Chapter 13: Responsibility

"He specializes in kenjutsu and an obscure secretive art requiring years of study. I am obviously the superior choice to head his training." Were the heated words of the Snake Sannin, buffeted by the winds around them.

"That is where you are wrong, dear Orochimaru-chan. You and Naruto may both utilize a sword, but your similarities end there. You fight like a snake. Precision, speed, technique, and intelligence. Naruto is a walking tank. Even before he could use his armor technique, the gaki's strategy has mostly boiled down to being able to take the heavy hits and push right on through." Jiraiya spoke confidently, because for once, he was intellectually ahead of his teammate.

Not one to be proven wrong, Orochimaru was prepared for this argument. "Oh Jiraiya-kun, we both know I've always been better with people." The irony in her statement was not lost on either person in the conversation.

"In the Chunin exams he was the epitome of fighting like a snake. He dictated every move inside that arena, even when he was the one standing still. Hell, he found the most intelligent and surprising solution to make another village's living weapon look like an academy student."

What the snake Sannin hadn't expected to see from Jiraiya after her near perfect analysis of her student's performance in the exams, was a smirk. He had obviously been prepared for this.

"Hai, he was quite flawless in those fights." He let more than a little pride tinge his voice when he spoke. "But those were exams, in which his promotion hinged on him displaying those exact skills. If you just told him to fight those people and win, do you know what he would do?"

Orochimaru had a few good ideas about what Naruto might do, although a few of them were probably more what she hoped he would do. But she could also tell that Jiraiya had meant the question more rhetorically. "What, oh mighty toad sage, would he do?"

Jiraiyed paused for a moment to internally grumble at her word choice. Had she already picked that up from the gaki, or was it a coincidence? Nevertheless, he was prepared and would let nothing slow him down for long.

"He would bullrush each and every single one of them and crush them."

Orochimaru opened her mouth briefly, as if to rebuke the statement. But she quickly closed it when she realized Jiraiya was correct. She hated to admit it, even if only internally, but the stupid toad was right. How had she missed that?

That's when she remembered meeting Tsunade, his very brief fights with Itachi and Kisame, even how he interacted with Sunagakure's Jinchuuriki on their diplomatic mission. Naruto always cut right to the chase in every encounter.

During the Chunin exams, he didn't really get a rise out of his opponents to put them off their game, he hadn't needed them to underperform to win anyway. He did it to make them attack him, so that he could end the matches quicker and remain in control.

"Shit!" It took her a moment to even realize she had said that out loud. Another few moments to realize who she said it in front of. And exactly one moment after that to realize what that meant.

Once again, Jiraiya had somehow already beaten her to the punch. Jumping up from his seated position on the ground and beginning some weird dance with far too much arm movement. "Yes! Orochimaru has admitted she was wrong! Drinks are on you tonight, and I'm inviting Tsunade-Hime."

'Well shit. Thank Kami I have a small village to line my bank account.' The female Sannin quietly bemoaned to herself. "Why did I ever agree to that?"

"Because you're naturally cocky and never thought you would be wrong?" Was Jiraiya's near instantaneous reply. His dumb dance continued, he painted an odd silhouette against the backdrop of Konoha, hundreds of feet below them.

What both Sannin were referring to was a bet their team had made in rain country after barely surviving the battle against Hanzo. Originally meant more as a 'if we survive this' sort of agreement, but they ended up holding it up for some reason. Perhaps nostalgia, or habit?

The only other time either Tsunade or Jiraiya had gotten Orochimaru to admit she was wrong had actually been about who Sarutobi would name as the next Hokage. The snake had thought for certain it would be one of the trio, but Hiruzen had chosen to start grooming Minato for the position.

The ensuing disaster that occurred as a result of giving Tsunade enough free drinks to drown a small town in sake would go down in Konoha's history as one of the most violent bar brawls to ever take place. All three of them would certainly still be banned from the bar if Tsunade hadn't reduced it to rubble when their sensei had come to rein them in. They were given a three hour lecture the next morning in his office, but none of them would remember a single second of it due to the overbearing hangovers.

Orochimaru took a moment to center herself, it wouldn't do to try and kill Jiraiya in this moment. Even if she knew dozens of techniques or locations to hide or dispose of the body, and just as many ways to escape the village undetected. 'Some of the old root tunnels are still nearby, it would take me less than fifteen seconds to disable their security seals and under a minute total to get beyond the walls and be on my way to rice country.'

"You can't disable me with poison fast enough to stop me from forming a Rasengan in your stomach, Rochi-chan." A sardonic reply to her inner monologue could be heard from her counterpart, breaking her from her thoughts. "And I know for a fact that Sensei keeps much more than security seals in those old tunnels to monitor them."

Orochimaru was visibly surprised by Jiraiya's words. Granted, that visible surprise was a single one of her well groomed eyebrows raised by a hair. But for a Kunoichi like her, that was a rather large tell. "How could you possibly have known that's what I'm thinking?"

She took note as Jiraiya's guard visibly lowered. It wasn't much but she knew when someone was preparing themselves. His weight shifted ever so slightly back as he moved it from the balls of his feet back to his heels, the inner mane of his hair had subtly gone from hardened by chakra back to normal hair, and his eyes went back to meeting her own more directly instead of searching for minute details.

Not that either of them would have actually killed the other, or even really hurt them. But it was far from uncommon for either her or Tsunade to commit the occasional act of violence to prove a point, or as a form of punishment for Jiraiya or even Hiruzen occasionally.

"You have a habit of looking down your nose at prey, and after a few decades I've learned to tell the minute shift in how you look at both." The man said with a straight face.

Once again stunned at Jiraiya's attention to detail it took her a moment to respond. "How in the hell could you have possibly learned that?"

"Nah, I'm kidding." His demeanor immediately lightened as he spoke. "You just look down your nose at people when you are thinking about the many different ways to kill them. Tsunade basically does the opposite, although she normally tends to start swinging as soon as she tilts her head down anyway, so I don't get to see it for very long."

"How often do we fantasize about killing you, that you've had the time to figure that out?" Orochimaru was a little incredulous. Tsunade definitely hit Jiraiya a lot, the man mostly deserved it as well, being a massive public pervert and all. But it couldn't happen that often, could it?

"Rochi-chan, I noticed that when we were fourteen. Tsunade hit me at least twice a day and it's practically the only way you ever looked at me for our first six months as a team."

The Snake Sannin had almost forgotten about that. She hadn't often spent a lot of time pondering her team in its early years. Yes they were certainly formidable ninja for their age, but they didn't really become the team she recognized as The Sannin until they were a few years older. That was when they had truly begun to come into their own, at least in her own opinion. They hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of S-Rank, but they had truly started to come together as a team.

That's when she realized how foolish she had been until now. That was when Jiraiya had more or less stopped being the punching bag of the team. True, he still allows Tsunade to hit him occasionally and even Orochimaru sometimes. But he allowed it. She had seen him catch a punch from Tsunade before outside of his Sage enhanced form. He broke a few bones in his hand, but he stopped it outright, and in that moment could have certainly killed the healer if he had been an enemy ninja.

They were probably sixteen at the time and had all made Jonin already, they had recently gotten back from a large mission. She didn't remember the exact argument, but it had gotten quite heated between Jiraiya and Tsunade. He had actually made a good point, and Tsunade realized it, but instead of conceding she turned to hit him. Orochimaru could tell it would have been quite hard, she's seen her hit enemy ninja softer.

Instead of dodging like he normally did when she got like this, Jiraiya actually stepped into her strike and caught the fist with one hand. Even a few meters away Orochimaru could feel the force and chakra from the stopped blow, not to mention hear what she assumed were the cracks in Jiraiya's hands.

His face had been made of stone, and he looked ready to hit his 'beloved' Tsunade back, but instead he flipped her over his shoulder by the arm and into the dirt street below them.

Orochimaru wasn't sure anymore of who was the strongest in the Sannin. It almost certainly came down between herself and Jiraiya. Either of them would rather easily neutralize Tsunade in most scenarios, although they would need to do it quickly, but it was possible even when she was keeping up with her training. But between the two of them, Orochimaru theorized that Jiraiya would win in more scenarios than she would.

Partially because Jiraiya had been pretty correct when he had summarized her overall fighting style earlier. She did fight like a snake, and he fought like a giant brawler. He threw chakra around the battlefield like most ninja throw shuriken and kunai. While his summons were able to compliment him in a wide variety of ways, not even including his ability to absorb natural energy and utilize it. Something that has eluded her for almost twenty years.

Although, the margins for victory in every fight are incredibly slim, including with Tsunade. Her self-healing and strength alone make her incredibly deadly, her ability to neutralize any of the snake's poisons made her even more resilient. But for whatever reason, they always seemed to stay together as a team, even when they couldn't physically.

"You're doing it again." Once again, she had been broken out of her reverie by her white haired teammate. Although at least these ones weren't about murdering him, only them killing each other.

"I'm sorry, Jiraiya." She said with a sincere and somber tone. Her face mildly matching her words. Eyes softening and lips turning down, even if only slightly.

It looked odd for Jiraiya to see her white face like that. She had never been an emotive or even emotionally connected person. She certainly had them, they were just, deeper down.

"What?" Now it was Jiraiya's turn to be very surprised. Orochimaru never apologizes. "Why? You only spaced out for a few seconds?"

"No you dolt! I'm not sorry about that." Her voice caught ever so slightly, she remembered that was not the way normal people apologize. "I am sorry, Jiraiya. For how we treated you as a team for so long. I was brought back to some things I had almost forgotten about, repressed really."

She thought she may have seen some recognition on his face, but didn't stop talking to ponder it.

"And I remembered how poorly we treated you. Hitting you, mocking you, putting you down, and sensei was hardly better early on." He cut her off with a hand gesture before she could continue.

She hadn't expected it, and had to physically stop herself from reacting and drawing a kunai to stab him when he moved closer, but she was quickly embraced by her teammate. "Shut up. You idiot."

Two internal images of the man warred within herself for a moment. On one side she could feel him trembling slightly, even as he was hugging her. While on the other she could practically hear the smile on his face. But she felt herself returning the platonic gesture from her longtime teammate.

"We are a family." He spoke again before releasing her from the embrace. He took a step back, giving her distance, but still a bit closer than he had been before. "I've never trusted anyone more to watch my ass than either of you. And I forgave you decades ago."

Against her will she could feel herself relax slightly. Her tensing muscles also calmed down, the emotional moment between the two mostly over. "Thank you" she said quietly, but she knew that he heard her.

"Now if you ever apologize again I might have to kill you." He laughed, "I swear to Kami I thought someone had managed to impersonate you for a moment." An exaggerated sigh left his mouth as he pretended to wipe sweat off his brow.

"Do you even remember what had caused that argument?" She asked him, genuine curiosity had gotten the better of her. It helped that she had more experience showing curiosity than displaying emotions.

"Tsunade had been in command and had gotten a squad of Chunin killed." His voice was somber as he remembered the events, he obviously thought of them often when he was alone. "At the time, I had told her to send me, because I was certain the rogue ninja we were tracking were in that section of the forest. But she hadn't believed they could slip by us, so she allowed them to go unaided to check our back lines for stragglers."

Now Orochimaru remembered. There had been a prison break on Fire country's border. Most of the prisoners were ex-samurai or soldiers turned bandits, but there had also been a small group of nuke-nin and lower level genin runaways. The main priority had been to capture or eliminate any escapees capable of wielding chakra, with additional orders to help round up the other less dangerous prisoners.

The genin went down easily and Tsunade thought they had tracked the dangerous nuke-nin to a valley with a few caves. She planned to send an auxiliary squad of Chunin, a five man team, back to alert the other search parties and help round up others in the area. Not a bad allocation of resources, Orochimaru could remember agreeing with her.

But her slug summoning teammate had been mistaken, one C-rank nuke-nin had split off and stupidly gotten himself trapped in the valley by the search teams. While the actually dangerous criminals, three A-ranked missing ninja from Iwagakure and a recently captured Jonin from Kumogakure, had slipped behind them and moved for the border.

"They killed them like dogs, and we were too far behind to help once Tsunade realized I had been right." He had looked towards the sky as he spoke, as if pondering some great mystery, but she knew he was just hiding his face.

The Chunin team had all but run straight into the criminals and were slaughtered. Orochimaru and her team arrived too late, and their squad plus the two supporting Jonin and Chunin teams spent the next five hours chasing the escapees to the border before eventually killing them. Jiraiya had been so livid that he had killed two of the Iwagakure ninja himself when they tried to surrender.

"Are you two lovebirds done reminiscing?" Tsunade's voice broke them both out of their conversation. She had only just arrived on the roof located above her new office. Neither Orochimaru or Jiraiya were certain what she had overheard or how much. But they could both guess it was a good amount.

She moved past them and walked towards the edge of the tower. The Hokage's hat sat on her head, but the robes were absent, her normal clothes and green gambling jacket made for a striking clash of two differing styles. Old formalities versus new vices.

The wind was noticeably buffeting the hat on her head, but a subtle application of chakra allowed it to stay in place, albeit slightly more crooked than it had looked previously. "Oddly, it makes the whole look come together better, Hime." Jiraiya's voice mirrored Orochimaru's thoughts out into reality.

'Perverted Toad is getting a little too good at that.' The White Snake thought internally.

Tsunade didn't seem to even pick up on Jiraiya's voice. She still stood out facing over the village, silently looking at those she had only recently sworn to protect. Her vows made in nearly the exact same spot only earlier that same morning.

"How am I supposed to lead this village when I am unable to even listen to good advice?" She asked aloud.

Neither of them spoke, uncertain whether she had been asking the question rhetorically or not. Jiraiya looked lost, seeming to momentarily flash back to their days as a new Genin team. He felt tiny, as if he was once again standing in front of the recent legendary ninja Hiruzen Sarutobi while his teammates stood beside him. The prodigious rookie of the year Orochimaru, and Tsunade who was the great granddaughter to Hashirama Senju.

"How can I expect to do anything good if I spent years treating one of my best friends like trash, and then abandoned everyone and everything that had ever meant anything to me? All so I could drink and gamble to protect myself from the same hardships and problems they all have the strength to face everyday."

Surprisingly, it was Orochimaru the scientist, not Jiraiya the philosophical sage, who came up with the correct answer. "Because you already made those mistakes. Because you are a woman who has dedicated her life to learning, and in doing so became the greatest medical ninja to walk the Elemental Nations."

Tsunade still hadn't turned around. Her posture still stood tall over the village as another strong gust of wind finally took the hat off of her head. It carried it behind her with the wind.

But before it could escape the rooftop, Jiraiya snatched it deftly from the windcurrents carrying the white hat. "Tsunade. We've all made more mistakes than most ninja could ever hope to live long enough to make. And we are all far from done. Hell, I'm sure you aren't done making them either."

Orochimaru gave her teammates a look, communicating the physical danger he was possibly inciting upon himself. But the taller man pressed onward. "But we are a product of our mistakes as much as our successes. Neutralizing some of the best poison experts in the world during a war, and running away to cope with horrors and loss, can both equally make you a better or worse person. It all depends on what you do after."

His words seemed to have helped Tsunade in some way, because she had finally decided to turn around and face her teammates again. She accepted the hat back from Jiraiya's hands, before sticking it back on her head and once again securing it with chakra. In the same slightly crooked manner the wind had blown it previously, much to Jiraiya's inner delight.

"If either of you speak a word of this to anyone, there will be two equally bloody smears on the walls of my new office." Her tone was deadly and spoke of the finality in her words. They both thought that she had finally started sounding like a Kage. Her former teammates gave their Hokage a lazy salute before she pulled them into a hug.

It was such a perfect moment that Jiraiya had decided he wouldn't even ruin it by trying to cop a feel on either of his lovely teammates.

A large cavernous chamber currently sat empty of inhabitants. In its center sat a large circular stone table with nine identical earthen chairs, with one of the nine being the sole to possess a high back.

All at once, as if given life, the cavern erupted in light. Sconces, once invisible in the pitch black, were now lit and roaring with chakra tinged flames. In the center of the massive stone table set a fireplace resting half-buried within it, lacking wood or any other visible fuel source to burn.

Yet, as the image of an orange haired man with odd piercings seemed to apparate into existence at the only chair with a back, flames burst forth to occupy the fuel-less fireplace. The technique he utilized to project his image made him appear to be more static feedback than genuine decoy, but it served its purpose.

Quickly after, the lone man was joined by five others using the same technique, each at their own seats to his left.

More than a few moments of silence pass before a voice finally speaks up. The deep rough voice of the largest figure in the room, "This isn't the normal meeting place."

"No, it is not." The first man to arrive said with a low growl. "As you may or may not have noticed. We are currently down two members, because apparently Orochimaru knows far more than we thought she did!"

The presence of his chakra made his displeasure known to those present. Even far away from their real bodies, they could feel its power and anger.

The larger man's partner, Itachi Uchiha, decided to interject. "Leader-Sama. We did not know of Tsunade's involvement until we were already acting, and their prior knowledge made Hidan obsolete."

His tone was clinical. Hidan hadn't been useless, he was obsolete.

"Your point being, Uchiha?" The man in charge did not appear to enjoy losing. Let alone for the man who made those mistakes to then point them out like he just had.

"That the loss of Kakuzu may set us back a bit. But Hidan's loss was just culling the herd. And in return for the information we gathered on Konoha and their Jinchuuriki, it might have been worth it."

"Then you fail to understand the scope of our plan. We will most likely be unable to completely bolster our ranks in time, which will slow the ritual down significantly. That means we need something to put between ourselves and the villages when we need to perform the sealings."

The man spoke with a sort of iron that made it hard to not listen. And the way he spoke let everyone know that he wasn't posing a question to them. He didn't care what their thoughts were on the next course of action.

"It sounds like you already know our next course of action then?" The low gruff tone of their resident spymaster. He seemed annoyed to not be keyed into something like this.

"Relax. You are only out of the loop because we needed to prune more of our poisoned branches. Konan is currently unsure of just how much she actually knows so we've had to prune quite a lot." The man had almost seemed placating for a moment. If the literal force he was exerting on everyone in the room hadn't accentuated his every word.

Even Sasori seemed to noticeably buckle under the pressure. Before it relented all together.

"Konoha's beast may be out of reach for the moment, but Konoha cannot drop all their might on us if they are on other fronts. We just need to be patient farmers and sow a little unrest."

Everyone seemed to nod in understanding at his words, but Sasori was the only one to say it.

"Ahhh," the realization dawned on him alongside the other members. "You want a war."

"I want them to know Pain."

Training With Orochimaru - Part 4.

Directly After Part 3

Orochimaru the White Snake of Konoha was not someone easily surprised. She's literally lived through two wars, and survived a battle with Hanzo of the Salamander. So when her snake summons returned to inform her of Naruto's breakthrough in his current lesson, she was startled to say the least. She cut her own meeting with two of her top sound ninja short and made an abrupt b-line for her sensei's office; he needed to know this.

She barged through the door, interrupting some sort of meeting between Jiraiya and Hiruzen. Judging by the various coded messages, dossiers, and maps that neither shinobi even moved to hide or obscure from her. Although, they both did manage a slightly baffled look at her abrupt entrance. Not that it was entirely out of character for her to interrupt something like this, she just normally did it to prove a point or inconvenience someone.

"He gained access to natural chakra." She crossed her arms as they both looked back at her, Jiraiya had been behind Hiruzen at his desk viewing some documents. They both immediately began to look panicked, a tiny nod from Hiruzen saw two shadows disappear from a corner of the room.

"He what?" Her ever so elegant male teammate asked.

"He somehow drew in natural chakra while he was working to overcome the silencing barrier technique." She reiterated, her gaze locking with Jiraiya's own. Trying to convey just how serious she was being.

"Wait, you put him through that test already? He's barely a Chunin." But Jiraiya's verbal qualms were halted by a raised hand from his sensei.

It was Hiruzen's turn to ask something stupid this time. Apprehension was clear on his face and in his tone. "Orochimaru, did you allow your student to experiment with natural chakra without supervision?"

"Sensei, even if I could do that, not even I would be so reckless. I want a student who will toss the shinobi world into disarray, you know, reset the status quo. He would have a hard time doing that as a statue." Her reply was sarcastic more out of habit than actual intention. She was as put off by this progress in his development as the others in the room.

"How? How could he even begin to grasp at it? I needed the toads and Mt. Myoboku just to grasp at natural energy's very existence. Let alone the amount of help I needed to not die." The toad sage looked more than a little exasperated.

This teenager, barely a Chunin, managed to not only feel natural chakra but utilize it? He would be lying if he said he didn't feel a little emasculated, and yet oddly proud as well.

An Anbu appeared beside the Hokage and whispered something in his ear. Hiruzen finally allowed a smile to cross his lips, apparently satisfied that the kid wasn't dead or decorating Konoha's forests as a brand new stone statue. "It seems you underestimated the boy." He chuckled briefly. "You asked him to overcome a seemingly impossible obstacle, and he did so. You are the one who wanted a student who could change the system, did you not?"

Orochimaru, who had only been able to spend a few days with Naruto since she returned during the exams, still hadn't spent enough time with him to understand just how the boy operated. "I had meant to teach him how to grasp failure and move forward." She was still struggling to grasp that this teen had just spat on the natural boundaries of shinobi development.

"It took me three years to develop my own solution when you gave us the test, it took Jiraiya even longer, and Tsunade only got it before me because she can cheat with medical ninjutsu." Hiruzen had to suppress a giggle at Orochimaru's explanation of how her team beat his little test.

"Not only did he do it in three days, years ahead of anyone present, but he did it by somehow utilizing an energy so volatile it can turn people to stone. That isn't turning the system on its head, that should be impossible." She couldn't help but sound a little exasperated.

Hiruzen only looked like a proud father. Not only was he proud of Orochimaru for 'growing up' and learning the joys of mentoring (being incredibly annoyed at teenagers), but proud of Naruto for his accomplishment. Even if he knew he didn't necessarily have the right to.

"Are you saying his progress is too much for you to handle?" Was Hiruzen's sly reply.

"Kukuku, of course not sensei. Of course not. But is it not fun to sit and marvel when you witness history being made?" He had called her game rather quick, but it was more likely he knew from the beginning.

Jiraiya still looked puzzled, to say the very least. One could almost hear the gears turning in his head while he listened to his teammate speak. "How is he able to balance the natural energy? He's a chakra monster for sure, but if he can only skim the surface of the latent natural energy then he shouldn't be able to take it in and balance it."

Now it was her turn to look confused, like her blonde student had when she first set gave him this challenge. "What?" She may be a woman of science and learning but she certainly did not know everything, no matter how much she projected otherwise. So she actually knew relatively little about how natural energy interacted with a person and their chakra. Most of her information was either very old, rumor and hearsay, or vague information from Jiraiya.

She knew the Snake's had a grasp on how to interact with natural energy; and according to Jiraiya it was different from how the Toad's own 'Senjutsu' works. Although, she had not been allowed to train in natural energy with the snakes, supposedly due to her 'competitive' nature being too misaligned with it.

"Perhaps his utilization of chakra smithing has allowed him to somehow bend the necessity to balance the natural energy with his own chakra?" Posited the man also known as The Professor. They currently had no scientific reason to suspect such, but other than containing the Kyuubi, Naruto's Chakra Smithing is the only reason Hiruzen could see that would set him apart and possibly allow him to break a rule supposedly set in stone.

His white haired student was the next to hop on the train of theorizing how this could be possible. "Or could it be something to do with his chakra smithed weapons? I know he somehow stores his own tempered chakra within them. Although, that science-y stuff is more Rochi-Chan's area of expertise."

Orochimaru merely rolled her eyes, and turned to her sensei as she gestured at Jiraiya. "The man has been training him for at least a month and he has no idea how his technique's even work? And people still think that I'm the worst Sannin."

Not one to let a jab go without response, Jiraiya spoke up. "No, they think you are the scariest Sannin. And I would be inclined to agree with them." She glared kunai at him, which only caused him to gesture towards her with an expression that said 'see what I mean?'

"Clearly, you two are more than mature enough to handle such a delicate situation." Surprisingly both of his students' shoulders slumped at this. Causing Hiruzen's mirthful grin to widen as they both seemed to non-verbally blame each other. He couldn't help but reminisce back to when he was still there Jonin-sensei and the three of them would bicker like schoolchildren instead of the deadly ninja they were.

Oops. Didn't quite realize it had been so long and that I had never edited or uploaded these chapters. I've been busy with work, I promise I didn't just abandon it.

I'm in a weird position with a lot of this story for a few reasons. Like I already have most of the end actually written, not just the main points written down, so I know where I'm heading but I'm missing a bunch of the road. I also was going to do a little snow mission chapter that was just supposed to be a nice short update. And then I wrote 23 pages and changed the whole thing so that it's sorta vital for plot development.

Not to ramble to much, but I should be putting out more stuff really soon. And then I'll decide if this thing is going to be incredibly long, or just too long. Because at this point in the planning it seems more and more like it can only be one of the two. Thanks for reading.