-)::(- Mission to Hi Inari Taisha: One thousand Gates; one thousand Foxes -)::(-

Naruto blinked in confusion at the shouts of his teammates, surely he had explained it simplistically enough, after all, if he understood it, surely anyone else would as well. His mother's harsh Fox-form voice pushed in to his psyche in exasperation, "They are yelling from shock, not confusion, kit"

He nodded absently to her and tried to think of a way to explain things to them so they would understand. Thankfully, Kakashi, who was now being used as a bench by all three of his genin, explained things further. "Sakura, Hinata, the Biju are Youkai who transcended their physical forms – they possess a type of immortality – if their body is destroyed, they can form a new one out of their youki. It's because of that that Jinchuriki are so important, they prevent a Biju from reforming a new body by trapping the Biju's soul, and therefore its youki behind the binding seal. However once the seal is in place, any of their youki that wasn't sealed away remains outside, but still connected to the Biju's essence. Now with the other Eight Biju that isn't an issue – but because Kushina is a kitsune who had already formed a Houshi no Tama, part of her soul is held in it rather than the seals."

Sakura blinked, "Seals? As in more than one, Kakashi-sensei?"

A new voice; that of Jiraiya, answered from the edge of the clearing where he was approaching the group, "That's right, Yondaime split the main portion of Kushina's soul between the seal on Naruto, and a sealing scroll held by the Toads." Jiraiya stepped into the clearing as he continued "That way if Kushina ever recovered – glad to here she has by the way, gaki" Naruto grinned as he heard his Mother mutter, "Ero-Oji-gama" but Jiraiya seemed to pay no heed to Naruto's fox-grin as he continued, "If Kushina ever recovered, Yondaime figured she'd appreciate being able to get a portion of her old power back. Removing her soul from the gaki here isn't an option after all."

Hinata blinked, "Why is that, Jiraiya-sama?"

Jiraiya frowned darkly, "Well, little miss Hyuuga, if you remove the Biju's soul from a Jinchuriki's seal, the Jinchuriki dies. I know this because of research I helped the Yondaime perform when we prepared for Kushina's sealing." A momentary pause brought a dark look to the Sennin's eyes, "To make matters worse there is a group out there trying to collect the Biju for some reason. Both he and Garra, as well as any other Jinchuriki would be killed by them to achieve their goal."

Hinata grabbed onto Naruto's arm reflexively with one hand at that, her other hand going for her Sakabatou. Jiraiya smirked at the look of possessive protection the heiress was giving off, it was an all too obvious sign of her attraction to the young Kitsune. Who for his part was staring at Hinata's hand on his arm with a slight tint of red on his face. "I wonder if his mother is teasing him about that right now?" the older ninja bemusedly pondered, as he turned to face Sakura, who had one hand balled into a shaking fist, and the other holding the map Naruto had been examining earlier.

"Still your biggest problem right now is breaching the seal protecting the Hi Inari Taisha's Honden." Jiraiya muttered thoughtfully. "The priests who guard the Houshi no tama grew a bit paranoid in recent years it seems. They've procured outside help to defend the shrine from a Nogitsune."

Naruto groaned in annoyance at the perverted sage's comment. "There's a Nogitsune near the shrines? Great, as if it needed to get any more complicated."

Sakura and Hinata looked at each other in confusion before the samurai girl asked the obvious question, "What's a Nogitsune?"

Jiraiya's face shifted into his "Wise Mountain Hermit" expression as he sternly replied, "A Nogitsune, also called an Oath-breaker by the Myobu, is a Kitsune who has abandoned his service to Inari to pursue selfish ends. They attempt to steal the power of other Kitsune to further their own strength, usually by consuming another Kitsune's houshi no tama."

The old toad sage paused to gather his thoughts, "When Naruto told Tsunade-hime and I that Kushina was back with us, I sent a messenger toad to the Temple to let them know. Apparently, the inner shrines were attacked by a powerful and cruel Nogitsune, and the local lesser Kitsune are afraid to approach the shrine closer than the thousand gates."

Sakura blinked in confusion, "the thousand gates?"

Hinata nodded, "I've heard of those, the approach to the shrine is covered by hundreds of Torii donated by wealthy families and businesses as a request for good fortune from Inari-daimyojin, who besides being the kami of rice, is the kami of commerce. My family donates gates when members of the main branch become old enough to enter the academy, to ask for success in ninja life, since being shinobi is our business."

Jiraiya nodded, "That's right, Hinata. Anyway, to prevent this Nogitsune from stealing the houshi no tama, the priests called on an old ally of the Uzumaki no youko to help secure the temple. Apparently there are now several ookami youkai at the Hi Inari Taisha maintaining a powerful youkai barrier around the Honden. The four of you will have to prove yourselves to them if you wish to succeed."

Hinata faced Naruto with a slight look of concern, "Naruto-kun, would you mind if we got others to join us in this mission? I think it might help us"

Naruto looked worried at this, warily asking of her, "Who did you have in mind?" it was clear he was worried about revealing his heritage to the remaining rookie nine.

Hinata patted his arm comfortingly and spoke gently, "Asuma-san, he was trained as a priest of the Hi Inari Taisha, so he may know things we don't."

Kakashi turned a page and gave a sort of grunt of agreement, "That would not be a bad idea Hinata, Asuma would have access to shrine records and could help us gain the trust of the priests, unfortunately, that isn't an option. Team ten is on active patrol rotation, so they currently can't provide aid to us for this mission. Still, its good to see you three thinking things through, and I will see if he can provide us with a letter of sponsorship so we can avoid some early hassles."

Hinata nodded, turning to address the sannin, "What about the ookami? What do we know about them, Jiraiya-sama?"

"Not much to be honest, only that they are from a tribe of mountain ookami youkai with ancestral alliances with the Uzumaki," Jiraiya replied after a moment, clearly disliking how little he knew of the guardians. "I understand that they are an extremely honor bound group of youkai though, so they should be at least fair to you."

Naruto cocked his head to the side as his mother commented on the old man's knowledge. "Ookami from the mountains… it has to be Ayame-Oba-San's tribe. Damn… what was her mate's name… oh well it will come back to me I'm sure. Kit, if nothing else those wolves ought to be interesting to fight."

"It looks like Okaa-san has an idea who they are," Naruto provided for those not able to hear her, "But she's having trouble with details."

Sakura gave a wry smirk, "Like mother like son then eh?"

Hinata swatted the other girl lightly on the arm, "Sakura, be nice"

Jiraiya laughed loudly, "you've got guts girl, but you do realize that you just made fun of the Kyuubi right? And that means she, a Kitsune, a trickster youkai, will now have to repay the joke ten fold, as is the kitsune way."

Sakura paled a bit, "I forgot that detail…"

"Yay! A new victim… er… playmate" Naruto blanched as he heard his mother's giddy cheer, quite unsure if he should let Sakura know of her coming prank-doom.

Sakura laughed nervously and stood up to stretch, the two other genin following her lead. Kakashi grunted in relief and stood up behind them, the wires that had bound him suddenly neatly coiled next to him. The Jonin groaned as several joints popped as he walked over to the sannin to discuss the new book.

Hinata stood by as her two teammates stretched and joked about things. Hinata considered her female teammate; once she had viewed the pink haired kunoichi as a goal, someone to be like, because Naruto had had a crush on the pink haired girl. Now however, he seemed to behave more like she was a sister, or cousin. Yes he still called her Sakura-chan, but Hinata realized that was more out of habit than any deep attraction between him and her. Sakura herself seemed much more inclined to appreciate the boy in this behavior, encouraging the sibling like banter with jabs of her own.

Hinata's thoughts shifted then to her male team-member, did she have a chance with him? He certainly seemed interested in her new found strength of will, but was there more to it than that? He was still wearing the white coat she had given him, so he obviously appreciated her kindness. She watched as he argued with Kon-kon over something on the map of the shrine-grounds, Hinata quirked her head to the side as a sudden thought crossed her mind, Kon-kon kept referring to Kushina as Onee-sama, did that mean the tiny fox was Kushina's Imouto? And wouldn't that make her Naruto's aunt? That thought struck home with the gravity of her crush's heritage, all of his relatives on his mother's side were kitsune, certainly many probably had houshi no tama of their own and lived among humans happily, but probably many more did not. She could only imagine Hagetaka's reaction to swarms of kitsune in the clan grounds. Then a new thought struck her, a question she had to ask, "Naruto-kun… ano… do you have a fox form?"

Naruto was so startled by that question that he fell backwards coughing. After a few seconds on the ground he was suddenly growling out a comment to what his two female companions could only imagine was going on inside his head, "Shut up Okaa-san! It's not that funny!"

While Naruto argued with his mother, Kon-kon answered Hinata, "Naruto doesn't have a fox form at the moment, but he could gain one as a hanyou the same way a normal kitsune gains a human form; making a houshi-no-tama."

Sakura seemed surprised by this, "Really? Wait, what's a Hanyou?"

Naruto sat back up and looked at the two girls with an odd look on his face, as if he was trying to figure out if Sakura had been serious. After a few moments he sighed and explained the word. "Hanyou is the term for someone who has one human and one youkai parent, its usually preceded by the type of youkai the parent was, so I'm a Kitsune-hanyou. From what Okaa-san tells me, that's part of the reason I … reacted the way I did to youkai chakra."

Jiraiya's attention was pulled away from Kakashi and back to Naruto, "What do you mean Gaki?"

Naruto looked at him and sighed, "A hanyou's youki is naturally unstable, and the more powerful the youkai parent the worse it gets. Okaa-san told me that in the past Hanyou were often killed at birth because of the danger they presented to their family and those around them. It wasn't until the technique of blood binding items was developed that Hanyous began to make it to adulthood in large numbers."

Jiraiya nodded in understanding, though the girls seemed quite lost on what Naruto was talking about. It seemed that the two men weren't going to share the details about whatever it was they were discussing. Jiraiya then asked a second question, "If Kushina knows why you go berserk when you channel youki, does she know were we can get one of those binding items?"

Naruto's face went blank as he focused on turning his thoughts inward to his mother, "Well, Okaa-san? Do you know how we can get one for me?"

His mother, standing just inside the bars in her full fox form glowered down at him, "As it stands now kit you couldn't get one even if we found the guy who makes them."

"What, why?" the young hanyou all but yelled

"Because making one requires one of my fangs, that's why! So focus on the temple for now, and besides, Yondaime's seal works well enough as a substitute for now."

Naruto grimaced, "But I lose control if I go over two tails! How is that working well enough?!"

The young hanyou had to jump back as a massive paw slammed against the bars, claws stopping inches from were he had been standing. His mother all but roared in anger and agitation at him, "BRAT! Of course you loose control, I'm a KYUUBI, you, if you had been a full blood fox would only be a Nibi at most! So don't sell Minato's work short got it!"

Naruto blinked in confusion, "Who the hell is Minato?" his surprise increased as his mother shifted to human form, grasping one of the massive bars with her hands as she sank to her knees. Kushina's shoulders shook with silent sobs and her "breathing" came in short ragged breaths. Naruto stepped forward as he heard his mother crying.

"O-okaa-san?" Naruto was worried, he had never seen his mother break down like this, she was completely distraught and he had no idea how to comfort her. As he approached the bars he stopped as he heard his mothers voice sobbing out apologies to the void.

"Oh, kami, he doesn't even know who you are, Minato, forgive me" Her sobs continued, and Naruto walked through the bars to hug his mother to try and comfort her. He didn't know who this Minato was, but he knew he was important to his mom, and once she was free, he was going to help her find this guy, or at least find out what happened to him. Still, in the back of his head, he couldn't help but feel as though he ought to have known that name.

He released his focus to return to the waking world to see Jiraiya, Kon-kon, and the girls watching him expectantly. He groaned as he realized he had fallen over again. "Gomen, didn't mean to collapse when I asked Okaa-san about the sealing items."

Jiraiya nodded as he questioned the boy, "What did she say?" the sage gestured animatedly in an attempt to encourage Naruto to speak.

Naruto shrugged, "That Yondaime's seal works as a substitute… oi, Ero-sennin, who's Minato?"

Jiraiya blinked at the boy and frowned, "This is a joke right, gaki?"

Naruto only stared at him in confusion, and Jiraiya sighed in exasperation as he looked off towards the Hokage monument. "Minato is Minato Namikaze, Tsunade's son, and the Yondaime Hokage. For a kid who idolizes him, you really didn't know his name?"

Naruto frowned in embarrassment, that was were he had heard the name. He laughed nervously as he tried to save some face in front of the girls who were both giggling slightly at his expression. "I guess I forgot, I knew it sounded familiar when Okaa-san said 'not to sell Minato's work short'."

Hinata spoke up, "That's not surprising, from my clan's records, Namikaze-san was Uzumaki-san's escort when she first visited Konoha after making her Houshi-no-tama; although when I read the reports I didn't know what a houshi-no-tama was."

Naruto flailed his arms wildly in surprise, "You mean Mom knew the Yondaime?!"

Jiraiya tried to hold it in, surely the kami would not judge him to harshly, but the moment Naruto used the phrase knew the Yondaime his ever perverted mind made the lewd connection and he began to giggle pervertedly. Naruto frowned at that and punched the old man in the head. They had all night to plan, they didn't the old coot acting like an idiot while they tried to work.