Banished with a Bloodline

by Uzumaki Shurochka

Naruto is banished for failing the 'Sasuke Retrieval' mission. Shortly thereafter, he discovers he has a kekkei genkai of extreme rarity. What will be his new dream to pursue with this new power? Pairings undecided, semi-powerful/gray/bloodline Naruto.

3. Saving

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Go ahead and rub it in a little harder, why don't ya?

My apologies for the long wait for this update to my work, but I lost internet when I was only halfway done with writing this chapter and got it back just today. I finished writing this on 4-25-09, and it is my largest chapter to date (23,000+ words, not including author's notes at beginning and end), no questions asked, so I hope the wait was worth it for all of you, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter I worked on hard.

Last Chapter

Naruto sat next to Kakashi, facing the opposite way to watch for trouble while they recuperated from the fight. They could wait to continue tracking down Tayuya until they were in better condition. Besides, they'd have a hard time finding her without Kakashi's summons and he needed to recover enough chakra to summon them and still be able to put up a decent fight if they ran into more trouble.

Unseen by the two in the clearing, the last ROOT ANBU of the four man squad left the area to report to Danzo about this strange man with unusual powers that was helping the little group they were sent to exterminate. He felt no guilt for sending his squad to its death to test out the unknown male, because like they say: in the shinobi world, information can mean more than many lives.

Naruto and Jiraiya

Naruto was telling Jiraiya all the details of what had happened before, during, and after the fight while Jiraiya was writing it in a report he'd send by summon to Tsunade so she knew what was going on behind her back.

Chapter 3

Two days prior...

Tayuya didn't know whether to bless her stars or curse the heavens - though given her preference for the latter she'd probably be doing it either way. She'd survived the wind mistress's attack and the aftermath, but one of the logs had pinned and crushed her legs. In such dire straits, she knew using chakra would do her no good. Even if she summoned, her minions would be no help as she couldn't control them without her flute. They'd just stand there and stare at her as she cursed at them for being so useless.

Anything that came close enough for her to grab, she would grab it, kill it, and eat it raw. She'd always said she'd never eat bugs like they taught you to in survival courses, but she wasn't above that any more. She was about to let another string of curses out to the heavens when a pair of shadows fell over her, and she looked behind her to see them.

Present Time

"And how's our little redhead doing today?" the thirty-something lady of the house Tayuya was staying in asked.

"Fine, Mrs. Alarte." It took a concentrated effort on Tayuya's part to not swear up a storm these past two days, but this couple had taken her in and nursed her somewhat back to health, though there was little they could do for her legs. 'No use getting your hopes up for walking, girl. Orochimaru-teme will recover from his body switch within the next week, and then he'll realize he can still sense your seal. Then he sends his special forces out and it's bye-bye Tayuya.'

"Me and my husband are going out to get some things from a nearby town, but our son will be staying here to take care of you until we get back. You'll be okay with that, right, Tayuya-chan?"

Tayuya mentally grit her teeth, both at being called -chan and at the thought of spending a full day or two alone with the ten year old who kept trying, poorly, to hit on her, but forced a sunny smile and said, "yep, no problems here!"

As she heard the door shut as they left Tayuya mentally braced herself for the tribulation she knew was quick in coming. Sure enough, not ten seconds later she heard it. "Hey, baby, believe in love at first sight? If not, I can always walk by a second time."

'I wonder how I can strangle him and make it look like an accidental death without the use of my legs...'

With Kakashi and 'Kimimaro'

As Tayuya was contemplating the murder (and possible castration) of the young man, Kakashi was gathering his chakra for another summoning. Fortunately for the two of them, they had found out that Kimimaro kept a small number of soldier pills on his person at all times, and apparently they had stuck with his body all this time. Using these had sped up the replenishing of both Kakashi's and Naruto's chakra pools, and now they were ready to begin the search for the redhead's location again.

With a poof of smoke, Pakkun and the rest of the dog summons appeared again, ready to pick up where they left off. Pakkun hopped up onto Kakashi's shoulder, and the three set off after the nin-dog summons. Less than a hundred feet from their starting point, however, the dogs had dived into the bushes, Kakashi grabbing Naruto and following right after. Above their heads in the trees, a man and a woman in black cloaks with blue clouds stopped.

"Why are we going to the checkpoint to meet up with Sasori-sama, anyway? We haven't gotten the information to give to him yet." The man sounded almost whiny as he questioned his companion.

"To let him know that she'll be ready for interrogation soon. Sasori-sama wants that information on Orochimaru's forces and plans badly, so he'll be coming to extract the information from her himself. Our job is to make certain she's healthy enough to last long enough under his methods to give him some useful information, and to tell him when she'll be ready for the interrogation. Now hurry it up, or do you want me to explain that you're the reason he was kept waiting." With those words the two were off and running once more, leaving Kakashi and Naruto to their thoughts.

'Sasori? Wasn't he a part of that group Jiraiya-sama warned me was after Naruto - and those cloaks... those two were definitely agents of the Akatsuki.'

"Naruto." Kakashi whispered, drawing Naruto's attention to him. "We have to get going. Those two work for the same organization as Itachi and Kisame." Naruto's eyes went wide. "We can't let them know of your current whereabouts. I'm afraid we'll have to drop the search for this girl, Kami save her soul."

After a moment of thought, Naruto shook his head no, "Kakashi-sensei, first off, how will they recognize me? This isn't my original body and looks nothing like me. Second, anything that helps our enemy, hurts us. We can't let those people get whatever information it is they want from this girl. I say we go in there, tell her what's going on if she doesn't already know, and offer to rescue her. If she accepts, we grab her and hightail it out of here before those two get back. If she refuses... well, we can at least make her death quick and painless, rather than let them torture her to death. Either way we save her from torture, they don't get the information, and Sasori will probably be pissed at those two for failing to deliver what they told him they had when he arrives later on expecting it."

Kakashi sighed. He didn't like it, but he had to agree with Naruto's logic. "Alright, but I want you to inform Jiraiya of this little kink in our plans. We'd better hurry. I want as much distance between us and those two as possible."

With Jiraiya and Naruto

"And that's how Kage Bunshin no Jutsu will help with mastering your bloodline's traits."

"Hey Ero-sennin... there's something Kakashi-sensei wants me to tell you..." Naruto interrupts Jiraiya.

Konoha, Secret ROOT Forces Base

The ROOT ANBU lay dead, his report on Danzo's table as he pondered what to do about this unknown figure throwing a kunai into the gears of his plans.

'To recruit, to kill, or to extort into doing my work. No matter which I choose, I need more information on this unexpected variable tossed into my plans.' Clearing his throat, Danzo said, "Prepare a squad for a long-term, unsupported, high-priority information gathering mission. They have 48 hours before they'll be briefed, maximum. And get someone to dispose of the remains of this failure."

With a silent nod of his head, the ROOT ANBU in the corner disappeared from the room to complete his master's orders.

Between Jiraiya's Location and Konoha

Gamakachi was booking it, trying to get to Konoha as fast as possible, the scroll Jiraiya had given to him tucked into his mouth and wrapped in his tongue. He had been given special instructions to stay out of sight of any and all Konoha shinobi above genin rank with the exception of the Hokage herself and Shizune, until he had delivered the scroll to her.

Small Village On the Fire/Rice Border

As the two of them approached the village, Kakashi began to wonder about the location. 'This village was abandoned over ten years ago. With no ground traffic, they probably littered the ground with traps, so it'll be best to stick to the roofs.'

"Naruto, guys, we're taking to the roofs in the village, and everyone be on the lookout for traps. I don't want any leftover guards knowing we're here until it's too late for them to stop us."

Naruto nodded, and most of the nin-dogs made an affirmative sound or gesture.

"We're close now, Kakashi. One hundred feet forward and twenty feet to the right, second story room. That's where she's at..." Pakkun spoke up.

"Alright. Naruto, I'll go in. If I need a hand, I'll flare my chakra and Pakkun here will tell you about it. You'll be the element of surprise if it comes down to that, okay?"

Naruto nodded, though with a frown this time.

Inside the House

"For the last time, you're just not my type, okay, kid?" Kakashi looked up at the ceiling, wondering what the heck was going on upstairs to produce that statement.

A young voice answered her statement, "C'mon Tayuya-chan, you just know we'd be perfect together." Kakashi swore at the bottom of the stairs that he could hear this 'Tayuya's' teeth grinding together.

'I really hope they aren't both guards. I don't think a hundred of me and Naruto would be enough to deal with a woman pissed off at the guy who can't take a hint.' Standing outside the room the grinding noise was coming from, Kakashi raised his headband from over his left eye to prepare for the fight he expected on the other side of the door.

Bracing himself for any counterattacks, Kakashi kicked the door down and looked inside. He immediately released the genjutsu inside the room that his Sharingan perceived with a handseal and a flare of chakra, unknowingly breaking it for Tayuya, too. The image around the 'kid' hitting on Tayuya wavered before falling to reveal the stout man underneath it. At 4'5", it was obvious to Kakashi the man had no care for his personal appearance as all his hair, on his face and head, was wild and unkempt. His teeth were yellowed just a bit, though all of them were there and perfectly straight. His nose was bulbous, his eyes were large, with the iris a dark brown bordering on black, and his hair was an olive green color. Kakashi was just thankful for his own eyes that the man had better fashion sense than Naruto or Gai, wearing a tanned leather jacket and pants with a fishnet shirt and snakeskin boots with pointed toes. 'If someone as ugly as this guy was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit or any color of spandex, I think I'd gouge out my Sharingan for forever copying the image to my memory.' Seeing the other person in the room was a redheaded girl that was stuck in a bed, Kakashi guessed she was the one they were there to 'extract'. The shocked look on her face when the genjutsu dropped seemed to support that theory, in his eyes at least.

Kakashi also noticed something that, would the act not have obstructed his view of his opponent, would have made him slap his forehead and bow his head. Out the window behind Tayuya's head, and thus out of her view, sat 'Naruto' and Pakkun, looking in to see what was happening. 'Of course they're there. I flared my chakra to break the genjutsu. At least they didn't come charging in without checking the situation first.'

Kakashi looked back at his opponent, hoping to keep his eyes off the window. "What's a forty-something year old man doing hitting on a girl who's 16 at the very oldest? And using a genjutsu to cover such an ugly face to deceive the lady too? Tsk, tsk."

Even as the man grew red and glowered at Kakashi, Kakashi felt himself grow a little angry as the truth in his taunt hit him. 'I might believe in the philosophy 'if they're old enough to kill, ...' but more than a decade's difference is cradle robbing no matter how you look at it. He's an ugly pedophile!' Kakashi glared at the man, and spoke in an angry voice, "What's the name of the ugly, old pedophile I'll get the distinct pleasure of killing today?"

"Kanaye Yamamoto(1)." The stout man performed a single handsign before saying, "Kaibutsu Katachi no Jutsu: Katachi Sho (2)!"

There was a flash of light around Kanaye, and a boom like thunder when a large cloud of chakra smoke hid him from view. Kakashi barely dodged to the side as a huge... arm thing tore past him and destroyed the walls around the doorway and opposite the door. The arm slid back into the cloud of chakra smoke - similar to the way Shukaku's arm slid back inside the 'sand egg' during the third part of the Chuunin Exams - and Kakashi stood ready to dodge again as he kept his eyes on the cloud of chakra smoke.

When the smoke dissipated, Kakashi wished it would come back, as the form before him truly was monstrous. The 4'5" man had become a 7'11"... something. Its legs reminded Kakashi of an elephant, short but stout and round, and its arms were just like a gorilla's - if the gorilla was eight feet tall and had three malformed claws on each hand instead of fingers. Its torso was wider than two-and-a-half times Kakashi's shoulder-to-shoulder width and was very well muscled, even having a sixteen-pack. The top of its large skull was flat, with the back broad and the front coming almost to a point, like a triangle pointing to what it was 'facing'. Underneath the top of its skull, Kakashi couldn't tell if it had a face or not, since from the bottom of the front of the skull down and around to the back of the head was covered in hundreds of thin tendrils. The closest thing it had to a face was the two large holes, which Kakashi guessed to be nostrils, on top of its head. Kakashi was thankful to see a loincloth, as the thing was bad enough as it was. Its skin was hairless and oily looking, colored gray with spots of various sizes and shades of brown and green, while its bulging muscles seemed to crawl underneath the skin.

Tayuya had gone pale. 'What the fuck is this? First the 'kid' and room turns out to be a genjutsu, now the fugly old man who was hitting on me turns into this... thing. I think I'll pass out if something else freaky happens.'

Naruto had eyes the size of dinner plates and his jaw was hanging open from his spot on the windowsill. '...'

With Jiraiya and Naruto

Naruto fell from the limb he had resumed his squats on, the blow of the ground to his head not breaking him out of his disgusted trance as his mind attempted to process what his other set of eyes were telling him.

Jiraiya wondered yet again what his student was reacting to.

With Kakashi

As he dodged the powerful extended strikes from the thing that called itself Yamamoto, Kakashi remembered what he knew of the Kanaye clan and their kekkei genkai from the last great shinobi war. 'The Kanaye clan was native to Tsuchi no Kuni, and hence Iwagakure no Sato. Minato-sensei supposedly wiped out their entire clan during the war, but I guess this one got away... Hmm, their kekkei genkai, Kaibutsu Katachi, allowed them to assume a number of monstrous and inhumanly powerful forms. That he called this 'form one', either he hasn't achieved any other forms or he decided this was the best form for the situation.' A sudden creaking of the ceiling and floor alerted Kakashi to return more awareness to his surroundings. 'Shimmata! The roof's going to cave and the floor's going to drop out! He's taken out most of the wall supports on this floor trying to hit me!'

"PAKKUN! RUN INTERFERENCE!" Kakashi shouted.

Outside the window, Pakkun and the other nin-dogs heard Kakashi's call, and Pakkun said, "Oy, Naruto! Break the top windowpane for us."

Thinking by us Pakkun meant the two of them, Naruto busted in the glass of the top windowpane, then prepared to leap in - until Pakkun used his face as a springboard to propel himself into the room. The rest of the nin-dogs leapt from the roof across the street onto Naruto's face or chest to springboard through the broken pane, although the largest one widened the hole quite a bit, causing the room to creak more as it got closer to collapsing. Fortunately for Naruto, he had been holding himself to the windowsill with chakra, so despite the fact that the dogs' use of his body as a springboard had him standing perpendicular to the wall, he didn't fall on the exploding tag traps liberally littering the ground around the house.

Naruto practically fell in surprise, however, when his sensei came rocketing out of the hole where the window was - with Tayuya in his arms, one hand holding her face to his chest and the other arm doing its best to support her spine.

As he passed over him, Kakashi shouted to Naruto, "BLOCK FOR ME!"

Standing upright and looking in the hole in the wall, Naruto saw what he was expected to block. The tendrils covering most of the thing's skull were shooting out and lancing the nin-dogs, while sparking with electricity. Seemingly in slow motion, as the last of the nin-dogs poofed away to the summon plane, Naruto saw the tendrils point in their direction, at Kakashi and Tayuya behind him.

Jumping back and twisting to face Kakashi, Naruto moved his arms, legs, and tail into a position as widely spread as possible, then tried to shove chakra into and out of the bones in his five limbs to form a 'dish' to protect the two from the onslaught. Before the tendrils reached Naruto, the dish had become wide enough to block all the attacks. Unfortunately for Naruto's 'absolute defense', he had failed to consider a major detail in his plan.

His body he was using used almost purely earth-based chakra and moves, including the bone-manipulation it did, whereas the attack coming in was clearly using lightning chakra or something fairly similar. What Naruto failed to realize, probably because no one ever told him the fact, and Kakashi overlooked, was that lightning trumps earth. Every time.

"Naruto-kun. Brace yourself for a lot of pain." He heard and barely registered Kyuubi's voice before it hit.

Kakashi watched as the second body of his student was skewered by seemingly hundreds of spear-like tendrils, and then electrocuted through them. He watched the muscles convulse and smelt burnt flesh while the electricity arced so intensely it was making blinding flashes. Then he watched as the body fell, thankfully not landing on any tripwires to trigger the explosive traps below.

With Jiraiya

Jiraiya and Sakura looked on, one in pained understanding and the other in near-panicked worry, as Naruto convulsed in a silent scream on the ground. Sakura looked up to Jiraiya wide-eyed, "Jiraiya-sensei, what's happening?"

Jiraiya knew his answer wouldn't be easy to hear, but expected his 'apprentice' to be able to bear hearing it. "Naruto's second body... is experiencing an agonizing mortal wound or death."

Sakura inhaled sharply as the rest fell into place. Nonetheless, Jiraiya continued to speak, his saddened eyes looking at Naruto's still convulsing body. "This is the greatest, and yet the least considered, weakness of the Rin'neggan. The bearer experiences everything the other bodies experience. It's also the reason why Kage Bunshin were designed to not return information if they were 'killed' by either wounds or chakra exhaustion. If they did, the user of the technique would experience the pain of dying... like Naruto is."

They continued to look on as Naruto's convulsing slowed to twitching, and then heavy breathing, his eyes staring emptily into space as his mind tried wrapping around what he just felt. Jiraiya shuddered at his thoughts, 'but what kind of agony could do this to the boy who shrugged off the pain of a Chidori through the chest to yank the arm out of himself?'

With Kakashi

As Kakashi watched the tendrils that skewered Naruto turn to dust, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps from the hole in the house, and he looked up to see the source of the noise. The thing, fully visible through the hole that had been expanded further by the last barrage of tendrils, was pulling back its fist, preparing to launch another extending punch. Kakashi, still midair, had no way of dodging it in time and both hands were occupied with the young girl - who was looking down at the regenerating 'Kimimaro' with shock - so he practically rejoiced at the next sound he heard.

CRACK

With one outside wall and both internal walls virtually destroyed, there simply wasn't enough support for the room, especially with the massive creature in it. The floor and roof of the room gave out at the same time, and the first floor gave out as soon as the falling beast hit it. The whole house collapsed in on itself as it fell into the deep shaft that was there in place of a basement, forcefully reminding Kakashi of why the town had been abandoned for so long. It took a good ten second before Kakashi heard the resounding crash as the falling house hit the bottom of the shaft.

'It was during the war against Iwa... they decided to pull a terrorist attack by digging those shafts under the houses in this town with their jutsu, just narrow enough so the house wouldn't collapse without a little push. Fortunately sensei ended the war with them before the last stage of the plan was fulfilled, and as a token of their desire to end the hostilities the Tsuchikage told us about this plan before the houses collapsed on their own.'

Seeing the weak movements of Naruto's second body below him, Kakashi carefully jumped down next to him, avoiding landing on the tripwires. Panting heavily, Naruto looked at his sensei. "I don't... have much chakra... to spare... in this body... I used pretty much... all I had to repair... the damage... that attack did..."

Kakashi looked at Naruto, then at the passed out Tayuya, then at Naruto again. "Dispel that body. It'll only slow me down from returning to you guys with her, and we can't afford to set off any tripwires here as we rush out of town just because you're too weak to roof jump. If one explosion goes off, it'll trigger the rest, and then all of us will die as the entire village collapses into those shafts."

Naruto nodded once, then dispelled the body. In a hurry to get out, Kakashi slid his headband over his Sharingan and formed a single-handed handseal to shunshin closer to the place Jiraiya and the others were waiting for him. Seconds later, a winged beast flew from the pit where the collapsed house lay.

With Jiraiya

Naruto had been sitting up, gazing forward blankly while blinking every so often for the past several minutes. Sakura was torn between comfort that he wasn't in any pain at the moment, and concern that he was completely unresponsive to her and Jiraiya during this time. Although Jiraiya did try to offer her comfort.

"Give him some time. He's trying to cope with the mental strain of the agony he just endured. He'll come around in a little while..."

And come around he did, though it took a while. His eyes shifted to their normal selves, ringless, and he spoke up, "Kakashi is on his way with one of the Sound Five who survived. My other body exhausted its chakra supply repairing itself, so I had to send it back into... wherever it goes when not in use to recover its chakra."

Jiraiya nodded his head, expecting what he was hearing, but Sakura was practically freaking out. This was the first she'd heard of the surviving Sound Five member. The same Sound Five that helped Sasuke get to Orochimaru and, by extension, were responsible in part for Naruto's banishment. The same Sound Five that put Neji, Kiba, and Chouji in the hospital. Fortunately, Naruto and Jiraiya noticed her near-meltdown state, and decided to inform her of the facts that had led them to the decision they had come to regarding 'the girl'.

Having successfully stopped a 'Class 4 Panic Attack', Naruto looked at Jiraiya, his eyes starting to mist, and asked the question, "why didn't you warn me about the danger of dying like that?"

"I honestly didn't expect you to experience it so soon, I was planning on telling you later about that danger." Jiraiya sighed before he continued the rest in his mind, 'Least of all did I expect you to experience something that would make you scream in agony...'

The group sat in silence for awhile, awaiting Kakashi's return to the group with his unconscious passenger.

Near Konoha

Gamakachi was dodging left and right while heading towards the main gate of Konoha, ROOT ANBU in hot pursuit and throwing kunai to try and dispel the summon. As it neared it's goal, it was cut off by a ROOT who swooped it up.

Rather than risk the scroll being plucked from his mouth, Gamakachi dispelled himself.

With Jiraiya

Kakashi, with a still unconscious Tayuya in his arms, finally made it to the group with Jiraiya. "Set her on the ground so I can check her injuries over." Jiraiya told Kakashi, using his serious voice.

As Kakashi laid Tayuya gently flat on the ground, Naruto piped up a question. "Oi, Ero-sennin. I didn't know you were a medic-nin."

"I'm not, but you don't participate in a couple major and minor shinobi wars without picking up some basic medical knowledge. I have enough experience with injuries that I should be able to determine just how bad hers are." Jiraiya ran his hands gently over Tayuya's legs and hips, checking carefully for broken bones.

As he finished checking how badly her legs were messed up, Tayuya started to stir. "Rise and shine, kid."

At the sound of an unfamiliar man's voice, Tayuya's eyes shot open. Looking up at the white-haired man, she saw the kanji for 'oil' on his headband and sagged. Looking around her, she saw Hatake Kakashi, the orange-wearing gaki from her last mission, and a pink haired kunoichi wearing the leaf headband.

"So, this is how it goes down. Taken by fucking tree huggers to be tortured for information on the bastard who'll kill me as soon as he realizes I'm still alive." Tayuya looked almost broken as she said this, not even putting up a token resistance.

Naruto, not being one to let people who weren't his enemy suffer if he could help it, decided to break her funk. "Oi, what are you talking about? We aren't going to interrogate you. And how's he going to find out you're alive if he doesn't already know? Those Akatsuki agents we saved you from sure weren't going to tell him, and no one here is exactly on friendly speaking terms with him, either."

"Akatsuki... agents? What the hell are you talking about, fuck nut?"

Kakashi decided to jump into the conversation before Naruto could jump into a insult contest with the redhead. "The people keeping you in that house were agents of an organization called the Akatsuki, specifically under Akasuna no Sasori. Sasori has an especial hatred for Orochimaru, so he was going to come and personally torture information out of you about him once his agents got you healthy enough to survive the torture long enough to give him some useful information."

Tayuya paled at this. "O-oh," she gulped. "Well, in about a week, the bastard will have regained enough strength from switching bodies to be able to sense those of us he marked from a distance. So he'll realize I'm still alive and send a team to dispose of me for being weak. Although given that Kimimaro saw me not that long ago, he'll probably know sooner if he doesn't already."

Naruto scratched the back of his neck and smiled nervously. "Um... actually, that wasn't Kimimaro."

Tayuya rolled her eyes, "Sure, fuck nut, then who was it, you?"

"Actually, yeah, Tayuya-san." Tayuya gave him a weird look, so rather than giving a long-winded explanation, Naruto just pushed chakra to his eyes and muttered, "The First Path of Sacrifice."

Tayuya gaped at the figure the smoke revealed to her. "WHAT THE HELL?"

"It's part of my kekkei genkai, we'll explain later 'cause it takes a long time to say it all and I think we're running a little tight for time anyway." Naruto looked at Kakashi as he said the last part, and both Kakashi and Jiraiya nodded in acknowledgement of what Naruto was saying.

Jiraiya cleared his throat to get her attention as Kimimaro poofed back out to finish refilling his chakra pools, then he spoke. "Since we're short on time, I won't skirt around on saying it like it is. You have two choices now, come with Naruto or die here."

Tayuya didn't know how to react to that, but she just blinked before she said, "Either way I'll die. Orochimaru will come for me, and-"

"No. I can seal off your curse seal so he can't sense it unless you're within ten feet of him, and at that close he'd sense you anyway."

Tayuya looked thoughtful, considering a continued life. "I'd still be a cripple..."

Kakashi sighed, then pulled out a kunai, "Well, if you want to die we can at least make it quick and relatively painless..."

"Kit, don't let him kill her yet, I have an idea that may help. But she has to accept the risks first."

Naruto quickly shoved his way between Kakashi and Tayuya, preventing Kakashi from killing Tayuya - who had tilted her head back and closed her eyes in acceptance. Everyone looked at Naruto slightly surprised, although Tayuya's look was more like 'what the hell do you think you're doing?'

"Kyuubi says she's got an idea. While I meditate to talk with her about it, why doesn't Ero-sennin go ahead and take care of Tayuya's curse seal?"

"Fine, gaki," Jiraiya made a shooing motion to Naruto and Kakashi, "you two go a ways away for right now, in case the young lady's curse seal is in an embarrassing place."

"How do we know you're not going to do something perverted to her if it is, Ero-sennin?" Naruto poked at Jiraiya's back.

"Why do you think I'm having Sakura stay right here, gaki?"

At this Naruto calmed a bit, and went to join Kakashi a ways down the road. Although Tayuya had caught on to what was being implied, and was now looking at the white-haired Sannin with a good deal of caution. She looked at the pink haired kunoichi, and said, "if he does something perverted to me, promise you'll help restrain him while I perform the castration."

Sakura nodded as Jiraiya sweatdropped, while in his mind he trembled and covered his most prized possession.

Jiraiya sat next to where Tayuya laid and directed Sakura to sit opposite him. "Sakura, pay close attention to what I do, because you are my apprentice, and I expect you to be able to do this as well someday." Sakura nodded and Jiraiya continued, "So, Tayuya-san, where is that curse seal at?"

Naruto's Mindscape

"So. What's this idea to help Tayuya out, and what are the risks she'll have to accept?" Naruto said.

"The plan is simple. I'll do something similar to her that I unintentionally did with Kimimaro's body. With your permission, I can pump my youkai out of you and into her curse seal. This will instantly break her curse seal's connection with Orochimaru, just like it did with Kimimaro's, and by manipulating the youkai I put in the curse seal, I can repair virtually any damage in her body, including everything in her legs. However..." Kyuubi paused as though considering how to put the next part.

"Well, what's the bad news? It all sounds good so far."

"After this is done, her curse seal will fuse into her. Most likely, this will give her the same advantages as Kimimaro's old body now has. The bonuses of curse seal level two are permanently hers without the stamina drain or breakdown of her mind and soul, but she'll also be permanently stuck in that form. I may be able to lessen it so she only partially transforms, but she'll have some features, in part or whole, from her level two form. Also, when we do this, the backlash of the broken bonds will let Orochimaru know she is still alive even in his current weakened state, but he won't know where she is or even if she survived after the bonds were snapped." Kyuubi looked at Naruto meaningfully as she continued, "And one last thing."

Naruto nodded, feeling the seriousness of the situation.

"This whole thing will require preparation. You'll have to draw an intricate seal I'll show you and it'll need to be set up a particular way. She has to be in the seal the whole time you draw it, and you'll have to perform a long chain of handseals to perform the technique. Any little error in this could have unpredictable side effects, so you'll have to get it right the first time."

Naruto didn't know what to say to that, so he just decided, 'I'll just tell Tayuya-chan everything and let her decide whether or not to go through with it.'

With Jiraiya

"FUUJA HOUIN (3)!" Jiraiya shouted, his hand pressing down on Tayuya's curse seal, between her shoulder blades near the base of her neck. The seals, kanji, and runes Jiraiya drew seemed to crawl over Tayuya, forming a seal that looked like a barbed wire fence circling the curse seal.

Tayuya lay panting as she glared up at Jiraiya. "You ass, you didn't tell me that was going to hurt like fucking hell!"

Jiraiya seemed to ignore the outburst. "Just remember, as long as you never try and call on the curse seal yourself, the suppressor seal will hold."

"Yeah, yeah. I got it, you crusty old man."

'Naruto sure does pick up the charmers,' Jiraiya sarcastically thought.

"Yo." The three looked up to see Kakashi, nose buried in his book. "Naruto's done talking with the Kyuubi, so he sent me to see if it's all clear for him to come back over here..."

"Oi, gaki, you can come back on over!" Jiraiya shouted in Naruto's direction. A few seconds later, Naruto was jogging towards them, hands behind his head.

"So, fuck nut, what'd the Kyuubi have to say about this?"

"Well, here's the deal..."

At the 'Abandoned' Village

Two figures stood looking down a pit, both wearing black cloaks with blue clouds on them. "Well, we're screwed. When Sasori-sama gets here and finds out we lost his 'information'..." The man whined out.

"No. Kanaye-san isn't in the pit. Nor have I sensed his death. Which means he's tracking whoever either interfered here or took our 'information'. We'll have to follow his tracks and eventually we'll catch up to him and, thus, our information. Besides, we have a whole month before Sasori-sama expects his information to be delivered to him." the woman calmly replied.

Near Kakashi and Jiraiya

'Jiraiya of the Sannin and Sharingan Kakashi. I'll have to wait for an opening to retrieve Sasori-sama's future puppet. I doubt I'd be able to pull off this with both of them here. But I won't stop looking for that opening, 'cause no one makes a fool of Kanaye Yamamoto.' the metamorph thought as he watched the group of shinobi and his target from a hidden spot in the trees through a spyglass.

With Jiraiya

"So, Tayuya-chan, that's how it's gotta be... You don't have to decide right now, you could come with us and think about it before deciding." Naruto said.

"I... I think I will, fuck nut."

While their conversation was going on, another conversation between Jiraiya and Kakashi was taking place.

"Jiraiya-sama, does it matter how badly decomposed the body is?"

"For the Rin'neggan, you mean?" Kakashi nodded. "As long as you have either eye sockets or eyeballs for the Rin'neggan to match a gaze with, the rest of the body's condition is inconsequential."

"In that case, if you are going on that 'body collecting trip' to help Naruto, I've got a suggestion for some useful ones in Nami no Kuni."

"Oh? Do tell..."

Meanwhile back with Naruto and the two kunoichi, "Hey, Naruto-kun."

"Yeah, Sakura-chan?"

"Jiraiya mentioned that Kakashi was returning to Konoha soon and that it would be our last guaranteed chance to get letters to people in Konoha. We should write them something while we have the chance..."

"Ah..." Naruto slumped down and pulled writing materials out of his pack. His tongue rubbing his upper lip in concentration, Naruto began his letter.

'Dear baa-chan,...'

Half an hour later

Kakashi stood before Jiraiya, Naruto, Sakura, and Tayuya, the message scroll from Jiraiya and the letters from Sakura and Naruto tucked safely in his pouch, the spot he usually reserved for his Icha Icha Paradise book. "Well, best of luck, all. Wish me a safe trip home."

Naruto smiled sadly, knowing this might be the last time he got to see his jounin sensei for a long while, "As long as you promise not to get lost on the road of life on the way there!"

Sakura had a teary-eyed smile and just nodded her head, not trusting her voice. 'Not even gone yet and I miss him already...'

Kakashi gave an eye smile, then vanished in a blur of motion.

Not too far away

Kanaye Yamamoto watched Kakashi leave the area, feeling tempted to take out the copy-nin. 'Can't get distracted from the mission, damn it. Next time, copycat. I'll get you next time.'

He continued to watch the group, waiting for them to leave a wider opening. After all, Kakashi was a small time hindrance compared to one of the Sannin.

With Jiraiya

Jiraiya looks at his current traveling companions and, not wanting the two sentimental ones to get pulled too deep by their depressing thoughts, he boisterously said, "well, now. We should be getting set to go. I already have the perfect destination in mind and the way to get there picked out. Naruto, you'll be carrying Tayuya."

"Huh? Why am I carrying her?"

"Naruto, Tayuya is your responsibility." Jiraiya had his serious face on again. "As Sakura and I are Konoha-nin, and Tayuya was an Oto-nin, if she were our responsibility, we would be bound by our oaths to Konoha to take her in and hand her over for interrogation. Secondly, the choice to save her was made by you. It was the same choice I would have probably made in your shoes, but as a wandering-nin you have to learn to take responsibility for all of your choices. So until Tayuya can take care of herself, she's yours to take care of."

"Great, I'm stuck with the fuck nut taking care of me."

"And Naruto..."

"Huh?" Naruto gives a frustrated look to Jiraiya, knowing he won't like whatever he's going to say next.

"You won't be able to use your kekkei genkai until I say so." Jiraiya said sternly.

"But why?"

The next thing Naruto knew, Jiraiya was kneeling next to him, whispering in his ear. "Naruto... there's a foreign chakra signature sitting just out of sight that's been there since Kakashi returned. Their going to try and tail us. The most effective way to throw off their attempt, as well as misdirect any tracking units of ROOT ANBU that might be after us, is if you use a liberal amount of Kage bunshin with Henge's on so they can't tell which group is the real one. After you pick up Tayuya, make 30 Kage bunshin and, while the smoke from their creation is still covering us, have 1/3 henge into me, 1/3 henge into Sakura, and 1/3 henge into a Tayuya-carrying Naruto. Once the smoke clears, we'll all take off in different directions, and all you have to do is keep up with the real me."

"Why don't you just shunshin us out of here?" Naruto whispered back.

"A shunshin would put distance between us and this tail, but then he'd just have to find one trail again to find us. If he follows the wrong group, he'll have to backtrack, guess which of the remaining sets of tracks is the right one, then follow it to see if it is."

Naruto nodded, stepped over to Tayuya and shrugged off his backpack before handing it to her. Then he got down so she could wrap her arms around his neck while he held her splinted legs to support her weight. Then he stepped next to Jiraiya and Sakura and, with some difficulty, formed the familiar cross-shaped handseal, making 30 Kage Bunshin. As they performed the henge, Naruto felt Jiraiya grab his shoulder and perform a shunshin under the cover of the chakra smoke.

Reappearing over two hundred yards from the mass of Kage Bunshin, Jiraiya had them wait until he sensed the foreign chakra signature following after one of the false groups. Finally satisfied that no one else would be following right behind them, he signaled the group to start moving out of the heavy bush and onto the road.

In Konoha

Of the 21 shinobi and kunoichi gathered at the training ground frequented by Team Gai, only two knew what they had been gathered here for - Tsunade and Shizune. The others, teams 8 and 10, Gai's team, Iruka, the Konohamaru Corps, and the Suna Siblings - who were still waiting to talk with Naruto before they departed for back home - were all wondering why the Godaime Hokage had requested they all gather here.

"For those who are wondering why your here, it has to do with Naruto. Since you all have had some... positive contact with him, I figure it's only fair you be told what has been done to him."

These words coming from Tsunade brought a hushed silence from the crowd that had been milling about previously. She then proceeded to explain Naruto's situation, leaving out any parts referencing Naruto as the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. Needless to say, it was not a happy crowd that was assembled.

"This isn't right... Naruto practically kills himself for them and they throw him out like a used bone." Kiba was seething with his teammates.

'Naruto-kun... I never got to tell you...' Hinata collapsed into Shino, silent sobs racking her body while she tried to hide her face in his coat. Shino wrapped an arm around Hinata to softly pat her back. Although he said nothing, the agitated buzz of Shino's colony said it all about the degree to which he was upset.

'Because I wasn't strong enough to provide more help and a better plan, not only did I almost lose Chouji, but Naruto is practically lost to us now,' Shikamaru thought. His face set itself in a firm scowl. 'I can't afford to laze around anymore! I'll have to take up training to be a greater shinobi. For my friends.'

'I can only imagine how Sakura must feel... to lose both of her teammates in such a short time, and be unable to do anything about it. Maybe it's time I brought back my friendship with her.'

'Naruto, my fellow ramen connoisseur, I'll miss the deeply philosophical talks we had at the ramen stand. I'll have to triple my ramen consumption just to help make it up to the Ichiraku's. I vow to do that for you!'

"It is unyouthful how this village has attempted to put out Naruto-kun's burning flames of youth! Yet I hold out hope, for Naruto's flames of youth burn brighter than all of ours! His flames of youth cannot be put out! YOSH!" Lee's pupils were burning brightly with their own flame as he finished yelling his speech loud enough for the whole crowd to hear it.

'I cannot help but think that this is fate. Yet, I refuse to believe that this will crush you, Naruto. You're the one who will take your fate, and make it work for you. Show us all. Overcome your fate.' Neji's face was in a scowl, his eyes practically having a fire like Lee's with their intensity.

'He moves so many of his peers, and even Tsunade-sama. It makes me wish I had taken the time to get to know him myself... No more. I'll pay more attention to, cherish those who are around me. I don't want to regret not getting to know anyone else while I had the chance.' "Lee... Neji..." Her teammates looked at her as she spoke. "I think it would be a good idea if we... spent time with what's left of the Rookie 9."

They nodded their assent.

Kurenai watched the genin around her react to the news, uncertain whether she was more sad or proud. 'This feeling of family. This is what makes Konoha strongest of the Great Five. And the village is trying to tear this apart for the false strength the Uchiha might have brought and their paranoid fears.'

"Old man," Asuma mumbled, "sorry I couldn't look out for him like you would have. I just hope you aren't having to watch this happen to the village you died for."

"That one in the springtime of youth should be denied the renewing of their flames of youth by the very ones they burn with youthfullness for. The travesty!" Gai whispered with such intensity, that those present thought he might've snapped.

The trio known as the Konohamaru Corps was in a huddle, hiding the fact that they were all in tears at the crushing news. "Boss..."

Kankuro and Temari looked at their youngest sibling, his eyes having picked up that homicidal stare, with some sand picking up in the air behind him. It reminded them of when he was younger and, inevitably, who the reason was that they no longer need fear that look.

Kankuro put his hand on Gaara's left shoulder, and gave a comforting squeeze. It snapped his brother out of his psychotic glare. Temari placed her hand on his other shoulder and smiled sadly at him. The sand quieted down.

"Let's go home, Gaara. Maybe we'll see him soon, and can give him a warm welcome," Kankuro said.

"So he knows he still has precious people somewhere out there," Temari said.

"Yeah. Let's head home." With a swirl of sand and wind, the Suna siblings appeared at the East Gate of Konoha. Which they departed for Suna through.

Iruka and Shizune stood hugging, both silently letting tears fall for their lost little brother.

Tsunade sat in the middle of it all, already through three full bottles of sake. 'Not like it matters what they think of a drunk Hokage. I only took this position for the gaki's sake anyway...'

Anko's Apartment

"Anko, you have to start taking missions again soon," Ibiki said through the door.

"Ibiki, I can't. You know what will happen. Something will conveniently 'come up' that causes a mission failure, and then I'll be banished faster than you can say 'whoops'!" Anko shouted back from the inside.

"Anko, stop being paranoid. No one is out to get you like that," Ibiki said, getting frustrated.

Elsewhere In Konoha

"Now that the Kyuubi brat is gone, we have to get rid of the snake whore. She's the next biggest danger to our plans," a figure cloaked in shadows spoke to it's companion.

"Yes, we are so close to having this village in the palm of our hands..." Danzo said, grinning widely as he envisioned the future for Konoha.

On the Road to Nami no Kuni

Having performed a second 'mass misleading group' of Kage bunshin and a change of direction a while back, the group of shinobi was taking their time to get to the place Jiraiya was leading them to. Confident in Jiraiya's statement that they had lost whomever was tailing them completely, they relaxed their guard and pace somewhat.

Sakura was leaping from one thick branch to another, doing her best to avoid the kunai and shuriken flying by her. She cursed Jiraiya in her mind. 'Slave driver! How am I going to live through this?!'

"CHA! If we die, I'm coming back to haunt his ass!"

Flashback

Jiraiya had just finished sealing all of Sakura's items into a scroll, which he immediately gave her and told her to put into her kunai pouch. As she did that she decided to question him on something. "Ne, Jiraiya-sensei, why didn't you seal my backpack itself? Since there's no longer anything in it, it'd be pretty stupid for me to carry it on my back empty, don't you think?"

The grin that put on Jiraiya's face made her shudder, and it wasn't the perverted kind of grin, either.

"Sakura-san, this is your next training exercise." Jiraiya started picking up random rocks - larger than pebbles but not quite as large as the balloons he used to train Naruto to use the Rasengan - and placing them in Sakura's backpack until it was half full. "You will carry this on your back, without using the straps or using chakra to enhance your muscles in any way, through the tree branches while I launch kunai and shuriken at you from various angles until we get to where we're going."

Sakura paled. "Na-NANI?"

Jiraiya's grin grew wider. "If you or the bag touches the ground during this exercise, I'll add more weight. If you use chakra to enhance your muscles, I'll add more weight. If either you or the bag takes a hit from what I'll be tossing at you that's enough to damage your 'skins', you'll come down, we'll fix the damage, and I'll add even more weight before we start again."

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? I'LL DIE IF-"

Jiraiya made as if to put another rock into the bag, this one slightly larger than those balloons. "Oh, you have some complaints?"

Sakura grabbed the bag, closed it up, and threw it on her back. "Nope! No complaints here!" She could feel the sweat on the back of her neck reminding her to not antagonize the slave driving sensei. It'd only make it worse.

Flashback End

Sakura was having a hard time keeping her balance. Both her arms were occupied with holding the bag onto her back and said bag was totally throwing off her center of gravity. She'd already had to step down from the trees twice so Jiraiya could patch a tear in the bag and increase the weight. On top of this, she had to divide her attention between watching for more attacks aimed at her or the bag and looking for another branch that would support the combined weight of her and her bag that was within her restricted jumping distance.

The genjutsu Jiraiya had just used didn't help either. Next to her was the ethereal form of Jiraiya, chatting with her.

"Seeing as you need some help, I'll give you some hints. First, didn't your sensei teach you to look 'underneath the underneath.'"

"What are you talking about?" Sakura didn't have the energy to yell at the man, busy as she was.

The illusionary Jiraiya sighed before he spoke. "The rules I gave you for this exercise, you've yet to even see the loopholes I intentionally left for you."

"EH?" Sakura was so surprised, she failed to dodge the kunai that came through the illusionary body in time, as it made another tear in the bag.

The illusion sighed again, before saying, "Come down and I'll explain it to you while I'm fixing the bag." The genjutsu disappeared, and Sakura jumped down to where Jiraiya was waiting with crossed arms.

Sakura asked Jiraiya, "what was that genjutsu talking about?"

As Jiraiya took the bag to patch up the tear, he started talking. "You make the mistake of taking things as they're given to you and not considering what they really mean. You assume that the face value of words are the full depth they have."

"Huh?"

"I'll give you two examples from this exercise. One, I told you that you couldn't use the straps to keep the backpack on your back, so you assumed you had to hold it there with your arms. What about using your ninja wire, or some cloth strips to hold it on? That isn't against any rules I stated and would free up your arms." Sakura looked somewhat sheepish at this.

"Two, I told you that you couldn't use chakra to enhance your muscles in any way, but you assumed that that means you couldn't use chakra at all. You could use the tree walking exercise to help your balance and evasion. You could use bunshin to create confusion as to where I should throw my weapons or a kawamiri to dodge a strike you can't avoid otherwise. None of those are against the rules."

Now Sakura looked really sheepish, she was supposed to be the 'smartest' on her genin team yet she missed all this. Suddenly her face lit up in a burst of realization. "...the creek."

"Hmm?" Jiraiya raised an eyebrow at this as he looked for some rocks to add weight to the backpack.

"The creek that's running alongside this path. If I water walk on it for a step to dodge and get back into the branches... I won't have touched the ground, so there's no rule against it, right?"

Jiraiya's smile was warm and proud this time, and it made Sakura think of the look on her grandfather's face when she told him she was going to join the ninja academy as a little girl. (4) She was so caught up in the reminiscence she didn't notice Jiraiya quietly setting the heavier of the two stones he had picked up back down and only putting the lighter of the two into her backpack before resealing it.

"Good job, Sakura. Even I missed that loophole." Sakura beamed at the praise.

"I'll give you two minutes to get back to the exercise, then my Kage Bunshin will return to the throwing of sharp implements. I've got to talk to Naruto about something now."

As Jiraiya made his Kage Bunshin, Sakura was already looking through the scroll eagerly to find where he had sealed her ninja wire and something to use for cushioning so the wire didn't cut into her skin or cut off her circulation.

Over with Naruto, he was carrying Tayuya on his back with an arm of his supporting underneath each of her legs. His hands were open and his palms were down, but that wasn't the unusual thing. The unusual thing was the pebbles hovering about an inch underneath each finger and thumb, and the kunai hovering point up a centimeter from the center of each palm.

Jiraiya had promised to teach him a new jutsu if he was able to get it to the point where the kunai tips were touching his palms without cutting him and the pebbles were at least five inches from his fingertips. So of course Naruto would give it his all. He was thankful for Kyuubi's healing effect, as his palms had been pierced many times by his rush to do this, and the occasional distractions his passenger gave didn't help. But he couldn't be mad at her, since Kimimaro told him the cause.

"She fears being seen as weak, and you're seeing her at her weakest. Despite that you're helping her, she hurts you because it is all she can do to have any control over her situation right now. She hates feeling helpless and dependent."

"Hey, fuck nut. The perverted ass is coming over."

Naruto cursed as he pierced his hands again. Jiraiya grabbed the kunai and pebbles from under his hands, and said, "We need to talk, Naruto."

Taking note of the perverted hermit's serious face, Naruto gave a serious response, "what about, Jiraiya-sensei?"

"We'll continue your chakra control training later. For now, make a Kage Bunshin with as little chakra as possible."

"Huh? Why do you want me to do that?" Naruto asked, tilting his head to the side - and almost smashing Tayuya's nose with the sudden movement.

Tayuya punched the top of his head. "Watch it, fuck nut. You could break my nose like that."

Jiraiya frowned, "I want to tell him something, that'll have him disperse within 30 seconds to a minute. No sense wasting chakra on something so short term."

"Why not just tell me then?"

"Did I forget to tell you? When a Kage Bunshin disperses, it sends information it gained to the user and all other active Kage Bunshin of the user's."

"Ah... sugoi... hey, Jiraiya-sensei, why can't I just use Kage Bunshin for my chakra control training to speed it up, eh?" Naruto looked eagerly to Jiraiya, while Tayuya looked contemplative of this fact.

Jiraiya sighed, "Gaki." Naruto frowned, causing Tayuya to smirk. "Chakra control is inversely proportionate to maximum chakra capacity of your body. In other words, the more chakra your body houses when full capacity, the less control over it you naturally have and the harder it is to gain more control. When you make a Kage Bunshin, you divide your chakra evenly between all the Kage Bunshin and yourself, resulting in the Kage Bunshin's maximum chakra capacity being the amount it was created with. Say you make 29 Kage Bunshin. Including yourself, each body would receive 1/30th your chakra. So if you have them train on chakra control and then dispel them, you'd shoot your chakra control to hell. Because of the proportionality, you'd wind up using 30 times as much chakra as necessary to perform the control exercise when using your original body."

"So... it's a bad idea, right?"

Jiraiya palmed his forehead, and Tayuya looked incredulously at the blonde. "You didn't understand half of what the fucking pervert just said, did you, fuck nut?"

Naruto looked angrily over his shoulder and opened his mouth to retort when a voice in his head interrupted him. "Calm down. I'll explain it later."

Both Tayuya and Jiraiya looked at him strangely when he went from offended to calm instantly. "Kyuubi understood and said she'd explain it to me later. So what are Kage Bunshin good for training in?" Naruto made the handseal and prepared to make a Kage Bunshin with as little chakra as humanly possible for him.

"Well elemental affinity training for one, because that's simply filtering neutral chakra to make..." Jiraiya looked stunned at the Kage Bunshin, if you could call it that, that Naruto had just made. It looked like Naruto's attempts at bunshin no jutsu, and poofed out after two seconds of painful existence. "... to make elemental chakra. Learning new jutsu for another, because that's all about the balance of spiritual, physical, and elemental parts of chakra irregardless of the chakra amount available." Naruto looked frustrated as he prepared to make another go of the technique, concentrating longer to make certain he gave it the right amount. Tayuya was snickering not-so-quietly at his misfortune. "Knowledge training, like reading scrolls and books or information gathering are other good training uses. The last use I can think of is body and chakra coil memory. That is..." Another Kage Bunshin formed, holding onto its knees and panting heavily as if exhausted. Jiraiya considered talking to it, before it jerked, stilled, went as white as a sheet, then fell over and dispelled. "... repeating of an action until it is ingrained to being almost reflexive or automatic, like repeated use of a jutsu so you need fewer or no handseals to perform it."

Jiraiya had a little grin at his student's expense, and Tayuya was slapping Naruto's back while struggling to hold on from laughing so hard - which she mostly did because it irked Naruto so much. Naruto was red in the face, half embarrassment, half frustration. Naruto would later realize what he was about to do was the basis of a variant of his favorite jutsu, but right now he was just frustrated with the jutsu. So he did what he usually does whenever a jutsu was frustrating him by not doing what he expected of it - shove as much chakra as possible into the jutsu and try to force it to work.

Since he was still focused on making a single weak clone, he wound up pushing half of his remaining chakra into a chakra construct made to handle, at most, 1/20th his remaining chakra. The result, Kage Bunshin that would have been perfect - if it weren't glowing blue as brightly as the sun.

Tayuya was shielding her eyes and gaping. She didn't know what the fuck nut had done, but she knew this wasn't a Kage Bunshin. Naruto seemed oblivious, panting and holding onto his knees, though he noticed the ridiculously bright blue light coming from his left.

Even though it looked different, Jiraiya knew exactly what it was, and could guess how short its fuse was. As it began to bulge in random places and make a high pitched whistling noise (5), he grabbed Naruto and Tayuya in his arms and started hightailing it out of there. At the same moment, the Kage Bunshin he had training Sakura grabbed her and ran in the same direction.

Sensing the bunshin had reached critical mass, Jiraiya dropped the two in front of him and began forming handseals. His Kage Bunshin appeared and dropped off Sakura before dispersing. Jiraiya clapped both palms to the ground and cried out, "Doton: domu no jutsu!"

Then the clone exploded.

The silence that followed the blast was deafening to Tayuya, and she could see nothing but inky blackness. The only thing convincing her that she wasn't dead was the warm body still holding onto her. "fuck nut... what the hell did you do? I think I'm blind-"

"No," the voice of Jiraiya sounded out. The dome of compressed earth pulled back into the ground, letting sunlight reach them again. "You're not blind. That was a very poorly done kage bunshin daibakuha, though only the gaki could do something like that on accident." Looking back toward where the clone had been, they see a crater with a 20 yard radius - themselves only being about five feet from the edge - and another 30 yards of devastation all the way around that.

'Thank Kami I got that off as quick as I did. A second later and we'd all be as good as dead - well, maybe not Naruto, but only because of Kyuubi's regeneration.'

"Whew, we're safe..." Naruto's relieved smile was exchanged for a grimace of pain as he reached up to hold his head.

"Fuck nut, you almost killed all of us!" Tayuya raised her free fist to strike him again... but someone caught that arm.

"Tayuya-chan." Tayuya flinched. That tone of voice, coming from a Sannin, was not something she wanted directed at herself. "Don't hit Naruto again. He's taken enough heat and pain for things that aren't his fault, so I don't want you giving him more of the same for an accidental mistake that won't repeat itself. Naruto, make a normal Kage Bunshin when you feel up to it. Better to waste some chakra than to have a repeat. For now, let's all make haste towards our destination and put off further training until we get there."

After another five minutes of hastened walking, Naruto had made the Kage Bunshin so Jiraiya could send his message to Naruto's other Kage Bunshin. Jiraiya told it, "If you've passed through or by a village, backtrack to it henge'd as civilians, go into any library in the village or town, and read up on as much civilian trade skills as you can. When you have about ten minutes of chakra left, go one at a time into unobtrusive areas of town and dispel yourselves. Do not dispel yourselves all at once, or Naruto will collapse and black out from an overload of information."

Tayuya watched as the Kage Bunshin dispelled itself to send the message out, and she thought to herself, 'How bad could this happy-go-lucky freak have had it? Even though he's a jinchuuriki, he isn't insane like that Gaara kid, so I doubt he had it as bad as him. Hell, I probably had it fucking worse than this kid. When Orochimaru found me in that village I was born in, I was eating out of the trash and stealing to survive. When he offered me a better life, I jumped on board, no questions asked. I wound up trading one bad life for another, just a change of what was bad about it.' Tayuya stared at the back of Naruto's head. 'When I get the chance, I'm grilling the fuck nut for every question I can think of. I won't make the same mistake again.'

"Oi, Naruto." Naruto looked up at Jiraiya's contemplative voice, waiting for him to continue. "What's your goal going to be?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Sakura and Tayuya looked over at the two, the former guessing immediately where this was going and the latter listening intently. 'If I know what his goals are, I'll have an idea of what he's after with helping me and I'll have an angle to approach questioning him from.'

Jiraiya continued in his 'thinking' voice, "even if we manage to revoke or reverse your banishment, all that means is that you won't be punished for approaching or entering Konoha. By law, any banished ninja who are 'de-banished' - for whatever reason - can never regain their citizenship with Konoha. You'll be able to visit and the village or any of its citizens may hire you as a mercenary wandering-nin for missions that involve you being inside the village at some point, but you'll never be able to be a Konoha-nin again."

"B-but that means...!" Naruto's eyes were wide, and Tayuya perceptibly winced as his grip on her legs tightened uncomfortably.

"Yeah. Your dream to be Hokage is technically and officially over," Jiraiya said, sighing out an 'I'm sorry.'

Naruto slowed in his walk, looking at the ground, and the two moving ahead slowed and looked back at him. After a few moments of silent contemplation on his part and worried looks from two of the others present, Naruto raised his head. With a broad, real smile on his face, Naruto said, "it's okay."

Sakura sputtered at the almost exuberant tone her former teammate spoke with. "But I thought becoming Hokage was your whole reason for existence!"

Naruto flinched a bit at her wording, as the words she used and Jiraiya's question brought up a memory of a talk with the then still psychotic Gaara in Rock Lee's hospital room.

Flashback

"I am only a relic of the past they want to get rid of. So why do I exist and live? I asked myself that question, but I could not find an answer. But I need those reasons while I am still alive. Or it would be the same as me being dead." Gaara spoke with cold hatred in his voice.

"What is he talking about?" Shikamaru asked.

'I...understand... He's the same as me.' Naruto thought.

Flashback end

Naruto inhaled deeply before he spoke, "The Hokage title was more of a means to an end or a measuring stick for my real goals." Seeing Sakura's raised eyebrow, he continued. "My first reason for wanting to be Hokage was simple and childish - Sandaime-jiji was the closest thing I had to a grandfather as a small child, and I wanted to be just like him." This brought a smile from Sakura, a nod from Jiraiya, and a quiet scoff from Tayuya. "When I got older and was in the academy, I learned about all the Hokage. My reason became a more selfish one then - everyone accepted and respected the Hokage, and I wanted that. To be seen as Uzumaki Naruto, not the 'demon brat', Kyuubi reincarnated, or the 'pitiful jinchuuriki'." There was silence for a minute at the admission. For all the faults of his they may have pointed out to him, neither of them had ever seriously considered him selfish.

Tayuya eyed him with suspicion in her thoughts, 'so, he's a glory-hound, huh? Maybe a touch of power-hunger in there... where does helping me fit into that exactly?'

"But then... the mission to Nami no Kuni... I met a guy who reminded me what truly made the Hokage so great... Haku..." Jiraiya's ear perked up at the mention of the boy and the place they were traveling to. Sakura looked confused, having no recollection of any 'Haku' they had met in Nami.

"He told me a lesson I knew, but could never put to words myself - 'when you are protecting that which is precious to you, that is when you are truly strong.' Just like all the Hokage before, who'd given their lives to protect that which was most precious to them - Konoha and every person in it! That was when I found my real reason to push myself to become Hokage. If I became Hokage, it would be proof to me that I was strong enough to protect everyone and everything precious to me."

This brought smiles to Jiraiya's and Sakura's faces, although Sakura still felt confused about who this Haku guy was.

Tayuya's look at Naruto was uncertain. 'What the hell? I don't know how to make heads or tails of the orange-loving tree hugger's motives... I'm more confused about what he wants from me than I was before this talk.'

Jiraiya noticed her look at Naruto and understood it immediately. 'I'll have to nip that situation in the butt before she grills Naruto with questions he can't answer.'

"So what's your goal now?" Jiraiya asked.

Naruto looked at Jiraiya like he was an idiot. "I just told you -"

"No." Naruto looked confused. "Protecting that which is precious to you is an ideal, not a goal. It's something you simply do, not something you work towards. Being like Sarutobi-sensei? If you mean in strength, knowledge, or wisdom, you'll gain those in due time anyway, but if you mean personality-wise? You're kinder than him, even more forgiving, and your 'Will of Fire' could match his any day. That's all, unless of course... you want to match up to his appreciation of my works. In that case, I'll be more than happy to provide materials to help you along with tha-"

"Nah, I'd rather take after baa-chan in that regard." Naruto's unthinking response was the only thing that kept Tayuya from planting her fist into his skull - like Sakura did to Jiraiya when his head hung down from Naruto's words.

Being accustomed to shaking off Tsunade's anti-pervert punches, Jiraiya bounced back to the discussion, serious once again, "as for acceptance for a goal, whose are you going for? Most all of your precious people accept you as you, although many of them have no clue about what you contain. The world's acceptance? Most of the world is unaware of your existence, and those who are either accept and respect you or are your mortal enemies."

"Kono-"

"Don't you dare say Konoha's acceptance." All three teenagers were shocked at the venom Jiraiya spat the sentence out with. Everyone stopped to stare at Jiraiya.

After several seconds of stunned silence, Jiraiya started talking again, "they don't deserve such devotion from you."

"Ah, they're not that bad, Ero-sennin." Naruto nearly smashed Tayuya in the face when he went to scratch the back of his neck.

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. "A month before Sasuke defected, Tsunade handed me the reports the Sandaime kept on your childhood and academy days." Naruto stilled completely. "When I was done reading them, I was about ready to pull an Orochimaru and destroy the whole village. Tsunade stopped me, having the good sense to have me stay in her office while I read them, and when I asked her how she could be so calm about those things doing such atrocities to someone she claimed was as precious to her as Nawaki himself, do you know what she told me?" Naruto shook his head. "She said 'if I did that, a lot of innocent people - some quite precious to Naruto himself - will get hurt or killed along with the guilty. On top of that, everyone who hates Naruto would claim that 'the Kyuubi has corrupted the Godaime', then I'd be removed from office post haste and they'd replace me with some Naruto-hating figurehead who'd have him executed at the first opportunity.' I told her I was amazed at the clarity she could think with when angry. She told me Shizune hadn't read the reports at that time but understood what, in general, Tsunade was angry about and planning to do from her mutterings."

"So what happened next?" Naruto had completely forgotten about Sakura's and Tayuya's presences, completely focused on Jiraiya as he was.

Jiraiya frowned. "I told her I had some loose ends to tie up outside the village, then I was coming back to take you on a 'training trip' as my apprentice in the hopes of convincing you to never set foot in that ungrateful place ever again. Unfortunately, when I got back you had already been banished. As you aren't, or could ever again be, a sworn Konoha-nin, I can't take you as my official apprentice."

Jiraiya kneeled down to look Naruto eye-to-eye, and put his hands on Naruto's shoulders. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want you to be Konoha's sworn enemy. But I also don't want to see you dead by some Konoha-nin with a foolish grudge or a paid mission to kill you black ops style, who's able to stab you in the back because you automatically trust anyone wearing a leaf on their forehead. As much as it may pain you, don't consider yourself of the leaves anymore. I don't want to see you literally dying for acceptance."

Naruto gave a shaky nod, uncertain what it was he was supposed to aim for now and unsettled by his sensei's speech.

Tayuya was reconsidering her earlier thoughts about how tough he had it growing up. 'How fucked up was it to make the Jiraiya of the Sannin consider going rogue and traitor all over their asses almost without a second thought?'

Sakura was wondering over how little she actually knew of her former teammate.

All of them resumed walking again in silent contemplation, one considering what to do with his life, two reconsidering all they knew or assumed to know about the first, and the eldest watching and listening for danger so the rest of the group could do their soul searching in safety.

As the Sun Sets - The Great Naruto Bridge

The four stood staring at the plaque over the bridge they had halfway crossed, three with wide eyes and gaping mouths, and one old man who was proud of whatever his 'pupil' had accomplished here to receive this honor. Tayuya's words summed up her thoughts quite nicely. "What...the...hell?"

Jiraiya looked at Naruto and said, "I think what your traveling buddy means is 'what did you do to get your name on such a major bridge?' "

"Well, I didn't expect them to name the bridge after me, I have a pretty good idea why they might of... it has to do with me and Sakura-chan's first C-rank mission, which involved this bridge's construction-"

"I'll tell them the story. You'll exaggerate and elaborate the irrelevant parts too much," Sakura said.

"But Sakura-chan, you don't know all that happened!"

"Oh? Then I guess you'll get to fill in the blanks for me."

So Sakura told them most of the story of their first C-rank mission as Team 7, with Naruto adding in things like the private conversations with Haku - Sakura resisted the urge to slug him for saying he met a boy who he thought was prettier than her - and what happened inside the mist on the bridge. Sakura was surprised by what she didn't already know, and Jiraiya found out some new information, too - seeing as Naruto hadn't mentioned either of his conversations with Haku to Kakashi or in his mission reports.

Tayuya was once again shocked speechless. 'On his first C-rank as a genin... fuck nut went up against the Demon of the Mist and his apprentice with an advanced kekkei genkai... and came out on top both times? And Konoha kept him as a genin after that? Any other village and he'd be bumped up to chuunin at the very least! They must have really wanted to hold him back...'

Jiraiya had an expression of deep thought for a minute, then he spoke. "Naruto, Sakura." They looked at him. "I want both of you to be under henge while we're in town, okay?"

Sakura looked like she understood it, but Naruto's face was scrunched in confusion. "Why is that?"

Sakura looked at Naruto without turning her head, "we're heroes here, so if we go in as is, we'll cause a scene and make a big stir. A stir that could easily reach back to Konoha. And you don't want the people who banished you knowing where you're at, right?"

"Ah..." A sober looking Naruto formed the proper handseal and, "Henge!" One poof of smoke later, it was a black haired, brown eyed girl wearing a black jumpsuit that was carrying Tayuya in the blonde's place.

Sakura did likewise, turning into an older brown-haired woman - though still with green eyes - wearing a traveling dress that was earthen brown. "Come on girls, we'll go find Tazuna's house to catch up on old times."

"Actually," Jiraiya said, "we'll be spending the night at an inn."

"Eh? Why?" Sakura asks.

"Look at the sky." Everyone looks at the skyline, the sun almost completely dropped below the horizon and darkness overtaking the hues of red. "Soon it'll be too dark to navigate to Tazuna's house, and there will be few people outside we can ask for directions. I doubt any of you have the way memorized from back then." Dropped shoulders and a shake of two heads was his response. "Then we spend the night at an inn and ask for directions in the morning."

The group continued across the bridge to the trading village on the other side, and then began to wander the streets looking for an inn. Pointing from over Naruto's shoulder, Tayuya said, "there, that one'll do."

Looking where she was pointing, Naruto saw a wooden sign hanging out over the streets, the words 'The Fisherman's Inn' surrounding the carving of a fish's skeleton. "I don't know..." His voice came out higher and smoother than normal. "Looks pretty 'fishy' to me." The other three sweatdropped at the horrible pun.

"Well I don't care, I'm beat," Tayuya said.

Naruto bit his lip to keep from saying anything about him being the one who should be tired from carrying her around most of the day and her just lazing around the whole day. Somehow he knew that comment would get him hit.

"It's as good as anyplace else right now," Jiraiya shrugged as he said. 'Though it lacks the facilities I usually prefer at places I stay for the night, but if I suggest that, these two women will castrate me in the blink of an eye...'

The group walked into the lit entrance lobby and walked over to the counter with the woman behind it. "Can I help you?" the old woman asked in that kind voice that all good hosts and hostesses seem to be able to produce all the time.

"Yes," Jiraiya said, smiling kindly in return. "I'd like two rooms for the night, one for me and my daughter," he gestured to indicate Sakura, "and the other for my granddaughters," he gestured at Naruto and Tayuya.

"Oh, my," the woman said, worry in her tone, "what happened to the poor dear's legs?"

"Don't worry, she'll be fine until tomorrow." Jiraiya said, sweating at the thought, 'I can't believe I forgot to make up a convincing cover story for her legs.' "We just had a little mishap on the trip. We'll be taking her to a good doctor I know tomorrow morning."

The old woman nodded, "Alright then, sign in here, and you'll have to pay up front."

Jiraiya signed them in and paid for them out of his money, and upon receiving the keys and instructions to the rooms, turned and led them to the second floor, before stopping outside a pair of doors opposite each other in the hall. Upon stopping he started speaking, using his dead serious tone again.

"Naruto, after you set Tayuya on the bed, leave the room and wait in the hall with Sakura while I have some words with her in private."

Naruto was about to protest when a voice inside him calmed him. "If he was going to do anything bad to her, he's had plenty of opportunity to do so already. She should be safe for a few minutes with him, at the least."

Naruto nodded, and Jiraiya unlocked the door to one of the rooms, then they walked inside. Naruto sat Tayuya, who looked a little nervous, down on the bed and walked out into the hall with Sakura. Jiraiya shut and locked the door behind him.

Tayuya gulped quietly, trying to wet her suddenly dry throat. "S-so what the hell is it, you fuckin' pervert?"

Jiraiya sat on the bed opposite the one she was on, and gave her a serious gaze. "I saw how you were looking at Naruto earlier."

Tayuya choked, "w-WHAT? I don't know what the fuck you're on, but I ain't got fuckin' feelings for the fuck nut."

Jiraiya chuckled, "not what I was referring to, but now that you mention it..."

Tayuya growled and glared at him, "you finish that sentence, fucking pervert, and I swear I'll-"

"Now, now, back to the matter at hand." Jiraiya's tone was serious again. "That look. You were wondering about his motives for wanting to help you, worrying that he'd use you like Orochimaru or that he'd demand some 'favors' in return, right?"

Tayuya nodded her head, although the last worry hadn't actually passed through her head earlier, "yeah, but why do I need to talk to you about this? I'll just question the fuck nut about it later."

Jiraiya sighed, "because that 'fuck nut' won't be able to answer you even if he wanted to. He follows his heart without questioning 'why?'... when you ask him, he'll probably just say 'why not?'. I know how he thinks well enough that I can tell you why he's doing it, though."

Tayuya nodded, indicating for him to continue.

"You acknowledge him. You may insult him with a crude nickname and be hard on him, but you acknowledge Naruto. Not as the Kyuubi or its jinchuuriki, but as a fellow human being. When he realized that, you became one of his 'precious people'. He'd die to heal you if that's what it took. Because he'll do anything to help keep his precious people safe and happy, that's why."

Tayuya was a bit stunned by this revelation, she didn't exactly expect to be one of the kid's precious people. Not now or ever. "Wait, what about before?"

"Hmm?" Jiraiya mumbled.

"When he saved me from those agents of Akatsuki or whatever. I hadn't acknowledged him then, so why?"

"It's also in Naruto's nature to help out those who truly need it..."

"Two more things, Tayuya-chan. One, never mention this conversation to Naruto." Tayuya looked like she wanted to ask 'why the hell not?', but he continued on. "Two...," the room suddenly became stifling from the killing intent Jiraiya was directing at her, and she realized, for the first time in a long time, she was trembling terribly. "If you ever use his faith in you as one of his precious people to stab him in the back..." Jiraiya left the threat hanging for a minute before he let go of his killing intent.

Tayuya found herself gasping for breath she didn't realize she had been holding as Jiraiya went to leave the room. As he opened the door, she croaked out, "Sakura, I need some help."

Hearing her name from Tayuya, Sakura poked her head in curiously. "Yeah, what ya need?"

Tayuya cleared her throat and blushed at what she was about to say, "I haven't gone all day, and I can't exactly ask one of the fucking guys for help going into or coming out of the ladies' room, y'know?"

"Oh! Um... sure, I'll help you."

Konoha Gates

Kakashi arrived at the gates in the dead of night and checked in with the pair of chuunin keeping watch before continuing towards the Hokage Tower. 'The Hokage probably isn't there, but I should still check. Wouldn't want her pounding on me for delivering Naruto's letter one minute later than necessary...'

The Next Day

Naruto rubbed his head and groaned as he got up. 'It feels like Tayuya-chan was pounding on my head last night, but there's no way she could reach me from her bed.'

"This isn't from Tayuya." The sound of Kyuubi's voice caused a pulsing pain to shoot through his head, making his vision swim. Naruto grit his teeth and silently bore the pain, not wanting to wake Tayuya up.

'I'm not sure I'd be able to handle her voice with my head splitting open from every sound...'

"If you still everything, the pain will be gone in five or ten minutes."

So Naruto laid perfectly still and tried to not think of anything that would stir up his brain, staring at the ceiling. Sure enough, ten minutes later the pain had died down enough for him to risk a mental conversation with his 'inside friends'.

'What the heck was that all about?'

"That was a side effect of your conscious mind adjusting to the twenty or so Kage Bunshin that dispersed as soon as you fell completely asleep. If you had been awake when it happened, the influx of information would have caused you such pain you would have passed out in a few seconds, and your 'info dump hangover' would have lasted most of the morning."

'Good thing I was asleep then.'

"Indeed, Naruto-san. Since you were not forced unconscious, I was able to remain active in your mindscape and sort a good portion of the information received in order to reduce your pain upon awakening like Kyuubi-sama asked me to." Kimimaro spoke in his mind.

Naruto shuddered. 'It could have been more intense?' Silence was his answer.

Finally feeling up to it, Naruto sat up in his bed. Looking over, he saw that Tayuya was stirring. A knock on the door interrupted whatever he was about to think. "Are you decent?" Sakura's voice came through the door.

A groggy Tayuya answered, "As fuckin' decent as I'll ever be." Blinking the sleepiness out of her eyes and stretching as well as she could, Tayuya looked over at Naruto and gave a yawn. "Hey, fuck nut, you slept with that on?"

Confused, Naruto looked down at himself, to realize he was still under henge as a girl. 'What... the... hell...'

"I'll explain later."

'This one better be good...'

Through the door they heard Sakura say, "Hurry up and get ready to go. We've got to get going soon, Jiraiya's getting antsy to get this whole place done and over with for some reason. So we're getting ready to head out in a few minutes."

Thankful that neither of them needed to get changed, Naruto got up, moved over to her, and put Tayuya back up on his back to travel again.

The Streets of the Village

Naruto was thankful that Jiraiya had made them stay at the hotel for the night, because Tazuna had apparently moved. As Jiraiya followed the directions a random helpful villager had given him, Naruto's feet went on autopilot to follow the white haired man in the Kabuki dancer's costume. His mind was focused on a conversation inside.

'Explain. Why did I wake up as a girl?'

"It's basically a side effect of having me in you. When you use a henge, you don't use the illusion that most shinobi use, you shapeshift into that object or person. Don't get me wrong, you're made of the same stuff and don't change you're genetic code at all or anything like that."

'So I'm not really a girl?'

"No."

'Thank Kami!' Naruto felt the tension leave his shoulders at this revelation. Then he got confused again. 'Why didn't it dispel when I fell asleep?'

"When you shapeshift, it will only revert if you make it."

'But shouldn't the chakra cost of keeping it up have killed me last night then?'

"If you were an ordinary human, yes. The moment you had me sealed in you, you became about 10% kitsune, and it seems that the shapeshifting power all kitsune possess was what you got from that. Because you have a kitsune's natural shapeshifting power, you only really expend chakra when changing into or out of the form. The exception is if you assume a form more than three times your own mass, for reasons I won't go into now as it involves a lot of complicated terms and ideas in explaining it."

'Huh...' Naruto looked up to see themselves standing in front of a large house, Jiraiya knocking on the door.

"Coming!" A boy's cheery voice sounded from inside, and Naruto and Sakura both instantly recognized it as Inari's. The door swung open, forcing Jiraiya to take a quick back step, and standing there was the young boy, slightly taller than when they last saw him. Looking at the four of them, Inari asked "Who are you people?"

"Inari! Don't be rude to guests!" Inari looked sheepish as his mother scolded him, stepping into sight. Jiraiya started scoping her out while she was looking at her son, getting a growl and knuckle-crack from Sakura. Hearing the crack, Tsunami looked up and smiled serenely at the group of ladies and the old man at the door, and beckoned them in.

"Come on in. Inari, show the guests to the living room. I'll get Tazuna and tell him we have visitors... unless you're here to see my fiancé about something?"

"You're engaged, Tsunami-san?" Sakura asked.

"Hai, hai."

The group followed Inari into the living room while Tsunami went upstairs. "So, how do you know my kaa-san?"

"Hmm?" Jiraiya raised his eyebrow.

"I've never seen any of you before, but you called my kaa-san by name. I didn't say it so how did you know it?" Inari looked at the group suspiciously.

Sakura and Naruto looked at Jiraiya, who nodded to the silent question. With two cries of 'Kai!' Naruto and Sakura stood in their rightful forms. Inari would have glomped Naruto with a cry of 'Nii-san!' but Jiraiya grabbed his shoulder.

Inari looked up at him. "In case you didn't notice, he's got a passenger. If you knocked him over you'd probably agitate her injuries. Then you'd get to experience her 'fists of fury'."

Naruto walked over to a couch in the living room and set Tayuya on it, then helped her turn ninety degrees so her legs could lay flat on the couch. He then proceeded to sit on the couch next to her feet. Sakura and Jiraiya sat on a futon, while Inari sat on a cushion next to Naruto.

Before any conversation could start up, Tazuna and Tsunami walked into the living room. Their eyes widen and smiles form on their faces at the sight of two of their visitors. "Naruto! How super for the super hero of Nami to pay us a super visit!"

Tazuna and Tsunami both took seats on chairs in the room. "Hey Tazuna, couldn't break my promise to Inari to visit, you know?"

"Say, Tsunami, was it?" Jiraiya asked, getting a nod. "You said you have a fiancé, so where is the lucky man?"

"He owns a small fishing company. He's out on one of the boats right now, but he should be back sometime early tonight." Sakura noticed Tsunami sounded a bit happier and more energetic whenever she referred to her fiancé.

"He sounds like a great guy. So, a fisherman?" Sakura says.

"Yep. Now are you going to introduce your two friends, or is that a disguise for Sasuke and Kakashi?" Inari said.

"No, no. I'm Jiraiya, and this is Tayuya." Jiraiya said.

Tazuna saw that that was all the information they wanted to give on the matter. "Oh? So what brings you all to Nami, Naruto? I got a feeling you're all here for more than just a super visit."

"Actually, ero-sennin was the one who led us here, and he did it with a purpose, but he never told any of us what it was..."

Tsunami, Tazuna, and Inari raised an eyebrow at that. "Gaki! I told you to stop calling me that in public!"

"You'll always be ero-sennin - at least until you stop peeping on women in the hotsprings and writing those perverted books!"

"You... you write those books..." Tsunami's head was tilted so the shadow made it impossible to see her eyes, and her expression was neutral.

Years of experience made Jiraiya cautious despite the lack of the usual killing intent, so it was with a hesitant tone that he answered. "Yes..."

"Will you autograph mine?" Tsunami whipped out her copy of Icha Icha Violence. Tayuya, Sakura, and Naruto had the most gobsmacked expressions on their faces, while Inari was bright red from embarrassment at his mom's open love for the book in front of his hero. Tazuna looked thrown off, as he didn't even know Tsunami read those same books and he resisted the urge to reach into his pocket to make sure that she hadn't swiped the book she was holding from him.

Jiraiya was ecstatic, seeing as he'd just found the ultra-rare open female fan of his perverted works. As he reached out to take the slightly worn book from the woman, she suddenly latched a hand around his wrist. And squeezed. Hard.

In a tone that dropped the room temperature several dozen degrees, Tsunami said, "While I love your works... if I hear of or see you peeping on women again... I'll crush what makes you a man, then rip it of with my bare hands, got it?"

Jiraiya's pale face was rapidly making up and down motions, and the room temperature went back to normal as Tsunami went back to smiling like nothing was wrong in the world. Jiraiya quickly signed the book and gave it back to Tsunami.

Tazuna cleared his throat to bring everyone's attention back to topic. "So, Jiraiya-san, what did you bring them to Nami for?"

"Well you see, we need help with something... and Naruto's newly awakened kekkei genkai has one half the answer." Jiraiya decided to give a series of half-truths to the people in the house, not expecting them to understand the shinobi way of thinking in this case. "He can bring back the apprentice of one Momochi Zabuza temporarily from the dead because of his super rare kekkei genkai. That's the other half we came here for."

The whole of Tazuna's family had very serious and grim expressions on their faces. "You'll have to talk to my future son-in-law about this."

"Why is that?" Jiraiya asked.

"He's a sort of caretaker of those graves... He'll assume grave robbers did it, and if you don't get his approval first, he'll raise a big legal stink over it. Probably charge you with grave robbing and desecration of a body. Best to talk it out with him before you do anything." Tazuna tone left no room for argument.

In Konoha - Hokage's Office

"... and that's it. After that, I managed to make it here without any events of note and reported my return at the tower to be debriefed by you as soon as possible, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said.

Tsunade sat and stared at Kakashi, trying to process all she had been told. 'Jiraiya sent a message? Where is it? And as for ROOT...' Tsunade growled mentally at the thought, and the scowl on her face made Kakashi sweat slightly. '...without proof that Danzo was truly involved, I can't do anything to him directly - yet. And this girl... it's just like Naruto to save an enemy when they're down. And Naruto having a kekkei genkai, the same one as The Sage of Six Paths? This is all a lot to take in- eh? What's Kakashi doing?'

Seeing Kakashi fishing through his pouch for something, Tsunade growled out, "if you're fishing for that smut in the middle of a debriefing, Ka-Ka-Shi... I'll give you the same treatment I reserve for Jiraiya."

Kakashi sweat in fear at the threat, glad for once to have a real reason to be digging through his pouch. Just as Tsunade's started to rise from her seat, Kakashi fingers found what he was looking for and he whipped the items in front of him in hopes of staving off a beating.

Seeing the two envelopes and the message scroll in his hands, Tsunade calmed with the thought, 'of course. He already told me the three of them had messages for home.'

Looking at the two envelopes, Kakashi placed the one labeled 'to Ino-chan' back in his pouch, thinking he'd deliver that one later. Then he handed Tsunade the remaining envelope and scroll and stood there, waiting to be dismissed.

Looking at the envelope, Tsunade sees it held the writing 'to Tsunade-baa-chan'. A tick mark formed on her forehead as she glared at Kakashi, who put his hands up in a placating motion and said, "No need to kill the messenger, right Hokage-sama?" He followed the question with a very nervous laugh.

Tsunade gave a frustrated sigh, then tore the envelope open and unfolded the letter inside. Looking over the greeting, she frowns again.

dear baa-chan,

A lot has happened since I saw you last, so I thought I'd let you know all about it, seeing as you're the closest thing I have to a family right now. First off, shortly after I left the village, I activated and discovered my kekkei genkai! Seeing as Kakashi probably told you all about it that he knows in his mission report, but there's a lot of interesting side effects to it. Like having another person in my head, and being able to hear Kyuubi while I'm still conscious and not in a life-threatening situation.

Don't worry, baa-chan. She's been friendly and helpful since my kekkei genkai activated, and she hasn't done anything to try to corrupt me. Though that might just be because with other people around, they could see me acting odd and prevent me from being corrupted. Don't worry though, if she tries to corrupt me, I won't let her. Dattebayou!

Jiraiya's helping to train me and I'll be sticking with him and Sakura for a while, so you don't got to worry too much about me. Oh, and I made a new friend! Her name's Tayuya and she used to work for Orochimaru, but she's okay now. Although she curses at everyone and everything.

Oh, and I died saving her and Kakashi from some agent of Akatsuki's attack when we were rescuing her from their hidden place in an abandoned village. Well, not me, but one of my bodies. But I still felt every last bit of it. Dieing hurts a lot, y'know.

Well, gotta go soon. I'll write next chance I got, baa-chan.

I'll be greater than any Hokage that ever was,

Uzumaki Naruto. Dattebayo!

Tsunade cleared her head, then tried to mentally prepare herself for whatever her old teammate was going to tell her. She smeared some blood across the seal on the scroll, idly wondering just how and where her teammate had gotten the blood for the seal to use as a reference to her. As the seal disappeared and the scroll loosened, she shrugged it off as some obscure part of his spy network that allowed him to get his hands on some blood sample from a hospital or the like. She grabbed the loose end of the scroll with one hand and the 'handle' with the other and pulled them apart with a flourish.

Kakashi watched as calmness gave way to surprise on the Godaime Hokage's face, which gave way to slight shock. He didn't know what was in the scroll she was reading that was causing this reaction, but it was clearly throwing his esteemed leader for such a loop that she was going to forget to dismiss him for awhile. Still, he wouldn't risk her ire by taking out his current Icha Icha volume to read. He wasn't that confident in her being out of it.

That Night - Tazuna's House

The four of them were still sitting in the living room, Jiraiya talking with Tazuna about his books and Naruto and Sakura talking with Inari about not turning out a pervert like his grandfather or mother. Tayuya sat there, feeling completely out of the loop. Tsunami, meanwhile, was in the kitchen busying herself while anxiously waiting for her fiancé to get home.

The sound of the front door being unlocked and opened caused everyone in the living room to go quiet. They sat and listened to hear Tsunami rush towards the entrance, and a cry of "Honey! I missed you!" Followed by the sound of a rather loud kiss.

Inari made a face and an 'eww...' noise at that.

All of them look over to the entrance to the living room, hearing the steps Tsunami's fiancé made as he walked towards them. They all noticed the shadow of a large man as he approached the corner that would reveal his identity to the four.

As he walked past the corner, he froze in place and his eyes widened. Sakura's eyes had widened and her jaw was in her lap, while her right arm was outstretched, her finger shaking and pointing at him. Jiraiya's eyes had narrowed in suspicious recognition, but he made no other move. Naruto's eyes were dinner plates, one arm was pointing over the back of the couch at the figure, and his mouth was open wide. Tayuya simply looked confused by everyone around her.

At the same time, both Naruto and the man in the entranceway shouted the same word. "YOU!"

In Konoha

With an envelope in one hand and book in the other, Kakashi walks down the street towards Team Ten's training grounds. Seeing Ino about to pass him, he whips the hand with envelope in front of her path without seeming to look up.

Ino grabs the letter on reflex to block, and sees that the label indeed says it's for her. Opening it to read while on the way to her home, she recognizes her former-best-friend-turned-rival-hopefully-turned-best-friend-again's handwriting immediately.

Dear Ino-chan,

I don't know how to tell you this after all this time, but our rivalry for Sasuke is over. Not as in I-won-you-lost over, but more like I-don't-care-about-it over. After what he's done, I'll still try to bring him back, but that's for Naruto and Konoha, not for true love or anything like that. If you still want to pursue him, go ahead. But what I really want to say is, can we be friends again? I know I was the one who threw it away last time, but I'm sorry I did.

I still expect us to be rivals, in the spirit of pushing each other to greater heights. In that mindset - TRY TO TOP ME NOW, INO-BUNTA! I'M APPRENTICE TO A SANNIN AND WE'RE ON A TRAINING TRIP!

Here there was a drawing of a face with Sakura's hairstyle. It had one eyelid pulled down with a finger and it's tongue was sticking out, as if blowing a raspberry. Ino was stuck somewhere between fuming at the ending, jealousy at Sakura's status as apprentice to a Sannin, and happiness at having her friend back.

Tazuna's House

"HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?!" Naruto's finger pointed at the still intimidating form of Momochi Zabuza.

"That's kind of a long story..." Zabuza scratched the back of his neck nervously, his manner seeming different than before.

"We certainly have time to hear it," Jiraiya said, motioning for Zabuza to sit and explain.

Zabuza could feel himself sweating as he recognized just who was speaking to him. "Hai, Jiraiya-sama."

Sitting in a chair opposite the couch Naruto and Tayuya were sitting on, Zabuza settled in for a lengthy explanation. Looking at Naruto, he said, "you remember Haku's natural skill with medical herbs, right gaki?"

Naruto got in a thoughtful pose, then nodded. "Haku designed a special medical pill, of which only one was made, which works in three stages to bring a shinobi back from potentially mortal wounding. However, it doesn't work on its own. I had that pill, a soldier pill, and a blood replenishing pill inside a special capsule in a hollowed-out tooth. When I was fighting the mercenaries and killing Gato, the force the kunai exerted on my lower jaw wound up breaking the capsule open and crushing the pills. I probably swallowed them by accident, but I did."

"Hmm, how does this pill work?" Jiraiya had his notebook out, planning to send the notes about this pill to Tsunade, in hopes she might reproduce its effects.

"The first stage puts the person in a near-death state. When I felt dizzy and tried to stumble back to Haku's body, I assumed the dizziness and weakness was from blood loss, so I was able to fight it. If I hadn't fought it, it would have put me out in a couple seconds."

"Yeah, I know of a few herbs and drugs that can have that effect. The slowed heartbeat of the near-death state is to keep you from dying from blood loss or poison spreading before the you can be treated by a doctor or medic-nin." Jiraiya said.

Zabuza nodded, "yeah. Anyway, once I passed out, stage two of the pill takes effect. Using the blood replenishing pill to keep the blood levels up and the soldier pill to produce chakra to power the process, stage two of the pill repairs the wounds on the body forcefully by rapid regeneration that starts automatically a few hours after I was put out."

Jiraiya nodded, but frowned at this. 'That sounds like Tsunade-hime's 'Genesis of Rebirth' technique. But even used in regular situations, that puts a great strain on her body after it's done. Adding the strain caused by being put in a near-death state... what cost is there for using this pill?'

Naruto, Sakura, and even Tayuya were leaning in, listening to Zabuza with rapt fascination.

"The third stage, awakens and briefly revitalizes the body, temporarily putting it at peak health for about five minutes, so if we were under attack when I came out of it, I could flee or fight off the threat before the weakness of recovering from the near-death state set in. I was able to use a shunshin without handseals to escape from my burial spot when I came to, then made it to a clinic in the village before I collapsed."

"Sugoi..." Naruto said, and Tayuya silently nodded.

Jiraiya looked a bit more cautious of the wonder the younger two had, and Sakura noticed this. "Jiraiya-sensei?"

Everyone looked at Jiraiya. "So, Zabuza, what was the price to live?"

"After that initial 'five minute awakening' period, the chakra coils collapse and become unusable for the duration of the person's life. My body still produces chakra, but I can't use any of it (6)."

Jiraiya nodded. "That certainly explains the civilian life." The other ninja in the room were floored by the ramifications of taking the, until then, 'wondrous healing pill'.

"Only half of it." Jiraiya raised his eyebrow at that. "I figured if I lived a honest and good life from then on, I might have a chance to be able to go to the same place as Haku when I die."

Jiraiya gave a grunt and nod, and closed his eyes while crossing his arms, a slight frown to his face. Naruto recognized it as his 'deep thought' pose. Jiraiya was thinking, 'So this is why Tazuna wanted us to wait. I can see why Zabuza would be pissed if we took Haku's body without getting permission from him first. While we could easily deal with him in his current state, I doubt Naruto would be willing to take any part in such actions. Especially now that Zabuza is part of Tazuna's family. So how the hell are we supposed to convince this guy to willingly let us unearth and use Haku's corpse.'

"Say what you're going to say." Jiraiya opened his eyes and looked at Zabuza. "Everyone in the room is looking at you like they're waiting on you to say something, so what is it that even Tazuna-giri no chichi(7) and Inari-mama-musuko(8) know that I don't?"

'I suppose it best to start at the logical beginning...' "Have you ever heard of the Rin'neggan?" Zabuza simply looked confused at the word. "Or better yet of the most famous man to ever wield the doujutsu, the Sage of the Six Paths?" Zabuza's eyes went wide at that.

"Every ninja worth their hitae-ate knows about the man who practically invented the ninja world as we know it," Zabuza said, uncertain of where this was going. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"His kekkei genkai, the Rin'neggan, allowed him to regenerate and reanimate a corpse as an extension of himself. There's more it could do, but that's irrelevant at the moment." Zabuza looked more confused than before, but at the same time he was suspicious of where this was going. "Naruto is a descendant of the Sage of the Six Paths, and recently activated his Rin'neggan."

Zabuza looked surprised for just a moment, but he seemed to rapidly piece the facts before him together. "So you brought him here for my apprentice, Haku, huh?" His eyes were shut, his mouth was in a frown, and his... 'bald eyebrows' were pointed down together.

'It looks like Zabuza is gonna shoot this down. And I was looking forward to talking to Haku again... wonder what he'd think of me now...'

"Naruto, that's the answer! Tell Zabuza word for word what I tell you to say."

"Zabuza-san." Zabuza looked over at Naruto, who appeared to be having mixed feelings about what he was about to say. "How'd you feel about talking to Haku again. Not just body but... mind and soul, too."

Zabuza, if anything, looked absolutely livid, like he was about to kill Naruto with his bare hands. "How...how dare you offer me something no one could deliver!"

"Actually, I can." Zabuza looked about ready to lunge, so Naruto rushed the rest out. "How do you think I learn to use their techniques and skills? Who do you think teaches me that?" Zabuza's anger seemed to take a pause at that. "I already have the mind and soul of my first body in my mindscape..."

"What proof do I have that you're telling the truth?" Zabuza had his arms crossed across his chest and leveled a glare at Naruto's eyes.

"I know what to say, Naruto-san," Kimimaro's voice sounded in his head.

Naruto shut his eyes as if in concentration before he spoke. "On the day the Kaguya clan sacrificed virtually all their members in a mad attack on Kirigakure no Sato itself... you were leaving the village with Haku by your side when a young boy of that clan confronted you, asking you if you were a Kiri-nin while he held a knife made from his bone in front of him in an aggressive-defensive stance. You told him no while gripping the hilt of your zanbatou, and he apologized to you, then ran past the two of you and continued on the path toward Kiri. That boy is my first body, and his name was Kaguya Kimimaro.

At this point, Naruto opened his eyes to see a contemplative look on Zabuza's face. "...you'll let me talk to Haku, unhindered?"

"Yeah. Besides, that'd be what Haku would want, too."

"...alright. I'll agree to this, for now. But if Haku doesn't agree with it-"

"-I'll sever the bond and let Haku return to the right place immediately. I don't go back on my word, that's my nindo!" Naruto held out a hand and Zabuza shook it, looking slightly dazed by the series of events that had unfolded since he came home.

Jiraiya let out a breath of relief he didn't know he had been holding, this issue having been resolved without force having to be applied. 'Not like Naruto would want to go through with it if it came to that here, but with Naruto's capacity to bring out the best in people... I doubt it ever would have come to that anyway...'

"Well, given how late it is, it'll be best if we take care of this tomorrow morning, if that's alright, Zabuza-san?" Jiraiya said, looking at Zabuza.

Zabuza nodded and said, "yeah, I can take tomorrow morning off, seeing as we're not going out on the boats. I know how to explain it to the guys under me without raising questions. Besides, they don't need me to prepare today's catch for sale to the merchants and buyers we have or even to make the actual sales." Seeing the question in the others' eyes, Zabuza spoke up, "You don't expect me to not be there when you pull Haku out, do you? I'm going to make sure you don't desecrate the body, no matter what you say of your intentions..."

Jiraiya nodded, then said, "Well, we better get back to the hotel. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for all of us."

The three with him gave an assent, then got together to leave. Inside the doorway Jiraiya had to remind them to put the henge up again in order to get back into the hotel without a situation coming up.

In Konoha

Four ROOT ANBU, two women and two men, stood at attention before Danzo, who was standing with a folder in his hand. Danzo handed the folder to one of the women, then spoke. "You four are to go on a long-term, zero support information gathering mission. All information on your target and any known affiliates or abilities is in that folder. When you have gathered sufficient information, one of you will return to me to report while the other three continue following the target. Unless orders from me indicate otherwise, you are not to engage the target or any allies of the target. This supersedes all other orders from me below Level 6. If an order to kill an ally of the target exists above that, make certain the target doesn't see that it was you that did it and remove all evidence of your actions. Is that clear?"

"Hai, Danzo-sama!" The four chorused. The woman he had given the folder to sealed it into a storage seal on her arm, then made with the others to leave to carry out their mission, planning to only open the folder and share its information once they came to a secure location outside of Konoha.

Next Morning - Haku's Grave Site

Zabuza stood back watching as Naruto and Jiraiya carefully dug out Haku's grave. Due to the fact that Haku had been buried while wrapped in a blanket rather than any kind of coffin, they had to be careful. They had gotten close enough that they had started to use gardening shovels, since using a full shovel could damage the body more - or worse, they could wind up crushing the eye sockets, which would make the body unusable for Naruto.

Kneeling in the dirt and shoveling it aside with the tool in his hands, Naruto decided to ask the question that had been bothering him since they had arrived at the gravesite that morning. "Hey, Zabuza-san... where'd your sword go?"

"Mist hunter-nin took it." Naruto stopped digging for a moment in surprise. "Given that they expected that I'd sooner die than leave it away from myself, finding the sword was stronger proof to them that I was dead than if they had killed me themselves. They took it back to Kiri so another shinobi could take up the blade as their own."

"You don't even sound all that upset that it's gone, Zabuza-san," Jiraiya said.

Zabuza shrugged his shoulders, "Since they're self-convinced I'm dead, even if they see me now, they'd assume my uncanny resemblance was just an odd coincidence. I'm perfectly safe now, and so is my fiancé and her family. Since I plan to live a good civilian's life now, I don't need it anymore anyway."

Several more minutes of digging on their knees later, Jiraiya finally came to the filthy blanket Haku was in. Pulling out a scroll he had prepared last night, Jiraiya sealed the body into a scroll just like the ones Naruto had sealed the corpses of the Sound Four in. "Well, we got it. Now to refill the grave with its dirt."

"Hey, ero-sennin." Jiraiya looked over at Naruto, who was looking at him with his 'thinking face' while they were climbing out of the hole they had dug. "Why aren't we just having me use my eyes to bring them back as soon as possible? Instead of sealing all of them into scrolls, I mean. Is it a matter of focusing on one at a time or something like that?"

"I'll explain at Tazuna's house, gaki. Not out here." Jiraiya nodded at Zabuza. "Don't worry, he won't be using that on Haku for a while, so you can go to work now."

Zabuza nodded and left to go to work, taking the toad hermit at his word. Jiraiya and Naruto began refilling the grave of its dirt.

Meanwhile, Field Near Tazuna's House

Sakura panted hard as she pushed herself through the training regime from hell, all the while the kage bunshin of Jiraiya's was 'cheerleading' her through the tough spots. By criticizing her form, speed, strength, and stamina non-stop. If she didn't have these exercises to keep herself busy with, she would have either mauled him or broken down completely.

Tazuna's House

Naruto and Jiraiya were sitting in chairs in the living room, facing each other and virtually alone in the house. "So, Jiraiya-sensei, why is it that I can't immediately bring up Haku's body with my eyes?"

Jiraiya sighed, leaning forward and resting his weight on his arms, which were pressing against just above his knees. "Naruto, it's time to talk about the... 'rules' the Rin'neggan must abide by."

"Are you talking about rules for how you want me to use the eyes or rules like natural limitations?" Naruto squinted at Jiraiya while asking this.

"The natural rules. The first of which limits the speed at which you can safely gain new bodies." Jiraiya leaned back in his chair, his arms crossing over his chest. "Basically, your kekkei genkai requires time to make an 'anchor' for the foreign mind and soul to connect to and to recover from the last time it activated an anchor. The more active connections you possess, the longer this period is. Based on scrolls I was able to find when I was training Nagato, scrolls written by a student of the Sage of the Six Paths who recorded his sensei's teachings, I can say that it will take about three weeks after you got Kimimaro's body before you can take a second body, two months after that for the third, three and a half for the fourth, and so on. If you 'master' a body, however, since the mind and soul of the of that body's original owner will return to the place they belong, the next body can be taken instantly since you have a pre-existing anchor that was just freed up of its previous host."

"... you said 'safely' gain new bodies... what happens if I don't wait and try to gain a new body?"

"You'll gain the body, but since there's no anchor for the mind and soul, that'll go back to the afterlife immediately, and you'll be stuck figuring out how to master the body on your own. And on top of that, since you promised Zabuza a talk with Haku..." Jiraiya left the statement at that, before continuing on. "And although you could technically gather as many bodies as you have the time to do so while you live, there is a limit to the types you can gather. For example, Kimimaro is a kenjutsu body and an earth element body, right?" Naruto nodded his head at that. "Any future bodies cannot have that particular combination of jutsu type and energy type. You can have other kenjutsu bodies as long as they aren't an earth element energy type, and you can have different earth element bodies as long as they aren't a kenjutsu type, get it?"

Naruto looked mixed up for a minute before he nodded, but then looked confused again. "When you say 'energy type', don't you mean 'elemental type'? And if I can have as many bodies as I have time to gather in life, then eventually I'll have a small army all my own, superior to Kage Bunshin in virtually every way, right?"

"No to both questions." Naruto frowned, looking more confused than before. "For the first, there are more than just the elemental types of energy that the Rin'neggan recognizes. As some examples, any genjutsu body you may be able to get will likely be of the 'psyche' or Psi energy type, and any medic-ninjutsu body you get will probably be either regenerative energy type, corrosive energy type, or chakra manipulation type. There are technically many different energy types besides the elemental ones."

Naruto nodded, as that made plenty of sense. 'I'd have a hard time guessing what element a genjutsu specialist or a medic-nin was, so I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't be an element type of body...'

"As for the small army all your own, unless it's going to be comprised of seven or fewer members, you can forget about it. Because the maximum number of 'secondary' bodies you can have out at a time is six." Naruto's head dropped. "There are also rules about the bodies you call out, and how you call them out or name them."

Naruto looked back up. "So what are the rules, and what do you mean 'name them'?"

"I'd better answer the second question first. Every body you gain will have at least two names, an individual name and a 'group name'. The individual name, obviously, applies to that body and only that body so it must be unique for each body. The other rule about individual names is that they have to end with the word 'Realm'. The 'group name' applies to a set of bodies to make it easier to call them out all at once, and it is always 'number of bodies in this group' followed by 'Path of' followed by a keyword that you associate with that group of bodies to make it easy to remember. Each body can have multiple group names if you assign it to multiple groups. When you gain a new body you have to touch it and think what you want its individual name to be, as well as what group or groups you want it to be part of, before you look it in its eyes or else your subconscious will assign names and groups without you consciously knowing what they are."

Naruto looked like he understood what Jiraiya was saying to him so far, so Jiraiya continued. "When you call out your bodies, you can call them by individual or group names, but since you can only call out three 'sets' at once, it's best to make your groups around getting the most out possible, six bodies. There is another limiter on the bodies you call out though. If you bring out a body, no other body you bring out can have either the same jutsu type or the same energy type. So if you call out Kimimaro, you can't call out any other kenjutsu bodies you may have and you can't call out any other earth element bodies you may have. You also can't call out any groups that have a member who would break this rule. So obviously, when making groups of bodies, you don't want to make it more than six or have any members who are the same jutsu or energy type as any of the other members or else you won't be able to call out the group. If you can't call out the group, there's no point in making it, is there?"

Naruto nodded slowly, as if uncertain if he understood but not wanting to admit it. Jiraiya figured, 'if he doesn't understand it yet, I'll let Kyuubi explain it to him later.'

"So, anything else we're going to talk about here and now?" Naruto asked.

Jiraiya nodded his head. "Yeah. We might as well take this opportunity to talk out some details regarding the training for your eyes..."

"Like what?"

"What you'll focus on training in first, what order you'll activate your bodies in, what you'll name them, any other bodies you can think of that we can seek out for the collection - and I do have some suggestions for all of this, but you're your own boss now so it's up to you in the end..."

Naruto got a focused look on his face, and sat in thought for a minute before responding. "...well, obviously, Haku will be the next body I activate, since Zabuza will be waiting on the conversation I promised, and the longer I wait to do that the longer we'll be stuck here... but after Haku, I don't know who should be next... I guess I'll figure out that one when the time comes... For names, I guess Haku's will be 'Ice Realm' and I'll probably put that one in the same group as Kimimaro, so it'll be in the 'Paths of Sacrifice' group... Sakon and Ukon... 'Twin Realm', also the 'Paths of Sacrifice'... Kidomaru, 'Spider Realm', though I'm not sure about the group for him... Jirobo... probably 'Giant Realm' or something like that. I'd prefer to work on their energy types before I work on their technique types, y'know. Other bodies..." Naruto appeared to be deep in thought as he considered where he could look for other bodies.

"I know of four bodies that might work for this, if you're okay with my ideas..." Naruto gave a nod to Jiraiya, who pulled out a map of the elemental countries and set it on the coffee table in front of them. Then he pointed to a spot on the map and began talking. "Here at this temple, there's a monk buried. He trained me in fuuinjutsu when I was young, and my apprentice Minato learned under him for about a year to supplement what I taught him about fuuinjutsu. The only reason I'm considering using his body has to do with a conversation I had with him during the last 'Great Shinobi War'..."

Flashback

"Is it true, Jiraiya-chan? That you're training a Rin'neggan user? And that he may be the one the Elder Toad Sage told of in his prophecy?"

"Hai, Uyeda-sensei. I'll be returning to him soon to finish his training and take him as a real apprentice."

Uyeda shuffled in his robes a minute before pulling out a thick, heavy and old looking scroll. Which he tossed to Jiraiya. "Those are the recordings of a student of the Sage of Six Paths."

Jiraiya held the scrolls with something akin to reverence. All the other sources he had on the Rin'neggan were merely ancient reports of people who observed it in passing during the time of the Six Paths Sage. This was on a whole other level.

"Jiraiya-chan." Jiraiya looked at his one-time sensei. "Should I pass away before the prophecy comes to pass, I am willing to have my body be one to help the child of the prophecy."

Flashback End

"Should he die while I was still alive, he wanted to teach the descendant of the Six Paths Sage as one of his bodies. Seeing as Nagato died before he did, though... well Nagato never got his body, but I'm certain he would have wanted you to."

Naruto looked stunned. Not that Jiraiya could blame him. "Ero-sennin..." Jiraiya scowled at this. "You mean... you want me to learn from the man who taught you and my dad about fuuinjutsu, the specialty of both of you? How could I say no to that?"

Jiraiya smiled. "You can't really. Another body I can think of belongs to a student of your father's, Rin, for medical techniques. Although you should never show or mention this one to Kakashi if you see him, seeing as she was his teammate, and she'll be hard to get to, since her body was secretly buried around here." Naruto looked at where Jiraiya was pointing on the map, and gulped nervously. The spot was well within the borders of Tsuchi no Kuni.

"I thought it wasn't a good idea for me to travel anywhere near Iwagakure no Sato, Ero-sennin! Are you getting senile on me?"

Jiraiya glared at Naruto to shut him up. "Gaki, listen up. While it may be dangerous for you or me to go into Tsuchi no Kuni, due to me and your father's parts in the war with Iwa, your other bodies will not look anything like you, so they won't be associated with the Yondaime like you would. The ideal body for this job would be either Haku's or Uyeda's bodies once you get them up to an acceptable level for this task. Mainly because all your other bodies will be inhuman looking due to the curse seals they bare."

Naruto blinked, then nodded. "I guess that makes sense... but wait!" Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "How... what... you said that this 'Rin' was a she, right?"

Jiraiya nodded.

"Well..." Naruto blushed. "Is it really alright to, you know, take a body of the female gender? Being that I'm a guy and all..."

Jiraiya got a lecherous grin. "Such naughty thoughts from the one who calls me perverted? I wonder how Tayuya and Sakura would react to you thinking of doing that with your other body?"

"W-whAT?! ERO-SENNIN! THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEAN!" Jiraiya just held his sides and laughed at Naruto's face as Naruto tried to reign in his temper. "What I'm worried about is... cleaning and clothing. Unless sending a body to the place that they go to regain their energy automatically cleans the body and it clothing, as well as repairs any damage to the clothing, I'll have to manually wash the body and/or change clothes on it... I doubt this 'Rin' would be too happy about some guy seeing her body, much less touching it... and then there's the other thing..."

Jiraiya waited patiently while his student grew redder in the face by the second. Jiraiya noticed Naruto wasn't expressing anger at the moment, so he raised his eyebrow at Naruto's increasing redness. "Which is?" Jiraiya somehow managed to ask without any perverted undertones in his voice or facial expression.

"Well... ever since I got Kimimaro's body, he's been able to talk to me in my mind. He doesn't just respond to my thoughts, but also to things I see and hear, which means he can see and hear through my eyes and ears. Which means if I take up a girl's body, she'll see me whenever I got to do those things, too. Or at least until I've mastered all she has to teach me..."

Jiraiya stared at Naruto a minute. Then threw his head back and laughed heartily, before clapping him on the shoulder and saying, in a jesting voice, "that's called 'a fair trade'."

Naruto just glared at Jiraiya for a minute, his left eye twitching. "So who are the other bodies you're talking about?"

Jiraiya pointed to a part of the map, Kyoukai no Kuni (9) - a country with an army under its daimyo's command instead of having a ninja village. "A clan of 'wandering-nin' that makes its home in this country has an interesting kekkei genkai that, combined with your Rin'neggan, could potentially give you a truly unlimited army at your disposal... the Kazama clan (10). Also, about two months ago a missing-nin belonging to the Kurama clan was killed by one of my spies, who kept the body in a scroll like the ones I gave you, so I could return the body to Konoha when I come by to pick it up. We'll meet up with him around here." Jiraiya pointed to another area of the map, in Ocha no Kuni (11). "What about you? Any powerful bodies you can think of?"

"There might be some in Yuki no Kuni, and I know of some ninja bodies somewhere in Ocha no Kuni - although those four aren't even worth the effort to get, but the only other place I know of any dead ninja bodies is in Konoha, like the past Hokage and such, and maybe other ninja villages, but I'd have no idea where they keep the bodies of their ninja, if they don't simply cremate them."

"... that's right, you haven't been on many missions involving enemy nin outside the village yet. I guess we can try Yuki no Kuni, seeing as I needed to eventually talk to the actress there about starring in my movie." Jiraiya had another of his lecherous grins on as he said the last part to himself.

Naruto got fed up with listening to it, so he decided to make one last point. "Is that all we had to talk about for now, Jiraiya-sensei?"

Jiraiya nodded, then asked, "Jiraiya-sensei, huh? And no witnesses around to see it..."

"I only call you that 'cause you've been good about teaching me lately, instead of running off to do perverted activities like you usually do."

Jiraiya winced at that, recognizing what he meant. The summoning 'training' and Rasengan 'training' he did for the kid basically was just him giving Naruto a few sentences of instructions, then abandoning Naruto to his own devices to learn it while he went and enjoyed himself by various perverted means.

With a poof, the Naruto he'd been talking to disappeared, and Jiraiya found himself confused for a moment. 'If this Naruto was a kage bunshin, then where's the real-' A sudden memory popped in his mind. When he'd gotten Naruto this morning from the room he'd shared with Tayuya, another Naruto had stayed behind to talk with her about something. Jiraiya had assumed that the one with her was the kage bunshin, but it seemed the opposite was true.

Jiraiya jumped to his feet and ran out of the house, heading for the Fisherman's Inn. 'He better not be planning to use that complicated of a fuuinjutsu without my supervision.'

At the Fisherman's Inn

"... so, is that all you wanted to know, Tayuya-chan?"

Tayuya resisted, once again, the urge to pound Naruto for calling her chan. He'd been doing it all day as he stayed here to answer all her questions about her being healed, the details of the method, and various other questions that she had for him. "...y'know what, fuck nut? I think I'll take you and your foxy friend up on your offer. I ain't got anything to fucking lose, and a hell of a lot to gain... so why not?"

"You sure, Tayuya-chan?" Tayuya's eyebrows twitched. "Once I start it, there won't be much chance of going back."

"Of course I'm sure, fuck not. Stop trying to change my mind and get to work on the fucking seal thing."

Naruto made three kage bunshin and then picked Tayuya up off her bed. While the clones were moving the beds to make as much room on the floor as possible, Naruto gently set Tayuya down in the center of the open floor. "Lay on your back and move as little as possible. It'd be horribly bad if you smudged any of the kanji or runes for the seal, since that could screw up the effects completely."

As Tayuya lay there and Naruto began drawing a complex diagrams of runes and kanji in his own blood all around her under instruction from Kyuubi, a puzzling thought ran through Tayuya's mind. She spoke without moving anything but her mouth and jaw, "Oi, fuck nut!" Naruto stopped his drawing to look at her. "Why do you need this seal when you obviously didn't need it for Kimimaro's body?"

Naruto got a puzzled look on his face as he directed the question inward at his tenant. 'Tayuya-chan's right. Why do I need to draw this seal?'

"Easy. Repeat what I say to you to her..."

'I hate all this being the middle man stuff.'

"Best get used to it Naruto-san. When Haku comes here, you'll probably be doing it a lot for Zabuza." Kimimaro's voice rang out in his head.

"Two reasons. Youkai normally damages a body that still has a soul inside of it, so part of this is to make the youkai behave as if yours didn't. The other reason is to help Kyuubi control the youkai that'll be pumped into you so she can use it to heal you as well as snapping the curse seal's hold over you instead of just letting it do whatever it feels like inside of you."

Naruto went back to drawing in his own blood as Tayuya gave a 'Hn.' in response, accepting the answer. As Naruto finished up the seal, he froze as if something was wrong, alarming Tayuya. "What is it, fuck nut? Don't tell me you screwed up the seal or something..."

Naruto looked at her and said, "No. The kage bunshin with Jiraiya just dispelled itself. I was sorting out some of the information so I didn't have to deal with it all later. Now let's get this technique under way." Naruto sat down and formed the handseals Kyuubi told him to while channeling her youkai instead of his chakra, then at the end of the chain of handseals he slapped both hands down on two particular runes on the outside edge of the seal.

'I can't quite shake the feeling there's something I've forgotten here... but it must just be that I haven't needed to do something like this in a very long time. The seal and handseals have been made perfectly, so everything should work just fine.' Kyuubi pondered

The whole room glowed with an eerie red light, coming from the seal and from the two tails of youkai that were coming out of Naruto's stomach, directly from the Shiki Fuuin. Those two tails seemed to stab into Tayuya, who merely winced in discomfort at the sensation. It was like being in a shower with the water just a tiny bit too hot for comfort. As the seal ran its course, the core of Tayuya's body began to glow with a bright light blinding Naruto so that he closed his eyes and forcing Tayuya herself to close her eyes if she didn't want to lose her eyesight.

In the Hidden Base of Otogakure no Sato

Orochimaru sat rigid for a moment, catching the attention of Kabuto, who was with him to make certain that he recovered from his recent switch of bodies as quickly as possible, as well as Sasuke and the jounin who was training him before Orochimaru recovered enough to do so personally.

"Is something the matter, Orochimaru-sama?" Kabuto asked, preparing to do a diagnostic jutsu to determine if something was going wrong with the new body.

Orochimaru waved away Kabuto's glowing green hand with a laugh. "Kukuku... it seems Tayuya-chan survived for longer than we thought. I just felt something forcefully break the curse seal I placed upon her. What's more... the only way that would work was if she willingly allowed someone to remove it from her. You know what to do, Kabuto."

"Hai, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto left the room to inform the Oto special hunter nin unit that Tayuya was alive and had willingly broken her bonds with Otogakure no Sato. Such a high security risk member would require an immediate and violent extermination before she could go spreading the secrets of Orochimaru's.

Sasuke looked on, unsure of how to respond to the fact that he had just heard that it was, in fact, entirely possible to remove the curse seal. He was afraid someone might do so to him, stunting his power, but also found some hope that he could get it removed before Orochimaru could take his body over.

At the Great Naruto Bridge

Kanaye Yamamoto and his two partners arrived just in time to feel the wave of youkai radiating from Nami no Kuni. It gave them pause in their chase of their master's future puppet to feel the power of a biju. They had met up with each other when Yamamoto came back from following one of the false paths to the point of divergence. The woman had been able to figure out the true path the group they were following had taken, and Yamamoto had filled the two in on what had happened since he last saw them while they were chasing the group down.

Now realizing that there was either a biju in human form or a jinchuuriki involved, they decided to send Yamamoto to inform Sasori of the full depth of the situation as well as ask for help or orders for the now more complex problem. Seeing as he could literally fly to and back from Sasori-sama's location.

(1) - Yamamoto = this name means 'at the base of the mountain', making it more believable as a name native to Tsuchi no Kuni than Hi no Kuni. Since I have an OC named this, I won't be calling 'Tenzo' by this name, as is done in canon.

(2) - Kaibutsu Katachi no Jutsu: Katachi Sho = Monstrous Form Technique: Form One.

(3) - Fuuja Houin = Evil Suppressor

(4) - what surviving family Sakura had as a child is uncertain, but given her sheltered upbringing and civilian family background, I felt it safe to assume she got to have grandparents as a small child

(5) - like Deidara's Exploding Clay Clone did right before it exploded in Shipuuden.

(6) - similar to Rock Lee's condition, has chakra but is unable to mold it due to a problem with his coils.

(7) - giri no chichi = father-in-law.

(8) - mama-musuko = stepson.

(9) - Kyoukai no Kuni - Boundary Country. This is a massive country that wraps around the north, west, and northwest parts of the elemental countries (just outside the border of the map shown when Kakashi is describing the Elemental Countries during the early Wave Arc in the anime). It does not possess any ninja village, but has an army of ninja, samurai, and soldiers serving under the diamyo directly, as well as a large number of mercenary clans of wandering-nin. This country acts as a buffer zone between the elemental countries and the Demon Wastelands. More info will come up about Kyoukai no Kuni and the Demon Wastelands when Naruto and company travel there, although they'll also feature largely in another fanfic I'm working on (Naruto #7).

(10) - guess what the given name of the guy that Naruto's getting from this clan is gonna be... I'll give you three guesses. Also, try to guess what kind of kekkei genkai I've given this clan (Take as many guesses as you want until I reveal it in a future chapter).

(11) - Ocha no Kuni - Tea Country. (You know, the mission with Morino Idate, Ibiki's little brother, took place here)

Author's Endnote: What will happen with ROOT, Oto, the Akatsuki underling trio, and Sasori all having eyes drawn to Naruto's current location? What was bothering Kyuubi as they performed the seal to help Tayuya and what effects might it have on the future? Who is the mysterious figure Danzo was plotting with (no, it wasn't Orochimaru or an OC)? What will become of Anko? How will the rest of the world react to Naruto's banishment? What did Jiraiya's message to Tsunade say? What were Kyuubi's upgrades to the kekkei genkai, and what were her true motives for doing so? What will Naruto find in the pre-filled regular storage scroll Koharu gave him (not the one from the Yondaime, the other one that was pre-filled with stuff)? All these questions and more will begin to show their answers in the next chapter of 'Banished with a Bloodline'. Please Read and Review... and any suggestions are appreciated, even if I choose not to use them they can still inspire other ideas in my head.

As another note, I have a poll up on my profile. If you haven't already seen it and voted, please do so, but remember one thing: even if I take up another story, this story will remain my main focus until it is finished. If you have voted, please go and vote again, as I've removed the old poll and replaced it with a new one, since more options are available on it now. On a similar note, If you could tell me which pairing you would prefer and if I should stick with one girl only or go for two for Naruto in this fic. If you name any of the 'Konoha girls/women', you'd have to tell me how you'd think that would work out before I'd consider it, though, since Naruto is banished from there. Also note that Sakura and Hinata are not up for the pairing - Hinata because her clan would probably kill her before she got out the gate if she went to go to be with Naruto or got herself banished, and Sakura because she's going to see Naruto as more of a little/big brother than a potential love interest.

One last note: this is the second to last major 'explanatory chapter' where you have to listen to my characters give long winded explanations for how things work, one thing after another. There will still be explanations (character A explains the plan to character B for how to sneak into the building to steal this or that), but not to the extent of the first four chapters with having most of each chapter have large sections of paragraphs explaining one thing. That should end after the next chapter for this fic, a fact you can all probably feel happy for.