It wasn't everyday that a pair of the Sannin walked up to the gates of Konohagakure, evidently having combined their efforts to all but empty the large bottle of sake that Jiraiya was carrying, to judge by the way that they were staggering, arms around each other's shoulders. Tsunade was being trailed by Shizune, who had a slightly embarassed look on her face and was towing around a large suitcase.

Actually, neither of the pair had been seen in Konohagakure since either of the two chuunin watching the gates had graduated from the Academy, and somehow the idea that they would return drunk as lords hadn't been mentioned in the briefings this morning.

"Hey, you up there!" Jiriaya bellowed, waving the bottle wildly to attract attention. "Open the gates, there's th-three Konoha-nin back from our ad-dventures, ya hear me!"

"We'll need to see your papers!" called back one of the chuunin.

Jiraiay wiggled his fingers at them. "You don't need to see our papers!" he disagreed and giggled almost hysterically, turning to Tsunade. "Hey, flatchest, they don't need to see our papers, c-cause we're not the Sannin they're looking for."

"Don't call me flatchest," Tsunade responded, hammering him on the top of the head with one fist. The Toad Hermit fell to the floor, twitching, and his teammate snatched the bottle out of the air before it could follow him, hugging it to her ample bosom. "Precious alco-hic-alcohol," she crooned. "You're the only one that understands me, the only one that luuuurvess me..."

Slack-jawed, the two chuunin turned their attention to the third member of the little group, who shrugged helplessly before hoisting Jiraiya up and onto her shoulder. "Could you open the gates please?" she said. "They weren't always like - waah!" The latter cry was the result of her burden, apparently recovering, taking it upon himself to explore her posterior with both hands. Shizune dropped him promply and hiked up her kimono hem as a prelude to stamping vigorously on his head. "Stupid - old - pervert!" she shouted.

"Oh kami," the older of the two chuunin muttered. "I thought that my sensei was exaggerating when he talked about the Sannin's bad habits."

"All my illusions are shattered," his comrade agreed sadly. "Maybe we should give up on being ninja before we wind up like that."

"Are you nuts?" the first man asked. "Going nuts is a small price to pay if we wind up like Jiraiya, travelling with two babes like that! Open the gate, quickly."

-=-

The little trio of shinobi stumbled along the road until they were masked by some buildings from the view of the two chuunin and then ducked into an alleyway, dropping their drunken demeanors as easily as they did the appearances of Jiraiya, Tsunade and Shizune. "Did you have to hit me like that?" asked the male member of the group rubbing at his head.

"No, there are many other ways that I could have hit you, dear," said the older of the two women, who had been disguised as Tsunade. "But some of them would have impaired your ability to provide grandchildren."

"Plus, you deserved it," the other woman interjected. "You grabbed my ass, Mifune. That's disgusting - I'm your sister."

Their mother sighed. "I really shouldn't let you hang around with ningen so much if you're going to pick up these silly ideas from them. There's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping things in the family," she declared, ignoring the revolted looks on the faces of her offspring. "Although perhaps it wasn't the best time to grope Chie, Mifune. We are here on business, not to flirt."

"Mom," Chie said quietly. "The sheer... black kettleness of that remark astounds me."

"Yeah, I'm with you on that, Chie," agreed Mifune. "Sorry about the grab but it was just for versimilitude - I've researched this guy, he'd never have passed up an opportunity like that."

The young woman turned her glare upon him, looking rather more vulpine than usual. "Are you saying my ass isn't worth grabbing?"

"...I can't win," Mifune sighed.

"And it's taken you this many centuries to realise it?" his mother asked, raising one eyebrow. "Perhaps Kyuu-chan's not the only one of my children who's a little slow."

Chie rolled her eyes. "Slow, she says. Call a spade a spade, mom. Kyuu-chan's stupid. A nine tails nogitsune and she still managed to get sealed away by some idiot ningen. I thought only idiots like Shukaku messed up like that."

Mifune discreetly went to the other end of the alleyway and kept an eye out for passing shinobi while his mother grabbed Chie by her tails and vigorously detailed her displeasure over Chie's disrespectful attitude towards her Uncle Shukaku and implied criticism of the elder kitsune's oldest and dearest friend Nibi-chan's lifestyle. He was sheltering in the shadows at the end and trying not to pay obvious attention to an anecdote that Chie would probably rather that he didn't know about (it involved Chie, Aunt Nibi, one of Chie's ex-boyfriends and three-dozen oysters) when his nose twitched at a somewhat familiar scent.

"Mom," he said, glancing in the direction that the wind was carrying the scent from. "I'm just going to check something, okay?" Taking her failure to interrupt Chie's 'instruction' as assent, he darted out of the alley, this time disguising himself as a ningen he'd seen a year or two back, although he picked a civilian outfit rather than the ninja gear that the ningen had worn and didn't bother copying the eye-catching crimson eyes and purple nailpolish that would have drawn attention. He wanted to be discreet after all.

-=-

It was another ordinary morning for Team Seven. They'd reported to the bridge where they always met at nine o'clock with the glum certainty that their fearless leader and teacher wouldn't bother to arrive until at least noon but would know of and reprimand for any lateness on their parts. Once they had exchanged their usual greetings, they got back to their usual routine - Sakura planning another scheme to inveigle Sasuke into going on a date with her; Sasuke brooding over the dismal prospects of his getting a chance to kill his brother today while he waited for his cue to refuse whatever invitation Sakura made today; and Naruto hoping that today Sakura would agree to date him once Sasuke turned her down again.

Today, however, there was an unscheduled deviation from the usual order of routine, for someone was approaching the bridge from the direction of Konoha. It was Naruto who looked first, catching sight of the dark-haired man coming down the path. "Eh, what's a civilian doing here?" he wondered. "I thought that there were just training grounds along this path."

"Baka!" Sakura snorted. "The village hires civilians to maintain the training grounds, he's probably here to fix something them." Nonetheless she looked up and a light blush touched her cheeks. "Wow, he's so handsome," she said wistfully. "Almost as handsome as you, Sasuke-kun," the fangirl added hastily, not wanting her crush to in any way misinterpret her words.

Sasuke, for his part, grunted and didn't bother looking over partly because he didn't care and partly because from his curent position, sitting on the decking of the bridge with his back against a piling, he couldn't have seen the man anyway.

"Hey," said Naruto after a moment. "He looks a bit like you, Sasuke-teme. Except his hair doesn't look like a duck's backside."

There was a thump as Sakura's fist met Naruto's face and Konoha's number one loudest shinobi went flying off the bridge, crashing down on the path that led to it. "Shannaro!" she shouted. "Sasuke-kun's hair is as pretty as the rest of him." Then she squinted at the still approaching man and frowned. "Still, he does look a little like you, Sasuke-kun. Do you have any relatives that it might be?"

The last Uchiha (except his brother, who didn't count to Sasuke and wouldn't count to anyone once Sasuke had killed him!) scowled. Somehow it figured that the defining tragedy of his life would be something that his fangirls would be completely oblivious to, even Sakura who was, perhaps fractionally less... no, she was just as annoying, but a tiny bit more useful than most of the others. Not much though. "Not unless it's my brother," he said, but lowered himself to look in the correct direction.

There was a pause, and then Naruto turned back to his team, saying, "He really, really looks like you, teme..." and broke off as he realised that Sasuke was no longer sitting on the bridge, but heading for him with murder in his crimson eyes. "Awk!" All he had time for was to drop to the floor to avoid the kunai in his teammate's hands.

Fortunately for Naruto, he was not in fact Sasuke's target. "ITACHI!" he screamed and sent two kunai hurtling towards the shape of his elder brother, forming the seals for a katon jutsu.

"Who?" asked the approaching man in surprise, in the moment before the two kunai thudded into his chest.

"DIEE-huh?" Sasuke said, his vengeance fuelled charge trailing off as the man fell backwards, body not even bending as he toppled like a great tree to lie on the ground, the kunai handles jutting out of his chest. "Itachi?"

"SA-SU-KE!" Sakura screeched as she ran up behind him, "What's the matter? What happened? Wh-who is he?"

"Hey, teme!" came an added commentary from Naruto. "The hell was that about? Why'd... why'd you just kill that guy! Are you crazy?"

"Good question," grumbled the fallen man, much to the utter shock of the three genin. The might only be very junior ninja but they were pretty sure that when a kunai's entire blade was embedded in that part of the chest then all there was left to do was make arrangements for a funeral. Undaunted by these facts, the man moved one hand up to the kunai and, with an awkward grip, pulled out first one and then the other, tossing them aside. "What did I ever do to you, dickless?"

"You killed my family!" Sasuke said, and his eyes narrowed. "Prepare to die!" he added, before vomiting a fireball onto the fallen man. Sakura and Naruto stared at him in horror as he began to cackle triumphantly. All three froze and spun on the spot to see the man, his chest unmarked and bearing not the least sign of fire damage, when they heard him chuckle from behind Sasuke.

"He killed your family?" Sakura asked Sasuke, horrified. She faced the man, pulling out one of her own kunai (which even Naruto didn't figure would be much use given what had already happened). "Is it true?"

"What's true?" Mifune (for it was he) said laconically. "That the boy has no dick?" Then the man shrugged. "I don't see how I could have killed his family though. I've never been here before. And what's with calling me a weasel?"

"You're..." Sasuke swallowed. "Not Itachi?"

Mifune sighed. "Look, weasels have four legs and fur," he told them. "Do I look like that? And why am I teaching you amateur zoology after you tried to kill me?"

Sasuke's legs gave out. "Itachi is my brother's name," he said, sickly. "Oh shit," he added as he finally calmed enough to put the rest of the situation back into perspective. He'd just tried (pretty hard) to kill an innocent passerby, who might not even be a shinobi, and certainly wasn't from Konohagakure.

"Man, Sasuke," Naruto said brightly. "When you screw up, you don't do things by halves, do ya?"

Mifune looked at him, and for a moment their eyes met. Naruto wondered at the expression on the man's face, smug realisation fading to an almost sadistic pleasure. "Sis!" Mifune said out loud and Naruto inexplicably felt as if his insides had turned to jelly. Then he definitely felt his face go red as the man stared at his stomach. "So this is where you've been hiding, hime-chan."

Sasuke's legs gave out from under him. The situation was just too surreal for even he to maintain his cool entirely. "So, Dobe," he said as the man he'd been trying to kill paused as if listening to a response. "Is there something you haven't been telling us, Naru-chan?"

"Yo, dickless," Mifune said irritably. "Having a private conversation here. Shut the hell up." He turned back to Naruto's belly. "Look, Kyuu-chan, there's no use whining about me seeing you like this. Mom and Chie are here too and -"

Naruto didn't hear anything more, for there was a pulse of pain from his seal and suddenly he was somewhere else.

It took a moment for the young shinobi to get his bearings after the sudden relocation. He was standing in a metal chamber that was almost knee deep in water. In front of him, sturdy bars reached from beneath the water up to a ceiling so high that he couldn't actually see it in the shadows. Not just bars he realised, a barred gate with a lock even larger than he was. Behind the bars... he took an involuntary step backwards from the massive, orange-furred shape that had been in his nightmares ever since Mizuki had revealed to him what had been sealed within him the day that he was born.

"Start running, brat!" the Kyubi no Kitsune demanded in a terrible voice. "Run and run and pray that she never finds us!"

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"Run, you stupid ningen! It's that thing where you put one paw in front of the other as fast as you can, you idiot," the Kyubi spat in a voice that was, now that Naruto had calmed enough to listen properly, more hysterical than angry.

"I don't understand," Naruto protested. "What's so bad that you're frightened of? That guy? Just 'cause the Teme couldn't kill him doesn't make him that dangerous, does it?"

The Kyubi ground its teeth and edged closer to the bars. Its shape blurred and then cleared to reveal a woman standing in it's place, hands clutching two of the bars that confined her, a face that displayed predatory beauty clearly agitated. Her hair and dress were the colour of copper, with a darker corset confining her chest and nine furry tails whipping around behind her. "I'm not scared of that idiot, ningen. That's my brother Mifune, I could tear him apart with half my tails tied behind my back. It's her I'm scared of."

"Her?" Naruto asked, stalling for time. It sorta made sense that it would be a girl that the Kyubi was scared of, he agreed, noting for future reference that it was a totally surreal thing to be thinking. The terrible Kyubi no Kitsune was afraid of someone? Still, girls were much scarier than boys, Sakura being a case in point. All Sasuke's glares were like nothing in comparison to Sakura smacking him around.

"She's the devil!" the Kyubi screeched. She saw Naruto's sceptical expression and moderated her tone. "She's like the devil! And she's gonna be incredibly mad with me. It's all that stupid shinobi's fault for summoning a deathgod like that but she'll never accept that as an excuse. This is gonna be worse than the time I walked in on her and Shukaku!"

"Her and Shuugu...? Her and Shuugu what?"

The Kyubu shivered. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Eh, why should I trust you? I mean, you've been in here for all my life and this is the first time that you've ever bothered talking to me? How rude is that?"

"Listen you stupid ningen! Do you think that I want to talk to you? The only reason I'd lower myself to even notice someone as pathetic as you is under the direst of circumstances! Like these!"

There was a cough from behind Naruto and he turned to see the man, Mifune, standing in the water. He wasn't sure how he know it was Mifune though, for the man no longer looked like Sasuke's brother. Instead he was a slim man about the same height as Kakashi, with a face that was handsome in a rather vulpine fashion and wearing a black jacket and pants over a white shirt, all looking expensive and completely out of place in the waterylogged prison. "You know sis, ignoring me like that is pretty passive-aggressive, even for you. You had to know that Mom would want to find you, or at least find out what happened. The only reason that we even took this long is that we got sidetracked 'cause Mom thought there'd be some mass destruction to mark where you got your ass kicked."

"What the hell are you saying!" the Kyubi demanded, glaring at Mifune angrily. "I rampaged right through Fire Country until they stopped me. I'm a damned legend, they still tremble at the thought of me! Tell him, brat."

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno, if they said more in class about you than that the Yondaime killed you then I guess I must have slept through them."

She screeched something that Naruto was pretty sure was a profanity and turned her back on him. Mifune chuckled and gave the boy an approving clap on the shoulder.

-=-

Naruto blinked and saw Sasuke and Sakura looking at him slack-jawed. "What, do I have something on my face?"

"What's going on, Naruto?" Sakura demanded. "Who was that guy and why did he look like Sasuke-kun's brother? And what happened to him? He just put his hand on your stomach and it was like he got sucked inside you?"

"Uh, I don't know," Naruto protested. "I never saw him before!"

"You never saw who before?" asked an amused voice and the three genin whirled to see Kakashi leaning against one of the bridge railings, his little orange book already open in his hand. Behind him were standing two beautiful women in expensive-looking kimono, from their looks obviously mother and daughter.

"You're late!" Naruto shouted while Sasuke and Sakura shuffled nervously and tried to figure out how to explain the rather large burnt patch on the path.

Kakashi's expression, what could be seen of it, shifted in the way that the genin took to be an indulgent smile. "Ah, I was challenged to a game of Go by a green beast to defend the honour of your youthfulness," he explained. "And after he lost I had to witness him making a hundred apologies for his accusations."

"Liar!" Naruto shouted. "You're such a liar, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Lying is far more appropriate for a ninja than shouting, wouldn't you say?" Kakashi grinned behind his mask as his noisiest student subsided resentfully. "Now, today's mission is from Aibiko-dono. Her daughter moved here a few years ago and she's come all this way so that they can have a family reunion. Unfortunately, her daughter's quite shy and retiring, so she hasn't given her mother her address, so we're to find her."

Naruto could have sworn he heard a faint whimper as the older of the two women, who had a definite resemblence to the Kyubi's human shape, met his eyes. "And you've found her already," she said to Kakashi. "How terribly efficient of you."

Kakashi gave her a guarded look. "Sometimes I even underestimate myself," he said as Aibiko swept forwards towards the genin.

"An impressive feat for someone as limited as a ningen," Aibiko's daughter said somewhat caustically as her mother grabbed hold of a startled Naruto by his biceps and began looking him over critically.

"Excuse me, young man," she said and quickly bent over and thrust her head into his stomach. Literally. Her neck was obviously entering his chest through his T-shirt, and her head was... well, Naruto had a suspicion that what it was inside of was the Yondaime's seal.

Sakura fainted.