Hello, my sweeties! How has life been treating you?

Now, this is finally the whole story behind Jiro and Mino's training that I started way back in chapter 72. I actually started this chapter immediately after that, but I hit a road block and moved on until after the last chapter when I brought it back, done some major plastic surgery on it, and got this.

Now, the council-peoples here are not the same as the manga has now. I figure that when Naruto got the position as Hokage, due to a "difference of opinions" the old councilors retired and chose two others to take their place, and it is these two nameless people that are the councilors in this story (If you have a name you think fits them, tell me and I'll give it to them, otherwise they will remain nameless (Yeay! audience participation!))

xFallingxCastlexWallsx requested I go more in dept with this, so here you go my darling!

"Yes, Mom, I promise that I'll make sure to get some more sleep before I go to the hospital again. I'll sleep right now, I promise!" Jiro called back, closing the door to his room behind him bodily as he leaned against it, tired from the long and exhausting long day.

"You look like something those mutts brought in on their filthy paws after one of those ridiculous runs of theirs." Dango lazily drawled as he threaded through the boy's legs, twisting around his ankles. "And in case your addled brain is wondering what it is that I'm talking about, it's crap. You look like crap, little boy."

Jiro chuckled and shoved off of the door to bend down and pick up the cat, straightening with a grateful groan when his back popped.

"Yeah, well, a bunch of chunin and jounin teams came back to the village severely injured all at once, and they needed all of the available trained medic nin to help. That's why Mom and I haven't been home or have had a break in," He looked at the clock and groaned again, "Dear God, nine hours. I nearly passed out, which is why I promised Mom that I would get some..." Turning his head, he led off slowly when he noticed the scroll that lay serenely in the center of his bed.

"...Sleep. Dango, what is this?"

"Oh that?" The cat summon yawned as he turned over in his arms, bored. "It's some scroll that a ridiculously masked ninja left. It was a pig, or something like that. Maybe an obese and particularly ugly dragon."

Jiro sat down on the edge of the bed, settling Dango down into his lap with a glare so that he could reach for the scroll. "And you didn't think to even try to stop the strange ninja who broke into my room?"

"No. There was no killing intent, and I was in the middle of a very nice nap."

Jiro sighed and shook his head, opening up the scroll to look over the plain script with gritty eyes that begged for sleep.

Hatake Jiro,

The council members require your presence to discuss additional training in their offices in the Hokage building at nine tonight.

And instead of the Hokage seal that would be placed at the bottom of the scroll, it was left simply blank.

"My, my, my, isn't that suspicious?" Dango purred, eying the letter. Jiro didn't even bother asking when the cat had learned to read, and instead just nodded. A letter specifically from the council, apparently not having the approval of the Hokage's office and talking about "additional training"? It was... strange.

Jiro sighed and flopped back, grunting slightly when Dango settled onto his stomach. "I don't want additional training." He muttered, throwing his arm over his eye. And it was absolutely true. He was a seventeen year old chunin who was perfectly content with his place in life as a trained medic nin who preferred to spend his time in the hospital, though he went on missions when it was required of him, and he had no aspirations of aspiring to be anything more.

"Yes, but the letter does say that it is required. So stop your whining and get some sleep. I'll wake you up when you need to go, and then you can whine to people who might care."

Jiro chuckled and realized that he was surprisingly comfortable where he was, so he decided to stay just like that, to tired and comfy to move. Scratching the black summon's head, Jiro let his eyes slide closed.

"Thanks." He murmured before slipping away for some much needed sleep.

"Hey." He heard a familiar—and annoying—voice call to him as something—a paw—batted at his nose. "Hey, boy. Get up already."

He did so with a groan and a spine cracking stretch, rubbing his grainy eyes with his hand.

"What time is it?" He asked, his mouth feeling as if it had been filled with cotton.

"Oh... Almost nine." The cat drawled lazily, hissing at him when he was thrown away suddenly as Jiro jerked upright.

"I'm supposed to be meeting the councilors in..." He glanced over at his clock, "Twenty minutes! Fuck!" He cursed as he hurried across the hall and into the bathroom while pulling off the clothes that were wrinkled from sleep and smelled like the hospital. He wanted to pull some new clothes on and brush the stale taste out of his mouth, at least.

"Language, little boy. If your mother heard you, she'd send you right through that wall. Admirable woman, your mother."

"Yeah, she's great!" Jiro spat out as he stumbled back into the room, pulling on his shoes. "Flippin' fantastic! Best mother ever! Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

"You just looked so pitiful that I had to let you sleep a bit longer." The cat said as he stretched lazily across the bed, settling in for another bit of sleep. "Oh," He said as Jiro threw his window open, "and make sure that you tell me how this goes when you come back. And do use the door on your way back in. No need to be so barbaric when your not in such a hurry, especially if it will wake me up."

Jiro shot a glare towards the cat and slipped away, running as fast as he possibly could to get to the Hokage tower in time for the meeting.

He got there with barely a breath of time remaining, stumbling into the wall beside the door as he caught his breath. When he finally caught it and knew that he wouldn't be panting every word in what Dango would surly tell him was an absolutely undignified way, he knocked on the door and let himself in when a voice called for him to do so.

Inside the office the two council members sat at a table in cushy chairs that were placed side-by-side, and tea was set up on the table in front of them. There were two other seats that were set up on the other side of the table, and Jiro noted that someone was sitting in one. A thin little blue-haired boy occupied it, staring at him with big white eyes that almost seemed to look through him.

The Hokage's youngest? This was getting stranger and stranger, and his curiosity was now beginning to get the better of him.

"Council members," He said, nodding to them formally, "May I ask why I was called here at such an hour?" When all of the regular workers were gone, unless they worked the occasional bout of overtime, he added silently.

"We will explain that to you in a moment, Hatake-san. Along with young Uzumaki-san, here." The woman said, motioning for him to take the spare seat.

Jiro watched the two of them for a moment while she served up the tea before turning his attention to the younger boy beside him. Mino was only thirteen and had only just graduated fro the academy that day. He hadn't even been placed in a genin team yet. What could the two of them have to do with the council and "training"?

"You have already voiced your questions about why you are here, Hatake-san, and you undoubtedly have some that you do not wish to voice, Uzumaki-san," The councilwoman murmured after she had given them both their tea, which Jiro knew would remain untouched. Neither of them were here for a tea party, and he just wanted it to be over with as soon as possible. "And now is the time to answer those questions." She took a breath and folded her hands on her lap.

"We have known since the two of you were little that you excelled beyond your peers." She started. "While your parents wished to keep you from training too rigorously at too young of an age and losing your childhood, which we of course understood," Jiro nearly snorted at that and the fake sincerity she had threaded so easily through her voice, "Now that you have both reached the necessary age we have decided that it would be best for you to go forward with the training we have had planned out for you. For the good of the village."

"I'm sorry," Jiro said, doubt evident in his voice, "I really don't see how any training you could give us could be relevant in any way to the good of the village."

"We would not be giving you the training." The councilman said, finally speaking up. "And this training is important for the village for the same reason that no one will ever know of it. Because you will have to do things for the village, for the good of the village, that no one else will be able to. Things that no one else will understand, perhaps not even the other shinobi. Things that it would be best the village was not fully connected with."

"And my father won't know of it." Mino quietly murmured, the other three jumping at the surprising sound of his voice. The woman sighed and hung her head slightly as if in shame, though Jiro knew better.

"No, the Hokage will know only that you were sent away for additional training, but not what that training entails. And whatever missions you receive... He may figure it out eventually, but he will not be able to stop you if you choose this path." She said quietly.

Jiro knew then that they could not do this. Absolutely not. If he couldn't tell his parents, if it had to be hidden from the Hokage himself because he would protest, then there was no way that they could do this. But just as he was opening his mouth to protest he felt a pressure on his foot and looked down to see that Mino was, for some reason, pressing his foot down on top of his slightly, stopping him from speaking.

"We will need to think it over." The dark haired boy said quietly, and the two councilors nodded almost eagerly, ushering the two boys out and telling them to take their time, to make sure that they came to the right decision.

Once outside of the building they walked side by side down the sidewalk in silence, neither really knowing where they were going or caring where they would end up, more focused on thinking everything over than anything else. And then, once again, the little blue haired boy spoke up quietly, almost silently.

"I think we should do it."

Jiro stopped and turned to him, eyebrows rising at not just the fact that this was the most he had ever heard the boy speak but also the fact that he wanted to go forward with the council's beyond shady plan.

"I don't really think-" Mino stared at him for a moment until he stopped, his white eyes glowing eerily in the dark.

"The training can not hurt us, not if it will make us stronger to protect the village. And not if I tell my father, which I will, no matter what the councilors think. And if we wish to stop, we will. They will have no control in this, even if they believe that they do."

Jiro blinked at the younger boy, surprised at just how manipulative this entire thing was, coming from a thirteen year old. He could certainly respect the boy for that, especially now that he had gotten him thinking about the entire thing.

"I could learn some new medical jutsus." He murmured to himself, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he thought it over. Mino continued to stare at him until he sighed, sending him a smirking smile.

"Fine. It probably wont hurt to try it, I guess."

Mino nodded and sent him a small smile that almost wasn't there before turning to go back to the Hokage tower. "We have to tell my father first. He should still be fighting with his paperwork in his office." He said quietly, and Jiro shrugged, following the small boy to a world that neither of them at that point even remotely understood.

The councilors were pouting. The Hokage and his wife were glaring at them, as were Jiro's parents, and when they weren't glaring they were worrying over the entire thing and the decision the two boys had made.

"Jiro, are you sure that you want to do this?" His mother asked for what seemed to be the one-thousandth time, and he just barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. There was no need for him to make her mad at him and probably hurt him severely just before he left.

"Yes Mom, I promise. I'll learn a few things, get some real world experience, and then I'll be back before you could even miss me." He told her, looking to his father—who was acting just the same as he always had, thank God—for help.

"To late for that." He heard his mother mutter just before bringing him into a tight hug, holding on to him as if he would disappear if she let go, which he supposed was what was going to happen. His father came up behind him and ruffled his hair a bit like he had always done when he was younger before setting his hand on his shoulder to squeeze slightly and force the boy to meet his uncovered eye, both of them sharing a brief and firm look that communicated all that needed to be said.

He glanced away after a minute and over to the side to see that Mino was going through much of the same treatment as he was, though his father was also actively participating in the strangling hug alongside his wife.

"Okay," Hinata sighed as she pulled away from her youngest—oh dear God, her baby—and wiped at the tears that threatened her eyes, framing the boy's face with her slim hands as she stared down at him. "If you need anything, you just write us and don't be afraid to ask for whatever it is. If you feel like quitting we'll be okay with that too, and you just come right back home as soon as you need to." She told him sternly, waiting for him to nod before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"And you," She said quietly as she turned to glare at the shocked councilors—this was the Hokage's sweet and gentle wife? "If anything happens to my son I will hold the both of you personally responsible, and I will hurt you."

Jiro's eyebrows raised at this very unexpected side to the gentle woman he had always thought of as a sort of aunt, but couldn't help but smile when his mother made some promises of her own. Very violent and very graphic promises dealing with multiple parts—sensitive parts—of the councilors' bodies.

God, he loved his mother. And now... and now he was leaving to train for who knows how long, and he wouldn't be able to see her or his father or his sister or any of the ninken for... He didn't actually know how long he'd be gone. He would be alone, never mind Mino because at times it was basically the same thing.

He didn't want to go.

As if sensing his sudden indecisiveness Mino turned his head towards Jiro so that their eyes met, and Jiro couldn't decide if the boy was trying to intimidate him into going or if he was trying to communicate that he didn't have to. Either way, he knew that no matter how much he now felt like the little boy who shuffled down to his parents' bedroom during blackouts and loud thunderstorms for comfort and the need of his mommy and daddy, he was still going to go. A part of him knew that he had to go.

Nodding to Mino to convey this, the younger boy nodded back and they both shouldered their packs, alerting their parents—who were still glaring distrustfully at the council members—to their intentions to leave.

"I'm not happy about this," Naruto growled, glaring back at the councilors one last time as he pulled Hinata into his arms in what Jiro thought to be a rather obvious attempt at holding himself back from attacking the foolish elders. "Especially since you won't even know who's training you until you meet up with him at wherever it is the old bats are sending you."

"He is extremely skilled, I assure you, Hokage-sama." The councilwoman grit out, obviously disliking being called an "old bat". "And you can trust him to do well by the children."

After a few more minutes of glaring parents and saddened goodbyes the two boys found themselves walking away, leaving the village behind with a sense of excitement and a tickling of foreboding.

After a few days of travel, the councilor's directions had become increasingly vague, the last instruction on the scroll just being to run south-easterly through the forest that they were now in. They were tired, had been traveling for days on end and were almost out of the food they had packed since they had expected their journey to end at least two-and-a-half days before, and all they both wanted to do was somehow find out where they were going and when they might get there.

The sun's light was just beginning to wane when, without a rustle or a breath of warning, kunai flew through the air at them seemingly from all directions. Pure instinct was all that kept the two of them from being skewered as they dodged and deflected as quickly as they could, though no matter how many of the projectiles were knocked away or narrowly missed more continued to come. There was a single breath of time when the barrage stopped and they stood in tense silence waiting for the attacker to act again and hopefully show where he was hiding, but then the hidden exploding tags on the fallen kunai on the ground activated and sent the world into chaos.

The force of the explosions knocked them off of their feet and sent the two of them careening into a world of heat and fire. Jiro's head hit the ground with an echoing thud as he discovered that the dirt felt more like cement while Mino twisted his wrist rather violently trying to catch himself. And just when they dared to believe that they had regained their footing—shaky as it was—kunai sped towards them through the smoke and heat, pinning them to the trees that stood stiffly behind them.

Gasping and coughing, choking on the bile and blood that rose in their throats, they watched as a lone figure walked calmly through the chaos that had been made of the forest that had, no than three minutes ago, been perfectly peaceful and untouched.

The man that came forward towards them was huge, though not necessarily in body but more in presence. Thick hair that blended with the darkness that was rapidly beginning to surround them ran down his back, amazingly un-mussed even after all of his previous strenuous activity while he played with and then pinned down the two boys. He didn't even seem to be breathing heavily or sweating, and he had the audacity to simply stroll to them as if he didn't have a single care in the world—as if the two boys weren't pinned up against the trees bleeding to death by his own hand.

But what stood out most to the two boys was the chillingly sadistic grin that split his face and seemed to glow maliciously in the darkness.

"So," The man drawled as he came up to the two sagging forms of the boys, rocking back and forth on his heels as he studied them. "You're the little leaflets that were sent to me?" The two boys blinked, unable to comprehend what the man was saying, only able to understand that they were dying, truly dying at the hands of this madman.

"Well, I gotta' say that it's a disappointment that you twos weren't more fun, but I'm guessing that that's why yous were sent you to me, huh?" He paused for a moment before nodding as if their silence had been an agreement of some sort, and then the man stepped forward and viciously pulled out one of the kunai—an abnormally long kunai, Jiro hazily noted, one so long that the blade had managed to go all the way through his body to imbed in the tree with the handle and a bit of blood stained metal still visible.

One by one the stranger tore the weapons out of the boys until they were free, both of them falling down and sagging into the ground, their blood seeping into the dirt and creating a sickly dark mud beneath them. Jiro gasped and stared into the wide white eyes that gazed back at him, frightened and muddled with pain, and he was glad that he wasn't going to die alone.

The man crouched down beside the pink haired boy and slapped him across the face a few times, sighing as he became annoyed at the lack of response. "Geeze, look how pathetic the twos of you are. A little blood loss and you're already crying and calling it quits. You really do need my help." He sighed again and Jiro watched as his hands began to glow with a familiar green tinge and as those hands touched him Jiro was met with a scorching heat that left a bitter and almost acidic burning pain behind to linger in the wounds, so different than any other healing chakra he had ever known.

He heard Mino gasp beside him as he received the same treatment and suddenly they were being hauled to their feet by the man, shaky as newborn foals as they tried to catch their balance and keep their feet underneath them.

"Alright then, let's get going." The man growled irritably, shoving them in the direction he wanted them to go and forcing them to nearly tumble back down to the ground before they managed to catch themselves.

After a few minutes of walking Jiro lifted a hand up to the worst of his barely healed wounds, about to send a slim shot of chakra into his system to start to heal himself, but suddenly his feet were tripped out from under him as a fist hit his side with the power of an avalanche, forcing him to the ground. Once more finding himself nothing more than a twisted heap of limbs on the ground as he coughed up a mixture of vomit and blood, Jiro looked up and into the eyes of the man he could have sworn to be a demon.

"Stop being such little pansy asses. If you can't even walk a few miles with a little bit of blood and pain, I certainly don't see how you're going to survive my training." Jiro spit out a mouthful of blood next to the man's foot, glaring up at him with a sharp hatred that far surpassed any other emotion he felt at that moment, even pain.

"Who the hell are you?" He gritted out, feeling overwhelmingly murderous as the man's sadistic grin grew wider.

"Me? I'm you're god, little boy. I have the power to make every breathing second of your lives excruciating and terrifying from now on, which I will happily and easily be doing. I will be in your every nightmare and your every fear, in every shadow and around every corner that you walk by. I will be your entire pitiful little world so long as I allow you to live it." His were lit with feverish glee as he looked down at the pair sprawled before him, looking up at him with a familiar and heady mixture of fear and hatred that gave him a near euphoric high.

"You can just call me Kami, Pinkie."

The place they would be training was just a little cottage that sat on a bluff facing the sea, a truly beautiful sight that the two boys would have been able to appreciate more had they not been exhausted and slightly dehydrated along with being in more pain than they had ever been in before. The only reason neither had died of blood loss was because of Kami's amazingly adept healing that, while painful and while it would leave purposeful scars, was quick and precise and kept them both alive.

They were dragged into the quaint little home and thrown into a small room with only a crack of a window for light that housed nothing more than two cots that were covered with two worn and threadbare blankets and two thin pillows. The door slammed was shut behind them with a menacing laugh on their apparent new sensei's part, but they didn't pay it any mind as they sank into the two little beds that now belonged to them for God—or even more accurately, Kami—new how long.

"This was a mistake." Jiro managed to croak hoarsely into the silent and agreeing darkness just before he fell into an exhausted sleep.

"You twos weren't too bad today!" Kami said jovially as he led the two boys away from the destruction of their front yard and back into the little cottage, and coming from him it was a compliment of almost epic proportions.

Seven months had passed since the boys had first been violently introduced to the heartless brute of a man, and they had not been forgiving or easy months. The first month and a half was spent with Kami just attacking the two helpless boys before they finally managed to even remotely fight back, eventually getting to where they could last an entire thirty minutes against the man, though even then they had gone to bed each night in excruciating pain. But because of that, they had found that their tolerance for pain had become exceptionally high, especially when the the man had dubbed them ready for the torture training that had started just the month before.

Kami's training was horrendous and painful and unexpected, but Jiro supposed that it was getting the results that the council had been aiming for. Along with their raised tolerance with pain and their now formidable strength and newer more vicious attacks, they had also been forced to learn how to react quicker, a lesson neither of the boys had liked even the slightest bit but one that Kami had found unendingly amusing.

That particular training had started when they had been walking back to the cottage one day, both of the boys suffering and tired and not really all that suspicious of how close Kami had led them to the cliff's edge because they had no reason to be. At least, they had no reason to until the man shoved them off of said cliff and into the thrashing water dozens of feet below.

He had laughed as he had dragged them out ten minutes later, just barely saving the pair from drowning. The salt water burned their wounds and noses, and the cocktail mixture of it and the mucus and bile that rose in their throat left them gagging, tears streaming down the both of their faces as Kami explained to them that until they managed to hone their "pathetic pansy reflexes", he was going to be doing stunts like the one he had just pulled. He said that if they wanted him to stop, they'd have to do it themselves.

It took weeks of having their beds set on fire while they slept, having nearly invisible razors thrown at them while they bathed, having a frying pan thrown at them randomly and having hidden pits filled with spikes and snakes set at numerous points in the yard—just to name a few of the "training tactics" Kami had employed—before the boys finally managed to get it where their bodies reacted faster than their minds could, something that was celebrated by them once again being pushed off of the cliff, though this time they managed to evade the initial attack and save themselves from the fall.

Poisons had been introduced into numerous meals, and while Jiro had went through some mild poison training when he was younger it was nothing compared to what Kami gave them. And Mino... It was even worse for him since he had never went through any form of the training before. The worst part was that Kami expected them to be able to fight him easily—or as easily as they could—while the shivers wracked their bodies and the cold sweats slicked their skin as the nausea turned their stomachs and dis-coordinated their limbs.

And now, after another one of their usual fights, Kami led them into the small windowless room that served as their little torture room. It was usually done after a fight because, as the man sometimes reminded them, the enemy wouldn't be nice and wait for you to catch your breath after beating your ass to start searching for information, though sometimes it was done in the middle of the night when they were forced awake by the pain and the tightening restraints, though that was only for the unexpected aspect of it.

The boys stripped and then they didn't bother to fight as their torturer—their teacher—secured their wrists into the stocks that hung from overhead. They knew better than to do that since if they even thought to do so he would only drag the entire experience on for such an excruciatingly long time. They had learned that lesson, and had learned it well.

"Twenty extra minutes added on for each noise." Kami cheerfully reminded them as he picked up the first implement from the tray he had set out and the boys nodded, relaxing their bodies as they tried to focus their breathing.

Later that night both boys were settling in for bed when Jiro looked up to see Mino attempting to cut his own hair with one of his kunai.

"Stop! You're going to mess something up majorly, and then neither of us will hear the end of it from Kami." He said, motioning the younger boy to him, "I'll do it."

Mino nodded—neither of them wanted to hear all the jokes the man would be able to come up with—and went to where Jiro was sitting on the bed, crouching down between his legs so that he faced the wall while the nuisance of his hair was taken care of. They shared few words, but they liked it like that. They both preferred the settled quiet to the irritating rasp of an intruding voice, especially if that voice was Kami coming to see what all the noise was about.

"I'll cut yours." Mino offered, but as Jiro fingered the strands that now brushed past the lobes of his ears and tickled the nape of his neck, he shook his head.

"Nah, that's all right. I think I might just try growing it out a bit." He told the boy, and Mino nodded before moving away.

A year or so into their training Kami had taken to giving them little mini-missions that he would grade them on based on how he thought they were supposed to do, and Jiro had found himself on one such mission. One he didn't actually mind being on.

He was to break into a hospital just outside of Amegakure, an extremely difficult task in it's own right due to the sheer amount of security the place insisted to have, and find where they hid the more precious medicines and antidotes to find a particularly rare one that the village held in close secrecy, one that the Daimyo of the land had apparently taunted another with, leading to the thievery.

Jiro was planning on studying it a bit and pocketing some, something that Kami had almost seemed proud of when he had told him.

Now there was a scary thought.

As he slipped into the massive building, he noticed that he would be extremely noticeable if he didn't do something quick. Everyone was either wearing patient smocks, nurses uniforms or doctor's coats, and his standard shinobi clothing would stand out brighter than a neon sign. Looking around quickly he spotted what had to be the break room, and within it there was a very convenient coat thrown over the back of a chair, forgotten in the owner's cursing attempts to get the coffee maker working.

As Jiro slipped through the halls, now securely hidden in plain sight with his simple disguise, he felt how... right it was. In all of the training he had nearly forgotten that his whole life's goal was to be a doctor and to save lives, and smoothing his hand down the crisp fabric of the coat he determined that he would not forget it again.

Getting the medicine was surprisingly easy, but he found that slipping out was not so since it seemed like someone had realized that the hospital didn't employ any doctors with pink hair. However, the fights were so easy it bordered on ridiculous, and the realization that Kami's training was actually worth something was... astounding. Once he had ran the miles it took to get back to said man—miles that didn't even leave him slightly breathless—he went to hand him one of the vials to give to the employer but found that he was too busy studying him like he was some kind of puzzle.

"What?" Jiro bit out, practically shoving the vial into the older man's hand. He smiled at him, that same twisted and creeping smile that the boys had come to hate so desperately, and then motioned to the now slightly blood-spattered coat that Jiro had forgotten he was wearing.

"I like it. It's morbid and creep-a-fying. You should keep it." He told him happily before turning and walking away, leaving the pink haired boy to stare down at himself with almost blank eyes.

"I've got a special bit of training for you twos!" Kami said cheerfully as he came into the small sitting room turned weapons room where the boys were doing maintenance.

"What training?" Jiro asked as he held up one of the specially made kunai to the light, thumbing the razor edge to test it.

"Torture." Kami said simply, ushering the two to stand up and hurry into the little room, grinning widely and fidgeting almost like a proud mother who wanted to show off her child's accomplishments. He pulled the door open with a grin that set the two boys on edge and revealed to them the same room that they visited at least once a week for their lessons looking just as it always had with the bleak walls and the slightly blood stained wood.

And everything was exactly the same, all but for the wide-eyed and gagged man who was hanging from the restraints that the boys had been in far too many times to tell.

"You've graduated from gettin' to givin'." Kami said almost proudly as he shoved the boys forward the necessary step to enter the room.

"B-But we don't know-" Jiro started to desperately protest, but Kami shook his head.

"Of course you know! I've done it to you enough times that you should know it backwards, forwards and upside down by now! Just do what I did, and you'll do fine. All you need to do is get a bit of information from him about the numbers of the rouge sect he's from." Kami started to slide the door closed, but paused to smile at them one last time, almost supportive. "I'll even give you an hour and a half since this is the twos of yous first time." He said graciously before closing the door all of the way.

Jiro was hyperventilating.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't torturethis man. He was supposed to be training to get stronger, to be able to protect and heal and become what he had always dreamed of being. He could not bring unjust harm, not when he was supposed to be healing.

But looking around the room, glancing into Mino's equally terrified eyes that were just able to hide it better, Jiro as suddenly assaulted with all of the memories. The cuts and the burning and the screams that eventually filtered away to just groans after so many long months. The pain. Oh God, the pain.

All they had to do...

Reaching out with a hand that trembled slightly, Jiro grasped the first of the instruments Kami had laid out for them, more familiar with it since it seemed that Kami used more often on him. He knew just how much it hurt at what depth and what pressure, and just the places to go for.

Taking a breath and meeting the frightened man's eyes, Jiro felt his hand steady as he took that step forward.

Jiro looked up at the gate that he hadn't seen in what seemed to be a dozen lifetimes, and tightened his grip on the strap of his pack, swallowing hard.

Two and a half years. That was... That was forever. That was long enough for his hair to grow down to brush past his shoulder blades when he pulled it back away from his face. That was long enough for Mino to grow to just an inch or two short of his height, his blue hair now falling partially forward to hide eyes that were even stranger than before.

Long enough for them to learn that they had never should have left, and that it was now too late to ever go back.

Managing to silently communicate through the odd bond that they had formed, they both stepped forward at the same time and walked through the gates to make their way almost fully unnoticed to the Hokage's tower, both of them nodding to the shocked Eri as she let them into the Hokage's office.

"Eri, where did that pen go? The one with that little ball that goes through the maze in it? I think that it'll help me with my paperwork." Naruto said carelessly as he doodled swirls boredly over a once blank piece of paper. He glanced up when he sensed that his assistant wasn't alone, and blinked at the sight that he was met with.

"MINO!" He shouted as he practically threw his chair back into the wall, jumping over the desk to get to his son and draw him into a suffocating hug.

"Hello... Dad." Mino managed to choke out as his father squeezed, and Jiro looked back to see Eri going away, probably to contact everyone else.

Five minutes was all it took for his mother to get there, wearing the uniform that she always wore to the hospital as she burst through the window, barely raking her eyes over Mino before they settled onto her son.

"Hey Mom." He said lamely, holding out his arms as his mother tackled him so that he could catch her. He didn't remember her being quite so... small.

"You...! You...! You haven't wrote in months! What is wrong with you? And... You're hair! It's so long and... You've been gone for so long!" She practically screamed, pulling back to grip his arms and attempt to shake him as she glared up at him, though she found him to be immovable.

"Yeah, sorry about that." He said as he shrugged, not willing to tell her that he hadn't written because he hadn't wanted to. Because he couldn't. Those last couple of months... Neither of them had wanted any of that to touch their parents.

Jiro smiled at his father when he came in, and he heard Mino's mother giving him basically the same speech that he had gotten, although there seemed to be a lot of tears and hugs and kisses involved in his from both parents.

They suffered through it all with smiles, edging around their questions and giving them hollow answers that no one really believed but answers that everyone grudgingly accepted. But the four parents saw something in the the boys that tore at them, that made them curse themselves for ever letting them go.

Their were pieces of them missing—good pieces, precious pieces—that they knew the boys would never be able to get back, and to see those gaps in their babies nearly brought them all to their knees.

It was after one of their regular and more mundane missions of torturing information out of a man for the Daimyo, something about some secret trade agreements, that Jiro leaned back against the stump he sitting in front of and, without really giving his words any thought, said, "I'm done."

The words were such a shock to him that his entire body jerked, almost as if he were trying to reach out and bring them back. He blinked for a moment, unsure about everything he had ever known in that beat of time as he questioned if he had really meant it before every thought in his mind shouted out an undeniable YES.

He was tired of the blood he forced others to shed and was tired of how good it felt when he did so. He was tired of waking up every morning wondering if he was going to be given another one of his "Special missions", and both looking forward to it and dreading it.

He was tired of being unable to look his parents in the eyes, of being able to feel anything over the numbness that had built up over the years. He was tired of avoiding mirrors because he knew that his reflection was just going to disgust him.

He wanted out. He wanted out more than he wanted his next breath.

He also wanted a cigarette to take the edge off, but he firmly reminded himself that not only did that not work anymore but that he had quit the habit.

"Good. I was almost tired of waiting." Mino quietly said, that dark twist of humor lighting up his pale eyes as he watched Jiro's head whip around comically to stare at him, gaping.

"What? Waiting?" A small smirk twisted the younger boy's lips at the pink haired man's befuddled tone.

"Yes. I've been ready to leave for quite some time, but I didn't want to leave you alone."

Jiro blinked at the boy for a few moments, his words truly touching him. Mino had stayed, had endured the evilness and the depravity of their job, all just so that he didn't have to do it alone. All so that he could keep him as stable as he possibly could.

"Thank you." Jiro quietly murmured, and Mino shrugged, somewhat embarrassed by how heartfelt his words were.

"So... How are we going to do it?" Jiro finally asked after a few minutes of silence between them, the sounds of the crackling of the flames eating through the building they had been working in earlier sounding in the background. "It's not like we can just go to the councilors and say 'We quit'."

"But that's exactly what we're going to do." Mino murmured, as if there wasn't a doubt in his mind as to how it would work.

"And... And they're not going to do anything?" The older boy dumbly asked. A slight smile danced over the younger's mouth as he shook his head, and staring at him Jiro had a sudden epiphany. "Ah. Hokage's son. Can't exactly go and off you, can they? But what about me? They could contact Kami and get him to come over and do what he does best, and no one will ever be the wiser. Hell, they could actually do that to you too, though it would be suspicious for both of us to go."

Mino shook his head as his eyes flashed again with that same hint slightly twisted humor. "But you see, I've been doing what I do best these past few years and have gathered every dirty secrets about the council that are out there. Everything they want hidden, I know, and I have secured all of the information so that if anything suspicious ever happens to either of us, this information will be released."

Jiro blinked at the boy for a few minutes before grinning so widely he swore that his face would split. Not only was that the longest he had ever heard the boy speak in all of the years they had been together, but Mino had spoken the most brilliant and beautiful words that he had ever heard.

"I love you so much right now that I could kiss you." Jiro said quite truthfully, though he only got a blank look in return for his confession.

"I'm flattered, but I do not feel the same."

As Jiro stepped out of the Hokage building and away from that detestable office for what he swore to be the last time, he stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply, reveling in the unusual taste of freedom. He knew that he wasn't all the way free—that he would never be all the way free after all he had done—but for just a moment he ignored the monsters that pulled at his shoulders and realized that it was truly a beautiful day.

He looked back at Mino who was glancing up at the sky with an almost painful melancholy expression on his face, and he held out a formal hand with a somber stare.

"It has been a horrific pleasure knowing you, Uzumaki Mino." He said lowly as they shook, their eyes meeting and holding for a single and lead-heavy beat of time.

"The same can be so very truthfully said for you, Hatake Jiro." He murmured back.

And they released each other to turn away, walking forward with their demons dragging at their heels as they vowed to never find their way back again.

Tada!

A hello and a big thank you to my new baby Rancorium (Ha! You're name is a lot like my father's old WoW and character name and the name he uses for a lot of his online gaming), and to JacksonKid3 who went on to my Deviant Art account to look at the terrible scribbles I have made of these characters and left such lovely comments! (really, the drawings are aweful. They're old and the scanner likes to laugh at my hope and spit it out in my face and make them even more aweful)

And also to my sweet little dear sylversmith, who was such a darling about my story and the way I write, and who said he was shocked when he read that I was just accepted to college. Your comments were lovely, and they made me so wonderfully happy. (And yes, to those who have not been paying attention, I am just seventeen and am just this amazing naturally)

Love and kisses to all of you! Mwah!