A/N

Serenity Maxwell: Ouch, cold much, check my reply to Song below…

SongoftheDarquePhoenix: you know, I feel kinda sad for him too, in re-checking all the info on the seven swordsmen of the mist I grew attached to each of them-

speaking of- does anyone who actually watches the anime (I only read the manga) know if Raiga's sword(s) have a name?

End A/N

Naruto stood at the center of a log perched beside a vast waterfall. Iruka stood looking down from the top while Anko stood at the base of the waterfall, each watching for both unwelcome company as well as anything else that might make Naruto's training more difficult then need be.

"Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" The log was end to end in Naruto and his clone as he stood with his hands touching the water. Shooting up from his hands, each clone split the water in front of them, pushing up towards the top of the waterfall. When at last most of the clones had pushed up that far, Iruka gave Naruto a thumbs up from the top, and Naruto released the Kage Bushin- the water cascaded down and back into place, washing Naruto off the log. Anko moved to catch Naruto, but before she got to him, Naurto put his hands in front of him, and after several quick seals, Naruto thrust his hands foreward and seemed to propel himself above the ground. Anko felt the barrage of small chakara bursts pushing beside her and against the ground. She raised a hand to block the reflective glare of light off the waterfall and she saw a glimmer of transparent wings as Naruto landed in front of her with an excited smile.

"HA!" Naruto hand a look of elation as he leaped up with an arm in the air, "yes!" Naruto stepped over to Anko, "One step closer."

"What was that, it didn't look anything like the Rasengan?"

"No I suppose it didn't, it's really- I was experimenting with finesse in manipulation, pushing off the ground and even against the air itself to levitate- or this case slow my descent."

"But it looks like your chakara made wings?"

"That was me pooling it behind me to have a wider platform to push from."

Several toads leapt out towards Anko and Naruto, "These are Ero-Senin's?" Another toad followed behind and stopped right in front of Naruto, "Kippai?"

"Tsunade stormed into Jiraya's with Kakashi, then Jiraya was taken by Tsunade into the village."

"Probably given an ultimatum, I didn't expect Kakashi to go this far, he must have seen me with Itachi."

Iruka finished coming down from the waterfall, the water beneath him shaped like a dolphin coming to the shore, "What's wrong?"

"Jiraya's being grilled by Tsunade by now if I don't miss my guess."

Iruka paused, "Figures, Kakashi's not as scary as he thinks, but Tsunade is, and then some."

"Itachi's right, Tsunade should know, and we might as well tell Kakashi too, it's easier than the alternative."

"Besides, our objective doesn't have too much longer to wait."

jiJIjiJIji

Jiraya looked less worried than he felt, sitting with both Tsunade and Kakashi trying to wear holes into him. At last he spoke again, "So how long are we going to wait here, 'till tomorrow when Naruto gets back?"

"If need be," Tsunade said as she crossed her arms, she rose from behind her desk and sat on top of it, with Kakashi standing near the door.

Jiraya looked down with a resigned smiled and sighed, "Well then, I'd suggest we all have something to drink, but I don't think any of us feel trusting enough to actually partake near each other right now."

There was a long silence where no one could look each other in the eyes, when at last the silence was broken when someone knocked on Tsunade's door. Everyone looked up as Tsunade spoke at last, "I'm currently in the middle of important business, if this isn't really important, come back later."

Naruto's voice spoke back, "Oh I think you'll be willing to pencil me in."

Naruto didn't wait to be told as he stepped in, the first thing he saw was Kakashi with a large white bandage over his head covering his sharingan eye, "What happened to your eye?"

Kakashi looked over at Tsunade then coughed, "Misunderstanding."

"Speaking of misunderstandings, we seem to be in a very big one, you seem to not understand that as Hokage, I'm supposed to know about every operation going on here."

Naruto crossed his arms, "The Hokage does know, The Forth Hokage at least…"

"The Fourth is dead, that doesn't count," Tsunade yelled, coming to her feet and reaching the end of her patience.

Naruto took a deep breath and released it slowly between closed teeth, "Not- entirely…"

Jiraya winced as Tsunade gave Naruto one of the most intense glares he'd ever seen, Kakashi was moments from speaking as well when he caught Tsunade's expression. Even Naruto had to resist backing down.

"Explain," this time Tsunade was speaking through closed, specifically clenched teeth.

Naruto sighed, looking down, "This was so much easier to explain to Sarutobi-san, but then I was explaining what I had to do instead of what I did," Naruto looked up again, "Uzumaki Kushina and baby were both killed in the Kyuubi attack, I sealed the Kyuubi into myself 17 years ago- but to accept the Kyuubi's chakara I had to make myself an infant once more so my body could accept the Kyuubi's chakara…" Naruto, or rather Minato, frowned now that he'd said it. "There's more, on that day only four people besides myself knew about the true nature of the seal, Sarutobi-san, Anko, Iruka, and Uchiha Akira. It was our intention to eventually draw out whoever summoned the Kyuubi to the village, knowing whoever did it would eventually come after me, with was why we claimed I was Naruto. We found out it was the Organization Akatsuki on the night of the Uchiha massacre, an agent of Akatsuki infiltrated the village and killed Uchiha Shisui, and using medical jutsu manipulated his corpse to come after Akira. Itachi discovered the agent upon investigating Shisui's unusual behavior; their first confrontation came to a draw, because the agent had been specifically trained against the Sharingan. Before any of us expected it, the agent came back, he killed Akira, and the rest of the Uchiha clan as they all attempted to prevent his escape. With his last breathe Akira told Itachi enough for him to come to us, he Anko and Iruka, since I was still growing up again, defeated the agent and killed him, but we wanted to make all those deaths count, blaming Itachi was actually his own idea, by re-arranging the evidence, he took the blame as a whole, and left to infiltrate Akatsuki, taking the infiltrator's ring as leverage. Since then he's been our eyes and ears into Akatsuki's doings."

Tsunade moved to sit back down on her desk but just barely missed, jarring her hip against the edge as she came down and swore profanely. Both Jiraya and Kakashi jumped at the reaction mistaking it for her moving to attack. Naruto walked over to Tsunade as she grabbed her hip in pain, he knelt down right in front of her and looked her directly in the eyes, "Believe me."

Tsunade saw as Naruto let down his emotional masks, put up both to keep his secret and to protect him from truly embracing all he'd lost that night. Those same blue eyes looked up at her, pleading for her to believe.

Tsunade looked back at Naruto and opened her eyes; she took a sharp breath as she saw it, in his eyes, eyes she hadn't truly seen in more than 17 years.

"Ah, Naruto," Jiraya broke in, pointing to a toad in the windowsill.

"Itachi's in trouble, I guess Kisame wasn't so open minded after all… Kuso"