The castle was already ruined. Pockets of earth had been churned up all over the place. The pockets formed a trail that Naruto could see going down the hill. He could even hear the occasional explosion, although there weren't many.

He was supposed to fight Tsunade fucking Senju. Jiraiya was passed out and wouldn't wake up, but he was breathing and drooling and occasionally he'd awkwardly hump the pillow he was squeezing. Naruto shook the thought out. Two out of three legends in town. What could possibly go wrong?

000

Tsunade was trembling and getting literally stomped by that Kabuto guy. Orochimaru was smiling all creepy-like and watching. Naruto was hiding behind some rubble, making a stealthy approach. Stealth was always his best skill.

One might ask, "How can he be stealthy while wearing eye-searing orange?" Naruto would be the first to tell such a person that stealth techniques don't rely on clothing, but on knowing how not to be noticed. A simple camouflage cloak is usually all it takes to hide from people. A henge works to blend in to a crowd. And so on.

Highly skilled sensors are obviously an issue, but hiding from them depends on keeping their attention elsewhere. Street magicians know all about keeping someone's focus. Give the audience something else to look at and you can slip a card into your pocket or theirs. Same principle with stealth.

So Naruto watched and thought, thinking out tactics that didn't involve charging in. He'd fought Orochimaru in the Forest of Death and Naruto was self-aware enough to know that power against power would be a loss for him against Orochimaru.

000

Kabuto caught the glint of metal in plenty of time to pull a kunai of his own out and block. The incoming kunai was fast, but he was faster. A medical specialist ought to be and Kabuto was a very skilled medical specialist.

When the kunai released a cloud of smoke just after he deflected it, Kabuto went to bend out of the way of whatever the kunai really was.

The orange jumpsuit he caught sight of made him pause and smirk.

And then there was something on Naruto's foot that made him wish he hadn't paused. The boy's left foot was coming into a fast arc that would definitely hit Kabuto's right side. To top it off, a blue sphere of spiraling chakra was on top of the foot.

Kabuto engaged his healing technique immediately, foregoing the dodge he wasn't going to complete anyway. The chakra sphere hit and started grinding away at him. It hit so hard that Kabuto was flung several meters away and slid over the soft earth. And it hurt on top of everything.

000

Orochimaru jumped as a hand reached up from the ground beneath his feet.

"Kukukuku..."

Orochimaru had hopped away from the hand. A single kunai multiplied into dozens in the corner of his eye, flying at the airborne Sanin. The pale man regurgitated a sword and gripped it in a coil of his tongue. His arms were hanging at his sides, wrapped in bandages. The sword spun in the air, swatting the dozens of kunai.

Orochimaru landed with a slide. He saw his assistant, the grey-haired, bespectacled young man, sliding over the soft earth. He immediately thought of seventeen ninjutsu that would easily end the fight. All of them required the one thing he was currently without: hands.

000

Naruto was shocked when Kabuto stood up and pushed his glasses back up his nose. Naruto was sure he'd hit the young man squarely and at full power with the rasengan.

"Tsunade, you need to get up!"

Orochimaru's tongue danced with the sword and flew at Naruto, but Naruto was already slipping into the earth beneath him as the sword flicked and cut through the space he'd just been in. Naruto moved through the earth and spawned clones as he went.

The clones began lifting themselves up out of the earth and each one met it's end to the blade Orochimaru was wielding with his tongue.

'How do I win?'

Naruto kept moving and spawning clones as he went. He'd eventually run out of chakra, but it would at least buy him time to think.

'What is my objective?'

That was a much better question. Sure, kicking Orochimaru's ass would be awesome, but Naruto had been so completely outclassed by the legend back in the Forest of Death that he held little hope that his training since then put him in that class.

'Save Tsunade. Okay. That's something I can do. Grab her and run. Keep Orochimaru and Kabuto distracted while I leave.'

000

The clones leaping from the earth seemed endless. The kyūbi brat just had too much chakra. He might have been an excellent host if he wasn't already a jinchūriki; that just wasn't compatible with Orochimaru's technique.

And now they were flinging kunai from the earth blindly.

'What is that idiot trying to accomplish?'

Kabuto was having trouble now that they were starting to apply Kage Kunai Bunshin to the projectiles. Orochimaru rolled his eyes and stepped in. Kabuto was necessary and he was visibly limping from that Rasengan he'd taken earlier.

'Damn Jiraiya for teaching the brat that technique!'

The kunai just kept coming and multiplying. Orochimaru and Kabuto weren't at their best, but this technique was getting annoying. Orochimaru stopped protecting Kabuto with his sword and focused on his chakra.

Rashōmon was difficult without hand signs, but not impossible. Orochimaru needed a split second of peace to end this farce of a battle. Behind the wall of the Rashōmon, three mud piles built up from the ground, finally taking the form of Orochimaru. Two leapt over the Rashōmon wall and began tearing up the ground while Orochimaru and the third mud clone began ripping into the earth on his side of the barrier.

The kunai barriage lessened and finally stopped. The mud clones were turning to puddles of mud, which was impressive, and Tsunade was gone. Orochimaru closed his eyes and swallowed his sword. He reached out with his senses to search for the familiar chakra of his ex-teammate, but it was beyond his ability to sense.

"Kabuto. We're done here."

Orochimaru's face was calm and composed, but Kabuto could feel the killing intent rolling off the legend. Kabuto schooled his expression and calmly followed.

000

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So you distracted him with hundreds of kunai and took Tsunade underground to escape? Brilliant, kid! I knew you had it in you."

"But Orochimaru got away! I wasn't strong enough to face him." Naruto turned and continued pouting.

"BWAHAHAHA! Only you, kid. Only you." Jiraiya shook his head and put a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "We are legends of the Shinobi world. Legends. Do you understand? You got one over on a legend. Don't belittle that."

Naruto shrugged Jiraiya's hand off and muttered, "I got one over on Old Man Hokage too, but that doesn't mean I could've beaten him."

"You got one over on Sarutobi-sensei? How'd you manage that?!"

"Oiroke no jutsu."

"That transformation where you look like a naked girl?"

Naruto nodded.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Tsunade's head peaked over the back of the booth. Her eye was twitching. "What's this technique you're talking about that involves naked girls?"

"It's my first original technique, designed to knock out perverts."

"And how do you know what naked girls look like?" Tsunade's eye was twitching rapidly. Jiraiya slunk away while Tsunade's focus was elsewhere.

"Magazines."

Tsunade's face relaxed, her head tilted, and her brow furrowed. "Magazines?"

"Yeah. Magazines. They sell them all over. Even the ones that say, 'Adults Only,' are easy to get. Just henge into someone older and fork over the cash. I've seen a TON of older shinobi trying to be discreet about buying them, so I figured I would see what all the fuss was about. I don't really get it, to be honest, but the technique really packs a wallop."

Naruto shrugged. Tsunade was so confused that she didn't notice Naruto leave. Nor did she notice he was wearing his hitai-ite.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Shut. Up."

"The kid's just doing what it takes to win. You know as well as I do that perverts exist and nothing you do short of genocide is gonna change it. He's taking advantage of perverts, not girls."

Tsunade's eye twitched.

Jiraiya turned away from Tsunade, tucking his lips into his mouth and holding his breath. By the time he made it to the street, he couldn't hold it in anymore and started howling with laughter as he bravely ran away.

Tsunade looked at the cup then over to the bottle on her table. She picked up the bottle and flicked the cup across the room, which smashed against the wall less than two feet from the poor waiter.

"Another bottle!"

000

"How could I have won?"

Jiraiya was laying in bed, more than a little drunk.

"Be me. Or Hanzo. Or Sarutobi-sensei."

The kid was getting annoying, not least of which because he was improving so drastically. Seriously: how the fuck could he have failed the academy? Minato was a genius and he hadn't improved like this. Then again, Minato was a visual learner, not a kinesthetic learner. Maybe Naruto was a kinesthetic genius and nobody ever noticed because that's just not something anyone ever looks at.

"Be serious, Ero-sennin! I want to know what I could have done to beat Orochimaru."

Jiraiya sighed. "I dunno. If I'd been there we might have been able to take him together. You said he was using his sword with his tongue, right?"

Naruto nodded. Jiraiya's eyes were shut.

"YES! WAKE UP!"

Jiraiya jumped up, quickly spun around, and quickly fell on the bed. "I AM UP! I was thinking!"

"He was using his tongue to wield that sword. Focus, Ero-senin."

"He probably couldn't use his arms. That makes you about even in ninjutsu since your abilities are all with things that don't require hand signs. He has maybe three quarters your chakra capacity, but near-perfect chakra control. But he's always relied on hand signs because he likes learning new jutsus, but can rarely be bothered to perfect them to the point that he doesn't need hand signs. His signing speed was always ridiculous and he could do them one-handed, so it never mattered before. But if Sarutobi-sensei wrecked his arms somehow, that would explain that. And why he came to Tsunade-hime, for that matter..."

"You're rambling. How could I have won?"

"His taijutsu would destroy you and he's proficient in genjutsu. He's immune to most poisons and uses senjutsu when it suits him. Improve your taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, and learn senjutsu. Or work with others. Teamwork is awesome."

Jiraiya promptly passed out and began snoring loudly. Naruto jumped on the older man, but Jiraiya's hand grabbed Naruto's ankle and Naruto whipped through the air and into the floor.

"OW! ERO-SENIN!"

Jiraiya just continued snoring.

Naruto didn't know how to improve most of that, so he went out to the roof to think somewhere quieter than a lumbermill. It took him far longer than he'd like to admit before he sommoned Gamakichi.

The tiny toad blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Hey, bro. What's up?"

"What do you know about senjutsu?"

"Senjutsu? Uh… I think some of the older toads back at Mount Myōboku do that."

Naruto blinked. He hadn't expected to just get an answer like that. He'd expected some sort of epic quest or something. "So how do I talk to them?"

"Jeez. I guess I could see if they could reverse-summon you. Or you could just ask Jiraiya-san. He learned senjutsu decades ago."

"I can't rely on Ero-senin. He taught me that I have to figure stuff out on my own. So that's what I'm doing."

"Yeah. Okay. I'll talk to Fukasaku-sama and Shima-sama. In the morning."

With that, the small toad dispersed in a cloud of chakra smoke. Naruto frowned and ran through the summoning again.

"Awwwww man. I said I'd talk to them in the morning."

"Yeah. Thanks, but I had a couple more questions."

"I'm too young to be up this late, bro. Can we do this in the morning?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Fine, but remember to talk to those sages."

"Yeah, yeah."

That left genjutsu, taijutsu, and ninjutsu. Kakashi knew a thousand jutsus or something, but Kakashi was so lazy that he'd never teach anything. Lee's jonin-sensei might be the way to go for taijutsu training. What was his name? Gai? Guy? Something like that.

Wait. Lee was still messed up from the preliminaries and Tsunade was supposed to help him. But he'd been distracted by the whole "becoming Hokage" thing and then the fighting Tsunade thing and forgotten. He was definitely a shitty friend. He'd have to fix that.

000

Tsunade was happily sleeping propped up against the wall of her hotel room. Usually, she would've put on some comfortable pajamas and passed out, but Jiraiya was around and she just couldn't stomach the thought of the old goat catching a glimpse of her. There was a time when she wouldn't care, but that was during a war and things were different. She was different, back then.

"TSUNADE!"

Great. The blond menace. The one who'd had to rescue her from Orochimaru. And wasn't that just embarrassing. Stupid brat. She opened one eye, even though she could tell he was three feet away from her. Maybe she'd have been able to smell him if she didn't reek of alcohol so badly that she couldn't smell anything else.

It was like a nightmare monster out of her dreams. He was covered from head to toe in blood and gore. Tsunade began hyperventilating.

"Oh, no! You don't get to freak out! Not anymore! You're going to get over this bullshit! No Hokage of mine is going to be so weak that a little blood makes her freeze up."

Naruto threw some blobs of gore that spattered against Tsunade.

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

"Stop it! They're just fish! And I'm gonna keep pelting you with them until you stop me. Until you learn to deal with this whatever-it-is!"

Another round of sloppy fish smashed against Tsunade. This time Naruto shot forward and slapped her across the face.

"I'm Konoha's number one prankster and I'll find something that gets under your skin worse than blood. Believe it!"

Tsunade inched away from the blood monster into the corner. The blood monster put one hand on its chin and thought for a second. Then it cried out, "Oiroke no jutsu, Tsunade edition!"

It was her. Covered in blood. Naked as the day she was born. Something in the back of her mind started burning away at the terror. It was tiny, but it wasn't terror.

"I think I should go see if Jiraiya-sama wants to take a look. I bet he would. Unless someone can stop me~~~"

That burning in her mind raged against the terror, the dread. It wasn't just pushing it aside either. It was replacing it.

"Please d-don't."

Blood-Tsunade turned in profile. She arched her back and put a finger to her lips. She was sticking her ass and tits out like some kind of pornographic horror.

"But Jiraiya-sama won't mind a little blood. He's a real ninja. He deserves to something he likes."

The rage was pushing down against the horror and Tsunade wasn't seeing the horror anymore. Just some brat who was going to indulge positively indecent things that she only ever wanted to do with Dan! Jiraiya wasn't Dan! He didn't get to see that! THIS BRAT DIDN'T GET TO SEE THAT!

Tsunade shot up and punched the bloody imposter so hard it would have brought down the building. It resisted for just a moment before dispersing into a cloud of chakra smoke. The brat appeared in the window, covered in blood.

"I'm going to kill you."

"That's all it took? A little fanservice? Seriously?"

"GGRAAAAAAAAWWWWW!"

Another clone went "POOF." Tsunade looked down to the street. There was another Naruto covered in blood. He was holding his stomach. Tsunade could see a small section of intestine in his hands. Her eyes shot open and then the brat turned back into that fanservice Tsunade. It turned back into a boy with his guts hanging out before she struck.

000

Naruto winced. That last clone had used a scene from a foreign horror film: Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Only Naruto had added more gore. Stuff he'd seen in hospitals and butcher shops mixed together. Tsunade wasn't stopping anymore. He spawned another clone and let it slip out of the ground where he was hiding.

"It sure doesn't look like blood is giving you trouble now, granny."

Tsunade was crying though. That couldn't be good.

"If you EVER show Jiraiya what I look like naked, I don't care what you've done, I don't care what your dreams are, I don't care how much you remind me of my dead brother, I will end you. Are we clear? I will END you. I will torture you to death in ways more painful than you could possibly imagine. I will put your balls in a jar on my desk as a warning to others. It will be the only thing left of you. And I will be able to do this because you spent all night tortured me. So yes, I'm over the hemophobia. You are one transformation away from ending. Are we clear?"

Naruto gulped. "Yes, Hokage-sama. Jiraiya doesn't know I can do that and I swear he will never find out."

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

000

Two men in black cloaks with red clouds stood watching. One had blue skin and shark-like teeth.

"Did you hear what she said?"

"Of course. We're leaving."

"A tactical retreat?"

"We can't take two Sanin. Especially now."

The large, blue man nodded and shuddered. "I don't want my balls in a jar on her desk either. Killing is one thing, but that's just wrong."