"So where have you been Jiriaya-sama?" Lee asked curiously.

Like others in the village, Gai's team had been sent out several times in the past two years to see if they could discover the Sage nin's where abouts and like the others they had come back to the village empty handed. Disapponting Sakura, Kakashi and even their friends and Kage time and time again.

The Sage looked at him, he'd half expected the first question out of the boy's mouth to be 'Where is Naru?' but he supposed that he'd take small favors when they were granted and simply hope that no one asked about her before he could find out where she was. He'd bet that she was at her apartment right now. But then again there was also the slim chance that she'd gone to visit her father's grave.

Maybe even stopped by Iruka's place to let him know that she was back. Truly it was a little hard to say where she might be. She'd changed her habits so much that he often had to use a tracking seal made of his chakra to keep tabs on her movements.

It wasn't that he was worried that she might hurt someone or anything. After all as much as she'd changed in the past five years, there were a few things that were still the same. Still defined her as the person he remembered. She still hated hurting others. Though now she could do so easily if she was of a mind too.

"I've been...here and there." Jiriaya said cryptically. Not wanting to say anything about having had spent about six month after he and Naru had been due back in hiding from the Akutsuki while trying to get Naru back on her feet after he'd fucked up so badly and got her caught by them in the first place.

"Here and there hm." Lee muttered as he looked at Gai who was being strangely silent as they walked with the Sage nin.

It had occurred to Lee to ask where Naru was since she wasn't with the Sage nin, but he figured that she must have run off to find Sakura and Iruka and anyone else she might find along the way to tell them that she was back in the village.

Yet Jiriaya's tense body language suggested otherwise. So maybe he was wrong about Naru being in the village. Maybe she had gotten into trouble and the Sage had come back to seek help. He looked away from his sensei and quickly made an excuse to leave the welcome party and started away when Jiriaya's voice halted him for a second.

"Lee, don't get your hopes up for a warm reception from Naru. It's been a long time and she might not remember you completely. So-" Lee turned around and gave the Toad Sage a peculiar look then nodded his head and ran off. As soon as he was out of earshot Gai stepped up to Jiriaya with his arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes calculating.

"What happened?"

"I'd rather not say." Jiriaya said as he continued walking. Missing the muscle ticking in Gai's jaw before he reached out and grabbed the older nin and pulled him to a stop and growled.

"My kids have been waiting here for the past five years for you and Naru to come back. They all stood at the gate the day that you were supposed to come back and looked for you both. We all did. Everyone in the whole village. So I'll ask you again nicely, then I'm going to get rude. What. Happened. To. My. Kids. Friend?"

Jiriaya looked slightly taken aback by Gai's aggression on the subject. And silently deated with himself on whether or not he should just say something or knock the guy out for his less than nice tone. Instead he decided on the lesser of the two evils. One word that pretty much said it all in a nutshell.

"Akutsuki." Gai's pissed demeanor faltered for a second, changing from angry to worried in 0.2 seconds.

"Is she okay?" Gai asked tentatively. Jiriaya gave him a dark look. Of course Naru wasn't okay. She was barely functioning thanks to the bastards and the shit that had happened after the Kyuubi had been taken.

"She's alive. What else matters?" Jiriaya finally said. Gai thinned his lips but said nothing more. He simply kept his hold on the Toad Sage's arm and started dragging him towards the hospital, explaining that Tsunade was there at the moment taking care of his eternal rival, Kakashi, whom had over done things on another one of his missions and would be in the hospital for the next few weeks.

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Tsunade staggered back away from the Copy nin with a look of stunned disbelief on her face. That son of a bitch- He'd bitten her when she had removed his mask so that she could give him his medicine.

Her finger was actually bleeding!

And the Copy nin himself was sitting up in his bed glaring at her with a beyond scary look on his masculinely beautiful face. His mismatched eyes staring at her unblinkingly. And she wasn't totally sure but a second ago she could have sworn that she saw the damn man's lips twitch in amusement before he blanked his features of anything but the furious glare that he was giving her now.

"I said I wasn't taking those damned pills." Kakashi growled at her inbetween shuttering breaths. He saw Tsunade narrow her eyes at him and knew she was about to do something horrible to him for biting her, but dammit he'd warned her that he didn't want to fucking sleep meds. He was chakra depleted and could sleep on his own without the aid of the medicine.

He just needed to get good and comfortable (an impossibility for him since he was in the hospital) and then he'd doze right off. Well, in theory anyways. But as mentioned before sleep was pretty much an impossibility for him because he was in a place where there was lots of people who liked to come barging into his room. And invade his personal space.

Which was not fun for someone like Kakashi.

He tended to get ill tempered and mean when he was in a high traffic area and couldn't rest or relax. And though he knew that Tsunade was just trying to help, he didn't apprieciate the fact that the woman was trying to knock him out against his will.

"Oh you're taking them Hatake. If I can't get you to swallow them then I'll shove them up your-" Tsunade's angry rant was cut off by a knock on the door. Both the Copy nin and Kage looked towards the door and growled in unison then yelled.

"What!" As the door creaked open a little bit and Sakura stuck her head inside of the room.

"Am I interuppting anything?" She asked curiously as she looked first from her former sensei to her master. The two exchanged a this-isn't-over-yet look before Tsunade sighed and motioned for the girl to come in.

"What do you need Sakura?" Tsunade asked curiously as the pinkette slipped into the room looking a mite anxious.

"I heard a little rumor a while ago and wanted to see if you had heard it yet-" Sakura said before pausing for a moment before saying, "Now keep in mind that right now it's just a rumor and we have no way to know if it's true or not-"

"Just cut to the chase Sakura." Tsunade snapped impatiently. The pinkette cringed a little bit at her master's tone.

"Alright then. I heard a rumor that Jiriaya-sama was back in the village..." Both Tsunade and Kakashi gave the young woman their undevided attention. "Rumor has it that something happened to keep him and Naru away and he's come back for help."

Tsunade's jaw dropped and she started sputtering before roaring, "That damned fool!" She ran for the door and slipped out of the room screaming for her Anbu and Sakura wasn't sure but she could have sworn she heard her master shout, "If that dumbass has lost my ganki; I'll kill him!"