"So what exactly are you trying to get out of this little trip of yours Gohan?" Jiraiya asked as he ate a light snack. After walking for a few miles, the three travelers stopped to take a short break and Jiraiya was hoping to take this opportunity to learn a few things about Gohan. The boy came across as honest, yet Jiraiya could tell there were many secrets the boy was keeping, and he had a feeling they were important.

"Well, right now learning new techniques is just fine, but I'm hoping that just maybe I can find someone with enough skill to give me a good challenge and help me become more powerful. Where I come from, there's really only one person that can give me a challenge and that's only if I don't go all out. Actually, I'd like to learn a little bit about where you guys come from as well, like what a Hokage is for example." The sound of bells ringing behind them elicited a roll of the eyes from Jiraiya.

"Cut that out Naruto." Naruto just ignored him and continued playing with the two large bells that were hanging just inside the entrance to the small shrine they'd stopped at. Jiraiya turned his attention back to Gohan. "I'm just a wandering hermit, I don't really come from anywhere. Naruto comes from the shinobi village of Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves. We really don't have the time to go in depth about the geography or nations of this area, but I'll just tell you that the majority of this area is ruled by villages that use ninja as their military and main source of revenue and that Konoha is the most powerful of these villages. As for what a Hokage is, each village has a leader and protector which is called a Kage. The Kage of a village is the most powerful ninja in that village. The title for that Kage depends on the nation in which the village resides. Konoha resides in the fire nation so the title for their Kage is Hokage which means fire shadow." There was a ruckus as Naruto lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs, getting tangled up in the bells as he went. Jiraiya just chuckled at him.

"Serves you right, now get out of there and fix it."

"I would but it's tangled too tightly." Gohan got up from sitting next to Jiraiya and walked over to Naruto.

"This is gonna make you kinda dizzy, are you ready?" Naruto just nodded and braced himself. Gohan took hold of the ribbons that were attached to the bells and gave them a mighty yank, lifting Naruto up off the ground and giving him a rapid spin. He wasn't in the air long before he fell, but it was long enough to make him unable to walk. He staggered to his feet but had to sit down on the steps and wait for his balance to come back.

"Alright brat, quit screwing around and help get those back up. It's time for us to get moving." Naruto and Gohan quickly had the bells hanging back where they were and the three were back on the trail as soon as Naruto and Gohan each made a short prayer at the shrine.

After a few more hours of walking, they finally entered Otafuku city, which was large and full of activity. Everywhere they looked there were hotels and vendors and entertainers and many people just going about their daily business. They stopped at a hotel and Jiraiya arranged for a room for all three of them. Naruto of course didn't like this arrangement.

"Why do we need to stay here? I can still walk."

"Now now, you must always do as your Sensei tells you."

"I just want to learn the new technique."

"Which is exactly what makes you my apprentice." All three of them were distracted when an attractive woman walked into the hotel and winked at them. Jiraiya was quick to give Naruto the key to their room. "Here's the keys. Go to our room, mold chakra, train and go to sleep." He was gone before another word could be said.

"Get back here you perverted sage!" Naruto's yells went unheard as Jiraiya was already out of earshot.

"Guess it's just you and me now Naruto. Let's go to our room and meditate or something, that's what my Sensei was always doing." Naruto just led the way to their room while grumbling about lazy perverted hermits. When they got to their room they were a little disappointed.

"It's only got two beds. I guess one of us is gonna have to sleep on the floor."

"You can have the bed Naruto. I expected to be sleeping outdoors anyways, so sleeping on the floor won't be a problem."

"You sure about that?" Gohan just nodded and sat on a bed. Naruto sat on the bed next to it and both sat in relaxing poses, Naruto molding chakra and Gohan meditating. After they'd been doing this for two hours there was a knock at the door. Naruto was the first to get up and walk to the door.

"What he's already been dumped and decided to come back?"

"Wait Naruto, that's not Jiraiya, it's an enemy and there's two of them!" Naruto looked at Gohan quizzically.

"How do you know?"

"Just trust me. We're gonna have to be ready when you open that door." Gohan ducked behind the bed nearest the door and waited for Naruto to open it. He heard the key turn and the door open and then for a minute...nothing. After that minute however, an unfamiliar voice spoke three words.

"Let's go outside." Gohan took this as his cue and launched himself up and over the bed and thrust his fist at the face of the man in the doorway only to have the man turn to the side, grab his fist and slam him into the wall behind him. He quickly rolled away and shot back to his feet, instantly getting into a fighting stance.

"I don't know who you are but you'd better leave now. I don't want to have to fight you." Gohan took a moment to look his opponents over. Both men were tall and wore the same black cloaks with red clouds on them but that's where any similarities ended. One of the men was mostly normal looking with black hair and a headband much like the one Naruto wore only with a gouge through the leaf symbol. His eyes were different though. Gohan gave an involuntary shudder when he looked into those blood red eyes. The other man looked totally odd and would've surprised Gohan if he didn't know any green people. The other guy was grey and resembled a humanoid shark, complete with lots of sharp looking teeth. The grey one laughed.

"It's kinda late to be worrying about that don't you think kid? It'd be troublesome if you got in our way so I think I'll cut your arms off. He stepped forward and put his hand on the handle of what could only be a sword that was sticking out of the back of his cloak. He turned his head to look at his partner however when he began to speak.

"It's been a long time...Sasuke." Sensing an opening, Gohan jumped at the shark-man and slammed a fist into his jaw, nearly knocking him into his partner who jumped forward just in time. Gohan didn't waste a second and jumped into a spin kick only to have it caught and used to toss him at the new person standing at the end of the hall. He ducked as Gohan sailed over his head and into the wall. The boy scowled down at Gohan.

"Stay out of this, it's my fight."

"That little brat! I'm gonna chop you to pieces for that!" He pulled a large sword that was covered in cloth out of his cloak and unwrapped it, revealing a sword almost as large as him that was covered in jagged spines. He raised his sword up and started charging at them but his partner stopped him.

"That's enough. If you hadn't let your guard down it wouldn't have happened." He just growled and wrapped his sword back up before sticking it back in his cloak.

"Now then. To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit, Sasuke?"

"Uchiha Itachi! I'm going to kill you!" He hunched forward a bit and cupped his palm, an orb of what appeared to be pure electricity forming in his hand that sounded like the chirping of a thousand birds.

"Like you said I've hated you, detested you, and just to kill you...I've survived!" He slammed the orb into the wall and ran at Itachi, tearing a huge gouge in the wall as he went. "I'm going to kill you!" Once he got right up to Itachi he thrust the orb at him, but Itachi deflected his arm to the side, causing his attack to blow a huge hole in the wall. Grabbing Sasuke's arm, Itachi squeezed it until it broke. Sasuke screamed in pain and fell to his knees. Naruto was quickly becoming worried at how the situation was turning out.

"This isn't good, I've gotta do something." A red aura began forming around him and he made a few hand signs. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

"Too slow!" Itachi's partner whipped out his still wrapped up sword and sliced into Naruto's aura, effectively dissipating it.

"What the hell was that?!" He tried gathering more chakra but none would come.

"Sorry to break it to ya, but this is Itachi's fight so I'm not gonna let you interfere. My Samehada shaves and eats chakra for lunch so you might as well just sit back and enjoy the show." Gohan had seen enough however and launched himself at Itachi and managed to land a surprise spinning kick to his side, launching him through the hole in the wall. He then thrust his cupped palms forward and with a shout blew Itachi's partner back to the other end of the hall.

"H...hey!" a gasp of pain came from the floor next to him. "I said stay out of this! If you attack him again I'll kill you!" Gohan looked down at Sasuke with pity.

"You know, you're a lot like someone I know. You clearly weren't in control of the situation so..." Gohan was rudely and painfully cut off as a fist was suddenly implanted in his cheek hard enough to knock him into, and through the other wall.

"Come on Kisame, you take care of the kyuubi boy and I'll finish with Sasuke. We've wasted enough time here. Kisame stalked back to Naruto from the end of the hallway and raised his sword to knock him out. Naruto crossed his arms over his head as Kisame brought his sword down but he was stopped with a puff of smoke. The smoke cleared away to reveal a rather large frog blocking the sword with its arms. Shortly thereafter another puff of smoke appeared only this time Jiraiya appeared holding the woman that had distracted him over his shoulder.

"You guys don't know me very well. You can't just distract me with a woman's beauty like that. Once you're as great as I am the women just come flocking to you. He'd been grinning, but now his face turned serious. "That was low of you, to use a woman to distract me and separate me from Naruto." He bent over and gently set her down on the floor. Kisami laughed.

"You are one of the legendary Sannin after all. I didn't expect for a genjutsu like that to hold you off for too long." Gohan, having recovered, flew back in through the new hole he'd made in the wall. Jiraiya looked at him for a second then back to Itachi.

"So, you really are after Naruto."

"Hmmm...so you're the one who told Kakashi-san. We are under orders from our organization, Akatsuki, to retrieve Naruto-kun."

"I can't let you have Naruto."

"We'll see about that..."

"Very well. I'll get rid of you two here then." Sasuke then began struggling to his feet.

"Don't interfere. I'm the one who's going to kill him!" Itachi looked down at him.

"I have no interest in you right now." An enraged Sasuke charged at Itachi, but he side kicked him and sent him flying backwards into the end of the hall." Naruto tried to rush to Sasuke's aid, but was stopped short.

"I told you not to interfere! I'm going to do this without your help!" He got back to his feet and rushed towards Itachi at top speed, only to have a fist planted in his gut and then backhanded with such force that it sent him spiralling back to the end of the hall once more.

"I'm not done yet." Sasuke weakly groaned out. Itachi, having had enough, decided to end it.

"Very well." He began stalking towards a battered Sasuke. Jiraiya moved to intercept him, but Kisami got in his way and readied his sword to attack.

"This is between those two. Let's not interfere." Gohan was becoming more and more anxious as Itachi slowly made his way over to Sasuke, and when he'd made it over to him and was kneeling in front of him, Gohan made his move. With startling speed, Gohan seemingly phased out of existence before Itachi found himself flat on his back. He rolled over and got back to his feet to see Gohan standing between him and Sasuke.

"Hmmmm...Am I going to have to kill you to get you out of my way?" Gohan just scowled at him.

"I've seen enough. There's no point in continuing this when he can't even fight back!"

"St...stay out of this! This is my fight!" Sasuke called out weakly from behind him. Gohan shot him a glare, at the same time allowing his eyes to flash teal, stunning Sasuke into silence.

"What's your problem?! Can't you tell when you're beaten?" He returned his attention to Itachi but suddenly found himself paralyzed upon looking into his eyes. Suddenly everything around him seemed to distort and go off color, and Itachi's voice spoke in his mind.

"You have an interesting mind Son Gohan." Gohan gasped.

"You can read minds?"

"I can do much more than that. Observe." Everything distorted even further until there was nothing but fuzziness in Gohan's vision, until everything slowly came back into focus, except something was different. He suddenly found himself in a familiar area that looked like it had once been a mountain range, but was now nothing more than an enormous crater. Looking off to his right he could see a small group of people that seemed to be watching something. He looked to the left and saw himself in front of a tall grasshopper looking person.

"Cell!" Itachi materialized in front of him.

"In the world of Tsukuyomi I control time, space and even the mass of objects. For the next twenty four hours you will wander hopelessly through that day. Itachi disappeared and Gohan saw his other self begin to beat Cell senseless. He could hear his friends plead with him to just finish Cell off now but had to watch with horror as he continued torturing Cell physically and mentally until he bloated himself up and threatened to explode. Then he had to watch as his father stepped in and teleported himself and Cell away, allowing Cell to blow up another planet. Then he had to witness Cell coming back and killing Trunks and then severely injuring himself when he stepped between Cell's blast and Vegeta. After that the scence skipped to Kami's lookout with the eternal dragon, Shenron, towering over the group of people who had summoned him. Gohan then had to relive the moment when his father refused to be wished back to life. Then it started over again.

On the outside, Gohan let out a scream of agonized despair and slumped to the ground. Kisami chuckled at the sight.

"Being cruel as usual I see. You used Tsukuyomi on that boy didn't you?"

"Hn. I must kill him now. He is much too strong for us to allow him to live." He knelt down and grabbed Gohan around the throat and lifted him into the air, slowly applying pressure." Jiraiya quickly formed several handsigns and the walls of the hotel were suddenly replaced with a fleshy substance.

"Ninpou Gamaguchi shibari!" A tendril of the substance lashed out and whipped Itachi's arm, causing him to drop Gohan. The floor then allowed both him and Sasuke to sink in, leaving only their faces uncovered." Jiraiya smirked at Itachi and Kisame.

"You two are out of luck now. You're inside my stomach. I summoned the esophagus of a gigantic frog from the Myouboku Mountain's rock inn. You'll become food for this rock frog." Itachi narrowed his eyes.

"Kisami, come." Kisami didn't need to be told twice and struggled to move as some of the flesh had wrapped around his ankles. Once he'd freed himself he fought to free the Samehada which was even more stuck than he'd been. Both ninjas took flight as soon as he had his sword free."

"It's useless. Nobody has ever escaped this technique before." Jiraiya squeezed part of the floor and the flesh began trying to constrict around the two fleeing ninjas, though they just barely kept ahead of it. Kisami whirled around and sliced apart several tendrils of flesh that came after him and Itachi before turning and running as four more raced after him. The wall quickly caught up with and passed them up, closing up any chance they had of escaping. There was a rumble and Naruto and Jiraiya ran to where the hole was that the two had tried to escape through, and found that the wall of flesh had been burned through with black fire. They approached it and Naruto leaned in close to inspect it.

"What's with this black flame?"

"Don't touch it!" Naruto jumped back at his sensei's urgent tone. "This isn't just ordinary fire. A rock frog breathes fire and yet this black flame burned it's internal flesh." Jiraiya pulled out a scroll and pen and began writing symbols and letters on it with arrows pointing in a circle in the middle. He put the pen down and formed some hand seals.

"Fuuinjutsu Fuukahouin!" He slammed his palm on the ground and a blue smoke arose from the scroll and enveloped the flames, causing them to disappear. It then retreated back into the scroll and a symbol formed inside the circle, the arrows having disappeared.

"Alright, now we have to look at Sasuke and Gohan." He stomped once, dispelling the technique. They walked over to Sasuke and Gohan, and Naruto knelt next to them. Jiraiya was looking at Gohan for any physical signs of injury when a kunai stuck into the wall in front of him, missing him by only inches.

"Dynamic Entry!" Jiraiya's eyes widened at the figure flying through the air towards him with a leg extended for a flying kick.

"Gai!" Was all Jiraiya could get out before a foot smashed into his face and sent him flying backwards. The ninja, who'd had a smirk on his face due to his surprise attack, lost all of his steam when he noticed who he'd hit. At seeing the peeved look on Jiraiya's face, he sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

"Sorry about that, I was hiding out and I forgot my mirror so I had to use my forehead protector to see but it was blurry and I mistook your rugged face for an enemy." Jiraiya's eye twitched.

"You call that an apology?" Gai laughed nervously.

"Well, I'm not good with words..."

"Forget about it. Get these two boys to a medical squad. Sasuke here has a broken arm and ribs, and the other boy, Gohan, took a psychological attack from an eye technique and is unconscious." Gai raised an eyebrow at seeing Gohan.

"Who is that boy?"

"Like I said, his name is Gohan. We met up with him on our way to Otafuku and I've decided to teach him, but he got in the way when Itachi attacked Sasuke."

"Ero-Senin, do you think Gohan will be okay?" Jiraiya looked grim.

"I don't know. It looks like he took a heavy amount of psychological damage." Naruto lowered his eyes to the floor, wishing there was something he could do for his new friend. Gai picked Gohan up and hoisted him over his shoulder, and only received a protest when he tried to do the same with Sasuke.

"I can walk on my own." He staggered to his feet, walked two steps and collapsed out of sheer exhaustion. He growled at his weakness when Gai hoisted him over his other shoulder. Naruto clenched his fist in anger and growled.

"Damn! What did that Bastard do to Gohan? I was scared before, but if it was me they're after, I'll just take the fight to them!" Jiraiya just snorted.

"You'd just get yourself killed. They're far above your level right now."

"So we just run and hide from them?! You want me to just cower in fear from them every day?!"

"Enough!" Jiraiya's outburst got Naruto to be quiet. "You are weak." He turned to Gai. "I'm sorry Gai, I was trying to consider Sasuke's feelings, but I should've stepped in sooner."

"Kakashi was hit by that same technique as that Gohan boy, and is now unconscious. We don't know when he'll wake up." All three were quiet for a moment, each pondering the situation. "When a young person gets injured, it makes me wish that she was here, the medical specialist."

"That's why we're going to look for her." Gai's eyes widened in surprise.

"You mean, you're going to get...her?" Jiraiya smirked.

"That's right. Another Sanin like me, the woman with the word gamble on her back, Tsunade-hime! Anyways, we'd better be going Gai. Take care of Gohan and Sasuke for us." Gai just nodded before turning and running off in the direction of Konoha.

Well that's it for chapter two. I hope you enjoyed it, and even if you didn't, please review anyways and tell me what I did wrong. Constructive criticism is what helps an author get better.

Ps: I know you all were expecting Vegeta and some of the others to come after Gohan, but from the pace this story is going I don't expect that to come for another couple of chapters yet, say about chapter 4.