Chapter 3

"Who is this?" Tsunade asked as the two rival jonin entered her office. "I thought I only requested the presence of Leaf Village jonin. Nobody else. Did I not?"

"You got this one Kakashi?" Gai leaned over and whispered while Kakashi rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry to have brought her along, Lady Tsunade, but unfortunately I have some news of my own."

"Hello, Lady the Fifth." The girl said, stepping forward with her hand outstretched to shake. "I'm sorry about the intrusion on your very important meeting, however, I feel that this reconnaissance may take precedence. My name is Rose Lalonde and I am the Seer of Light. You see, not long ago a young genin by the name of Naruto Uzumaki attempted to summon my friends and I. The spell left his chakra drained and did not work, or so it had seemed at the time. It would appear, however, that because of the distance between our two worlds his jutsu took a long time to work. I – "

Tsunade interrupted. "Hold on. Are you trying to tell me that you're a mythical figure? Do you believe this, Kakashi?"

Looking somewhat uncomfortable, Kakashi said, "Frankly, I'm not sure what to believe. I'll admit I'm taken aback by her existence. She appeared in my library this morning and demanded I take her to see you. I want to say I don't believe her and on some level I don't, but I find her story somewhat intriguing. She may or may not be who she claims to be. Either way, she's proven herself at least to be a stealthy enough and smart enough shinobi to be able to take me off guard in my own home."

Tsunade nodded. "Well girl, can you prove what you say?"

Rose's face did not change. "No I cannot."

"Then I suggest you keep your mouth shut. I'm a very busy woman and I don't have time to waste."

Rose half-lidded her eyes and crossed her arms, looking somewhat disinterested yet at the same time, authority-defying. With that she stepped back in line. "As you wish. I'll be here when you're ready for me."

"Excellent. Now I have some business to discuss with these two jonin here."

"What happened? Gai told me there was a disturbance in the woods last night and that Orochimaru is somehow involved." Kakashi inquired.

Tsunade let out a breath, eyeing Rose briefly before continuing. "Last night a patrol came across a few unconscious men and Orochimaru. Orochimaru and the majority of his party were able to escape, however we were able to take one of his men into custody. After a long interrogation we were unable to get any information out of him about what Orochimaru's plans were but he seemed distracted by another matter anyway. When pressing him about this he said that they ran into a strange boy in the woods. The boy had asked them about directions and didn't seem to recognize Orochimaru or his name when they introduced themselves. Although this was certainly odd, the group still attacked the boy thinking that he might inform someone of their presence in the woods. The strangest thing of all, however, is the way the man described the fight.

"There was absolutely no evidence of a fight in the forest. No left over kunai knives, no tracks in the dirt, no visible wounds. The only evidence that any sort of confrontation had taken place was what the prisoner said, and the completely and utterly perplexed way in which he said it. According to him, one moment, Kabuto went in to attack the mysterious kid and the next thing he knew there was a brief flash of red, everyone was unconscious, and the kid was nowhere to be found."

Kakashi cut in. "I get it now. You don't want us to pursue Orochimaru at all. We're going after the one that took Orochimaru down."

"Precisely." Tsunade said. "I'm hoping that whoever this is, they are on our side here. Thus far, it can be assumed that he is not on Orochimaru's side considering the fact that he left him unconscious in the woods. Still, if we could get a shinobi of that skill level on our side we would have gained a truly remarkable ally."

"Do you have a description of the boy?" Gai asked.

That's when Rose cut in, examining her fingernails with apparent disinterest. "Let me guess…, messy blond hair, tall athletic build, informal manner of speaking, unusual pair of red pajamas with a clockwork gear in the front of the shirt, blood red cape, and sunglasses despite it being nighttime."

Tsunade slowly put the papers down on her desk, staring at Rose, not with surprise, but with an intense scrutiny. The room suddenly felt very cold. "How did you know that?" Tsunade asked, her voice low and almost threatening.

Rose looked up with a small black lipped smirk on her face. "Because, Lady Hokage, this mysterious boy's abilities sound remarkably similar to my brother's, and judging by your reaction to my guess about his appearance, I was right in assuming that it was he."

"Your brother?" Tsunade said expressionlessly. "As in, another god that Naruto summoned?" She did not seem to believe her.

"Naturally."

Kakashi and Gai exchanged a brief look before glancing back over to watch the tense discussion.

"Right…." Tsunade said sardonically. "And what else can you tell us about your 'brother'?"

"His name is Dave. He's a bit of an airhead and has been described on more than one occasion as an insufferable prick. It's not at all unlikely that he would have woken up in the woods confused, considering the way we were summoned, and asked some men for directions. He is not the most discreet in his actions, but he is one of the more unpredictable ones. He's… predictably unpredictable if you will. You can always count on him for a surprise. And due to the nature of his aspect, he is one of the few out of the reach of my omniscience."

"Hmm." Tsunade says. "Well if you're certain the boy who stopped Orochimaru is your brother then why don't you go with Gai and Kakashi to find him?"

It seemed as if Tsunade had given up on arguing with Rose about whether or not she was really a goddess and decided to just indulge her. What could the harm be, anyways? As Hokage, she didn't have time to argue with strangers, she had better things to do.

"Actually I was going to do some work on trying to locate my other friends. But I'm sure if I write you a message to give to him and your shinobi tell him I'm here he'll come without a second thought." Rose said, pulling out a pen and a pad of paper from nowhere.

Gai scrunched his brow. "How'd you do that?" It couldn't have been a summoning jutsu, there were no hand signs and summoning jutsus normally brought animals. Instead, the items appeared as if they had always been there, waiting for Rose specifically to reach up and take them to give them substance in the real world.

"Do what?" Rose raised an amused eyebrow.

"Did you summon those items?" Tsunade looked almost surprised.

Rose just smirked. "Of course not. I don't have chakra and besides, I didn't use hand signs."

"Then where did that paper come from?"

Rose winked. "I'm a goddess remember?" She began to scrawl a note onto her paper, then walked over and handed it to Kakashi. "I have no doubt that this message will be sufficient in bringing my brother back here. If you give me a little bit of time before you leave I might also be able to approximate his location on a map given the location that Orochimaru was found and my own knowledge of Dave's behavior."

Tsunade shrugged. "Alright, Lalonde I'll give you a chance." She pulled out a map from one of the drawers on her desk and laid it out on the floor, placing a few paperweights on the sides to hold it down. Rose, Gai, and Kakashi gathered around. "Here is where Orochimaru and his men were found. There is nothing to indicate which direction your brother would have taken. What do you think he would have done?"

"Which direction did the man say he had come from?" Rose asked next.

"This direction." Tsunade pointed in the direction away from the village.

"My instincts tell me he would have continued in the same direction, maybe veering slightly to the left. That's the best I can do at the moment."

Tsunade looked up. "Alright, you heard the girl, get going."

"Oh and one more thing." Rose said, before the two Leaf ninja took off. "I request that you bring the child who summoned us with you. I promise Dave's not dangerous and I'm going to be busy. One of us should get to meet him, after all, and it might as well be Dave."

Tsunade considered for a second before nodding, with a sigh. "Alright if you insist. Kakashi, Gai, you are dismissed."

"Grandma Tsunade has another mission for me? What's it about? When do I get to go? Who's my team? Is it you and Sakura still or are we getting split up again? Does Sai have to come? Does it involve finding Sasuke? Why are you telling me about this and not Tsunade herself?" Naruto asked hyperactively, practically bursting with excitement, as usual. Even though he had mellowed out considerably over the last few years, he could still get riled up relatively easily. It was one of the things about Naruto that Kakashi hoped never changed.

"Whoa calm down, Naruto." Kakashi said, placing his hand on the small blonde's head to steady him. "Actually, you're going with me and Might Guy. Now before you say anyth – "

"WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!"

" – ing." Kakashi finished with a sigh and an annoyed glance at the hyperactive blond boy running circles around his room.

"I'm going on a special mission with Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed. Kakashi rolled his eyes and stuck one hand in his pocket while waiting for the spastic sixteen-year old to settle down.

Once Naruto was sufficiently calm, Kakashi spoke again. "Listen carefully, Naruto, we have a lot to discuss and I have a few things to ask you." That got his attention. Naruto cocked his head to one side, looking confused as to what Kakashi was referring to.

The older jonin continued. "About a month ago you tried to summon several figures of legend, remember that?"

"Yeah, how could I forget? It was a really dumb idea that did nothing but drain all of my chakra in the middle of some cave. Dammit Choji! – he promised to take me to Ichiraku's if I did it and he still hasn't paid up! That bastard… I should go remind him. But wait… why are you bringing this up now? That was months ago." Naruto's confusion only deepens.

"Because earlier this morning a girl showed up in my house claiming to be the Seer of Light. She was also aware that you are the one who summoned her. Right now she is back at my apartment doing… whatever it was she wanted to do. However, before we left on this next mission she requested that I bring you."

"Wait I still don't understand." Said Naruto, shaking his head. "My summoning jutsu actually worked? The gods I tried to summon are here on Earth? Why did she go straight to you and not to me if she knew I summoned her? What does any of this have to do with our mission?"

Kakashi sighed. "Evidently, your summoning jutsu didn't work right away because the gods were so far away from here. Because of the great distance they appeared later and in scattered locations all over the ninja world. They could be anywhere. In fact, Rose is working on trying to approximate the locations of her friends as we speak."

"Rose?" Naruto asked, cocking his head to one side.

"The Seer."

"Her name is Rose?"

"Yes." Kakashi answered simply, to the younger ninja's disappointment. He had been hoping for more of a response.

Giving up on their line of conversation, Naruto asked, "So… what's our mission then?"

"Our mission is to locate Rose's brother, another of the gods who you summoned. We have an idea of where he may be. You see, last night Orochimaru tried to invade the city, we don't know why and we don't know what his plan was. All we know is that he was stopped from doing so before he reached the village. One of the men we took into custody explained that they were stopped by a young man who stumbled confusedly out of the woods. Upon hearing this story, Rose jumped in immediately, giving a description of the boy and claiming that he is her brother. We are going to search for him and bring him back. If he was able to take out Orochimaru and four of his men without so much as blinking he will be an invaluable ally. Do you understand?"

"Yes… so we're searching for another god…. Do you know what his title is?"

"No, Rose didn't say. But his name is Dave."

"Dave…" Naruto spoke shortly. "Wow these gods sure have weird names!"

Kakashi stood and shrugged, giving no further response. "So are you ready to go?"

"You bet I am! Let's go find us some gods!"

AN2: Just wanted to say the second part of this chapter was originally written for a twelve-year-old Naruto. I didn't feel like editing it all that much after I decided to make this take place during shippuden. That's why he's so childish. Don't worry he'll be better in later chapters.

Also thank you Ambiguity in D Major for helping me figure out such a basic function lol (I love your username btw)