18. The Hunt For Tsunade Senju Part One

Story Start: Namikaze Household Five Hours After Invasion

Tsunami watched her distant relative and his partner pack their mission scrolls with a frown as she said "I don't know what your Hokage is thinking, sending you two and his student on a retrieval mission five hours after you were invaded. Common sense says that the enemy may try to make another attack through guerilla tactics and your speed could be used to catch them if they do.""Normally I would agree. But the Old Man wants this woman back in the village ASAP. And what the Old Man wants, the Old Man gets." Naruto said as he rolled up his last scroll and placed it in its vest pocket. Across the kitchen table, Haku placed one last group of senbon needles in the storage seal on his right wrist before he walked around and said "I am ready Naruto."

The blond nodded before he faced Tsunami and gave her a hug as he said "You guys stay safe as you travel alright?"

Tsunami nodded and watched as the blond disappeared and the ice wielder stepped through a mirror of the cold water. Sighing, she thought 'It's going to be a lonely two days in this household without those two. Maybe we should leave early as well? After all, I doubt the Hokage would mind getting the key copies for this house a couple of days early.'

Scene Change: Main Village Gate

The two young shinobi appeared in front of the gate beside Jiraiya who started to walk out of them. Nothing was said as Jiraiya increased the pace from civilian walking to Chunnin speed with his current minions both easily matching his pace without complaint. Five hundred yards from the gates they took to the trees and increased their pace to Jounin speed as they headed towards a carnival town twenty miles from the village where Jiraiya believed they could find a possible hint of his teammate's trail.

As they tree hopped, Naruto frowned as he couldn't help thinking about the invasion they had just gone through and the fights he had taken part in. Remembering his fight with his zombiefied father, Naruto thought 'I wonder if I should ask Pervy Sage to teach me Rasengan. He did say he would teach me some time and to work on spinning my chakra in my hands until he did.'

Not two minutes after thinking that, as if reading his mind, Jiraiya said "Naruto, do you remember that time two years ago when I told you to practice shaping your chakra?"

Blinking at the coincidence, Naruto nodded and said "Yeah."

Grinning, the bear of a man unsealed an already filled water balloon and tossed it over and said "This is the first stage of learning Rasengan. I think you've outgrown the 'kid' stage of being a shinobi and won't be demolishing any buildings with it so I can now feel like a responsible adult and begin teaching it to you. Now, for the first stage, you need to spin that water with your chakra so much it literally tears the balloon apart from the inside. Pretty easy right? Wrong. You need more than just one rotation, and separating your chakra enough to get the minimum number of rotations to shred the inside of the balloon at a speed that won't get you killed on the battlefield takes a lot of focus and control. I'm betting it takes you at least ten days to actually get to the point where you can do this stage in two seconds."

Smirking, Naruto said "I'll take that bet. What are the stakes?"

Jiraiya hmmed in thought since he didn't actually expect his god son to take the bet, although when he thought about it, he really should have. Eyes lighting up at the thought he just had, Jiraiya grinned and said "How about this, if you do get to the point of bursting the balloon in two seconds within ten days, without clones helping mind you, I'll teach you my Hidden Shadow Possession Jutsu. But, if you can't do it, you have to teach me how to do that physical transformation of yours. Sound good?"

Naruto hmmed himself as he considered it. It might be hard to meet the deadline without his clones, but considering he already knew how to rotate his chakra in a disc and this was just adding onto it, he could probably make the cut. And the jutsu on the table was a pretty handy one from what Jiraiya had told him about it. The only problem really was what Jiraiya would do with the solid transformation jutsu if he ever learned it. But if he did lose the bet than he wouldn't be responsible for what the old pervert used it for. Grinning, he said "Sounds good to me."

"Well then you better hop to it. Just make sure you don't hit a tree. You can multitask right?" Jiraiya said with a cheeky grin at the end.

Naruto merely flicked a finger at him sending a small gust of wind that went straight into the pervert's ear making him jerk as if he had just been given a wet willie even as he started swirling his chakra in the balloon with his other hand.

Scene Change: Crater Central

Naruto didn't know who decided that naming the small town they were at Crater Central was a good idea, but he thought they must have been either a) seriously concussed, b) drunk off their ass, or c) smoking five different types of weed all mixed together. He was starting to lean towards d) all of the above though as he looked down into the crater as he and his companions walked down one of the staircases leading down into it.

Apparently Haku was having similar thoughts as he looked up from the map of the Land of Fire he had pulled out when Jiraiya told them the name of the town and said "I'm not sure whether I should be confused or grateful that there are no other settlements with the word crater in its name anywhere near this place."

Jiraiya snorted in amusement as he said "I'd stick with grateful."

"Agreed." Naruto said as they reached the bottom of the staircase and melted into the crowd as Jiraiya led them through the streets. Three minutes later he noticed his godfather pickpocket a guy who had wandering fingers himself and then put the guy's spoils in the purse of the woman the perk had stolen from and then proceeded to steal the guy's own wallet without even breaking stride as he walked behind him. Smirking in amusement as Jiraiya looked through the guy's wallet before putting it back without taking anything and moving away from the guy, Naruto shook his head and thought 'Only a spymaster.'

Haku blinked at the sight before he glanced at his partner and said in a low voice "Does he do that often?" Naruto shrugged in the universal way of 'heck if I know' before he snickered as Jiraiya said "Only when I'm bored kid." Haku blushed at being caught talking about the Sannin behind his back but snapped back to attention as Jiraiya said "Ah, here we go, the Lucky Sevens. These guys should know where to start looking."

As the three walked into the gambling hall Jiraiya had brought them to, Naruto said, "Hey Haku, want to see something cool?"

Looking at his partner in slight confusion, the ice user shrugged and said "Uh, sure."

Grinning, the blonde took out a ryo from his wallet and walked over to one of the small slot machines that were kept at the back and slid it into the slot. Still grinning, he turned around to look at Haku who had followed him and pulled on the lever and the machine started spinning its slots. Closing his eyes, Naruto counted to ten in his head before he yanked the handle again three times without pause before he opened his eyes. Haku's eyes got big as each slot stopped with all three 7s on the middle panel and the machine began spewing out its two hundred coin jackpot.

Enjoying Haku's shocked look, Naruto said "I probably have the weirdest case of situational luck out there. I can be given a C-rank mission and have it turned into an A-rank and I can apparently legally make a casino go bankrupt."

Haku blinked as the blond expertly sealed all of the coins except one into a scroll and then handed the coins to him walking past the ice user with a friendly clap on the shoulder and moved towards his god father while pocketing his ryo and ignoring all of the shocked looks of everyone else in the gambling hall who had actually seen the act. Jiraiya himself was chuckling and he ruffled the blonde's hair when he got to his side. Haku blinked again before he sighed and thought 'One of these days I'm finally not going to be surprised by him. I just hope I'm still sane when that day comes.'

Scene Change: Thirty Miles North East of the Hidden Leaf Village Time: 10:00 PM

Two figures made their way through the trees at high Jounin speeds. Both were wearing large black cloaks with red clouds that had collars that went all the way up to their noses and straw hats that left nothing but their eyes visible. The taller of the two had what had to be a giant sword on his back that was wrapped in bandages to look like an obscure kind of mummy. These were Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki, two members of Akatuski, and they were currently on the move under orders. Their destination: The Village Hidden In The Leaves. Their mission: Recon and possibly capture. Their target: One Naruto Uzumaki.

Their travel plans were put on temporary hold though as they saw a figure suddenly appearing from a tree branch ten yards in front of them. They stopped on the branch in front of the person who looked like someone had melted whole vats of black and white crayons and dipped him in it and what looked like a Venus fly trap on his shoulders. This was Zetsu, Akatsuki's spy.

Kisame frowned as he looked at the spy and said "Zetzu, what are you doing here? We haven't even reached the village yet so you can't be here about a report."

The black half of Zetsu frowned as he said "I'm afraid that new Intel has come up in regards to your mission." The white half grinned as he continued "Eight hours ago, during the final exams of the Chunnin Exams, the Hidden Leaf Village was invaded by the Hidden Sound and Sand Village."

"Yes, we were aware of Orochimaru's plan to do so thanks to Sasori. We are going to use the chaos from it to slip into the village unhindered. What of it?" Itachi asked coolly.

Still grinning, the white half said "Well, things didn't turn out quite as planned. Not only did the invasion fail spectacularly, it was pretty much sent packing by just one shinobi. Naruto Uzumaki, or as he will soon be known the world over, Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze."

Itachi's eyes widened just slightly as he thought 'The news of Naruto's full heritage does not surprise me, but how could he have single handedly repulsed an invasion of two shinobi villages?'

Kisame though raised an eyebrow as he said "Oh? So our target is actually the son of the late Yellow Flash hm?" Gaining a grin that could be likened to a cat getting the canary, the shark nin said "Should be fun fighting him then."

"I seriously doubt that considering he took on four Edo Tensei kage level opponents at the same time and won pretty easily. The first, second, and fourth Hokage and the Red Death Kushina Uzumaki to be exact. And then there's the fact that he took out somewhere around eighty percent of the invasion force by himself through use of his shadow clones." the black half said with a bigger frown.

'That answers it.' Itachi thought with a frown. A jinchuriki, something almost always classed as an army destroyer when trained right, coupled with access to shadow clones? Any poor fool going up against someone like that should give their soul to whatever god or goddess they believed in because their ass was well and truly that jinchuriki's new play thing. This...complicated things.

Even Kisame frowned when he heard that their target had taken on four Kage level opponents at the same time and won. Eyes shifting into full on shinobi mode, a very rare occurrence for the shark nin, he said "So what does Leader want us to do?"

"Latest Intel says that shortly after the invasion, Naruto Namikaze left the village with his partner, Haku Momochi under the command of Jiraiya of the Sannin. We have confirmed them to currently be in Crater Central where they will be staying for the night." "Leader's orders are to track them but to not engage until the Zombie Pair rendezvous with you. You are to allow them to engage the jinchuriki to determine his threat level and attempt capture while you two deal with his traveling companions."

Itachi closed his eyes for a moment before he opened them and said "Very well."

Zetsu nodded before his form began sinking into the tree branch he was on. The white half grinned as he said "Good Luck." "You're going to need it!"

As soon as they were gone, Kisame's frown grew as he said "I can't believe we won't actually get to fight this kid. I mean, he's your target isn't he?"

Itachi allowed a small frown onto his own face now that he was alone with his partner before he sighed and said "Yes he is, but something is telling me that I should be thankful for the cannon fodder Leader is providing us."

Kisame blinked as he said "Cannon fodder?" Now grinning, he said "It's unlike you to use such uncouth words Itachi."

Itachi's frown remained as he said "And yet I feel that is exactly what they will be." Turning to face their new destination, Itachi said "Come, we are wasting time." and then jumped to the next branch. Kisame frowned again before he quickly leapt after his partner.

Scene Change: Hidden Sound Base

Orochimaru allowed the smallest hiss of pain to leave his lips as his second in command rubbed burn cream over his fourth degree burns. Fuming to himself at having to be waited on like this, he asked "What is the progress of our search?"

Kabuto wiped his hands on the cloth he had placed on the near by table and sealed the jar the cream came in as he said "We have narrowed it down to a group of five villages in the Land of Fire. We should know for sure within a few days."

"Good. The sooner we find my old teammate, the sooner I will be free of these accursed burns." Orochimaru said while thinking about the person said burns came from, Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze. Just thinking about the blond brought a sneer to his lips before he frowned as he thought about the blond. Part of him couldn't help but think about what he could do with that boy's body as his host. The power of the Kyuubi at his disposal, the sheer speed that would allow him to move faster than the human eye could ever hope to comprehend. The sheer amount of chakra the boy possessed that would allow him to perform S-ranked jutsu for hours non stop. Unfortunately, these thoughts were merely a pipe dream.

The boy had wasted no time completely decimating the revived Kage and his mother that his blood clone had set on him. There was absolutely no way to mark him and even thinking about possessing him was laughable. However, when he received the memories from his clone he had noticed something that had given him a glint of hope. When the brat had fought his father he had not used those thrice damned tri pronged kunai, and still won his fight. This meant that the kunai might not have been the key to the Fourth's jutsu as many had thought. Which meant that the jutsu was most likely actually a bloodline effect. If he could just get his hands on a DNA sample of the blond, he just might be able to replicate it. It really was a shame that the sample of the Fourth he had managed to acquire had already been used for the failed edo tensei.

Frown softening in thought, Orochimaru considered his possible options before he said "Kabuto, I have a side project I want you to begin working on."

Scene Change: Crater Central, The Next Day

Jiraiya, Haku, and Naruto sat around one of the beds of their hotel room with a map of the Land of Fire around them. Jiraiya was drawing a line across it with a pencil as he said "Thanks to one of my new friends I met yesterday at the Lucky Sevens, we now know where Tsunade's been in the past three months. Almost all of the towns she has passed through contain large casinos. Now, her current path suggests that she is heading to Tanzaku Gai. Considering there is a rather large poker tournament taking place there in just over a week's time, I am fairly confident in saying this is where she will be within the next seven days."

"We better get moving then." Haku said and the other two nodded. Glancing at his godson as he rolled up his map, Jiraiya said "Naruto, I want you to get us there as quick as possible. We don't know with any accuracy what day Tsunade is going to get there and I want to start performing sweeps of the city for her as soon as possible."

Naruto nodded and walked over to his pack. Slinging it over his shoulders, he waited for his two traveling companions to do the same and then all three left the hotel room. As the door closed, a crow that had been sitting on the roof of the building opposite of the hotel blinked before it took off to inform its summoner of the conversation that had taken place.

Scene Change: Tanzaku Gai One Hour Later

Naruto stood on top of the Gilded Goose, the casino the poker tournament was going to be held looking over the village. Behind him was a squadron of twelve super charged shadow clones that had almost all of their creator's chakra reserves in them as well as equipped with ten chakra pills each who were being assigned orders. The clones were separated into four teams with each of their headbands either red, yellow, blue, or green with a number between one to four replacing the leaf symbol.

"I want squads red, yellow, and blue to maintain a thin perimeter chakra barrier around the village. Make it as large as you can without having to resort to using more than one of your chakra pills on the first day. If anyone with shinobi level chakra comes through let me know. Squad Green, I want you to spread through the village and sweep for any chakra presences that is higher than Chunnin level. If you pick any up, triangulate their positions and radio it in. You all should have enough chakra and chakra pills to perform your duties for two weeks. Contact me if you do happen to require a chakra infusion. Now, scatter!"

The twelve clones all gave quick salutes before they disappeared into the slipstream and left to perform their tasks. Taking one last look out the village, he joined the slipstream as well and took off to the outskirts to continue working the first stage of the Rasengan. He was already up to five rotations at the same time, but he needed at least five more and to work on his speed in creating them.

Time Skip: Five Days Later

Naruto frowned in concentration as he worked to keep the Rasengan stable inside its balloon for more than ten seconds. He had managed to finish the first stage of the jutsu on the fourth day winning his bet with his god father. The second stage had gone even quicker considering Naruto's rather ridiculously large chakra reserves that had made it rather easy to provide the overwhelming power needed for that stage. Now he was working on containment, something that was obviously needed in this jutsu if one was to take in the sorry state of the particular field Naruto was working in.

Naruto lost concentration as his radio crackled and mentally cursed as the Rasengan in his hand blew up just as spectacularly as the ones before it causing him to miss what was said over the radio. Sighing, he tapped his radio and said "This is Alpha, please repeat that last transmission."

His voice came over in a slightly sheepish tone as the clone on the other end said "This is Yellow Three, we have a situation with the perimeter field. Something has been absorbing the chakra in the north east section and just before I lost our ability to scan the area I picked up four very large chakra signatures that are at least low kage level heading towards the town with one signature as big as a Jinchuriki's. At the rate they were traveling, ETA to the town is five minutes."

"Oh that's not good." Naruto said, mind already flashing to a very secretive group of S-rank missing nin his godfather had told him he was trying to gather information on last year. Looks like the Pervy Sage was going to be able to get some Intel today. Call it jumping to conclusions, but four ninja traveling together with all of them having that level of chakra reserves left a very little number of possibilities as to their origins. The only question was whether or not this group was planning on using the upcoming tourney to help finance whatever goals their group had or if they were just going to raze the town and take what they wanted. Frowning, Naruto said "All units, this is Alpha. Maintain the perimeter as well as you can. Green leader, find Jiraiya and Haku and inform them of what is going on. Yellow Three, I will be with you momentarily. Maintain your position and await my arrival." Naruto waited just long enough for the clones to confirm their orders before he joined the slipstream and rushed towards Yellow Three's position thinking 'I really hope these guys aren't who I think they might be. It could really throw a wrench in our plans if we had to fight these guys.'

Scene Change: Yellow Three's Position: One Thousand Feet Past Tanzaku Gai's Outskirts.

Yellow Three was hidden in one of the few trees that could be found in his section as he waited for his creator. Turning his head to the side when he felt him arrive, he saw him land in the tree branch next to him with a frown on his face.

"Any sign of them?" Naruto asked looking out over the fields that encircled the entire city.

Y3 shook his head with a frown on his own face as he said "I can't sense them anymore, but we should have a visual on them in three minutes."

Naruto sighed as he said "They probably immediately picked up on the perimeter barrier as soon as it touched them and are now hiding their presence. They might even be working on coming into the village from another route now."

"Or maybe even waiting until tonight to enter." G1 said as he and the rest of Green squad appeared around them with Jiraiya and Haku among their ranks.

"Either way, I want to know who these four are. Anyone with as high as chakra reserves as these people have should be monitored to the best of your abilities regardless of the situation. Especially if there is more than one of them together." Jiraiya said taking out his spy glass which had been sealed the ever loving hell out of with a complete 'spy gear' seal set on it that all ANBU had on their binoculars and began sweeping it across the planes. Naruto frowned at the sight of it promising himself to get a pair of binoculars of his own sometime.

He would have gotten them before but the things were so darn expensive. Oh not the binoculars themselves, those were easy to get. It was the seals on them that were the problem. You had Infrared, Night vision, x-ray, chakra vision and zoom seals all on a small piece of optical equipment and they all loved to mess with each other. And if you didn't get those seals just right when you applied them, well, lets just say the results weren't pretty. Naruto had seen one Jounin try to do it himself and the poor fool had practically blinded himself and could now only see in black and white. Naruto may have been good with seals, but there was no way he was going to risk that kind of optical damage just to have a spiffy new toy. He'd rather wait for the set that you received as a 'congratulations for being so hard to kill' present that every shinobi got after thirty years of service to the village. Of course, he could requisition a pair through asking the Old Man, but he didn't want to take advantage of the relationship he had with the old leader just for a new toy.

He was brought out of those thoughts by Jiraiya saying "There they are. Two O'clock, about a quarter mile out. They're using a variation of the Chameleon Jutsu to travel down that side road that skims the outskirts without being seen. Too bad they can't use it to hide their heat signatures though. Damn, that tall one has a lot of chakra. Even with how well he's hiding it, it's still getting picked up on chakra vision. And that thing he's carrying on his back seems to be eating any foreign chakra around it and looks like a long sword. I would bet half my bank account that's Kisame Hoshigaki we're dealing with."

All of the blondes' frowned as the original said "So chances are very high that's the Akatsuki group we're dealing with right? After all, you did say last year that you thought he could be a member."

"Considering I had actually received confirmation on that last month, then yeah, I would say that it is very likely. And it's a pretty good bet that Itachi Uchiha is there as well since rumor has it he's Kisame's partner now." Jiraiya said with a frown on his face. Taking the spy scope away from his face, his frown grew as he turned to his godson and said "It's official kid. You have got the worst luck when it comes to missions sometimes. These guys couldn't have chosen a worst time to show their mugs around here."

Snorting, Naruto said "No arguments from me on the count of luck, but I have to disagree on their timing. It would have been a lot worst if they appeared on the day of the tournament."

"Hm, point taken. Still we need to get rid of these guys. Preferably without leveling the town behind us in the process." Jiraiya said as he put his spy glass back to his eye and did a quick sweep around the area to see if anyone else was around that could get caught in the crossfire.

"Normally I would say to just let me make a run at them while I was in the slipstream, but these guys' instincts are probably just as good as Orochimaru's if not better and that didn't really work out so well when I tried it on him in the forest of death. We're going to have to actually engage them. Still, we should be able to minimize collateral damage if we go now." Naruto said as he performed his own scan of the area with his senses while wishing he could let off a chakra pulse but knowing that would be a rather bad idea considering their opponents.

Haku stared at the two with a slack jaw as he said "You two are crazy. You're talking about taking on four S-class shinobi at the same time like you're discussing what type of soda to buy for the week. And not just any shinobi but Kisame Hoshigaki the tailless tailed beast and Itachi Uchiha, the man who single handedly slaughtered his whole clan in one day, leaving no one but his brother alive."

Naruto smirked at his partner as he said "Haku, my friend, you are forgetting just exactly who we are. Pervy Sage here was able to actually survive an encounter with Hanzo the freaking Salamander and not even a week ago I took on four undead kage level opponents simultaneously and won pretty easily all things considered. Between the two of us I think we can handle a few S-class criminals."

Jiraiya smirked as well and said "The brat's right, we'll be fine. Still, you should stay here where it's relatively safe. You're still not at the level that will be required to keep all of your body parts in this kind of fight. We'll take care of these guys and then we'll all go back to doing what we were before these guys decided to show up. Let's go Naruto."

"Right. Green Squad, you guys are with us. Form a ring around us and keep these guys from getting out while we deal with them. Only join in to help if I'm otherwise engaged." Naruto said before he grabbed Jiraiya and joined the slipstream with his clones following a second later.

Haku sighed and lowered his head in a dejected manner as he said "Why did I have to get partnered with the crazy one?" Y3 chuckled from his position causing Haku to become even more depressed.

Scene Change: A Quarter Mile Away

The four members of Akatsuki were making their way to Tanzaku Gai with as much stealth as possible. They had detected the chakra perimeter field as soon as it had touched their skins and so knew that someone in the village was expecting someone to be coming. There was very little chance of the target being them but considering someone would be checking it out, they had to be somewhere else if they wanted to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

Three of the members of Akatsuki spun around to look at Itachi who had been walking in the back when the man actually screamed in pain and brought his hands to his eyes a split second before they all felt a virtual tsunami of chakra that was most definitely not one of theirs sweep around them and settle. As Itachi tried to open his now Sharingan less eyes to see, the four Akatsuki were suddenly surrounded by four blonds forming a box with the corners one hundred feet apart and another blond and a white haired man standing behind Itachi making the other three members' eyes widen as they all thought 'Fast!'

Naruto stepped away from his god father as he observed his opponents. Raising an eyebrow at the Waterfall headband on the one standing next to a Jashinist, he said "Since when has the Waterfall village produced shinobi that warrant an S rank in the bingo book?"

Snorting, Jiraiya said "That would have been seventy years ago kid. Which means we've got Kakuzu the heart stealer here. Better be a little more careful than usual around him. He stole the village's Earth Grudge Fear Jutsu and is known for ripping out the hearts of his opponents if they use the right element that he needs to have a full set of all of the primary elements."

Kakuzu's eyes narrowed as he said "You are well informed Jiraiya of the Sannin. Your bounty will provide a great deal of funding for our group."

Jiraiya shrugged and said "Intelligence gathering is what I do. And speaking of your group, care to give me a members' list?"

Naruto snorted drawing everyone's attention to him as he said "So we've got Itachi Uchiha, the man wanted for an extreme case of parricide, Kisame Hoshigaki, the man wanted for assassinating the Land of Water's Daimyo, Kakuzu, the man the Hidden Waterfall sent after the Leaf's First Hokage's head seventy years ago, and some emo Jashinist. Going up against Jiraiya of the Sannin and an unofficially ranked double S-class shinobi who is just as fast as the Fourth Hokage. Yeah, this fight won't last long at all."

"Hey! Don't disrespect me you little punk! I'll sacrifice your ass to Lord Jashin!" The Jashinist yelled out at Naruto.

Naruto noticed Kakuzu roll his eyes before he said "Hidan shut up."

The now introduced Hidan turned his head to his partner and said "Fuck you Kakuzu! I-" Whatever else was about to be said was cut off as a small wind dragon slammed into the man's body tearing a huge hole out of it right where his heart and lungs were situated. Hidan blinked before he looked down and saw the rather large hole in his chest before his head shot back up and he screamed at Naruto "That hurt Mother Fucker!"

"My mother died the day I was born moron, and it's supposed to hurt. Now why don't you be a good little psychotic murderer and let me cut you to a dozen pieces." Naruto deadpanned before he was suddenly right in front of Hidan with his foot kicking the man away from the other three before he disappeared again. Hidan managed to land on his feet only for the blond to reappear again beside him pulling on a ninja string that was wrapped around the Jashinist causing it to tighten and leaving the Jashinist unable to move. Looking out of the corner of his eye he saw the man's partner not making a move while Jiraiya and the other Akatsuki pair was simply watching as well caused him to grin as he said "Looks like you're not very well liked around here."

"Fuck you! You better untie me or I'll sacrifice you to Lord Jashin!" Hidan shouted.

Naruto sighed as he said "Blah, blah, blah. Shut up." The blond then took off running circles around the guy at a speed that made it look like the was a blurred wall around the evil priest as the blond began singing "Ring around the rosy, pockets full of posy, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" The blond came out of his run on the side opposite of where he had started with a wind sword in his hand. Pushing his other hand against Hidan, he pushed the Jashinist to the ground and cackled as the man literally fell apart into thirty different pieces like a stack of checkers that was knocked over.

Kisame began laughing at the sight as Hidan said "Jashin damn it! That hurt you mother fucking piece of shit. Ow!" Naruto apparently didn't take well to being called that a second time as he slammed his foot into the priest's nose shattering it. He started to bend down to pick up the guy's head but suddenly disappeared as a bolt of lighting passed right where he had been an instant later. He reappeared behind Kakuzu with his flaming right hand stuck inside Kakuzu's body before he ripped it out revealing he had a heart in his hand before he incinerated it and disappeared again to avoid the tendrils that had shot out of the missing nin's back trying to ensnare him.

Reappearing next to his godfather who still hadn't engaged the other two, he said "I know I said this fight wouldn't last long, but you would think a couple of S-ranks could defend themselves a little bit better."

This earned more shouting from Hidan and a growl from Kakuzu as he ripped his cloak off exposing his bare back that was covered in animal masks Three masks suddenly shot off his back and formed into animals made out of thread and Naruto rose an eyebrow as he said "Well that's new." He then joined the slipstream and reappeared in front of Kakuzu with his foot already in the missing nin's face kicking him away before he spun in the air and sent a barrage of wind senbon at the mask creatures causing them to scatter. He disappeared as soon as hit the ground and all three masks were suddenly shredded to dust from the wind jutsu that the blond unleashed.

As this was happening, the other Akatsuki pair made their own move as Kisame's shark skin sword Samahada had eaten most of the chakra that was surrounding the pair allowing Itachi to activate his sharingan again and send a small blast of black fire at the Sannin. Jiraiya dodged the black flames only to have to replace himself with a log as a large shark made out of water slammed into where he had just been. As he dodged a regular colored fireball, he saw Naruto standing over Kakuzu's body with the final heart in his hand as the blond burned it and thought 'So much for those two being a problem.' He then took out a kunai and channeled earth chakra in it to block Kisame's sword only to swear as he felt the sword eating the chakra and he used all of his strength to deflect the blade to the side causing it to slam into the ground beside his feet as he jumped away.

Kisame raised the sword and came after him with it again only for the blade to once again be stopped by a chakra infused kunai. Only this chakra was multicolored and condensed to the point that it formed a solid looking Tanto. Kisame only had time to blink in surprise at the small bit of trouble his sword was having eating the denser chakra before he found a foot in his face and a kunai in his sword arm's shoulder.

As the shark nin skidded backwards, G1 ran through hand signs along with his brothers who were standing on either side of him and as one they shouted "Wind Style: Great Breakthrough Jutsu!" All four clones blasted the shark nin over a thousand feet back with winds that made a Category 4 hurricane's winds seem like a gentle breeze. Ending the jutsu, G1 looked over his shoulder and said "We'll leave Itachi to you and the boss." He then joined the slipstream and shot after Kisame with his brothers joining him as he jumped and slammed a chakra infused fist into the temporarily flying missing nin's stomach sending him into the ground and forming a slightly impressive three feet wide crater.

Jiraiya blinked as the original Naruto reappeared next to his side before he pouted as he looked over at his godson and said "You guys are taking all my fun."

Naruto smirked as he brought his hands up in the ram sign and said "Actually start doing something besides dodging and I might consider letting you help. You were the one who said we should take care of them quickly. Release!" The world around them shattered like glass as a visible pulse of chakra shot out of Naruto and the Itachi in front of them disappeared while another Itachi on Jiraiya's other side that was revealed quickly turned his Sharingan off to avoid being temporarily blinded a second time by the visible chakra.

"Cheeky brat." Jiraiya muttered even as his hair rose up splitting in two with a half over every shoulder and began spitting out senbon needles made of hair like one of those 'Gatlin' guns the Daimyo was having installed inside the guard towers of his palace. In response Itachi used the substitution jutsu to seemingly break apart into a flock of clones only for him to get a sandaled foot to the face courtesy of Naruto and was sent flying back before he landed on his back and quickly rolled into a crouch.

Getting up from his own crouch, Naruto said "I've been wondering something fan boy." He grinned at the vein that twitched on Itachi's face at the nickname as he continued "What is the real reason you killed off all of your clan? It couldn't have been to just test yourself since there were quite a few children and even a couple of babies in the group that couldn't even lift a shuriken yet. So what was it? Did your family just annoy you one too many times one day and you just snapped or are the rumors I had heard at the time that members of the clan were planning a coup just a little too close to the truth for your comfort?"

Itachi's face remained a stoic mask as Naruto asked his question but Naruto saw the briefest flash of something flicker behind Itachi's eyes and he said "Ah, so that's what happened. You know that really does answer so much. Except for why you decided to torture your brother for the equivalent of three days in that Genjutsu of yours. I can understand the fact that you couldn't kill the guy but to torture him instead?"

"You know too much, and yet you still do not understand." Itachi replied as his sharingan made it's third appearance and morphed into Mangekyo form hoping to catch the blond in a Tsukiyomi as soon as it finished forming. Unfortunately for him, Naruto had caught sight of the red filling his eyes and had already began looking at his chest even as he pushed chakra out of his body to surround the three in a field of highly visible chakra within the span of a second. Itachi had to hold back a scream of pain as his sharingan got a one second blast of way too much chakra to see properly before he managed to turn it off.

'Damn it! Not again!' Itachi thought before he heard his target say "Taijutsu only from this point Pervy Sage. I don't want anymore of that black fire of his coming out and I can't guarantee any of your jutsu will work properly with this much chakra in the air."

"Very well." Jiraiya said as Itachi opened his eyes again only to see the blurry form of Jiraiya's fist shooting towards his face at terminal velocity. He shifted his head to the side to avoid it only to be thrown backwards by an elbow slammed into his stomach courtesy of Naruto.

As the two leaf shinobi began picking Itachi apart in tandem, Green Squad was having their own fun with Kisame. G2 had already gotten the man's sword away from him by hitting a pressure point in the man's arm with a wind senbon and blasting the sword away with a Gale Palm jutsu and now the four were just beating the snot out of him while he tried to defend. He was already bruised from head to toe and the clones had broken each individual bone in his arms making them completely useless. Now they were taking him apart piece by piece by running kunai over his body as they passed. What made it worse was the fact that the cuts weren't even that deep but were so numerous that he had already lost more than two pints of blood so far.

G1 drew one last slash across Kisame's back before he slipped out of the slipstream as the shark nin's eyes finally rolled up to the back of his head and he fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The rest of his squad also reappeared as they looked down at the fallen nin and G3 whistled a little as he said "Tough old bastard wasn't he?"

"Tough, but not tough enough." G2 said before he looked over his shoulder and saw the original Naruto drop Itachi to his knees with a kick to the back of one of them. Jiraiya then proceeded to knock the man out with a knife hand to the back of the neck causing him to finish the fall to the ground. Chuckling, he said "Looks like the boss is done playing as well."

G1 slapped a stasis seal on the man's body and his wounds stopped bleeding as G2 and 3 picked up his legs and began dragging the man towards their creator who was in the process of sealing Itachi inside a stasis scroll while Jiraiya sealed away the black flames that the Uchiha had brought into existence. When they reached the original blond they were joined by G4 who was holding the shark nin's sword inside an air prison earning raised eyebrows from everybody. Seeing them, he said "The thing tried to send a spike through my hand when I grabbed it."

The original blinked before he grinned and said "Security system on a sword. Now that's one I haven't heard before." Then he frowned as he looked at Kisame and said "Okay, we held off killing Itachi since new information shows that he didn't exactly go as bat shit insane as we thought when he killed his clan but why the hell didn't you kill blue gill here?"

G1 shrugged and said "We figured Pervy Sage would like the chance to interrogate him before we offed the guy. Either him or Ibiki back in the village."

Naruto rose an eyebrow before he looked over at Jiraiya. The spymaster shrugged and said "Eh, can't hurt to have him for when I'm done picking Itachi's brain of everything concerning Akatsuki." The Sannin sealed the shark nin and his sword into one scroll before he bit his thumb and summoned a toad about twice the size of a non summon adult. Holding the scroll in front of the toad, he said "Please give this to Gamatoride to hold onto." The toad croaked in affirmative before its tongue shot out and wrapped around the scroll and brought it back into its mouth before it went back to the summoning realm.

Once he was gone, Jiraiya said "Well, fun's over." Looking over at where Hidan was still cursing worse than ten sailors all drunk off their asses, he said "Now what should we do with him? There's no way he's going to know anything important but I'd rather not leave him there."

"Leave that to us." G1 said before he gestured for his brothers to follow him and he walked over and sealed all of the body parts into a scroll. Sealing Kakuzu's body in another, he said "I'll take this guy's body to the Hokage, I'm sure the Hunter corps would love to get their hands on his body. As for silverback, I think we'll scatter him across the continent."

Jiraiya nodded and said "That will work."

G1 nodded and said "Then we'll see you when we get back tomorrow." He then joined the slipstream and was quickly followed by the rest of Green Squad.

Cleanup now done, Naruto and Jiraiya turned towards Y3's position and began walking back. As they walked, Jiraiya chuckled and said "You know your partner's going to be driven up the wall when we tell him about this right?"

Naruto gained a fox grin as he said "Absolutely."

Ten minutes later, Zetsu's head appeared as it rose from the ground and he frowned as he thought 'Leader is not going to be happy about this'