Naruto ran up to Jiraiya who was desperately searching for something. "Oh where did it go?" he mumbled to himself.
"What are you looking for Jiraiya?"
"My sake," he replied without looking up. "Tsunade ordered me to come see her and I'm running late so I was brining my best sake to appease her, but I dropped it earlier and can't find it anywhere."
Naruto tried to not feel guilty as he told him, "You won't find it, because I drank it all earlier."
"What?!" Jiraiya turned angrily to Naruto, but when he saw who was before him the anger quickly changed to something else. "Hello, baby. You look cold all wet like that. Perhaps we should go to my place, have some more sake, and snuggle up real close to warm you up."
Naruto stood there with his mouth hanging open. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, my house is just down this path. I know exactly where to touch you to make your body feel like it's on fire."
Naruto acted on his first instinct which was to punch Jiraiya as hard as he could. To Naruto's surprise this actually knocked Jiraiya out cold. As he stood over the sprawled body Naruto let out a sigh. He felt a tiny bit guilty for now being the cause of Jiraiya's lateness, since Tsunade could have a bad temper. Besides that, he wanted Jiraiya to bring him along so Tsunade could tell him what was going on.
'Alright, I'll go to his house and get another bottle of sake. Hopefully by then he'll be awake and we can set off for Tsunade's place.' Naruto walked down the path but did not get far before a realization hit him. 'Jiraiya's my size. When we were in the room of doors he was normal size and I shrunk down much smaller than that. He should seem like a giant to me now, but instead he's the same size as me. How curious, I wonder what made him change?'
Naruto continued on and after a few bends came to a small cottage. 'I guess this is it,' he thought and walked in without knocking, happy to finally come across an unlocked door. As soon as Naruto crossed the threshold he became completely dry, right down to bouncy, shiny hair. "How strange, I wonder what caused that. Oh well, I'm dry so I'm not going to complain."
The cottage only had one room so it was easy to look around. Against the wall with the door he just entered from was a futon. At the opposite wall there was a fireplace. Smack dab in the middle of the room was a table with a bottle of sake sitting on top.
'That was easy,' thought Naruto as he went to pick up the bottle. 'I'm curious, will all drinks make me shrink and all foods make me grow? I should try an experiment.' He uncorked the bottle and brought it to his lips. He let a single drop fall onto his tongue and then waited. A minute later nothing had happened. Naruto took in a small mouthful and corked the bottle.
Just when Naruto thought there must be nothing special about this liquid he shot up a foot. "Well, that answers my question. This drink makes me grow instead of shrink." Then Naruto started growing some more. He kept growing and soon had to sit on the floor, but the growth didn't stop there. When he finally stopped sprouting his feet were on either side of the fireplace, his head was being uncomfortably pushed forward by the ceiling, and his arms blocked the windows almost completely. The table had been knocked over and the couch was digging into his back.
'Man why'd I have to act on my curiosity? I should have stopped at the first drop, stupid delayed reaction. So is some food or something going to appear so I can change back?'
Naruto's thoughts were interrupted when the door suddenly tried to open into his spine. "Hey Shino, what's going on in my house?" he heard Jiraiya yell.
After a short pause the reply came. "A young lady entered a few minutes ago and has yet to leave. However, I can report nothing further as I am not in there to know."
"I can't see in the windows," Jiraiya said with his voice coming from the side of the house. "How are we going to get in? I need to get that sake for Tsunade."
"I have and idea. Kiba, get out here!"
"What do you want?" Kiba said gruffly a short while later.
"Get the ladder so you can climb up to the roof and slide down the chimney. We need to know what's going on from the inside," Shino explained.
"What? Why do I have to do that?"
"Because Hinata is not here and you're the one with the next slender build."
"Excuse me? I know for a fact that we have the same build, though I must say your head is fatter than mine."
As they bickered about who should climb down the chimney Naruto realized that the position he was in would allow the chosen person to look right up his dress. Not wishing for the same embarrassment Jiraiya caused him earlier he did the only logical thing he could think of. Naruto removed his foot from where it was resting against the wall, carefully positioned it in front of the fireplace, and kicked with all his might. The chimney came tumbling down, along with quite a bit of dust, effectively ending any hopes of entering the house through it.
Once the dust settled and everyone finished coughing, the three men outside worked on a new plan. "If only we could see in the windows," Jiraiya stated.
"We could break them," Kiba responded.
Shortly after that a tomato came crashing through the window just above Naruto's arm and rolled to a stop by his leg. Thankfully the glass did not injure him. 'Now's my chance,' Naruto thought as he carefully picked up the delicate fruit. To him, the tomato was no bigger than a gumdrop and as soon as he was able to get it to his mouth he swallowed the whole tomato at once. The result was immediate, swift, and dramatic. Naruto found himself by the door and possibly smaller than a mouse. Since he had assumed he was about the size of a mouse when he first entered the cottage he was utterly confused about how small he would be in the room with the doors. He kicked the wall in frustration.
"I thought I saw something in there, but now it's completely empty," Shino's voice came from outside the broken window.
"Thank goodness," Jiraiya said. Soon a rush of wind came at Naruto as the door opened and Jiraiya entered. Jiraiya didn't seem to care about the state of his house as he made a beeline straight for the bottle he saw lying on the floor.
Naruto moved in front of the doorway and began to frantically wave his arms, jump up and down, and yell at the top of his tiny lungs. "Jiraiya! Jiraiya! Hey, help me! Bring me to Tsunade!"
Unfortunately Jiraiya did not notice Naruto as he exited the house. Naruto had to jump out of the way of the closing door before it smashed him. Naruto sat down of the front step and looked around at the world. He felt that it would take him half a day to simply walk back out to the path at his current size. Despair started to fill him as he wondered how to get out of this current situation.
