He was Saiken, the Tailed Beast of yore.
The one with the six tails and the awesomeness that was his greatness.
He was amazing and he could do things that were also amazing because he was in fact… amazing.
Yes.
He was Saiken, the greatest of them all and he would appreciate it very much if you took the time out of your day to appreciate just how great he was.
Yes yes.
Fine.
Saiken used Bubble Release Jutsu and sent the small humans in the sky.
Yes yes.
Praise him more.
"Saiken-sama, you're the best!" One of them squeaked like the small creature that they were.
"Yes, I am!" He replied.
Praise him more!
He is a benevolent one and he also really liked being praised.
Yeeees.
Chiho looked out of the City of Rice, down below to the sight of the massive Six Tailed Beast that was even now… blobbing there (what did one call a stationary posture from something that didn't have legs?)... and doing absolutely nothing at all.
It was… there.
And it was playing with the children which was rather nice.
It only it wasn't so… so… so narcissistic.
He didn't accept payment in food… or rather they had managed to trick him into not accepting payment in food. Rather they paid him in praise.
As in actual legitimate praise which he lapped up… because he looked like a big slug and slugs just absorbed things didn't they?
No.
No, they didn't.
Wait… wouldn't that mean that Saiken ate through osmosis? That was kind of disturbing… just sucking all the juices out of his victims. But he also had super powerful acid didn't he? Hmmm… he certainly had a variety of different ways to eat now that she thought about it.
But he was a slug right? Slugs ate things with their admittedly cute manner of eating things but Saiken was anything but cute.
Take a little slug that you couldn't see the slime on and turn it a few thousand times bigger and you had Saiken which was the very definition of not cute.
If anything he looked highly disturbing… and strange given that he was also pink.
Pink.
Who had ever heard of a slug that was pink?
Or rather it wasn't pink but a lilac kind of shade.
And it also had fat rolls on its stomach.
Seriously, did nature just not care when it created the thing?
Chiho sighed, at least it was proving to be very willing to play along with what the children wanted.
As in they wanted to play and do nothing else… like all children did.
Sometimes she really did wonder who was the child here, the giant creature over there or the shinobi or the actual children.
It was using its bubble release Jutsu to send people up to whatever floor of the City of Rice that they wanted. A necessity for some given that it had reached several dozen floors high, big enough that it needed dedicated elevators for people to go up and down the massive heights that was the city.
As for Chiho she was glad her office was still on the second floor and was still within walking distance of all she wanted.
She technically knew where everything was in her city… but she didn't really. Sure she got the reports that said when and where different shops were opening up, or closing, but she had never actually been to any of them.
It was always expanding, always getting bigger, always filling up with more and more people. Her people.
It was a load of weight on her shoulders and right now she considered that things were not perhaps going as well as she would have liked.
Maybe she could have taken more time off and done things in her own time that didn't rely on the Minds so much. But here she was now, and she needed to guide her people and the sad thing was that she was unaware of the actual place that she wanted to guide them towards.
Just what was there at the end of the rainbow?
She ruled city and she now also played a very large role in ruling the continent.
Just what was the best path here? Which route was the one that gave her the best outcome.
Ruling a small nation? That was easy enough. She just needed to match her decisions against that of the other nations in such a way that Raisu would end up on top of it all.
But here?
Here she had nothing to go on, nothing that she could do to actually rule fairly because there was no precedent.
There wasn't going to be any riots thankfully, the people were pacified with their food and their happiness quotient.
At least the war wasn't doing anything to affect her people unduly. They had their food and the conscription hadn't been met with as much resistance when they found out the conscripts had the best food. Only the volunteers got better and suddenly recruitment went through the roof.
Still...
Sometimes it got to the point where she wondered just how much effort she could put into this that wasn't going to be too much or too little, how would she be remembered? Her legacy…
Chiho sighed and decided that she might as well go and meet the newest resident of Raisu. The one that served to be very good when it came to dealing with children strangely enough. They thought his constant demand for praise to be like a game for them to play instead of him actually demanding actual praise.
How very strange no?
Perhaps he was just like a child and responded on the same level as one?
It was entirely possible she decided, the Tailed Beasts certainly were not the… most consistent when it came to their personalities and their actions.
Kurama the nine tailed beast was still moody as ever despite the attempts to coax him out by his brothers, still unwilling to do anything that had anything to do with humans at all.
Rather immature of him but… he was Kurama… and he wasn't known for his maturity when it came down to it.
Regardless, Chiho was going to go down, she was going to speak to Saiken and then she was going to very firmly suggest that it would be a good idea for him to give her a ride up the City of Rice and then down again.
A leader needed some perspective every now and again and seeing the massive nature of her city as well as the surrounding land should do nicely.
Saiken looked down and acknowledged the mortal that was below him.
Below him in station, in experience, in power, in all things.
Yes.
For he was Saiken, the Six Tailed Beast, the greatest of them all.
If he really wanted he was sure he could have beaten Kurama given enough time, he was a giant slug, just what did Kurama have that could beat him? Just divide and replicate for days. As in all the days.
Right?
Anyway, Saiken looked down at the mortal and raised an eyebrow before realising that the eyebrow didn't exist… he was a giant slug.
No matter!
He was Saiken, his eyebrow was raised all the time, a permanent state of affairs when everyone was weaker than he was. It was just the way of the world, unfortunately.
He nodded.
"What is it mortal?" He rumbled in his best superior voice. She was not a child, even if she was the same size as one.
It was a she… probably? There was long hair… so maybe?
No matter, she was female because he had decreed it and so shall it be!
Saiken's word was law.
"All the way to the top," she said. Not even offering a word of praise to his greatness.
Ungrateful was what she was.
He gave her a bubble anyway because he was Saiken and he was a generous and benevolent god.
But still!
She could have at least said thank you!
It wasn't like it would have cost her anything you know?
A simple, 'oh thank you great lord, Saiken for bestowing upon me this bubble that I might traverse the city behind your august form,' would have done nicely.
But noooooo, it was all 'to the top,' bah!
Mortals.
He would wash his hands of them, he did not need them.
"Oh great lord Saiken! Can we go to the top please! You're really great!" There! See?
That was the way it should be done.
"Of course mortals! I shall take you to the very top!" Saiken rumbled, his voice pleased.
Yes.
These were the good ones, he liked these ones very much.
Maybe next time he could do things like have his own mortals that would only praise him because he was the only one that was worth praising, for he was Saiken, the greatest of them all.
He hummed as the small ones giggled and laughed, as was right.
In his domain, there would be nothing but happiness and laughter!
For he was Saiken and he had decreed it to be so!
Alex was a guard.
He was the guard that stood there to make sure everyone was lining up properly and if they didn't he would then jab them with the blunt end of his stick and if they kept being an asshole he would jab them with the pointy end.
It was a simple job but it was his.
Sometimes, though… sometimes you really had to pull through.
The beast was mumbling and sulking again, someone hadn't said please properly.
He sighed, there was even a sign right here!
The sign even said 'praise is payment to Saiken for the ride', like right there. In font that you had to literally be blind to see, it was massive.
You didn't even have to pay or anything, just rock up and he would be totally fine with it. Like seriously…. Seriooously.
Ugh.
Just why did he have to put up with this?
With that in mind, or rather with the best interests of not having to listen to more grumbling, he looked at the kid that was next in line and he raised his eyebrows before jerked his pointy stick at the words on the billboard.
The one that said;
'Examples of praising acceptable to Saiken'
That also included words underneath those words that said; 'thank you great lord Saiken for allowing me to ride in your bubbles.'
Was it really that hard to do it? Was it really that hard to praise a giant slug thing that could shoot out acid powerful enough to melt people into goo and was doing this strangely enough for fun?
It was doing this for fun.
Or it was doing this to hear praise but who cared, the point was still there.
The Tailed Beasts were all weird and crazy and you did not want to piss them off since they were going to piss everyone else off by killing them.
Which was bad.
If you didn't already know.
He sighed as nodded as Saiken accepted the praise with a few 'good good, you know your place mortals' thrown in there for good measure.
Was it really so hard to get the idea of a giant slug thing out of the mind when it was actually a giant slug thing?
It was a giant slug thing and sometimes he really wanted a different assignment that didn't have him listening to a giant slug thing that sounded like his grandfather after a few too many drinks.
He sighed and got on with it. It was his job, he had a job, and he was going to have to do things that related to said job.
Right.
At least the benefits were great.
Saiken slid along the road to meet with his siblings, there was Matatabi today and Isobu. Gyuki was in the capital terrorising all of the office workers for being so inefficient so he couldn't make it today but that was okay.
It wasn't like he was going to be doing something strange right? They were immortal and he was going to meet them all again anyway, even Kurama who was like a big giant fox-baby thing.
Right, that's what he was, a giant fox baby thing.
Saiken chuckled at that imagery and kept sliding along. Today was a good day.
He managed to spread his magnificent name to yet more people, and now he was going to eat all the vegetation that he could get his soft mandibles on.
It was a good day to be him and he was very happy indeed. So happy that he really thought that he could even share a little of it with Isobu… the fish lover.
Jiraiya was a pervert, he knew that. All of them knew that.
All of them.
Even those that weren't even on his team knew that.
Which was why he was rather annoyed right now.
Very annoyed.
Because he was being out perverted by that damned Arja woman.
Seriously, did she not understand the concept that he was the pervert here?
But nooooo. It was all her.
She had to be better than everyone else and had to steal all of his spotlight.
He was meant to be the big boss here, the one that everyone else looked to, but instead if was here and it was damned annoying.
Was it because she was a woman? Wasn't gender equality meant to mean that he could get equal attention? He had feelings too you know.
And here he was now, on the edge of a village, trying to escape from her. Damned woman followed him either physically or the gossip around her did. Either way, he didn't want to be anywhere near her.
Jiraiya looked over the hot springs below him that housed a village. Typical rural construction, rounded structures to allow for less environmental damage when it came to things like wind and the like. Flat walls tended to just fold when the gods of the weather decided to go all out.
The walls were painted a dull sandy orange, not out of place in the desert. They were made of bricks and mortar, rather strange given that most had turned to the Mitsugo to build their nice wooden structures that regrew after they took damage… assuming they took damage at all.
Must be a pretty traditional village, or one that was just left behind by the times.
The roofs were conical, wooden slats cut to shape fitted over the rooms below and then layered with thousands of sheets of water resistant bark, hammered into place by bamboo nails.
Cheaper than slats, easier to clean, easier to use, and easier to deal with all around… even if the actual construction was annoying as all hell.
He looked at it and grinned a little. It was the perfect place.
The village was in the middle of the hotsprings, this being a very… hidden away little village. One that was only known to the health enthusiasts that wanted their skin to shine with the inner glow of a thousand chakra beetles. A place that was for the women that had the money and the time to spend to be able to get into the resorts in the first place.
In short, it was the place that one went if they wanted for there to be ridiculous amounts of beautiful women, all wearing less than nothing… or rather wearing nothing. Less than nothing was rather disgusting and Jiraiya quickly banished the thought from his mind.
He did not need to imagine women without skin bathing and the way the water would be turning red and the…. No. No. That was Orochimaru's thing, leave him out of it.
There were beautiful women and the village itself was going to be the perfect little hiding place for him. The buildings were all arranged off the ground, and what was more, they were all at varying heights.
Which for him meant that there was going to be some very, very nice little nooks and crannies that he could hide in, places where his wandering eyes wouldn't be seen.
He was a legendary ninja after all, one of the Sannin. If he couldn't peek on a village that didn't even have any shinobi then he might as well turn in his headband now.
Eyes wide open, face ready, body ready, everything ready, Jiraiya body flickered his way across the water that was the moat around the village. It was the hot spring itself, the village merely had little enclosures that spread out to capture little pockets of the lake, ways to mark the different areas for different guests. You didn't want the ugly women to be with the beautiful ones, after all, it would make them feel bad.
Also his eyes. His poor poor eyes.
As for Jiraiya he grinned, this was easy. Sure it was a little hard if you were Genin or something, the roiling water that was the hot spring meant it would be hard to walk on it if you didn't have perfect control. But for a member of the Sannin, Jiraiya who could do things like make his hair go and kill people for him?
It was nothing.
Finding his little foot hold, he leapt, his body nothing more than a blur as he made his way to the perfect little shadow that he had spotted on his reconnaissance mission, not moments before. On did not become a legendary pervert by acting irrationally, you needed to plan or else you were going to end up as nothing more than a bleeding carcass when they found you.
He grinned.
Landing on the roof he turned and… dammit all.
"You." He hissed.
"Me," Arja said, raising a hand in greeting but not actually shifting her eyes.
"What are you doing here?" He whispered, edging himself in and shifting her to the side. The damned woman always managed to beat him to the best hiding spots, how was he going to keep his reputation if she kept outdoing him?
"Father said that a true ninja must learn to appreciate the mortal form." She said.
Same thing as she always said.
He had even asked her father at one point and the man said he said nothing of the sort. True his wife had been there and she looked rather unhappy, but that didn't mean anything. The damned woman probably made it up just so she could torment him some more.
He knew that was what she did, it had to be. Why else would she find such enjoyment in beating him to the best places.
She was a woman for Kami sake, what the hell did she need to peep on other women for? He could see her body and she might as well look in the mirror if she wanted a good look at the human form.
Not that he would tell her that, she had followed in Tsunade's footsteps and her punches and kicks were legendary. Nobody wanted to piss off the woman that could crack hillsides with a fist.
But seriously! She was taking up his damned space here and he wanted it back.
She wasn't even into women! He had seen her peek on the men as well, and she had a boyfriend at one point. Did she do this just to annoy him? He was going to beat her, somehow he was going to out pervert her.
He had a reputation to defend!
He glared at the woman and decided that he was going to be the biggest pervert on the continent if it killed him, there was no way that he was going to let some… woman be better than he was.
Jiraiya wondered exactly what he was doing here.
He had challenged that Arja woman to a battle of the perverts. A way to finally decide once and for all who was the better pervert, who deserved the title of the best.
It wasn't exactly the… most sensible thing to fight over, but it wasn't like he had much else right? Orochimaru had the brains, Tsunade had the biggest tits medical knowledge, he had his seals… and his books.
Right.
This was for research, all of it was for research. That was his answer and he was going to stand by it.
Right.
So he had challenged that woman to see who was better, to finally prove that it was he who had the upper hand here, and that he was going to be the one that came out on top.
Only for her teammate to step up to him, raise an eyebrow and ask 'when is my date?'
Jiraiya had been at a loss. Since when did women proposition him?
Actually, when had a woman taken the first step period?
He usually needed to point out (subtly) that he was Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin if he wanted some action and she just… shoved a finger into his chest and looked into his eyes like she was queen of the world.
It had awoken an entirely new fetish that he never knew he had in him.
A fetish that for some reason had lain dormant inside of him, as if it were a coiled snake, waiting, hibernating, ready for the summer to arrive and drive it from its nest.
Yes.
Best analogy ever.
He wrote a little note in his pad that he brought wherever he went.
But the point still stood… he had a date, she was hot, as in she was really hot.
It wasn't even that she looked that special, slightly above average face and body if he was being honest.
What made her stand out was the way she walked, talked, and just lived.
Observing her (from the shadows like a real ninja, it didn't count as stalking because he was a ninja), she just radiated a level of confidence that shattered any and all preconceptions he had about her. Not that he had many of them, but the way her attractiveness went up by about 100000%... mmmmm.
It was safe to say that Jiraiya had found his fetish.
All men had a fetish, all women too. Everyone had a fetish and if someone didn't then they were lying, words told to him by a master of the way of the pervert.
A Mitsugo… a true man that died before his time.
A heart attack on a covert operation deep into enemy lines. The bathhouse had been too much and he had died just how he would have wanted to go.
Sure they had been trying to give him CPR but the point still stood.
Death while smothered in delicious female flesh.
Mmmm.
He shook his head slightly, this wasn't what he was supposed to be thinking about. There was Aila and she wanted a date.
And now he had a date with a woman that was teammates with his greatest rival.
He… he wasn't sure how it happened.
But it did and now he was about to suffer for it.
Right.
Jiraiya stood in front of the mirror and frowned. He had formal dress on, a yukata that went from head to toe and his headband was on his arm instead of his head this time.
The entire thing was coloured a deep red with streaks of white on it.
It was also incredibly uncomfortable, he wasn't sure how the Hyuga and the Uchiha survived dressing like this all the time, it was ridiculous.
Riiiiidiculous.
He sighed and walked out of his room.
No time like the present… right?
Right.
Aila had her hand on his arm and he was maintaining it at a right angle, which was rather painful when she was digging her nails into it.
He didn't know why she was doing it…
It wasn't like he had done anything? Right?
"She is rather pretty don't you think?"
Oh right.
Ummmm…
It wasn't like he could change that, he was Jiraiya, the pervert sage, he couldn't change something so fundamental about himself!
"Loosen up a little Aila, it's not his fault he was born like this. You take what you can get right?"
Ah. Arja.
He did not need this right now.
It was his first actual date in… forever and he was just a little bit of a nervous wreck right now without Arja butting in and getting him killed for saying something wrong.
She knew what she was doing too, he could see the grin on her face.
Damned woman.
"Yes. Like all humans he is educatable, I will be in charge of his education."
And just like that, the little snake that was his newly emergent fetish slowly uncoiled itself, the promise of spring being enough to drive it from its nest.
For his part, Jiraiya maintained his posture.
This had been going on for the entire night and he wasn't sure what he was meant to be doing here, a date… sure. A date while his arch nemesis was on the other side of his body offering words that were loaded with shurikens that could be used against him? Not so much.
But he had fought against worse odds and he wouldn't fail now, not while he had the opportunity to… do whatever it was that he was going to do.
Like maybe get a private room somewhere, where he could do things like lie down and let her walk all over him.
Right.
Sounded like a very good plan that he was going to totally want to get involved in.
Right.
Just needed to survive death by arch nemesis induced suffering.
Her little jabs were dangerous, suicide by Aila was not how he wanted to go.