Note: The idea, given by nobody 102, took off on its own. It might be different from what he/she was envisioning. Separated-parts-format.
Plot Device: Naruto and Jiraiya failed to bring Tsunade back, so Jiraiya was picked as Hokage. Well, someone has to take up the mantle of the Spymaster...
Warnings: language, mild OOC, minor changes to the canon time line, fairly judicious use of italics
The Network
The Brothel Law
He wondered about the consequences of approaching the women loitering at the entrance of "The Lonely Shinobi," flashing lights, firecrackers, and paper lanterns hanging haphazardly off of telephone lines framing the complex. It was the third down on the list that Ero-Sennin had given him, written out in scratchy kanji and boxed three times ("It means that it's important.") , little brown droplets of blood were below the words, from nosebleeds... that's gross. That's really gross. The women were scantily clad, covering enough that the police won't hassle them but leaving enough in the open that the clients know what the women, ahem, sell. Kami, this just brings back all the memories of his pre-Academy days of wandering the streets with the rest of the "trash." In fact, he found his mentality reverting back to that younger age, before he became as boisterous or as annoying, a personality that was a luxury to have, a personality that would mean a quick snub or a quick death.
Changing hands of leadership in this sort of job was a bit of a hazard in terms of stress and translation. If the informants don't respect the new head, then a little bit of the all-encompassing web is lost. If too much of the web is gone, the whole Network falls apart. And he was only thirteen, how the hell was he suppose garner respect, of all things? You give respect to those with wisdom, like Jiji, or those with power like, err, Kakashi-sensei, not him, not Naruto, the "Dead-Last." So far, the other brothels had (bemused) given him their word, which is the best he can get out of them, and the latest one had only given it to him after a lot of arm-pulling, henged Kage Bunshins, and "favors."
There's room for doubt. What power does a word give? He knows that his own word is strong and never failing: but of others? When it was so easy for a sensei to not be sensei anymore, so easy for a friend to turn traitor and stab you through the lung, for a ninja to take an extended leave years and years long, and when people try to coax a promise out of his mouth: well, they don't respect it too much either, right? Maybe that's why when Sakura-chan tried to pry a promise from him that he would bring Teme back to Konoha, he had paused. Maybe that's why Sakura-chan hates him, just that bit more.
He grimaced: the rejection Tsunade had given him had lowered his faith in himself more than he thought possible. If only he hadn't been set on mastering the Rasengan one-handed instead utilizing Kage Bunshins for a short-cut. If only Tsunade hadn't been killed by that Hebi-teme. He scratched the back of his head and looked again at the flamboyant building, trying to imagine what was going on beyond the walls... but decided not to. Spontaneous nosebleeds are an embarrassing thing.
Why prostitutes? Why whores? Why bordellos? If he had his way, he would be eliciting the assistance of ramen stands all over the world, not the red light districts. And then he can be friends with all the ramen owners, and help them in their recipes, maybe even help them with their customers, and hopefully get free samples of ramen all the time! Yeah yeah! That would be the bestest thing ever, dattebayo! But noooo, Ero-Sennin doesn't like ramen, he likes girls like Miko-chan and Tsubari-dono. "Act cute, Naruto, it's the only way they'll listen to you. They're not horribly mean. But the thing with women is that when they know that you don't know, they gain power." He rubbed his face, groaned and took a moment to collect himself; after adopting his "beggar" look, he made his way over to the women, who quickly took notice of him and judged him where he stood, "Ano... I was sent by Jiraiya-san to look for Omi-san..."
Naruto's People Skills
"Well, somebody has to take the position," Jiraiya slyly said, steepling his fingers over the grand mahogany desk, "Jounins are too valuable to waste, the chunins are either neck deep in their own long-term assignments or not completely trustworthy. You, wee-brat, are to go to these places," cue scroll unrolling off the desk to the floor and reaching a couple feet shy of the windows, "find these people," cue unrolling another scroll, twice as long, "and talk with them. Written next to the names are the reasons of why they joined the Network, the things that make them tick." Talk? Talk about what? The weather? Your perverted habits? "Oh ho ho ho! You're funny brat," Jiraiya threw his head back and laughed, "No, what I mean is: work your magic." My what? "Your people magic! It always works! You talk about determination and your nindo and all that business and boom!" Jiraiya clapped, "The Suna Jinchuuriki is your friend. Granted that it didn't work that one time when we were trying to get Tsunade, which landed me in this blasted mess to begin with."
This is possibly one of the worst ideas the Sannin has thought up, the throw-you-off-the-cliff not-with-standing. He doesn't like being sneaky and in the background. He wants to be loud, out in the open, like Sandaime-jiji, where people can see him and trust him, point him out to their fellows and whisper in awe, "That's Uzumaki, the most powerful ninja of all times! When I grow up, I wanna be just like him! I want him to be my friend!" Sure sure, he's good at being unnoticed: years of wearing his orange jumpsuit and still managing to pull off pranks and evading the aftermath of a high-speed chase containing ANBU and chunins does nothing but improve one's field tactics and stealth abilities.
His little silent, hidden in the shadows, stealthy persona and anything related to spying was discarded years ago for a reason. For this reason, he is furious and offended; he bits his tongue until it bleeds to prevent himself from throwing a fit.
So why do you trust me? There's too much at stake! "You're people skills!" My people skills don't work anymore, Ero-Sennin! You told me that! The silence that struck the room like a mallet told him that he spoke too soon. After a moment of thought, Jiraiya slowly took off his hat, if nothing else but to make a point: with that action, he aged a decade, "I'll be honest with you kid. You are the tenth down on the list to inherit the position. But nobody else fits. There's a sixty percent chance of failure, but you've been faced with greater odds. Your genin exam, for one, not to mention that the one testing you is Kakashi. Konoha is," the older man traced patterns on the desk as he gazed outside the window at the famed village, "weaker than what we make it to be, weaker than you think, we have to keep up the appearances. But manpower is down. I need at least a representative to keep them updated, to tell them to have faith. I would even send out another chunin with you, or another genin, but like I said. Our manpower is really, really down. Simply put, at the hospital, Shizune is not her mentor, she'll have her own strengths but will never be like Tsunade." Naruto wilted under the gaze. I can't. I wanna be Hokage... Come on, old man, you can't let me.
The two scrolls smacked him across the face, forcing him to step back, "Tough. When life throws you the curve-ball, you catch it... Things might have been different if Tsunade was the Godaime instead of me, but seriously, get over it. I couldn't see the future: I don't know if you'll be Hokage, I didn't know that you would be the next Spy-master. I can only hope that you'll be a good Spy-master. Hokage? Well, I'll put you on the list of candidates but you need to prove yourself. Look, this list, they're not all brothels, yeah, I went to a lot of brothels but that's my strength. You can set up contacts in an area of your own strength. But see here? There are normal households, retired nins, samurai dojos, restaurants, clubs, stores, fishermen, etc. Some I'm sure would be willing to teach you a bit of their jutsu repertoire: improve yourself, become self-reliant. Bottom line is I'm not your teacher anymore, I'm your leader. My hands are tied." The sun shined behind Naruto and lightened only his silhouette, hinting at another figure; the Godaime had to blink several times to make sure that he wasn't seeing a ghost before clearing his throat and saying gruffly, "make your village proud, brat."
With shaking hands, the genin took the two scrolls and rolled them back up, listening with half an ear to the other man who started delving into the details of the process of information transfer. One toad will always be at hand to assist and to keep Naruto out of sticky situations which would be inevitable due to his newbie status and naivety concerning the world outside of Konoha. Information will be transferred via code via toad, but information between the network will need another series of routing mechanisms. Jiraiya will send daily instructions on how to manage such a large group of intelligence and, hopefully, Naruto will grow into his position.
"The thing is that you need to be sent out of the village, to cool relations with the council regarding the Uchiha incident and to get the Akatsuki to concentrate on the other jinchuurikis. Konoha can't be a target at this time. If you keep moving at a pace where they can't pinpoint your location, you should be fine." Hell, if Jiraiya started from scratch, Naruto should have it easy. "I never foresaw this," the older nin whispered solemnly, noticing that when he placed the hat on the desk, Naruto's eyes never failed to follow, "I could only wish that the circumstances were better." After one last longing stare, Naruto walked out of the office and wouldn't be seen for a very, very long time.
The Mole in the Akatsuki
"Kid, I'm telling you, forget about your teammate. If you don't listen to me on anything else, at least on this one thing, because it's seriously for your own good and not the village's. I can name off fifteen reasons why the relationship between you and the Uchiha wasn't healthy. Hell, I can name off seven reasons why your relationship with your team wasn't healthy. I might not hate the Sandaime as a person, but this is one of his methods that I really don't agree with. I'll be honest with you, the benefits do not outweigh the price, for me and for you. I learned that the hard way."
After reading and rereading the note, Naruto crumpled it up and stuck it into his mouth and started chewing. (Urgh, this tasted worse than the lovechild of shinobi rations and hardtack, dattebayo.) How did Ero-Sennin manage to find out that he was incognito in Sound? Was it the Toads? The Toads, at least on paper, are suppose to be equally loyal to both co-signers, regardless of the conflict of interest. He wasn't really planning on fighting with Sasuke, not when he's a one-man power, up against an entire village of bloodline freaks and experiments... and Hebi-teme. He wasn't that dumb. But Jiraiya's implied, "I learned that the hard way" made him wonder whether Orochimaru was the 'Sasuke' of his team; the parallels were beginning to creep him out. The Curse of Team Seven: it sounds pretty cool in his head.
Ok, fine. He admit that he was prodding Oto's defenses despite Gamakachi's insistence that he should not. But it was only a little bit, dattebayo! It was a couple of henged Bunshins to Teme's training area underground: just make up some comment about Orochimaru testing his student's limits then boom, carnage. Not only had Sasuke wiped the floor with him, but he had also aimed to kill, the head, the neck, the large veins, the organs, the vital regions, bringing a quick and painful death. With his Bunshins, he got a closer look at Sasuke's cursed seal and... Well, the realization wasn't pleasant. Teme wasn't his Teme anymore, he was the Snake's Teme. Naruto wasn't sure how he was going to explain this to Sakura-chan, if he ever saw her again. Haha, he snorted into his bowl of ramen, if he ever saw her again, Sakura-chan would hit him over the head and scold him, "Sasuke-kun wouldn't do that. How do you even know what you're saying? How can you give up on Sasuke-kun, our teammate, baka?" Oh yes, how can I give him up when the entire village had already given him up. Hopefully the rest of the Konoha twelve believed in him. Kami, he still gets nightmares of phantom pains around his chest, the patter of rain, and the chirping of a Thousand Birds.
Jiraiya had sent him a note a few months back, "Your friends give you their inquiries. The back story is that you went on a training trip to Suna. Gaara is willing to back you up. Better make up some good stories when you get back." Notes from Ero-Sennin, pardon, Hokage-sama, were short and concise, never with a bit of emotion placed between the lines. Naruto can grudgingly admit that he was one of the reasons why relations cooled drastically, between his resentment and his Hokage-leader-like-ruthlessness: well, this is from a man who was willing to throw him off a cliff for the chance of him tapping into the Kyuubi's power. Damn old man. Damn him. Still, that note is one of the only ones he had kept in his inner chest pocket, close to his heart, a proof of statement that his friends (they are his friends, right?) missed him and cared about him, even if they were two months late.
And time goes on: scrambling to meet the last of the contacts and to collect and to organize the information to be sent back to Konoha.
Yesterday, Jiraiya had sent him a note, "Agent from the Akatsuki will be meeting you at 153.40:45.90 NW side, Daikon. Don't fuck this up." He crumpled the note and ate it, chewing thoughtfully and swallowing as fast as he could (lovechild of rations and tack.). Akatsuki huh? Red Dawn? That group of SS class nins who were seeking the power of the Tailed Beasts. They were his most frustrating assignment yet, not only because his own ass was in danger, but also that it was so hard to pry anything relevant about them from anyone. The best that he had come up with were horror stories: the Aloe Vera Man, the Shark Man, the Paper Woman, the Man of Many Hearts, the Masked One, the Ten Tailed Beast, the Apocalypse etc.
"It is the harbinger of destruction," Takuma-san whispered, lounging on the sidewalk smoking opium, "They decimated a village simply because they refused to pay debts to the Man of Many Hearts and so the Undead took them in a ritual and... There are four survivors and all they could bring themselves to talk about is the amount of blood..."
"Yesterday, one of my girls had a client from Iwa." Both Naruto and Mother Kasumi studiously ignored the sounds of sex that was coming through the opposite wall, "He was a higher-up but a civilian and best of all, he had access to a whole shit-ton of news. Did you hear about their jinchuuriki? Not the important one but the lesser one? Apparently the Akatsuki got their hands on him, there was lava everywhere. Poor guy."
"And... and... Tami-chan told Yui-chan who told Saburou-kun who told me that the Masked Man wants kill all of us. 'N that's so baaad. He wants to kill all of us." Naoko-chan hiccuped over her fifth cup, "More sake please? Thanks. Anyways, what was I saying? Oh yeah, he wants to be, this Masked Man, he wants to... to be the Sage of Six Paths and create the moon and then destroy the world!" She flapped her arms about and squawked when she lost her balance. Naruto palmed his face. Bringing down the Moon? What the fuck is all that about?
Tsunami cleaned the dishes with practiced grace as Inari was whooping outside, playing ninja with his Bunshins, "Well, the sailors came back with a story of how two people were standing on the sea battling this sea monster." Can you describe the people or the monster? "Ehh, yeah, I tried asking them too. They said that the two people were in black capes with red? Not sure about the red part. The sea monster was a four legged, had scales, it was a giant walking among ants. ...What else was there? Father can fill you in with the details, he has an ear for distinguishing bragging and truth, seeing how he does it all the time. In fact, he might be with them right now at the bar." I can visit them afterward if you can just point me the way. "It's not too far. Oh yes, the monster looked like a turtle and it had three tails... Would you like to stay for dinner?"
Whatever he heard, outrageous rumors and all, he still reported back the Jirairya in huge masses of reports after reports, who, hopefully, can discern the babble without too much of a headache. It was his own fault though for ordering, "Tell me everything. Nothing is too trivial. Nothing is too out there. Whatever you hear, just spit it out onto paper. You don't need to be organized about it. Just tell me everything."
Right, so this Agent... Naruto finished the last of his ramen and ordered another bowl from the bewildered manager and cook as he anxiously waited for the mysterious person, who is held under code red, the only one of its kind: which meant that though Sandaime-jiji trusted him or her with his life, he is an unknown to Jiraiya. Through limited communication with the Agent, the genin learned that he or she had been contacting Jiji through Monkey summons, but when the Hokage hat switched hands, there had to be another face to face meeting for various purposes: face placement, proof of loyalty, papers, scrolls. Code red. For all I know, it could be Hebi-teme secretly working for Konoha in a round-about, weird, secret way. Naruto forcefully stopped his leg from bouncing. Where is that guy? This is seriously important! And the more he sits here looking like a blasted idiot, the more suspicious he looks. There were times in his career when his life was banked on whether or not he was standing five seconds too long in one spot. His hair (dyed brown) is going to turn as white as Kakashi's if he waits any longer! In fact, he ought to just give that damn Agent a piece of his- Someone tapped his left shoulder, he whirled around in agitation and anger before stopping on the balls of his feet, fist poised to hit... No way. His whole body screeched to a halt and his mind crashed.
The only thing he managed out of his mouth was a feeble squeak, but as long as he could speak, no matter the pitch, that would be OK, "Where were you? I know that I've switched the places but it was only across the street." There. Word for word: he held his breath.
"Sorry I was late. I was looking for a pet for a family member, preferably a bird, but I decided on fish because birds are expensive and not within my budget, and decided to go to other stores to look for better breeds." Naruto felt his mouth drop open. It took him five seconds to find the hinge to his jaw and then to stare in complete disbelief at the informant before he realized that he had heard the message and had to act accordingly. No fucking way. The informant, on the other hand, also had his eyebrows well within his hairline and probably thinking of the same thing. They were both dressed in incognito clothing, the type of clothing that blended well with a large group or a busy main street, where one is unrecognizable unless you knew what features you were looking for, unless you knew that there was someone under disguise.
Naruto swallowed harshly and took a deep breath. He handed over his half finished bowl of ramen after slipping a scroll inside (a beta Toad-summoning scroll, one used to only pass information between dimensions) and said with as much sympathy as he could muster, "I feel for you. Would you like some food?" The informant accepted the ramen bowl and the used pair of chopsticks and finished the meal. He took the scroll. How: Naruto has no idea: his best guess is that the other somehow swallowed it, lodged it in his esophagus, and deactivated his gag reflex.
When the Agent was finished, he dabbed his mouth lightly and handed back the bowl and the chopsticks. Inside the leftover murky soup, there was another scroll: a set of instructions on how to contact said Agent, on how to use the beta-Bird summoning scroll, and up to date information on the Akatsuki group. The meeting quickly ended and they went their separate ways. Every two minutes, Naruto gave himself a pat on the back for suppressing his own urge to scream in confusion to the high heavens. Considering that a year ago he would have had no qualms doing that, that just shows how far he had gone down this path.
But under that exterior, he was still the same Uzumaki Naruto, the same little boy whose mind is screaming in hysteria, running in a hysterical circle, hysterically tearing out chunks of his hair. Ero-Sennin is going to shit bricks on this one... Uchiha Itachi? The fuck! Of all people? Why HIM? Jiji trusts a kin-slaughterer? Does that mean he didn't massacre his clan? Did he anyways? What's going on? That Uchiha Itachi? Uchiha Itachi? Fuck! What is wrong with this world?
Regarding Chigiri
"Ero-Sennin, it's a mess in these parts. There's a new Mizukage, a kunoichi named Mei, I think you might like her. Their government is about to fall apart from the riots. Their Sandaime was the three-tailed beast, the one that disappeared, the one that ordered the bloodline purges. But then some people are convinced that the Sandiame was controlled by another person, that he was a puppet-Hokage, and that mysterious person is way more powerful, way more older, way more dangerous, than what anybody can ever dream of. Story sources are from bars."
"There's so much corruption, money changing hands, body favors, forced body favors. I saw it all, in this one single village. People are disgusting. I don't like the world anymore, Ero-Sennin. At least I don't like this place."
Waiting for the Blue Man to Wake
"I think that after you left, people began to notice the loss of life in the village. The suicide rate has gone up amongst ANBU, I think you should take note of that if none of your friends think of you, at least ANBU do." Which was, honestly, really assuring, dattebayo. One of his earliest memories was masked ninja singing him little ninja songs to sleep after they fed him, washed him, tucked him in and gave him Gama-chan, who was, at that time, an actual stuffed frog (Toad?) and not a wallet.
"Hush shinobi don't you cry. The bad guys will always die. It doesn't matter who, what, when, how or why but we're here to watch you through the night." Which was, as he thinks back to it, rather morbid, but disgustingly sweet. He finds himself singing the tune to himself when on cold nights when he's alone. He's always alone.
"I digress. Your friends do miss you, I think. They've been hounding me for information, including your teacher. Well, I think that they came to realize that they know absolutely nothing about you. Curiosity is a funny thing, hmm?"
Naruto leaned his back against the window-sill of the brothel, well away from the person knocked out cold on his bed. Naruto had picked him up on another rounds of his spontaneous trips to Oto to see how Teme is doing: Teme is getting scarier and scarier by each visit: he has less humanity than a jinchuuriki. The jinchuuriki wondered why Jiraiya never thought do some serious investigation into Rice Country, seeing that the underground labs are full of people who need to be saved and people who are willing to give a life's devotion for getting out of that hell hole. In this case, it was a guy around his age with a blue tint around his whole body which, according to the stolen notes, could be attributed to his Kekkei Genkai. Naruto only had to wait for Suigetsu (as the papers said) to stir and then he can give the speech that he had repeated in his head however many times. Not to mention that he had Zabuza's old sword, a bit rusted and worse for the wear but nothing the old shining can fix, as a nice bargaining chip. Suigetsu would be very weak from Hebi-teme's experimentation and would have to rely on Naruto to nurse back to full power.
Naruto slurped away at his bowl of ramen, a little something thoughtfully given by one of the girls who was on her break. So many contacts, so many "knowing people but not knowing people," a lack of "precious people," he was loosing what little social skills he had started out with. Hanging around so many people of so diverse origins scattered through the continents: he has never felt more lonelier. Dead end job, mid life crisis, no friends, loose footed, all at an old age of fifteen: where are you going, Naruto? Where are you going?
He had to admit that this was not the life he was envisioning himself when he had first entered the Academy after begging day after day till his knees were rubbed raw from kneeling on the floor, "Hey, hey! Gramps! I wanna be ninja! Please! Please!" Years later, he had traveled the world and became world weary for it. From the many and many places and people he's met, he has picked up small skills here and there, leading him to a very patchwork set of knowledge of everything (master in nothing) and a strength in stealth and the ability to run out of that place between a rock and a hard place. At least his basics were solid...? That's more than the Academy can boast about. There were prostitutes and ramen stand owners, there were farmers and waitresses, there were shinobi and kunoichi, ranging from genin to jounin, all of them he met, bargained, and talked with. He learned about as much about weaponry as he did about the kunoichi arts and as much jutsu as he did about cooking and wild herbs and as much Taijutsu as he did now to negotiate.
There were people who in public he had to fight to the death with but behind the dark alley had to bandage up, lend chakra, and heal. At one instance, when Itachi and Kisame had him cornered, the Uchiha had trapped him in his Tsukuyomi where he had expressionlessly delivered the next scroll verbatim, taught him how to use the Bunshin Daibakuha, released him and gave him a means of escape. "We have seventy-two hours for you to realize that you're still acting like a child. You're living in a fantasy world. You need to come to terms with the fact that you, as a ninja, will be forced to make impossible decisions like this." Thank Kami that Fish-Face didn't suspect a thing and that he escaped with Samehada barely skinning his hairtips. That's life for Uzumaki Naruto: days of twiddling your thumbs and then a few seconds of sheer, unadulterated terror, dattebayo.
What's so frustrating is how much he has to hold back. And that's the crux of the matter isn't it? There are many ways a ninja can go for 'the top' because there are many different 'tops.' There was Ibiki as head Torturer, Shikamaru's dad as head Jounin, Kiba's uncle as head Hunter-nin, Hinata's dad as head of the Hyuuga clan, that creepy head ANBU guy with the bandages, on and on. Hokage isn't the only head but it's the most public. Naruto realized that taking Jiraiya's previous position as head of, whatever you call it, web of informants, that he would be his own top, and wouldn't have any way of backing out. Lord of the Spies doesn't exactly allow one to have time to get an ordinary promotion rank like, say, via the chunin exams. A genin Hokage: he would be OK with that but for the actual villagers? How's that for laughs? His chopsticks snapped in his hand. I wanna be Hokage! I wanna! I wanna! I wanna! It's not fair! How am I gonna be Hokage now?
Suigetsu stirred. There was no time for anything else. Naruto was stuck, trapped in a prison, shackled by his ankles. So yes, he was a genin, in charge of one of the largest spy-networks encompassing the Ninja World. Life is peachy, thank you.
Between the Hokage and his Spy-master
"So I've been thinking. Nobody expected me to succeed, that's why everybody was always trying to bring me down and telling me all the time that I should give up. You're one of those people too, right? You forced me into this damn position. You know that I can't get out of it. You know that as long as I'm here, and you're there, I'll never achieve my dream."
"Kid, there is no conspiracy."
"Then why am I on the need to know basis? Why was there so much sabotage and sabotage and neglect. Did you know that jounins expect that their genins should know how to tree-walk in the first month of training? You know that. Did you know that Iwa nins know me more than I do? When I was captured, they talked about so many things, expecting me to follow their conversation, and then they learned that I didn't understand, and then they started laughing, because everybody has been keeping me in the dark! Kazama Arashi? Chakra chains? Akai Chishio no Habanero? What does Kakashi-sensei have to do with this? Is he part of this whole mess, under-the-rug conspiracy, too? Ero-Sennin, who do I look like? What do you see when you see me? Tell me the truth!"
What Jiraiya sent back was a scroll detailing heritage of Uzumaki Kushina of the Uzumaki Clan and circled the bottom line which stated that she had a union with Namikaze Minato, Konoha's Yellow Flash. Things began to add up. "Neh, Ero-Sennin. He's my dad, isn't he?
It is kind of funny that he's my dad, and I didn't know, and I always wanted to know that I was born from somebody human. So many people told me that I was the lovechild of a harlot and a demon, did you know that? Yet, I see his face everyday from my window and everyday he stares back at me. I was so close to family but I didn't know. Did you know that after I found out about the Kyuubi in me, that I hated him for a really long time? And he's my dad! There's irony, dattebayo! Why didn't anybody tell me?"
"Naruto: your father had many enemies after the Third Shinobi War, enemies that made us fear for your safety. You were a baby and there would've been so many hardened nins after your blood. We thought that it would be best if you took your mother's surname instead of his."
"Well, that's useless now isn't it? One look at me and they knew everything. It's better than what I can do."
Correspondence from Suna
Days of pattering around the sand dunes only resulted in one letter. "Ero-Sennin: I smell carrion, it's somewhere here, I just don't know where. The sandstorms are wrecking my senses because I think I smell bomb-powder too. Jinta-san brought me here with his caravan, said that there were reports of two people, a redhead and his girlfriend, a blonde, riding on a sort of bird like flying machine, blowing up stuff. Will keep you updated."
Days later, Gamatachi sent back a missive. "Brat, we got a distress signal from Sunakagure. Something happened to the Kazekage. I'm sending out your old friends and some jounin. Meanwhile, try to help them but keep hidden, I understand if you can't, but try. The redhead is Akasuna no Sasori. I'll have Gamatachi send you a Bingo Book, think it's high time you start using it."
"Never mind. The blond is a man with a seriously weird verbal tick." Naruto scribbled down as he hid behind a boulder as another explosion caused the ground to vibrate and the sand to rise momentarily into the air. Naruto closed his eyes.
"It's your fault that Gaara's dead! You were responsible for the entire thing, datteba- Nnnrrgghhh! You sealed Shukaku into Gaara and you raised Sasori into the man he was: you did everything and expected everything. But then you saw the consequences of your actions and expected nothing. But you know what? Things didn't turn out the way you want because life throws curve balls at us. While one man fell into the deeper parts of his own mind, his own lonely sewage chamber with only himself to talk to, the other managed to overcome who he was, rise above his expectations, and become Kazekage. Let me tell you this, Gaara's success sure as hell did not come from you, Chiyo-baasama. Gaara was stronger to leave his past behind and to look forwards, to always look forward! The only way to live is to look forward! Gaara looked forward; he is more ninja than you will ever be." His own words echoed in his head, those words that he had spat at the old lady. He winced: that was probably a bit too harsh but damn it, a friend is dead, he had the right to blow up, at least once.
"He is dead, brat!" The old kunoichi had snapped back.
"He had a nindo!" Naruto had howled. You can't stop me! His memory will live on in me! From one jinchuuriki to another, believe it! Arguments between him and the esteemed advisor of Suna often blew out of control. Temari often had to act as a mediator and pull them apart.
"I managed to disable Sasori temporarily with that Odama Rasengan and take Kankuro back to Sunakagure, he looks to be in bad shape. I hope that you brought a medic from Konoha with you because I have no idea about poison extraction of any kind. I henged into another Suna-nin when the Konoha-nins were here: Temari, Gaara's sister, provided a cover for me. My name is Uzuki Haido."
One of the hardest things to do while in the presence of his old teammate, sensei, and friends was to tone down his exclamations of excitement. He had to resist hugging them and crying from the sheer emotion that started to spill out of himself. He wasn't Naruto, Naruto is on a long training trip. They've never met him before. Uzuki Haido is a nice tokubetsu jounin with an Iruka-like disposition and a hearing problem.
"Sasori was destroyed with the help of a judicious use of the fox's chakra which literally ate through his first body. He still had a heart in him that wanted to hug his parents, even though they were as dead as he is and he knew that they would stab his heart. Deidara, bomb-man, managed to escape. But he lost an arm to Kakashi."
Naruto finished his scrawled message, admiring the fact that his handwriting seemed to be improving the more he practiced. He rolled the scroll up and was about to prick his finger to summon a lesser toad when the door to his room opened. It was Chiyo-baasama. He waved cheerfully, "Yo, small-granny. Do you need anything?" He watched with open-eyed curiosity as the small old woman took her time to observe his spartan room, with no true decoration but a single plant native to Konoha. The advisor paced and sighed in parts, before reaching into her robes and pulling out a small photo. He wasn't sure what meaning it gave for her nor who was on it, but seemed to lend her some invisible strength as she straightened up and finally faced him
"We don't always see eye to eye, young man, but I do acknowledge mistakes that I have made in my many years. And I... have many regrets."
Naruto's face fell, "I didn't mean it like that, Baa-chan," and promptly got slapped across the face for his disrespect; the attack was half-hearted, "I mean, we changed, we got better. Konoha and Suna aren't just allies, we're friends, friends from blood, from understanding. And then there comes a time when we realize that we're not so different, you and I, dattebayo."
Chiyo pocketed her photo and coughed, waving off the genin's offer of assistance, "Yes, yes, don't treat me like an old lady. We're not so different are we? The Sand Village and Konoha: their future will be different than the way things were back in my day. And I only see it now," she murmured the last words to herself, "So foolish." She looked up with renewed determination, "Tell me, young shinobi, what do you think when you hear the words, 'Kisho Tensai'?"
"Kid, I want to extend a thanks to you for saving the Kazekage. I've enclosed some money and order you to take a break. Think of it like a mission. You need some rest or else you'll shatter. You've been lucky so far, to not loose your precious people to death, but I want to warn you of things to come. It will get worse. You still have a long way to go."
Accusations
"If the Yondaime was my dad, and you were his teacher, what are you to me? A real grandpa?"
"Your godfather. He named you after a hero from one of my novels. They're not perverted, breathe. It's called "The Gutsy Ninja," I don't think you've heard of it. It was before my fame."
"If your my godfather. How come you never visited? Or wrote? Why didn't I even know that I had a godfather? When we met, why didn't you tell me that you were my godfather?"
The next day after no response, Naruto penned another letter. "Hey! Ero-Sennin! Stop ignoring me! Is it the way I look? Like those Iwa-nins? When you see me, do you see dad? Do you see me or dad? Or just dad? Was it always dad? Is that why you can never look at me in the eye? It's always at that space in between, like my forehead or nose, never at me, because you don't see me. You don't see me. You never saw me! Fuck you! You're just like the others! They never see me too! A monster, a demon, a lowlife, a bad memory, a ghost, anything but me! I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Look at me!"
The next day after no response, Naruto penned another letter. "You coward! You don't deserve to be Hokage! A Hokage is never haunted, a Hokage faces his fears and overcomes them. Your burden needs to be removed before I'll ever even think about respecting you! I hate you!"
Update
"Hey, Ero-Sennin. After Itachi gave me that super weird, gay-ish visit where he forced crows down my throat (think it was a genjutsu...) I lost contact with him but found his body by a cottage via crow, I'm trying to decide the coordinates. He had a fight with his little brother. I think he let Teme win, big brother love and all. The masked man from the Akatsuki is another Uchiha, Uchiha Madara. I thought that he was suppose to be dead. His eye is really weird and the Kyuubi doesn't like it either. Madara spotted me and sent Teme after me but I managed to escape by the skin my teeth. Stupid curse seal. I love Kage Bunshins, I will never regret stealing that scroll. Do you have a recipe for creams to treat burns? Like, chakra fire burns generated by the Sharingan? I have third degree all over the place, I would be dead if it wasn't for the fox, though the wounds aren't healing. It hurts a lot. I wish that there's a medic here. I don't want to die alone and I might die, because they're chakra fire and strange weird kinjutsus like summoning skull men and beasts. Sasuke got a bit of Itachi's eyes, though I have the other bits. I think Teme is an S-class nin right now."
Two weeks later, Naruto penned a letter. "I'm OK now Ero-Sennin. Are you there? You can reply, you know? I'm not mad at you anymore. We can pretend that it never happened."
Jiraiya's Confession
"Kid, you have no idea how long it's taken for me to write this. I spent days and nights agonizing over the words, how to describe myself exactly, how to explain myself to you, because in the end, you got the brunt of it. I want to say sorry, but I don't know if that's enough. You weren't just an orphan like I was, you were a hated orphan, that... I've never experienced that in my youth. I guess my fault is that I need to escape from my mistakes. Looking at my mistakes and trying to fix them in my head are two different things. I can set up the Network and travel the world but I couldn't ever visit Orochimaru in Sound. Likewise, I couldn't bear looking after you and thought that anything would be better than me looking after you because I was sure that my feelings, my own resentment would bleed through. You look like your father in every way, from the air to the face to the eyes. It's always been the eyes. You have your mother's personality, her liveliness, her verbal tick, which was, coincidentally, "Dattebane." They were a wonderful couple, both strong and brave, embodying the Will of Fire, hero and heroine in their own right. The village was proud of them."
"They would be proud of you. You are their son. I admit, I see Minato in you all the time and I can't help it sometimes. My mind betrays. But you are yourself, please don't think otherwise. You are unique and a good ninja, a great ninja."
"I just wish... I wish that circumstances were different. That we got to know each other better and maybe develop a bond. I know you're alone, it comes with the job description, but you shouldn't go through that. I understand. But you are Uzumaki Naruto, not Namikaze Minato, not the demon, not the monster. I am proud of you."
The next day at the crack of dawn, a Toad the size of a stool wakes up Naruto and croaks "he's dead."
Naruto squinted at the trespasser, "What? ...Who?" A part of himself grew cold, that part of his had the premonition of whom the Toad was referring to.
"Jiraiya-sama. He has passed away, we Toads sense the movement of his soul into the next life. He is gone."
Aftermath
It all boils down to the Akatsuki and Jiraiya's executioner, Pein. But even Naruto was mature enough to know that Pein was only the tip of the iceberg. There was so many other elements riding on the fate of the world: life, death, resurrection... jinchuurikis, black flames, white fire... Sharingans, Rinnegans, the Moon. Too much was banking on him. He was the only one who knew everything.
Kakuzu was dead by his hand, dattebayo. He himself was suffering from near fatal wounds, it was about as bad as when Sasuke punched that hole into his chest. The original self appointed mission which was to head back to Konoha to report himself to the next Rokudaime (because he might as well eat his left arm before thinking about taking the hat) was driven into a detour by the ambush from the missing-nin. Thank Kami he was so severely underestimated in terms of skill. It was only yesterday that he mastered the Rasenshuriken.
Rest in peace, Ero-Sennin. I hope that your heaven is filled with women with huge chests.
The gate guards he could vaguely recognize from his first stint at the chunin exams. They had instantly recognized him and had shouted exclamations and orders, bringing around him a flurry of activity that he couldn't discern. He was too tired to listen and too tired to identify faces that were all rushing at him. ANBU appeared, white masks and black cloaks and followed that was a man wearing the Hokage hat. Despite the hat covering most of his visage, Naruto could still at least identify the tell-tale signs of bandages and the limp, "Aww fuck," he muttered, "You're the Rokudaime? Who the hell chose you?"
Danzo replied with words that he didn't listen to as he was too busy scrunching up his face and recalling the phrase which he spoke deliberately even as he was manhandled by the ANBU guards, "The Networking web has returned to the fire, shall we wait for your verdict of either to burn or to proceed?" Damn Jiraiya for thinking up of something this convoluted.
Danzo froze, "What did you say?" His question was muffled, underwater, he might have ruptured eardrums... Naruto squinted in confusion, did he get the exact pattern wrong?
Again, he repeated, "The Networking web has returned to the fire, shall we wait for your verdict of either to burn or to proceed?" And for safe measure, because he knew that the man trusted him less than a baby could throw him, he added the safe-measure, "Our roots were deeper than what others had assumed. It is the only way we can have fruitful leaves. Uzumaki Naruto, genin 012607, reporting from mission SS-class long term A19O turn SS42 to receive the new Hokage, code orange."
Danzo raised a hand, Naruto was released. Naruto leaned over and coughed out blood and straightened, squinting at the blurry figures of the crowd around him (was that pink? Man, his concussion must really be bad) whispering and pointing in hushed amazement. "Report, genin."
Naruto swayed on his feet, "Akatsuki is coming, Pein and all his bodies. Read the scrolls of the compartment in the compartment. The assault isn't for me anymore, it's also because you defied him. Don't try to negotiate, they won't listen. In fact," his smile was bloody ("You swallow a pint of blood before throwing up") "prepare for a Shinobi World War. It's inevitable." Naruto sways back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, fell to the ground and didn't get back up.