Aren't they supposed to be enemies?


A random villager was walking along a path with the day's groceries, when he decided innocuously to look left. There he saw a giant purple snake, a giant red toad, and a giant white slug. The former two had people stood on top of them.

On the ground, a busty lady was threatening a blue haired teenager, while two younger children and a boy dressed all in white watched.

A flaky looking man was stood still as a statue, while a green ghost was trying to escape some blue mirrors and looking a lot like a fly repeatedly bumping against a glass window.

The villager turned away, gulped, and began walking quite briskly back to the village.


Orochimaru stared at Jiraiya. Jiraiya stared at Tsunade. Tsunade stared at Kabuto, and Kabuto stared at Orochimaru.

No one moved.

"Um." Naruto raised a hand. "Are we gonna do something? Because Kabuto is literally dying."

"He's right." Kabuto admitted. "Master, I-"

"Shut up." Orochimaru held a finger out. "Just..just shut up. I'm in a terrible mood right now." He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Okay...Tsunade I don't suppose there's any chance we're still on for the healing my arms thing?"

"Not unless you agree to submit to Konoha's T&I department." She replied, easily.

"That's a no then." Orochimaru sighed. "Great."

"Yeah." Tsunade sighed as well. "Also I don't actually know how."

"You what?"

"You got your soul torn out of your arms and sealed in the belly of the actual Reaper! Reaper with a capital R!" Tsunade laughed. "You think I can fix that? I'm a healer, not the sage of six paths."

"Yo!" Jiraiya shouted. "This is just like that one time with the four cats and the lady from hidden Stone! Remember, when you-"

"Oh my god this is like that!"

"That was hilarious! You were all like-"

"Guys!" Shouted Kabuto. "Still dying!"

"Right, sorry." The three Sannin stopped reminiscing.

"What were the terms again?" Orochimaru asked.

"Your minion releases my dead boyfriend and I save him." Tsunade replied. "And then you all leave us alone."

"That's kinda stingy." Orochimaru chewed on it. "I don't really gain anything out of it, do I?"

"I mean the alternative," Jiraiya pointed out, "is that we kill Kabuto and it's a four vs two against you and captain calcium over here."

"My name's Kimimaro." Said Kimimaro.

"Buddy, I literally do not care." Jiraiya replied.

"The only reason we're offering you the out is because you might still kill one of us, and also we'd probably have to drag Dan to Konoha to seal him away and it would be a super awkward journey." Tsunade finished.

"It's still stingy." Orochimaru pouted. "Don't suppose you have, like, a gift card you could use to sweeten the deal?"

"No..." Tsunade bit her lip. "Oh, actually!" She fished around in her pocket, before pulling out a slip. "You can have this! Ten thousandth customer; fifty percent off on your next shop!" She put it in Kabuto's pocket. Kabuto coughed up some blood.

"Now that's a bit better." Orochimaru smiled. "Kabuto, do the thing."

"Yes, master." Slightly bewildered, Kabuto made a hand seal. "Impure world reincarnation; Release."

Stood nearby, Haku dropped the ice prison, allowing Dan's soul to fly back into his body just as that body began disintegrating.

Tsunade put her hands on Kabuto's back for a few seconds, then unceremoniously dropped him on the floor. "He'll be fine." She said, walking off towards her lover.

Kimimaro darted in and grabbed Kabuto, pulling him away and landing atop Manda with Orochimaru.

"Well, this was a delightful reunion." The snake Sannin addressed the group as a whole. "I think we've all learned a few things, got closer as a team-"

"You murdered a guy." Naruto pointed out.

"Oh Dan's host is technically still alive in there, Tsunade might be able to save him." Orochimaru dismissed. "Anyway, like I said, great fun. We should do it again sometime!"

"Sure thing." Jiraiya smiled and waved. "But next time I will kill you."

"No you won't."

"Yes I will."

"No you won't."

"Yes I will."

Orochimaru paused. Then made a hand seal. "No you won't!" And then he and his retinue vanished into smoke.

"Are they fifty, or five?" Naruto remarked to Haku, earning him a snort.


Off to one side, Dan had used the spirit transfer again to buy himself a few extra seconds, even as ash flaked off his borrowed body.

"This has been...crazy, but a fun break from the pure lands." He admitted.

"Oh so the afterlife's real?" Tsunade checked. "Good to know. What's it like?"

"I...don't know?" Dan scrunched his face up. "I don't think I can tell mortals about it. Weird."

"Always making excuses," she chuckled. Dan joined her, for a few seconds. Then he flew forwards and enveloped her in a hug. She responded in kind.

"So what now?" He asked.

"Now, I suppose I go be Hokage." Tsunade replied, dejectedly. "I lost the damn bet, so I've not got much choice. And I'll probably start practicing medicine again; Haku's told me some horrible things about what happened down in Konoha now I'm gone. They just let the ninja in while they're operating! Pussies..."

"It'll be good for you." Dan agreed, brushing her hair absently. "You need to stop living in the past, Tsunnie."

"I...I let you die." She choked. "I spent my whole life learning medical ninjutsu but when it came down to it-"

"Hey, hey." He interrupted her. "It's okay. You tried your best, did better than anyone else could have. And I got to die in the hands of the woman I love most in the world."

"You...you dumbass..." tears welled up in her eyes.

Dan chuckled. "Come on. Go live your life, woman. Heck, you can have official ex-boyfriend permission to go bang whoever you want. I always thought Jiraiya was a cool enough guy."

"I would bang Shizune before I even kissed Jiraiya."

"Oh I'm sure you would, if that one time I caught you staring in the baths is any indication-"

"I will bring you back to life and kill you-"

"Now that's more like it!" He laughed, floating away as she took a swipe at him. His form began to dissipate and he looked down at himself. "Ah crap, time's up. Guess this is goodbye, gorgeous. Look after those two kids, will ya?"

"Oh no, you are not using your last breath to saddle me with-"

There was a bright flash, and Dan vanished.

There was silence in the field.

"...Bastard!"


Tsunade was able to stabilise Dan's 'host' due to the resurrection being relatively brief, and they were even able to find the second sacrifice who Orochimaru had set aside for Tsunade's brother. (The poor civilian was stuck underground in a coffin with no idea what was going on).

After some explanation and compensation to the village's council (costing the rest of Tsuande's gambling profits, to her chagrin) they all met up with an understandably worried Shizune for a drink and a serious dressing down.

"So you poisoned Jiraiya? My Lady of all the unwise, stupid, ridiculous plans I've heard you come up with-"

"Yes, dear, whatever you say." Tsunade closed her eyes and sipped at her drink.

"This has got to be the most...wait, dear?"

"Official ex-boyfriend permission." Tsunade replied, leaning over and deliberately falling into Shizune's lap with a smile. "Don't worry about it."

"Bastard's dead and he's still cockblocking me." Jiraiya grumbled into his drink, over Shizune's squawks of indignation and Tsunade's laughter.

"So, how exactly were you able to make the Rasengan?" Haku asked Naruto, sat at the other table eating ramen. "You'd had the idea of using your shadow clones to maintain the shape before, but you couldn't get it to work. What was it you said,"

"The shadow clones all acted great at first, but as the spinning got more chaotic they got out of synch with each other, and me." Naruto explained. "But then, we did the thing where I poured my chakra through you, and I though 'hey, maybe that would work', so I did it with the shadow clones."

"You...pooled your chakra with them?" Haku asked, fascinated.

"Mmhmm!" Naruto agreed, mouth full of noodles. "Turnsh-" he swallowed, "Turns out when that happens we share memories and viewpoints in real time, so they were able to stay in synch while forming it." He smiled stupidly, like he hadn't just come up with a revolutionary new development to increase the effectiveness of a forbidden technique and then immediately utilised it perfectly to access an S-rank ability of incredible power in an unprecedentedly short time scale on his first try like some sort of prodigal shinobi deity. "But it's all thanks to you!"

"Me?" Haku blinked.

"Sure! If we hadn't done that awesome double technique, I'd never have thought of it!"

"I...I'm glad to have helped, Naruto." Haku smiled, mentally promoted the Uzumaki from shining beacon of hope to miraculous savante/force of nature, and helping himself to some ramen.

"Oh yeah, by the way-" Naruto finished his bowl and jumped up on the table. "Hey Tsunade! I beat your challenge! Hah!"

"Yes, you did." The Sannin sighed. "And I'm a woman of my word." She pointed to the crystal on his neck. "You keep that safe, you hear? It's a very important family heirloom."

"Sure thing."

"And it may contain secret Senju powers that show up at convenient moments."

"Quest item, got it."

Jiraiya coughed.

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "And, yes, I'll become the damn Hokage. How much paperwork has the old man left me?"

"Allllll the paperwork."

"Fuck. Hey Shizune-"

"I'll help, but I'm not doing it all for you." The aide huffed, and turned her nose up.

"What if I promised you a reward~"

And now Shizune was blushing. "Are you drunk again?"

"No ma'am! I think. Not yet. Shit, I should work on that, hey Jiraiya-"

The adults devolved into scuffling. The children sat down, and continued eating calmly.


The tomoe in the eye go round and round, round and round, FUCK IM BORED.

Itachi swung his legs in empty space, bored out of his FUCKING mind. WEEKS. WEEKS.

FUCK the Gokei, and FUCK the Kokosora. Could it have KILLED Neji to exercise a little restraint with his super doom technique?

Itachi had tried to get out, strained his Sharingan for hours on end to see through the genjutsu, but there was just...nothing. No holes, no mistakes, nothing Itachi could use to pry a hole in it and escape. Like the Tsukiyomi, subtlety had been thrown out of the window. But while the Tsukiyomi provided a theoretically infinite amount of detail in order to stop you seeing through it, Neji's bullshit hax OP genjutsu was so mind bustingly blank that there was nothing to see through. Itachi had cycled through six different philosophical viewpoints in the last two weeks and nothing had worked.

He let out another groan he couldn't hear and rolled backwards, (not that he could tell, having no sense of gravity or visual reference point) wondering how Sasuke and Hinata were doing.

That was when his reality was rent with a loud crack.

As the only sound he had heard in weeks it set his ears off ringing, and he whirled around in space, trying to see-There!

A fissure ran through a small portion of the fabric of his existence. The jutsu was wearing off.

It was a puny thing, but from it Itachi had a reference point. It gave him an up, and from that directions. It gave him the curvature of the limits of his world, and the radius (of course it was a sphere). It was enough. Itachi grinned, set his Sharingan on the crack, and got to work.


"This is a joke."

"I'm afraid not."

"Really? An odd coincidence then." Hinata stared Fugaku down. She had been doing that a lot recently. "That an ancient Konoha ninja clan would just happen to appear, and just happen to grant you an extra vote when you need one, all while deciding to remain completely anonymous to the rest of the council."

"You ought to be careful, Lady Hyuuga." He replied, smiling slightly. "Such accusations are quite serious."

"You're quite right." Hinata agreed. "Alright then, consider yourself accused of gross political corruption." He looked shocked for a moment, and she smiled. "What? Obviously I have no evidence so I can't have you thrown out of court, but we all know that it's...what was the phrase?"

"Crock of shit." Sasuke supplied from her right, smiling. "Of course, you could pose a formal challenge for insult to your honour. Go ahead. Drag this farce on for longer."

"That won't be necessary." Fugaku replied, easily, the tension that had pervaded many previous meetings gone from his face. "I would not hold a child to such standards for saying things they do not understand."

Hinata leaned across to Sasuke. "Can I challenge him for insulting my honour?"

He winced. "Acknowledging that insults based on age issue that magnitude of offence would mean you'd have to rescind your statement from three days ago regarding-"

"Right, I remember." Hinata grimaced.

"And unless I am mistaken, the vote on the new Hokage is to be taken tomorrow." Fugaku mentioned, offhandedly, causing all eyes in the council to turn to him.

Hinata refused to let that slide. "Article B subsection 4 clearly states-"

"Subsection 4," Fugaku interrupted, "Is rendered unnecessary by the second Hokage's fourteenth amendment-"

"Which would only take place in the case of a single male heir of-"

"But the questioned legitimacy of the mother of-"

The attention of the council flicked back and forth between the two politicians like they were watching a tennis match.

"Which would invalidate the previous three clauses entirely." Finished Fugaku a few minutes later, smoothly.

"Was that all right?" Hinata checked with Sasuke.

He looked down a list in front of him, muttering. "and subsection g would counter the...Yeah, he's right. Crap."

"Excellent, then." Fugaku inclined his head. "The vote will take place. Ladies, Gentlemen, I look forward to hearing your decisions."

He was met with quite a few glares.


"I can't believe him!" Hinata hissed. "All of the...the lying, the bribery! And he's going to get away with it!"

"If we had a few weeks for inquiries, we could pull most of his arguments apart." Sasuke mumbled, from beside her. "But we don't. The election's tomorrow." The citizens of Konoha largely ignored the two ranting as they walked down the street; it had become a common occurrence.

"The shadow clone reported yesterday that they'd set off home, and Tsunade had agreed." Hinata recited. "But since then he destabilised and popped before he could make another. Understandable for a copy of a copy (to the power of twelve) but now we can't get any further updates. We've wrangled it so that if Tsunade gets here in time she gets the hat, but if it takes her more than another day, we're fucked."

"Easy." Sasuke laid a hand on her shoulder. Swearing from Hinata usually meant the curse mark was getting to her. "There's not much more we can do but wait. Hope Naruto gets his ass moving."

"I hate being helpless." Hinata declared. "It's what He makes me feel."

Then she stopped. Sasuke stopped beside her, worried she'd come to a decision to do something stupid, but she just turned to face in a very particular direction. "Hinata?"

"Did Itachi always twitch in his coma?" She checked, Byakugan trained on the medical building.

Sasuke looked across at her. Then the two jumped for the rooftops.


A whole ass arc. Three to four chapters. You're killing me with this pacing Naruto.

Primary conflict concluded, but secondary conflict is coming to a head. Will our brave adventurers get back to Konoha in time? Will Itachi wake up? Does anyone give a shit I implied Tsunade was bi?

Who knows!

Find out the answers to some of those questions next week on Attack-on-One-Sword-Naruto-Ball-Bleach-Note!