AN: Alright folks, here is the second chapter. I'd like to thank the reviewers, but I would also like to clear some things up. First off, as I already mentioned, there will be no bashing in this story. As for pairings, I would like to tell you that any and all suggestions will be ignored unless they have a valid point. Right now the top candidates (the ones I picked, not you) are as follows: Kiba, Shikamaru and Chouji. So far there has been a single suggestion for Gaara, but it has been coldly rejected. Sorry IEatChicken, but although Gaara got better with his social skills in this story as well as in canon, I just can't see him developing this kind of feelings. In other words I am unable to write it, although I agree that they are indeed kindred spirits. On that note, keep in mind that even if two people have a lot in common (especially if it is some kind of unpleasant experience) they are not necessarily a good match for each other. I know that from personal experience, so don't even try to convince me otherwise.

I would also like to note, that this is not an invitation to start a pairings poll. I will most likely decide a pairing on my own and then edit the story category to fit it.

Also, even though the secondary genre is romance, the primary genre is drama, so don't expect any romantical involvements too soon. As you can read in my profile (Beware though, it is not safe for children and might offend you in some way, so you might reconsider reading it.) I prefer slow and steady development of a romance instead of a shallow, quick description of how two characters fall for each other on first sight.

That being said, on with the story.

Foster

Chapter 2

Tsunade closed her eyes in contemplation. The young Uzumaki had been already dismissed with an order to seek out Shizune for treatment of her scars on the next day, seeing as it was still the middle of the night. The story of Naru had been tragic, but on the other hand...Tsunade was going to have the council's asses now. On a silver platter. They had no right whatsoever to assign S-ranked missions without the Hokage's permission, let alone to a genin. Tsunade's smile would have scared any hardened shinobi, had they seen her at that moment. She had been unsatisfied with the council for a while now, despite the fact that they were doing a decent job of keeping the different clans and powerful families at bay. Recently however they started to try and diminish her authority because they didn't agree with her way of dealing with the war against Sound. According to them, a decisive strike at the main base of the opponent was necessary in order to secure their victory. Tsunade disagreed, reminding them that there were multiple bases all around the elemental nations and not one of them could with certainty be called the main. Knowing Orochimaru, he didn't have one at all, or placed it in a country that Konoha was not on good terms with. Trying to ambush such a base would result in a war not only against Sound, but also against Rock, Cloud, or potentially, although not likely, Mist.

The reason the council still remained adamant, as Tsunade suspected, was their unfounded pride as well as severe overestimation of their opponent. They believed Orochimaru to be a major threat, although in fact he wasn't. Of course, he was a very powerful shinobi, with almost no equals, but he was the only one with such abilities in Sound. And as history has proven, a single great fighter, no matter how good, couldn't conquer an entire nation. The rest of the Sound shinobi were barely passable as chuunin, seeing as their elite had been defeated by a bunch of genin when they attempted (and failed) to abduct Sasuke. Overall, Orochimaru seemed more interested in obtaining the Sharingan than winning the war against Konoha. It appeared as if the entire village of Sound was nothing more than a disposable tool to him. It became even more evident after he failed to plant one of his cursed seals on his target, due to the interference of Mitarashi Anko, and used the Sound genin that were taking the chuunin exam as a sacrifice for his jutsu. On top of that the man had next to no leadership qualities, seeing as the only shinobi he was able to persuade to join him were either not all that bright, equally as insane as him or very young.

The council seemed to have a much higher opinion of him and was not willing to change it.

There was a knock on the door. Tsunade raised her head and waited until the door opened to reveal her old teammate Jiraiya. She still didn't know what happened to him and he refused to talk about it, saying it was something personal. He was clad in his old jounin uniform and wore the standard forehead protector to hold his white mane in check. This was probably not the most drastic change about him, however. In the last four years he didn't write a single letter for his popular perverted Icha Icha series. He started acting that way a short time after he and Kiba had come back from their Legendary Sucker hunt, with herself in tow. Tsunade suspected that it had something to do with their sensei's death, but had yet to receive any proof. He had been obediently taking missions as a regular shinobi of the Leaf, but refused to take any students other than Kiba. The old pervert seemed to have grown fond of the boy.

"Hey." He greeted her unenthusiastically. "Just came back from that mission you got me."

"You can give me the report later. Right now I have very good news." Tsunade smiled creepily again and made a pause to make sure she had Jiraiya's attention.

"I'm listening." He grinned a little and made his way to sit down in a chair that stood opposite from her desk.

"The council is mine." Tsunade declared. "They have been assigning S-ranked missions without my permission for four years now."

Jiraiya let out a chuckle.

"Well, they are in for the ride of their lives, if that look in your eyes is anything to go by." He crossed his legs and rested his back against the chair.

"That's not the most ridiculous part. They had been assigning them to a genin." Tsunade continued, reaching under her desk to take out a bottle of sake and two cups, ripping the cork out with her teeth and pouring the rice wine for herself and the white haired man.

As expected Jiraiya grunted a little, a sound that was very close to a growl.

"What were these sick fucks thinking?"

"To put it shortly they wanted to see the girl dead. Apparently they thought that the seal was not enough of an insurance." She handed the cup to him.

"What seal?" The toad Sannin frowned as he brought the cup to his lips.

"Oh, right. Sorry. I'm talking about the Uzumaki girl and the Yondaime's se-..."

The sound of something ceramic breaking into pieces made her stop and look up from her own cup to look at Jiraiya. His sake was spilled all over the floor together with the shards of the cup. He had an unreadable expression on his face, not because it was blank, but rather because there were so many different emotions flashing over it.

"Whats wrong?"

Jiraiya moved his eyes to meet hers and in that moment Tsunade was able to see raw emotion in there, something that he was lacking in these past four years.

"Naru? You mean Uzumaki Naru?" He asked, even thought he knew that there was no other Uzumaki to be found anywhere in Konoha.

"Yeah, her. Why does it trouble you that much?" Tsunade frowned. She expected him to be angry, furious even. She knew that he had vowed to look out for the girl, for the sake of his old student... But this desperation that he showed right now, as if the words about Naru were his last lifeline, that didn't make sense at all.

"They told me she was dead." He said, his eyes becoming cold and his voice gaining an edge to it. "These old fuckers told me she was dead, when I asked them to take her and Kiba on a training trip not a day after we brought you back!"

Jiraiya all but jumped out of his chair, making it topple over on the floor and started pacing the room, as if to decide what he wanted to do.

Tsunade's eyes widened. So that was the reason behind her teammate's change... But that was rather irrelevant now. What mattered now, was saving the worthless lives of the council members, before Jiraiya killed them.

He already stopped, took out a kunai and was examining it intently.

"Hey, what do you think is the better way?" He asked, still looking at his kunai. "Slow and painful or very slow and very painful?"

The Godaime found herself shuddering. Usually she would have laughed at his words, considering them a joke, but the tone of his voice indicated that he was deadly serious. And she knew for a fact that so far, no one had survived it when Jiraiya got really mad at them.

"Calm down." She ordered. Jiraiya seemed to come out of a trance and looked at her in bewilderment, as if noticing her presence for the first time.

"I understand how you feel, but you have to calm down. Killing those worthless bastards will not make everything that happened undone. Right now I need you to go to sleep and seek out Shizune tomorrow morning. Naru has an appointment with her for some long overdue medical treatment and I want you to meet her and take a look at the seal. From what she told me, the Kyuubi might be dead."

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed into slits.

"What treatment?" He asked, as if the part about Kyuubi didn't bother him at all. Tsunade realized that rescuing the council members was going to be close to impossible. She sighed. It was better to tell him now than wait until he found out on his own, because then she was sure he definitely would kill everyone who had even the tiniest bit of connection to what happened.

Naru laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. The talk with the Hokage had proven to yield results after all. Throughout their conversation the Godaime had kept her calm, despite her obvious difficulties to do so.

The young blond wasn't kidding herself into pretending that she didn't know the warm feeling that spread over her just by watching someone else be worried and concerned about her. It felt good, even though she had almost forgotten that someone used to do it sometime ago. The Third had always been concerned and worried. Despite herself, Naru found that she could respect the current Hokage at least a little bit. She still thought that the Godaime was sorely lacking in the responsibility department, seeing as it was partly her fault Naru had spent the last four years on suicide missions. Had Tsunade gone through the paperwork earlier she would have noticed and possibly put a stop to it.

But the 'what ifs' didn't matter anymore. Tsunade had given her word that Naru would not be sent on such missions anymore, at least not alone and not anytime soon.

Slowly but surely the blond's bedroom began to brighten up as the sun found it's way to the horizon.

The kunoichi stood up and made her way to the window. Due to the general emptiness of the neighborhood she lived in, there were no people on the streets below, making this part of Konoha look like a ghost town.

Turning around and taking a look at the clock Naru discovered that she still had more than an hour until her appointment with Tsunade's apprentice Shizune. Deciding that she might as well take a walk and a look around the village, the former jailer of the Kyuubi walked out of the bedroom, put on her sandals and left her apartment.

Making her way down the stairs, being careful to avoid the ones that tended to make squeaking sounds when one stepped on them, Naru soon found herself on the empty street. For some reason she felt that she didn't want to disturb this serene silence that hung in the air and proceeded down the road, using her best stealth skills to not make a single sound. It wasn't completely silent though. There were the waking up birds and the sound of rustling leaves. Naru supposed that those little factors were what made the silence serene in the first place. Had it been totally and completely silent, it would have been rather creepy instead.

Nevertheless, as she passed block after block of empty streets, the aforementioned streets began to not be so empty anymore. Here and there there would be an old man or woman passing by, or the occasional merchant on his way to the district he worked at. Continuing on her way, Naru couldn't help but notice the absence of the stares and glares that she had been forced to live with for the first twelve years of her life. Sure, some people would gaze at her while walking by, but that was as much attention as she got. She supposed it was only natural. After all, she hadn't been around for four years, almost always out of Konoha on missions. And when the council took some time to find an appropriately dangerous mission for her, she mostly lounged inside her apartment. It seemed that the people of Konoha simply didn't recognize her for who she was. Not that they ever did.

Taking a look at the sun to determine the current time, she found that she should probably head for Shizune's clinic already. It was better to be early than late, after all. Not to mention that the walk around the waking up Konoha felt rather uncomfortable for some reason, as if she was tresspassing on someone else's territory.

Having determined her course of action, Naru swiftly turned around and found the shield that was labeling the street she was on. It would take around ten minutes to get from here to the clinic without jumping up and onto the rooftops and seeing as she still had some time to spare, the blond decided to do just that.

Ten minutes later she found herself on the doorstep of a medium sized building, with a large metallic shield imprinted into the wall, that had Shizune's name and her medic nin title engraved into it. The sign that hung behind the glass door said 'Open' in large, blue letters.

Shrugging, Naru pried the door open and walked in. Her nose was immediately assaulted by several strong smells which, while not necessarily disgusting, were not really pleasant either. The young kunoichi could distinguish the antiseptic but the rest of the unidentified scents was beyond her.

Taking a look around proved futile as there was nothing there, except a bright red arrow pointing down a corridor. Shrugging again, Naru followed the arrow. Soon enough she found a desk which looked as if the one responsible for it was quite busy. There was a bell on the table, with a piece of paper attached to it. Reading the paper provided Naru with the information, that should the receptionist be absent, she was supposed to ring the bell only once and wait until he came back.

Naru did just that and was rewarded with the sound of hurrying footsteps. A girl that looked a couple of years younger than the blond kunoichi emerged from around a corner, smiled sheepishly at her and made her way to sit behind the desk.

Naru squinted a little at the girl. She seemed somewhat familiar... Red hair, standing up in two...horns? Tails? Naru didn't really know. Cheeks with a healthy blush on them... Dark eyes...

"Moegi?"

"Hmm? Have we met somewhere?" Sure enough the girl answered to the name and tilted her head to the side a little, as if trying to get a better look at Naru's face, which was impossible since it was covered with hair.

"Yeah. I'm Uzumaki Naru. Remember me?" The blond kunoichi couldn't help but smile a little as a bright grin of recognition found it's way onto Moegi's face.

"Naru-nee! Of course I remember! It's been a while, but Konohamaru and Udon still remember you too. We had some fun times together after all." She smiled brightly and leaned forward, supporting her head with her hands. "So, what brings you here?"

"I have an appointment with Shizune-san in a couple of minutes. Since when are you working here? I thought you wanted to become a kunoichi?" Naru couldn't help her curiosity. The girl in front of her as well as the other two members of the Konohamaru Corps really did have some fun times together, be it eating ramen or simply playing around.

The smile on Moegi's face brightened even more.

"Of course! I did become a kunoichi, even though I'm still a genin. I'm the only one suitable to be a medic on our team, so they had me study a little under Shizune-shishou. It hasn't been very long yet, though."

"That's great for you." Naru smiled as Moegi began to energetically nod her head. Just as the older kunoichi was about to ask about some other mundane things, the two were interrupted by the arrival of two different people.

This time Shizune was accompanied by a large man with a mane of white spiky hair. He was clad in some faded green ninja grab with a bright red jacked draped over it and instead of the usual ninja sandals he wore geta. A horned forehead protector kept the hair out of his eyes and Naru recognized the symbol that was written on it as kanji for oil.

The man was currently laughing obnoxiously at something and Shizune seemed to be beaming with excitement. Naru briefly considered if the two were maybe a pair, but soon dismissed the possibility seeing as despite their obvious comfort around each other they didn't behave like a couple.

Soon the two reached the desk and Shizune greeted them.

"Good morning, Uzumaki-san, Moegi-chan.. May I introduce you, this is one of the legendary Sannin, Jiraiya-sama..." She was cut off by the man next to her as he once again burst into laughter.

"You may also know, that I am the amazing author of the most popular novel series around the elemental countries..." He made a dramatic pause, before swiftly reaching behind his back and withdrawing an orange colored book, thrusting it forward for the two young girls to see. "The Icha Icha series!" He announced proudly before grinning broadly. "If you ask nicely I may even give a signed copy to you for free!"

Naru lowered her gaze to look at the book and spotted the sign that prohibited anyone who had not yet come of age from reading it.

"Err, I think I'll pass."

Jiraiya pouted a little at the quick dismissal and put the book back.

Shizune giggled at the display and motioned with her hand to a door further down the corridor.

"Let's go to my office and get to business, now shall we?" As she began to lead the way, Naru told Moegi goodbye and followed. To her surprise the white haired man also joined them in the room.

The room itself was, just as it's name suggested, an office. There were several posters on the walls, picturing the human body either without skin, in order to show the different muscles and inner organs, or with detailed blue lines that represented the chakra pathways. There were several large bookshelves, a hardwood desk, a couple of chairs and a lot of different decorative details that were supposed to make the room look comfortable.

Shizune motioned for her guests to sit in the chairs and sat herself behind the desk, across of them.

"Uzumaki-san, first off, I would like to say that it will most likely take several weeks, maybe months to get rids of the scars completely. Judging from Godaime-sama's observations the scarring extends over your whole body, correct?"

Naru nodded.

"I didn't expect them to miraculously vanish overnight anyway. That matter aside, with all due respect, but what is Jiraiya-sama doing here?"

The two adults exchanged looks before the toad Sannin cleared his throat.

"Tsunade asked me to take a look at the seal. In the report from two years ago, as well as in yesterday's talk with her you mentioned that the Kyuubi disappeared. I'm here to investigate whether or not it is really completely gone, and if so, than where did it go. We can not exclude the possibility-"

"That I'm lying?" Naru cut off, her brows furrowing in anger. The white haired man seemed to recoil at her harsh tone and waved his arms in front of himself while turning in his chair to face her.

"That's not what I was about to say. There is the possibility that the Kyuubi was extracted from you while you were unconscious or under the effects of some drugs. If that happened, then I will surely find out, whether the seal has been tampered with or not." He smiled at her, although it was slightly strained.

"Oh. Err, sorry." Naru would have probably blushed in embarrassment if her mutilated skin had allowed that.

"It's ok. I really expected you to be a lot more bitter about the whole ordeal." Jiraiya smiled again, this time a lot more easier.

"I just don't see the point of brooding about the past, that's all." The blond kunoichi replied dismissively before turning to face Shizune again. "So, when do we start?"

"I'd like you to tell me where you would prefer to have the scars removed first from." Shizune replied while opening a thick folder and quickly skimming through it.

"That's an easy one. My face."

Shizune nodded.

"I thought as much. I will first remove the scars that hinder your face from moving in some parts and the ones around the eyes. We'll see what to do next as we go with it. But first I'd like to do a diagnostic jutsu on you to see if maybe there has been some damage inside your body that remained unnoticed before." The dark haired woman scribbled something down into the folder and closed it.

"Well then. Uzumaki-san, go to the examination room and change into one of the gowns that you'll find lying on top of the bed. I'll be right there."

All three of them had stood up at that point and were making their way to the door.

"Jiraiya-sama will look at the seal when I'm finished, it shouldn't take longer than half an hour."

The toad hermit nodded and opened the door, letting the two females out first.

Later that day, Naru was once again inside her apartment, gazing at her reflection in the mirror. The hair that usually hung in front of her face was temporarily pinned to the side by a hairpin she found in the box that held her old possessions. To someone else her face would have probably looked just as bad as before, but the blond couldn't stop marveling at the few spots of new pink skin, unmarked by any scars. As Shizune had later explained, the scars could not be removed quite as easily, because some of them were already two years old while others were relatively fresh. Seeing as they needed a specific amount of medical chakra applied to them, it would make sense to remove them in descending order, depending on their age. Also, it was apparently not healthy to use too much medical chakra, especially if the chakra was someone else's, on the skin which was the main reason as to why it couldn't be done at once and would take multiple weeks.

Naru's lips slowly curled themselves upward. Not only was she getting rid of the scars, but it had been definitely confirmed that the Kyuubi was dead. This was possibly the best day in the past four years.

Tsunade gazed at Shizune and Jiraiya who both sat before her.

"So, what have we learned?" She asked, taking a look at the toad sage. As much as she wanted to give Naru priority, Kyuubi's fate was more important to Konoha right now.

Jiraiya's face lit up like a candle light.

"It's just as she said... The demon fox is dead!" He grinned broadly, obviously very happy with himself and the world in general. Tsunade frowned.

"Care to elaborate?"

"Not really." It seemed that after learning of Naru's survival, not only his old clothing style but also all of Jiraiya's bad habits had resurfaced. "But since you're asking me so nicely I can't refuse, now can I?"

"No. You can't." Tsunade confirmed, closing her eyes in an attempt to cool her rising temper. As if the wind had blown away all of Jiraiya's childishness, his face became serious once again.

"It's the seal." He began. "I never got a chance to look at it properly, back when it was made. But now I can say for sure that it's a simple masterpiece. It was designed in a way that forcibly drained small amounts of the demon's chakra and used it to heal, no... regenerate any wounds Naru sustained, unless they were lethal. When she was tortured by Orochimaru's henchmen, the seal did just that. From the mission report you gave me, she had been in their hands for over seven months. From those seven months she had been injured without a break for about four months. They didn't even let her sleep, the only reason she survived and still has her sanity is because she fell unconscious from time to time!" Jiraiya stopped and took a calming breath. "Anyway. As I said, the seal forcibly drained Kyuubi's chakra and from what I understand it took quite a lot of raw chakra to heal even small wounds." He continued "Since the injuries were inflicted constantly, the demon had no time to replenish it's energy and after some time it simply ran out of it. But of course the seal didn't stop at the point of the demon's exhaustion. It sucked every last bit of chakra out of the Kyuubi, thus killing it. It's actually pretty pathetic, for the most powerful Bijuu to die from chakra exhaustion." The toad Sannin chuckled a little as he finished his tale.

Tsunade sat there, her eyes disbelieving, but soon she too let out a chuckle along with a relieved breath.

"I already thought that bringing the council under my control was good news, but this is simply amazing." She allowed herself to relax inside her chair and closed her eyes. "Now to the matter that we are all equally interested in. How is Naru's treatment going?"

Shizune, who had been listening intently, perked up at this as hurriedly withdrew the thick folder from earlier in the day.

"As expected, it will take some time until Uzumaki-san will complete the scars removal course. But aside from that, she will make a full recovery. There also were no internal injuries, at least none that I didn't take care of immediately. They were nothing serious, though. My estimate until her treatment is complete is about three weeks from now. The process should speed up considerably after the first week, so it won't take as much time as I first suspected." Shizune closed her folder, put it on her lap and clasped her hands on top of it.

"Good." Tsunade nodded in satisfaction and stood up. She slowly walked towards the window and peered outside of it. "Now, Shizune I want you to go and summon all the council members." Tsunade's reflection in the glass smirked evilly. "Jiraiya, you will stay here. I want you to attend the... meeting the council and I will have."

Shizune felt shivers run down her spine, as she watched a matching smirk appear on the usually carefree and cheerful face of the toad hermit.

"I would have attended even if you had banned me from doing it." He said as he stood up and joined Tsunade in gazing out of the window.

The dark haired medic nin felt that she should leave before the two of them scared her even more. Nevertheless she decided that a small session of listening in on the upcoming conversation was in order and made a mental note to bring a glass in order to hear what was going on behind the wall better.

After the sound of the door closing reached their ears, Jiraiya voiced his thoughts.

"Do you really think you will be able to get them this time?"

"Yeah. They might have reasoned their way out of it if Naru still had the Kyuubi, but this time it's different. Moreover, she filed the report not only to me but also to the council, so they can't pretend to not know anything. I already had my agents make copies of all the mission reports they received from the girl, so the old timers can't say they never got them. This is going to be a bloodbath. After I'm done with them, half of the council will be replaced. Replaced by people I can trust and rely on." Tsunade grinned.

"You're getting pretty good at this politics stuff, you know that?"

"Yeah, I've been practicing. This time it isn't a gamble. This time it's a guarantee."

AN: And it's done. I hope you guys like it. As usual, please review.