Disclaimer: This probably isn't mandatory anymore, but I don't claim to have created the Narutoverse.

After a night of being heinously wasted, Jiraiya always skimmed over his mental 'morning-after' checklist through a throbbing headache. First, he patted the area on which his was situated with his hand to identify the terrain before sitting up. Were he on a cold stone floor, he could deduce that he had most likely drunk himself into a debt of some sort, or had joined some sort of intoxicated brawl. On the other hand, if he was on a comfortable bed, that was often worse. Despite the sannin's constant fantasies, the rare occasions he actually had woken up with a woman at his side ended with more trouble than the prison scenarios.

Recognizing his current position was a residential floor, the toad Sannin relaxed slightly.

Jiraiya opened an unwilling eye through his hangover once he was up and tried to maintain his balance in a sitting position. A blanket that had been draped over him fell down onto his lap, but the man's eyes were trained onto his fingers, starting with his pinkies. There were no rings and/or missing appendages, to his relief. Of course, the white haired man still couldn't be completely satisfied with his awakening until he knew whose house he was in and under what terms. Something from the night before nagged at him, but he couldn't quite place it.

With a jolt of new cranial pain, Jiraiya became painfully aware that he was not the only human being withing the house. From the dining room, there was clattering of dishware and the sound of voices engaging in conversation. With irritation, Jiraiya counted the different pitches he heard until he could come up with a decent estimate of the group's number before deciding on six. This was an incorrect assessment, but the fact Sasuke wasn't really much of a morning person(or an afternoon, evening, or even night person, for that matter) contributed to this error. The Uchiha ate his meal in silence.

To further comprehend his current situation, Jiraiya trained his throbbing ears even further, attempting to make out their conversation.

"-that you still think this is a good idea?" Iruka's voice drifted, sparking Jiraiya's recognition of the chuunin.

"No, but it's the best option we have." Kakashi responded with confidence, jolting a wave of short-lived rage as the white-haired shinobi remembered exactly what had occurred the evening before(well, the where and how of the cause of his hangover, anyway). Jiraiya prepared his summoning jutsu wit the intention of ripping the guy in the next room a new one, and his hands reached into their appropriate sign before he was interrupted by his greatest weakness.

"If he tears apart my living room, I swear, Kakashi…" Tazuna's daughter groaned, the female presence brightening Jiraiya's mood considerably. Realizing that he was in a woman's house, Jiraiya could no longer bring himself to decimate it in a fit of petty revenge. The man's anger ebbed into a form of trepidation; if he couldn't defend himself without destroying someone's house, what was he supposed to do?

"He won't do anything of the sort, madam," the jounin calmly assured. Jiraiya's sinking feeling intensified, and it wasn't just the alcohol-induced suffering at fault. Instinct told the Toad Sannin to bolt before anyone could turn their attention to the next room, if only to save himself some trouble. His plans were cruelly thwarted, however, by a new and bitter voice.

"The guy's awake." Sasuke announced, stirring a sleep-deprived Sakura out of her grogginess to stare at him without understanding. The others reacted quickly, however, Iruka drumming his fingers on his hips while he and Kakashi rose to have their inevitable meeting with the infamous author of the Icha-Icha series. A man who, coincidentally, was halfway through the doorway before being halted by two sets of hands.

Jiraiya took the hands grasping him and flipped both the intervening adults onto their backsides. Vertigo aside, his formidable reputation was not based on appearance alone. While he might not have been able to do much from a doorway without wrecking an entire house, it was the least he could do for himself not to be humiliatingly manhandled. Instead, he swayed back into the living room like a man and sat down, planning to leave the instant he stopped being nauseated from the previous evening's romp.

Jiraiya sat through the first two minutes of Kakashi's tale with his eyes constantly scanning the house for escape routes. He felt bad for the team of ninja for their loss, he really did, but he wasn't a wandering saint, he was a wandering pervert. Deal or no deal, word or none, the older man wasn't content to be someone's lackey. He had important places to be, right? Granted, he couldn't think of any, but they had to be out there. Every moment spent in that living room was another moment lost, and he couldn't help but space out until a very unusual name graced his overly-sensitive ears. Kakashi was very lucky that Jiraiya gained interest in their topic, as the man was about to pummel the grey-haired man and make a break for it.

The title of 'Uzumaki Naruto' caught the hangover-plagued sannin's attention almost as well as the movement of a well-endowed woman's chest as she walked. He couldn't place the sudden passion or the importance of the name right off the bat, but the man suddenly found himself actually paying attention to what his fellow ninja was telling him, a practice that rewarded him with carefully-concealed pointers that indicated the child being the container of Kyuubi. The situation was no longer something the sannin could weasel out of, he began to realize. For the sake of Konoha, he would be forced to act on something other than his own libido, and before the man knew it he was accompanying Team 7 through the streets of the Land of Waves, but not before extorting a great deal of money out of Kakashi. Jiraiya was a ninja, not a warrior of justice, right?

Naruto, for what was nearly the first time in a month, could barely believe his own luck. He had just been doing some basic Taijutsu practices while Zabuza planned a course out of the country(much to Naruto's infinite dismay). Who knew that the blonde's stumbling with an unsteady kick would lead to such a discovery? Indirectly, Gai could be given credit. If Naruto hadn't strayed from the normal training routine to attempt one of the relatively insane man's kicks, the blunder would never have occurred. Regardless of the reasons, however, the cluster of mushrooms were now directly in front of the aspiring rokudaime's face, mocking him with the thought they had been there the entire time.

Naruto may not have been the most attentive student in the academy, he hadn't been given the option of ignoring the ero-sennin's education when the mole-bearing man had pulled him under his perverted wing, and a particular incident involving a village militia had imprinted the particular fungus into his memory for all time. The round-capped stalks were barely any different than the button mushrooms that Zabuza and Haku had been using with their scanty meals as of late, but the slight ridges on the stalks themselves indicated a great difference in effect. With this in mind, Naruto pulled a few off the ground and pocketed them to throw in with dinner when Haku cooked it. Hungry as he might be, Naruto would only take a few bites tonight.

"No, I'm sorry. I haven't seen or heard about anyone carrying that description." a middle-aged woman stated sympathetically, looking over the counter at a man who could barely control his own disappointment. The brown-haired man placed his hand on the side of his face and let out a long exhale before bowing to the tailor's wife respectfully. Her heart ached for the stranger; he must have been having a tough go at his search, but missing children weren't often found in the Land of Waves.

"It must be so hard to lose your son," she murmured, casting him a sideways glance as he left with a fatherly air of grief. He hadn't said as much, but as far as the woman was concerned, it was obvious.

Iruka exited yet another shop and shook his weary head at the group that had been waiting outside in the shade. Kakashi sighed and motioned for the group to adjourn for the evening meal before they left for one last attempt for the day at obtaining information on the missing boy's whereabouts.

The afternoon had ended up a complete waste of time for Naruto's search party. Everywhere they asked and went could provide them with nothing that could be considered a useful lead. Whether or not it was the sleep deprivation or the frustration, their complete lack of success made Sakura Haruno teeter dangerously on the verge of tears. Sasuke acted impartial, but twitches betrayed his impatience.

Dinner was spent out that night, and the meal was kept cheap and brief. Jiraiya stared at any female that passed by the dumpling kiosk they had favored, but respectfully kept his mouth shut. Even the greatest leches on earth could focus when they needed to. Of course, that's when the Toad Sage heard a piece of news that would have been missed if he hadn't been checking out his surroundings in a literal sense. Three Mist ANBU corpses had been found about twenty-six kilometers into the forest to the east, and the wife of the hunter who had made the initial discovery early that morning voiced her own disgust with the manner of theirs deaths. Two had been slashed in vital areas, and the third had been made into a pincushion.

Bingo.

Jiraiya wasted no time in nudging the masked jounin to his left, who had somehow managed to devour his entire plate of food without taking off the covering that should have rendered him unable to use his mouth. The two elite shinobi shared a knowing glance before darting out of the area, leaving the youngest three to pay the bill.

Jiraiya lost no time in relaying his discovery to Kakashi. Minato's student's demeanor was very quick to sharpen, and his wit didn't take long at all to do the same thing. If anyone knew where Naruto was(or had him in their custody, for that matter), it would be the two criminals undoubtedly behind the ANBU killings. On the dark side, though, the eastern forest was expansive, and it also had the characteristic of ending at a fishing port on either side of the island, be it north or south-a means of escape for anyone who needed to do so. The Hatake looked at Jiraiya blankly as he thought further. Without knowing which direction the group of missing ninja had taken from the east, settling on either point was a gamble.

While the group could split up, it seemed unwise as the situation could be an obvious trap. It was sloppy for Zabuza to leave the bodies of the ANBU intact; the last thing a person like that would want was someone having an accurate means to track them, unless…

Kakashi grimaced, his mask contorting in minimal amounts. If Zabuza did, in fact, have Naruto in his custody, there was a high chance that the man had discovered what the boy was. If that were the case, things would go downhill reasonably quickly. The browless man would become fearless of ANBU attacks, and come to depend on the bijuu's firepower. On top of that, there were those who would pay a great deal to get their hands on a jinchuurikii, and they weren't known for their gentle treatment of such people. Even so, that was the lesser of two evils. If Zabuza was truly a fool, there was a chance that he would unleash the demon in his native village intentionally. Either way, Naruto's fate would remain the same. The boy would die, and this time in a spectacularly painful fashion.

"Kakashi, we have to move quickly if you want to catch the kid." The toad sannin reminded him, suddenly carrying the air of his superior. Judging by his serous expression, the legendary toad sage either knew what they had to do. Despite all the danger the choice would involve, it was the only way their mission could be accomplished.

Kakashi nodded, and the members of his team that had been left within the vendor's stand joined the two with expectance. Before any of them had a chance to ask the jounin exactly what was going on, he asked them a rather simple question.

"North or south?" the Hatake quipped, his visible eye calculating the plan of action. Jiraiya shook his head and crossed his arms, the strange fabric of his attire rustling. He

Taken aback, Iruka just answered impulsively, "South?"

Kakashi gave yet another nod before turning to his genin and asking the question again. The two rookie ninja exchanged glances.

"North." Sasuke said resolutely.

"South." Sakura said with mirrored determination, if only to prove something to someone. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at this; he had been sure that the kunoichi would have wanted to follow him. Kakashi seemed to have been expecting the response, however, and pointed to both Iruka and Sakura in turn with his index finger.

"You two are a team. You are to head to southeast corner of the island's coastline. There is a fishing outpost there."

Kakashi then turned to point to himself and Sasuke. "The two of us with be departing in the opposite direction to a similar position, while Jiraiya shall wait in the center of the eastern coastline in case there is a distress call from either side."

"Why the sudden movement, Kakashi?" Iruka asked sharply, concern for everyone involved creeping into his voice. The jounin didn't want to waste time, but this inquiry was important. He was forced to lose a decent twenty minutes explaining what was going on to his subordinates, and the group had to form a means of communication from one shore to the other. Summon creatures made great messengers, but they were limited to the speed of their own legs. Therefore, it was decided that the teams would each use a chakra flare if they spotted the missing ninja to alert those on the opposite shore. Once that business was aside, the party wished one another luck and split into three directions, unaware that Naruto was making a plan of his own.

Author's note: You guys probably hate me. I'm not intentionally dragging things out, but my real life has been a little chaotic as of late. Some stuff happened in this chapter, but not as much as I promised. Forgive me, dear reader, for I am only human.