Disclaimer – Kishimoto owns Naruto and the characters therein.

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Memories Of Others

Chapter 27

Observations Of A Genin

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Naruto looked around curiously at the setup in the basement that he had been escorted to.

"Welcome to the *cough* Chunin Tower." A shinobi who looked slightly familiar said in greeting, turning away from one of the many groups of screens to face him. Naruto nodded back, then his gaze travelled past the man and to the screens behind him.

"Those are from the cameras that Anko-san and I put up." He said in recognition.

"They are indeed." Anko purred from behind him. "Hey, Hayate. Still coughing?"

Hayate nodded and Anko shrugged.

"The test starts in half an hour, I gotta be back at the meeting point. Naruto, there's a shielded spot behind the tent with one of your tags in it…"

"I got it." Naruto said after a moment's concentration, then three clones popped into existence.

"Damn, not even a hand-sign." Anko admired as the three clones moved to surround her. "Hayate, Naruto'll take the first shift, you're on supervisor duty. I'll round up volunteers to cover the night portion."

Hayate waved one hand as he coughed and Anko vanished in a flash of golden light.

"So… eyes on the screens and a group ready to deploy if needed?" Naruto ased even as a dozen more clones popped into being behind him. "Okay guys, to the screens and let's see if we can spot Hinata-chan!"

The clones cheered and almost dived into their seats, earning a raised eyebrow from Hayate.

"Hinata's nice." Naruto said with a shrug. "So, aside from her, what else should we be on the lookout for?"

"Here." Hayate said, passing a clipboard over. Naruto looked at it, then lifted up the first sheet to keep reading.

"That's a lot of stuff to watch for." He finally said.

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"There she is!" One of the clones called and Naruto walked over to get a look at the screen himself.

"She's looking very determined." He said after a moment of watching Hinata amidst the group of genin listening to Anko. "It's a shame we don't get sound on these."

"Too expensive." Hayate said after he'd finished coughing. "Keep an eye out."

Naruto nodded before glaring at the other clones who had taken their eyes off their own screen in order to watch Hinata's image. The clones quickly turned back to their screens.

"Weird." One of them said after a moment. "A snake just squirmed into the forest through gate thirty-seven."

Hayate straightened up and strode over to the clone who had made the announcement. "What? How big?"

"About… three foot long?" The clone offered and Hayate frowned.

"Stay. Here. Do not dispel."

Naruto and the clones watched Hayate almost sprint out of the door and Naruto shook his head.

"I wonder where he's off to? And why didn't he ask for a jump?"

Several clones shrugged before returning their attention to the screens.

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"Tell him what you told me."

Naruto looked round to see Hayate striding into the monitor room followed by a man who looked like an older, scarred version of Shikamaru.

"A snake entered Area 44 through a small gap just by Gate thirty-seven." The clone responded. "It was about three foot long and darkly colored, I almost didn't see it."

The new arrival frowned in thought.

"I need to speak to Anko."

"There's a tag behind the tent." Naruto offered, indicating the screen where genin were filing into the tent with forms in their hands and exiting with a scroll. "I can get you there instantly and if I come along as well, return you just as fast. By the way, you look really familiar, but…"

"I'm Shikaku. You know my son, Shikamaru as you were in class together and you've gone up against his team multiple times. By the way, thanks for motivating him, he's actually become the most energetic Nara since the founding of Konoha."

Naruto blinked at that. "…errrrr, thanks?"

"No worries." Shkaku shrugged. "So, I hear that one of your clones spotted a suspicious snake."

Naruto half-turned to wave at his clone, who nodded and passed across a tape to a second clone, who in turn took it to a spare video player and inserted it. The screen attached to the player showed static for a moment, then it resolved into the view of a gate. For a long moment, nothing happened, then in the corner of the screen, a small serpent slithered out of the grass and through a tiny hole beside the gate, a hole exactly the right size for the snake to fit through.

"Worrying." Skikaku admitted as he rewound the tape for a second look. "Look. The way that snake moved, it's done this before. It looked round before going through the hole, it's obviously a summons and I only know of two snake summoners. I've spoken to Anko and she hasn't summoned a snake all week…"

"Orochimaru." Hayate breathed.

"He's in Konoha." Shikaku frowned. "And he's either up to something inside the Forest of Death or he's going to be…"

"I'll get the other two." Hayate offered. "We're going to *cough* need more clones as well."

"Tell me when." Naruto said.

"I missed that." Shikaku said, not paying attention to the conversation behind him. "The hole is the perfect size to let it through without causing it damage, thus risking it dispelling, or being large enough to be noticable for anything less than a concerted examination… this has happened before.
"There's a third snake-summoner."

Naruto stared at the Jonin.

"Orochimaru has a spy in Konoha and can communicate with him using their shared summons." Shikaku mused as he watched the video for the fourth time. "This means that he's had virtually real-time intelligence on us for… years. Only the Kamis know what he's got planned, but it can't be good…"

"The genin are entering the forest!" One of the clones called and Shikaku sighed.

"Too late to call them back." Shikaku sighed. "At least, not without severely damaging Konoha's reputation in the eyes of the other villages… I'll pull together some Jonin ready to deploy and I'll see if I can get Jiraiya on board. If we're going to encounter Orochimaru, we'll probably need a Sannin of our own…"

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"So, my old team-mate has returned." Jiraiya said, looking at his saucer of Sake, but seeing something that no-one else could. "He's planning something. Something big, dramatic, complicated and in which he takes a pivotal role… he always had a thing for dramatics."

"He did." Sarutobi Hiruzen agreed, his gaze equally unfocused. "He was my greatest student… and my greatest failure…"

Both men shared a long silence, then Jiraiya nodded as he looked up at Shikaku.

"Where do you need me?"

"In the central tower of Area 44." Shikaku stated. "Between the Guard Platoon, Naruto and his clones and the tags we've got at all the cameras, we can get a fast-reaction team to wherever we need it within minutes or even seconds."

"Orochimaru does tend to spend quite a bit of time posing before moving in on his targets, if he thinks he has the time." Jiraiya agreed. "I heard from my sources that he's become more prone to it since he went nuke-nin… dammit! I really should have pushed Naruto to sign that scroll!"

"Wait until after the stage finishes and then do it in secret." Hiruzen advised. "I'll even let you use the Hokage's Field for it."

Jiraiya whistled. "Really? Okay. You have a deal."

Hiruzen raised his Sake dish in agreement, then both men sipped appreciatively, then Jiraiya put his saucer down firmly.

"Alright, let's move to the tower. Maybe I can spar with my apprentice while I'm waiting. I'm getting rusty and if I'm going to face my old team-mate, nothing less than my best will do."

"Agreed." Hiruzen said. "Tell Naruto I have one of his father's kunai and expect to be brought in as well should Orochimaru show himself."

"Sure thing, Sensei." Jiraiya agreed. "Okay, let's go."

Hiruzen watched his last, loyal pupil leave the room, then refilled his Sake dish.

"Where did I go wrong with the other two?" He whispered to himself.

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"Hey, brat!" Jiraiya laughed as he entered the room, then he paused. "Whoah, lotta brats."

"Hey, Pervy-sage." Naruto replied, looking up from the desk where he was working through several sheets of paperwork. "Good to have you on the team. I assume that you're taking charge?"

"Well, as well as being a Sage, I am a Jonin, so I do have seniority." Jiraiya demurred. "In this case, though, I'll follow Hayate as he's the Jonin On Site."

"Ah, like Kurenai was in Wave, even after Asuma and his team joined us." Naruto realized. "Technically, Asuma was senior, having been a Jonin for longer, but since Kurenai was the one who took on the mission, she remained in charge."

"You got it." Jiraiya agreed. "I may be a Sage and a Sannin, but officially, I'm a still just Jonin. Sannin isn't actually a rank so that means that Hayate's in charge."

Naruto glanced at Hayate, who had a Deer-caught-in-the-lantern-light look.

"Is Hokage a rank?"

Jiraiya frowned in thought.

"Technically… not." He finally said. "Hokage is more of a… permanent mission position with the rank as a… well, no-one really cares about the Hokage's rank, although all so far have been Jonin."

"So I could technically become Hokage as a genin?" Naruto snorted and Jiraiya nodded.

"That's right, but I can't think of a single Hidden Village that would promote a genin to the position of Kage. Come to think of it, I can't think of a single Kage who was a genin."

"Damn, guess I need to get promoted in order to reach my goal." Naruto mock-mourned. "So, Chunin by sixteen, Jonin by twenty and Hokage by twenty-four."

"Now that I think about it, I believe that Yagura, the former Mizukage, was a Chunin." Jiraiya offered.

"Since he plunged his country into a civil war, that's not a good precedent." Naruto countered and both Hayate and Jiraiya nodded in agreement.

"Boss?" One of the clones called. "The Suna Siblings are facing off against a team from Rain!"

Jiraiya, Hayate and Naruto quickly moved to watch the confrontation.

"Umbrellas… area-effect senbon rain attacks." Jiraiya noted. "And… there! There it is!"

"He used a sand shield." Naruto noted. "Blocked all the senbon."

"He shouldn't have been able to do that." Jiraiya mused.

"Why?" Hayate asked.

"No Byakugan and some of the attack curved in to hit him from behind, but at the same time, the shield isn't all-encompassing. It blocked everything, but it only blocked where it was needed. That level of control and awareness shouldn't be possible for a genin, especially one of his age. He's either a natural genius or… oh fuck."

Everyone looked at him in surprise.

"Sand. Suna. I heard that they'd removed the one-tail from the kettle it was in, but I thought they'd sealed it into a Jonin. They didn't."

""Him?!" Naruto asked and Jiraiya nodded.

"It fits all the facts. He's a Jinchuuriki and… oh hell."

"He didn't show any mercy…" Naruto gasped and Jiraiya winced.

"That level of bloodlust he showed and the look of pleasure on his face afterwards… I've got to find a way to look at the seal. Suna doesn't have any true Seal-masters in their ranks…"

"Unlike my father." Naruto agreed. "I'm still working my through the basic stuff."

"And they've got *cough* the scroll." Hayate noted as the Suna trio exited the glade, leaving behind three piles of mangled remains that had once been shinobi. A moment later, a familiar head appeared from behind one of the bushes.

"That's Hinata!" Naruto gasped. "She must have seen the whole thing!"

"Boss! Over here!"

Naruto sup round just in time to see Sakura hurled into the air by a blast of wind, just missing Tobio's attempt to grab her. A moment later, a Kunoichi stepped out from behind a tree and Jiraiya gasped.

"That's Orochimaru! He always does that with his hands when he's about to implement a plan!"

"He's after Sasuke." Naruto realized. "Oh fuck. He's after the Sharingan!"