"Hm." Jiraiya hummed as he studied Anko's Curse Seal of Heaven with a palm loaded with chakra, "Yeah, Tsunade was right. Your seal malfunctioned and is having trouble doing anything else besides maintaining your current transformation. Like she told you, it's like breaking a key off inside of a lock."

"Yeah, and she says that it can potentially kill me if I stay like this for too long." Anko said.

"That, it can. Your body isn't going to like having to keep up with this transformation for extended periods of time."

Naruto, who was sitting beside Anko on a log inside of a forest clearing, looked a bit worried, "So is there any way to fix it?"

Jiraiya took his hand off Anko's collar area and crossed his arms, "About that. There's good news and bad news to this situation. Which one do you want to hear first?"

"Bad news." "Good news." Anko and Naruto respectively replied simultaneously. Anko looked at Naruto and placed her clawed hand over his mouth.

"Lets get the bad news over with."

Jiraiya nodded, "The bad news is that I won't be able to completely seal off the seal like the Third did. It's not that I'm not as skilled as he is, but because the suppression he has on it is still applied, and it's impossible to add another one onto it. I can't remove his suppression and add a new one either, since with the way the seal is and how little is known about it to everyone except Orochimaru himself, doing so can potentially put you at risk to even worse side effects, or even kill you."

At this point, Naruto pushed Anko's hand off of his mouth, "So what's the good news?"

"The good news is that I can change you back to normal. You'll just still have the seal. But with that, comes a bit more bad news. For me to do it, I'll have to perform the Evil Sealing Technique. This will allow you to be able to control your Curse Seal a lot easier, to the point where it's activation depends all on your willpower. However, this technique takes a bit of preparation and the process will be painful. Very painful. Especially since the seal is already in a corrupted state."

Anko scoffed, "As long as I get to go back to the old me, I'll do it. And the freedom to actually control these powers seems kinda cool."

"What happened to that time a week or so ago when you said that you don't want to use something that Orochimaru created?" Naruto asked. Anko shrugged.

"Well, after seeing the things I could do during the fight yesterday, I changed my mind."

"So I take it that you're ready to do this then? I'm telling you now, what comes after this is gonna hurt like hell." Jiraiya asked for confirmation.

"Yeah, let's do this. I can handle pain well, so do your worst." Anko nodded. Jiraiya understood, and began to start with the preparation process for the seal he was about to perform. He drew two concentric circles in a long scroll with kunai placed in intervals along the circumference, placing it behind the log Anko sat on. He then pulled out another kunai, and sliced his thumb with it, drawing a number of strange and bizarre characters written in his blood on Anko's collar area around her Curse Seal, of which the markings drew outward away from the seal. Next, Jiraiya quickly flipped through over two dozen hand seals in the span of three seconds and called out the following words, "Fuja Hoin!"

The pain that rocked into Anko's left collar area forced a hard gasp, then a loud roar of pain to come out of Anko's mouth. Her body tensed immensely and it took all Anko had not to clutch at her Curse Mark to feebly alleviate some of the pain, which would risk messing up the seal drawn in blood around it.
Naruto had to remind himself that Jiraiya did warn that the technique would be a painful thing one. It hurt him to see his beloved girlfriend crying out in pain like that, but he knew that it was necessary to fix her seal.

Feeling helpless, Naruto decided to aid her by letting her hold his hands while she went through with this excruciating process. Anko accepted his hands, not realizing how tightly she was holding on to them. In fact, Naruto had to bite back letting out a few grunts of pain himself, seeing ass his bones began to grind and crunch while his skin was being pierced by Anko's sharp nails, drawing blood.

Around thirty minutes later, Anko's transformation began to slowly recede away. Her hair returned to it's previous length and color, her eyes changed back from gold with black sclera, to brown with white sclera. Her claws returned back into normal hands, and her skin shifted back into the soft peach tone that she was born with. And lastly, her tail retracted back into her body, and her canines shrank back into normal human form.

Soon enough, Anko was back to being the old Anko that everyone was familiar with.

As the jutsu Jiraiya casted ended, he grabbed a piece of cloth and wiped off the blood on Anko's back used to perform the jutsu. He looked at the sweating and heavy breathing Anko and grinned.

"I thought you said you can handle pain well?" He playfully jabbed at her. Anko sneered, still taking deep breaths to recover properly.

"F-Fuck off. How about I get a turn to see how well YOU handle pain?!" She then looked at the pair of hands she was still holding, and felt guilty upon seeing the condition they were in. A few of his knuckles seemed misaligned, and both had four deep puncture wounds in the middle of his palms. His blood covered both his hands and hers, as they continued to drip down onto the ground below.

Anko looked up at Naruto and saw his eyes holding back tears as he bit his lip so he wont below out a loud cry of pain, "Uh... sorry, babe."

She let go of his hands and Naruto quickly held them between his arms and sides to at least halt some of the bleeding, "It's fine, no worries..."

"Anyway, let's bandage up those hands and work on your seal next. Yours wont take nearly as long." Jiraiya stated.

The next five minutes were spent cleaning and bandaging Naruto's wounded hands via a first aid pouch carried by Jiraiya. Next, he told Naruto to take his jacket and shirt off, which Naruto obliged.

"Wait, Ero-Sennin? Would you happen to know anything about how I can control the Kyuubi's powers?"

"Control the Kyuubi's powers?" The Sannin member repeated, "Gaki, that sounds like quite a task to perform. I understand why you'd want to, though. Unfortunately, I can't say I know how to help you with that. All I know how to do is maintain your seal. It was already a stretch teaching you how to bring out that chakra on your own when you were little."

"Dammit." Naruto sighed. Anko gave him a sympathetic shrug, as if to say 'at least you tried'. "So will you be able to fix the seal completely?"

"No." Jiraiya said simply, "Your seal is more complicated than that. See, when you had the Kyuubi sealed in you, the castor made it so that you can draw on the Kyuubi's power whenever you desire once you learned how to. However, it weakens the seal each time you do this, which is why you're having more trouble controlling it whenever you get angry. If nothing is done soon, this will free the Kyuubi, killing you in the process. And as much as I want to fix your seal to prevent that, your seal is something that can only be restored by the castor himself, who is now dead."

"What?!" Naruto shouted, "So what can you do about the seal, then?!"

"Relax," His mentor told him, "What I can do is 'lock' your seal. This will prevent further damage to the seal for sure. However, you won't be able to call upon the Kyuubi's power when you need it. It's similar to what The Third did with Anko's seal. This can be undone, however, but only by me or by someone with enough seal experience. So that's what I'm going to do now."

Naruto looked off in thought. While there was a point where he decided not to use the Kyuubi's power anymore, Naruto was nervous about not being able to access it anymore. He hated to admit it, but the Kyuubi's power saved his life on multiple occasions. If it wasn't for such a useful power, he was sure that he wouldn't even be here standing right now.

But for the sake of everyone's and his own safety, this had to be done. He'd hate to end up having another accidental death on his hands.

Jiraiya made a clawed hand and pressed it horizontally on Naruto's abdomen. He poured some chakra into his fingertips and rotated his hand until it was vertical. As soon as this happened, Naruto felt what could be best described as a 'click'. Other than that, Naruto didn't feel much different.

"There." Jiraiya said, with a small sigh, "Both of your seals should be fine now. Anko, you have the privilege to use the power of the Curse Seal whenever you'd like. Just be careful with it. And Naruto, you no longer have to worry about the Kyuubi potentially breaking free. You probably will still have large chakra reserves and an inhuman healing ability, but you just won't be able to use it's raw power. When I come back from my mission, I'll try to find a way to create a stronger seal for you, so you'll have access to that power, with less risk of you losing control of it. And I'll see what I can do about you learning how to control those powers, too."

Naruto nodded, "Okay. Thanks, Ero-Sennin."

"No problem, gaki. Just remember our deal." Jiraiya said slyly. He gave Anko a small glimpse, which was immediately returned with a glare of death.

"Whatever, pervert. Don't you have a mission you're supposed to be going on?" Asked an annoyed Naruto.

Jiraiya chuckled, "That, I do. So I'd best be heading off."

With that, Jiraiya vanished within a swirl of leafs, leaving the couple to themselves.

"Friggin' creep." Anko scoffed, "But I have to admit, Jiraiya knows his shit."

Naruto nodded in agreement, "Yeah. Sorry about the deal, though."

"It's fine. I'll just give him a pair of my panties as he wishes. But I'll be sure to have it worn by a member of the Akimichi Clan before I loan it to him."

Naruto let out a hearty laugh.

Later that day, Anko and Naruto split up, seeing as Anko had made a promise to Kurenai to stop by once she got her seal dealt with, and Naruto had been called upon to speak with Tsunade about something important.

"Geez..." Kurenai huffed after hearing the full story from Anko, "You sure have been through a lot in the past few days, huh?"

"I guess you can say that." Anko shrugged, "But everything turned out fine in the end. I still have Naruto and now I have a new power that makes me stronger than I hoped to be."

"Hm, just be careful with it." Kurenai advised, "You've hardly ever used your Curse Seal before, so just be wary."

Anko rolled her eyes, "Yes, mom." She scoffed with words coated in sarcasm, "So how's the little twerp in your uterus? I think I'm starting to see a little baby bump."

"Don't call him a twerp." Kurenai chuckled.

"Or her."

"Right. But he or she is fine. I think I felt some movement in there yesterday."

"Glad to hear it. I can't wait to be a god-mommy."

Kurenai gave a sheepish look, "Actually... I already asked Yugao to be the godmother..."

"YOU WHAT?!" Anko barked, shooting up from her seat.

"Kidding! You know you're the Godmother, we already discussed this!" Kurenai laughed, waving her hands defensively. Anko huffed and took her seat with crossed arms.

"Don't play with me, Kurenai."

Kurenai giggled, "It's good to know that you care so much about being the godmother of my baby."

"Yeah, whatever."

Just then, a knock came from Kurenai's door, and the owner of the home wondered who it could be.

She got up and answered the door, to reveal Naruto, who seemed to have an anxious expression on his face, "Oh, Naruto. Welcome, please come in." Kurenai greeted a bit awkwardly. She wasn't expecting him to be the one on the other side of the door.

Naruto thanked her and looked directly at Anko, "Anko, I have good news!"

Anko let out an amused huff, "What is it, does Ichiraku's have an all-you-can-eat special going on?"

The blonde shook his head rapidly, "No! Orochimaru has been reported dead!"

Anko's expression went from sarcastic to awestruck in a matter of seconds as she looked at Naruto with wide eyes and a gaped mouth.

"Are you serious...?!"

Naruto beamed and nodded, "Yeah! Apparently Sasuke ended up killing him! Isn't that great?!"

"No!" Anko growled, "I wanted to be the one to kill him!"

Naruto's smile transformed into a quizzical expression, "Ah... Erhm, but at least he's gone for good now, right?"

Anko groaned and rubbed her temples, "I guess. But one of my biggest goals in life was to murder that son of a bitch for betraying me and using me all those years." She shook her head, "That damned Uchiha. Taking my revenge opportunity from me like that."

Naruto frowned, not particularly expecting that to be her reaction. He looked at Kurenai, and she could only give him a look that said "Sorry, I can't help you with this one."

Naruto knew to approach this situation carefully. He knew that dealing with an angry Anko was a very sensitive and dangerous matter.

"I can see where you're coming from... But Orochimaru finally got what he deserved. He-"

"He deserved to die by my hand." Anko spat.

Kurenai shook her head, "Stop being a baby, Anko. I'm sure you're far from being the only person who wanted to kill Orochimaru themselves, you're not the only one he hurt and betrayed. We should just be glad that he's gone now."

Naruto expected Anko to go into full rage mode upon hearing Kurenai speak to her like that. But to Naruto's surprise, Anko only sighed.

"Fine, whatever, Kurenai." Anko got up and started heading to a nearby door, "I gotta take a piss."

Once Anko was out of view, Naruto looked at Kurenai with wide eyes, "Whoa... how did you do that?!"

Kurenai raised an eyebrow, "Um, do what?"

"Talk to Anko and get her to calm down like that! I thought she was going to go crazy when you said what you said to her! She would have bit my head off if I tried that!"

Kurenai laughed, "Ah, Anko and I have been good friends for quite some time now, so I guess you can say we have history. She doesn't like to argue against me because she knows I'm right most of the time."

"Well teach me how to have her see me that way!"

Kurenai giggled again, "I'm sorry Naruto, but I don't think I can. The only tip I can give you is to not be afraid of her. Anko is... Anko, but she's a sweetheart down inside. She barks a lot but she doesn't bite."

Naruto scoffs profoundly, "Maybe for you! I get bitten by her all the time!"

"That's probably because you two are dating. She wants you to know that she's the dominant one. All you have to do is learn when it's appropriate to let her be in charge and learn when you should be putting her in her place. I think she might secretly like that." Kurenai said with a smile. By then, Anko exited the bathroom, fanning a hand in front of her nose.

"Whew... Okay, so I had a change of plans in there. I wouldn't go in that bathroom for another fifteen to twenty minutes if I were you, Nai-chan." Anko mumbled. Naruto looked a bit disgusted and disturbed while Kurenai sighed and shook her head.

"You're so lady-like, Anko... I keep telling you that if it wasn't for your face and breasts, I'd swear you were a man."

"What? It's just nature's call."

"Yes, but there's no reason to put that call on speaker, Anko. We could have lived without knowing that..."

Anko scoffed, "You're such a prude, I swear."

Kurenai shook her head, "Naruto, I don't know how you put up with her."

"Yeah... I kinda don't have a choice anymore." Naruto replied jokingly, sucking in some air through his teeth. He barely managed to dodge a swift smack aimed for his face.

"Oh, is that so?" Anko grunted, "Why are you still here, anyway?"

"I just wanted to see you again before I went on the mission I'm assigned to today." He said, "We're going to try and capture Itachi."

"Capture Itachi? Uchiha?" She inquired for confirmation. Naruto nodded in response, "Why?"

"Well, since Sasuke killed Orochimaru, we know that he's going to try to kill Itachi next. So if we find and capture Itachi, it'll bring Sasuke straight to us." He explained.

"Hm, be cautious of Itachi, Naruto." Kurenai advised, "He's very strong. His genjutsu skills exceed mine, and his taijutsu and ninjutsu are pretty top tier as well."

"I know, I've heard... Kakashi-sensei and two groups will be tagging along, too. We just need two more people. If Sai and Sakura were still here, we'd be all set..." An idea then popped in his head before he saddened himself, and he lit up as a result, "Hey, why don't you two come with us?"

Anko shrugged, "Sure, I don't mind. Things have been slow over at T&I lately, and I could use a good mission. Besides, it'll let me blow off some steam and let me test these powers some more. But Kurenai can't come."

"Wait, how come?" he asked, looking at the Genjutsu queen.

"Because she has bread baking in her oven."

"Uh, what does her cooking have to do with going on a mission?"

Kurenai barely managed to stifle a giggle.

Anko face-palmed.

"It means she's pregnant, gaki."

"Oh..." Naruto mumbled, blushing, "Why didn't you just say that?!"

"Because I forgot how slow you can be." Anko sighed. "But like I said, I'll be able to go, so you only have one more person to find."

"Alright! I'll try to find one more person to tag along and then I'll head over to Tsunade-sama so we can get going!" He cheered, thanking Kurenai again before heading out the door. Kurenai smiled at Anko.

"He has a lot of energy, doesn't he?"

The violet-haired Jounin nodded, "That, he does. It can be annoying sometimes, though. But it has it's perks."

"Like what?" Kurenai asked. Anko smirked in response, and that was all the answer she needed, "Never mind. I don't want to know."

Anko entered the door to the Hokage's office, where Naruto, Tsunade, and Shizune were currently talking amongst themselves. Tsunade watched as Anko walked up beside Naruto.

"Ah, just who we were waiting for." Said the leader of the village, "So Naruto tells me you want to aid in the Itachi captivation mission?"

"That's affirmative. I figured why not."

Tsunade nodded, and grinned a bit, "I hardly see you two separated anymore. You two must be getting really close."

Anko suddenly grabbed Naruto and put him in a headlock, rummaging a hand through his hair as he struggled to get free, "Heh, what can I say? The little gaki kind of grew on me!" She said with a bright smile.

"H-Hey, get off me! Why can't you just be normal for once?!"

Shizune giggled and Tsunade shook her head with an amused smirk.

"Alright alright, cut it out. I take it from your lack of that reverse genjutsu that you both got your seals fixed, then."

Anko let Naruto go, who grumbled under his breath as he tried to fix his hair and hitai-ate, "Yeah, the pervert got it done."

"Glad to hear it. Now, since time is of the essence, I'll have to ask you, Naruto, to summon everyone here so we can get this mission underway now that we have enough people."

Naruto nodded, "On it!" And with that, he exited out of the office.

As soon as Naruto left, Tsunade looked at Anko intently, "Hey, Anko."

"Yeah, boss?"

"I know we haven't had much time to talk about you and Naruto's new relationship when you both informed me of it, so I feel this is as good a time as any."

Anko nodded, "I hear ya. I'm all ears."

"Good." Tsunade leaned forward on her desk, making sure that her body language was demonstrating how serious she was, "Now as you know, I care about Naruto with all my heart. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be sitting here in this chair right now. So you can understand that I want what's only best for him."

Anko nodded again, this time knowing exactly where the conversation was heading, "I see where you're going with this. Naruto... I feel something special for him. And we may get on each other's nerve on a constant basis, but that's the foundation of our relationship and I honestly enjoy his company. I'm here for him. And right now, I feel like I'm the best thing for him at this point in time. I know about his pains and struggles, and I can relate to almost all of them. I know you care about Naruto a lot, but I've learned to care about him a lot, too. And I haven't felt this way about anyone in a long time. So you don't have to worry about him and I. I know I'm a little unorthodox and a tough person to get along with, but I got Naruto's back."

This made Shizune smile, but Tsunade only stared at Anko for a few seconds, and as much as Anko hated to admit it, it made her uneasy. However, the Sannin member slowly began to smile and leaned back in her chair.

"Well then, I'm glad to hear it. I admit, I had my doubts about you, Anko. With all due respect, I still have a few, though. But I'm deciding to put my faith in you to keep him happy. As long as you keep doing that, you have my full support." She then crossed her arms, "Just don't go around abusing the gaki."

"I think he likes it, though." Anko chuckled, "Why else would he still be with me?"

Tsunade rolled her eyes, "Yeah, well, just don't let me hear that he's ending up hospitalized because of you. Then I'd have to show you that I'm much more terrifying than Orochimaru ever was."

Anko hid the intimidation she was struck with by laughing, "I don't doubt it, Fifth. Anyone who can still have a healthy backbone with tits like those must be pretty scary."

Tsunade's face deadpanned, "Do you see why I still have my doubts about you?"

"Ah, I'm just poking at your ribcage. But with those tits in the way, that might not be the easiest thing to do..." Anko mumbled the second sentence with a snicker. She was then forced to duck down as a book was beamed at Anko's head no less than a second later. Anko only laughed, while Tsunade only shook her head.

"Two of Konoha's most knuckle-headed shinobi are dating... God, I'm gonna need a lifetime supply of aspirin..." Tsunade sighed to herself.

Soon, the shinobi attending the mission to capture Itachi Uchiha met up at the front entrance of Konoha. Those who were present were none other than Kakashi Hatake, Kiba and Akamaru Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, Yamato, Hinata Hyuuga, Naruto Uzumaki, and Anko Mitarashi. Each of them wore a white cloak with simple red designs on them. Tsunade gave a briefing of their mission, and all parties nodded in affirmation.

"Hey Baa-chan, I couldn't find anyone else to come with us on this mission. Everyone else either isn't here or was too busy." Naruto said.

Tsunade nodded, "That's fine, I think this team will be more than enough to track down and capture Itachi." She then stood up and gave them all a serious look, "Now we all know that the Akatsuki are far from weak, especially Itachi in particular. This goes without saying, of course, but be careful. Detaining Itachi might be a harder task than killing him, and we need him alive in order for this to work."

Everyone nodded in understanding, "Let's get this underway, then."