Naruto appeared a good two feet away from him this time. Since Sasuke was halfway up a tree that placed him in thin air above him. He squawked on the way down. Sasuke twisted to the side and caught the back of his jacket, swinging him close enough to the trunk to catch himself with his chakra.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Naruto demanded, gripping the trunk and scowling up at him.

Sasuke looked past him, judging the distance to the ground. There were a few branches on the way down that Naruto could have grabbed onto. They were rather high up, though. "Would a fall from this height actually kill you?"

"Probably not," Naruto admitted, looking down himself. "I would have busted right through that branch, but I could have caught that one. A fall all the way down would have really hurt, though. Why are you in a tree? Are you trying to make this harder on me?"

He had only climbed the tree for a better look around, but Naruto had a fair point. "I'm not going out of my way to make it easier. You won't know where I am when you teleport to me. You could find yourself under attack or in a freefall and should be prepared for anything. Unless you can sense my surroundings. Can you?"

"No," sighed Naruto. "I don't know if I'm supposed to be able to do that. When I focus it's like I'm seeing a light in the dark and I concentrate until I go to it. But I can't see it when I'm on my way there, it's too fast. I can feel when I'm almost there and I'm trying to stop right before I get there. I think? That's what it feels like, anyway. I'm probably doing it wrong."

"You're figuring it out as you go along," Sasuke shrugged. He went the rest of the way up the tree until he had a good view of the glint he had spotted in the distance. Whatever it was, it was big and metallic and appeared to be embedded in a thick tree trunk. He glanced over as Naruto joined him on the limb. "Just keep practicing, trying to stop sooner. If you can cancel the teleportation partway then it really is very different from the normal teleportation. That's instant, at least for me. Go back to the tower and try again. Be prepared to arrive in a tree. I'll be heading there." He pointed at the tree with the glint.

Naruto grumbled and shifted his weight. "I thought you were going to be teleporting around, too. Running and hiding so I could chase you."

"We tried that," Sasuke reminded him coldly. "You decided you would rather play."

"I wasn't playing," Naruto said quickly. He straightened up with a sly grin. "I was very serious."

"Go," Sasuke snapped.

Naruto made a face as he teleported away. Sasuke launched into the nearest tree.

He wasn't entirely opposed to learning how to keep a clone around longer. It could prove useful at some point. But he hadn't been at full chakra when he had made the first clone. Trying to keep a clone from dispelling used up chakra, which meant he got less of it back. Halving his chakra again to make another clone meant he had even less now, enough for the sharingan and some tree climbing, but not much else. Naruto was aware he had more chakra than most people, but he didn't seem to understand how limited Sasuke's reserves were in comparison. Iruka had been right about the kage bunshin jutsu being dangerous. Only the fact that he could teleport made him willing to use it now. Surviving the last attack hadn't required much chakra, if he didn't count the chakra he had used up putting the fire out. This clone would probably be able to handle a similar attack. But if not, if the clone was dispelled before he could teleport back to the apartment, then the forehead protector would be left behind and Naruto would be teleporting right into enemy hands. Naruto clearly hadn't considered that.

This time Naruto was a little quicker to catch himself. Sasuke had been looking down, so he arrived only a few feet above the nearest branch. He still broke it with his weight and had to grab the trunk to stop his downward slide. He still looked unhappy, sullen bordering on whiny. Sasuke ignored it, waving him to join him.

"Use wind chakra to get this out for me."

"Nice find," said Naruto. "I have a windmill shuriken, but this looks different. You could probably get it out yourself, though. You can use wind now, right? And you already know how to coat weapons with chakra."

No, Naruto really wasn't at all aware of his limits. Part of him wanted to keep it that way, but that was just his ego. "I don't have the chakra to experiment with that right now. Coating a weapon with wind should be the same as doing it with lightning, but I'll wait to experiment with that using my real body, not a clone."

Naruto gripped the weapon, coated it with wind chakra, and pulled it out smoothly. Then he moved his arm behind his back and grinned. "I pulled it out, so I should get to keep it."

"Do you want it?" Sasuke asked in surprise. "You don't seem to use weapons very much, aside from kunai."

"I was trying to get you to fight me for it, or at least argue," Naruto sighed. He handed it to Sasuke and watched him store it away. "I don't know how to use the windmill shuriken I've got. I don't need another one."

Sasuke sent him a pointed look. "Would you like to learn how to use one? Or do you prefer keeping yours as a paperweight?"

"Well," Naruto drawled, his tone playful, "considering my strongest attack is a wind shuriken I don't think I need to be using a boring old bladed one. But if you wanna teach me so badly, I suppose I can play along. Just to make you happy."

Sasuke snorted. "You shouldn't need me as your primary motivation. Don't you want to improve? I know you don't want to go away for a long time doing the toad thing, and we're not allowed to do anything involving Kyuubi, but there are plenty of other things you could be working on in the meantime. When we first met you said you were like me, easily bored and impatient. Yet you've been in a rut for years? How have you not gone stir-crazy from inactivity?"

"I keep busy," Naruto said defensively. "Even before you came, my days were packed. Mornings with my dad, hanging out with my friends, practicing my rasengan, trying not to run away to Sand to find you. It's not like I was just lying around sleeping all day."

"But you haven't been learning new things." Because he felt he didn't need to? Or because others felt he didn't need to? "I was under the impression you had half the people in this village eager to teach you. Instead it appears you've been content to stagnate and they've been content to watch it happen. I don't understand that at all. I have always wanted a teacher. You're surrounded by potential teachers and you aren't taking advantage of it. And then there's Kakashi." His upper lip curled. "Official teacher of your team and he hasn't taught either of you anything. And no," he said sharply, when Naruto's mouth dropped open, "I'm not counting that 'thousand years of death' thing."

"He didn't really teach me that one, anyway," Naruto admitted. "He just used it on me and I tried it on someone else."

Which made it even worse. Sasuke waved at him. "Go and come back. I'll probably be on the ground this time. Try arriving to the side of me instead of directly in front this time."

He was crouched down, collecting more of the poisonous fern when Naruto came back, just two feet in front of him. He sighed. Two feet was better than being right on top of him, but it wasn't much of an improvement. Then again, he didn't understand the technique Naruto was using so he couldn't help him improve on it. Naruto was improving on his own and that was good, even if it was also slow. Maybe he could start wearing the forehead protector on his hip. Not all of Naruto's friends wore theirs on their heads. Given a choice he would have his head bare, because that was what he was used to.

Naruto winced at the plants he had crushed with his arrival. He stepped off to the side and crouched down to frown at Sasuke. "Kakashi's more like a mentor than a teacher."

"What does that mean?" asked Sasuke.

"When I was trying to add wind to my rasengan he sent me to Asuma first so he could teach me how to use wind, coating weapons with it. Once I had that, Kakashi showed me how to use my clones to practice with wind until I could use it better. Asuma taught me how to do it and Kakashi showed me how to improve on it. He did the same thing with Sakura. She was already great with chakra so all he had to do was show her how to practice things like walking on water to get even better with it."

"That sounds more like a training partner than a teacher."

"Exactly," Naruto nodded.

Clearly Naruto didn't understand why that was a problem to Sasuke. Maybe it wasn't Konoha, maybe it was him. Was his idea of what a teacher was supposed to do really that different? There was the element of competition to consider. The people who had taught him new things had done so because they benefited from him being able to do those things on their behalf. Konoha should benefit from anything they could teach their future Hokage, because he would be using those things on their behalf. But Naruto wasn't Hokage yet. If Sakura was right, then Kakashi could step up to fill that role if needed. Had Kakashi refrained from teaching Naruto things because they were in competition for the kage position? He didn't know enough about Kakashi to be sure, but that didn't sound right to him. He was inclined to believe what Kakashi had told him, that the man viewed Naruto as a difficult student not worth pushing. And Sasuke could certainly understand that, to a point. If Naruto didn't want it badly enough to fight for it, then he didn't need it. The problem was that Naruto did need it, if he really wanted to be considered kage, a position Sasuke assumed went to the best shinobi in the village.

He stood and brought his hands together. It was almost dark so this would be the last trip of the night. "Follow me."

As soon as he arrived he removed the forehead protector and tied the ends in a loop on his hip. Maybe he could attach it to a belt or sash so it was more secure. He caught a snake from the pit, keeping his body turned so Naruto wouldn't arrive in the pit if he showed up early. Then he teleported to the stream. He had already summoned Terra by the time Naruto showed up. Naruto showed up in the stream. He hadn't intended for that to happen. A glance at the complaining Naruto had his lips quirking upward. He hadn't set that up intentionally, but he didn't mind it.

"Three feet this time," Sasuke commented. "A definite improvement. Good job."

"What did you do?" Naruto demanded as he climbed onto the bank. "Where did you put it?"

Sasuke lifted his arm so he could see the forehead protector. "I suspected wearing it this way would have you arriving to the side of me. It's odd that you appear directly in front of the forehead protector, though, considering the mark itself is on the back."

"That is weird," Naruto blurted. "I didn't think about that. Maybe that's why I showed up farther away this time. A lot of this has to be mental, imaging or something. When I focus I'm thinking of the forehead protector, but with your face right under it. That could be what puts me in front of you, or in front of it when it's not on your head. I know I'm supposed to be sensing the chakra, but I don't know if I actually am. I don't know how this is supposed to work. It just does." He sighed and walked over to him. Then he saw what Sasuke was doing and dropped into a seated position with a wide grin. "Hey, Terra. You look really funny when you're nothing but a gaping mouth. It would be cute if you weren't a snake."

The tip of Terra's tail jerked up in a stiff point, in what was probably intended to be a rude gesture. Sasuke finished telling the summon about the last attack as he drained the venom into his mouth. He had already warned him that he would be summoning him again soon for a private talk. Terra would probably say more without Naruto around, and it would definitely go quicker without Naruto interrupting and distracting them.

"I'm going to prep this now," Sasuke warned Naruto. As expected, Naruto turned his back so he wouldn't have to watch. "Are you generally squeamish?"

"Only compared to you," said Naruto. "It's normal to be squeamish with creepy things like snakes and snake guts and worms and bugs and slime. Doesn't anything creep you out?"

Sasuke seriously considered the question. "What does it mean to be creeped out? Specifically?"

"It makes you want to shiver, ugh, ew, get it away from me, your skin prickles and crawls and you don't even want to look at it. And touching it? No, ew, touching is even worse." Naruto wrapped his arms around himself and gave an exaggerated shudder. "Creepy stuff is creepy. Everyone is creeped out by something. Isn't there anything that makes you feel like that?"

Yes, as a matter of fact. Sasuke turned to frown at him. "You with breasts."

Naruto whipped around to gape at him. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. That was a fair description of exactly how I felt with that henge of yours. Seeing it was disturbing enough, but touching it? The squishy texture was downright repulsive. The pink lips were also creepy."

"Breasts are supposed to be squishy!" Naruto exclaimed. "And all women look pretty with pink lips. That's why they wear lipstick. That pink is a nice subtle shade that goes good with my skintone. Even Sakura says the pink is better than red on me!"

Terra snapped up the lungs and then curved to stare at Naruto. "Should I ask?"

"No," Sasuke told him. "It's a henge, genjutsu."

"A waste of chakra," Terra scoffed. He slithered to the side and watched impatiently as Sasuke finish prepping the kill.

"A creepy waste of chakra," Sasuke agreed, with a pointed look at Naruto.

"It is not creepy," Naruto scowled at him. "You might want to stop with that or I'm gonna say something that will really piss you off. I've had nothing but compliments for my sexy jutsu. From all men. You're a man and you think it's creepy? That tells me something about you, Sasuke. It's right on the tip of my tongue. Don't make me say it. That'll just piss off your real body and I don't want him pissed off right now."

Sasuke scoffed. "Say it, if you feel the need to. You find snakes and insects creepy, but not everyone does. The fact that I find you with pink lips and squishy breasts creepy does not make me gay. The fact that I have a male lover is what makes me gay. Throwing that word at me isn't going to piss me off. If I suddenly develop an attraction to men in general, then I will be pissed off at you."

"He thinks you're a homosexual?" asked Terra. The amusement in his tone was so thick it was almost visible. "You're an Uchiha. That is as close to asexual as a human can get and still reproduce as needed."

"I've always thought so," Sasuke agreed. A glance found Naruto frowning down at his snake. Naruto was blushing. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at him.

"We shouldn't be talking about this around him," Naruto muttered. "But, just for the record, you're right. Not liking my sexy jutsu doesn't make you gay. But you're wrong, too, because being with me doesn't make you gay, either. You could be bi or just a really late bloomer. I'm gonna figure out what you like though. If squishy is creepy to you, then I'll definitely try small ones next time. Nice and firm. And maybe some clear lip gloss or darker shades if you don't like the pink."

There wouldn't be a next time. Not if he could help it. He sent him an exasperated look. Why did Naruto even want to develop a female form that appealed to him when they managed to have sex just fine in his natural form? He might as well ask why Naruto was so excited by the thought of using a couch instead of a bed. "Channel that creativity and eagerness to experiment into your ninjutsu, Naruto. With all of the potential teachers in this village, and a copy-nin for a team teacher, there should be no limit to what you could come up with."

"I know," Naruto sighed, with a wistful smile, "but it's much more fun coming up with new ways to get a reaction out of you."

He had reacted to Naruto's idea of storing water. But, to be fair, it had been a delayed reaction. Naruto had already been disappointed by the time Sasuke had admitted how he felt about that. Sasuke could try to express his excitement more openly, but he would never be the sort to glow and grin and bounce around like Naruto was. Maybe what Naruto needed was an audience. He thought of those children in the library. The Hokage had expressed disappointment that Naruto had never taken on a genin team. A team of excitable and eager would-be shinobi could easily have been just what Naruto needed to push him to continue learning new things to impress them with. Whether or not Naruto would have had the ability and patience to teach a team was an entirely different matter. But teachers in Konoha didn't actually have to teach anything, apparently. It was something to consider. If nothing else, maybe Naruto could show off to some of Iruka's students at the Academy. That would probably depend on what exactly Naruto was showing off.

Sasuke disposed of the remains and scooped Terra up before he could gulp down all the chunks of meat in a feeding frenzy. He ignored the complaints and fed him the pieces one by one.

"Are you going to hand-feed him all of it?" asked Naruto. "That's adorable!"

"It's practical. He isn't getting all of it. The point is to make sure he doesn't eat so much he splits himself or throws it all back up."

Terra let out an insulted hiss. "I would never eat more than I can keep down. I don't waste food."

"There is no need to gorge when I can teleport directly to the food source," said Sasuke. "I don't want you stuffed immobile. I may have need of you."

"Summon me more often, then," Terra snapped back. "I almost starved to death keeping vigil over you in that hospital."

Sasuke intended to ask him about that, later. Considering how hard the medics had worked to keep him drugged and restrained it was surprising Terra hadn't dispelled. He had never tried to keep a summon around for days. He hadn't realized that was an option. Gamakichi was so large he doubted Naruto had ever attempted to keep him around, either. There were many things he didn't know about summons in general. Who better to ask than a summon? He fed him another piece and caught Naruto watching. The smile on Naruto's face was amused and teasing and very annoying. He did not have an emotional attachment to his summon. Terra was a useful tool, a potential source of information, and a comrade who had taken it upon himself to guard him when he was vulnerable. That deserved being treated with respect and consideration. That was all.

.-.

Sasuke was at the kitchen counter making rice balls when Naruto trudged into the kitchen the next morning. He was surprised to see him up. It wasn't even dawn. He wondered if it was the smell of food that had woken him.

"Are you going to get up early every day from now on?" Naruto demanded. "How are you getting out of bed without waking me up?"

"Bathroom," said Sasuke. He shrugged when Naruto gave him a confused look. "When you start to wake up I say the word bathroom and you go back to sleep. And, yes, I'm normally an early riser. I was only staying in the bed until you woke up because I hadn't learned to use the word bathroom yet."

"But what if you actually just needed to use the bathroom?"

"Then I'd stay up or nap on the couch." He kicked the cabinet closed when Naruto went for the ramen. "Eat some of these if you're hungry."

"For breakfast?"

"It's no less appropriate than ramen," Sasuke pointed out. He took a few riceballs and a cup of tea to the table. "How old is Danzou?"

Naruto turned to give him an appalled look. "I just woke up. I don't know how long you've been up, but I at least need food before I can think straight. Maybe I should start drinking coffee. Do you drink coffee? I'm gonna need something if I'm going to have you being all perky in the morning when I'm barely on my feet. Or," he squinted his eyes, "I'm just going to have to wear you out more. I knew I should have made more clones."

"I'm lucid," said Sasuke, "not perky." His own eyes narrowed. "And two clones was one too many. You should have been able to maintain the henge on your own."

"Oh," Naruto grinned, "the second clone wasn't just for the henge. That was so I could kiss you on the mouth and go down on you at the same time I was kissing the back of your neck. Two more clones and I could have sucked on your nipples, too."

That would have made the 'couch' very crowded. Sasuke grimaced, flushed, and focused on his tea. There had been far too many mouths on him last night. Two more would have been very distracting. At least now he understood the reason for the couch. Kneeling on it while Naruto took him from behind was easy on the hips and made for some interesting positions. He wouldn't be bending Naruto over the arm of the couch again, though. He had wanted to see his face and kiss him. He hadn't appreciated being stuck kissing an extra clone who couldn't even feel what they were doing.

Naruto was still leering at him when he glanced up. He did his best to ignore it. He had admitted from the start that he physically enjoyed sex with him. He shouldn't let himself be so flustered by Naruto's attempts to tease him about it. Naruto was wrong, though. His own reactions when Naruto touched him proved that at least part of him was very gay. It made him wonder if he misunderstood the symptoms of attraction. He had assumed men grew hard at just the sight or thought of a person they were attracted to. If it relied on intimate touching then that would explain why he had never experienced it. He had never touched anyone unless he had reason to. Naruto was the only one he had ever given permission to touch him that way. Maybe physical attraction was similar to the sharingan in that it lay dormant until the right set of circumstances awakened it. He could accept that. If he suddenly started reacting physically to being touched by other men, then he would blame Naruto for turning him gay and he would shove a foot so far up Naruto's ass that 'thousand years of death' would feel like a gentle probing.

Once Naruto had a few rice balls in his bottomless stomach, Sasuke asked again, "How old is Danzou? The Third Hokage taught Jiraiya, who taught your father, who taught Kakashi, who at least mentored you, so how old is this man? He must be ancient."

"I just know he's old," Naruto shrugged. "He's always been old. He seemed ancient the first time I met him. I didn't know who he was then, though. I thought he was just a weak old man who might fall over if I bumped into him too hard."

"You thought he was weak? Tell me about your first meeting with him."

"I don't remember how old I was, but I had him pegged on sight as a civilian," said Naruto. "I had escaped captivity," he grinned, "and was doing my thing, just running around the market talking to people. He stopped me and said it was getting late and I should go home. I wasn't going to listen to an old man. I told him he should go home and take a nap, or go to the hospital and have Baachan fix him up. He was all covered in bandages. I had no idea who I was talking to. The Anbu caught me talking to him and, wow," he laughed, "were they quiet on the way home. My dad was really weird when he talked to me about it. I think he was trying to warn me to be careful around him without making me think Danzou was a bad guy. I was very black and white on that stuff. Trying to accept that cranky old man was powerful, as important to the village as the Hokage himself? Forget it. I couldn't believe that. All I promised was that I'd try to be less rude to him if I ran into him again."

"So you were raised to view him as a good thing for the village?"

Sasuke doubted he would have been less black and white on the issue as a child. As far as he had been concerned there were only the Uchiha and the non-Uchiha. Once he began doing missions there had been the people he took orders from, his targets, and the people who didn't matter. He wasn't sure at what point he had started paying attention to, and seeing value in, the people who 'didn't matter' as far as his own missions were concerned. Eventually he had learned that everyone he encountered might be someone he could learn something from if he watched them closely enough. His 'black and white' hadn't been about good guys versus bad guys. It had been family versus strangers, useful versus useless, and shinobi versus civilian. Frankly, he still thought in those term. In a way, Naruto might be far more mature than him if he had managed to evolve past that sort of thinking.

"Not really," Naruto winced. "At first my dad just told me he was important to a lot of people, respected, and I needed to be respectful of him if I ever ran into him again. I wasn't respectful to anyone back then. I mean, I tried sometimes, but I didn't try very hard. Once I learned more about Root I understood why my dad didn't want me giving Danzou an excuse to complain about me. But I never really thought of him as being good or bad. He was just there in the background. By the time Root was disbanded I had noticed my dad didn't like having them around, but I didn't know why. They never did anything as far as I knew. They were just there, mostly guarding the walls, patrolling sometimes, just an extra set of eyes. Most of Shikamaru's facts were as new to me as they were to you. I can see why my dad never told me that stuff. If I knew Danzou was part of why the Uchiha clan left I would have turned on him the second I found out you were an Uchiha, because it's his fault you were in Sand instead of here."

Naruto gave a wincing smile. "I'm still a little black and white on some things, namely you. It's hard for me to look at it from an outsider's perspective. I understand why we can't accuse Danzou without proof, but the thought of him trying to kill you makes me want to get rid of him. Right now. The sooner the better. And if he really was doing the same nasty shit as Orochimaru? Right here in Konoha? That makes me want to kill him and then yell at my dad for not putting a stop to it years ago. That's where politics come in." He took a slow breath and let it out in a huff. "Proof that I'm not Hokage material just yet. I couldn't handle having someone like that in my village, someone with power, and not being able to do anything except wait and watch. And if my dad really did suspect him from the start? That's a lifetime of just...tolerating him and trying to minimize the damage. I don't know if I'll ever be able to understand that."

"Do you plan to ask your father about that?"

"No," Naruto said quickly. "Not right now. I'm not ready to hear what he has to say. That's probably another reason he had Shikamaru handle that part. It gives me a chance to wrap my head around it so I don't go off where the wrong person might hear me."

That was understandable, and showed that Naruto understood himself as well as his father did. Sasuke frowned at him. "Would you say Danzou is more of a political threat than a physical one, then? It sounds like he's as old as the Kazekage."

"What?" Naruto blinked and then gave a weird smile. "The Kazekage is Gaara's dad. He's probably the same age as my dad. That's not old! Danzou is older than Jiraiya. Jiraiya is old. My dad isn't that much older than Kakashi. Kakashi might seem old with that hair, but he's really not. He's only a few years older than Iruka and I was just teasing Iruka when I called him old. I think he's around the same age as Kabuto and he didn't seem much older than me and Sakura when we first met him."

Sasuke felt his eyebrow twitch as he tried to piece that information together. Kabuto and Iruka were about the same age? Kakashi was only a bit older than that and Naruto's father was just a bit older than Kakashi? And the Kazekage was Naruto's father's age? That last part was the most difficult thing to wrap his mind around. "I never saw the Kazekage without his headdress but he seemed ancient to me. I had no idea he was that young."

"It's probably his voice," said Naruto. "And his attitude. I've only heard him talk a few times and I would have guessed he was old if I didn't know better. Age is a tough thing to call when it comes to shinobi. I mean, just look at Kakashi. You'd think he was the same age as my dad with that hair and his mask. Then there's Tsunade. She's as old as Jiraiya but you'd never guess it to look at her. I mostly just go by how people act. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were closer to Iruka's age than to mine. World-weary." He gave a sage nod as if he had it all figured out. "You're world-weary, Sasuke. It's gonna age you prematurely if you don't watch it. I bet you'd be gorgeous with white hair, though."

"I'll take that under advisement," Sasuke muttered. "You still haven't answered my question. Is Danzou a dangerous shinobi or more of a political threat?"

"He's definitely a political threat, just because he's an elder and the other two tend to agree with him on things. But I don't know what he's like as a shinobi. He's been retired for my entire life. If he trains at all, he doesn't do it where anyone can see him. That's something I can ask my dad about. Maybe." Naruto grimaced. "I'd have to do it in a way that doesn't make my dad think I'm planning to attack the old man myself."

"Find out if you can," said Sasuke. "Shikamaru seems to think the former Root members, or other recruited shinobi, would be the ones to watch out for. But if this Danzou is as old as your last kage there is no telling how many skills he may have picked up and refined upon over the years. Considering how close they were, he could be the equivalent of Orochimaru, for all you know. That might explain why Orochimaru hasn't simply killed the man himself if the two are enemies now."

"Or maybe Orochimaru thinks Danzou is more useful to him alive," Naruto frowned. "Orochimaru uses people. He could just be using Danzou to mess us up. If my dad accuses Danzou without proof it might tear Konoha in two, or at least cause enough strife within the village to make us look bad to our allies."

"Danzou has that much support? Even when he's technically just an elder now?"

Naruto made a rude noise. "He shouldn't. We've got all the heavy hitters and the clans are on our side. I don't think any of the clan heads are fans of Danzou. All he'd have for sure are the other two elders. But you can't just turn on an elder without proof. Elders are what keeps the Hokage from being a dictator. The Hokage doesn't have to obey the elders, but he does have to listen to them and consider their side and justify himself when he goes against them. The politics are important," he said, in an apologetic tone. "If you don't do it right, it looks bad. That might sound like a dumb thing to worry about, but it's really serious. Having the Hokage turn on an elder without just cause, against the wishes of the other two elders, looks bad to the rest of the village and to every other village that works with us."

"I get it," Sasuke sighed. "You have to dance nicely, even with the unwanted snake in your back garden, so as not to frighten others who feed their own snakes."

"Pretty much, but let's not call him a snake. Watching you feed your snake was cute." Naruto flashed him a grin. Then he sighed and wrinkled his nose. "No, Danzou's not a snake. He's more like a cancer mole or something. Sakura says if you don't dig a mole out at the root it grows right back. And if you do dig deeply enough to get it all out you'll have a giant bloody hole that could get infected and kill you. I like that better. He's a mole, a big hairy black festering cancer mole that needs to be cut out, but carefully so it doesn't grow back or leave a nasty gaping wound."

Not just creative, but vivid. Sasuke smiled. He did like how Naruto's mind worked when it came to explaining things.

.-.
TBC