An eventful month had passed since the Itachi Pursuit Mission, the battles with Deidara and Itachi, and the revelation of the truth behind Itachi, and many things had occurred:

The Foundation had been redesigned as a new branch of the ANBU with new training methods, along with about 12 other Uchiha around his age or about 2 to 3 years older.

Sasuke had been welcomed back to the village, but he still had 2 more weeks of ANBU surveillance.

The truth behind the Uchiha Massacre and Itachi's heroism had been revealed, and now Itachi was being thought of as a hero who sacrificed his life for the village.

Tatsu had been working on a special training method for Lee involving the Leaf Dragon God.

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Naruto sat on his bed in his apartment, wondering about the mission 'I don't get it, whoever that Akatsuki woman was she was able to counter every attack I threw at her except for the Rasengan. Then there's Itachi, in that genjutsu he put one of his crows inside of me. Then the masked guy that Shikamaru and the rest faced, what's his deal?'

"Naruto." a voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Naruto looked to see Sasuke sitting by his window "Sasuke."

"Come on, the Tsunade wants to talk to you about something."

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Outside the Hokage's mansion, Naruto saw Gamabunta and Gamakichi "Chief Toad and Gamakichi?"

"Yo, what's up Naruto?" Gamakichi waved.

"Hey, what are you guys doing here? Did something happen?"

"Well actually-"

"Gamakichi keep your trap shut!" Gamabunta barked "Let the boss and Tsunade handle it, they know what they're doing."

Naruto blinked "Well that isn't weird in the slightest, what the hell is going on?"

"Don't worry about it, let's go." Sasuke kept walking.

'What's with him? I know the truth about Itachi really shook him up, but he's being kind of secretive.'

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Tsunade looked to see Sasuke and Naruto enter the room "You're both here."

Naruto looked around to see Tatsu, Shikamaru, Dosu, Ino and several toads in the room 'What the hell?'

"So this is Jiraiya-boy's student, is it?" the old frog spoke.

Tsunade nodded "Yes, this is Naruto Uzumaki, the Child of Prophecy you spoke of."

Naruto looked at the old frog "So what's up with the ceramic old geezer frog?"

"Pipe down, watch your mouth Naruto. He is one of the two great sages of Mount Moyboku, Lord Fukasaku. He travelled all the way here just so he could speak with you."

'Huh?'

"Well to be more accurate, I'm a great sage toad." Fukasaku pointed out "But never mind that, it doesn't matter. Answer me this, are you Jiraiya-boy's student or aren't you?"

"Jiraiya-boy? A boy? Don't treat the Pervy Sage like a kid, who does this old geezer frog think he is anyway?"

"I told you already, watch your mouth!" Tsunade hissed.

'What's her problem?'

"Naruto, he's the one who taught Sage jutsu to Master Jiraiya." Shizune told him "He's Jiraiya's master."

"Wait, this guy's Pervy Sage's teacher?"

Fukasaku burst out laughing "So you call him the Pervy Sage do you? I've never heard a more fitting nickname for Jiraiya-boy."

"What the hell does this Geezer Sage want? What did he come so far to talk to me about anyway?"

"I'm not exactly sure where to begin this, but let me is. I suppose the most important thing at the moment is…" Fukasaku let out a long sigh "I'm afraid Jiraiya-boy has died in battle."

Naruto froze, having trouble processing the information "Wh-What are you talking about?"

"I know that this is very sudden, so I understand if you don't believe me. For some time now, rumors have been circulating that the leader of the Akatsuki was operating out of the Hidden Rain Village, so Jiraiya-boy went there in person to verify whether or not these rumors were true."

Dosu's head snapped towards him "Wait a minute, the leader of the Akatsuki is in the Hidden Rain Village? From what I know that village is very difficult to infiltrate, it's entirely closed off from the outside world."

"Yes, but Master Jiraiya was especially skilled in infiltration and espionage tactics." Kakashi told him.

Fukasaku nodded "Yes, exactly. Jiraiya-boy encountered Pain, the leader of the Akatsuki. However, it turns out that Pain was a former student of Jiraiya-boy's from many many years ago."

"Wait, what do you mean he was his student?" asked Tatsu.

"I don't know the particulars, but Jiraiya-boy called him Nagato."

"That goes way back to a time during the chaos of the Third Great Ninja War." Tsunade told them "The Hidden Rain Village had become a battlefield, and Jiraiya had taken some war orphans under his wing. Who would've imagined those kids…"

"But to take out someone like Jiraiya, that's absurd." Tatsu pointed out "How the hell did he pull that off?"

Fukasaku looked him dead in the eye "It was because Pain possesses the Rinnegan." he got shocked looks.

"The Rinnegan?"

"Yes."

"The eye of the Sage of the Six Paths?"

"Yes."

"...It's finally happened, I've been officially brain f*cked."

"The fabled ocular jutsu, the Rinnegan. Its power was supposedly beyond anything you could imagine. But there's more."

"What, next you're gonna say there were two people with the Rinnegan?"

"No. There were six."

"...I'm just gonna shut up now."

"I don't know exactly how this is possible, perhaps there's some trick behind it. I believe that Jiraiya-boy discovered the secret behind the six of them in that final terrible battle, but…"

"But he got wrecked to the point where he could barely talk?"

"Even after his throat had been crushed by Pain and he knew the end was near, Jiraiya-boy left a message before he collapsed." Fukasaku removed his cloak and turned around, revealing the message on his back "This is his message."

"Looks like some sort of code."

"I'm sure he did this to prevent Pain from catching on." Fukasaku put his robe back on "And that's everything I know about Jiraiya-boy's efforts."

"I wonder what he was trying to tell us." Tsunade wondered "Maybe we can decode this, then hopefully we'll understand."

Naruto finally spoke up, his voice low "You let him go, is that right Granny?"

"...That's right."

"Why would you ever let him do something so risky? You knew Pervy Sage better than anyone granny, how could you send him somewhere so dangerous alone?!"

"Stop it Naruto." Kakashi cut him off "You of all people oughta know Lady Tsunade's feelings."

Naruto said nothing, he just started towards the door.

"Naruto, where are you going?" asked Ino.

"If the Pervy Sage had been the Fifth Hokage then he never would've let Granny Tsunade take a risk like that, never." then Naruto left the room, the door slamming behind him.

Tatsu stopped Ino from going after him "Just give him time, he'll need it." then he looked over towards Fukasaku "Sorry about him, do you want me to-"

"No need, that's quite alright." Fukasaku waved him off "But about that Child of Prophecy vision I mentioned earlier."

"Naruto is the Child of Prophecy, I know that for a fact."

"I can see that this child truly loved and admired Jiraiya-boy, it makes me hope more than anything that you're right."

Tsunade reflected on her last conversation with Jiraiya before he left 'Jiraiya…'

"Tsunade-girl. Tsunade-girl!"

Tsunade snapped out of it.

"You alright?" asked Tatsu, knowing the answer.

"Yes, I'm fine now. I apologize."

"You've received some very sad news, no one can blame you for being distraught. But that said, you have a vital duty to perform." Fukasaku pointed out "You must protect the village, it's essential that you stay strong."

"I know."

"In any case, let's discuss the clues that Jiraiya-boy left for us. In addition to the message he's left on my back, he's given us other leads as well. A Hidden Rain ninja that Jiraiya-boy managed to capture is inside the belly of that frog. And one last thing remains." he formed a hand seal and summoned another toad "Inside this toad is one of the bodies of Pain that Jiraiya-boy managed to kill, one of the six."

"Pain's body?"

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As he wandered through the streets, Naruto stared at a collection of Make-Out Series books, reflecting on his training with Jiraiya.

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Fukasaku and the rest looked at the body of Pain from inside the toad "This is Pain."

"The ripple pattern, is that the legendary Rinnegan?" asked Shizune.

"That's correct, if we study this body then I believe we may find clues on how to defeat Pain."

"A shinobi's corpse is full of information, we'll need skilled medical ninja and then we'll launch a full autopsy on him." Tsunade decided "Shizune."

"Right, I'll take care of it." Shizune assured her.

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Fukasaku looked at the photo of the code on his back "The photo's very clear." he handed it back to Tsunade "I have given you everything that was entrusted to me."

Tsunade nodded "Yes, indeed."

"I will return home now but let me know what you find, since Jiraiya-boy's student is here you can send him to contact me at Mount Myoboku."

"Thank you very much, I promise you that we will find a way somehow to defeat Pain."

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Naruto kept wandering around the village, reflecting on his time with Jiraiya 'Pervy Sage…'

"Hey Naruto." a voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Naruto looked ahead to see Lee in front of him "Bushy Brow."

"I hear you guys have been really active on missions lately, everybody's talking about you, Tatsu and Sasuke. How about we head over to Ichiraku and catch up over some ramen."

"...Maybe later." and Naruto kept walking.

"What could be so bad that he resisted ramen?"

"Something that made his heart shatter in the most un-youthful way possible."

Lee looked to see Guy standing behind him "Guy-sensei. What do you mean?"

Guy let out a long sigh "I just heard from Kakashi, something happened."

"What?"

"Master Jiraiya of the legendary Sannin has been killed in battle."

Lee froze "What?"

"It was the leader of the Akatsuki."

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Danzo stared at the photo of Jiraiya's code "So this is the code?"

"That's right, I'm placing you and your men in charge of this." Tsunade told him "The guys in the Cypher Division don't work this late, that's why I'm having your guys do it."

"Very well."

"If you'll excuse me." then Tsunade made her way out of the room, shutting the door behind her, and reflected on her past with Jiraiya, tears streaming down her face "You stupid fool…"

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After taking a late night walk and buying a popsicle, Naruto sat on a bench, tears streaming down his face 'Pervy Sage…'

"Naruto." a soft voice brought him back.

Naruto looked to see Lee sit down beside him "Bushy Brow."

"I heard about what happened to Master Jiraiya, I know this probably won't help but I really am sorry."

"All I ever wanted was to have him keep watching over me, I wanted him to see me become Hokage. But I only showed him the worst, most uncool side of me. I'm still so…"

"Naruto, listen to me." Lee grabbed his shoulder "All Master Jiraiya ever had was praise for you. He was always boasting about you, he even kept saying that you were like his own grandchild. It's true, he had faith that you were the one who would inherit his will, and he truly believed that you'd become one of the greatest Hokage in history one day. He's still watching over you and he always will be, even at this very minute. It doesn't matter where he is, I know for a fact that he wouldn't be happy to see you this upset and miserable over this. Naruto, I speak for everyone in the village when I say this. Just go back to being the you he praised so highly." he broke the popsicle in two and took half "You can't just stay here and mope like this, you're a distinguished of Master Jiraiya, one of the legendary Sannin, acknowledged by the great Jiraiya." he held out one of the halves.

Naruto slowly accepted one of the halves "Thanks… Bushy Brow… Lee…"

"Don't mention it, what are teammates for? After all, we're both members of Team Dragon right?"

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Morning came.

Danzo came to check on the decoding "Status report."

"We've checked over it several times sir, this definitely isn't a Hidden Leaf code." one of the ANBU told him "It doesn't correspond to any of our algorithms."

"I see."

"But Jiraiya wrote this in his final moments." Tatsu appeared in the window sill "I doubt he'd be able to come up with anything too complicated."

"That's true. It's a string of numbers so it's most likely a shared key encryption."

"Well yeah but can it be decoded?"

Then one of the members of the Cypher Division, Shiho, came in "Frankly without the key, it's impossible to decipher the code."

"The key?"

"Yes, basically without knowing the rules that govern this code we simply can't decrypt it. Unless we could find something from Jiraiya's life that could be the key, I doubt we'll ever crack the code."

"Where do you suggest we start looking?"

"I wouldn't know how I'm afraid, but perhaps someone that was close to him would recognize it. Perhaps they would know the key, but given the circumstances of his death he may have come up with this encryption hastily to prevent the enemy from figuring out his message. We can be sure of nothing, consider who he left the message for and go and ask them. Perhaps then you'll find some clues."

"Well that would leave three, them being Naruto, Tsunade or Kakashi. Thanks for the tip, if I figure out anything then I'll come right back."

Shiho's cheeks turned pink and she began fixing her hair in a mirror "Sure, I'll be here."

'Sasuke's right, fangirls are so easy.'

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Kakashi looked at the code "9, 31, 8, 106, 7, 207, 15."

"Do you have any ideas at all?" asked Tatsu "Anything helps at this point, did any of these numbers ever come up in a conversation with Jiraiya that you can recall?"

"Let me think…" then he stopped.

"What, you found something?"

'This one, 106…' he recalled Jiraiya mentioning Tsunade's bust size to be 106 centimeters "No, that can't be it."

"What?"

"Nothing's coming to me, why don't you try Lady Tsunade or Naruto next?"

"I already tried Tsunade, she wasn't any help, so that leaves Naruto."

"Aside from the code, I'm also worried about him."

"I'll do what I can to cheer him up, don't worry."

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Tatsu rang Naruto's doorbell "Hey Naruto, you in there?"

Then the door cracked open and Naruto peeked out "Hey Tatsu, what's up? What do you want?"

"Well for starters, how about you let me come in and stop acting like a hermit or a goblin. It's creeping me out."

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Tatsu showed Naruto the code "How about it? Do these numbers mean anything to you?"

Naruto just stared, a daze look in his eyes.

"Hey numbnuts you still with me?"

He kept staring.

"Earth to stupid."

Staring.

"DUDE!"

Naruto yelped and fell off the bed "What was that for?"

"You're the one staring off into space, you brought that on yourself."

"Oh yeah, sorry. So what were you saying?"

"...Okay you're hopeless. Get up stupid, you're coming with me."

"Where to?"

"Just shut up and put some pants on, nobody needs to see gama boxers."

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Naruto was rather confused to find himself outside the hospital "Why the hell would you bring me here?"

Tatsu sighed "Just shut up and be patient, she's coming out right now."

"Who?"

Then a very pregnant Yugao came out "Oh, you came."

"What the hell? Yugao-sensei is that you? Were you hospitalized for eating too much barbecue? Your stomach is bigger than Choji's!"

Tatsu smacked Naruto on the back of the head "She's pregnant not fat you idiot, how many brain cells die every minute I wonder."

"Wait, so then you mean she's-?"

"She's pregnant, I literally just said that. Seriously, I think I see smoke coming out of your head."

Yugao sighed "Tatsu, you don't have to come every time."

"I don't care if I do or not, I made a promise to Hayate-sensei and I have no intention of breaking my word."

"You're making him proud by doing what you are." and she went on her way.

"I really hope so."

"Hey Tatsu, what exactly did Hayate-sensei ask you to do?" asked Naruto.

"Something I still would've gladly done if he asked me to or not. Their child is going to be my student."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Hayate-sensei entrusted me with that and Shika is gonna be in the same boat when Kurenai and Asuma have their kid."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah." Tatsu let out a long and heavy sigh "I'm sorry about Jiraiya, really I am. I lost my teacher just like you, I understand exactly what you're going through right now, every single bit of it. But whining, sulking and crying isn't going to make things better. Face the facts Naruto, the two of us should be way past that point in our lives by now."

"What do you mean?"

"Hayate-sensei imparted a lot of knowledge to me, some lessons were important and some were really minor but to me it didn't matter. The same could be said for you right? An infinite number of priceless things, so I think the time has finally come to stop being students and become teachers in our own right. It's gonna be a lot of work and suffering, but we don't have the right to complain, eventually you're gonna be the one paying for the ramen and your student will be calling you Naruto-sensei. After all, we have to grow up at some point if we hope to become awesome shinobi and men like Hayate and Jiraiya were right?"

Naruto said nothing, he just took it all in.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"...Yeah, I think I do. Tatsu, thank you."

"So pull yourself together and get some clean pants on, you've got a hell of a lot of work ahead of you." he held up the paper with the code "You in?"

"Hell yeah I'm in, now let's do this."

"Pants first, code second. Anyway, overall Jiraiya left us three sources of information."

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Tsunade entrusted the interrogation of the Hidden Rain ninja captured by Jiraiya to Ibiki and his team.

That was the first source.

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Shizune and Kin were heading the autopsy of the body of Pain that Jiraiya had sent back for them.

That was the second source.

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Naruto stared at the picture of the code "Hmm…"

"You've been staring like that for a while." Tatsu noted "Do you notice anything? Anything at all? I already checked with both Tsunade and Kakashi and both of them were pretty much useless so we can only guess that Jiraiya left this code with you in mind. There has to be something there, something we're overlooking. Tell us anything that comes into your mind, anything at all."

"Well there is one thing that's been bothering me since I saw it."

"What is it?"

"Well there are all those numbers on there right? So why is there one katakana letter among all of them?"

"Wait, you said katakana? Where do you see a katakana in this code?" asked Danzo.

"See? Right here." Naruto pointed.

"But that's just a number 9." Tatsu pointed out.

"That's what I thought at first too but that's not it, look again. It's not a number at all, it's the katakana letter ta."

"Well yeah I guess you'd interpret it that way, but that stretch is as big as you are blonde. What makes you think it's ta anyway?"

"Well you know Pervy Sage, always writing books. He was a writer after all and I travelled all over with him, wherever we went he always made me read his handwritten drafts and asked me what I thought about them. They were really boring though."

"Of course you would find a porn book to be boring."

"Not the point. Anyway, each time he used the letter ta it was hard to read because whenever I saw it it looked like the number 9 to me."

"Wait a moment." Danzo stared hard at the code, then turned to one of his ANBU "Bring us a sample of Jiraiya's handwriting."

"Yes sir." the ANBU disappeared and returned with a book with a sample Jiraiya's writing inside it.

"What you're referring to is Jiraiya's penmanship quirk, a habit most writers have. Whenever Jiraiya wrote the katakana letter ta, he had a habit of drawing the first stroke shorter than most so the first and third strokes are unnecessarily connected, and since he rounds his second stroke the entire letter looks like the number 9."

"Wait a second." Tatsu checked his copy of Tales of a Gutsy Ninja "Jiraiya wrote this but I don't see it in here."

"That was most likely written before this habit developed." Danzo took the photo and compared it to the sample.

"It's exactly the same. Jiraiya must've planned this, he knew that Naruto was the only person who would recognize that quirk." then Tatsu rounded on Naruto "You idiot, why the hell didn't you mention something that important sooner?"

"What's the big deal about knowing that it's the letter ta?"

"How have my brain cells not melted through my nose from listening to you?" then he suddenly paused "Wait, that's it. It was back when you were reading Jiraiya's manuscripts, that's when you found out about his quirk. The code must refer to the book you were reading. There must be more clues somewhere in some of his works too, the other numbers must refer to a word order or a number of lines or a word count or even something like a page number. It has to be related to the encryption key. Naruto, which book were you reading?"

"Let's see… which one was it?"

"Fine then, just tell me exactly how many of Jiraiya's books have been published."

"Counting the one you hold, four." Danzo answered almost immediately "Three of them belong to the Make Out series."

"...Why do you know that? Nevermind, that's not too many so all we have to do is check all of them."

"It's probably this one."

Tatsu looked to see Sasuke sitting in the window sill holding the Make Out Tactics book "Oh good, that makes it easier."

"It's been on my mind so I decided to pop in when I overheard your voices. I think I caught most of it."

"Just one question, why do you have a copy of Make Out Tactics."

"Zaku."

"Ah. Anyway, that's the only book Jiraiya's published with the letter ta in the title."

"That's the one Pervy Sage was working the whole time during our training." Naruto realized.

"And again, something Jiraiya knew only Naruto would be able to figure out. Like I thought, that magnificent lecherous bastard passed the key to Naruto."

"I'll leave you to it then, later." and Sasuke left.

"Anyway, this ta is the first character in the code. When a character from a book is used in a code, it could signify word placement or line number, but the first point to investigate should be page number. Anyway, the numbers in this code are 31, 8, 106, 7, 207 and 15, which leaves us 6 potential pages worth of information. Let's start with page 31."

"Alright." Naruto flipped to page 31 "Here it is, now what do we do next?"

"Now we've gotta look at what the first letter or word on that page is, so read the first sentence out loud."

"...What?"

"Read it out loud."

"Uh…"

"Oh for the love of hell, you're hopeless. You're a perv and I've got way too much dignity to read that crap out loud. What we need here is a third party with no shame whatsoever."

Danzo suddenly found them both staring at him "Why are you staring at me?"

"You know why we're staring at you."

"...Give me the book."

45 excruciating minutes later…

"That's all of the pages." Danzo put the book down and sighed 'No wonder Hiruzen was always so secretive about it.'

Tatsu finished writing it down "There, now all 6 pages done."

"What does it say?" asked Naruto.

"If I read the first character from each page of the book in order, it should say The real one's not among them. That's what it says."

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"How should I know? Anyway we'd better relay this to Lord Fukasaku right away, he fought Pain with Jiraiya so he might know something."

"Then we should go have Tsunade summon Lord Fukasaku right away." Danzo told them.

"Good idea, and you'd better come too."

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Fukasaku stared long and hard at the deciphered code "The real one's not among them."

"Well Geezer Sage, what do you think?" asked Naruto "Does it make any sense to you?"

"I'm not sure, it's still all too unclear to me."

"But you have some hypotheses though don't you?" asked Dosu.

"I've already told you absolutely everything I know about Pain, he seems to be able to come back from the dead so I hesitate to give you air conjectures. Under these conditions it's still mighty dangerous to take him on, we must first uncover his secrets."

"How are the other investigations going?" asked Tatsu "The autopsy and the interrogation."

Ino sighed "It looks like they're both gonna take a little bit longer."

"Like how much longer?" asked Naruto.

"I can't really say, I don't think that they even know."

"Well while they're screwing around we're losing time!"

"Interrogation aside, an autopsy requires detailed cell and tissue analysis and enzyme extraction and it all has to be extremely detailed. Doing all of that takes time, it'll be a week at the soonest before we know anything for sure."

"Well then what should we do in the meantime?" asked Tatsu.

Tsunade sighed "Shizune and Kin are heading up the autopsy, so it should be quicker than usual but we'll still just have to wait."

"No, I'll go make them speed it up." Naruto started towards the door.

"Naruto this is a delicate process, you can't just barge in like that." Dosu protested.

"I will avenge Pervy Sage." Naruto gripped his fist to the point where it nearly bled "I can't just sit around here doing nothing."

"But listen Naruto-boy." Fukasaku spoke up "Now that we've deciphered the coded message there's nothing else going on that involves you right now."

"So what about it? What are you trying to say?"

"Even as you are now, no matter how many jutsu you know you're definitely nowhere near strong enough to defeat Pain yet."

"You wanna run that by me again?"

"You know I'm right, even Jiraiya-boy couldn't defeat him and if he couldn't then do you think you could?"

"Well… I guess not…"

"Forget it, if you were to fight him now then you'd just be playing into the Akatsuki's hands and get capture and have Kurama extracted." Tatsu pointed out.

"So what are you guys saying? I should just totally forget about avenging the Pervy Sage? That I should just sit around and do nothing?"

Fukasaku shook his head "We said no such thing. Being asked to come here was quite opportune, you see for a long time I've been planning on coming to speak with you Naruto-boy."

"About what?"

"Let me put it this way. Do you want to come with me and train in the art of Sage Jutsu under my guidance?"

"Train in Sage Jutsu?"

"So that's your angle." Tatsu paused, blue markings appearing around his eyes "Not a bad idea actually, and the timing couldn't be better for that."

"Wait, so is Sage Jutsu really that awesome?"

"You tell me." Tatsu appeared behind Naruto before he could even blink "I mastered it after the mission with the Rasenshuriken, at this point I could probably beat Tsunade in a one on one fight."

"Woah…"

"And for the record, very few have been able to master Sage Mode of any kind. Among them were the First Hokage, Jiraiya, the Fourth Hokage, and I'm pretty sure my brother could use it too. Anyway, Pain defeated Jiraiya after he'd summoned Lord Fukasaku and Lady Shima so at this point I'm probably the only person in the village who could defeat Pain, but even then I have my doubts."

"I'm as furious as you." Fukasaku admitted "I too want to avenge the death of my student Jiraiya-boy, I believe the only one who can truly do that is you Naruto-boy."

Naruto blinked "Me? Seriously?"

"You do want to avenge Jiraiya-boy don't you?"

"You better believe I do."

"Well then come with me now, I can teach you Sage Jutsu at Mount Myoboku. The same way I hammered it into Jiraiya-boy I'll hammer it into you, if that's okay."

"Will it help me win? Will I be able to defeat Pain?"

"Like with Tatsu-boy there's no guarantees, it all depends on you Naruto-boy." then Fukasaku turned to Tsunade "Are you alright with this?"

Tsunade nodded "Yes of course, Naruto go with him."

"I warn you though, Sage Jutsu training is unbelievable rigorous. Are you ready?"

"Well if Tatsu and Pervy Sage and all the others were able to master it then I'll give it my best shot too. Count me in."

'An entrusted student, the Child of Prophecy. Nicely said."

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Within half a day, the time had come for departure.

"We should be moseying along now." Fukasaku told the group "So Naruto-boy, say your goodbyes."

"Right." Naruto turned to the others "Alright, I'm off guys. Make sure you take care of that code for me."

"Don't worry about that." Tatsu waved him off "If we figure out anything else then we'll be sure to let you know."

"I will leave the messenger frog with you." Fukasaku told them "Send him to me if anything comes up."

"Will do." then he turned to Naruto "Alright man, don't come back without kicking some ass. And just to make sure, take this." he handed Naruto a scroll.

"What is it?"

"Some wind jutsu, be sure to master them."

"You got it, now let's go." he started walking, then stopped.

"You have no idea where you're going do you?"

"No I do not."

'Yeah, we're doomed.'

"I know what you're thinking, and fo f*ck yourself."

"It takes a month to get there on foot." Fukasaku told him "It's also known as Maze Mountain because if you don't know the secret route then you won't be able to get there."

"Oh come on, why does this place have to be so hard to reach?"

"Wait Naruto-boy, you already summoned a binding contract with the toads. There's no need to worry son." Fukasaku summoned the toad contract "Alright Tsunade-girl, I'll just be borrowing this boy then."

"Hold on, what do you mean there's no need to worry-" then Naruto disappeared.

"So you used a Reverse Summoning." Tatsu noted "Not bad."

"Good luck on your end of things as well." then Fukasaku disappeared.

"Alright, let's get back to work with figuring out the information Jiraiya left." then Tatsu noticed that Tsunade was staring off into space "I've got a pretty good idea of what you're thinking."

Tsunade just stared out into the distance "The fact that the Great Lord Elder prophesied Jiraiya writing those books may have been intended to enable him to eventually leave the encrypted message, meaning that the prophecy may be real. In which case…"

"Naruto truly is the Child of Prophecy."

"You've always been so sure of him, whenever he puts his mind to something you've never had any doubts that he'd be able to do it."

"Because I've always had faith in him, ever since the day we first met."

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At the same time, Tobi and the Akatsuki that the Eight-Tails jinchuuriki Killer Bee, who had been supposedly captured by the masked pink-haired Akatsuki, was actually a clone made from a fragment of the Eight-Tails, while Pain and Konan headed out for the Hidden Leaf to hunt down and capture Naruto.

A/N:

This one was short, but that's mainly because of what's about to come in the near future.

There's not much to be said this time, other than a heads up. Next chapter will be based on one of the Shippuden movies, and it will revolve around Tatsu and Sasuke.

Just to be clear for future reference, I've decided that I won't give Danzo that right arm with all the Sharingan since I'm making him a semi-good guy. He'll have both normal arms and Shisui's Sharingan, that's it.