Bubbling Water Spiral

A Naruto fanfiction

By LackeyH

Episode two.

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It wasn't often that the world famous medical specialist, Tsunade, got any time to herself these days. If she wasn't busy reviewing and signing mission reports, she was allocating the B, A and S class missions. Even on what were supposed to be her days off she was usually down visiting the hospitals of Konoha and yelling at the staff to work more efficiently.

Fortunately she had saved herself some trouble and had managed to delegate the task of dealing with the, far more irritating and numerous, D and C rank missions, along with the payment for completed missions, to someone else. Even now, Shizune was off in the adjoining room deciding which genin team, or recently promoted chuunin, would work best on which low-ranking mission whilst.

Of course, in Tsunade's eyes the fact that she herself wasn't signing off the hundreds of C and D rank missions wasn't the important thing. No, the important thing was that Shizune, her walking, talking conscience, wasn't around to bother her. A fact that meant Tsunade could escape this thrice damned office room and go wreak havoc on the local bars and casinos. Not that there were as many in Konoha as there were in other similar-sized settlements, but one could always make do with what one could get.

Being careful so as not to disturb the piles of paperwork that littered her office (someday she'd get it all finished and cleared away, but not today), Tsunade crept around to the main door. Kneeling down she pulled a slim mirror from a fold in her robe and slipped it through the gap between the door and the floor below it. It was an old trick, one that used to be in great usage until the invention of various spying jutsu. Since Shizune would probably detect most of those, it fell to old-fashioned methods to plot her escape.

Bending down to look at the reflection in mirror through the crack, Tsunade grimaced. Two guards stood outside, even though she had repeatedly stated that she didn't like having an honor guard like the Third had. Come to think of it, these two were probably under Shizune's orders to not let herself out until she'd finished the paperwork. Well. She'd show them! She wasn't a legendary sannin for nothing after all!

Right then, she could pull off a simple Henge and a basic Genjutsu discretely enough to avoid alerting Shizune, her apprentice would probably notice anything stronger... so... yes, she had a plan. First she would transform into Shizune, then place an illusion of herself working, no, sleeping would be easier, at her desk. Once that was done she could just stroll out of the room, past the guards and straight towards the nearest bar.

Her plan, simple as it was, proceeded quite smoothly. The guards, after peeking inside the office and being taken in by the illusion of a sleeping Tsunade, didn't even question the real one as she passed them by.

Unfortunately all plans, no matter how good, had flaws in them. In this case the flaw wore an orange jumpsuit and answered to the name of Naruto.

Tsunade, still disguised as Shizune, had made it to the glass doors of the lobby area of the building. Apart from a few messengers, a bored-looking secretary and a number of people looking to hire a ninja, the room was pretty empty. Okay, so there were quite a few people here, but only the secretary was a ninja, and he wasn't exactly skilled enough to break her Henge so in Tsunade's eyes, the room was as good as empty.

So focused was she on getting out of the building, Tsunade wasn't exactly paying as much attention as she should have to what was going on outside. It was at the exact moment that she was about to pull open the outer doors that they exploded inwards as one orange clad boy barreled through them.

Now, Tsunade was an excellent ninja, so such an action didn't particularly phase her in the slightest. Unfortunately though, a basic henge technique would almost always be dispelled by a sudden physical shock. Having a thirteen year old boy slam into ones gut, well, if that wasn't a physical shock, what was?

There was a gasp from the crowd as a cloud of smoke, a byproduct of the henge technique, appeared from nowhere, displacing the air that had already been present with a loud popping sound. From the smoke cloud an angry Fifth Hokage, her hands wrapped around the neck of a young Hokage-wannabe, fell to the floor.

As more bursts of smoke appeared throughout the room, signaling the arrival of ninja guards who had been attracted by the commotion, Tsunade pulled Naruto's head close to hers and growled softly into his ear.

"Damn you," She whispered, "I was this close to being out of here for a few hours. This. Damn. Close." Punctuating her words with a slight pressure on Naruto's neck, not enough to hurt but enough to make him feel particularly uncomfortable, Tsunade continued to mumble in annoyance even as several people reached in to pry her off of the younger boy.

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Sighing to herself, Mitarashi Anko threw herself into a comfy chair nestled in one corner of the small lounge. Around her a variety other shinobi leant against bare walls or pulled up small wooden stools to sit upon.

"This sucks," Complained the raven-haired woman, to no-one in particular. "I mean this really, really sucks."

"You said it boss," Came the reply from one of the older shinobi, one that Anko knew as a friend in a vague sort of way.

"Why have we gotta play babysitter to the damned Hokage anyway? Can't she take care of herself?" Sinking into the soft cushioning of the chair, which she had declared that morning to be an 'Anko-only' zone, the irritated jounin glared at the ceiling. Almost as if she was trying to use her glare to bore through to the Hokage's office above.

"Given that she failed to escape the building," Began one of the younger members of the group, "I'd guess not."

"Feh, if I wasn't laughing my ass off inside, I'd report you for that Akagi," replied Anko, a smug smirk plastered across her face. "But... Heh, can you really believe she got knocked to the floor by the nine-tails brat? That's just too damn funny, you know?"

"I don't see what the Fifth sees in scum like him." Grumbled the older squad member as he idly cleaned his fingernails with the point of a kunai. "You say anything bad about the brat where she can hear you and wham! You get slapped across the room thanks to her super strength."

"Heh, I hear ya." Whispered the final member of the four-strong guard squad. "I heard she threatened to kick Hiashi so hard even his grandchildren would feel it after he called the Nine-tails kid a disgrace to Konoha."

That comment made Anko sit up straight in her seat, "Hiashi?" She asked, her voice incredulous. "She threatened Hiashi Hyuuga!? Damn, no-one's ever threatened the Hyuuga head like that before... Even the Fourth wussed out rather than confront him."

The two older members of the squad, used to hearing such comments about the Fourth from Anko, said nothing. The youngest, Akagi by name, wasn't. Which would explain why he looked up and leveled a flat gaze at his superior. "Yeah right," He stated, "Everyone knows the Fourth wasn't afraid of anything." Beside him his two companions, wincing slightly, edged away from where Akagi sat. They knew how bad an idea it was to contradict anything Anko had said.

Surprisingly, rather than go on a psychopathic rampage resulting in the near death of their young comrade like they had expected, Anko just sat there.

"Yeah." She muttered, her voice heavy. "Whatever."

With that she pulled herself out of her chair and slipped out of the room, the door pulling shut with a soft click behind her.

"Huh?" The older squad member blinked in surprise. "Looks like you got lucky this time Akagi," he stated. "Normally she'd bite your head off at least for going against her views like that."

His companion shrugged and moved to follow Anko. "Eh, maybe it's all the sake she drank this morning finally kicking in. You know how moody she gets when she's drunk. She swings more than an ape in a jungle, right?" He grinned at his joke as he tried the door.

He blinked. Then he tried the door again.

"Aw crap," He muttered, "That damn psycho's locked us in! It's gonna take us an hour at least to get all the wards undone so we can force the lock!"

On the other side of the door, hiding a small smirk of superiority, Mitarashi Anko stood, wondering just when the super strong stink bombs that she had left on her seat would go off...

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Up in her office Tsunade whimpered slightly at the piles of work on her desk. Shizune, having decided that Tsunade was being a slacker, had quite happily ordered the older woman to do her work in addition to what she already had to do.

Being ordered about by a non-ranked shinobi was something that many people would, or could, never even consider the Hokage doing. The simple fact was, however, that Shizune was practically Tsunade's conscience. The legendary medic had learnt, a long time ago, that it was usually for the best to listen when Shizune told her to do something. Mainly because she was usually right about it.

Though, looking at stacks of forms that reached almost to the ceiling, Tsunade was seriously reconsidering her views on Shizune. Mainly she was reconsidering why she had let the girl hang around with her in the first place.

Oh wait, that's right. She had needed someone to drag her home when she, inevitably, passed out drunk in the bars she visited. Ha, yes, and she had needed something to do during that long boring periods when both bars and casinos were shut. What was it called again? Oh, yes, Daytime.

So Tsunade had taken Shizune in, part as a student, part as a servant. Eventually she was student, servant and friend, but that had come about some time late.

"Oi!"

The fifth Hokage twitched slightly as Naruto yelled at her, waving a piece of paper in her face. It was all his fault she was here, if he had not have ran into her at such speed she would have been able to keep her disguise going until she was well clear of the building. But noooooo, Uzumaki Naruto, the little brat, just had to come and screw everything up didn't he. And probably for some completely stupid and immature reasoning. Like an autograph for one of his friends maybe. Tsunade had heard that quite a few of the genin, as well as a handful of chuunin, level Kunoichi viewed her with the same awe that most teenage girls view idol singers. Having one of them beg Naruto, whom everyone knew was a personal friend of the Hokage, for an autograph or something similar would not be too unlikely.

Snatching the paper out of Naruto's hand, ignoring his cry of protest as she did so, Tsunade glanced at the paper and paused.

This looked like a medical report.

But she'd ordered all reports from Naruto's checkup should go to her, since Naruto probably wouldn't understand their significance.

So then, what, exactly, was this report about? There were very few medical documents that she, as Hokage and a legendary medic, couldn't have diverted to her office. Amongst them were things such as pregnancy tests and anything pertaining to family secrets. She wasn't allowed, for instance, to see documents related to the metabolism of the Akimichi clan, due to how their secret techniques worked. They, like most of the secretive families, had specially appointed doctors, usually those who were related in some way to the clan, to look over such delicate matters.

As she read the report, Tsunade's eyes widened until she was staring at the paper as if it had spontaneously grown teeth and bitten her hand. Her mouth opened a few times, no words coming out because, frankly, she couldn't think of anything she could say about it at all. She was dimly aware of Naruto's complaining and, even as she ignored it, the Hokage absently reached out to ruffle his hair, which naturally made him complain all the more.

The report was shocking, to say the least. As far as she'd been aware, Naruto's parents had been killed back when the Kyuubi had attacked. Then again, she hadn't been the sannin she was now and had, it seemed, been fed some prefabricated story along with the rest of the village. After all, if the village knew anyone who was related to Naruto then, well, they'd probably be just as ostracized as the young genin was today. If the aforementioned relative was someone who already had a shady past then Tsunade didn't particularly want to think about what would have happened.

Evidently the story about Naruto being an orphan was meant to protect his parents as much as it gave the Third a good reason to make sure he could control exactly who had access to Naruto. It wouldn't do to let some vengance-seeking fanatic work as his sitter, obviously. She dimly remembered that the Third had pulled in a variety of woman from outside the village to look after Naruto, at least until he was able to support himself.

"Naruto," She finally whispered, cutting through the blond boy's babbling about her ignoring him. "You seem to think this is a joke, don't you?"

The genin merely folded his arms and gave her a slightly worried stare. "That," he asked after a few moments silence, "can't be true. It just can't be. Right? Right? It's not true, it's just some stupid joke meant to piss me off, right? That's right isn't it?" Tsunade noted the slight hysteria that crept into his voice and sighed to herself.

"Maybe, maybe not. But have you considered what it would mean if it was true?" She cocked her head to one side, trying to picture how this brash, over confidant boy could be related to the woman named on the report. Well, okay, so their personalities as she knew them were very, very similar. But other than that there wasn't much to indicate any relation. "It would mean, for a start, that you would have a mother."

Naruto's arms dropped to his sides almost as fast as his gaze fell to the floor at his feet. "But..." he whispered, "I-"

"It's okay Naruto, you don't have to make a choice on anything yet." Pointed out Tsunade, "If you wanted you could ignore this, and act as it if had never happened." She smiled down at the boy in front of her, who looked to be on the verge of tears. "Or... I could have her sent up right away, and we can discuss this now."

The blond genin stared at the floor, his vision growing misty with held-back tears. "If... If I left here now," he whispered, "Then... then I'd never know, right?" Lifting his head so that he could lock eyes with the Hokage, he smiled slightly. "Call her." He stated, "Before I change my mind."

"Hn," Tsunade grinned at him. "Somehow, I don't think you will. But alright." Stepping smartly over to her office door, she flung it open with a force that sent the two guards on the other side flying. Given that this happened pretty much every other day, they weren't particularly fazed by it. When Tsunade told them who to locate, however, the two stared at her in terror.

"Are, are you sure?" Whimpered one, Izumi by name, "But it's her lunch break now!"

"Yeah!" Agreed the other, "We don't want to die!"

"Oi, Tsunade," Naruto piped up from behind the Hokage. "are you sure these guys are ninja? They seem kinda wussy..."

"You'd be afraid too if you ever had to work with that psycho!" Yelled Izumi, leaning around Tsunade to do so. "No-one ever survives a session with her in their squad!"

"Yeah!" Agreed, once more, his companion. "I heard she sent her entire guard squad to the infirmary by poisoning them with super stink bombs meant to scare away giant animals."

"Super stink bombs?" Breathed the blonde-haired boy. "That's so... so..."

"Stinky?" Offered a female voice from the far end of the corridor. There, munching on her favorite snack, stood the feared Mitarashi Anko herself. "I heard you were looking for me Hokage-sama?"

Chapter 2 end.

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Doot de doot. It's here. I'm gone. Be back next time I post something. .;;

What? You're angry that I'm taking so long in posting things? Well, uh... LOOK! THREE HEADED OROCHIMARU! flees

Lackey H - Hiding from his readers behind the uber-scary (and yummy to boot) Tayuya.