The two travelers stood on the war ravaged walls of Konoha. Luckily for them the wards that normally warned the Hokage of intruders were damaged by the recent attack.
"So this is your home town?" the shark-like man said under his straw hat..
Itachi Uchiha nodded, without a verbal reply.
"Well, let's find the Kyubi host," Kisame Hoshigaki said with a truly terrifying grin showing his shark-like teeth.
Four hours later, they had discovered that the jinchuriki had left with his team on an escort mission of a priest of some sort. Itachi did not get the description that Kisame had finagled out of a pickpocket, so did not think heavily on the matter.
He was too busy thinking hard on the matter of the jinchuriki being a lost Uchiha. And that somehow they could give the Sharingan to a girl. "Let's continue. We can separate Kakashi Hatake from his team and take the jinchuriki."
"How are you going to deal with your brother?" the missing ninja of the Mist asked.
Itachi just ignored the question. It was beneath him at this time, after all.
Jiraiya was sure of one thing. The Uchiha were all rolling in their graves. His godson being the heir of the Uchiha was equal parts amusing, insane and scary. The only way it could be even more bizarre is if that Obito kid that Minato trained was alive today and head of the clan.
And a Haruno with a Sharingan that one personality fawned over the stand offish Sasuke and another really liked Naruto just added to the madness. He was taking close notes of the situation for inspiration for his next novels. If he was aware of the Hyuuga heiress having a huge crush on Naruto then Jiraiya would think he'd have enough material for a series to keep him in sake and loose women for a decade.
It made Jiraiya a bit sad that Minato didn't live to see this. He and Kushina would have been proud of the man Naruto was becoming. Jiraiya did wish Naruto would stop asking about his transparency jitsu he used to hide so kunochi wouldn't turn him into a pinata. And Kakashi was being a real drag. Didn't he know the sennin ran off booze more then any other substance known to ninjas?
"Jeeze, Naruto, haven't you ever been to a fair before?" Sakura asked while resisting the urge to hit him. 'Quit bullying my Naruto, dammit!'
"Um, I haven't," the blond Uchiha replied. "I've never seen anything like this. It's so-oooo cool!"
"Naruto..." Sasuke seethed out in a slow steam. "You are making the Uchiha look bad. Try to pretend to be an adult for just a little while."
Kakashi just looked on casually, hiding his mirth from his student. "Hmm." He finally felt something from his eye twinge. He slid up his head-protector. "I got it finally." Two normal looking eyes stared at them.
"You figured it out? I thought you said it was stuck?" Naruto exclaimed while pointing at him in shock.
"It was just atrophied a bit. It's like a muscle and needed to be worked back up," the jonin explained.
Jiraiya frowned at that. They all looked terribly normal at this point. In fact, only Sasuke wore the clan symbol for Uchiha on the back of his shirt. "Well, I'm going to ask around. And no, Kakashi you can't stop me. This needs to be done."
"Let's get a room. We still have a lot to discuss," their jonin leader explained.
Naruto let himself be dragged off by Sakura. The hotel they were in was quite a bit nicer than most places he had been in before. Sasuke looked bored even as he took in the whole scene.
On the south edge of town, Kisame and Itachi had arrived, still cloaked and wearing straw hats.
"How are you going to distract Kakashi?" the Mist Ninja asked. His bandaged up sword on his back almost cooed.
"I think a subtle sighting of Orochimaru talking to a disreputable man in an alley would probably work." Itachi created a flock of ravens that swept together to form the Snake Sennin.
"Hmm. Yeah, that would probably get his attention. And I doubt he'd want to drag his genin into investigating an S-Rank missing ninja." Kisame formed his own water clone, tailoring it to look like a typical and nondescript thug.
Inside the hotel, Team 7 was laying out their backpacks.
"This mission seems a lot easier than the mission to Wave," Sakura said as she stretched and popped her back.
"That... may not be true," Kakashi said. "I have a secondary mission that is top secret. I can not discuss it right now, but I may have to give you specific training for it."
Sasuke frowned as he looked at their jonin leader. He only knew of a few mission types that required the leader to not tell his subordinates. Usually spying or assassination. And a spy rarely let his team ever know. More plausible deniability. "Hnn."
"Well, I have to go keep an eye on our escort. He's probably gotten himself drunk already," Kakashi said casually. He slipped out the door and was outside in a flash.
Orochimaru was already gone, but the person he had been talking to was looking in surprise down the alley and towards the rooftops. Kakashi was after the Snake Sennin in a flash.
"He must be here for Sasuke or Naruto," he said to himself. So with that, he dashed just a little bit faster.
It was the knock at the door. Naruto immediately started moving, only to be stopped by Sasuke grabbing his orange-striped jacket and a shake of his head.
There is no way there should be someone at their door. A nod and some hand signs then they had a plan. The second set of knocking was slightly more insistent. Naruto opened the door. "Hello?" he asked. "Itachi?" With a roar, Naruto punched as hard and fast at his 'cousin'.
Itachi was only slightly surprised that he would just attack, but his speed was much higher than the younger boy's and caught the fist easily.
"Feisty. I think we should chop a leg off. Maybe both of them so he can't run," Kisame said with a grin.
"Naruto!" Sakura shouted as she charged, only to find herself impaled on Itachi's short, straight blade... and poofed into white smoke.
The older Sharingan user had his eyes with three tomoe each and was still surprised at that. "Shadow clones. Watch out."
Kisame nodded and called out, "Right!" He pulled his wrapped sword out from his back and swung right at Itachi, nearly hitting his partner. "Stay still, you little brat!"
"You idiot! You're under a genjitsu!" Itachi and Naruto both called out, confusing the older Uchiha.
"When did they do that?" the ex-Mist Ninja asked in consternation. With a huge, shark-like grin he ran his free hand along the covered and varied edges of his sword.
"Multiple shadow clones!" a voice called out from behind then, as a horde of Naruto clones suddenly engulfed them.
Itachi's Sharingan's widened in shock. "This many clones?" He let go of the original clone, but now it was trying to grab him... along with every other clone. He started killing them, even as firecrackers (firecrackers!) of all things started to go off in a deafening roar.
Kisame was quite upset in his own way, as he had not fallen for a genjitsu in ages. He hated the Sharingan for its strength at times. His sword's many shaving edges were suddenly brought up to block two kunai from inside the room. The much larger ninja glared at the auburn-haired girl with one Sharingan eye. "You... I get to kill, brat."
"You mean you get to try," she replied right back as her three-tomoe eye whirled furiously. Her original green eye ached, but she fought through it.
"Kid, you aren't anything special," the shark-like man said with a smiling sneer. More clones exploding were causing the the white smoke to almost totally blur the area as still more firecrackers were going off.
'We'll see,' Sakura thought as she carefully crafted her second genjitsu on him. Just increasing the noise and smoke would probably not stop him, but she did not have time to switch herself with Itachi. She carefully moved backwards silently ten feet even as she made her genjitsu make a scuffing noise closer to him.
He took the bait and tried to cut what he thought was her sneaking up. How long she could keep him distracted while the boys killed Itachi was another thing entirely.
Itachi barely managed to dodge the chirping lighting that cut the two nearest Naruto clone in twain. Blood fountained from the gash in his side.
"Damn, missed," Sasuke hissed out as his Chidori faded out. His own Sharingan eyes were whirling furiously.
The oldest Uchiha present was just activating his Mangekyo Sharingan when a horizontal tornado nearly struck him, blowing out the side of the building. "They are supposed to be genin rookies," he complained in a monotone voice.
That was when Kisame was suddenly smashed outside, to bounce off four walls. Behind him, Sakura was breathing very hard from the effort of holding up the illusion while using her chakra enhanced strength.
"Toad stomach summoning!" a voice yelled out, suddenly engulfing the area in a mucus. "Hahaha! You're stuck now, in the mighty technique of Jiriya, the Toad Sennin!"
"Kisame, you idiot. That was not a normal priest. Retreat." Itachi's eye spat out black fire that burned a hole in the stomach that he and Kisame quickly used to escape.
Sasuke growled as he stopped trying to gather together his chakra for another chidori. Jiraiya frowned as he quickly figured out a seal that would put the black fire into. Naruto's eyes narrowed as he watched from multiple angles, Sharingan eyes taking in every part of the process.
Kakashi's hand on his shoulder stopped him as he appeared out of nowhere. "He would just set up a trap. Let him retreat. We learned a lot about him. All he learned about you three is that you are far more powerful than he expected."
Jiraiya led his impromptu group to the next town, citing that his old team mate was not there.
Across the new town, Tsunade and her assistant Shizune were meeting up with Orochimaru and two of his bodyguards. The castle behind them had been collapsed by the Snake Sennin as a show of power.
"Dear Tsunade, so abused by Konoha..." he said as his robes fluttered behind him as the dust settled. The street was quite empty at this point as anyone with a bit of sanity had left quickly.
"Sympathy, Orochimaru? I'm surprised that you have any left after the things I've heard you have done," the busty, older woman said with a sad smirk.
"Ah, that is where you are quite wrong my poor team mate. My methods have always been sympathetic. To lose our loved ones is the height of cruelty." His smile seemed at odds with his sober words.
"What are you getting at, Orochimaru?" the Slug Princess asked with narrowed eyes.
"I have an enemy I must overcome, but to do that I must procure something to counter his damned bloodline limit. If you procure the eyes of an Uchiha... I will restore your lover and your brother to you."
Shizune's eyes widened even as Tsunade just frowned. The descendant of the Senju clan nodded slowly. "And if I refuse?"
"Then we may have to become implacable enemies, instead of boon allies. Or is a special set of eyes too much for two special lives?" Orochimaru hissed to her softly.
"Sharingan eyes, Orochimaru?" Her deep brown eyes studied him. "So you have been dealing with Itachi Uchiha. What plans do two S-Rank missing ninja have?"
"As always, I have been seeking to learn every jitsu and our paths crossed. I admit, I might have gotten slightly greedy about his copy-wheel eyes. I'm sure he's holding a grudge," the Snake Sennin admitted.
"A little greedy indeed. I will think about it. It's not like I am headed to Konoha. That place is accursed to me," Tsunade said as she turned and walked down the road.
"I'll be back in a week for your answer." With that, Orochimaru and his two bodyguards leaped over the low sheds and into the woods.
"Um, Miss Tsunade? What are you planning on doing?"
"I doubt the last Uchiha will just happen to land in my lap." With that, Tsunade shrugged and headed back to her gambling parlor in the city.
"Why are we looking for this lady in a gambling den?" Sakura asked Jiraiya politely. Sasuke and Naruto were looking around the building's interior in deep curiosity. As it was the middle of the day, it was not that crowded, though the gamblers seemed very intent.
"Ah, we are looking for the lady known as the Legendary Sucker!" Jiraiya took in their flummoxed expressions. "She has abysmal luck. I mean, totally bad luck. Hence the gambling name."
"And the lucky streak continues for the lady at the end of the table," the dealer in the back called out.
Tsunade was looking over her cards in shock. She had not only just won, but won large to demolish her debt in this town. "We should leave," she declared.
"But you are finally clearing your debt," Shizune almost whined.
"No, you don't understand. This is sign that something bad is about to happen-"
"Princess! If it hasn't been an age, Tsunade!" a boisterous voice called out. Jiraiya slid into the seat next to his old team mate.
"Jiraiya? Two in one day. Now I know why today is so unlucky," she shot back. Her eyes took in the three genin. "Another genin team? I would have thought your first two would have been enough."
Jiraya got a bad feeling Orichimaru was in the area. Really did Naruto have something that attracted S-Ranked Ninjas?
"My my, you seem interested in my cute team," Kakashi said as he seemingly appeared out of thin air. Even the two sennin were a bit surprised.
"Like he said, I just asked them to accompany me. Which was a good thing... for them."
All three Chunin narrowed their eyes at that. And it was annoying no one could tell they were all chunin.
"But we're not here to talk about them, but about you." Jiraiya stood up, looking as imposing as his title as Sage of the Toads would suggest. "I'm here on behest of the Council and the Third Hokage. You are needed at home, Tsunade. As the Fifth Hokage."
"I refuse. You can do it," she instantly replied. Shizune's gasp and Naruto's dropped mouth showed how shocked everyone else was.
"Well Princess," Jiraiya remarked. "You have to go back home and tell Sensei that to his face." He cracked his knuckles ominously.
"What?" the old woman demanded.
"He said if you want to turn him down, you get to do it to his face. That part is non-negotiable." Jiraiya looked like he was more than happy to start an all out brawl.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow at that, quite calmly. Perhaps Jiraiya knew more about what would happen to her if she did not come home.
"I can't leave right this moment. Maybe in a week." Tsunade then took a swig from her sake cup, grimacing at the fact that it had turned cold.
'These are the Sennin?' Sasuke thought. 'Who would want to train under these people?'
"How- how- how DARE YOU!" Naruto shouted loudly. "That's my dream you are trashing in front of me!"
"Do blonde loudmouths grow on trees?" Tsunade grumbled. "What is it to you, kid?"
Shizune started eyeing up Naruto. Depending on his skill she'd been needing to heal or bury him.
"You're just a drunk old woman hiding from herself! You don't deserve to be Hokage!" he shouted right back. "I'm going to be the best Hokage! That's my dream!"
"You dream is just a fool's desire. And I'm no fool to desire to kill myself," she countered. "That tainted dream just causes heartbreak and despair."
Sasuke just shook his head. "Naruto, you are causing a scene. Try to act like an adult. You are giving the Uchiha a bad name."
"So this is the lost Uchiha, eh? He doesn't look like anything special," the old woman said with a smirk. So easy to ferret out who they were.
Now all three Chunin were giving her a murderous look.
"You should know, these three were instrumental in disrupting Orochimaru's attack on Konoha and thanks to them, even saved the Hokage's life," Jiraiya said easily.
"These brats? You have to be kidding me!" Tsunade was giving her old teammate an incredulous look. At his nod, she studied them much closer. "They don't look like much. And the blonde looks pretty stupid."
"They are tricky like that," Kakashi said, his smile hidden under his mask.
"Graaaah!" Naruto shouted, lashing out a punch at the older woman even as Shizune just sighed. As he did not have his Sharingan active, he did not see what she did to blast him out and into the road.
"Huh," Naruto said as he got up. "Guess the old man had some good reasons for wanting her to be Hokage. Still she can't be that hard."
Naruto then recalled this woman was the one that created the techniques Sakura used at the Chunin Exams. He made a mental note to keep his distance in a fight. "Come on!" Naruto yelled out. "Put the sake down! Isn't there some support group for lushes like you and Ero-Sensei? Alcoholics something or other?"
As Tsuande stormed out of the gambling den, Shizune wondered if taking Tsunade to the AA would have helped. While Sasuke prayed that Tsunade wasn't a member of Naruto's family.
Outside, Naruto literally had a hundred Shadow Clones dogpile onto the Slug Princess. And to be fair that was to see if she had any attacks other then kicking and punching really hard. Her fist shattered the ground, sending a wave of rocks and dirt that dispersed ninety percent of the clones instantly.
"Brat, I'm going to beat you to within an inch of your life," the older woman snarled, a vein pulsing in anger on her forehead. She snagged Sakura as the auburn haired girl tried a sneak attack from behind, flinging her at a wall down the street hard enough to cave it in using her body.
The blonde Uchiha heir frowned at that. That attack seemed like overkill even to him. The wind started to pick up around Naruto. He wasn't sure if he'd hurt Tsunade with this or if he'd just give her a really bad hair cut. Naruto quickly went through the hand symbols and opened his mouth.
A huge, flat wave of wind flew out of his mouth and right at Tsunade. While Naruto had his remaining shadow clones throw their kunai where the Slug Princess would be if she dodged the attack. So when she picked up about thirty feet of the street to make a wall, he blinked in surprise. "That's not fair," he complained. She was even stronger than Sakura.
"Life isn't fair," Tsunade said with a smirk. She sidestepped the gutsy kunoichi again, only to be pelted by the explosion caused by Sakura's heel slamming into the ground.
"Dammit! Stand still!" the girl said as she charged with her own Sharingan active. She snapped out three quick punches before she had to dodge backwards from a blow.
"Sharingan eyes? I thought the lost Uchiha was a boy?" Tsunade had to move quickly as fireballs pelted the ground in earth-shattering explosions.
"Leave some for me," Sasuke said with a smirk from down the street. "Actually, it looks like you are leaving everything to me."
Tsunade was frowning slightly. The two boys both had full Sharingan eyes, while the girl had three tomoe in her dark-blue eye and her green eye only had one marking. That must be hurting from the tensed muscles around her cheek. "Team Sharingan, hmm? How did you all get Sharingan eyes after the Uchiha massacre?"
Sakura staggered, covering her original eye as she desperately tried to hold back the pain as Tsunade's words brought her attention back on it. She had thought she could work past the pain. "It hurts." She tried to stifle a whimper, but the pain was increasing.
"Shit, Sakura is bleeding," Naruto shouted as he charged over to her. "Close your eyes and try to pull your chakra back from them."
Tsunade was trembling as she spotted the blood coming from the girl's green eye. "No." Her voice was incredibly weak.
"Her blood vessels burst in her eye from using her Sharingan," said Shizune worriedly.
"But that's her original eye," Sasuke said in bewilderment as he watched the dark blood stream down her face.
"That doesn't make sense. I never had a problem with my original eye," Kakashi said from behind her. He stopped to consider things. "Actually, I have been feeling a slight strain on my regular eye ever since I figured out how to deactivate and then reactivate my Sharingan."
"Your bodies must be trying to activate the Sharingan in both eyes and the original ones can't stand the strain," Jiraiya said with a frown from about fifty feet away from where he was leaning up against a wall to watch the fight.
"I never heard of this happening before," Sasuke said sounding shocked. Even with his faded memories of before... that... he couldn't recall anyone telling him about being able to turn someone's natural eye into a Sharingan after getting an implanted eye.
On the other hand Sasuke was also unaware of Kakashi having an implanted Sharingan before meeting him. He just hoped that Kakashi and Sakura were the only people with implanted Sharingan eyes. Or heads were going to roll over how anyone else could get them.
"Kakashi, what can we do? This is my fault," Naruto asked in a very subdued manner. It was probably the least Naruto-sounding thing he had ever said.
"Well, I would have suggest having the most famed medic look at it, but she seems to be not dealing well with seeing some blood," the Copy-Cat Ninja replied.
"Miss Tsunade," Shizune said as she tried to shake her out of her stupor.
Naruto grabbed the old woman and then slapped her. "What's your problem? Sakura needs you!"
"You don't understand..." Tsunade eyes were closed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I couldn't save either of them. Just too much blood."
"And if you don't help her, she'll bleed to death because of me!" Naruto yelled. "She's important to me! You're just letting her die! How can you be so cruel?"
Jiraiya had to admit one thing, Naruto had guts. At this point anyone else that questioned the Slug Princess like that would probably be dead.
Shizune had started to work on Sakura's eye, but it was a poor mess of deforming jelly. So she was quite surprised when a green glow of healing chakra took over her work smoothly. Tsunade was breathing fairly rapidly, but even that was coming under control. The Jonin medic tried to recall every rumor she had heard about bloodlimit eye implants and if anything like this had happened before.
And was drawing as much of a blank as Sasuke and Naruto.
"I saved the eye." Tsunade looked surprised.
"Mistress Tsunade... you overcame your fear of blood! That's amazing!" Shizune said with a huge smile.
Jiraiya rubbed his chin and then pulled out a pen and some paper. Kakashi had a good idea that what inspired him was not what Shizune had in mind when she said mistress Tsunade. And the Jonin ninja wondered if he could get one of the first copies of whatever novel came out of Jiraiya's perverted brain for bringing the Toad Sennin here.
But just finding the time to read them was a chore these days. The Hokage had refused to let him read them around his students as he had to put 200 % focus on all of them. And what made that worse was the fact Naruto would be willing to tell the Hokage or he'd ask Naruto while the pair enjoyed some ramen. As the Nara clan put it... troublesome.
"So are we done then?" Naruto asked. "Gaara was easier to fight then her."
"Hnnn." Sasuke mused. As useful as Sakura was becoming, she needed some more water jutsus and recalled what the Demon of the Mist was able to do. He'd have to ask Kakashi to teach Sakura how to make water clones, to make that thick mist and some other things. Anything that could be done to keep Sakura and Naruto as strong as possible was a good thing, as they supported his effort to kill his brother.
"Jiraiya, Kakashi; we need to discuss a matter in privacy," Tsunade said as she stood up. "About Orochimaru."
The sennin and jonin narrowed their gaze upon her, before nodding briefly.
"I've almost got it," Naruto complained as he spun his chakra within the rubber ball. It puffed out a single exit wound and deflated.
"That wasn't it at all, Naruto," Sakura said as her Sharingan eye studied the chakra within the rubber ball as it disappeared. Her original eye was covered with a patch. "It's more like this." She drew the patterns around a point, showing how Jiraiya had made the chakra move for the second part of this training.
With their Sharingan eyes, it had only taken Team 7 moments to figure out the secret of the first step.
Sasuke nodded. "She's right, though I could not see it to that detail myself. This is a lot harder to learn than a simple ninjitsu. Or even a kenjitsu."
Kakashi appeared in a swirl of leaves. The last five days had been set up as training for the three Chunin. "Fall in you you three. Tsunade wishes to speak to you."
They quickly trotted behind him and into the motel they were all staying in. Soon they were knocking at the door to Tsunade's room. It was slightly cluttered with scrolls and small jars of herbs.
"So, you three are serious about your commitment to Konoha and against its enemies," the old, be-glamored woman said. "Are you willing to sacrifice for that ideal?"
Jiraiya and Kakashi were a little confused, as Tsunade had not explained her plan to them.
"Of course we are! We're not going to run away from a little hardship," Naruto shouted out. Sakura nodded, slightly more hesitantly than the blonde. Sasuke just frowned.
"Are you sure? You are talking about Sakura sacrificing her normal eye to bait a trap." The Slug Sennin nodded at the shock at her pronouncement.
"He wants a Sharingan eye, so you are going to give him one. But a failed eye that won't actually work," the auburn-dyed girl said in sudden comprehension. "...bait for a trap."
"As smart as Kakashi said you were. Yes, that's the plan." Tsunade frowned. "Did you really save the old man?" she asked the girl directly.
"Yes, ma'am. One of the jonin told me to find a weak point in the barrier, which I did." Sakura looked more than a little uncertain. "So you are going to take the eye now?"
"Yes. It won't hurt a bit," the older medic replied.
Shizune frowned cutely at the byplay. The genin did not seem to be reacting the way she expected. Why?
Sakura did not even whimper as her last natural eye disappeared into a jar.
"Your will of fire is very strong. I guess that I have to think hard before I talk to the Third Hokage," Tsunade said softly.
Naruto moved over. "Okay, I'm ready."
"Ready for what, idiot?" The Slug Sennin frowned as she picked up just a bit of humor from Jiraiya and Kakashi.
"For you to give Sakura one of my eyes," Naruto commented as if she were slow. "Where do you think she got her Sharingan eye in the first place?"
"Yes," Jiraiya commented sagely with a nod. "Naruto here can regrow eyeballs. Though it is clan secret, Princess. I only know because I make that sort of thing my business." And that the old man had trusted him to do so.
"So you do something other then peep on women and have your own cloaking genjutsu?" Naruto asked sounding shocked.
Tsunade was conjuring up in a nightmarish vision of the 4th Shinobi War as Hidden Villages fought over Naruto. And the winner constantly removing his eyes to give their forces the abilities of the Sharingan. They would have a good chance of conquering all of the Elemental Countries with that sort of boost to their firepower. And even people like Danzo and his ROOT ANBU who would exploit Naruto for Sharingan-eyed forces.
'Though... why we haven't seen many Sharingan-eyed warriors after the Uchiha slaughter?' Tsunade asked herself in a sudden moment of clarity. 'You'd figure every grave robber around would dig them up for themselves or to sell.' She would have to look into that more closely. Perhaps someone had. And then had not let anyone else know.
"All right, Naruto. If you are sure." Tsunade had them both lay down. Her hands flashed with green healing energy, moving with superhuman skill.
"Why the f*$k are we here and not just beating up this hag to take back to the Land of Rice?" the Sound Ninja Tayuya asked as she fiddled with her red hair under its hairband.
Kidomaru sighed. "We're here because Lord Orochimaru is negotiating with Tsunade for the Sharingan eyes.
"She's the damn Legendary Sucker!" Tayuya commented. "Trick her into betting on a game of chance."
"Silence," Orochimaru called out. "She approaches." The Snake Sennin missed his protege Kabuto. He was smart and deadly while being a much better spy. He had been forced to use his snakes to watch over her.
"I brought it," Tsunade called out as she held up an advanced preservation jar with a dark green eye showing a tomoe.
"That is only one eye, dear Tsunade," Orochimaru said in his oily way as his two bodyguards moved to flank him.
"Do you take me for a fool? I'll tell you where the other is once you've shown me the technique for reviving Dan and Nowaki," the old princess said with a smirk.
That was when Jiraiya staggered around the corner, obviously under the effect of a poison or drug. "Don't do it! He's scum that you can't trust."
"Oh, does this mean I get to kill this shit-face?" Tayuya asked with a sudden smile of malice on her face.
"Dear me, Tsunade. Drugging your old team mate? I'd think you were serious about this matter." Orochimaru watched as his two bodyguards slammed into Jiraiya who seemed to barely be able to hold himself up. He smirked as he showed her a scroll.
Then suddenly the ground, eighty feet down the street, rumbled as the real Orochimaru was forced to exit the earth as spikes struck out. "Irritating. So, Kakashi Copy-Eye, you think you can kill me?" the Snake Sennin asked.
"Yes," the most powerful jonin of Konoha said flatly from the shadows as he stepped out. Both eyes were visible as his Sharingan spun and whirled. The two opponents started flashing through seals at an insane pace
Tsunade smashed the mud-clone that she had been talking to in one punch, even as Shizune leaped over a wall to assist Jiraiya. The apprentice revealed her needle launchers on her one arm, sending a barrage at Tayuya and Kidomaru. Without even a pause, she forced the Toad Sennin to drink a prepared antidote to the chakra blocker that he had been given.
The Toad Sennin perked right up. "Hey, kids? Guess what time it is?"
"Kick old, wrinkled ass time?" Tayuya called out in a condescending tone.
Kidomaru just rolled his eyes, even as he spat out a webbing at their two opponents. "Will you start already?" he shouted to her. "He's a sennin, so take him seriously."
Tayuya already had her lips to her flute and was playing a tune, laying out a genjitsu on them. Horrific, demonic figures appeared.
"Kai!" Shizune called out, only to discover that it had no effect. "Uh, oh." She flashed through some hand-seals and then expelled a gas cloud towards the flute-player who just dodged away on top of a low roof.
Jiraiya was just slapping sharp spikes of congealed webbing out of the way or burning the web with a minor fire technique. "That level of ability is not going to help against me."
"Fine. Level Two seal, activate!" Kidomaru shouted even as his cursed seal spread out over his skin.
"Me and my big mouth," the sennin complained as the man-spider became drastically more powerful.
Orochimaru was actually having a harder time than he would have thought against Kakashi. "Ku-ku-ku. A Sharingan really is a wonderful thing, isn't it?"
Kakashi was busy flashing through another set of hand seals, sending a rumbling set of spikes to explode beneath Orochimaru.
Orochimaru punched the air several times and each time a snake shot out of his sleeves at the jonin. Soon it was a large mass of snakes with venom dripping off their fangs that was trying to chase after Kakashi. At least until he burned them to white vapor with a fireball. Then Orochimaru had to duck a punch that exploded the twenty foot wall behind him.
"Well, Orochimaru, it seems it is time to pay for your treason," Tsunade said with a tight grin.
"Is Jiraiya paying you to say such heroic nonsense?" Orochimaru snapped out with a wide, sly smile even as he dodged Kakashi trying to slice at him with a kunai and ducked the jonin's snap-kick. He did lost some hair as the hairline cut on his pale cheek told him to take this a bit more seriously. "I was under the impression that you had let your skills lapse a bit. It appears I was incorrect."
"That would be your mistake," Kakashi said as he dodged the Snake Sennin's attacks as only a master of the Sharingan could do.
"How can you see my movements after I've enhanced my body so much?" their opponent complained.
"You are still failing to know these type of eyes," Kakashi said as he lashed out with an arm covered in lightning right through Orochimaru's chest.
The Snake Sennin was forced to shed his skin to save his life. Tsunade had taken advantage of his technique blocking his eyes for a mere tenth of a second to snap a kick where he would be, break three of his new ribs.
"Argh. You bitch!" He bit his lip and smeared some blood across his face.
Tsunade then punched him without delay on his nose. "I'm sorry. That weakness was last week."
Orochimaru's expression turned sour. He definitely was going to need some new spies after this was over. He needed to keep up to date on things like this. But he held up a jar with a floating eye. "Ku ku ku ku. I seem to have picked up a trophy somewhere."
"Come back with that," Tsunade shouted, acting as if she cared he took it. Inwardly she grinned at Orochimaru finding that eye had been poisoned and frankly wasn't sure the optic nerves even worked in it anymore.
Shizune was in quite a bit of trouble, as the girl she was facing off against had also activated her second level of her cursed seal. Just dodging the massive monster summons was all she could do. It must have also counter her poison that she had tried to use to numb her lips and fingers. Jiraiya seemed to be doing fine against the spider-themed Sound Ninja he was fighting.
"You are being really annoying," the apprentice to the Slug Sennin said in vexation.
That was when the three newly promoted chunin entered the battle. Sasuke smashed the large ogre with a chidori, even as a impossible loud whistle appeared. Sakura had formed some of the ground into a six foot tall whistle and was pumping a large amount of air through its pipe. Then Naruto used the Great Wind Breakthrough to slam Tayuya into a wall, though it only stunned her for a second.
She looked very unhappy, even though no one could hear anything but the loud whistle. A Naruto clone had grabbed her flute and they briefly fought over it until it snapped. The row of poisoned needles that stitched up her torso thanks from Shizune, causing her to fall over unconscious.
Sakura stopped her whistle. "Should we help the Sennin?" she asked everyone.
"What?" Naruto yelled out.
"No," Shizune said. "They have it under control."
And indeed, the three older ninja did. Orochimaru was doing everything he could to break free, as Tsunade and Kakashi were too much for him to counter on his own. Jiraiya had just burst through Kidomaru's webbing and planted a Rasengan into his torso and blasted him into a crater.
"Not bad, kid, but not good enough." Jiraiya then leaped over to help triple team Orochimaru.
The Snake Sennin had quit fighting offensively by this point, as Tsunade was somehow ignoring any wounds or cuts, healing them instantly due to a seal on her forehead.
"Ku ku ku ku. It appears I had best take what I've gained before I lose everything," he said to his old team-mates. He sent a row of rock spikes at them all and then ducked under the earth.
Before they could regain the ground from jumping high, he had burrowed into it and away.
"Should I summon my dogs?" Kakashi asked.
"I doubt they could catch up to him and he'd likely summon some nasty snake to deal with them. We had best hold off for now. My opponent died. What about yours?" he asked of Shizune and the chunins.
"She's just paralyzed. They have some amazing teamwork," the poison ninja said. "Oh, Tsundae? You used that technique? That steals years from you each time you use it."
"What? How can she be Hokage if she dies of old age?" Naruto shouted out in anger. "That's really stupid!"
"Unless you have an unlimited amount of chakra to heal me yourself, you have nothing to say," the old woman said as she prepared to lower her power.
Naruto suddenly was in her face. "Yeah, I do! Kai!" he shouted while slapping his palm over her forehead. He focused everything he could through the little seal that Jiraiya had put on his palm as part of his Rasengan training.
Tsunade just grabbed his arm to pull him away when the surge of pure chakra blasted through her seal. It really was not meant to function this way, but he had actually guessed correctly that any source of chakra could fuel its body healing power. "You idiot. Regular chakra won't help me," she stuttered out.
Surprisingly, Naruto knew that already. With clenched teeth, he forced some of the red chakra from his seal into the wound.
Tsunade felt something burning in her chakra coils. She narrowed her eyes, feeling the regeneration effect somehow expand and suffuse everything.
After a minute, Naruto finally collapsed. "Let's see what that did..." he panted out.
Tsunade was looking at her skin in shock. Not a single age spot or wrinkle adorned them. "I need a mirror." Her seal had deactivated and she no longer had any chakra to maintain her illusion.
Shizune handed her a mirror, showing a well preserved, forty-year old version of herself. "I'm young?"
"Yeah, not too bad looking for an old broad," Naruto said while yawning. He then collapsed, out cold.
"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, catching him before he could hit the earth. "He's... just sleeping?"'
"Hmm. My eyes are a bit red-brown," Tsunade said as she studied herself in the mirror. "I guess I can't really complain. Better than looking sixty."
"So, now that your business is finished, let's get headed back to Konoha," Jiraiya called out, posing like the strange old coot he was.
Sasuke looked at him and wondered how sane the 4th Hokage could have been training under the Toad Sanin. This man was like that crazy old bachelor uncle you hoped to only see at the reunions and not have him make a complete fool of himself.
Sasuke just grunted. He wanted to get back to the sanity of Konoha.