A/N: My roommate and I got into an argument on whether or not 'basically' and 'practically' are synonyms.

I use them as synonyms.

According to her they are actually very different.

Y'all why do I have writing as a hobby when I clearly don't know shit about this stupid language.

*sigh*

English is rude.

Anyway, this chapter happened slightly differently than I expected – though the actual events themselves stuck to my original idea, some things Natsu did, especially near the end, were totally unplanned but they just worked better than my original idea I guess.

Anyway, sorry for the delay! I'd like to say it won't happen again though, if I might be so bold.

I mean I can't swear it won't, but I have a really clear idea of how it's all going now, to the point I felt brave enough to give an actual number for remaining chapters, which should hopefully prevent writer's block.

Also I have finished binging Voltron which means it should stop distracting me as well lol.

Miraculously, I came away from that show without any urge to write fic.

Let's hope it holds.

Anyway, once more, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy! Sorry again on the delay!

For Fanfic dot net readers, please be aware this is a double-update because I somehow forgot to post chapter 48 here!

Sorry again for the trouble!

"Sir, we should leave. Jiraiya of the Sannin-"

"Is handicapped by his need to babysit a bunch of children, two of whom bear Orochimaru-sama's own mark. We can use that."

"Sir, there's still enough time before the plan- if the Sannin catches wind of it, he could warn Konoha before we're ready. That could ruin everything! It would be better to retreat now, and do our work elsewhere."

"And waste this opportunity? We'll never see a better chance to get rid of Konoha's last Sannin. And if he chooses to save his own skin, well. Orochimaru-sama will have plenty of use for those branded children, or even the jinchuriki. We can take our pick. But the Sannin can't protect all of them. We'll continue with our mission here. It's not up for debate."

"...Yes Sir."

Naruto had a dream.

A really really nice one, where his mom (his mom!) showed up, and gave him the biggest hug, and told him how much she loved him and missed him and how sorry she was that she'd died and couldn't be there as he grew up, and how she and his dad were both so proud of him-

Naruto wakes up, pillow damp and gross with tears where he'd been laying on it, and he wishes he could go back to sleep.

It felt so real.

The dream slips away and already he doesn't even remember what his mom's voice sounded like, but his chest still feels so tight, a little bit like she's maybe still squeezing him in a hug, and Naruto wraps his arms around himself and pretends he's hugging back.

"Naruto! You're awake!" Natsu shouts, and then a heavy weight drops itself across his sides.

Naruto groans.

"Natsuuuu…"

Natsu laughs. "C'mon, get up, quick, before Jiraiya gets back from makin' arrangements! I was s'posed to wake you up ages ago but you seemed like you were havin' a good dream and if you're not dressed I'm gonna be in trouble…"

He trails off with a whine, but when Naruto slowly shuffles to see his face, Natsu's grinning widely.

Sasuke sits in the background, looking as stupidly put-together as ever.

One day Naruto'll catch him looking like a slob! Dattebayo!

But then Natsu's getting off him, and grabbing his arms to drag him up, and then Naruto's stumbling in the direction of the bathroom with barely an idea of what happened-

He blinks stupidly at the mirror for a moment, before shaking himself and grabbing his toothbrush.

Right.

The sooner they get done here, the sooner he can make that old pervert give him more pictures!

He absolutely remembers that comment about his mom's body and he's not forgiving it anytime soon, never!

He rushes through morning preparations, cackling to himself as he considers his revenge, and in no time at all he's back in the room with his team, waiting for Jiraiya to show up so they can get a move on.

He can't stop bouncing everywhere.

Everything's-

It's almost too much, he's just so happy, he has a mom and he knows what she looks like and he knows she likes pranks and ramen and she was friends with Sasuke's mom a-and-

Some distant part of him remembers that she's dead, but he's just so happy to know about her, to know her name, Jiji never told him anything, and he's so happy it's like he could float away.

Sasuke gets grumpy and tells him to stop moving so much, but Naruto doesn't want to, he never wants to settle down again, he wants to scream to everyone that'll listen that he has a mom and her name is Uzumaki Kushina and she loved him-!

He thinks, maybe, it'd be nice if people looked at him and compared him to his parents, instead of the Kyuubi.

It would be even nicer if they looked at him as himself, not compared to anything, but if he could be Naruto, Kushina's son, it would still be so much nicer than being Naruto, Kyuubi Jinchurikki.

The door clatters as Jiraiya shoves it open, and Naruto yelps as he tumbles off the window sill he was trying to stand on.

"Hope everything is packed, cause breakfast is ready downstairs and we need to get a move on! We're burning daylight here, let's go!"

"Wha- we're not burnin' anything, the sun's barely up!" Natsu protests, tossing Naruto's pack.

Naruto laughs sheepishly - he hadn't even realized Natsu did it for him, ah man…

Jiraiya scoffs, doing a quick scan of the room as they walk out, and then he's hustling them down the stairs and to the dining room, straight for a table already laid out with food.

Naruto hadn't even realized how hungry he was until he looked at it, and his stomach groans furiously at the sight.

He's got a plate piled with food before he quite thinks about it, and then Natsu and Sasuke sit down, and they eat breakfast together.

Like a team.

(̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶)̶

Naruto wouldn't be able to stop smiling if he tried.

Natsu leans over the gutter, scowling at the closed window below. "We really gonna be able to learn anything?" he grumbles, crouching on the edge of the roof. "The building's really well insulated, everything's muffled!"

"What?" Jiraiya steps forward, his geta clacking on the tiles. "We're just seeing who goes in and out, Natsu - see who's suspicious. I'd sneak in to eavesdrop if I could, but I don't think it's a good idea to leave you kiddos out here on your own, with how well-informed those guys seemed to be..."

"Whaaa? You mean we're just gonna be staring at the road?" Naruto groans, dropping into a squat. "I thought we were gonna be like spies!"

Jiraiya raises an eyebrow. "You're way too loud for that kid."

"I can be quiet! We spied on loads of people before!"

Jiraiya raises a skeptical eyebrow at them.

"Well I'll believe it when I see it. Now, we've got a bit of time before anyone bothers to show up, so let's talk positions." he crouches down and takes a moment to catch their eyes. "We know the merchant we escorted is shifty. All we want to do is find out if it's just him, or if there are others involved. So, Sasuke, you and Natsu are going to cross over to that butchery, there. It's got the most window coverage for this building, so you should be able to follow people inside fairly well. Naruto and I will keep an eye on the entrances, see who comes in and out - Naruto, we'll be using a couple clones here to watch the front and the back. And remember, we just want to figure out who all's coming to this meeting, and how many of them our friendly merchant decides to talk to. Nothing else. Right?"

"That'd be easier if we knew what they were talking about though…" Natsu grumbles, peeking over to glare at the windows again.

They don't have any visible way to open them that he can see.

"Not exactly feasible here, kid. I don't feel comfortable going in myself, and sending a clone is just asking for trouble. Too many ways we can show our hand there, especially since the merchant doesn't know we're on to him and we want to keep it that way." Jiraiya chides, and Natsu rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I know, it'd just be so much easier if those windows actually opened."

Jiraiya's attention sharpens, and he steps closer, peeking over the roof himself. "You really think you could hear 'em if they were?" he asks, tilting his head as he examines them from above.

Natsu shrugs. "My sense of smell's better than the others, but that's mostly cause it's the one I've practiced the most here with Sakura-chan… her body's not really made for handling everything I can sense, so I try not to do it too much… smells are easier than sounds. But I could, yeah, unless they close too many doors, I guess."

Jiraiya hums consideringly for a moment.

"Alright, slight change of plan! Naruto, you're going to be the one watching Sasuke's back. Uchiha, same as before, try to keep a visual as much as possible. If you need to move around you can, just don't get seen. I'll go down and see if I can cut some holes into the windows without compromising them. Pinky, find a good place to settle down and we'll see how it goes from there. Now scat!" he waves his hands at them, shooing them off, before leaping nimbly to the ground.

His shoes make no noise as he lands, and Natsu wonders if it's sort of like the tree-climbing exercise, some way to use chakra to muffle footsteps?

He shakes off the thought, carefully moving around the roof until Sakura-chan points out a dip.

"Looks like maybe a whole new wing was added here, see how the tiling is different? It's even a bit lower than the rest, you could probably tuck in there, though I don't know how well you'll be able to hear anything…"

"Ooh, thanks Sakura-chan! Let's find out!"

It's a tight squeeze, even for how tiny Sakura-chan is, but she was right, and the old and new sections overlap enough to make him all but invisible. Even someone running quickly over the rooftops probably wouldn't see him unless they had stupid magic eye powers like Sasuke.

It is a bit muffled though, tucked away in the corner like that, so Natsu twists around, trying to find a good angle.

As he moves around he focuses on his senses - he knows what he should be able to hear, in his body, and it's nowhere near what he's hearing in Sakura-chan's so he focuses, eyes closed, and slowly it's like the world opens up.

It's too much.

All of those things he's supposed to be able to filter out, Sakura-chan's beating heart and every breath and every blink, suddenly they're so loud, along with everything else-

The creaking wood of the building, the glass settling in its frames, the striking of the blacksmith's hammer two streets down- Natsu doesn't need all that, he just wants this building, he just wants the people inside the building, and normally he can just focus on that, let everything else drown out in the sounds he wants to hear, but it's just- not-

Working-!

"You alright kid?" Jiraiya crouches by his head, and Natsu groans.

"Just fine." he resists the urge to cover his ears. Everything's ringing, like something really loud went off right by his head, but nothing has and- and-

Sakura-chan's really not able to handle this, huh?

He's not really sure why, because her body handled scent really well, for not being trained at all at least, but the sounds are overwhelming.

He grits his teeth.

As if I'm gonna let this stop me!

He slams his eyes closed again, ignoring Jiraiya, and tries to focus.

He hears it when the old man moves away, and, slowly, he starts to make sense of everything else.

Sounds-far-away get labeled unimportant, and while they don't filter like they're supposed to, Natsu manages to ignore them for the most part.

He's gonna pay that stupid blacksmith a visit after all this is over though, it's awful-

He takes a breath, lets it out, and very carefully doesn't think of the forge-fire he can hear popping from the meeting hall.

Part of him wonders if he could stir it up from this far away, and then he very pointedly turns his attention away.

Sakura-chan will yell at him if he lights the city on fire, he tells himself, and tries to pretend that that's actually a real threat.

At the very least, Jiraiya probably would stick him on a boat, if he didn't run fast enough, so-

Natsu carefully ignores the sounds of crackling flame, carefully ignores the curious question of whether he could light stuff on fire from that far away too, because if he thinks about it too much more he's gonna try and he's got a job to do-!

People start arriving to the meeting hall.

Natsu hears someone step on the roof above him, then leap away, and he thinks it's Jiraiya finding a better position - he hears Sasuke hiss at Naruto to get down, hears a tile shift under someone's weight, and he can't quite tell whether it was Naruto or Sasuke, but he's not supposed to be listening to that he's supposed to be listening to-

"Aah, Takagi-san, I'm glad to see you! I heard you ran into trouble on the road."

A nervous laugh, then, "Yeah, I thought I was dead for sure! Luckily it seems like Konoha had a team out here, they were able to help us get back safely. How's the market faring? I haven't had a chance to set up a stall yet, my wife wanted to take some time to relax…"

"Oh? Was it very… relaxing?" the first man asks, voice thick with teasing, and the merchant sputters in offense.

The idle chatter continues for a while, other people joining in or having their own conversations, and wow Natsu did not expect it to be this boring.

They're having some sort of exclusive meeting- some sort of merchants' gathering- but loads of people who normally go to those meetings are missing, according to Jiraiya, so it's basically a secret meeting for all that they're having it in the open. And they're just standing around making jokes with each other!

Natsu groans quietly into his arms.

The meeting doesn't get any better. They break up into a bunch of small groups and talk about the roads, and a whole bunch of trade stuff he really doesn't understand, and the prices of this or that and how long it takes to get from here to there, and the merchant they're following doesn't say anything suspicious, he just talks about normal merchant stuff, and Natsu's head is pounding and they're just wasting time-

"That's kind of weird, isn't it?" Sakura-chan asks, and Natsu gives a bleary 'huh?' in answer, eyes squeezed closed.

"That one merchant, with a deep voice, earlier he was talking about picking up two wagons full of goods to trade. But talking to that lady just now, he bragged about having a one-and-a-half load, lined up to sell. What happened to the rest of the second wagon?"

Natsu groans again. "Great. Our suspicious merchant is actually just a smuggler, and we're wasting our time." he grumbles, but Sakura-chan hums consideringly.

"Maybe. But something doesn't feel right…"

"What else would it be? That guy wasn't attacked like our… client dude. So they've gotta be smugglers, right?"

"Not exactly," Sakura-chan starts, before Natsu's attention is pulled away.

"Hey, is it just me or is our guy heading back towards the doors?" he asks, trying to place where all the voices are.

It's hard, especially when the sound's not travelling cleanly, but he's pretty sure their guy is getting closer to the doors as he talks to people.

Even though they were pretty sure this meeting was gonna last an hour at least.

"It's barely been twenty minutes," Natsu hisses, and slowly cracks open an eye. Maybe he can signal Sasuke to get a better look-

There's a soft thack, barely recognizable as a footstep for how near-soundless it is, and Natsu freezes.

Even at his sharpest, he can't hear Jiraiya if the man doesn't want him to.

But both Naruto and Sasuke are way way louder.

There's someone else on the roof, not five feet away, and the merchant dude they were following slips out of the building, Natsu knows, because the wind blows his scent clear and fresh across the rooftops.

Those feather-soft footsteps start again, walking away towards the front of the building, and then there's a rush of air and a slightly heavier landing.

The merchant whimpers.

"Is it done?" a feminine voice asks, and the merchant must bob his head a lot, because Natsu can practically hear his hair thumping against his shoulders.

"Yes, yes, like you asked! Only Sakuragi-san kept physical records, they should be in his house. Everyone else knew better, there won't be anything to trace back to you- I- I can go now, right? My family- I did what you asked so-"

"Of course! By all means, please, go. A deal's a deal."

Natsu scrambles out of his hiding place as the merchant babbles his thanks, barely understanding why beyond the fact that the lady's voice just sounds wrong and then everything happens at once.

There's a choked gurgle, the unmistakable sound of a man drowning in his own blood, and then Naruto yelps and Sasuke snarls and Natsu throws himself off the roof just in time for the building to explode, flames surging with a vengeance that Natsu's pretty sure isn't natural.

People start screaming, inside the building and throughout the town - if the shinobi lady stays or leaves Natsu can't tell, his ears ring and there's blood dripping from his nose and he needs to get in the building, he's the only one who can, so he pushes everything else away and leaps through a hole that he's pretty sure used to have glass in it.

It's unnaturally hot, and in some places the flames flicker with unusual colors, the air smelling thick with both smoke and chemicals.

Sakura-chan mutters nervously about the different colors and smells and what they could mean for how the fire was started, but Natsu can't pay attention, because there're people and they're probably smugglers, but he can't just let them burn to death so he charges through, magic surging as he tries to take control of the blaze.

The first three people he finds are already dead.

Natsu curses, as Sakura-chan stutters and then sharply pulls away, no longer watching. Natsu can't hear over the crackling fire and groaning wood, can't stop and focus without making things even worse because Sakura-chan's body's going to start burning if he stays for too long, and all the chemicals have destroyed whatever scent the people at the meeting left behind.

So he runs blind, trying to recall where he heard the most voices, and finds more corpses.

There's something wrong with that, he thinks, because yeah Natsu's always been an awful judge of how dangerous a fire really is for most people, but-

Surely if it killed everyone so quickly, it should be hurting him and Sakura-chan more, right?

Someone coughs, close enough to be audible over the fire, and Natsu spins around without hesitation, following the hacking to a small meeting room, wall half-collapsed and giving him a clear view.

More corpses.

And a single man, large and dressed in ridiculously fancy robes, coughing like he's going to choke up a lung.

Natsu's not even sure if he can lift a guy that big, but he rushes forwards anyway, grabbing the man's arm and dragging him upright.

The guy jumps, staring at Natsu with a weirdly unsettling look, but he doesn't have time to deal with that so he turns around and runs, dragging the big guy behind him.

The man makes it a few stuttering steps before he starts choking again, and Natsu has a visceral urge to just pick him up and throw him out of the building.

Sakura-chan's so short, her arms are so tiny, Natsu's not even sure how he could pick the guy up, but his face is starting to feel really flush and there are shiny speckled burns dotting his arms.

He doesn't have time.

The henge is supposed to be an illusion, a changing of visual appearance without actually affecting the body.

But Natsu knows magic, at least, is capable of actual transformation. Macao and the Strausses all use it, so maybe if he just pours enough of his magic into a henge-

There's not really time to think it all through, and he's never gonna say it but he's so glad Kakashi-sensei made him drill handsigns so much because his fingers don't falter, and then Sakura-chan's chakra is surging, and he throws his own magic into the mix, and then it's less of a pop and more an instant of burning agony, not physically but in what Natsu's pretty sure is their chakra network-

He chokes, falling to his knees and then shoving himself back upright a bare moment later, and his body feels half un-real - like it would just disappear at the slightest poke, and he's losing power scary fast so he spins, stumbling for half a second as he gets his shoulder under the the guy, and then he's off.

He retraces his steps because that's safer than trying to navigate a building that he's pretty sure is falling apart at this point - at least the route he came in on is mostly clear, from where he tamed the fire to make it through. New flames have spread through, but the building's still in one piece here so he runs, and somehow-

He makes it.

Someone catches him as his henge pops entirely, and he feels too big and too small all at once-

It's almost a relief when everything goes black.