"Ero-sennin!" Naruto shouted, as he ran towards the limp body of the white-haired man.
When he got to the body, he saw that Jiraya was missing an arm, and his face was bloodied. Naruto quickly checked for a pulse, which he luckily found.
"Hey, wake up, we got'ta go." he said, trying to wake the man up to no luck. With no other ideas left, Naruto scavenged Jiraiya body, hoping to find anything useful on him. After a bit of searching, he found a scroll that was addressed to Hiruzen.
Looking through the contents, Naruto discovered that the old man was looking for someone to take over his hat, and that someone was supposed to be some woman named Tsunade. Apparently, Jiraiya had been looking for her, and she was currently in Tanzaku Town.
"She most be super strong if she was considered for the position of Hokage." Naruto thought, as he slung Jiraiya's other hand over his shoulder, attempting to get the man and himself over to a safe place until Jiraiya has woken.
"Good job. I know it wasn't easy to master a jutsu while on water, but for what it counts, I am very proud of you." Naruto said to Itachi. "Now, let's go eat lunch. I made sushi." he added with a large grin.
"Thank you for your thoughtfulness, sensei, but I would like to go home now." Itachi said, barely keeping himself standing.
"Yeah, no. You're eating with me, you are on the brink of collapsing, you need nutrition." Naruto said, leaving no room for argument as Itachi sat down next to Naruto below a tree.
Grabbing the box of food, Naruto handed him, Itachi let out a sigh as he dug in.
"Stop that, you are not an old man, why do you keep sighing." Naruto reprimanded as a joke as he too began eating.
"The Chunin exams are taking place in Kirigakure no Sato this year. You will be handicapped by not having a team, I intend to train you to be strong enough to not be limited by the absence of teammates." Naruto said, hoping that this would explain the rigorous training, to which Itachi just nodded.
After both had finished eating, Itachi stood up ready to leave before Naruto stopped the boy in his tracks.
"Yeah, I am not letting you walk home in this state. A Genin could kill you right now." Naruto said with a chuckle, to which Itachi stared at him. "This is your fault, you do know that?" Itachi replied, to which Naruto just shrugged his shoulders before grabbing onto Itachi and disappearing in a blur.
Reappearing before the entrance to the Uchiha part of Konoha, Naruto let go of Itachi's shoulder before kneeling in front of him and handing him a wrapped package.
"You did good today. Take care!" Naruto said with his usual enthusiasm as he disappeared again, leaving Itachi to his own.
Looking down at the gift he had just received, Itachi entered his home as he was greeted by the smell of lunch.
"How was your day?" Itachi heard his mother shout, as he walked to the kitchen, where he saw his mother, Mikoto Uchiha.
"It was good, training went well." Itachi responded, offering a small smile as Mikoto ruffled his hair. "How's Sasuke?" Itachi asked, looking over to the crib where Sasuke was laying.
"Seemingly, barely tolerating me." Mikoto offered with a laugh, earning a smile from Itachi. He stood up, placing the gift on the table, as he walked over to Sasuke's crib and looked at his brother. Who seemingly recognized him and tried to reach out to him.
"My point, you, he likes. His own mother, he dislikes." Mikoto pointed out with a faux frown. "So, learn anything new in training today?" she asked, moving the conversation to a new subject.
"Yes, sensei taught me a wind jutsu that I could use to enhance my fire jutsu. It seems that I have an affinity for it." Itachi answered. "That sounds great." Mikoto offered enthusiastically as she looked over to the table.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to the wrapped gift Naruto had given Itachi. "Dun' know. Sensei just gave me it." Itachi responded, not taking his eyes off Sasuke.
"Well, open it, let's see what it is." Mikoto encouraged with a smile, trying to have his son open up a bit more. Itachi obeyed, grabbing the gift and finding a scroll inside, as Mikoto hums in curiosity.
Rolling open the scroll, inside lays a row of text and multiple blank rows. "Crow-summoning contract." Itachi read out loud, as Mikoto muffled a surprised cough.
"What is that?" Itachi asked, seeing his mother's reaction.
"A summoning contract gives you the right and the ability to summon a certain ability. They are very rare in the shinobi nations, only a few are known publicly. Mainly the summons of the sennin." Mikoto explained, as Itachi seemed to be very intrigued by the nice gift.
Naruto was relaxing in his apartment, messing with his version of the Flying Raijin seal. It was much inferior to the one his father used, as it has multiple downsides that his father's didn't have, mainly the huge chakra cost and the loss of your sense of direction immediately after warping.
Back in the olden days, it was not a big problem as he had Kurama with him. Unfortunately, Kurama's consciousness was brutally murdered by Zariel a couple of years before he time traveled.
Ever since Kurama died, the bijuu's chakra has become Naruto's own. Before his death, Naruto held out hope that his best friend would reform, but unfortunately, that never came to happen due to the lack of time.
Interestingly enough, Kurama's chakra has been beginning to appear and gather in his mindscape recently, but it seems that it's just his own chakra control being honed to the point of a Hundred Healings Mark beginning to form.
As for the other bijuu, which were technically his siblings like Kurama, they just disappeared one after the other. Naruto had no idea what happened to them, but their disappearances were quite soon after the invasion from the demons.
Suddenly, information from a clone he sent out to get groceries flood his mind. Quickly sorting through the memories, Naruto stood up and started heading towards a nearby bath house.
Jiraiya was perplexed.
It had been exactly a week since he had prematurely returned to the village by his sensei's request, and he regretted returning deeply.
The information that had been laid upon him was quite a piece to process. He believed the story, the man- Naruto, offered good enough proof and the story he told made sense with what they knew currently.
There would have been no way for him to know so much about the Akatsuki otherwise, because he had only found out about its creation a month ago, and had yet to inform anyone of it.
Sensei had given him a detailed report on everything Naruto had said will happen in the future- or what happened in the future.
Jiraiya was puzzled on how to continue on with Naruto. The adult one. He didn't know if he should keep his distance or try to talk to him, because it seemed like the man cared about him a lot, and Jiraiya just didn't know how to replicate those feelings for him. He wasn't sure he even wanted to.
On the bright side, at least he didn't fail as a god-father in the future like he thought he would.
To take his mind off the topic, he had gone to peep on some women for inspiration. Of course, this didn't go as well as he hoped, proven by the multitude of women chasing him at the moment.
As Jiraiya began loosing hope, the women he had spied on nearing, a man appeared in front of him, and once again disappearing along the pervert.
Receiving the clone's memories, Naruto discovered that his god-father had been spying on women at a bath house close to him. Not being entirely fond of that, Naruto decided to go say hello and maybe scold the man a little, recommend another bath house, not so close to his home.
Of course, seeing his god-father fleeing from a group of women was not a surprise either. He has lost count of the times Jiraiya was chased by the people he recently used for his perverted books.
So, Naruto decided to intervene this one time. Maybe that would improve the man's impression of him. The first time certainly didn't go that well, within expectations, but still, not something Naruto was too fond of.
Thus, Naruto took the man to the Yondaime's head with a Body Flicker.
The moment the two arrived there, Jiraiya quickly jumped back with a small yelp.
"Why let them catch you? It's something you have never revealed, nor have I managed to figure it out. You let Tsunade hit you because of your mutual affection towards her, yet you have never met these women before." Naruto donned a serious look, as he asked the question.
Jiraiya looked at the man with a strange face. "Pfft. I don't love the scary blond, and women are simply monsters when angry, I don't let them catch me, they catch me." he said with a laugh.
"Tsunade would beat you up twice over for your answer." Naruto said deadpan.
"Yeah," he admitted with a chuckle. "She would."
As silence descended between the two, they both expressed their unconformability. It seemed like both had things they wanted to say, yet had no way of putting it into words.
Naruto broke the silence first. "Look, you're my god-father and I absolutely want us to have a friendly relationship. I get how what I have laid upon you is hard to believe, but the old man had faith and honestly, I don't see why you would not." Naruto spoke. Jiraiya tried to speak up, but Naruto interrupted him.
"I mean, you spout the child of prophecy shit which is the most absurd stuff a person could hear. Yet when something equally absurd happens, you throw all your shinobi training out the window and throw a tantrum." he added.
Jiraiya stayed silent for a moment. "It's not that I didn't believe the story, it's more that I refused to believe it." he said, as Naruto's face turned into something that displayed hurt. "I thought of Minato as a son to me, and his death hurt me a lot. Then comes you, a person claiming to be his son. My feelings are so mixed on this situation that you couldn't begin to describe it. Is this a curse or a blessing?" Jiraiya asked, speaking his mind and letting out some of the thoughts bothering him.
"Why does it have to be either? There is no way to turn this into a blessing, yet there is a way to avoid this turning into a curse." Naruto answered.
Traveling back in time, clearly changed things. A minor intervention brings upon a rather big change, as seen with the death of Itachi's team. What of the major interventions, would intervening in the Uchiha massacre bring upon the fourth war nearly a decade early?
Yet, even if such a major change happened, there would be many advantages that came with being a time traveler. Getting rid of Orochimaru might bring on a change that has big impact on all, yet letting him live can have the same effect.
So, you stand the middle ground. Naruto will do what he can to not majorly screw up everyone's lives while failing to make everyone's lives times upon times better. He can make humongous changes to some people's lives, good or bad.
The point of his answer being that Naruto can change everyone's lives for the worse, which he will do his best to avoid, while trying to change everyone's lives for the better, which he will not succeed in.
Jiraiya nods his head in agreement to the answer Naruto gave him. "Time will tell." he replied, earning a nod in agreement from Naruto.
"We will soon be detaining Orochimaru, as you left before we could tell you to come to the strategy meeting between the old man and I, you will not be included in the plan. I request you find Orochimaru's spare hide-outs for us. See you for a drink some time soon." Naruto said, leaving the statue and heading to his home to watch the sun set.
As he walked back to the forest of death to take a nap at his cottage, he sensed someone appearing before him. Looking around, he found that an ANBU operative was kneeling in front of him, a scroll meant for him in the ANBU's hands. Accepting the scroll, the person disappeared as Naruto kept walking back, his attention on the scroll.
Curious of the its contents, he rolled it open and found it to be a letter from Hiruzen, informing him that one Kabuto Yakushi had been captured and was currently being interrogated at the Torture and Interrogation Force.
Not particularly caring for the information provided by Kabuto, Naruto forgo the trip to the T&I and instead opted to watch the sun set.
Inside of the Hokage's office, Hiruzen had called upon his student, having put the plan to kill him in action. Although his heart hurt to do this to the student he liked the most, he knew this was needed for Konoha's future.
Retrieving something from his desk drawer, he turned his attention to Orochimaru.
"Your mission contents lay inside the scroll. You must not associate Konoha with this mission, failure is not prohibited." Hiruzen spoke, handing a scroll to Orochimaru, who nodded in response with a smile as he donned his mask and vanished.
"I shall eliminate him on his way back. We have nearly a day to free his experiments and burn everything he has achieved." Naruto said from the shadows as he too disappeared.
