Sealing Salientia - Chapter 10: Conflict - Author: PenSmoke

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor make any profit from writing this.

Trigger warning: Self-harm. Please be advised. (Last two paragraphs)

Previously on Sealing Salientia:
But, anger was also a waste, he reminded himself as he checked his temper. Anger was yet another emotion that only weakened a sharp mind. Danzo would need a new plan, a new way to spread the seeds of his teachings into the sun, creating a new forest of leaves for the village to truly hide within. His Roots would grow and his enemies would wither. With time. All it took was time.

Fire Country
Morning, October 15th, Year 65

Jiraiya had spent three nights at the brothel and while the girls were as beautiful as ever, his pockets were already running dry. This would be his last night, he decided. Even though he loved how they fawned over Naruto, he only had so much money on hand and while he could always visit the Fire capital for a top-up, that was a long journey in the opposite direction. Plus, he had things that needed to get done that took priority over living the high life for a few more days. He had his chakra issues to try and solve, as well as Naruto's overabundance of Yang chakra to figure out. Not to mention obtaining a lot more formula for the incessantly hungry child and create a more permanent shelter for the two of them that could still be broken down and moved quickly as he roamed around with his spywork.

After thinking on his problems and scratching several ideas off of his list, he had found the path that he would start on. His old teammate, Tsunade had taken off from Konoha about three years ago, forsaking the ninja life due to her constant losses. Even if she claimed not to be a ninja anymore, her medical techniques were the best in the whole world, so far as he knew. Contemplating it for a moment, he found it interesting how his entire team had gone on to become some of the foremost experts in their respective fields. Even Orochimaru was an absolutely brilliant mind when it came to his scientific research into body enhancements. He had actually considered getting Orochimaru to figure out some sort of prothesis first, but that would require going back to the Leaf, which was not in the game plan. Which left Tsunade, retired as she was, his best bet for fixing his arm. He had known Tsunade for almost 30 years at this point and considering he wasn't even 40 yet, that was a significant portion of his life. Even back when they had graduated the Academy at 7 years old, he had known that she was something special. He had crushed on her for a while before they became teammates, then when they were placed on the same team, he had been so happy. He smiled wistfully at the memory, how naïve he had been back then. Looking back, it was always obvious that she had always had a thing for Dan Kato, their classmate. Tsunade had always gone after Dan and not himself. When they were on a team together as young kids, it had taken months to get Tsunade to stop picking on him every day. Even then, it was only reduced to every other day. She had clearly found him and his actions annoying and treated him as such. Jiraiya had watched as the girl he crushed had had grown into a woman that he trusted and respected, all the while pining for man that wasn't him. Thankfully, they had started to work together as a team before getting involved in the Shinobi Wars, where they earned their accolades. They fought and bled and watched those around them die and gotten through it as a team.

He had known for a more than a dozen years now that he loved that woman and that she would likely never reciprocate such affections. 20 some years ago, her little brother had died and Jiraiya was never able to console her. She had found another for such. And then, 12 years ago, when that person had died in the Second Shinobi War, Tsunade had been devastated. She developed a crippling bout of hemophobia, the fear of blood and was unable to serve as a medic anymore because of it. She had all but disappeared from his life entirely, devoted almost all of her time to raising the niece of her now deceased lover, Shizune. Growing tired of the requests to return to ninja life, she had left the Leaf behind. He hadn't seen her since, but his feelings still hadn't waned. Knowing her as well as he did, she was off gambling somewhere, using her family name to wrack up enormous debts. She wasn't nicknamed 'The Legendary Sucker' for nothing. The woman almost never won and if she did, it had always been a bad omen. The amount of debt she had probably racked up since leaving him behind would probably even make his bank accounts, flush from sales of his books, cry. The place he was, Tanzaku Town, was noted for having a large gambling section of the city and he would bet that she had visited at some point recently and would bet even more that she had made some local yakuza angry at borrowing money from one of their loan sharks and then skipping out. While yakuza like that existed all over the civilian world, they were never quite ready to handle dealing with ninja. Their typical methods of collecting their money back, such as intimidation and breaking a couple bones didn't work so well on ninja that could kick them into the next country. So, angry mob bosses it was, as they would be certain to have some information.

He had performed an effective routine a thousand times by now, consisting of finding some unsuspecting mobster, capture and interrogate them, knock them out, use a transformation to look like the guy and then spin a story to gather information about what he needed. He was annoyed though, because he typical tactic wasn't going to work. He not only couldn't disguise himself like that anymore, but he had to figure out what to do with Naruto, as he couldn't well leave the kid alone. Oh sure, the ladies at his temporary residence loved taking care of the kid, but he wasn't foolish enough to let any of them out of his sight while they played with the boy. That was his godson, basically his grandson and he was damned if the kid got hurt because of some civilian whore, pretty though she may be.

This was going to take a different tactic, then. He thought for a minute and started to disrobe. Changing his outfit style using the red sash with yellow circles as a makeshift pair of pants, removing all the ninja wire mesh and leaving the green shirt in place, he looked much more like a normal civilian. Untying the knot and flipping his custom headband backwards to fashion as a belt, he attempted at first, only to realize that those sharp prongs hurt when facing inwards. Disconnecting the metal plate from the cloth, he looped the belt around himself and placed the metal plate into a inner pocket of his shirt. Still poking him every now and then, it was better than having it jabbed into your midsection constantly. Borrowing some left behind lipstick and makeup from one of the many ladies that had visited, he mixed a few shades together with some water until it was a nice even brown. Slathering the mixture on his head and massaging it in, he turned his normal shock of white spiky hair into a brown mop of hair that looked dirty and stringy. He could improve on this even more, especially with tossing some dirt across the entire ensemble on in the streets.

He finished feeding the blond child in his custody, waited until the boy fell asleep and wrapped Naruto up as best he could. Then the now physically disguised man snuck out of the place he had been residing, not wishing to let any crossover between his normal look and new look happen. He knew how fast the rumors of a man changing his appearance to sneak out of a brothel would fly around and didn't wish to have such. Walking across the cobbled streets, he kicked up as much dust as he could, taking 'shortcuts' through dingy alleyways, getting himself to look moderately filthy. Comfortable that his disguise would be impossible to see through, especially being as physical rather than chakric, he pushed the almost mud-caked hair out of his face and made for the gambling district.

Adept at perceiving information as he was, it didn't take more than a few glances to see the group of yakuza thugs gathered in an alleyway. They weren't trying to be discreet, obviously used to feeling like they owned the turf and nobody would hassle them on it. Perfect, as the over-confidence would really help him sell it. Taking a slower pace and adding in a slight limp, he approached the one who appeared to be keeping a lookout and the other three talked in the background.

Adopting a slightly higher pitched voice than his usual, he called out to the first man. "Can you help me?"

The thug sneered back at him through a pointed nose and curled mouth that was clearly missing a couple teeth. "Scram, ya bum. We don' want to likes of you stinking us up."

Jiraiya almost laughed at the pathetic intimidation. He had seen 6 year old kids more threatening. Of course, that 6 year old was an ANBU agent who was already killing in the secret wars, so it was a bit different. Regardless he took a tone of fear and uncertainty in his voice. "I was told by the man at the casino to come over here to pay off my loan," he said, gesturing at the largest of the nearby gambling houses. "I've never done this before, do I pay you?" He held out a hand with a few dirty notes of currency stuffed inside and barely peeking out.

"Hey guys, look at this! Poor guy has no idea what to do." The other three looked up at the display, one laughing at the scene. "Sure, we'll take your money. Come with us." They formed a group around him, leading him into the farther side of the dead end alley, as best as they could get to be out of sight. The one in front of him being the talkative one he had initially spoken with, kept going, "Yeah, we'll make sure you learn all about exactly how to deal with us. Just come along back here a couple more steps and well take you to the place where we do our business." Upon reaching the far corner and turning it, the yakuza thug spun around quickly to try and grab at where he though the man that had been following him was.

Instead, he grabbed thin air. He blinked for a second, not seeing any of his squad there either and for a second thought he had just imagined the whole sequence. That was until three loud thuds of the bodies of his comrades slammed into the blocked off alley behind him. As the poor guy whirled around again, he found himself staring at the clearly unconscious bodies of his comrades with eyes bulging out of his head. A moment later, they bulged out even further as the man that he had been escorting landing on him with a 'thwumf' of displaced air, blasting him into the hard packed dirt and stone beneath. His breath was knocked out from him and he wheezed trying to greedily get air back into his empty lungs.

Jiraiya did laugh this time. The thugs were inept at fighting, the lot of them, they probably only kept their position due to fear, rather than by physical prowess. He had been able to grab and throw into the air, first the man at the back, followed quickly by the ones on each side. His launch lifted them up two stories to the roof above, where he jumped up a moment later without a sound. The lead man didn't even have a clue. Then, when the ninja had seen the 'ambush' start, he had tossed the men over the edge in quick succession. They would be bruised and battered, but would live. Probably. He didn't care much. The preservation of low-life thugs was not high on his priority list. Landing on the last one from an angle, he splattered the man into the dust, making sure not to jostle Naruto during any of it. He was literally fighting with one hand tied behind his back. Wel,l holding an infant anyway. Even with the necessitated handicap, these yakuza hadn't even posed a challenge. In a way, he was grateful for that, he didn't want to have to involve Naruto in any real fight.

"So, I think you realize what's going to happen here. You tell me what I need to know and you can walk away with bruised skin and bruised egos. Don't tell me anything and I'll have to get serious." Staying in his frog kata meditation pose, to place his entire weight on the man's spine, he waited for the inevitable spew of information to follow. "Am I understood?" It appeared that the thug had no breath left to speak with, as he wheezed out a sound and then nodded frantically. Good, he always preferred cooperative subjects. "All I need to know is where to find the boss. And not the little fry you scum report to. The oyabun. The head honcho. The father." The battered man attempted to speak again, but only got out a cough and another wheeze. Instead, he raised what he could of his arm and pointed to the casino Jiraiya had initially indicated. Well, that was simple. Made sense too, keep an eye on the biggest money, see where any targets might be, protect your investments.

"Alright, I'm glad to see you made the smart decision. Now, let's go into a scenario. I'm going to get off of you and ask for his name and you're going to tell me without any funny business. If that happens, I'm going to walk away and you won't ever hear from me again. If that doesn't happen, well, let's just say the your insides may not remain inside you for very long." At the second nodding of the thug's head, he stepped off the man's back and awaited a moment while he caught his breath with loud rasping, choking noises. After a few seconds, the man practically whispered "Kenichi."

Smiling, Jiraiya elegantly chopped down with his hand on a nerve cluster in the man's neck, instantly sending him into an unconscious state. Leaving the four yakuza scum lying in the alleyway, he continued to smile. They wouldn't be able to threaten anybody for the rest of the day. He would have eliminated them and not really felt a bit of remorse, but he wanted to keep a low profile. Even if they were scum, 4 men of a crime organization going missing at once, just before a strange man appeared in front of the boss, would definitely raise suspicions. As it was, they likely wouldn't even say anything about the episode to save face and not risk humiliation. He started meandering over to the casino that was previously pointed at by the thugs to look for this Kenichi. He needed information on Tsunade and he would get it.

Fugaku was enjoying a sunny evening walk, having finished up his work as Hokage for the day. It was a beautiful fall day in Konoha, the sunbeams drifting across leaves that were in the prime of color changes, basking the city in a multi-faceted prism of hues, resplendent across the vision. Fresh air prickled his nose, carrying scents of fresh-cooked meals and newly-cut wood. He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of his hometown and letting his senses carry him for the moment. He knew the path he was walking by memory and was confident that nobody would purposely step in his way. After enjoying just being alive and existing for a few minutes, he found himself at his destination, the Uchiha clan complex. Nodding to the gate guards on duty, he continued forwards towards his home, where his family would be waiting.

Itachi was playing in the yard, juggling five kunai in the air by tossing two up repeatedly and deflecting the other three back around, all while calculating the trajectories of each so that the original knife thrown would return to catching range. Then in a display of skill, flung the two in his hands extra hard, causing sparks to fly as they collided at high speed with each of the five, sending the entire pack careening at a different spot, pinning each blade deep into the bullseye of the various wooden targets around the grassy expanse. Mikoto held Sasuke in her arms, watching the show and clapping when completed, with Sasuke happily gurgling and squealing alongside her applause. He smiled for a moment, enjoying the sight of his family and then joined in the clapping. Itachi whirled around and gave a quick bow. "Hello Father." Whereas Mikoto ceased her own clapping to give a light wave, her face tightening into a frown. He knew that look, something had happened to raise her ire. He mentally scanned what had happened in the past day or so that could've made him the target of such actions, but thought of nothing. Feeling confident that he wasn't the target of her anger, he smiled back at her. He pitied the poor fool who had thought to make her upset. Wheelchair-bound, she may be, but a woman of her caliber was dangerous no matter the situation.

"Hello Itachi. That was quite the display of skill there. I'm proud to see the advancements you've made in the Academy and your own training. Have you been practicing your fireball techniques?" The father look down at son, trying to remember to be lighter and happier in his tone than normal, recalling the odd looks upon his elder son's face when he was displaying positive emotions the other day.

"Yes, father. My fireball is now 182 centimeters across and I can perform it at least a dozen times before noting chakra depletion." Itachi recited, rather emotionlessly.

"Well done, son!" He reached down to muss with his son's hair, noting the initial attempt to dodge out of the way and then relenting as he realized it was not a threat. Impressive shinobi instincts, though to see his own child dodge away was slightly hurting.

Fugaku continued to walk up his house, Itachi alongside him and reached Mikoto on the porch, who was still locked in the tight-lipped facsimile of a smile. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead and greeted her warmly, but that made no difference. He continued to rack his brain of anything that he could have done today to provoke such a reaction, but still came up empty. As they entered the house, the smell of a lovely dinner assaulted him in a pleasant way. Mouth slightly salivating, he approached the stove and exaggeratedly smelled. Cabbage and rice balls with seaweed, Itachi's favorite. It smelled delicious as he served up his family. Passing out the delicious food made by his wife, possibly with Itachi's help, they all sat down to enjoy a lovely meal.

Dinner was followed by a quick lesson to Itachi about clan techniques and what to know about the sharingan after he unlocked it in the future. After passing on some of his knowledge and a few demonstrations, Itachi was sent to up to his bedroom for sleep. Fugaku spent a small time playing with his youngest son as well, entertaining the child for a short while before that child was ready for bed. Preparing his youngest for a hopefully full night of sleep, he retired to his own study for the night, wanting to catch up on some paperwork for the clan.

Upon returning from Sasuke's room, however, he found his wife glaring up at him, blocking the way to his study. Noting his wife's sour expression, he resigned himself to being under her mercy for the next little bit. He had apparently screwed something up and he was going to face the music. She indicated their bedroom and he obliged holding the door open for her to enter. As he slid the door closed, he turned around to face his wife. As he did so, he sensed something about to happen, but even his ninja reflexes were no match for an angry wife.
SMACK! The sound reverberated around the room as his cheek lit up in stinging pain, the mark of a handprint immediately glowing pink on it. That was going to leave a mark, he thought as he went up to rub the inflicted wound.

Mikoto was mad. No. Furious. No. Livid. No. She didn't even have a word to describe how upset she was. She had heard the most insulting thing today from a passing civilian and hadn't even bothered to follow up on it, as it was so ridiculous. And then another person said it. And then a third even congratulated her about it. She was seeing red as she wheeled herself back home. It had taken every ounce of self-control to not blow up as she saw the man responsible approach like nothing was wrong. She couldn't believe the gall of the man now standing before her.

"How long did you think it would be before I found out?" She seethed out through clenched teeth.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure of what you are talking about, love." Her husband replied. Pretending to be ignorant? That was definitely not going to fly!

"Oh, don't you even dare, 'love'." She spit the word sarcastically back at him. "I was approached by a civilian merchant in the market today. Do you know what they said to me?" At Fugaku's shaking of the head, she continued. "They said to thank you for ridding us of that monster." His eyes went wide. "And then another and another." A look of desperation was dawning on the man. Good. Now he knew.

"I see you realize now what I'm talking about. They came up to me congratulating me on what happened. Imagine that. They were congratulating me on my husband killing an innocent defenseless child to rid them of the Kyuubi. I had to swallow down my disgust and not rip their heads off. But for you, you better explain real fast, or I will be ripping your head off."

The look of terror of her husband's face was satisfying, but she knew how to make it even more so. "First, the little head." And then, the big one."

Perfect.

Fugaku knew he was in trouble from the smack to the face. His wife had only struck him once before, when he had foolishly risked his own life while she was pregnant with Itachi. She had come down on him like a hurricane then, beating it into his head that he was going to be a father now and things had changed. He had learned from that, one to never piss Mikoto off again and two that being a father did change things. But that time, she was emotionally distraught and was doing it because she cared about him. This was different. She was locking him down with such a heated expression of rage that he knew she was far more angry than before. If he didn't explain, he had little doubt that she would follow through on her promise. Sure, she may be wheelchair-bound, but he had to sleep sometime. He briefly considered becoming the first kage missing-nin, when he realized he had but one option. Tell her the whole truth as to what happened.

So, he flopped down bonelessly onto the bed and with a sigh, started recounting Hiruzen's deception and the reasons that Fugaku did what he had. It was a lengthy explanation, one that he had done with Hiruzen himself just a couple days ago. And just like the conversation then, it ended with a swearing to secrecy, except this time Fugaku was asking it to be kept, rather than being asked. The previous conversation had gone much better though, as he had convinced the elder Sarutobi to partake in some of his private stash of fine wine, which ended up with the second half of the conversation being much more loose and jovial.

This time, he had to deal with his wife's glare directly in his vision, with it only softening slightly by the end. It was quite clear that he wouldn't be living this down any time soon.

His wife sat still for a moment and then spoke up, "Well, I will admit to being glad to know the man I married doesn't WANT to kill innocent children. But, in the future, if you're going to do something so monumentally stupid as to make it look like you're a child-killer, you WILL tell me first. If not before-hand, immediately after. Am I understood?" He could see that there was no wiggle room in such a decision and immediately agreed, glad to be done with the conversation.

Mikoto spoke up again, "Now that I feel I can tolerate your presence for a few more moments, I heard some other interesting news today. A couple weeks ago, the teachers were raving about Itachi and how they were going to have him graduate early, being the next Kakashi Hatake. Today, Itachi came home somewhat disappointed that he wouldn't be able to graduate early, or so his teachers' told him. They said there were new rules being put in from the top."

Fugaku was quite glad for the change of topic. "Yes, love. I have appointed Hiruzen as the newest Academy headmaster and given him full reign over the Academy to try and produce more skilled ninja to lower the death rates of genin on early missions. You know it's always been a goal of his to teach and to make it so that kids can be kids for a while longer. You remember how he reacted to Hatake when he graduated early and then to subsequent craziness of his life. Look at how the kid handled losing his teammates. The kid is seemingly highly unstable and disappeared from all non-ninja related life. Hiruzen felt so guilty about it all, he wanted to ensure that wouldn't happen again. So, one of his first new policies was that nobody could graduate before at least 10 years old and only in extremely rare circumstances before 12. So, Itachi will have at least 3 years before going out into the field. Which seems like a good thing to be sure. Nobody wants their kid to come back dead in single digits because they were sent out before being prepared." The Fifth Hokage was actually quite pleased with that development. While he had been proud to see how fast Itachi had developed, he feared that similar to the Hatake child before him, being sent out into the world as a so called genius at such a young age would end up mentally destroying his oldest son. The old adage did certainly seem true, the more powerful the shinobi the stranger their personalities. He just wanted his son to be successful and happy.

He heard the now softer voice of his wife again. "That seems good, though Itachi was a little distressed about it. But it will be good to see him have a team and grow up with other kids his age. And I'm glad the Hiruzen is now able to help us all out as Headmaster, that seems like a good place for him." He could tell that she was calming down now from the episode of anger earlier and had accepted his response.

Iruka Umino was laying down in bed, having finished his lessons at the Academy for the week. He stared up at the old ceiling and let thoughts take him. He had incessantly studied that book that Nono had let him borrow, reading while eating, in class, walking around town, basically every time except sleeping. He had finally set it down a short while ago, having finally reached the last page. He toyed with his throwing star, pushing it into his flesh enough to split the skin and then concentrating on the chakra to mend the skin back together again. He felt he had mastered this action by now, having performed it at least a hundred times since discovering the technique and wanted to try something bigger. Gritting his teeth for a moment, he ran the sharp point of the ninja tool down the length of his forearm, leaving an angry red mark behind his hand as it moved. Blood slowly seeped out as his changed his focus again, reaching into the skin to find the capillaries and mend them together. Progressing down his arm, he slowly mended the damage, leaving behind pristine tanned skin, unable to distinguish where the mark had even been. He laughed to himself, thinking about how easy it was to do and the laugh immediately changed into sorrow as he realized that he learned something that he could have used to save his parents, only because his parents died.

Nono Yakushi was settling in for bed when she heard the melancholic and depressed laughter echoing hauntingly through the halls of the orphanage. Terrified of what it might be, she rushed through the halls looking for an intruder, but saw nobody unusual there. The only other person awake was Iruka, who smiled at her and waved from his bed.

AN: And that's it. All of the points that I need to cover before moving significantly forward have been hit. Now we can start progressing.

Hopefully you guys enjoy! Constructive criticism welcome!