That was my fault." Interrupted Jiraya, "I attempted to inscribe a complicated seal array into the testing area. When functioning correctly, it would disrupt their chakra manipulation and severely restrict their ability to perform Jutsu. However," and he threw and irritated look at Tsunade, "someone decided to warn me about this test only an hour before it began. Fuuinjutsu takes time and the slightest mistake can be fatal. The destruction you witnessed was due to a fault in the sealing system. The results of the backlash are visible on my clothes and hair..."

Toji spoke, once again, "I see... what about the village then? The area affected will take time to repair."

Tsunade spoke again, "Don't be too concerned. Jiraya has one of his toys ready for it."

"It's a Reverse Entropy Seal, Tsunade." Jiraya almost growled at the Kage, "I'll have to rest first, before activating it. Your little secrecy almost killed me back there!" Tsunade remained impassive at the outburst.

"Going back to Kyuu's mental stability, it might be a good idea for her to have a session with a psychologist on Konoha's Hospital."

Tsunade shook he head slightly, "Perhaps. I will keep that in mind, or maybe even do the session myself. Although, I am not too concerned with it." she raised her hand once more as a barrage of questions about the validity of such dismissal assaulted her, "You have to consider the two of them passed over three years in the wildernesses. Crossing the World. Facing Nature. Alone." the Godaime pressed, stressing her point, "We are ninja, yes." she allowed, predicting the argument before it left Kazumi's mouth, "we must be prepared for any eventuality, yes. We deal with death and dangers on a daily basis, maybe..." she allowed, fixing a glare on the ninja, "but do not, for a moment, underestimate the effects of isolation and loneliness. Nor, for that fact, the harshness of conquering a truly wild environment. Out of all of us, Jiraya is the only one who has truly done it before; he can attest to its difficulty."

Jiraya nodded, thinking back to the harsh training in the hostile (for humans) wilderness of Myõbokuzan at the hands of Fukasaku.

Tsunade continued, "That said, it's natural for them to have formed a deeper than usual bond between the two of them. I only wish most of our other teams had such a sense of dependableness between their members."

There were some scattered chuckles at this. Tsunade clapped her hands.

"Since we seem to be in agreement, let's make it official. Naruto and Kyuu are now Chuunin of the village. You're dismissed."

As the examiners left the room, a shadow materialized behind the Hokage. Without turning, she said: "I'll give your request its due thought, Izumi. But despite Ebisu's misgivings, I'm far more worried about Sakura's mental health than any other member of that team. I need to make sure everything is all right before committing them to any kind of Black Ops."

When the Hokage returned to her office, Jiraya was already there, having entered from the window once again.

Tsunade circled the desk and sat down, looking at the pervert.

"So? What really happened?"

Jiraya looked up from the small seal module he'd been working at. He shrugged.

"I guess we got to see a small example of the power of a Deity."

"Small, huh?"

"Of course. The Ichibi alone would probably be able to wreck much more havoc than what she just did. That was a pathetically small amount of the power she has at her disposal." Jiraya stopped briefly to inspect a few characters on the seal and continued, "I have no clear idea of what happened. That seal array was supposed to interfere with chakra control. Of course," he said, returning to his inspection of the seal, as if struck by a sudden idea, "it has been known to have nasty side-effects on the Yamanaka clan's Jutsu; but unless Naruto and Kyuu-chan have some kind of mental connection, I don't know what happened."

"A mind-link?"

Jiraya straightened again, "Who knows?" he answered, looking at the Godaime, "it's not like we have a lot of experience as far as contracts with Gods go, right?" he got up, apparently satisfied with his work, "But Ebisu was right on that, though: I must take my time and try to impress the girl to keep control. Otherwise, she just might blow us all up, one day..."

There was a moment of silence as the Hokage took a sip of the ever present bottle of sake and the Toad Sennin started gathering his drawing tools back into his pouch.

"So? What kind of team will we be? You know most teams are separated after Chuunin..."

Tsunade turned to the windows and surveyed the village, her chin between her hands.

"I'm not sure yet... I'm getting fed up with Danzo's little plotting. And that idiot Homura is so hot-headed it makes him controllable. He's in Danzo's hands for now. I swear out of those old badgers, only Koharu seems to retain some sense in her head." the Godaime states, "It's time I start taking my power back. And I'll start with Naruto and his team." she said, eyeing the damaged only one of its members could do.

Jiraya nodded, "Truly an astounding Combat potential. I almost feel sorry for whoever gets on their bad side. I can see why the ANBU are itching to get their hands on them. Danzo too, I guess." he paused, before an idea came to his mind, "Why don't you get them the same status as the Sannin?"

"I'll think about it." Tsunade drawled, unwilling to compromise what was going in her head, "And your clothes?"

Jiraya looked down and picked at his shirt, "What this? This is what happens when you're caught in the backlash of a shield-wall after the seals maintaining it are overpowered. I said it was a small amount of the Goddesses power, Tsunade, but don't let that fool you. It still packed quite a punch." he swallowed before saying, more seriously, "Now... are you ready?"

Tsunade nodded, her hands already glowing green.

"Good. Back me up then. Restoring that much space will take most of what I have, if not all. Keep my heart beating, blondie."

Jiraya pressed his hands on the seal and channelled the chakra. An eerie blue glow enveloped the testing area.

"This is kind of relaxing, you know?"

"Of course I do! Why do you think I insist in participating in it every time he does it?"

"I hate the two of you so much!" Naruto grumbled.

Kyuubi threw him a playful pout, "Aw, don't say that, Naruto-kun." she cooed, putting an undertone on his name that he couldn't identify but still sent an electric jolt running down his spine and into his head, "if I thought you were serious I'd have been hurt!"

Naruto declined to comment, focusing on keeping his balance instead. The relaxing activity both Kyuubi and Sakura had been hinting at, consisted in him levitating the two of them into the air. Weightless, the girls were free to relax and sometimes, in Sakura's case, to catch some sleep while hanging in the most crazy positions, suspended in the air. Naruto didn't mind Sakura sleeping. In fact he encouraged it in whichever ways he could, normally by stabilizing her drifting across the rooms or by swinging her softly back and forth until the repeated movement wore down the pink haired girl's awareness. Sakura needed sleep. She was much better than Naruto remembered her from Snow but, even so, now that the reparations on the Namikaze Estate were mostly concluded and Sakura had returned to her apartment (in an effort to keep the rumours about their possible relationship – existent or otherwise – from escalating), he could still see the bags under her eyes that told quite clearly how much rest she was getting: none.

No, what bugged Naruto was that, while the girls played and rested, he had to be upside down, standing only on one finger, while balancing on top of a chair. This concentration exercise – courtesy of Kyuubi – had taken new levels of cruelty when the kitsune demanded he did it with only one of the legs of the chair touching the ground. There was something to be said about how uncomfortable it was to hang upside-down for several hours straight. But there was no denying it vastly improved on his control of the Flow, not that he'd actually admit it out loud to the vixen-girl.

It had been two days since their exam and they still hadn't heard anything regarding the results. Something that was bugging Naruto quite a bit.

"How much time do you thing it will take for them to finish our evaluation?" he asked in the general direction of the girls, in-between small pants of exhaustion. It was difficult to look at someone when they were floating next to the ceiling and you were upside-down.

"I don't know." Kyuubi answered, "I confess I'm curious, but I'm not overly worried: Genin, Chuunin, Jounin... they're just names. I know how capable we are without a silly title before our names."

"I want to be able to shove the Chuunin title in Kiba's face!" Naruto asserted, flailing his arm around and wobbling dangerously on the chair.

Kiba had returned from Team 8's mission and, after the normal celebration at seeing Naruto back, and more importantly alive, proceeded to openly laugh in his face at the fact that he still was stuck as Genin.

The blond ninja opened his mouth, presumably for badmouthing the Inuzuka some more, when a loud bang echoed through the room, rattling the furniture like an earthquake. Kyuubi and Sakura fell to the bed, which cracked dangerously from the weight, as the young man lost his concentration and equilibrium, promptly falling to the floor. There was a croak and Naruto found himself jumped on by a large orange toad.

"Bro!"

Naruto eyed the creature with surprise.

"Gamakichi!" Wow. He had gotten big. Naruto hoped he didn't demand candy as payment any more, because he was sure he didn't have the money to afford its expensive tastes.

Said toad was more interested in rubbing his head against Naruto, which, considering his size, made for quite a pressure on his sternum, "We all thought you were gone, bro! We couldn't believe it when Tsunade said you had returned."

Gamakichi finally released him before asking: "How come you didn't appear on our scroll of sealing, any ways?"

"Huh... what?" Naruto asked, intelligently.

"Oh, right! You don't know." the big creature mused, "When you signed that scroll to start the contract with us and pops accepted you, you're name was inscribed in the scroll of summoners. It remains there for as long as the summoner is alive – or remains in contract with us at any rate." he narrowed his eyes at the blonde. "You didn't trade us for another summon, did you bro?"

"Ham... not exactly..." Naruto answered, raising his hands in a placating gesture when he noticed the face Gamakichi was making, "Look, I died, O.K.? I really did." he said sending a worried look at the bed where Sakura was occupied disentangling herself from the sheets. She appeared to not have heard him, "I got back to life thanks to the help of the Twelve-Tailed Goddess; The contract was necessary, right Kyuu-chan?" he asked, seeking help from the Vixen-Girl.

"It's true." Said the Goddess, exiting from the bed and making a show of herself for the toad.

Gamakichi narrowed his eyes and checked the girl upside-down. Then he made his way to her and, standing on his hind legs, elevated himself to her eye level, "This?" he asked to the surroundings, "This is why Bro stopped being our contractor?" the incredulity in his voice was only supplanted by the contempt that dripped from the words.

Naruto watched in morbid fascination as a nervous tick developed in Kyuubi's cheek in addiction to the bulging vein that started to show on her forehead. She bared her teeth in an intimidating sneer as the two beings foreheads clashed together and each tried to stare the other down.

"You've got guts speaking to me like that, little creature!" Kyuubi said, a trembling smile appearing on her face, twitching in accordance with the eyebrow.. The apparition only made for an even greater intimidating factor, oddly. "Punk! You should show some respect to your betters, you know?"

"Betters? And where are those betters?" Gamakichi growled, in an impressive imitation of the Yakuza bosses Naruto used to read in comic books. "All I see here is a snot nosed little girl."

There was a loud pop as Kyuubi clenched her fist. "Careful... it would be a shame to splatter a cute little frog like you on the wall..."

At the word 'frog', Naruto suddenly realized Gamakichi had grabbed a small katana that hung from his side. Both creatures were now sporting pleasant smiles on their faces that seemed eerily out of place, considering the situation.

Naruto was trying to figure out the best course of action in order to prevent the impending clash when Sakura decided to take matters into her own hands. Appearing by their side, the girl quickly wiped her closed fists across the heads of Kyuubi and Gamakichi. There was a loud yelp and Kyuubi looked at Sakura with wide eyes, as if unable to believe she'd just clubbed her on the head. Gamakichi said nothing, occupied with grabbing his throbbing scalp, little tears leaking from his eyes.

"Stop this! It's ridiculous!" the pink haired girl growled.

"Easy, Sakura-chan." Naruto said, looking directly at the two trouble-makers, "I'm sure they wouldn't let things go... too far."

Kyuubi averted her head, while Gamakichi seemed to have completely missed the jibe, occupied nursing its abused head.

"Owie..." the toad whined, still massaging his head, "I can see your taste in girls remains the same, bro, if you still prefer the violent monstrous types."

Naruto had to wonder if Gamakichi's common sense had decreased as he grew bigger, while he prudently lifted a furious Sakura from the ground in order to keep her from launching herself at the creature, her righteous fury seemingly erasing the fear she always professed to have for the amphibians.

"So... anyways," the blond said drawing attention to himself and somewhat managing to diffuse the tension in the room, "What brings you here, Gamakichi?"

The toad perked up as if waking up from a dream.

"Oh, yeah! Message from Jiraya." it said, clearing his throat before continuing, in a fairly good imitation of the Sennin's voice, "Meet me at the gates at 1600 hours... brat. Prepare for a lengthy mission."

"What, today?" Sakura asked from where she'd been dangling in the air, "But it's almost three in the afternoon!"

"Jiraya-sama says he believes it's time for you all to start living by the ninja code and that means being ready for anything at any time." Gamakichi answered helpfully in a slightly smug voice that didn't do much in improving the pink haired young woman's mood.

"Why is it that I'm not surprised?" Kyuubi asked.

"That's Ero-sennin, for you, Kyuu-chan. Can't expect him to be that responsible." Naruto said, getting up from where he'd been sitting and lowering Sakura to the ground, "He just goes with the flow. Don't expect him to plan things too far ahead. He probably decided to leave while drinking sake or peeping on the women's bath this morning."

"And how do you know he was peeping at the women's bath today?" Sakura couldn't help but asking curiously.

"Oh, that's easy!" Gamakichi butted in helpfully with a mischievous grin, "Bro always goes with the old m-omph"

"Don't listen to that jerk over there Sakura-cha, he's just trying to ruffle your feathers." Naruto sad continuing shoving several pillows down the toads mouth, "I haven't left the estate in all day, just ask Kyuu-chan."

Sakura just smiled, which wasn't the reaction Naruto was expecting at all, "Of course you didn't. What, do you think Kyuu-chan would let you live if you did that?"

Naruto looked at Kyuubi's unwavering blank face and swallowed reflexively.

"I suppose not..." he said slowly, "Not that I was thinking about doing it!" he added quickly. Damn! What was going on with these two today? One moment they're relaxed the next moment there's a tension in the air Naruto sure as hell had no idea had come from, "So, meet you back at the gates in one hour?" he asked Sakura, effectively managing to switch the topic of conversation.

"I guess..." Sakura hesitated, "I'll still have to go and buy a few chemicals for my medical field pack, but I think I can make it in time."

Naruto nodded, "Good. If you're a bit late we'll wait for you and remind Ero-sennin that rushing doesn't make good preparations. Gamakichi," he said turning to the toad, "Tell the Ero-sennin we'll wait for him at the gates."

Gamakichi spit the last pillow out of his mouth and croaked, "Sure thing, Bro!" before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

Jiraya couldn't quite believe his eyes. Surely that bottle of sake he'd had with Tsunade the day before couldn't still be affecting him?

He squinted his eyes. It was true. A mob of girls really was running after his pupil.

The Toad Sannin watched has Naruto turned around, desperate and fed up with trying to outrun the group of stalkers, something that was proving to be mystifyingly difficult, considering he was a ninja and they were not. Were fan-girls born with innate sensor abilities and muscle reinforcing chakra for when they were chasing their obsession? He watched as the blond started yelling at them, only to get some enthusiastic responses that Jiraya couldn't understand over the background noise of the traffic near the Gates. Then he watched as Sakura cautiously joined Teumess and waited for Naruto to conclude what seemed to be an ultimatum to the females.

The girls all seemed to nod eagerly and the trio made their way to him.

"Brat... What was all that about?" Jiraya asked, still looking at the retreating admirers.

"Those crazy girls... they all want to go on a date with me! And they think that trying to kill each other or trying to tear the walls of the estate apart are good ways to impress me! AH! LIKE THEY HAVE ANY CHANCE!"

Jiraya waited for a few moments but, as the blond didn't seem to be willing to elaborate, prodded further, "And what about that just now?"

"They were waiting for us when we left the estate and nothing I said would make them stop stalking me or fighting amongst them. Said they had to know who was worthy of getting me. I think I should be the one to decide who is worthy or not, but what do I know?" Naruto took a breath to calm himself down, "So I issued them a challenge; a game for fun. A prank war. They have until we return from this mission. The victor will get on a date with me and then maybe we'll put this idiocy to rest!"

Jiraya looked at Naruto's sour face, then at Sakura' slightly troubled expression and Teumess' scheming eyes. A chuckle escaped his throat, "I think you've just made Tsunade's next days very interesting... Let's go!"

A/N.: OH MY GOD, IS THIS AN UPDATE? YES, IT IS!

I feel I owe you all an explanation. It was a beautiful day in my house when I decided to play a computer game. I was on vacation after a stressful year of work and I thought I deserved it. Unfortunately, my GPU thought otherwise and decided to blow up a mere twomonthsafterthewarrantyhadvoided... Damn you NVIDIA. Anyways had to get a new computer which didn't happen until this last month. Couple that with my newly started Master's Course and I haven't had much time to update. Sorry.

So! Kyuu-chan, Naruto, and the gang are going out on a mission. I'll post the artwork of how I envision the team (Yes, I draw - what, no one told you?) if anyone can guess where they'll end up.

THE CREDIT FOR THE PRANK WAR GOES TO SOMEREADER21. SORRY FOR NOT POSTING THE INFO BEFORE, I FORGOT.

Fun fact: My notes for all my stories and I are, as of this moment, almost 200km apart. So this was all written from memory. Cheers!

A/N 2.: Alright: What the Hell happened with FFnet editting tools while I was gone?