Title:The Missing Hokage : San
Author:Joshua
Disclaimer:Naruto is published by Shounen Jump Magazine, and the creator doesn't know what to do with his own creation so instead of hiring Ghost Writers to make it more interesting, he "focuses" on other characters that nobody cares about. This story is in response to Perfect Lionheart's "Missing Hokage" challenge.
Summary:One Year Later. Naruto, and everyone else on Team Hokage are traveling around helping people and making enough to rival most Hidden Villages. Naruto is near Jounin level, but to face what is to come, he must undergo special training and begin something that no one could have expected.
AN: Since in the manga (nor anime) Shizune's surname has not been given yet, I have given her the same surname as the Japanese Voice Actress that does her voice in the original anime. Just FYI.
San: Inspiration
In Kaminari no kuni, in the foothills that border between the center of the country and the next of the elemental nations, a fierce battle was taking place. A battle the likes of which were seen more and more often these days.
"HAH! So this is the infamous Team Hokage?! HAH!!" a rough-skinned brute wearing a Kumo headband that had a slash across the symbol screamed as he twirled his spear in one hand. "I'm not impressed!"
His name was Taiyou Shun, and he was a nukenin from Kumogakure. He was only about five and three-quarter feet tall, though his spiky blue-gray hair made him seem taller sometimes. He had medium-brown skin and coal-black eyes and kept himself clean-shaven. He wore sleeveless black and gray armor and wielded a seven foot pole-arm that he identified as the Ikazuchiyuri, the Spear of Thunder. It had a solid-black pole and was capped with a ribbed double-edged foot-and-a-half-long golden spear point, which as they had already discovered, was an excellent conductor for lightning chakra and the rogue could shoot out blasts of raw lightning at them from a distance.
Team Hokage; aka Senju Tsunade, Nemoto Shizune, Hyuuga Hinata, Kaito Shi, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto, were on a 'simple' bounty hunter mission, offered to them by none other than the Daimyo of Kaminari no kuni!
Apparently, Shun had cut ties with Kumo roughly six months ago, and has since then been systematically attacking key trade routes between Kaminari and some of it's less friendly allies, making it look like either Kumo, and thus the Raikage, were trying to start a war, or making the Lightning Daimyo look weak by making it seem he couldn't control his own backyard.
When Tsunade, after he'd offered them the job, asked him about Kumo's Hunternin tracking Shun down, he grumbled for a bit and finally admitted that apparently they were still searching for him and were working to find him as quickly as possible, but the Raikage had been telling him that for the past six months with no progress, beyond continued reports of attacks on trade routes, to show for it.
"Get them men! I'll soften them up for you first!" Shun cried in sadistic glee, firing off a couple lightning blasts, forcing the team to dive for cover. Oh, and apparently, he also joined up with a group of bandits and mercenaries and very quickly became their leader.
"Crap!" Tsunade cursed as they scattered behind what cover they could, most of it rocks from the rubble of previous lightning blasts. "We need to take out that spear! Sooner, rather than later! Naruto! You and Shi take care of the mercs! The rest of us will cover you! Sasuke, start planning on how to take out that spear!"
"Do I get to keep it?" the normally broody youth asked back.
"WHAT?!" Tsunade screamed, incredulous.
"Naruto, or you, or even Hinata get first pick at the artifacts or the scrolls we find most of the time. The bounty is for Taiyou Shun only, not his weapon. Which means we can claim it as a spoil of battle," the Uchiha coolly stated. "Do I get the spear?" His question was further enforced by another blast exploding dangerously close to their hiding spot right at that moment.
"GAH! We don't have time for this Uchiha!" she screamed at him, murder in her eyes.
"Do I get it or not?" he insisted, looking like he'd just as soon cross his arms and legs and sit there pouting for the rest of the day until he either got his way or was killed.
Near growling, Tsunade clenched her fist and made to punch some sense into the arrogant chuunin, when Naruto sidled up to their hiding spot, having littered the battlefield with enough clones to thoroughly distract Shun and his mercenaries.
"Let him have it, Obaa-chan," the younger blond said, then shrugged. "I've already got the True Raijin, and he's right about me and Hinata getting first pick of any treasure we find. Besides, Sasuke's the only one of us with lightning affinity. He'd be the only one that could use it!"
Tsunade frowned, looked between the boys for half a second, then sighed and rolled her eyes. Finally she growled out, "Fine! IF you can get your grubby hands on it Uchiha, that spear is all yours. NOW TAKE THAT BASTARD OUT!"
"Yes ma'am," Sasuke saluted with a grin, then jumped over their barricade with Naruto right behind.
"I'll take care of the rest of them," Naruto said, forming a familiar cross-seal, several dozen shadow clones formed in his wake and quickly spread out stealthily around the battlefield. "We'll have this wrapped up in no time, Baa-chan!"
"If only..." she rolled her eyes.
"CHIDORI!" Sasuke's cry went out and there was a blue/black flash across the ground, even as there were several explosions around it, Shun kept missing until the lightning element assassination jutsu slammed into his chest, going through the armor the nukenin wore.
"Fuuton: Senpuuken!" Naruto's and his clones shouts came around the same moment and there were explosions of wind and dust as controlled cyclones dispatched almost all of the remainder of Shun's bandit army. The remainder were taken care of by Shi and Hinata rounding them up and quickly knocking them out on their own.
Before Tsunade had even fully come out of hiding, the battle was over and the bandits all tied up and Shun's corpse was cooling at Sasuke's heels while the Uchiha twirled about his new weapon. The Sannin sighed and rolled her eyes. 'Typical, just typical,' she thought to herself. 'A-Rank Assassination contract, and all of them are treating it like the average C-Rank Bandit Hunting mission. I need a drink!'
"All right, enough!" the busty blonde shouted once she was sure the danger had passed. "Begin clean-up. Shi, you observe alongside Naruto, Hinata you supervise sealing the bodies, UCHIHA PUT THAT THING AWAY!! Naruto, you know what you have to do. Any problems... you know where to find me."
The four youths all chuckled at that statement, driving another tick mark into Tsunade's skull.
"It's her own fault," Naruto shrugged to his friends, absently creating a legion of shadow clones that began to scour the landscape, collecting weapons, clearing debris, filling potholes in the road, things like that. "She keeps insisting on coming on these easy missions! Always insisting that it's too dangerous. When the really dangerous missions are those ones that she and Shizune-neechan call 'cakewalks'! You'd think she'd know better by now!"
"Well..." Shi started to say but was interrupted.
"Ano, Naruto-kun," Hinata spoke, "This was an A-Rank style mission. The target was a jounin with a highly unique weapon that no other in the world has. Or rather had," she added, seeing Sasuke finally put the spear away. "The 'cakewalk' missions, on the other hand were all C-Rank escort, protection, and delivery missions. Normally, those missions are much less dangerous than any A-Rank mission."
"Yeah, but..." Shi tried again, but was too slow.
"Except that each of those missions turned out to be miss-ranked!" Naruto exclaimed. "Nine times out of thirteen, in escort missions that we've taken, the client has lied about his importance or neglected to mention he's got a bounty on his head! Protection missions are the same way, as something or someone that is supposed to only be C-Rank in value is actually A-Rank or above! And don't get me started on the delivery missions!"
"He's got a point," Sasuke observed , even as he casually ripped off the head of the target's corpse before sealing the rest of the body into a scroll for later autopsy and analysis. The head was purely for identification purposes and proof that they completed the mission.
"Then there are all the times that I give you guys advice and warnings before going on those missions," Shi snapped, crossing his arms angrily after being ignored.
The three younger members of Team Hokage stopped for a second before giving a collective shrug and acknowledging the truth in that statement. They certainly weren't about to deny it, especially after Shi could, at times, give them more thorough information about their missions than their clients ever could. And that was the point Naruto was trying to make.
"Yeah!" Naruto agreed with him. "Those ones that Obaa-chan is calling cakewalks are the ones where we aren't given the info we need to complete the mission, there's all this hiding and secrets and stuff. We just need to know what to expect and we're all good. Thanks for the outline on this guys capabilities by the way, Shi! Sasuke probably wouldn't have gotten close without it."
"Actually, you would have tried to take him head on and nearly gotten yourself killed in the process," Shi grinned at the blond mockingly. "Need I remind you..."
"Yes, yes, yes," Sasuke sighed, exasperated. "Your powers of premonition saved us all again. Are you two going to just chatter all day, or are you going to help out?"
In silent reply, Shi and Naruto both pointed to the horde of shadow clones scouring the battlefield, collecting the bodies, weapons and everything else needed to clear the site of their battle. Sasuke rolled his eyes and went to join Hinata in sealing up the other remains.
It was a tactic that they'd started doing about five months after leaving Konoha. A good ninja learns what to look for when analyzing potential opponents. From the way a person walks, holds their tools or weapons, to the way they react to sudden noises or specific information, all of it can be used in analyzing the way a ninja fights and countless more facets. Likewise, the same way an animal leaves tracks in the forest to identify its behavior, one can look at the site of a ninja battle and learn more than those ninja would be comfortable anybody learning about them.
Shi had suggested it a full month beforehand, but it wasn't until Team Hokage was attacked by another team of ninja that knew precisely how to handle each of them so that they were defeated in minutes. Tsunade and Sasuke had both accused Shi of hiring the enemy ninja, until they confronted their captors and found out that they'd been following Tsunade's group around and learned all about them with very subtle investigations. After that, they made sure that any time any member of the group had a full on ninja battle that wasn't staged in some way, that site was cleaned up so that it appeared as if they'd never been there in the first place.
After seven more months, it had become habitual for them by this point.
"That everything?" Naruto asked when Hinata and Sasuke joined him and Shi on the rocks.
"I don't know, is it?" Sasuke snapped back at him, annoyed at having to carry all the dead-body scrolls.
Shi suddenly frowned and pulled out a notepad. He flipped through it for about a minute before stopping on a specific page and read it while the others watched on. He handed the notepad to Naruto and asked, "Did they get that?"
Naruto looked and saw a small diagram of an unmarked Kumo hitai-ate. There was a caption under the diagram, reading, "Nukenin Spare Hitai-ate = Kumo ANBU Hunternin = ???" Naruto shot Shi a look, then glanced back to his clones and turned around to where Sasuke had slain their target. He walked over himself and then knelt down before clearing away some loose pebbles and dust and came up with the unmarked headband. He held it up and tossed it to Sasuke.
"We really don't need Kumo tailing us," he commented, handing the notepad back to Shi. "Thanks Shi. That should be everything now, right?" He got nods all around and nodded back himself. "Then let's go join Obaa-chan and Shizune-neechan, OK?"
"Hai!" Hinata immediately agreed, taking Naruto by the arm and leading him away, leaving Shi and Sasuke to follow along carrying all their packs and 'evidence' of their battle.
Capitol of Kaminari no Kuni
Lightning Daimyo's Castle
Five Days Later
"Ah, excellent, excellent!" the thin and pale ruler of the Country of Lightning exclaimed once he saw the whole of Team Hokage upon entering the room. "I trust everything went well? You've found Taiyou Shun then?"
Tsunade smirked, her eyes twinkling as she nodded her head. She pulled out a very specific scroll and set it before the Damiyo. "Indeed, Damiyo-sama," she answered. "It was hardly any trouble at all. We merely went to the area where the attacks were being reported, and waited for Taiyou to show himself. I assure you, you will no longer have to worry about attacks from this particular group of bandits along your borders ever again. Now then, about the bounty..."
"Ah yes," the Damiyo nodded his head towards a nearby servant, who then carried in a small chest.
Tsunade's eyes flashed hungrily as she opened the chest and smiled brightly at the lord before her.
"Thank you. Everything looks in order here. If there's anything else that I can do for you, my lord, please don't hesitate to ask. Team Hokage always respects a client who is as generous as you have been. You know where to reach us, I'm sure," Tsunade closed the chest and handed it back to Shizune.
"Of course, of course," the Damiyo waved his hand like it was nothing. "I am curious however, are the rumors true? About your group, and about you? That it's no coincidence that you are Team Fire Shadow, but that one of you actually was the Hokage of Konoha once upon a time?"
Tsunade's smile became a little more forced, but didn't change by one inch. "You know how rumors are, my lord. They can be a truthful and as fictitious as the difference between a report and a script for a movie. We tend to discourage the more... fictitious rumors, don't we? After all, just because most of us hail from the Country of Fire and the coincidence of our team's name, is no reason to jump to conclusions. Besides, what if I told you I'd heard a rumor that you were gay? HAH HAH HAH HAH!" Tsunade roared out in laughter, though the Damiyo chuckled uncomfortably, she was the only one laughing. "Now that's just plain silly, isn't it? See how rumors are silly like that, my lord?" her tone changed from laughing to serious in a heartbeat.
"Uh, yes," the Lightning Damiyo gulped and nodded his head. Getting to his feet, he said as he left, "Very well then. This concludes our business, and based on your performance, I may call on you again some day. But for now... well, the rest of your payment will be met out by my attendants as you leave. Thank you again for your hard work, and have a good journey!" He scrambled out of the room so fast, some of them wondered if he hadn't had ninja training in escape and evasion.
"How'd you know he was gay?" Naruto asked thoughtlessly as they walked out of the palace.
"He's not," Tsunade cackled, "He's actually homophobic. We were actually exchanging threats on me spreading false rumors about him if the rumors about me were confirmed as anything other than rumors."
"Oh," the blond scratched his head, still confused.
"Don't worry about it, Naruto-kun," Hinata sidled up next to the young man to comfort him.
"Are we almost done here?" Sasuke questioned irritably.
"Almost," Shi hinted, then surreptitiously side-stepped just as a man dressed as a ninja, though with no identifying marks, came forward and approached Tsunade.
"I hate it when he does that," the buxom blond hissed under her breath, turning her attention to the ninja before her. "Can I help you?"
"I am Kenun Kumoashi," the man bowed low before the former Hokage. "I am hoping that you are the prestigious Team Hokage? And you are the leader, Senju Tsunade, Sannin and once Hokage of Konoha, yes?"
Tsunade frowned and crossed her arms over her considerable chest, driving the man to further distraction, then asked, "How did you find us?"
"I am a wandering soul, looking for work. I get it where I can, and my former village, while not hunting me, has exiled me for... political reasons. I have been a mercenary for several years now and one does not travel in such circles these days without hearing of the infamous Team Hokage. I had only just completed a mission for another of the nobles in this city yesterday when I heard that you were in the area and that you have just completed a mission for the Lightning Damiyo. I am wondering... is there a chance that I might join your group, even if only for a short while..."
"No," she snapped, before this could get out of hand.
Shi, Hinata, Naruto, and Sasuke all walked past, looking the ninja up and down as they went by. Behind his back, so only Shizune and Tsunade could see, all four of them shook their heads no, while Shi made the hand sign for 'Spy'. Shizune stayed by Tsunade's side however.
"But you haven't even..." the ninja tried again, but stopped when the blond landed him with a glare that made Orochimaru take pause.
"Team Hokage is not hiring. Since our formation, we have only accepted one addition and he was there for our first mission so you might consider him also being there during our formation. No matter what the name, what the skill, tell your village, your boss, or whoever you're working for, that we are not hiring and not for sale either. You should leave now before I lose my patience with you."
Shaking now, he just nodded agreement and quickly ran away in the opposite direction.
"That was uncharacteristically kind of you, Tsunade-sama," Shizune remarked as they went to catch up to the rest of the team.
"Was it?" she looked over at her first apprentice.
"He's still able to walk away under his own power," the brunette laughed.
"I think you mean 'run away'," Tsunade joined in the laughter.
"That's the seventh 'offer' to join our group in the past month alone," Sasuke commented once the adults had caught up with them. "And, according to Shi, over half of them have been planted spies, although we never found out for who."
"Do we have to?" Shi scoffed.
"He's right," Shizune commented. "We're an independent group of high level ninja that take on an entire range of jobs, most of them A and S rank, nearly impossible without more than a dozen fully trained ninja. And we number only half that. The fact that we haven't reported failure on any mission that we have accepted also makes us more mysterious. Every hidden village and Kage and ninja organization is going to want as much information about us as possible. Why do you think we started cleaning up after battles?"
"Because Shi told us to?" Sasuke sarcastically snapped back.
"Because Shi pointed out a weakness that needed correcting," Tsunade stressed. "The fact that none of these organizations or villages have gotten a spy or other source of information about us is driving them crazy. Not a surprise really, to see them sending so many new faces our way. It's the way the ninja world works."
"So why don't we have our own spy network?" Sasuke asked.
"We do," Tsunade, Shi and Naruto all said at once.
"How do you know about that?" Naruto asked Shi.
Shi just grinned and walked on.
"Know about what?" Sasuke growled, feeling mistrust because there was something Naruto had successfully hidden from him.
"I've got transformed shadow clones in ever single country and hidden village we've ever visited," Naruto shrugged. "They only last a couple of weeks, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to replace them so long as you've got the chakra for it. Plus, they can eat and make chakra of their own, but eventually they do run out. I've even got a few back in Konoha, been keeping in touch with Ero-sennin."
"And whose idea was this?" Hinata asked knowingly.
"Obaa-chan's," Naruto said.
"Mine," Tsunade said at the same time.
"That makes sense," Sasuke admitted, having been privately impressed with the idea, but was reluctant to say as much. "It's an actually good idea. I'd been worried that Naruto had been replaced by an actually competent ninja."
"Hah. Hah. Hah," Naruto glowered at the Uchiha.
"So, where to next?" Tsunade asked out loud. She then turned and looked right at Shi.
"Are you sure?" he asked her after noticing the Sannin staring at him.
"I've been putting off on listening to you explain how your powers of insight work for long enough, and you've been asking us to head back to Hi no Kuni for the past few weeks. As it is, we don't have any other missions lined up right now, so we might as well listen to what you've got to say. After all, we wouldn't want to step on a crack and break the world in two now," Tsunade jested.
Shi winced.
"I really wish you hadn't used that particular phrase, but I understand your reluctance to listen to me prattle on about things I'm not a hundred percent sure on. Plus, my... talents, aren't what you'd call standard. At least with the Sharingan and the Byakugan, when they 'see the future' it only counts for the next few seconds and detailing an opponent's reactions. Can't exactly test something that deals with possible futures on a worldwide scale, can you?" he replied.
"Shi already explained about his powers work, Obaa-chan," Naruto stated. "He draws or writes stuff that may or may not come true. The stuff that doesn't come true are at least warnings on how to avoid the worse stuff. Plus, he always has the right advice at the right time for us!"
"I'm not denying that," Tsunade admitted, "But that doesn't explain why you suddenly want us to return to the country where Naruto has been exiled from, Shi. I'm looking forward to that explanation very much."
"Heh, yeah, me too," the youth said, looking like he was anything but.
"So where are we going anyway?" Naruto asked after a bit of uncomfortable silence.
"I'm... not sure, but we need to go there," was all Shi could say. "It's nowhere near Konoha by the way. More in the southeastern portion of Hi no Kuni, at the neck of the peninsula. There's a small grouping of mountains there, more like rocky hills really. That's our general direction. For now."
The rest of the team didn't look happy with so little information, but after so long dealing with Shi's 'warnings' and 'advice', they knew better than to argue. When he had more information, he'd share it with them.
Konoha
Hokage's Office
It had been a trying year for the Sixth Hokage. Or, to be more accurate, it had been a very trying year for Konoha, and a frustrating one for Jiraiya! Mostly because of the fact that since he was Hokage, he couldn't go off and do all the research he'd gotten used to, nor could he wander the countryside and have fun playing the spy game, research included. Oh, there was more than enough eye-candy all over Konoha these days, but variety is the spice of life as they say.
Still, there was more to Jiraiya's and Konoha's troubles than mere boredom.
First of all, all of Jiraiya's laws and changes to old laws and traditions and then the punishment system he created and had ANBU enforce; the coed hot springs, the changes to the Ninja Academy, hell even the uniforms, all of that worked out fine and was easily accepted, even appreciated by a few of the more bold citizens of the Hidden Village. The new class of punishment D-Rank and public humiliations however, well there had been two riots; the first of half the civilian population, the female half, and then the second was from half of the entire population of Konoha, again the female half. All of the kunoichi, even members of ANBU participated in that one.
The first riot was to be expected, what with Jiraiya making his book of porn, (Hey, he may be a super-pervert, but that doesn't make him anal! He writes porn and he knows it!), mandatory reading for minors, and authorizing very vagrant advertisement displays for his new books to be put up all over town, rather than in their usual discretionary spots here and there had pissed the women off something fierce!
The second riot however, that almost started a civil war between men and women right there. Unfortunately, it just so happened to coincide with the latest physical reports of all the female ninja of the village, and it was found out, as to be expected, that over 90 percent of them were now pregnant. The less than 10 percent was the very few number that were newly minted genin or were still too young for that sort of thing. As in biologically too young.
Standard practice is that if a ninja becomes incapacitated due to medical reasons they're no longer allowed to go on long-term out-of-village missions. The timing could have been better, he had to admit, but nobody was upset that all of the female ninja of appropriate age were pregnant. That was something everyone was ecstatically happy about. What pissed everyone off was that he'd forced all of them to go on the restricted mission access the minute the physical results came back in.
Most of them weren't even three weeks along yet! They still had at least another month before they became incapacitated in any way, and there were C and B rank missions that held relatively low risk, not to mention his new A-Rank Escort Class missions, which again could be participated in so long as they weren't showing or dealing with other problems of pregnancy.
He and a number of the 'old crowd' felt that it was still too dangerous with their next generation of ninja, or civilians or whatever, to risk sending expecting mothers out on potentially lethal missions. Hell, Jiraiya had argued with a number of his personal advisers amongst the jounin and chuunin; Team Seven on their first C-Rank mission turned into an A-Rank overnight and it was a simple, standard protection mission to a nearby country that was less than three days walk from Konoha itself! A three-day WALK!
Then the villagers started shouting in the streets and so Jiraiya's restriction was temporarily rescinded, in certain and very specific cases. And speaking of his new style of Escort missions, that was another thing that twisted a lot of panties into knots. The fact that Jiraiya made it completely equal, sending as many men, sometimes even twice as many as women on these types of mission made no difference to the hard-liners. While nobody rioted, he was receiving some very harsh criticisms from just about everybody.
That was only the beginning though.
Mission success/fail ratios were dropping and rising like the waves of the ocean during a typhoon. He tried mapping out where they were falling flat on their faces, but it was all over the map! In fact, the only correlation that he could fathom was in the experience and age of the ninjas that failed and those that succeeded. The older chuunin and jounin were reporting 30:70 success/fail, while the latest genin and very recently promoted chuunin were reporting in at 85:15 on average! 70 percent failure rate! It was unbelievable!
The problem really came in attitude, he finally had to admit. The older generation was tired and they'd just gone through another change of leadership, less than a year after having lost the Third Hokage, and now they've got to deal with the super-pervert Sixth Hokage!
The younger generation, Naruto's generation on the other hand, were eager to prove themselves and fought for the ideals that their exiled friend had showed them before being sent away. There was also the fact that Jiraiya usually sent out the genin/chuunin teams to intercept and interact with a new organization that had been working around the Elemental Nations for the past year; Team Hokage.
Jiraiya had made initial contact with his apprentice and Tsunade shortly before they stopped that Kurosuki Family in that mountain village, and after that he'd been able to occasionally send out, or leave behind, a shadow clone so he could meet up with his godson occasionally. He'd also finally been able to remove that damned cursed seal from the Uchiha's neck and the boy was better for it in the long run. No more corrupted chakra anyway.
When he couldn't meet with them directly, he would send out either Team Asuma, Team Kurenai, Team Gai, or some combination therein. He tried, once, to send Kakashi and Sakura as long-term field agents and contacts between Konoha and Team Hokage, but Kakashi was late and Sakura, well she had outright refused, saying she was too busy training to accept such a mission. It was the seal she had revealed on the underside of her tongue that kept Jiraiya from ever asking her again. Only one person in the world would use that specific seal in such a way. Danzo. Which meant that Sakura, whether intentionally or not, had fallen in with Root.
Not good.
Not to mention very frustrating in the grand scheme of things, he had to admit to himself.
Beyond all the problems however, there was plenty of good things going on too. Besides the news about the sooner-than-expected arrival of the next generation, life was good, safety and security were assured, and missions and profits were up for the village. The audit by the Fire Lord's personal accountant had shown that there had been a number of corrupt individuals that had been 'skimming from the top' for quite a while. Unfortunately, to Jiraiya's mounting frustration, none of that could be tied directly back to Danzo. The ones Jiraiya had been sure were supplying Danzo with laundered money had confessed that they were alone in their endeavors and the bill stopped with them.
Ibiki had them for a week each before they finally broke. The second they started to speak, before the first syllable could even be uttered, they choked and died on their own vomit. Jiraiya still hadn't been able to find a way to safely remove those damned seals Danzo put on all his people just yet. There was a way, but it involved cutting out their tongues. Rather pointless, all said and done.
The really good news was that quality of education was going up and Jiraiya expected this next generation of ninja to be more prepared for the world than the last three generations combined! Of course having active chuunin coming in and cycling through regularly to teach classes was a big part in helping that along, not to mention all the remedial training that dropouts and failures were getting. At this point, the Hokage had argued to all involved, Konoha needed numbers as well as quality. There were too many losses to make up for and with the loss of the last Uchiha and the son of the Fourth Hokage, not to mention the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the quality of Konoha's ninja weren't enough to cover that either.
Unfortunately, there were no exceptional cases. At least not for another year or so, when Konohamaru, the Third Hokage's grandson, and Hanabi, the current and only heir to the Main Branch of the Hyuuga, finally graduated. They had the potential to be as exceptional as Naruto and his father were. The rest, well the term was 'standard shinobi' and they would be getting that in spades for the next year and a half, at least.
Of course, and Jiraiya allowed himself a small grin at this thought, thanks to his exacting standards of shinobi fitness with weekly physicals and everything, 'standard shinobi' was becoming a pretty high standard.
Konoha's prosperity was on a rise, a slow rise, but still things were getting better after the hits they'd taken in recent years. That was obvious when one looked at the big picture and took in all the information from income to standard means of life around the village. Some people, however, couldn't see the big picture.
After Tsunade took office as Hokage, most everyone expected things to get better almost immediately, and they had. At least for the immediate. Tsunade had raised the standard of the medic-nin and had started putting in hours for both herself and her assistant Shizune at the Hospital. She'd also brought with her a certain reputation as being the granddaughter of the First Hokage, grand-niece of the Second Hokage, and genin-student of the Third Hokage. People put their trust and hope in her and because of that, people that might have criticized some of her decisions or her in general held their tongues as nobody bad-mouths the popular. Not unless they themselves want to become the automatic unpopular 'bad guys' that everyone talks about.
Jiraiya, on the other hand, while a well-known Sannin and student of the Third Hokage, was not near-royalty amongst the citizens of Konoha. Quite the opposite really, as the only thing he had going for him was his title and the well acknowledged fact that he was a seal-master. Beyond those simple facts, no one knew a damn thing about him, and the only time he spent in Konoha, or in Hi no Kuni at all, was spent spying on women in hot springs!
Thus, the criticisms that were held in check for Tsunade, had no such compulsion for the Sixth Hokage.
So when a year ago with Tsunade, someone came along and tried to raise the price of sake or even steal food or medical supplies, the Slug Sannin would punch him or have ANBU arrest him and hold him for interrogation, and everyone would praise her for it and even throw in their own punches and stuff. Now, when he the same thing happened, the people start complaining about the crime rate and if Jiraiya attacks or has ANBU arresting the criminal, he's called out for being too rough and a tyrant! Completely unfair, but that's life.
Therefore, all of Jiraiya's efforts on improving the status of life in his home town were seen as too harsh and perverted and nobody saw the changes as 'good', just more bad. To be honest though, he was getting ready to chuck the whole idea and let them take care of themselves for once.
Unfortunately, that was not a possibility. At least not as present...
Jiraiya's musings were cut short when an ANBU suddenly flashed in and silently handed the Hokage a sealed scroll. The ANBU in particular in conjunction with the seal placed on said scroll raised the man's concerns and after ensuring his privacy he opened the seal and began reading the scroll.
It took him ten minutes to fully react to it, though he'd read and deciphered it in less than one. "What the hell is she thinking? We weren't scheduled to meet for another two weeks! If any of the Council find out about them... no. Don't panic. Just because they've always managed to avoid crossing Konoha territory when going on long distance missions before doesn't mean this isn't just the same thing. But still, what would drive Team Hokage to enter back into Hi no Kuni from Kaminari no Kuni's border... and heading straight for the center mass of the country too? I've got to distract Danzo and his cronies somehow."
Jiraiya thought about it for a minute or two before smiling and writing up a report.
It had been hard work, harder still to make it so it wasn't known that he knew, but he'd finally been able to track down each and every one of Danzo's Root agents amongst the Konoha ninja population. There were, unfortunately, even more civilian agents, but in terms of daily ninja life they were just the ears and the eyes, not the weapons. Danzo could look and listen for Team Hokage all he wanted, Jiraiya just needed his 'weapons' kept away from them.
After he'd finished writing up his report, he began picking and choosing amongst the latest A and B rank missions that had come across his desk recently. The more juicier, and profitable missions he usually sent discreetly on to Team Hokage, but only every once in a while if he knew they weren't on one of their own missions, or a Pro Bono mission that Naruto or their friend liked to drag them on every now and again. The assassination and suicide missions, however, remained on Jiraiya's desk until a jounin of sufficient qualifications became available. And it just so happened that he suddenly had just such a mission for each and every one of the active Root ninja operating in Konoha. For the rest, well...
Jiraiya summoned another ANBU and handed the masked ninja a specially sealed scroll, to be handed directly to Ibiki, the head of the IT Division that answered directly to the Hokage. Before the day was out, Danzo would become the most watched and tracked individual in all of Hi no Kuni. Not even the Fire Damiyo with all his bodyguards and advisers and spies was so closely observed.
Such an action was twofold, though it might have later consequences he would come to regret, it fit with Jiraiya's current plans in distracting the old war hawk.
Now, he just had to figure out what Team Hokage was doing and whether or not it was a good thing...
Southern Hi No Kuni
Uchuu Mountains
A Few Weeks Later
"What is this place?" Naruto asked, his voice echoing against the stone walls that stood on all sides.
Team Hokage were in a hidden cavern deep within a box canyon valley in the mountains on the southern edge of the Nation of Fire. They'd been lead there by their honorary member, Kaito Shi, who claimed to have drawn a map to the place on a napkin from the last restaurant they'd stopped at. The fact that the map was 100 percent accurate and he had landscape portraits of a few of the scenes they'd come across merely kept them from going off on their own. Nothing could help the complaints though.
"I honestly don't know," Shi was forced to respond to Naruto's question. "I just know we're supposed to be here. Or... there to be more precise," he pointed to a pedestal-formation a hundred yards towards the center of the cavern.
"What's there?" Sasuke demanded, suspicious.
Shi only shrugged.
"You're the one that brought us here!" the Uchiha roared in the young man's face, "Don't you even know what we're supposed to be here for?!"
Shi sighed and rolled his eyes. Gesturing to some nearby boulders for them all to sit on. Once they were comfortable, he stood before them and started unsealing all manner of pieces of artwork and scrolls and other papers. "Once again, from the top," he said.
"I don't know how. I don't know why. I don't know who and I absolutely can't control where, what, or when, but I get flashes of inspiration, sometimes visions, sometimes just an idea that won't leave me alone. These flashes of inspiration inspire me to draw," he gestured to the portraits he'd unsealed, "write," the scrolls, "and even create whatever it is." He pulled out a sculpture and a miniature model out of the scroll next.
"Let's start with these," he went to the paintings. "You've all seen them before. Konoha's Hokage monument with seven faces on it, Naruto's being one of them. Next to it, Konoha in ruins. Thanks to these," he held up about four different scrolls, "I can say with certainty that both of these paintings were set for the same time period. Roughly five years from now. Seven when we first met."
"How is that possible? And what do the scrolls have to do with it?" Tsunade wanted to know.
He tossed them to her. "They're short-stories that I was working on before I met you. Two are parts one and two of Konoha's future when Uzumaki Naruto was the Sixth Hokage. They're the ones in the white ribbon." He waited while Tsunade quickly read through them, her eyes filled with tears of joy and a soft smile on her face. Once she closed the second scroll, he continued, "The ones with the black ribbon are what really prompted me to seek you guys out, and I wrote after Naurto was officially exiled from Konoha. They go with the second painting."
Curious, despite her reluctance, Tsunade tentatively opened the aforementioned scrolls, and even faster than with the first set her eyes were filled with tears. Not of joy, but of fear, sadness and sheer horror. It was terrible and could best be described as a murder/war/horror novel, IF it were fiction instead of things to come.
"I don't normally enjoy reading, or writing things like that, just so you know. I could regale you with all of the individual timelines I've written, drawn, and created in some form or another, but suffice it to say I keep seeing two extremes, the predominate still being those two scrolls with the black ribbon. Maybe the details have changed here and there, but the overall picture is still there. The other extreme however, isn't this anymore," he pointed at the idealized Konoha with Naruto's face on the mountain. "It's this."
He pulled out the miniature model he'd unsealed earlier and put it before them. It was something the likes of which none of them had ever seen before. "This," he said, "is a brand new Hidden Village. I haven't been able to write an accompanying story. Yet, but I recognize it for what it is. See the central tower? All the walkways going out away from it and interconnecting with all the buildings and levels around it? The symbol etched into it? Not to mention the types of buildings all around it. I've been around and to enough Hidden Villages to know what one looks like."
"All right, say you're right," Tsunade said, "What does this have to do with us? And I don't recognize that symbol, what country is it aligned with?"
Shi shrugged again. "I told you, I haven't written a story about this yet. I've just seen the picture in my mind and I've been building this for the past four months in my free time. When you were off training your charges every couple of weeks."
"Ah," the blond nodded her head and sighed. "So which country has a pie for the symbol of it's ninja village then? You did say you've been around."
Shi looked closer at the model, then shook his head, "I don't think it's a pie. Yes, it's a circle with two crosses intersecting it, one at 30 degrees and the other at 90 degrees. Except..." he trailed off and looked around their current surroundings. "I don't think I reconstructed it perfectly. It's actually, supposed to look like that!" he pointed towards the pedestal and the stone carved symbol on the top of it. Which just so happened to be a sundial minus the 'marker' in the center.
"A clock?" Tsunade blinked, stunned.
Shizune's eyes went wide as she got to her feet and looked anew at their location. "Not a clock!" she said urgently, "Time! Shi-kun is talking about the Hidden Village of Time!"
"It doesn't exist!" the sannin protested.
"Not yet," Shi corrected with a smile, pulling out a tapestry showing the six of them all standing on the pedestal as the sun shone directly overhead. It was done with unerring detail and made those experienced with such things wonder if it hadn't been constructed from a machine in some way. "We've still got a few minutes till noon, and I'm still not a hundred percent certain on what's going to happen, but let me first explain to you the consequences of our choices here."
He pulled out a scroll and a sketchbook and handed them to Tsunade to show everyone (who were all now looking over the blond's shoulders anyway). The sketchbook showed each of them, at first individually in singular battles, then finally all together. First, Sasuke fought failingly against Orochimaru, his brother Itachi seen in the background with the Magenkyo Sharingan activated. Second, Shizune fought shadowed figures in an unidentified alley and she looked scared and beaten. Tsunade stood atop Katsuya the Slug Boss, and they faced three cloaked ninja, clearly member's of Akatsuki despite the lack of color in the drawings. Hinata was only seen laying prone on the ground with her eyes open and vacant, her body otherwise untouched. Then Naruto was seen before a dark and forbidding stature with what was clearly a visual-drawing-display of chakra going from him into the statue's mouth. Finally, the group portrait showed all of them together, even with Shi in the middle, standing at the center of a five way conflict of what looked like ALL of the Five Great Villages poised to destroy each other with only the six of them standing between all of it.
"The scroll with the red ribbon details the stories behind each picture, though that last one certainly speaks for itself, wouldn't you say," Shi informed them. "Here, flip it over. The blue scroll details these pictures." He was smiling as he said this.
As horrifying and disturbing as the first set of pictures were, these next few were just as hopeful and inspiring! To begin, in virtually the same order, Sasuke was seen holding his brother as the man lay dying in his arms, his Akatsuki red-cloud cloak torn off and bloody. What was hopeful about this though, was that Sasuke was smiling down at his crying brother, Pentagram-shaped Magenkyo Sharingan showing from the boy's eyes. His neck was also clear of any curse mark.
"Before you ask any questions," Shi interrupted Sasuke when it looked like he might speak, "The scroll only has a few paragraphs for each picture, and it only gives story behind what's shown. None of the details or choices leading up to it. I suggest you read the story before deciding if this is a future you want or not."
Sasuke nodded and held his tongue as Tsunade moved on to the next picture. Shizune happily smiling while holding the hands of two young children, a boy and a girl, and was also clearly pregnant with a potential third on the way. Shizune's eyes went wide as she looked to Shi. He shrugged and pointed at the scroll, unwilling to repeat himself. Tsunade quickly turned the page, anxious to see her own potential future from this, and nearly dropped it in shock!
An old woman lay in a bed surrounded by everyone there and a full dozen that weren't. She was dying, but what made this wonderful for Tsunade, was that she was the old woman in the bed, and everyone around her was a good ten or twenty years older and there were a lot of children present too! She took only a moment to compose herself before flipping to Hinata's future drawing. Or rather, Hinata and Naruto's future, as Hinata's showed she and Naruto, maybe only a year or two older, standing together getting married. Turn the page again and it showed Naruto holding twin boys and standing next to a smiling Hinata who held the hand of a young girl and was just a pregnant as Shizune had been in her drawing.
Naruto and Hinata turned matching shades of red and couldn't really say anything for a minute. The final picture was the group drawing and it dropped everyone's jaws. It was like a heroic montage straight out of a manga! Naruto, dressed similar but somehow more maturely than he did now, wearing the headband with the symbol of Time on it, hands on hips and coat waving in the wind, Hinata at his side in a form-fitting body suit and activated Byakugan. On either side of the two were Shi and Sasuke, the former looking like a real ninja rather than a hang-on as he did now, and the latter in a completely different outfit, somehow made to honor Itachi in some way they all felt. Just behind the two of them were Tsunade and Shizune respectively, looking much the same, but smiling and looking ready to kick ass. The best part, however, was that behind Tsunade they could see Jiraiya, and behind Shizune they could see Iruka, and they weren't the only ones in the picture either. It looked at first like there were hundreds more people behind the group, but as they paid closer attention to the details and saw a drawing of the 'model' in the background and just how tiny that image was, they realized it was closer to thousands!
"So, we all have to be standing on that at noon on the dot, right?" Tsunade confirmed eagerly.
"Yep," Shi nodded his head.
"Let's not be late then," Shizune agreed and helped Shi pack all his examples back up.
"Well, we still have..." Shi looked at his watch, then paled and moved much quicker. "Uh, let's all go stand on the platform now, shall we? I don't think we have as much time as I thought."
"MOVE!" Naruto urged on his own, picking Hinata up and jumping for the platform while Shizune and Shi trailed behind the rest, Tsunade up front with Naruto.
By sheer coincidence, the moment the last of them stepped up onto the platform, the sun came into the exact position Shi had painted it at and a beam of light struck a hidden mirror that reflected to many other hidden mirrors before each struck a special crystal from multiple angles. This crystal was directly beneath the platform and the moment the sun was in the correct position, the light was refocused within the crystal to create a quantum sub-space rift directly above it, namely on the platform. The simple explanation was that a portal opened and everyone standing on the platform at that moment in time was pulled into it and through to the other side. Of course the sun never *stays* in place, and the anomaly could only exist for as long as the light was focused correctly through the hidden crystal, so the very same moment the portal opened, it closed, making it seem to the outside observer like Team Hokage vanished in a flash of light.
Unknown Location
Unknown Time
Unknown
"Whoa! What is this place?!" Naruto cried out once the strange journey through the wormhole had passed.
"This," Shi answered with a flourish as he walked out from the building in front of them, "is your new village. Jikokugakure, the Village Hidden In Time!"
Everyone startled at seeing their friend coming from the building when he'd actually been right behind Shizune in getting on the platform. Looking back, they saw that he was gone from there and the only Shi around was standing in front of them.
"How'd you do that?" Sasuke demanded.
Shi grinned and replied, "I didn't choose the name of this village by happenstance or because I thought it sounded cool. This is a self-contained piece of Space/Time, answerable to it's own laws of physics. By sheer coincidence, I somehow was drawn into this place several, well, years before you guys arrived here just now. That gave me the, excuse the expression, the time I needed to figure out this place and work out what needs to happen next. I also found out how to better control my powers, and they are real powers by the way."
"We already suspected that," Tsunade acknowledged. "How long have you been here?"
Shi shrugged. "It's hard to tell. Despite the sun overhead," he pointed straight up so they would see what he was talking about, "this place doesn't have your standard day and night. Suffice it to say I've been here for the mental equivalent of ten years and leave it at that."
"But...!" Hinata blurted out, then silenced herself.
"I haven't aged, I know," he shrugged, "That's one of the things about this place. I'll explain it all in more detail in a bit, but for right now I'll let you take in what's just happened here."
"And what's this about founding another ninja village?" Tsunade said crossly. "I've had enough experience running one village, and I'm not about to have the Senju Clan be blamed for forming another village, no matter what!"
Shi grinned and said, "Who said anything about you being the First Makage Tsunade-san?" He then looked pointedly at Naruto. The younger blond's eyes went wide as he pointed to himself and said, "Me?"
Shi nodded.
"But... I..." Naruto stuttered, unsure of what to say. Shi was remarkably understanding.
"I know you had your heart set on becoming Hokage, Naruto," he said, patting the young ninja's shoulder. "Be honest with yourself. Do you really think that can happen anymore? With Konoha the way that it is? With the Council still in charge, and the men and women that banished you still around to squabble for their own personal power first and the welfare of their neighbors last? The Konoha you all grew up in no longer exists, and the day they got rid of you is when it died it's final gasping breath."
"But Jiraiya-sensei..." Naruto started to say.
Shi took his friend by the shoulders and lead him over to the building he'd walked out of. The room was as big as the Chuunin Exams stadium, the Finals stadium, but all indoors. It was filled with paintings, murals, statues, models, drawings, every form of art expression imaginable it filled every corner of the room. Shi drew Naruto's attention to one in particular that showed Jiraiya, ironically as he was at that very moment in time that Naruto was looking at it, sat at his desk looking tired and overworked and seen writing secret missions to evacuate certain people from Konoha alongside a few final laws as he planned his own escape from the Hokage's Hat, which he was probably planning on taking with him anyway.
"Jiraiya's done everything that he possibly could. Believe me, I know, possibilities is one of my specialties. Short of all the people trying to bring Konoha into corruption dying suddenly and consequence free, Konoha will fall within the next five years. Nothing can stop that. The most we can do now is minimize the collateral damage when it does. Starting up a new Hidden Village with the survivors and friends from a fallen Konoha is one way of doing that."
"You have been busy," Sasuke commented, admiring a statue of himself using a double-shot Chidori with Magenkyo Sharingan active.
"Like you would not believe," Shi agreed. "Come on, you guys haven't seen anything yet!"
"Your own personal art gallery is certainly impressive enough," Tsunade commented. "What more is there?" She almost bit her tongue as her question was answered the moment they stepped out a side door from the "Gallery" and into the village proper. If one could call it a village.
For one thing, there was no land. Or rather, no Earth. There was floating islands of earth or water or clouds or metal or just about anything that a person could stand on, all connected to each other with various types of walkways. From suspension bridges to climbing ropes, and golden arched paths to stone steps and stainless steel roads. The building architecture was just as eye-popping as there were modern buildings on mounts of dirt and earth, and then ancient monasteries and huts on high solid clouds. There were even buildings and structures that none of them could even imagine with foundations on platforms that were solid metal. All of this, the pathways, the islands, the structures, all of it surrounded a central object in a spiraling quadruple helix pattern. That central object was an ever-shifting shape that was a sphere one second, a rectangular building the next, a pyramid half a second after that, and then a mix-mash of infinite shapes crammed together to create a theoretical new shape that could only exist here.
"Wh-wh-what is this place?" Shizune questioned once she'd regained enough sense to ask.
"Jikokugakure," Shi replied simply and straight forward.
At the moment they were on one of the metal platforms and had just stepped out of... a four by four foot blue wooden box?!
"What the,,,!" Naruto screamed, then raced back inside to the Gallery, and out the door they'd arrived in, then back out where the others waited, before racing around the box, feeling it with his hands to make sure it was real.
"Yeah, did I mention that I wandered around this place just trying to figure out where everything goes and how it all fits together for the first three years?" Shi innocently remarked, scratching the back of his neck, embarrassed.
"I... think we should stick together until Shi has given us a full tour," Tsunade decided for everyone. "How is this even possible?"
"Like I said, this is a separated piece of Space/Time that follows it's own rules. It can only be accessed by very specific points on Earth and even then only at very precise moments of time. I've almost mapped all of them, but sometimes new ones spontaneously appear, while older ones disappear or are destroyed by outside forces. It's going to take a long time for me to explain everything, but I'll do what I can. For the mean time, there are somethings I'd like Naruto to do for me, if he'll agree."
"Uh, sure, what do you need?" the young ninja naively responded.
Shi smiled, then turned and dragged the willing blond with him down a metal-staircase pathway, which lead ultimately to the central object. The others quickly moved to follow along.
"What is that thing anyway?" Sasuke asked, pointing at the central object that was now a giant mirror.
"I've been calling it the Nexus," Shi answered. "It's quite obviously the center of this piece of Space/Time and what controls and holds it all together. Near as I've been able to figure out, it also connects with Time Itself on Earth. Go in the right door, or window at the right moment and you could find yourself wherever, or more specifically whenever you'd want to be on Earth. Want to meet your grandfather and granduncle right after they founded Konoha?" he asked Tsunade with a wink.
"And you are taking Naruto-kun there now because...?" Hinata wanted to know.
"I've figured out five very specific... doors if you will. They lead to key moments in history, most specifically Naruto's history. If this village is to have a chance, Naruto needs to go to those moments in time and make certain changes. And I really wish that I had time to let you guys settle in and get used to the place first, but these windows aren't going to stay around for very long, so the sooner Naruto goes through them, the better off we'll be in the long run."
"What moments in history? What are you talking about?" Naruto shouted.
"The day of your birth, the day Hinata was kidnapped by Kumo, the night of the Uchiha Massacre, and the Great Naruto Bridge during your first C-Rank Mission. Oh, and one other," Shi told him.
"..." Naruto was stunned, unsure of what to say or do, except continue to follow along.
"What would he have to do? And aren't you talking about changing history? That's not possible!" Shizune protested with Tsunade's agreement.
"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Shi smiled knowingly. "Turns out, if Naruto doesn't go to these times and make certain changes, history WILL change, and not for the better. Think about it. We come to the Village of Time, where time travel is not only possible, but the way things work here. I send Naruto back in time. If he doesn't go back in time, things change. If he does go back in time, things stay exactly as we remember them."
"Whoa, I've got a headache," Naruto complained.
"Me too," everyone but Shi agreed.
"Don't worry about it," he said as they came closer to the central object, the Nexus. "Let me just tell you this. The consequences of Naruto not going back in time are that the Kumo-nin succeed in kidnapping Hinata and she's kept as a breeder in a dungeon somewhere, never acknowledged as even existing while the Hyuuga Clan self-destruct and start a silent civil war between the Main and Branch Houses. Sasuke gets killed by Madara, progenitor of the Uchiha Clan alongside the rest of his family. And for the other three... Well, let's just say that we stand to gain a great deal based on what Naruto does in each of these moments of history."
"What do I have to do?" he asked, suddenly nervous. Shi smiled at him.
"Just be yourself. Don't worry about doing anything right or wrong. You've already done it, so just act like these are extra missions. Solo missions, but missions nevertheless. And here we are. One thing to remember, whenever you see a glowing gold door or window, that's your only chance to get back here, or to move on to the next time period. If it closes before you go through it, you're going to be stuck in that time period until we can retrieve you. Don't worry, I know how to do that, just... don't miss those windows, OK?"
"Right," Naruto gulped and looked in trepidation at the approaching doorway, which was really just a stone archway at the end of their stone/metal pathway.
"Here we are," Shi pointed. "Just walked straight forward and think about the day you were born. Which also happens to be the day the Kyuubi attack Konoha and got sealed into you. The rest, well, it should just fall into place. I hope."
"You hope?!" The women all screamed at him. But it was too late. Naruto stepped through the stone archway into the central object (which at that moment looked like an exact replica of the Hokage monument from 14 years ago.
Then he stepped back out. As did four other people.
"Wow, that was faster than I thought," Shi admitted.
"N-Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked uncertainly. Not without reason as the Naruto that had just stepped out, with companions, was vastly changed from the Naruto that had stepped in. For one thing, this Naruto had real whiskers, slit-blue eyes, two sets of ears (a human set and a pair of red fox ears atop his head), and a waving furry red fox tail coming out of his butt.
"Hey Hinata-chan, long time no see. Sort of," he chuckled, sounding relieved and exhausted all at once.
"Oh my, is this the Hinata-chan we've heard so much about?" the redheaded woman just behind Naruto questioned. Tsunade was staring open-mouthed at her and her tall blond male companion, while Sasuke was in the same state glaring at the other two of the new arrivals.
"Oh, sorry about that Kaa-san," Naruto sheepishly scratched his new fox-ear features. "Everyone, these are my parents. Uzumaki Kushina, and Namikaze Minato. And these are... well, I guess friends of mine. Sasuke, you recognize Haku and Zabuza Momochi, don't ya?"
"H-how-?" the last Uchiha could barely ask the question.
"I saved them. It turns out, we actually killed Kage Bunshin on the bridge. I needed to get a power boost from the Kyuubi first though, which meant going back to the day it was sealed into me and making a deal. That I also got to save my parents, who didn't have to die like everyone thought, was just the extra cup of ramen! I also got to save baby Hinata. Although, I think I now know where your crush on me started, Hinata-chan. Sorry about having to manhandle you like that, but we were in the middle of a fight!"
Hinata merely blushed and started twiddling her fingers.
"Ohh, Minato-kun, she's so cute! I think our boy's made an excellent choice, don't you?" Kushina gushed at Hinata's shy appearance.
"Whatever you say dear," Minato replied as he knew he was required to by now. Kushina had spent plenty of time training her husband before being rescued by their teenage son! From their point of view he was, literally, just born yesterday and new here he was saving them using ninja powers that they would be hard-pressed to use!
"Some village kid," Zabuza growled, adjusting his sword. "Is this really all there is to it? Even with a Sannin, the Fourth Hokage, and an Uchiha and Hyuuga together, this is hardly a ninja village worth joining."
"Zabuza-sama," Haku whispered behind his mask, "Naruto-kun did say that he was just starting his village and that while he'd been traveling for weeks, he'd only just arrived at this location. They have only just arrived, as now we have."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the bandaged nukenin from Mizu waved off his apprentice's logical argument.
"W-w-weeks?!" Hinata blurted out.
Naruto and Shi both shrugged. "Who wants to go next?" Shi offered with a grin.
Everyone immediately backed away from the stone archway and Tsunade stepped forward, pulling Shi back with her. "I think it's time for that tour Kaito-san. Unless there are any other portraits that we have to look at beforehand that is?" Shi just grinned and didn't really reply.
"Believe me, Tsunade-sama," he finally said, "when I say that we have all the time in the world, I mean that both literally and figuratively and then some. Let's start with what took me five days to find. The food stores and kitchen areas. Oh, somebody remind me, we need to send a letter to Jiraiya as soon as possible, telling him that we're starting a new village so he can get us fully recognized."
"But it takes a majority of the Five Great Villages to ratify a new village!" Shizune protested.
"I know," Shi grinned and lead them on a tour of their new Hidden Village.
END San.