AN: This is something I put together when I read a fanfic a while ago and thought "what would it take to get the Sannin back together?"

After some thinking, I realized that a lot would be needed because they each have problems themselves and with each other. But for simplicity's sake, I'm willing to settle on something like this, just to satisfy my writing itch.

Orochimaru was chuckling while watching how Kabuto dealt with Tsunade. They were his ideas. But he was currently unable to use his full capabilities due to his arms being in such a state.

Jiraya, Shizune and Naruto arrived and managed to protect Tsunade. As the first two we busy distracting their opponents, Naruto prepared to step in when he had an epiphany.

"Wait! Stop! Everyone stoooop!"

The Sannin along with Shizune and Kabuto look at him weirdly. The latter spoke up first "And why should we wait, brat?"

"I just figured something out! I need to ask you all something!" Naruto pleaded.

"Naruto, what the hell are you doing?!" Tsunade was angry. She already resolved her self to kill her former teammate, even at the cost of her own life. She didn't need the distraction.

Orochimaru spoke next with, although pained, amusement in his voice "You want to stall?"

Jiraiya on the other hand groaned and would have put a hand on his face if he didn't need to stay vigilant "Come on kid, please! Not another one of your conspiracy theories..."

'Conspiracy theories?' was on everyone else's minds.

"Look, all I ask is for a couple of minutes!" Naruto insisted.

Orochimaru weighed his options but he was always too curious for his own good "... Fine. You piqued my interest. It wouldn't matter even if you have reinforcements coming. What do you want?"

Naruto sighed with slight relief "I looked you up after you mopped the floor with us in the Forest of Death. What I found was weird to say the least."

Orochimaru smirked at the first bit, then corked an eyebrow at the second part "Oh?"

"I found out why you left Konoha. Did you really think Jii-chan would have let you go?"

The Snake Sannin considered that for a moment "No, I was actually ready to fight my way out."

The Genin nodded "Yeah! I mean, not only did he participate in all three Great Shinobi Wars, he led Konoha in TWO of them. AND he was Tobirama Senjuu's student. Someone THAT battle hardened would have at LEAST taken you down!"

Orochimaru had to agree on that, but... "Your point?"

"He must have felt something wrong. Naturally, he asked why you did what you did. You told him some crap about power and immortality. He didn't believe you. At least, not completely. He KNEW that something was up, that taking you down would have benefited someone ELSE."

Orochimaru wasn't one of the Sannin for shits and giggles. He was intelligent enough to see where the blonde brat was going. "Are you telling me that someone MADE me 'commit crimes' against Konoha to get rid of me?!" He asked incredulously.

"No! At least, not exactly. I think it's more that whoever they are, didn't want the Sannin to get too strong or stay together. I mean, just imagine the three of you working alongside one another on the same thing. Nothing can stop you!"

Kabuto chose that moment to interject with a scoff while adjusting his glasses "Orochimaru-sama doesn't need his former comrades to accomplish his goals."

"Then why the hell are you even here?!" That shut him up. Even Orochimaru gave Kabuto a scathing look.

Naruto turned back to Orochimaru "Why did you even invade Konoha anyway? Everyone said it was revenge for kicking you out, but, that doesn't make sense! You escaped by your own volition! Wasn't that invasion a pointless loss of time, effort, lives, money, resources and so many other things for EVERYONE involved?! What did you gain from it?! What did you even HOPE to get out of it?! Look, just... imagine this for a moment. Orochimaru the genius researcher and inventor of many techniques, Jiraiya the sage and seal master with a spy network that spans most of the Elemental Nations and Tsunade the pioneer of several medical fields who can potentially trade punches with a Bijuu. That's scary. Konoha now has the third Hokage who's known as the God of Shinobi, the Sannin and a plethora of strong clans and talented Jounin. So, to weaken Konoha a bit, you push the first of the Sannin towards unethical practices, the second towards a useless time-consuming hobby and the third... You push towards depression and gambling in spite of knowing you would almost definitely lose."

Jiraiya didn't believe Naruto in the least. He was, however, slowly recovering from Tsunade's damned drug. Flushing that crap out of his system was taking too long and this opportunity was godsent. So he goaded Naruto to talk more and buy him some time "Kid, that's crazy. Even if that's true, one of us would have noticed something."

"Jii-chan did! That's why he's letting you go around the continent gallivanting from one whore house to the next! That's why he never resented Tsunade for being away for so long while he had take the mantle of Hokage again! And that's why he didn't believe his student would just wake up one day and decide 'I'm gonna cut people and search for immortality inside their GUTS!'. Jii-chan only tried to kill him before he died because he wasn't left a choice!"

"Even then, someone with that much influence isn't possible."

Naruto looked at him incredulously "The SEAL MASTER is telling me that something is impossible?!"

Jiraiya groaned again "That's not what I meant..."

"And next, you're going to tell me that the Senjuu clan just decided to go extinct by itself?! All its members are dead except for one who feels even WORSE than dead and has no plans to have children of her own. Then suddenly the Uchiha clan is gearing up to betray Konoha and only two Uchiha are still alive as far as anyone knows."

"Kid, that was a hard blow on everyone but they WERE going to overthrow the Hokage." He tried to calm Naruto even though he knew that once he started his theories he wouldn't stop until he pointed out everything he knows.

"What about the civilian Uchiha? What about the children?! Were they born with a headband or something?! You can't tell me they were ALL Shinobi! And Sasuke CAN'T have been the only child at the time! And it's said that the whole clan was killed by a single one of their members. They were Konoha's police force, they couldn't have been that weak. If they were, how would they have succeeded in even getting close to the Hokage, let alone defeat him?!"

Jiraiya didn't have anything to say to that, but he didn't need to push Naruto to talk anymore. The drug has almost completely run it's course. Naruto, however, didn't know any of this and wouldn't care even if he did. So he pushed on.

"This doesn't happen as frequently with clans that DON'T have bloodlines either! A few scuffles, politics and blood feuds but almost never an extinction event!"

"Calm down Naruto." Jiraya said but was completely ignored.

"And what about Uzushio? Are you saying it's just a tragedy and we should move on?! Heck, below a certain age, almost no one I asked has even heard of Uzushio, the Uzumaki clan or the meaning of the red swirl on our shinobi uniform's back! They don't know of one of Konoha's founding clans! A cousin clan to the Senjuu! They don't know that the first Hokage's wife and Tsunade's grand-mother came from that clan!"

"Kid, I know you're upset about that, but-"

"Uzushio was ganged up on by THREE major villages while all Konoha did was watch!"

"Are you seriously accusing Konoha of betraying their ally?!" The Toad Sannin said with an edge in his voice.

"NO! That's the weird thing!" He exclaimed, his hands flailing "Konoha NEVER does that! NONE of our Hokages ever do that. Even the Nidaime who's known for his hatred towards the Uchiha never intentionally endangered them. And yet, not a single Shinobi was sent! Even if Konoha was hard-pressed and preoccupied with something, they could have at least harassed the invading forces from the outside to buy them time or something! Give a seal master enough time and they'll never lose! Do that and Uzushio would have helped Konoha back with whatever problem we had! I'm saying that Uzushio was a small village compared to the rest! It was closed on itself aside from a few trades and such. I'm saying SOMEONE scared the hell out of three major villages so much that the made a temporary alliance and prevented Konoha from helping because that someone was scared of Uzushio!"

"You still don't have any evidence for any of that!"

"YOU told me that sometimes when you spy on other villages, some battles that appear in one village's archives don't even exist in the other's! Someone is framing the Villages against each other!"

"Why?!"

"I don't know!"

"..."

"I don't know..." He looked down.

"..."

"But I do know that the first Hokage captured the tailed beasts after the first one was sealed inside his wife and handed them out to other villages. The reason? He wanted to maintain the power balance between all the nations. He wanted peace, as always. Seventy years later? We went through THREE MAJOR SHINOBI WARS!"

For the first time, Shizune spoke up "H-How do you even know all of this?"

He shrugged "Besides my research? Jii-chan likes to talk, vent and sometimes even rant and most of those close to him either already know, don't want to know or don't have the time. Plus, I'm a good listener and his stories are much more interesting than whatever crap they tell us at the academy. I always tell him not to mix drinking sake and that special stuff he smokes on occasion but he never listened."

"..." She had nothing to say to that.

"Also, I know that it's not plausible that clans that produced monsters like Ashina and Mito Uzumaki, Hashirama and Tobirama Senjuu and Madara Uchiha simply keep dying out. Monsters that could stand toe to toe with most of the Bijuu. YOU three could have been on their level if you kept training instead of wasting your time! Ero-Sennin, how much time have you spent on those books of yours? The time you put into your 'Research' aside, you can remember every character of every page of every book by heart! WHY IS THAT IMPORTANT?!"

"..." Jiraiya had the sense to look ashamed.

Naruto then turned to Tsunade "I don't begrudge you mourning your precious people. But twenty-five years is WAY too long! If you've kept up your training, maybe even get sage training, you'd now be able to trade punches with the Yonbi or even the Hachibi and come on top! And I understand you aren't responsible for other people not getting proper medical help. But, if you invested yourself more in your medical practice, many people would be alive or living better lives today. Despite staying relatively inactive for twenty-five years, you're STILL the leading medical expert. THE Orochimaru came to YOU out of all the people in the world, including HIMSELF! THAT'S HOW AMAZING YOU ARE!"

"..." Tsunade looked at her hands with an unreadable expression. A mix of sorrow, regret, and a lot of other emotions were swirling inside her heart.

If Orochimaru wanted to be a dick, he would have said that she was just an easy target. But even he knew that Tsunade WAS the best out of all others who dabble in medical practices. He has always kept himself up to date.

Naruto finally turned to Orochimaru "I don't know what you actually want to achieve, but I think you're smart enough to recount your own failures and possible wild goose chases that you could have spent training and inventing actually useful things for people everywhere. You're so strong, crafty and resourceful you would have made a great Hokage. And if you really wanted power and immortality, wouldn't the help of an aspiring seal master, THE pioneer of several medical fields and the guy hailed as the God of Shinobi for his vast knowledge be more useful than whatever you could do on your own?!"

Orochimaru didn't know how to react to that. On one hand, he knew his reasoning at the time was sound. His sensei would have been apprehensive. He considered one of his teammates to be talentless and thought the other wouldn't be helpful since she was wallowing in guilt and regret. On the other hand, he was the one who abandoned them instead of lending a hand. He could have believed more in them. He could have trusted them to stand by him.

"You made Anko miserable for a long time. She would have loved to have gone with you, you know? That's another person who could have helped you, another person you pushed away."

He could come up with many reasons. She wasn't useful. She wasn't talented enough. She wouldn't agree with his methods and decisions. She would have tried to stop him. She would have betrayed him. But he knew it would be all a lie.

At their silence, he got back on track "I also know that those with a bloodline are hunted down and killed in Kirigakure. The Kaguya clan, another clan with a bloodline, suddenly decided that Kirigakure was too misty or something and got killed off for attacking it. Every single member, bar Kimimaro, were eradicated be they man, woman or child. And there are a LOT of conflicts that somehow end up killing many powerful Shinobi with hereditary powers. It's like-"

"-Someone is gearing up for something huge and is getting rid of the strongest oppositions." Orochimaru was considering this new angle on things. His genius mind going a at high speed. Events that he just dismissed or laughed at, considering them to be merely petty fighting, envy, foolishness or the like are now more logical when put together. There are still so many questions and this Genin's ramblings raised even more, but... Despite his injuries, despite everything, he actually missed his former friends. If he was right, someone played him and he didn't even notice. If he was wrong, well, he's immortal. No biggie. "I'm not in the mood to fight anymore. And despite my injuries, I'd like to... discuss this further."

Naruto looked up, surprised. He knew he might be wrong. Heck, he might have been wrong about everything. But he believed the possibility was there. And someone finally believed him.

Tsunade were shocked "You can't be serious!"

Jiraiya was conflicted. On one hand, here was a minuscule chance to get both of his friends back. On the other hand...

He looked at Tsunade "Don't tell me you're not regretting twenty five years of mourning while you wasted away." Then, he turned to Jiraiya "And I know for a fact that you loved our team being together more than anything. And we both know of a certain recent group capable of manipulation on such a scale. The possibility that there were powers doing that before them isn't negligible, not anymore." He sighed "If some bastards think they can fuck with us and get away scot-free, I'm going to show them why that was a bad idea. I'm fine doing it alone but... I'd like it if you stood with me, one more time."

AN: In the end, I decided that the easiest way to bring them back together is something like a common goal, mission or enemy.

While Naruto is known for his sharp mind when he's not being a moron (not his fault with his childhood), I don't think he's a good fit for digging up history and the like. He just happened to be in a convenient spot to unload all of this on the Sannin at the same time. I didn't want it to be one of the big three, Shizune is a sheep and Kabuto can go hang himself because I hate him. In my opinion, he has added absolutely nothing to the story and his character could have been completely bypassed.

AN2: Hope you liked this. Please give me your opinion and check my other stories.

Cheers~