A/N: Back with another update. A couple of quick questions to answer here:

1. The Umihebi have 3 forms. The first is their natural shape which resembles a large, wingless dragon (they do have arms and legs in this form but no wings) with smooth necks and a tail that ends in a frilled fan, the tines more like sharp blades. Their second-most used form is a shapechange (like Naruto's) but it's limited to a specific human form unique to each serpent. Their third and final form, the one least used, is that of a large snake, either a constrictor for the lifegivers or a viper for the stormbringers; these forms do not have limbs and the head maintains its original sea serpent shape, to include a mouth full of jagged teeth.

2. Naruto, when he summoned one to show the Council, summoned Ellamus, the older stormbringer (he describes the clan patron – meaning Poseidus - as a larger version with horns and 30% more mass – Opal looks like her mother while Titus and Ella look like their father). He wanted to make an impression and, while Opal is impressive, she hasn't really gotten the hang of the "big, bad, terribly frightening sea serpent" routine… unless Anko is involved. Naruto wanted to make a frightening impression and Ella-chan is very good at making those that last.

3. There have been comments about Naruto's anger issues. In the first third of the story, his anger management problems could be directly tied to his fragmented psyche. In the latter portions of the story, his anger became an issue when he was stressed, fatigued, or both, as would any rational person be. I believe my Naruto isn't anywhere near as bad as the canon version belonging to Kishimoto but he's still an Uzumaki. He still has anger issues, his mental aging notwithstanding. Sadly to say, he may still have them for years to come until the ANBU beat some control into him. It doesn't mean that he'll be half as bad as that orange-wearing baka running around on screen screaming at the top of his lungs and tanking punches face-first from his opponents.

Let's get back to the madness, shall we?

~Siva'a-tasi

~III~

Chapter 29: Second Step: Shuffling the Board

~ Previously on No More ~

"The pineapple-haired Nara boy," the Toad Sage muttered out half-heartedly. To be honest he expected the boy to be committed to Naruto's training program which was why he was pleasantly surprised when the Hokage agreed.

"Done."

Jiraiya blinked and leaped out the window to swing by the mission office before it closed. If he acted quickly enough, he could have the scroll drafted and be out of the village by lunchtime tomorrow.

Tsunade had been the inspiration for many a book in the past, after all.

~III~

~ Somewhere on the Road to Life in Hi no Kuni ~

Jiraiya of the Sannin was winding down on the 15th verse of a rousing round of bar tunes and doing a fabulous job if one cared to admit it. His voice, a surprising baritone of stable quality, carried nicely over the rice paddies of the western provinces, the stooped workers pausing to listen to the words or clap along briefly as they planted the new crop.

It was another brilliant spring day, the late morning brisk on the skin as the sun began its trek across the heavens, the azure tapestry decorated sparsely with soft clouds of cotton. Alongside the crooning shinobi, a brooding dark-haired youth was diligently trying to distract his mind from his current circumstance as he plodded along, his eyes turned upwards in a vain effort to block out the annoying distraction to his right.

"Where are we headed this time?" Shikamaru's voice was the herald of eternal suffering even as the boisterous Sannin stomped his wooden-shod feet in time to his own rhythm.

"To the next town, my young companion!" The cheerful shinobi was smiling warmly and waving to a family shin-deep in the nearest paddy, his face the carefree picture of a man with zero worries. It was at this point that Shikamaru decided he'd had enough of the ongoing charade and stopped in the middle of the dirt road with his hands shoved deep inside his trouser pockets. Unfortunately, it took several more clacking steps for the pantomiming legend to notice he now trod onward alone, his words faltering on the wind much like his merry steps did the road.

"Enough. I've had enough of your troublesome ways." The Genin spun on his heels and began a leisurely stroll back in the general direction of Konoha.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Jiraiya could only smirk to himself. 'Huh, took the boy two whole days to get fed up.' The Genin had neither slowed nor acknowledged the question. "We're on a mission for kami's sake!"

"You brought me for my ability to analyze patterns and to plan, yet you have given me nothing to work with," the youth called back over his shoulder without turning around or slowing. "You're more troublesome than that knucklehead on my team but at least he explains the crazy running through his brain so I can contain it."

Jiraiya smiled; the boy was making steady progress back the way they came indicating that he could be motivated when the need arose.

"It's clear you do not need my help." Shikamaru glanced up at the sun estimating it to be late morning, probably closer to ten o'clock. If he conserved his energy, he could make it home by early tomorrow.

"You were brought to help me find someone that doesn't want to be found," the deeper voice called out to him forcing Shikamaru (against his better judgment) to pause mid-step. Jiraiya noted he did not spin around just yet. "You were sent along to help me locate and return Tsunade Senju, the Slug Princess, to Konoha."

Shikamaru's eyes slid closed as he muttered a curse up to the heavens. He wanted to swear a curse to the almighty Log. He wanted to pretend that he hadn't heard and keep walking. In the end, he spun about and strolled purposefully back towards the old man until he stopped directly in front of the Toad Sage.

"You pull any more of this secret squirrel crap and I'm done." Jiraiya waved it off as inconsequential.

"Deal! Just keep in mind that you're filling in so that Konoha can whip your teammate back into shape. This is very important in more ways than one."

"Important enough that you've only stopped at villages with onsen's?" Jiraiya blinked like a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. "Given all the giggling and note-taking I've seen you doing, I'd guess you already know exactly where we can find her and you're taking your sweet time getting there to prolong the lecherous behavior." The frowning youth crossed his arms over his lean chest and scowled disapprovingly up at the older shinobi.

"Saw that did you? Hehe, looks like you're considerably smarter than my godson." Jiraiya tried on his best "sheepish-face-because-I've-been-caught" look but the Nara wasn't budging.

"I'll make a deal with you. Stop wasting my time and I won't report any of this nonsense to the Hokage."

Jiraiya nodded once, his face breaking out into a roguish grin, and swung a heavy arm around the Genin's shoulders as he pivoted to usher him smartly down the road. Now all he needed to do was get the boy laid and maybe he could change that unnaturally lazy attitude into something useful.

For his part, Shikamaru was wondering how his blond teammate was holding up. Anything he was suffering through had to be better than traipsing through the countryside with the perverted Sannin.

~III~

On the other foot, Naruto was not having an easier go of things.

The huffing Genin was in fact on his hands and knees trying desperately to suck badly needed oxygen in through his gaping mouth to fill his deprived lungs. It was the latest phase in his chakra rehabilitation program and, sorry to admit, he was finding it unpleasant in more ways than one.

Standing over him while he gasped and sputtered stood a very displeased Ellamus, her arms folded across her naked chest barely containing the unrepressed globes of her gravity-defying bustline. It had nothing to do with modesty and had everything to do with her apparent displeasure at Naruto's perceived lack of "significant progress."

Watching from the safety of the kitchen table, Haku observed with mild concern as the calmer of the Celestial summonses (actually wearing the chest wrappings her eldest sibling refused to don calling them 'unpleasant and restrictive') tried to placate the frustrated elder serpent, her eyes darting occasionally to the barely conscious blond.

Ella agreed to wear them whenever they were out in public (public consisting of the training grounds) but flatly refused when in the safety of their summoner's domicile, much to Naruto's ongoing chagrin as his eyes often traveled to her gently swaying chest. It was to his eternal embarrassment that Ella-chan never ceased to tease him over that small fact, often encouraging Opal to do the same if only to further frustrate him.

That, however, was not important as the elder wyrmkin tried to bore her way through the shinobi's spine with her stare alone. She found his effort lacking and made no equivocations about stating as much.

"Again," she growled out in simmering annoyance, her mind failing to understand why he could not grasp the concept of such a simple exercise.

"Allow me to speak with him, 'nē-san." The dark-haired serpent cast a harshly critical eye at her younger relative. "Please! Just a few minutes!"

There was a protracted silence between the two as the eldest fully turned her withering stare against the youngest, almost as if an entire conversation took place using only their eyes as the younger pleaded on behalf of their shared host.

With a disgusted sigh, Ella-chan spun away to take up residence on the couch with a jiggling bounce and a sigh while her sister crouched down before the still wheezing jinchuuriki.

Slowly reaching out to grasp his sweaty head in her gentle palms, Opal tilted his head upwards until she could look into his eyes. His complexion had paled, his skin taking on a yellowish-green pallor as he gulped in large quantities of air. Judging by the inflamed red lines in his normally pristine sclera, he was flirting dangerously close to chakra exhaustion, well, as much as he could until the vast pools of untapped Uzumaki chakra could be harnessed. Either way she looked at it, his exhaustion wasn't due to the exercise but to Ella's insistence that he summon the both of them daily at the end of his morning workout sessions. The fatigue he was experiencing was a direct product of the current chakra control drill and his inability to master it while already fatigued.

Opal sympathized as she'd undergone the same harsh training regimen, only she'd been forced to burn through her vast chakra stores until nearly exhausted then forced to repeat the exercise until mastery of her own chakra network had been achieved. She knew intimately the frustration her summoner was dealing with as it was solely an internal exercise, no expulsion of chakra or physical activity required. Worse still, loss of control could be twice as debilitating, the fatigue equal to running a marathon immediately after completing one as a warmup, an unfortunate side effect of trying to mentally wrangle your own chakra network through sheer will alone.

Performing the exercise when near exhaustion was supposed to make it easier and, in the case of normal humans, that would very much be the case. Most humans refilled their chakra at tortoise-like paces, their energy trickling in as it took days to top off their depleted reserves. This entire concept did not apply to their summoner as, between his supercharged Uzumaki constitution and the seal's over efficient leeching of replacement chakra from the imprisoned bijū, the serpent duo was having a difficult time reconciling the raging torrent of chakra swamping his empty network. It was the equivalent of comparing a trickling stream versus a raging river of rapids after the spring floods.

The task was to mentally traverse into his mindspace but, rather than camp out in the grotto replica, he was to mentally force his way through his own tenketsu pathways and learn to wrangle the chakra flow through stringent self-control. The goal was to control the direction, speed, and density of his own chakra while being nearly depleted of it, a time when arguably his chance at control was the highest. Only after he'd met with success would they gradually start tapering off to trying it with his chakra being half full and then once he was completely rested. It was the advanced-advanced form of chakra signature suppression Asuma-sensei was just now teaching them.

And Naruto was failing spectacularly at it. As a result, he was exhausted from the mental exertion as being submerged into his chakra network was amazingly a lot like trying to swim upstream in a raging river without chakra to enhance your body. The end result was a "transference" of that mental stress and strain to his physical body and now, after six straight failures, even his considerable stamina was beginning to falter.

Rather than trying to bolster him with strong encouragement or placating words of bravado, Opal did what she did best and began by gently lifting his face forcing him to sit up and straighten out his spine. Still sucking in great gulps of oxygen, his elongated diaphragm began working more efficiently slowly leeching away the blush to his cheeks… right before she brought the red tint back in raging fashion by firmly grasping his hands and slapping them to her firm bosom.

Ella-chan knew full well how humans thought, particularly human males. While echidnae did not intentionally flaunt their bodies (human sexuality was not something inherently instinctive to the race of Celestial creatures), they were very much aware of the impact their physical manifestations had on healthy males of the species. Opal was trying to distract the exhausted boy and redirect his mind towards relaxing enough to enable learning.

She was succeeding admirably.

Still on his knees only now blushing a raging cherry red hue, Naruto's body seized up while he knelt there. Fortunately, his now outstretched arms (while still kneeling on the floor) were reaching up above his head in order to meet the soft pillows of her chest, which served to further expand his chest cavity allowing more air to reach his oxygen-deprived body parts (lungs, heart, brain, muscles). As drained as he was, he didn't possess the strength to take back his hands from the red-faced Opal standing with her hips floating directly before Naruto's stunned face.

When his mind finished rebooting, the embarrassed teen tried to withdraw his overfull palms succeeding only in pulling the blushing female into his lap, which was her intention. She then shifted his grip from her chest to her hips as she slapped her palms to his red cheeks forcing him to lock gazes with her.

"Keep breathing and listen," she pleaded softly, Naruto's stunned face nodding as he lacked the mental capacity for much else at the moment. "Deep breaths," she whispered out breathing with him to provide an example, her large chest expanding and contracting in time with his own. Surprisingly, his eyes never left hers and she smiled at his devotion.

Locking her legs around his waist as her body settled into his lap, she waited until his breathing began to even out, her hand sweeping the sweaty bangs from his eyes.

"It's hard, Opal-hime," he rasped out, his throat hoarse from trying to suck in great gulps of air to fill his lungs. The pale echidnae smiled as her head partially tilted to the side.

"I know, Walker, but you must do this," she countered.

"I don't know if I can."

His doubt rocked her down to her foundation. In the short time she'd been bonded with him, his courage never once failed him. For Naruto Uzumaki, it wasn't a matter of whether he could or could not but when he would. Now the specter of doubt was rearing its ugly head as he searched her face for something, anything. She realized he was looking for hope. Her summoner was looking for a mental fortitude he did not feel he possessed on his own. His bottomless enthusiasm was dwindling to a trickle…

Opal's eyes blinked as she remembered something Asuma-sensei was trying to get them to learn before their misadventures in the Land of Snow.

"If you cannot control the flow of chakra, perhaps you should restrict the path it takes." For his part, Naruto's eyes blinked rapidly for several seconds as her words sunk in and realization dawned.

Ella-chan ordered him to master the flow of his chakra. She'd smashed his palm against her flat stomach and told him to focus on her chakra network right before slowing down, speeding up, then stopping it altogether. The exercise was to help him master his own energy and help to stem the uncontrollable flood raging through his system, which would vastly improve his control and allow the next stage of his growth: development of his new Ranton and Mokuton bloodlines.

The brash female brusquely laughed away Titus' previous claim that the Uzumaki adamantine sealing chains were a result of bonding with a Stormbringer echidnae. As pleasant an idea as that sounded, the Kongo Fuusa was purely an Uzumaki bloodline trait that resulted from maturing his chakra, something the echidnae could most definitely help with.

Mastery of any bloodline was still many years away, but the enhanced level of chakra control would permit him to begin mixing elemental chakra natures into controllable flows opening the doors to sub-elemental jutsus.

In the meantime, Ella had shown him "what" to do omitting the "how" portion leaving it for him to figure out on his own. Normally, Opal would not have objected but their time was growing short, his test looming a mere ten days from now. They didn't have time for the normal pace of things, something the older echidnae simply refused to believe having relegated the concerns of humans to something lower in worth than whale excrement.

Above all else, Opal did not want her summoner to fail so she "broke the training rules" just a bit.

It was a slow, methodical process watching the wheels turn in Naruto's mind as he began to dissect the problem with Opal's assistance. Ella had not forbidden the constricting of individual tenketsu. In fact, she hadn't forbidden or restricted any manipulation of his network. She'd only told him to master its flow, the first stage of which Asuma-sensei had been trying to drill in their heads as part of learning to mask their signatures from other shinobi.

Chakra resided in the hara, the core. Though its quantity and quality varied based on the shinobi, form, fit, and function remained the same in most cases. Born in the core, drawn through the eight gates – the major pumps of the chakra network if you will, before being regulated and redirected through the coils (the valves of the chakra system) to the appropriate destination for use or expulsion through the body's tenketsu, notable exceptions being jutsus requiring mixing of elements in the lungs followed by expurgation through the mouth. Shinobi of note in Konoha had mastered some higher levels of control over key components of their chakra network, control far and above the norm, like the Beautiful Beasts of Konoha. That in and of itself did not mean total mastery. Bursting open your chakra gates and flooding your body with all of your stored chakra was neither a sane nor complicated feat (something Ella verbally disabused the Genin of ever being allowed to do), as evident by the destructive aftermath of executing such a feat.

If he was so anxious to experience pain, she'd happily destroy his limbs rather than allow him to self-implode like the green monstrosities he trained with on occasion.

She further refused to allow him to pick up their horrific clothing peculiarities, as evident when she shredded the gifted unitard with her fanged teeth.

Just. No.

Alas, we digress from the difficult, nay, monstrous task of a jinchuuriki learning to master his chakra network in its entirety even if it was already considered an insurmountable task by the majority of shinobi and kunoichi living in Konoha.

Most never pushed further than learning how to constrict or expand the openings of their tenketsu, the first step to learning how to mask their individual chakra signatures. Proficiency over that first tentative step towards mastery often proved too taxing a mental exercise for the partially motivated nin. The vast majority of which surrendered believing the greater secrets of their chosen profession beyond them seeking solace in the satisfying tasks of the Support Cadre, a daunting fact that finally explained to Naruto why their four-thousand active duty combatants only made up less than a third of their total shinobi force. If they couldn't master that first level of proficiency, they had no hope of learning how to flex their coils aiding in the increase or decrease of chakra flow throughout their entire network.

It also explained why villages like Iwa and Kumo could marshal over twenty thousand in their combined assault on Uzushio; every shinobi was a soldier first and foremost as evident by the ease with which Uzushio mowed through the vast majority of them.

With that realization in mind, Naruto began rewinding Ella's demonstration noting how minimal her own massive chakra signature was the entire time she dazzled him with her skill hoping he wouldn't notice her obfuscation. It was only through their link that he could sense the flow of energy through her massively complex chakra network – the impressive camouflage of their henge still stunned him whenever he peeked through his still growing sensor abilities. In human form, Ella would be called petite but extremely curvy. Her chakra network bursting to overflowing with Reikatsu, her spiritual thread of life as she called it, seemed larger than her tiny frame could safely hold and felt to the Genin like it dwarfed the Hokage Monument.

He knew it was an illusion, a mirage of the senses, but the fact that she harbored great power made it easy to loose himself in the twists and caverns of her chakra. Though she often enticed him into the adventure, it was all too easy to get lost in those warrens. Instead, he focused first on mastering his own network.

When he closed his eyes and dove headfirst into his mindscape for the seventh time, Ella smiled from her corner as the boy's signature slowly but steadily compressed from his normal bijū-level chakra bonfire to just below the level of a kage-ranked threat. She smiled having played her role as the oppressive taskmistress (despite her earlier protests) so that Opal could be the "good teacher" better matching her softer nature.

It was a start anyway and, before too long, he found himself standing before an all-too-familiar beach of make-believe sand.

~III~

Hiruzen's eyes swept over the benefactor of his life's work: The Village Hidden in the Leaves. While his love-hate relationship with paperwork (okay, there's not much love there) ebbed and flowed, his love for the village had never been stronger.

Down below the Market District was in full swing, the rush of servants descending on the shops and vendors hoarding supplies to feed their various clans. He could tell summer was coming as the younger laborers began trading out the thick lining of their winter kimonos for the more versatile summer variety. It wouldn't matter once summer fully sank its claws into the village; anyone not in climate-controlled rooms would sweat through their clothing before noon was upon them.

The old man's face wrinkled with a naughty twinkle in his eye as those thoughts ran through his head, a tiny giggle tittering from his lips as he prepared to delay his normal work routine for a quick peek at his personal guilty pleasure.

"Thinking about my works of greatness already, sensei?"

The giggling ended with a stern throat clearing but the gleam in the older man's eyes never faded. "Welcome back, Jiraiya." Hiruzen turned to face the heavy-set man lounging on his office couch, his eyes briefly sweeping the room before returning to the Toad Sage's personage, one eyebrow cocked skyward in an unasked question.

"Don't worry, old man. She's settling into the Senju estate. Something about clearing out old memories along with the dust." His calloused palm absently waved away any remaining importance as Sarutobi puttered over to his cushy chair.

Hiruzen knew for a fact that specially (and routinely) screened cleaning crews went through the Senju Clan residence with a fine-toothed comb keeping it spotless. Her anger must not have faded even after all these many years. "You are back far sooner than I expected," the old man quipped with that knowing smirk on his face.

Jiraiya's face blushed just a hair, his hand finding new purchase on the back of his neck as it rubbed around absentmindedly. "The Nara kid caught on faster than I thought and threatened to return to Konoha if I didn't stop jerking him around."

Hiruzen chuckled softly.

"That Genin is much smarter than he looks and much less tolerant than Naruto," Hiruzen began. Jiraiya swung forward on the couch to perch on the edge, his forearms resting on his knees while he listened to the old man he loved more than life. "For a Nara, that's saying something," the Sandaime concluded.

Jiraiya may have been put off by the old man's humor but the Sandaime didn't mind in the least. He'd warned the perpetual teen not to underestimate the Nara heir.

"And the meeting with Tsunade?" Jiraiya grimaced at this point, his eyes finding a particularly interesting spot on the wooden floor to linger on.

"He's pieced together most of Naruto's family life." Hiruzen's smile immediately evaporated like smoke, his pipe finding its way into his mouth as snow white brows knit together in concentration.

"Leave us, please." Four shadows blurred from the room even as Jiraiya finished off a sequence of seals dimming the windows and sound-proofing the room.

"Why don't you start at the beginning. WAIT!" The Sannin paused once the old man's pointer finger shot up into the air. "Instead, start at the point where you agreed to get serious in your search for Tsunade."

The heavy sigh from the white-maned Sannin was enough to make the Hokage light his pipe for the soothing narcotic, his fingers pulsing Katon chakra through the etched seals on either side of the bulb.

Flashback no Jutsu – Slug Princess Edition

Shikamaru forced the older male to the side of the road so the sage could sit and so that he could assume his "thinking position." There he refused to move until the white-cropped pervert spouted off as much detail about their quarry's habits, quirks, and addictions as he was willing to share.

She travelled about the Land of Fire quite a bit, never staying in any one place for more than a week. While appropriate for any shinobi looking to stay ahead of their enemies, her staying within Hi no Kuni made non-leaf shinobi pursuing her long-term difficult but not impossible. Shikamaru had no delusions about his home country being unassailable by enemy forces but regular patrols and outposts manned by Konoha's killers (still some of the best in the elemental nations), and backed by their robust communications network, made prolonged persecution of the Sannin unlikely. Sooner or later, an observant pair of eyes would notice something and removing those eyes from the picture only hastened discovery.

No, it would appear that the wayward kunoichi was a gambling wastrel compounded further by the fact that the Hokage kept her on a short leash, meaning inside Hi no Kuni borders, by delivering her monthly stipend from the Senju Clan accounts by summons so long as she stayed in-country. His summonses from the Monkey Clan were smart enough to verify their location refusing to capitulate to the cursing rage of the annoyed woman during her first year of self-imposed asylum when she fled to the Land of Hot Water. It didn't take long before her bitter face started showing up around the nation's border towns. She eventually admitted defeat once they stopped delivering the monthly missives unless she was at a recognized village far from the border; she liked to skirt back and forth across the political barrier the moment cash fell into the alcohol-laced pores of her palms.

In short, she was a real piece of work despite the Toad Sage defending her poor life choices. Troublesome.

Turning inward, Shikamaru took the sordid mess that was the Slug Princess's life, began throwing in what he'd observed from Jiraiya's seemingly pointless wandering through the forests and farmlands, then threw in what he knew about its geography, specifically its gambling landscape. His conclusion materialized ten minutes later as he stood and traipsed off back in the general direction of Konoha, a confused and sputtering Jiraiya of the Sannin following along in his wake.

"Shikamaru?" The one-word question covered a lot of ground. Shika grunted and shoved his hands into patiently waiting pockets.

"It first appeared as if you were using some complicated algorithm to determine which gambling towns we'd hit first in this woman hunt. When you wouldn't let me tag along on your informant meetings, I tagged along using my family's Kagemane techniques to stay hidden and observe." The boy's annoyed frown in the older man's direction was equally telling.

"I discovered that anyone remembering her face seemed to remember longer and longer gaps in her appearance the more westerly we went." His sigh seemed to have a life all its own, the gust of air conveying anger, annoyance, frustration, and apathy all at the same time.

"Looking at our options for places to gamble, the vast majority of them are here in the north and west of Konoha's countryside. Based on what you've told me, she'd never travel to the eastern coast unless she was seriously pressed by her debtors – there is too little in the way of creature comforts between them and Konoha." Jiraiya's face contorted in worry for a second.

"So that leaves only one logical place that I'm sure you figured out after that second town; Tanzaku Gai." With that proclamation, Shikamaru set off at what any Nara would consider a blistering pace. For Jiraiya, it only meant he needed to walk at a normal cadence for a person wearing wooden sandals.

Two days of surprisingly dedicated effort on the part of the pineapple-haired Genin saw them at the two-story high walled entrance to the notorious party town, an unusually satisfied smirk on the youth's face.

"Let's find a place and settle in-," the elder began only to get cut off by the Genin in a rare show of motivation.

"No, let's find out which place she's hopped off to before she flees again. I'd like to be home by tomorrow at the latest." Jiraiya's raised eyebrow matched his smirking grin only furthering the simmering annoyance Shikamaru felt. He had no idea why the old pervert was trying to protect her, but he did know he was just about finished with this whole affair.

"What makes you think she's even here?" The question was filled with bravado but Shikamaru merely pointed to the gaping hole a nearby gambling den sported, several "street toughs" already beginning the process of tearing down busted planks destined for a growing pile of refuse.

Jiraiya's sweat drop was almost a physical manifestation. The woman clearly hadn't lost her prodigious strength.

The two searched for another hour. It wasn't like Tanzaku was large enough of a place to warrant Herculean efforts before its half dozen gambling houses, and their associated small crime owners, had been thoroughly scoped out, the results of which were very telling.

Upon arrival, Tsunade secured a sizeable loan from one of the local "providers." If history were to prove accurate, she'd gamble away the cash and bolt long before anyone could come seeking recompense. Of the parlors she'd been through, three of them had already cleaned her out and the remaining three were anxious to get their cut of the borrowed cash knowing full well of her stellar reputation as an "unfortunate soul" when it came to houses of ill repute.

It was only a matter of time. Narrowing down the most likely targets, the two opted to grab a bite and look for a place to stay. Two of the three gambling dens sat across the street from each other so, sooner or later, Tsunade's luck would run out.

The very next day their hunch paid off and the two followed the slightly inebriated blond in pigtails and the smaller brunette in a dark kimono carrying a chubby piglet in her arms. When Shikamaru silently questioned his mission customer with a raised eyebrow, the Sannin merely shrugged it off and tailed the two kunoichis into an eating establishment with his new protégé hot on his heels. They found them at a booth, the older woman playing solitaire in between slurps of sake and the younger one eating a healthy meal of Miso soup, umeboshi, and konnyaku while feeding carrots to the happily munching swine resting comfortably in her lap.

"Hime," Jiraiya mumbled out while taking up a seat directly across from his now frowning former teammate. With nothing better to do, Shikamaru slid in across from the concerned face of whom he believed to be Shizune Kato and nodded politely. The woman, as she was more than a few years his senior, did not appear to relax.

"No." It was a terse response that immediately set the, "You're not welcome" stage of the conversation.

"I didn't ask anything, Hime." Jiraiya was if nothing else calm in the face of a woman reportedly being strong enough to flatten homes with a single blow.

"Whatever it is going to be, Jiraiya, the answer is still, 'No.'"

Jiraiya, instead, opted to shift tactics and relive old memories. "I am here to deliver the old man's annual." Tsunade's face contorted into a frown as she flipped through a few sets of cards flopped down in groups of threes. She paused to slide one out from the middle of a grouping and place it in the fourth column much to the younger woman's disproving tsk. Then she repeated the sound.

After a prolonged staring match, Tsunade grunted and put it back in the throw-away pile.

"I see Shi-chan is hard at work trying to keep you honest." Tsunade, instead of answering, snatched the scroll from him and tossed it to her apprentice who caught it with practiced ease. A sudden wave of heavy pressure settled over the table making Shikamaru and his slightly older counterpart freeze in place, their bodies breaking out into cold sweats as the two struggled to find enough air to fill their lungs. At the table directly behind them, someone fell sideways out of his own booth with a thud.

For all that, Tsunade merely raised an eyebrow without looking up from her card game.

"It's not like you to lose your vaunted cool," the now smirking female Sannin quipped.

"At least I know now why your grandson has never seen you." His words did more than his KI ever could. Her hands froze mid-placement, a seven of clubs hovering just over a red eight of diamonds in the third column of cards. Shikamaru could have sworn the card trembled for a split second before she slapped it down onto the table.

"What are you talking about, Jiraiya? I never had kids so how do I suddenly have a grandson?" Her eyes flickered briefly to the Nara boy before shooting up to lock gazes with the toad summoner. The killing intent lessoned but his anger hadn't, his rage smoldering in the small ink pools beneath his horned forehead protector.

"I believe what he's trying to say is that you're an even bigger disappointment than even he believed to be possible." Shizune's shock at the youth's blatant disrespect was immediately surpassed by her sensei's anger-flushed face, the older woman's painted fingernail shooting up to stab in the direction of his frowning mouth even though her voice continued to address the toad sage.

"Tell your flunky minion to keep quiet and drink his milk unless he wants to step outside. I'm not above turning him into a grease smear."

Jiraiya's oppressive presence diminished as he noted Shikamaru's determined look of displeasure. If his watching of Team Ten had proven anything, it was that the boy was about to begin one of his "teaching rants" and it would prove to be an entertaining lesson all the same.

Instead, Jiraiya leaned back and snickered at the older woman, her face wrinkling up again in confusion now that her personal stalker wasn't trying to bully her with fear tactics. It was too sudden a mood shift, even for the old pervert.

"I'm not anyone's minion but, to be honest, I'd much rather be done with…" his hand waved about the table absently, "whatever this is." His eyes locked onto the frowning woman that looked barely older than the girl he knew she outranked by more than several decades. "I thank the Log that Naruto was not here to see," his eyes narrowed as they raked shamelessly over the heavily breasted drunk, her kimono top opened lazily to reveal an expanse of creamy cleavage meant to distract from her flushed cheeks and slurred words.

"Watch your mouth gaki or I'll-." He cut her off ruthlessly, Jiraiya taking a moment to lay down a modified privacy seal underneath the table immediately distorting the normal sounds of the family restaurant.

"You'll do nothing since I'm not stupid enough to challenge you to a fight. Killing a clan heir without cause would be enough to get your Sannin traveling privileges revoked and your drunk rear thrown into a chakra restrictive jail cell on your way to prison." Despite the very real threat in his words, her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Why you little-," she began only to hit another brick wall as the dark-haired youth flung up an open palm. The older woman blinked in shocked surprise, literally brain dead that someone barely into puberty would be so flippant with her.

"Not done. What he means is that the Hokage has probably been sending yearly reports to you about someone obviously related to you. Instead of reading them, you've been burning them I'd wager, so you have no idea that Naruto Uzumaki is your grandson." She flinched but she didn't do it alone.

"Shika…" The Sannin's mumbled warning wasn't lost on the by now perturbed Genin.

"Doesn't take much to connect the dots, Jiraiya. How many Genin in Konoha have the same banana-yellow hair?" Tsunade's anger rapidly faded to shock. "Hell, he's the spitting double of the Fourth minus the whisker marks." At that, Tsunade openly gaped.

She knew that Kushina hid her whisker marks beneath a complicated henge fueled by her impressive fūinjutsu skills. It was the progenitor for her personal henge after all. Then the last name of the woman clicked.

Kushina Uzumaki. Naruto Uzumaki. But, if she married Minato, why didn't the boy sport his father's last name? Her eyes swung back to her former teammate with the resurgence of her anger at the fore, a teammate that instantly threw up his hands in defense.

"Don't blame him," Shikamaru continued. "I'd be willing to wager my hitai on the fact that the Hokage has been sending you yearly updates on the progress of your son, his subsequent secret marriage to a certain female of kunoichi renown, and their subsequent child. I'd be willing to bet my clan home that he included in there the sad tale of how those same shinobi gave their lives defending the village from the Kyūbi no Kitsune. Furthermore, I'd be willing to swear on the almighty Log," Jiraiya winced at the boy's dedication to that abstract shinobi religion, "that it included the fifteen years of suffering that this same orphan endured at the hands of villagers that tried to kill him repeatedly because no one was there to look out for him." The now angry Nara rose to leave a shocked Tsunade in his wake of verbal destruction.

Jiraiya's tense body relaxed minutely when the Nara brushed past the bijū sealed in his godson's stomach.

"I for one am glad that he isn't here to see what's become of his grandmother." His stressing of the word stung her, the now sobering woman blinking in response. "I for one am glad that he doesn't know that you didn't care enough to learn about his miserable life. I think it would be enough to finally break him when an entire village of idiots couldn't."

With that, he stalked away muttering something about finding them a place to stay for the night as he had no desire to stay and watch the ignorant woman self-destruct further.

Flashback no Jutsu – Slug Princess Edition – Kai!

"I didn't have to do a thing. He raked her over the coals and left her in the unenviable position of having to explain why she hasn't read a single update you've provided her in over thirty years."

Hiruzen's whistle was low and prolonged, the pain of his failure clearly etched on his weathered face. Almost as if a switch had been flipped, his eyes narrowed sharply, and the Professor was back in charge.

"Does she know?"

Jiraiya nodded sharply once. "We spent the rest of the night drinking and talking. Well, I drank, and she asked questions. I've caught her up to speed as much as was feasible in an open eatery."

Hiruzen sighed even as he set his pipe down on the ceramic placement pad. It was a beginning. Now they just needed to survive her anger at a village she already hated, personal mistakes notwithstanding.

For now, he had a test to observe.

~III~

If he was being completely honest with himself, Naruto Uzumaki found the day of his "evaluation" completely anti-climactic. He felt underwhelmed with the entire process.

Naruto found himself back in Team Ten's assigned training area exactly ten days later. Standing on the tree-lined edge of the greenspace, his eyes closed accompanied by the soft hum of appreciation his girlfriend's gentle kisses brought up. She often knew the best ways to leech tension from his body, tension he most often ignored or took for granted. Today was a day with plenty of items to be tense about. Unfortunately, he needed a clear head for what was coming next.

Calm was not an easy state to reach knowing that his goal of joining ANBU lay just at the end of his fingertips. What made it worse was that the list of onlookers had subtly changed but not for the better.

Gone were the Council, for the most part. Kakashi was lurking about just like the first meeting six weeks before. The Sandaime Hokage appeared next to Iruka-sensei in a flurry of leaves and wind along with the bored looking Toad Sage. Before the latest arrivals, Team Neko stood at the edge of the tree line joined by a tiger-faced ANBU on one side, and a bull-faced one on the other, all trying to studiously ignore the other. Then the chatter between the one-eyed Jounin, the Chunin, and the Hokage began and Naruto's bijū-enhanced hearing picked up every word.

Iruka was proposing a series of tests to gradually evaluate his chakra control and endurance. From what the Genin could hear, they were going to start with simple calisthenics to pick up his heart rate and stress his system before plunging him directly into three low-to-medium grade chakra control exercises. If he passed without passing out, they would render his last six-week trial a success and push on with the retrieval OP.

Naruto found the prolonged torture unacceptable and spun around to face the staring gallery of gawkers by lifting both palms skyward curling his fingers upwards into human claws. Both palms began to glow as chakra began to visually manifest. A second later, the coalescing masses began to take shape and spiral forming spinning orb-shaped masses about the size of a human heart. At two seconds, the masses compressed to slightly larger than his fists, the chakra spheres becoming whirring orbs filled with thousands of glistening light trails. At about two and a half seconds, the pitch rose two octaves as the menacing whir became a high-pitched whine once the orbs came up to speed and solidified, the dull blue core pulsing with brilliant white energy.

Hiruzen whispered one word, "Rasengan," and an argument immediately broke out among the three officer-ranked ANBU as they argued in hand signs over why the initiate belonged in one of three different companies of the Black OP's Fifth Shinobi Corps Heavy Service Battalion.

Asuma-sensei, turning to saunter off with a fresh cigarette in his mouth, mumbled out a reminder of their mission brief tomorrow in the Hokage's office at zero-eight admonishing them both to not be late.

Jiraiya simply turned to the gaping Hokage and blurted out, "Works for me," as he turned and "clacked" off in his trademark getas to find one of his favorite hidey spots to peek, er, do research. After all of the work, sweat and frustration, the blond Genin found the apparent lack of reaction… depressing.

"A shinobi is humble," whispered his platinum-haired love interest, his rankled feelings deflating along with his disappointed ego. She kissed his cheek softly then dashed off to join her departing father.

Naruto could only nod in silent agreement.

Just out of sight, the Hokage looked over to his son, Asuma, and waved the man over with a subtle head nod. "Your mission to retrieve the Uzumaki girl is in two weeks. Better control or not, I wanted him tested before then with a short mission. Come by the office tomorrow with your team as I believe I have a suitable opportunity."

Asuma gave a shallow bow, one just barely enough to be respectful, as the old man puttered off to his office. He needed a smoke but first, he needed to discover how quickly he could get Kurenai unwrapped from her rolls of bandages.

Back in the training field, one Naruto Uzumaki was discovering that he was abruptly left the last man standing and he found the sudden isolation smothering. He wanted to celebrate his amazing progress and, if the humans of his village weren't going to help him, then he knew the right crowd that would. Several had signs later and a healthy burst of smoke left in his wake, Naruto vanished from the forest replacing the earthy scent of Konoha with the salt-ladened air of the Glittering Grotto.

He was rewarded with the happy squeal of an ivory-hued echidna and her two best friends.

~III~

The growing Konoha night was still a bit cool this early in the year. Add in the fact that Kabuto still hadn't found that damnable scroll and the night was coming to another stellar end if failure was your particular brand of poison. As his feet came to a shuffling stop next to his personal harlot, the index and middle finger of his right hand ghosted upwards to press the bridge of his glasses against his forehead, a familiar sign of frustration Guren had a difficult time suppressing a vindictive grin because of.

"While I enjoy a pleasant walk in the evening air, there had best be an earth-shattering reason why we are enjoying the evening hospitality of the Konoha's cemetery vice the cozy comfort of my apartment, Guren-chan."

Being uncomfortably close to the disgusting rapist forced Guren to pick up on Kabuto's physical cues rather quickly. For instance, the repetitive pushing up of his glasses was an obvious sign of annoyance but the not-so-subtle way he emphasized the "chan" suffix to her name meant that he was bordering on physical aggression, the type of which often made her want to slit his throat in the middle of the night. It took all of her self-control not to flinch when his left hand twitched mimicking hand seals as if they were on the tip of his snake-addled tongue.

"I brought you here to show you the end of your search."

She very nearly sighed in relief once the smothering KI oozing from the shorter male abruptly vanished, his eyebrows peeking up behind the mirror-like reflection of his owl-like spectacles. With his hostility abated, Guren nervously licked her lips and shuffled in a non-shinobi way out towards the pristine stone of polished marble near the center of the garden of dead people. She knew without turning about that he would follow.

As she walked, her eyes flickered nervously to the silent killers pacing them. Her shaky legs made her convincing walk through the graves all the more convincing as she knew what the white-haired bastard would do to her before they could be captured and yet the tantalizing hope of discovery darted elusively around in her mind. Oh, if only she could tip them off leading to both their capture.

Oh, the heavenly revenge on both snakes nearly brought a blush to her cheeks.

Instead, she pressed on until her feet came to a stop just before the monument commemorating Konoha's honorable fallen, the hateful man's sandals gliding to a stop next to her own.

"If you've led me here hoping to either murder or imprison me…" Kabuto's voice held a razor-thin edge to it, one dangerously close to action of the vilest kind. Instead, she reached out to touch the stone with gentle fingers, the tips of which danced across a name as if she were remembering a fallen family member.

Kabuto's eyes followed, at first in annoyance but then in captivation.

"Wait, go back." Guren suppressed a smirk as her fingers danced back to brush against the name of a Senju she didn't recognize, the kanji for which hummed briefly with a pale blue light.

"I don't know the right combination yet but-." Kabuto cut her off by heavily slapping a palm onto her shoulder and tenderly rubbing the muscle there as if consoling a tenderhearted family member. Guren, ever quick to catch on to role-playing, lowered her head and sniffled, her shoulders beginning to gently shake even as Kabuto whispered softly to her.

"We have time to discover the right order. I can see where the new seals have been freshly added so this should not take too long to sort out." His eyes were gleaming predatorily at her.

"Never fear, Guren-chan," he all but hissed out. "I shall comfort you in your time of mourning."

Kabuto was overjoyed on the inside even as his face took on the tearful countenance of a mourner coming to grieve for the dearly departed. His hand slipped across the taller woman's shoulders taking note of the shiver that shot up her spine as his hand slid down to her waist so that he could pull her in tight to his body. Steering them away from the monument and the now relaxing ANBU watching in the shadows, the Snake Sannin's number two purposefully maneuvered them back to his apartment.

As a Konoha resident, he was well aware that the new seals on the memorial stone had nothing to do with the preservation of the obelisk. A seals master he was not but neither was he a novice and this discovery only served to validate the girl's claim at overhearing two gossipy girlfriends talking about their boyfriend's complaining of a new watch detail out in the "boneyard," as shinobi commonly referred to the cemetery.

'Thank the Sannin for idiot females.' His eyes unintentionally flickered to the admittedly attractive Kunoichi shuddering with revulsion in his grasp. It was a shame that she'd have to die after the invasion wrapped up. He was beginning to enjoy her charms such as they were even though her skills as a kunoichi he found infinitely more valuable. Those skills had led them to this very cleverly hidden secret even if her discovery smacked of more than careless women with loose tongues. He would need to verify the veracity of this lucky find.

Her discovery alone piqued his interest (though he would never admit it to Guren) as he knew of nothing in the cemetery worth guarding; the remains of the village's most powerful heroes were always kept under lock and key deep within ANBU Central since his master fled the village of bleeding hearts. If the man hadn't had the foresight to take enough samples with him during his flight to freedom, their plan would have been woefully unprepared for their golden opportunity. Perhaps Kabuto would have had to resort to… drastic measures to secure the necessary supplies.

Not that he feared such steps but the risks to his cover made such options a last resort sort of thing. No, this discovery meant that he could finally report good news to his master. He hoped to crack the code prior to his next periodic report.

In the meantime, he would celebrate with his personal plaything thanking his master the whole time for his boundless generosity.

~III~

Haku was happy. She liked to hum when she was happy, like she was at the moment, a cheerful tune she'd picked up back in Nami. It had to do with fish and mermaids or some such but she liked the melody.

Her humming lent itself to a brisk pace as she glided around the small dinner table, her graceful hands quickly setting up for two. A quick glance over her shoulder to the simmering pots and her hands set the final cups out for tea. It would be a splendid meal if she were willing to admit it, a meal fit for a master. Her master.

Standing erect with her hands resting comfortably on her slender hips, she adjusted her light kimono top and turned her head slightly to her left so that her voice could carry over her shoulder.

"Should I set another place for you, Commander-san?" The air shifted ever so slightly to reveal the shrouded figure of Dragon in the far corner by the door. Once Haku started living with him, Naruto stopped sealing up his apartment given the girl's fierce fighting skills and his new residence in Shinobi Towers. Dragon's frequent visits no longer surprised either of them.

"I won't be staying," the heavily modulated voice replied earning a brief head nod as the slender girl turned back to the table to admire her handiwork. Satisfied, she moved back to the stove to finish plating their modest meal.

Tasting a pinch of the yams, her eyes roamed the ceiling as her lips lightly smacked the buttery flavor tickling her tongue.

"Just a pinch more…" Delicate fingers sprinkled a dash of salt along the halves baking to a bright orange color in the stove.

Bent over as she was reaching into the stove, Dragon took a moment to admire the slender girl's hips and grimaced. Though not nearly as curvy as the Byakugan Princess or the Platinum Mind Walker, she clearly had no reservations about flaunting her wares; Keina noted that her body jiggled a bit more than normal for a kunoichi wearing wraps underneath her garments. The sheets folded neatly on the couch told her that Naruto was still untainted but how much longer would that last?

No, the first heir would need to be mostly Uzumaki. That would mean keeping this snow bunny out his bed long enough to get the right woman in it first. As much as she liked the fire of the Yamanaka, that meant she had to wait as well. The Clan demanded no less.

"Are you sure I can't entice you to a warm-." When she stood up again her eyes took in the now-vacated apartment, her words dying a slow death at the edge of her lips. "Hnh, I suppose they really weren't hungry."

Shrugging her slender shoulders, Haku turned off the stove and topped off their meal with warm sake. Perhaps she could convince him to let her snuggle with him again. Naruto-sama was always so warm and it helped her sleep. Haku always ran a bit cold, especially her feet much to Naruto-sama's displeasure.

She giggled softly as her sailor's tune rippled once again throughout the kitchen.

~III~

Hitsuji was the perfect picture of patience and observation standing as he was with his back against a stone wall the same color as the floor beneath his combat sandals, the black straps traveling halfway up his shins to help secure his ANBU style pants. Not that any of the waiting or groaning members of the Sarutobi Clan would tell with his face hidden behind the porcelain shell of his public face.

His sleeveless military green shirt exposed more than the traditional ANBU tattoo on his right deltoid, the long, lean muscles of his right arm compressed into a ball of mass as the fingerless glove of the same hand gripped the bo staff in a relaxed fist, the tip resting just to the outside of his right foot. This, of course, left his other hand free to flicker up from his side to indicate the next victim, er… trainee to step up from their place against the wall of the underground bunker in order to challenge the sole figure standing in the center of the chamber wielding an identical training weapon free from the traditional metal bands the Sarutobi Clan was famous for using in combat. The left arm rose once again, the thin bamboo reed bobbing to indicate another supplicant anxiously watching the figure in the center of the room hoping to glean a weakness, anything to help him unseat the current "King of the Ring."

"You, go next," the Ram-faced ANBU lazily drawled out.

The figure hoisted his own training weapon, the finely-polished stick pulsing faintly as he charged it with chakra to make it resilient enough to (hopefully) keep from shattering as a few others had done when his brothers and sisters charged in before him. Gliding on near-silent feet, the youth weaved his way in between columns of earth and stone that rose from the ceiling to the floor, a few of the hundreds that now filled the underground dojo built with the clan's own affinity for the element, this configuration of retractable obstacles meant to mimic Konoha's tree-laden forests. The boy winced as his fellow clan mate's, he thought the now tumbling figure might have been Kohaku, staff shattered under the heavy blow of the figure firmly planted in the center ring's indention and subtly shifted his trajectory to his left hoping to breach the columns in the defender's blind spot.

Clearing the stone columns at speed he lunged, the weapon perfectly horizontal as it shot forward at the end of his grasp. It was the quickest strike in the Sarutobi arsenal and speed was important in his strategy. He'd seen a fair number of his fellow clansmen fall attempting to take the current victor on with sheer power and fail spectacularly. No, speed was the key even with the strike's inherent weakness against blocking counters, hence the need for attacking from someone's blind spot or when they were weakened or unsuspecting.

Unfortunately for Koji Sarutobi, the current "King" sensed both his weak presence and intent, his own powerfully glowing bo whipping about as wiry shoulders wrapped in a black combat kimono pivoted just enough to bring about his defense. Hitsuji's arm came up to indicate two more victims as the pulsing stave swept Koji's spear thrust aside easily with a resounding CLACK before completing a rower's motion, the tip sweeping a downward rotation before reversing direction to impact the boy's stomach and send him tumbling along the floor and into one of the many stone columns to land in a heap.

Despite the sheen of sweat lightly covering his forehead, Hiruzen Sarutobi smiled warmly at the branch clan members of his family as they helped him retrain his body long withered due to years of neglect. His stance firmed up once again as two more chakra signatures surged, his eyes sweeping away from the fallen youth once the chakra reinforcement ebbed from his slumped form, his attention now needed elsewhere for the moment.

He was only halfway through tonight's session and his greatest challenge was yet to come.

Two more figures darted and weaved among columns as they closed in on the venerable Clan Head in a pincer attack. The training exercise was designed to stress and help develop their chakra network, the goal being to reinforce the training staves as well as their bodies during the entire session. Despite the impossible task of unseating their Clan Head, everyone in the Sarutobi Clan was at a fever pitch; something had spurred their powerful patron back into action and he once again trained with them even at such a late hour. The end result being that the skill of the entire clan was beginning to rise back to its former place of prominence. It was a reason to rejoice within the clan walls of their compound.

The resounding clash of wooden weapons filled the hall even as Hitsuji indicated another pair to start the next round. There were a great many members to work through before the final round and he wanted to push the old man, to force him past his limits before the night was through. No more coddling would be tolerated.

"Glad you could come watch," his lazy voice offered up to his right side.

"I have to be here." The figure observed casually from behind her pointy-eared ANBU mask. "I'm one of the few with any skill in Iryojutsu and the only healer in the clan with enough clearance to be here." The female ANBU watched idly as another youth bounced their way out of the center ring.

The taller male grunted an acknowledgment. Rinkusu had a point. They were hoping to keep Hiruzen's training over the past five months a secret as long as possible. Everyone knew what was at stake if the man's former student was indeed coming back to kill him.

"How goes the turnover?" The left hand lazily came up to indicate three more challengers and he smiled beneath his mask as they were coming to the more experienced fighters of the clan. The challenges would grow harder on the old man. His silent humor nearly missed the frustrated hiss from his diminutive partner.

"Dragon is angrier than I've ever seen before, a quiet simmering hatred." Ram's body tensed briefly before he could force it to relax. He'd seen that hatred once against a score of Iwa nin before Dragon ascended to the office. The memories still made him shiver in his dreams.

"I hope they can forgive the old man. He had his reasons," he countered.

"He was wrong, and you know this. Stop defending him." She seemed perturbed, her words clipped and precise.

"I'm not defending his actions," he began as his arm paused in another upward swing, "I'm just saying they've been friends for over a decade, and I'd hate for him to lose Dragon's support." His arm resumed its motion and pickled off the remaining five attackers. "He has soo few of those left these days."

"True," came the terse reply from the smaller figure, "but he still has us."

Ram nodded once as he handed the bamboo reed to his life-long partner and hefted his own training stave, the two-meter length of polished wood gleaming with a wicked blue light to match the one held by the now grinning senior citizen. Hiruzen assumed a more rooted stance with one arm held above his head and his lead grip pointing the bo in his hands towards the ground in a blocking position.

"True, he always has us." With that, the middle-aged ANBU blurred from his position on the wall, the sigil of the Sarutobi Clan, like all of its smaller counterparts on each of the columns, glowing with a soft light illuminating the spacious chamber.

With a manic smile underneath his mask matching the one mirrored on his father's face, Hyousuke Sarutobi rushed forward to engage in the final battle of the night with the bruised and panting members of Clan Sarutobi watching with anxious faces as the two powerhouses met in an explosion of chakra, sweat, and gritted teeth.

~III~