Author's note – Kishimoto Masashi owns Naruto while Guyver is written by Yoshiki Takaya.
I make no claim to either, I am merely playing in their sandboxes.

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Chapter Thirty-Four

Toad

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Ino opened the door,one hand rubbing at her eyes and looked blearily at the tall shape standing on the doorstep.

"Huh?"

"Hello, little miss." The shape said and Ino rubbed at her eyes again as she tried to force her mind into gear. "I was hoping to speak to Naruto."

Ino fought to concentrate, then a figure appeared behind her and pressed a cup into her hands. Lifting it, Ino took a sip of the coffee, then let herself be led back inside and placed on a sofa.

"Sorry, Ino's not really a morning person. Boss is doing an early patrol, but he'll be back soon." Naruto's voice said and Ino mentally noted that probably meant that the Naruto speaking was another clone.

"And little miss here is…?"

"Yamanaka Ino, Boss's second fiancee." The clone replied. "She tends to need coffee in the mornings in order to actually wake up. We make sure she carries caffeine pills whenever she has a mission that includes an overnight stop."

Ino scowled into the life-giving beverage. She wasn't that bad, kami-dammit!

Was she?

"Morning!" Hinata almost sang as she glided down the stairs and Ino growled into her coffee. Some people were kind enough to not be sparkling in the morning. If Hinata wasn't such a nice person, Ino would hate her for her ability to go from sleep to awake in only a few minutes. "Who's this?"

"Jiraiya of the Sannin." The clone replied. "My father's sensei."

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "You know that your parentage is an S-ranked secret, right?"

"Yeah, but they both know." The clone shrugged as a second clone emerged from the kitchen with a plate of freshly-baked cinnamon rolls. Hinata almost teleported across the room and grabbed one.

"Twerly. Dunlyket." Ino grumbled and Jiraiya laughed.

"Wow, one morning lark and one night owl. How do you keep up with both of them?"

"Lots and lots of us clones." Came the reply. "Boss usually assigns three clones to run errands for each of them whenever they're home. Not that we mind, they appreciate us."

"Naruto uses you to do the chores?" Jiraiya asked, obviously amused and Ino managed to focus enough to see the Naruto-clone that was talking to their visitor nodding.

"Yep. It's not like us Kage Bunshin are useful in actual combat, one hit and we're gone. Rock clones are way better in a fight. Nope, we do the chores, keep the place going and do lots of chakra control exercises and ninjutsu training."

"Huh, clever." Jiraiya admitted. "Get training done while still earning. Very nice."

Ino yawned as she handed the empty mug to another Naruto, then blinked several times.

"When did you arrive?" She demanded and Jiraiya stared at her blankly.

"Before you had your coffee." The clone supplied and Ino blinked before nodding.

"Oh, right. I'm going to have a wash. 'nata-chan?"

"I'll keep an eye on him." Hinata smiled before taking a bite out of another roll. "Mmmmhmmm."

"…huh." Jiraiya finally managed. "I wasn't expecting… this."

"Coffee?"

Jiraiya accepted the proffered mug and took a sip before staring at it. "Wow! This is good!"

"We took lessons from Ino's mom." The clone shrugged. "She learned how to brew it because Inoichi is not a morning person either."

"Heh, yeah, he isn't." Jiraiya said, half-lost in memory. "I remember the time on a diplomatic mission when he was told to get dressed and came back wearing Choza's clothes. He had stumbled into the wrong room and not noticed…"

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Naruto opened the front door as Jiraiya finished his story.

"…so there I was, dripping wet, wearing only my fundoshi and holding the raijin, while a group of Kumo merchants stared at me. Now, if any of them had run for the nearby ninja, I'd have probably been killed right then and there, but then Sensei steps out of the alleyway henged into full samurai regalia and goes 'There you are! Drunk again!' Now, I have no damned clue what he's going on about, then he grabs the raijin and demands 'Where is it? Where is the rest of your sword?' The civilians start laughing as Sensei pulled me away and back to the rest of the team before we got the hell out of there. Those Kumo-nin never even realized that we had been there, they were too busy laughing about the Drunken Samurai."

Ino wiped the tears from her eyes as she curled up in laughter while Hinata was almost sobbing with laughter.

"Well, Naruto's back and I have business with him." Jiraiya said, turning to nod at Naruto, then freezing. "You!"

"You!" Naruto gasped in realization. "The peeping pervert!"

"Hey, I am not a pervert!" Jiraiya protested as he rose from the chair he had been sprawled in. "I'm a super pervert!"

"And this is different… how?" Naruto deadpanned.

"Simple. I have standards!" Jiraiya stated. "As I told your lovely wives-to-be."

"Standards." Naruto repeated dully. "How does a pervert have standards?"

"Oh, it's simple." Jiraiya grinned. "Don't corrupt the innocent girls, their innocence is to be cherished. Never take advantage of a woman in her moment of weakness, the final decision must always be hers. Never avoid the blows of a single woman, but always flee the group. Things like that. I only really perv on those who appreciate it, or those who are willing and able to defend themselves. Anything else is just wrong."

"That… I have no idea if that's deep or not." Hinata admitted as she pulled herself to her feet.

"I… don't know either." Ino admitted, then she glanced at the clock on the rock wall. "Whoah! Time to leave! See you this afternoon, Naruto-kun!"

Ino dashed to the door, pausing just long enough to kiss Naruto on his cheek, then she vanished down the path. Hinata followed suit, giving Naruto a big hug before she too departed.

"You are one lucky brat, you know that?" Jiraiya asked as he leaned against the wall. "Two kunoichi who care for you and a damned nice house."

"It used to belong to my father before I moved it." Naruto replied and Jiraiya nodded.

"I knew it looked familiar."

"So, why are you here?"

"Because there are things you need." Jiraiya said soberly. "Your father left a couple of things to be delivered to you once you reached chunin. His signature moves, for instance. I can teach you the rasengan and there are a trio of chunin in the village that know a variant of the Hiraishin. They'll teach you after the exams but for now, you can learn this move."

Naruto stared at the sphere of chakra in Jiraiya's hand.

"You'll also sign the Toad Contract, like your father did." Jiraiya continued. "Once you do so, I'll teach you the basics of Gamaken. It'll help you learn the Kawazu Kumite in a few years."

"Let me have a quick wash and breakfast, then we can start." Naruto said as he created several dozen more clones. "Huh, interesting stories… the raijin…?"

"I know, it's in Ame now." Jiraiya shrugged. "We'll get it back again some day. Heh, you've almost perfected that memory-transfer thing of yours, haven't you?"

"I think so." Naruto agreed as he walked past the Toad Hermit. "Of course, there's always room for improvement."

Jiraiya watched Naruto vanish into the bathroom, then he sighed.

"Minato, you'd have been so damned proud of him."

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"Alright." Naruto said as he and Jiraya stood at the top of the cliff-path in the area known as known as the smokers corner, overlooking his house below. Naruto hid a smirk at the explanation for it that he had found, underneath a nearby bush was the top of the chimney from the mess hall of the underground base and the area had been nicknamed as such to encourage smokers to congregate there, thus hiding the smell of the charcoal used in the oven. "So, what's first?"

Jiraiya unslung the large scroll that he had been carrying and placed it on the ground, pushing it so that it unrolled slightly. Naruto stared at the names listed.

"I thought that you said my father signed this? I can see your signature, but… who's Arashi?"

"That's Minato." Jiraiya corrected and Naruto squinted at the scroll.

"Really? Looks like Arashi to me." Naruto mused, then he shrugged. "So, do I use a pen or…"

"Blood, specifically yours." Jiraiya said. "Prick your fingers and write your name in blood. It tells the toads that you're their new summoner."

Naruto unsealed a kunai from his wrist-seal, causing Jiraiya's eyebrows to climb rapidly, then he drew the edge of the blade across his thumb. Moving to the first empty space on the scroll, Naruto scrawled his name before his wound could close.

"Uzu-maki na-ru-to." He muttered as he finished the process. "Done. Now what?"

"Now we try to have you summon a toad to complete the process." Jiraiya said, rolling up the scroll. "Pay attention, the sequence is boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram, kuchiyose no jutsu. You need to shed a few drops of blood for this, so most summoners bite their thumb before doing the seals."

"Right." Naruto said absently as he slowly ran through the seals. "How much chakra will I need? As much as a Kage Bunshin? More? And do I release it throughout the technique or in a blast at the end?"

"More than a clone, half and half." Jiraiya stated. "As much chakra as you can manage. In fact, you may need to tap into your other chakra for that."

"I'll ask Fu for help with that." Naruto said as he ran through the sequence of seals again. "I'm in the middle of a project for her, I had to re-assign almost thirty clones to it."

Jiraiya's already-raised eyebrows nearly vanished under his hitai-ate. "Thirty clones? How many can you make?"

Naruto paused, frowning in thought.

"That… is an interesting question." He finally admitted. "I don't know. Couple of hundred easily, maybe up to a thousand or so? The memory backlash would be ferocious, though, so it would be a very bad idea."

"…yeah. It would." Jiraiya finally managed. So, you ready to try summoning?"

"Give me a couple of minutes to channel my chakra." Naruto replied as he finished running through the seals one more time. "I've got the sequence down but doing it on half a charge wouldn't be a good idea."

"…right." Jiraiya drawled, shaking his head. "So… take as long as you need."

Naruto nodded as he dropped into a cross-legged pose, holding his hands in front of him in a ram seal. Closing his eyes, he began breathing evenly and Jiraiya felt his hair start to prickle.

"Damn, kid." He muttered. "That's a lot of chakra. Wait, who the hell is Fu?"

Moving slowly, Naruto stood up, then dropped to one knee before he bit his thumb and raced through the seals.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

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"Hey, Hinata!" Ino called as she entered the house. "You in?"

"We had an early finish, given that we're entering the exam in a couple of days." Hinata called from the kitchen, where she and a clone were preparing a drink. "Sasuke and Kiba are relaxing in the onsen, is your team here as well?"

"They had to go home, clan things." Ino sighed. "I'm thinking of visiting my parents after tea, or going to see Sakura. Is Naruto here?"

"Boss is doing some training with Jiraiya." The clone replied as Ino finished placing her sandals in the shoe rack. "He's at smoker's corner if you need him, but it needs to be important."

"Yeah." Ino said as she walked towards the bathroom. "I'm not going to interrupt his training, especially not when he's training with the last loyal Sannin."

"Aren't you afraid that Jiraiya might rub off on Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked and Ino laughed.

"I hope he does a bit. Your clan probably knows about reproduction early because of your eyes and when I was training in my clan's techniques, I saw enough in my teachers memories that I had to have the Talk when I was ten."

"I had my first one at eight." Hinata blushed. "I received the full Talk just before I moved here, though."

Ino nodded. "I don't think that Naruto has had the Talk." She said as she reached the bathroom door. "Who should we ask to give it to him?"

"JIRAIYA!"

"What the heck was that?" Ino squeaked as the bellow echoed through the house.

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"Oh shit." Jiraiya whispered.

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Author's afternote – No, you don't get a prize for guessing who bellowed.