Part One: He Cannot Die

Konohagakure

Hokage Tower

One Week Later

Naruto sighed.

It had been over a week since the mission where his life had abruptly and suddenly turned on its end. It had been more than a week now since Sasuke had been taken from the Village, and then walked away from it under his own power in the end. It has also been a week full of tests, probes, blood taking, exams, and having both Tsunade and Jiraiya poke and prod him all over off and on for the entire week.

For some reason, despite being in perfect health, though he'd heard a rumor that it was because he was in perfect health, he'd been restricted to the Konoha Hospital for the majority of that week, only able to go out for a few minutes at a time, and occasionally to have lunch with Iruka-sensei. They didn't let him go all the way to Ichiraku Ramen, but he and his former Academy Instructor were allowed to take their meals with them up to the roof. He wasn't the only one from that mission that was staying in the Hospital, unfortunately. In fact, only Shikamaru had been discharged after a single night of observation. That didn't mean he wasn't there just as much as the rest of them though.

Now, finally, Naruto had been summoned to the Hokage Tower, alongside the rest of his team, which unfortunately only included Sakura and Kakashi now. The first time Sakura had seen him after the mission, she'd actually apologized for intruding and left before coming back a half an hour later, still wondering if she had the right room. After staring at his face for a few minutes, she'd goggled and tried multiple times to dispel the illusion, only for nothing to happen.

She wasn't the only one, he'd noticed, that were surprised and staring at his new look. On Jiraiya's and Kakashi's advice, he'd put together a new outfit, seeing as how all his old clothes would no longer fit him, and in an odd display of generosity, they'd bought all the clothes he could possibly need, only asking that they help him out in choosing an outfit.

Currently, he was wearing a form-fitting, yet still loose, pair of navy-blue pants, a navy t-shirt with a black full-sleeved unbuttoned shirt over that, and an old dirty-orange armored vest Kakashi found laying around somewhere. Over that, Jiraiya produced a full-length armored trench coat, colored the same orange as his jumpsuit had been with navy-blue flames embroidered along the bottom edges and sleeve cuffs. On the back a series of kanji were stitched that read "Future Hokage" in bright gold. He'd also had to get a new headband, choosing to get one with black cloth and extra-long bands that trailed down his back.

On his way to the Tower from the Hospital wearing his new outfit, Naruto noticed quite a few people giving him double-takes, and more spit-takes than he'd seen since that time he'd pranked the Hyuuga robes to match his favorite color. A few people, he also saw, seemed to get tears in their eyes and glanced frequently up at the Hokage Monument before turning back to just stare at him. To be quite honest, it was freaking him out.

"Oi, baa-chan!" Naruto shouted the second he slammed open the door to the Hokage's office. "What's the meaning of keeping me locked up for a week at that horrid place?!! You may like it with all those freaky smells and clean walls and stuff, but it just freaks me out I tell ya! You had no right to make me suffer like that! So what if the mission wasn't a complete success, just say the word and I'll go drag Sasuke back here kicking and screaming if I have to!"

"..."

The occupants of the room, which happened to include all of the rookie genin teams of Konoha, their Jounin Senseis, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Shizune, Tonton (Tsunade's pet pig), as well as Iruka, Anko, and some guy that was turned away from him, facing the balcony windows. He only noted that because he was somebody Naruto did not know, and he was standing as far away from Naruto as was possible at the moment and still be in the room.

"What?" he finally blurted out, uncomfortable with the sudden silence after his outburst.

"You were right," Tsunade said to Jiraiya. "It's uncanny how much he looks like him now. Have you had any luck, Jiraiya?"

"None," the white-haired sage sighed. "There's no explanation for it either, at least none that is obvious."

"Uh... what's going on?" Naruto asked, taking a few steps into the room.

"We're discussing..." Tsunade started to answer him, but Naruto didn't hear the rest of what she said as a sudden vibrating buzz filled his head.

If he wasn't already used to odd sensations and overwhelming pain from chakra burns and chakra exhaustion, he might have collapsed in pain in the first few seconds. As it was, he just stopped, his face went pale and he bent over, grasping his head as his brain felt like it was being overloaded with... something! And if that weren't enough, his chakra began to respond with the same overwhelming vibrating buzz, starting at his extremities and transferring the vibration throughout his entire frame so it was like his entire body were a piece of dust on a drum that was being hit by hundreds of people, one right after the other in a never-ending cycle of vibration and 'noise'.

Naruto's eyes immediately locked onto the stranger in the room, who'd spun around with shock written on his face. The man was tall, around six feet at a glance, with shoulder-length light brown hair, held back by a simple red bandanna, the ends of which trailed down to the middle of his back. He wore a beaten trench coat, worn down to a mixed brown and gray from weather and abuse. Beneath it he had on a black tank top, mauve camo-pants, and heavy-tread combat boots. At his waist, other than the ornate belt-buckle, Naruto noticed a serviceable katana, sheathed in a black scabbard.

The instant their eyes locked onto one another, the 'Buzz' dropped to almost nothing, though Naruto could still faintly detect it, much like he could sense chakra most of the time. No longer overwhelmed by the sensation coming from his head and his chakra, Naruto reacted instantly, drawing two kunai from hidden pockets in a flash and regarded the stranger with extreme caution.

"Who... no, what the hell are you? What did you just do to me?" he demanded.

There was a general outburst for Naruto to calm down and to berate him for trying to assault a guest of the Hokage and other general ruckus, but the older-looking blond ignored it in favor of keeping his eyes on the unknown in the room that he sensed a threat from, however limited or subdued that threat might be was irrelevant, though he could tell that the man was not an active threat, otherwise Naruto wouldn't have bothered with kunai and gone straight for a Rasengan, putting himself between the stranger and everyone else in the room. Finally, everyone quieted down when the stranger spoke out loud, regarding Naruto.

"... Not bad," the man chuckled. "Good instincts too, by the way. I am Colin Macleod, an old friend from across the seas. I was told, by another old friend, to come back to Konoha as soon as I could and to have a few words with the active Hokage. I am not a threat to anyone here, Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto started, then slowly put away his weapons, before finally asking, "How do you know my name?"

"I told him your name, why do you think I asked for you to come here, gaki!" Tsunade snapped at him, slamming her hand on the desk, drawing everyone's attention towards her.

"Eh," Naruto blushed, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Sorry, baa-chan."

Tick marks started bursting out all along Tsunade's head as she struggled to maintain her temper.

Naruto helped immensely by switching from his normal personality to shinobi-serious with his next words. "Macleod-san, would you mind telling me what you just did to me? And I know it was you."

"Like I said, good instincts," Colin chuckled briefly. "The short of it is quite simply, the only reason I am here in Konoha is to tell you, Uzumaki Naruto, that your... Bloodline Limit, your Kekkai Genkai has been activated. It happened after your battle with the one called... Uchiha Sasuke. I honestly don't know who that is or what happened, but the one that asked me to come here at this time gave me that information and said it would explain some things for you."

"Wha... I-I... I have a Kekkai Genkai?" Naruto mumbled, shock overriding his system.

Everyone else in the room were experiencing their own levels and variations of shock at this. Amongst Naruto's fellow genin especially. The adults among the group were, of course, just as shocked to hear this, with only two exceptions in Tsunade and Jiraiya, but they were all much more controlled in their reactions.

"WHAT?!!" Neji, Kiba and Choji all screamed at once.

"YOSH! Naruto-kun now burns with the Flames of Youth in a New Light!" Lee exclaimed.

"YOSH! CONTINUE TO WORK HARD NARUTO-KUN! IGNITE YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH SO ALL MAY SEE IT!" Gai shouted at top volume. This was immediately followed by Lee and Gai's usual little song and dance.

"Say WHAT!!?!" Ino and Sakrua screamed, then began to belittle and deny Naruto's 'claim' to having a bloodline limit, adding to the general noise of the room.

Besides the Hokage, the Toad Sage, and the stranger, only Hinata and Shino remained quiet throughout all of this.

Finally, enough was enough and Tsunade silenced the room with a shouted, "SHUT UP!!" coupled with her shattering her desk into tiny wood splinters with a slow punch. Instant quiet.

Naruto took advantage of the quiet, before anyone else could stop him or think to ask their own questions. He looked the stranger right in the eye and demanded to know, "What do you mean I have a Kekkai Genkai? What is it? And how the hell do you know about it, huh?!"

Colin grinned, like he were watching some private play put on for his personal enjoyment. After a few seconds, he answered the blond ninja, "As I told you, I was told what to tell you by another... old friend. You may meet him some day, but all you really need to know about him is that he knows a lot about you. Meanwhile, I know a lot about your... Kekkai Genkai, which I'll tell you more about later. In private."

"Actually, since this concerns my student," Kakashi started to say, "I feel I have the right to..."

"When I say in private, I mean in private," Colin interrupted in a no-nonsense tone of voice. "If Naruto wants to tell you later, that's his choice. I am to tell Naruto, alone, the information he needs to know. Anyone else... well, let's just say I'm not in the mood to play games today and leave it at that."

"Kakashi, stand down," Tsunade snapped when it looked like the Copycat Ninja was about to do something stupid. "Jiraiya and I both know the details of Naruto's bloodline limit, though neither of us knew he would receive it until it activated one week ago. And since we're talking about it, let me make this perfectly clear right here and now." She stood to her feet and put her fists on her shapely hips, glaring at everyone equally, save a select few.

"No one in this room is to question Naruto about his bloodline limit, whether that's to reveal it or just to talk about it. Anyone that disobeys this DIRECT ORDER, will be doing D-Rank missions for the rest of their career! Do I make myself clear?"

"HAI HOKAGE-SAMA!" the room practically roared in fearful reply.

"Good," Tsunade was suddenly all sweetness and smiles. "Now that that's out of the way, Macleod-san, you may take Naruto at your leisure once our next bit of business is done. Until then, I ask your patience."

"I've got lots of patience," the man dully replied, turning back to look out the windows.

Naruto was kinda creeped out and reminded of Sasuke at the same time.

"Naruto!" Tsunade yelled to get his attention, once she had it, she ordered, "Give your full report, now!"

"H-hai!" Naruto saluted and the proceeded to give a detailed account of the mission to retrieve Sasuke, much more detailed than his summary to Kakashi on the day of, which he also included in his report to Tsunade, causing his sensei to look down shamefully when Naruto reported that he was knocked unconscious when he honestly did need only a few minutes rest before resuming the hunt for his teammate.

"Very well," Tsunade folded her hands before her face, resting her elbows on her brand new desk that had come in while Naruto was giving his report. "I have already heard from the rest of you on this. Unfortunately, seeing as you did not fulfill the mission requirements, I must list this as a failure in the books. Still, there are no lasting casualties, and Naruto has a new ability because of this, making Konoha potentially stronger for the future. Therefore, there will be no consequences, but equally no rewards for this mission."

"Tsunade," Jiraiya reminded her.

She nodded and gestured to him, saying, "Jiraiya will now brief all of you on what we know of Orochimaru's operations as well as his Village Otogakure. Jiraiya?"

What followed was a half-hour lecture on subjects that were too vital to be boring, which Jiraiya further emphasized by not once making a perverted remark. Once the genin were all caught up on the relevant information, Tsunade resumed informing them of the changes this information forced them to make.

"As of this date," she told them, "your teams are officially dissolved. Uchiha Sasuke is being listed as a C-Rank Missing Ninja, to be brought back alive preferably, but there are some that are wanting to make that alive OR dead."

"No! I can bring him back, Tsunade-baachan! I know I can! Just give me a chance!" Naruto begged.

"Enough!" she snapped at him. "As Jiraiya just explained, in a way that even you can understand, Naruto. Sasuke could be at any number of hidden bunkers in any number of countries and nowhere near Otogakure's location. Until we have evidence of where he is, we cannot send anyone there, let alone a rookie genin that just discovered a Kekkai Genkai he doesn't know how to control yet!"

Naruto blushed, and would have argued further, except for her mentioning what had happened to him. He backed down with a heavy sigh. Seeing this, Tsunade continued.

"Now, as I was saying, your individual teams are no longer in place, therefore you will all be remade into new teams, some of which will be interchangeable. Team 7 will be the ones mostly affected by this as they just lost a member, and as I understand it, Naruto must undergo training for his Kekkai Genkai before resuming his duties." She looked to Colin behind her for confirmation of this.

He nodded, then added, "Not as much as you might think, but he'll be ready after a few weeks to start training himself. Until then though, I'll have to teach him quite a bit. We may also need to leave Konoha for a time, though not immediately, I thought you should be aware."

"Thank you," she acknowledged.

Turning back to the now team-less genin, she accepted a folder from Shizune and listed, "The former Team Ten is now known as Team Asuma and it includes Jounin Sarutobi Asuma as Team Leader, Chuunin Nara Shikamaru as Second and Team Strategist, Genin Akamichi Choji, Genin Yamanaka Ino, and Genin Haruna Sakura. Just so you are aware, Asuma, I have taken Sakura as my apprentice in medical ninjutsu, and Shizune has taken Ino as hers. Keep their busy schedules in mind when making out your training schedule."

Letting out a puff of smoke, Asuma nodded and accepted the folder from the Hokage, along with a mission scroll, which she explained, "Your new Team's first mission is a simple C-Rank, escorting our routine caravan of merchants to the Capitol. It will let you iron out any disharmonies with them."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," he accepted the mission.

Accepting another folder from Shizune, Tsunade listed off, "The former Team Eight, unfortunately, is being split up. Your team, while impressive in it's early missions, have individually shown they all need more training. All of you. Jounin Kurenai is being temporarily assigned as co-leader of Team Asuma for their next ten missions. Genin Hyuuga Hinata, your father has petitioned to have you removed from the active roster so you may receive more training in your clan's taijutsu and ninjutsu arts. I'm hereby approving that, putting you on extended training leave for one month. Get stronger sooner and I'll see what I can do."

"Genin Aburame Shino, your clan have submitted the same petition, and I'm also approving that. I look forward to seeing how much the only member of Team Eight to make it to the final round of the Chuunin Exams will do after further training in your clan's arts," she smirked when the cloaked boy seemed to hide even deeper in his coat, possibly blushing.

"Genin Inuzuka Kiba... You suck, you need more training, so because of your teammates, I'm putting you on the same leave just because of that," she glared at him, daring him to argue. He might not have been that smart, but thankfully for the temperamental boy, his dog Akamaru was not and a quick 'Yip!' in his ear calmed the Inuzuka enough for the Hokage to move on.

"In one month's time, we'll see about reforming Team Eight into Team Kurenai, until then, work hard," she said, then accepted another folder from Shizune. "Team Gai, nothing changes for you except that you now have a second Jounin Team Leader, Jounin Hatake Kakashi. Don't give me that look, Hatake. If you want, think of this as your punishment. Consider this a direct order, if any one of you are late by even a single minute, not to mention three hours! Then it will be up to the Primary Team Leader, in this case Jounin Might Gai, to determine your punishment, whatever that may be. That would include you, Secondary Team Leader Jounin Hatake Kakashi. Is that understood?"

"YOSH!" Gai and Lee screamed out loud in one voice.

Kakashi looked like he'd been told the entire Icha Icha series was being canceled as well as every single last copy being burned in the town square at midnight, but he acknowledged the order all the same.

"Uh, and what about me, baa-chan?" Naruto nervously asked her.

She didn't say anything, just jerked her thumb over her shoulder, pointing it at Colin Macleod, still standing by the window behind her.

"Oh yeah," Naruto blushed, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"We're done," Tsunade announced. "Dismissed!"

Immediately all the ninja left, except for Naruto, Jiraiya, Shizune and Tsunade herself. Naruto hung around, simply because he was waiting on Colin, who was still just staring out the window.

"Shizune," the Hokage interrupted the silence, "Go ahead and file these. And start Sakura and Ino on the basics this afternoon at the Hospital. I do not want to be disturbed for the rest of the day."

Glancing back and forth between the remaining occupants of the room, Shizune nodded and dutifully replied, "Hai, Tsunade-sama." She then took all the paperwork, and Tonton, with her and left.

Once they were alone, the two Sannin silently regarded the Uzumaki and Macleod respectively. Naruto, for his part, was just nervously waiting because that's what he'd been told to do, but more so because this stranger knew more about him than he apparently knew about himself!

"So," Naruto began the conversation, cautiously regarding the other man, "what exactly is this bloodline limit I'm supposed to have?"

"That was actually a cock and bull story to tell the masses," Colin coldly replied. "I literally was told to say exactly that, when asked to come here. At first I wasn't even going to come near this place, but... I owe the person that asked me to come more than I can ever repay. I want you to remember that, even if you don't believe what I'm going to tell you next, believe that much at least."

Naruto slowly nodded, understanding, at least a little bit, of the kind of relationship and promise the man spoke of. Then he listened as Colin continued speaking.

"You do not have a bloodline limit. You are an Immortal, you cannot die, and you will live forever, unless you lose your head. Oh, and let's go ahead and get the painful stuff out of the way too. You cannot have children, you will never grow old or die of old age while everyone else does, and you're going to have to spend the rest of your immortal life fighting and killing to survive." Colin told him, all in a voice that never changed in pitch or tone.

Naruto stared. He blinked once. Twice. Three times. Then hit himself on the head and asked, "Huh?!"

"He cannot die?" Tsunade asked, sounding both shocked and impressed.

"He, we," Colin corrected himself, "can only die by one method. Decapitation. Anything else, it either heals over, reattaches, or sometimes regenerates. That's where that last part comes in by the way. Immortals fight in what we call the 'Game'. One on one fights, duels to the death where the winner takes the losers power, their Quickening, that which makes us immortal. And because I know all three of you are dying to know, I am one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two years old."

"No way," Naruto protested, his voice quivering. It was obvious he wasn't talking about Colin's age.

"I have lots of ways I can prove what I said, but we'll use the less painful and humiliating ways first," Colin sighed. "Ask Jiraiya and Tsunade when they first met me. This is not the first time I've been in Konoha. In fact, it's my fourth."

"I don't remember seeing you before," Naruto remarked, scratching his chin and trying to recall where he'd seen Colin's face before. "But I'm not really that good with faces!"

"Naruto," Jiraiya spoke, his voice quite serious, with none of the usual light, perverted tones.

"Huh? Oh right, so Ero-sennin, when was the first time you met ji-jii here?" Naruto chuckled.

"Twenty-five years ago, when I first made jounin and a few days before I took my first genin team," Jiraiya replied, all business, his arms crossed and his eyes steady. However much Naruto wished it, he knew the pervy sage was not lying.

"That... that's not possible..." Naruto stuttered, looking back and forth between Jiraiya and Colin. "Unless... you're using a genjutsu, like Obaa-chan does!"

"Genjutsu?" Colin turned and regarded the Hokage.

She was blushing, but hid it by putting her fists before her face in a contemplative pose. "Naruto," she regained the young Immortal's attention, "My genjutsu is unique to me alone. Even if I were to teach it to everyone in Konoha, with only a handful of exceptions, no one would be able to do it, even if they worked their whole lives to do just that. Not even Shizune can do it, and I've been teaching her since she was younger than you were when you first became a ninja. I first met Macleod-san when I was nine years old, 42 years ago. I've seen him three of the four times he's been to Konoha, counting this time. By that time, he was already old enough that my grandfather, the First Hokage spoke to him as you do to Kakashi, as a subordinate to one older and wiser than them. He is telling the truth, and you should believe him."

Naruto's eyes went wide. It was all too much to take in. Stumbling he sat down heavily in one of the nearby vacated chairs. He was holding his head, half-afraid it was about to blow up into itty bitty gory pieces. The elders in the room remained quiet, giving the youth the time he needed to process all he'd been told so far. They just hoped they wouldn't have to wait too long, as each of them were familiar, in their own way, with how slow Naruto could be sometimes.

Finally, he slumped down, tired of thinking, tired of not understanding. He sighed and got back to his feet, facing the two Sannin and his fellow Immortal with set and steady eyes.

"All right, say I believe you, and I'll still be needing the proof that all you say is true before I do anything else, but..." he paused, regarding each of them in turn before looking Colin in the eyes, "What is it exactly you want me to do with this information in the first place?"

"Well, for the most part, that is up to you," Tsunade answered first.

"As I've said," the Immortal repeated, "I am honor-bound to help you. I am here to train you in the ways of the Immortal. Basically, I'm here to teach you how to survive the Game. After that, I'm leaving. Beyond my lessons and training, what you do is your own choice. You still have free will, it's just you're going to be around a lot longer to exercise it, if you can survive."

"If you wanted to, Naruto, you could leave Konoha and go somewhere else, somewhere where you aren't hated, where you'll be appreciated as the hero that you are. You can even go chasing Sasuke if you wanted and there isn't a thing we could do to stop you," Jiraiya told him.

"You could cut off my head," Naruto reminded them.

"Something tells me," Colin laughed, "that with or without me teaching you, you'd find ways of making that difficult for whoever tried. Besides, you're not going anywhere until after I say you're ready. When I do, then you can go wherever you like, or you can tie yourself to this ninja village for as long as you live. Let me tell you this though; nothing lasts forever. Nothing."

Naruto looked down, frowning at the words. He used to just blurt out flat denials and affirmations that he would one day be Hokage. Now he'd found out that, if he survived, he'd live forever! It did not seem the right time for his usual denials.

"And if I still say that, no matter what, I will still be Hokage some day, then what?" he challenged his new Teacher. "Will you tell me it's a fool's dream, that I should just give up and let a temporary position be filled by someone temporary?!"

"No," Colin calmly denied. "You can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do. If you don't mind people knowing your immortal, and I know how shinobi guard their secrets, even in their own Villages, then I imagine you could be Hokage for the next thousand years, provided both you and the Village survives that long."

Naruto's eyes snapped up, opening wide with excitement and joy, a grin spreading across his face.

"First question," Colin asked, "have you had any kenjutsu training?"

Thrown by the sudden change in subject, Naruto face-faulted, then sheepishly answered, "Uh, no, not really. Never had to use a sword before, just kunai."

"That's going to change. I'll give you your first sword, but it's just a training sword, until you can buy or make your own. I'm sure you have a lot of questions for these two, and me as well. We'll get started tomorrow, and I'll answer your questions for me then. Meet me at Training Area 12 at 7 tomorrow morning." Having said what he'd come to say, Colin stepped past Naruto and walked out of the room, leaving the blond genin in the room with the two Sannin.

"Is this for real?" Naruto hissed at them after they were alone.

"I don't know about the whole of it," Tsunade quietly admitted, "But I've known Colin Macleod of the Clan Macleod since I was a little girl. He really is that old, and yes, it's really him, not a new body or a different person with the same face and body like what Orochimaru does. He also provided... evidence to Jiraiya and me before we called all of you here, you especially. Immortals are real. Colin is an Immortal, and he claims that you are as well. He also told us that you two would have a... reaction to one another when you came close to the other."

Naruto started, then frowned.

"Is that what it was? A... reaction? I don't know what that was! It felt like my chakra was buzzing!"

"Naruto," Jiraiya interrupted his tirade, "I know that you're on information overload right now, but this changes things. Things that we need to talk with you about."

"Like what?" he snapped at them angrily. "That Immortals can't become Hokage?!"

The adults shared a glance, both sighing, whether in relief or exasperation it was difficult to say.

"That's for the future, we need to talk about the present," the Toad Sage insisted. "Bloodline theft is probably not really possible in your case, but that doesn't change the fact that Konoha now has a ninja that cannot die in it's ranks. A ninja that someone like Orochimaru is, if peripherally, aware of. Sasuke went to him willingly, but that was because Orochimaru wants only one thing from him. His body, in three years when he can perform his body-transfer jutsu again. But an Immortal?"

Naruto shivered along with Tsunade as the thought took hold in his mind. It was not a pleasant concept by any scope of the imagination.

"There's also some other information that, well that you need to be made aware of," Jiraiya muttered.

"Jiraiya!" Tsunade exclaimed.

"Things have changed!" he shouted back at her, confusing Naruto further. He'd never seen the two Sannin argue like this, not even when Jiraiya was trying to convince the angry drunk into taking the position of Hokage in the first place. They were scared, he realized. Scared for him, not of him, but for him. And that made him scared.

"What things?" he quietly asked them, sitting back down.

"Some of them, you can probably make a guess at," Jiraiya told him, rubbing his face in exhaustion. "There's an organization, named Akatsuki that is made up of S-Rank Missing Ninja. So far, they've mostly been gathering intelligence, resources, and money from various bounties. All for their primary purpose, which as near as I've been able to determine is to collect all of the bijuu."

"The Kyuubi," Naruto whispered, clenching his gut with a mix of rage and depression.

"And all the others," he added.

"Orochimaru used to be a member of Akatsuki," Tsunade told him. "Jiraiya has not been able to figure out why or what caused the split, but after he left, that's when he created Oto, the Hidden Sound."

"So, we find this Akatsuki and we find Orochimaru and Sasuke?" Naruto asked, hope lighting his eyes.

"Doesn't quite work like that," Jiraiya corrected him. "Orochimaru left them, they didn't fire him, he left. You don't leave an organization like Akatsuki without burning a lot of bridges, you understand. If they knew where he was, they'd either hunt him down and kill him for betraying them, or leave him be so long as he stayed out of their business. It's doubtful that any of them would have information on Orochimaru's hideouts, let alone where he would keep his 'new body'."

"Something else that you must understand, Naruto," Tsunade insisted, "Each of these criminals are S-Ranked. That means that they're at least as strong as Orochimaru ever could be. Probably more powerful as if they were weaker than him, that means they would be following him instead of hunting him down for leaving."

"Another thing, in case you're not scared yet, gaki," Jiraiya pointed out, "is that the few times that you've faced Orochimaru in combat, he was either severely weakened, or intentionally holding back. You've never seen him go all out before, remember that."

Naruto put his head on his knees, holding his fists to his temples as what they were telling him was pounded into his brain. They let him sit there for a couple of minutes, just letting him digest what he'd learned so far. Finally, he sat back up, his eyes raw with emotion, and asked, "How does me being Immortal now change things?"

"For one thing," Tsunade answered, "Colin is right. We have no control over you, never did really. You can do whatever you want and we can't stop you. The only people that know how to kill Immortals are myself, Jiraiya, Colin, and now you. No one else in all of Konoha even knows Immortals exist in the first place."

She got to her feet, walked around until she was standing in front of him. "You could go out, hunt down Orochimaru, bring Sasuke back to Konoha and hunt down each and every member of Akatsuki and then come back twenty years later and reintroduce yourself as a relative of the Fourth Hokage, or the Senju Clan or just some wandering ninja wanting to settle down and a few years of service after that become the Hokage then. You could walk out those doors right now and never set foot in Konoha for the rest of eternity if you wanted to, and we can't stop you."

"So, we've decided that what's changed is you," Jiraiya picked up where she left off. "And how we handle dealing with you."

"How you handle dealing with me?" he repeated, a bit of a growl in his voice.

"Oh come on gaki, you know you're still just a kid, even if you don't look it anymore," Jiraiya teased, a bit of his usual personality coming through. "Do you see anyone else shouting at Tsunade most of the time? She's the Hokage for crying out loud! And while I am the world's greatest super pervert, and must deal with the consequences of my research sometimes. Do you think that I let just anyone get AWAY WITH CALLING ME *ERO-SENNIN*!!"

Naruto winced, then shrugged, looking up at them with his wide, innocent blue eyes.

"So instead of just dealing with it because you're just a gaki that doesn't know any better, and because we like you," Jiraiya was saying.

"But also because we have more experience, Naruto," Tsunade interrupted. "We know how the world works and what a person is capable of and what they're not capable of. So in the past, we've hidden things from you, told you part of the whole story, the part that you needed to hear."

"Or just the parts that we knew at the time," Jiraiya continued. "We've decided to change that."

"Complete honesty," Tsunade added.

Naruto nodded, his brain still overloaded, but he understood what they were saying. Normally he would have gotten all full of righteous anger and started shouting at them for not trusting him and lying to him and stuff. He still might have reacted that way only as long as a week ago. But that was before his fight with Sasuke, and several cold, hard truths were revealed to him. He couldn't take what they were offering, not just yet. He needed time to understand what this all meant and figure out what he was going to do.

"I... I need time to think about this. All of this. Before I go, though... is there anything else that I really need to know?" he asked them, getting to his feet. They exchanged another look.

Jiraiya spoke. "I was going to offer this beforehand either way. Before we knew you were an Immortal, but... I'm going to take you on a training journey, just you and me. If you want to go. I wouldn't be the first Sannin to leave Konoha with an apprentice to train, you know."

"Wow! Really! That's Awesome!" Naruto exclaimed, his excitement and child-like glee returning at the mere mention of training. Particularly since the last bit of training he'd gotten from the Sannin was for the Rasengan! "Wait, so... how does me being Immortal change that?"

"It doesn't, not really, we'll still go," Jiraiya was quick to assure him. "But because of this incident, a lot of people are going to make a lot of noise if I suddenly leave with a genin, especially with all that's happened recently. So, let's make a deal!"

"What kind of deal?" Naruto asked, suspicious.

"If you make chuunin in the next Chuunin Exams, we'll go on a two and a half year training journey," Jiraiya told him. "If you don't," he shrugged, "Well, then you'll have to earn the rank the hard way. By a field promotion, which is a lot harder to get than passing the Chuunin Exams."

Naruto gulped, then set his eyes and grinned wide.

"All right then! I'll do it! I'll pass the next Chuunin Exams with flying colors and you're still gonna train me no matter what! Uh... when are the next Chuunin Exams?" he suddenly faltered.

The Sannin both face-faulted.

It was good to see becoming Immortal hadn't changed their friend that much.

TBC...