DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Mito speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

"That was easier than I thought it would be," White Zetsu cheered.

"We agreed to bury her, not bury everything," Black Zetsu scolded. Not that he cared. "Obito won't be amused." He detested when Obito became tetchy and now almost all of Obito's worldly goods he'd regathered from his past had been crushed. Madara's crap was in there, too, along with some other stupid things like a piano plus the MANY likenesses of a human ass White Zetsu had collected over the years. At least now the hindquarters figure collecting was on hold, surely.

The things I have to deal with…

"Hey, it was Obito's idea," White Zetsu reminded his counterpart with a whine. Obito had, after all, said something about "I wonder how she would like it: being buried under a ton of rocks" and now she was! "It's too bad we couldn't have brought back her leg or an eye for him. …Kisame-san will be happy, too!"

Black Zetsu's attention remained on the remains of the mountain. Erosion and landslides had made their work incredibly easy.

Almost too easy. He had only intended for the two of them to drag her underground before setting off a series of explosions.

Namikaze Mito had to go. She was skilled, unreasonably strong, and wanted to be Uzumaki Naruto's protector. Uzumaki Naruto was the jinchuuriki of the nine tails and didn't need anyone else on his side. His father was enough of a problem; Konoha was a large problem.

"Let's go."

"Ehhhhhh? You're always so bossy! –Oh no: my butt collection!"

.

When she finally could, (and from within a cocoon of chains,) Mito internally steamed at Lord Fuzzface as she parroted his earlier words back to him, trying to make her voice sound as deep and as pompous as Kurama had been.

"Stop being so fucking nervous, Mitwo."
"You can teleport, Mitwo."
"You'll be fine as long as we remain alert, Mito or Mitwo."

"Speaking of, why are you lounging in your repulsive chains when we have places to be?" Kurama ignored the way Mito fumed at him, enjoying being an asshole or perhaps simply her predicament for a few moments (probably both.) Maybe he was simply glad to still be alive - but Kurama doubted and refused to consider that more. "As loathe as I am for you to return to the village, I do not want your sire further restricting our movements."

"Ah, fuck. That's true. This is still all your fault," Mito groused, getting worked up again. "And what do you mean, 'lounging?!' –As if we don't have a fucking mountain that's on top of us."

"Can't you crush a mountain with a single punch? –That is what you've claimed."

"I can! –Normally. Not that I've tried it," Mito admitted the last thing in a lower voice, worryingly. Who the heck would want to crush a mountain? "But one: my best punchin' hand is broken and my wrist," Mito didn't want to even look at her swollen, right wrist and slightly mangled hand.

Currently, she had chains shooting out of and protecting her from everywhere she had ever managed them aside from her one smashed hand that had been curled up and broken in a web of Mokuton and stone. She'd managed to get it out of the ground but nearly got herself flattened in the process. Considering that her other hand was partly holding up her crappy but currently lifesaving barrier, she couldn't use it to heal.

Which meant Mito couldn't use jutsus. Hands were important even when Mito could normally channel jutsus on proper pathways through her tenketsu without so many hand gestures. Using her chains like this made it near-impossible. She was channeling chakra EVERYWHERE right now.

"And two: this collapse is heavy," Mito complained - as if she had to (or as if he didn't know that) - sometime later when she realized she hadn't completed her thoughts. "Humans aren't meant to hold up mountains."

"Tch! It's not an entire mountain! It's not even a large mountain."

Mito felt her face heat up and then got aggravated about his complaints. "Still. I've been trying to expand my chains to get us out of here but you saw what happened." Expanding her chains allowed part of the mountain's collapse to enter the pod she'd instinctually created when everything crashed down on her. She had debris and dirty cuts all over her from her initial efforts.

Expanding her chains also made it much harder to breathe. –Or at least she'd been coughing a lot.

"As long as you're not using them on me, your barriers really do need work." Mito's adamantine chain barriers were nowhere close to her mother's strength. On the other hand, his vessel's despicable chains - aside from their current situation - could suck the chakra out of nearly anything.

"I know that!" That damn fox! She lay there for a while, her core already aching with the stress this crushing weight had put on her. "Alright then, there's no time like the present to improve them, ne?" Mito did not appreciate the way the fox rolled his eyes at her. Concentrating on her shallow breathing, she tried to make the chains expand and retract ever so slightly with her. It was similar to the exercise she'd used to eventually weave her tiny chains together after her Mom passed.

Maybe she could channel an explosive seal through them. I don't want to blow myself up, though.

"What are you planning to do with that scroll?"

"Nothing?" Mito asked more than stated to the surprising question, but she sincerely meant it. She didn't plan to do anything with Kurama's summoning scroll.

She summoned the Jungle Cats. She'd already been abandoned by the slugs and Mito would not abandon the allies that took her in. Yes, Mito knew that there were a few shinobis known to summon multiple partners but the Jungle Cats (and the fox, frankly,) were jealous and possessive.

- If she summoned Kurama, wouldn't she and Naruto risk immediate death?

- And if she summoned a monstrous fox, it would scare the shit out of everyone, permanently, and flatten everything around her. Kinda like this mountain. What a drag.

If those things weren't considerations - and they certainly were - who's to say that Kurama would then do as she asked?

"You only had me grab and sign it to get it out of Obito's hands, right?"

She's telling the truth.

"Right." Too bad she had some of Kushina's Uzumaki Idiot genes running around in her system or she could summon him to get her out of her current conundrum.

Kurama did not want to be controlled, however, and he'd risk death to ensure it never happened to him again. For now - forever, he told himself - he would not tell her exactly what signing a bijuu summoning contract could do for her.

Probably.

God, he was getting soft to even consider it.

.

"Team 8?" Inuzuka Gaku addressed the kids he, fortunately, found together near the freaking Forest of Death. Shibi said they often trained here. Minato's daughter must be even more of a maniac than I'd heard: stationing Genins near this hellhole. "We have an immediate mission. This is a highly ranked one, kids. Hokage-sama thought you could be of assistance."

"You got it, Old Man Gaku," Kiba greeted his clansman with a fangy smile. "What are we doing?"

"Your sensei took off and might be missing. We need to retrieve her." The kids gawked at him - even the Chunin Aburame heir's eyebrows rose behind his glasses. "And don't call me that, Kiba. On this mission, it's 'taicho,' got it?"

"Hai!"

The kids had earlier been questioned about Mito's clone popping away mid-sentence but they hadn't thought TOO much of it at the time. Her clones were always disappearing on them. Usually, the real Mito would replace her doppelganger quickly enough.

- It was fortunate that they'd mentioned Mito not returning to Teuchi when they went looking for their sensei.

- When the Hokage stopped in for a quick supper, Teuchi told Minato that something didn't sit right with him about it, and things moved from there.

Hinata patted the scroll she'd been instructed to always keep on or beside her. "W-we have scrolls s-so that we're always ready to go, taicho!"

"Excellent. Meet me at the North gate in 10." He sunshinned off and Team 8 surprised him by following.

Arriving in a quiet sunshin, all three kids watched in tense silence as Hokage-sama continued to rip the gate guards a new one. They had never seen the Hokage angry before. And Asuma-sensei looked like he was ready to explode.

It was scary!

Minato turned to them with icy blue eyes and took a slow, deep, cleansing breath before giving them their assignment. "Team 8. I need you to assist in bringing home your sensei, alive and kicking." And screaming if need be.

From what Kakashi, Mito's team, Shizune, and Tsunade said, his daughter's clones had all dispelled at roughly the same time - and neither the real Mito nor any of her clones were now in Konoha. "Mito had a recent run-in with Kumo nins and Orochimaru has long had an interest in her." He hated to scare the kids, but this was the truth or part of it. "There's also another group that wants her." The Akatsuki. His Jonins now knew about the organization.

"Mito may have taken off to simply visit the Uzumaki Temple but as you know, a genjutsu will keep non-Uzumakis away from it," Minato added. Mito had asked about taking Naruto back there soon, however, and he didn't get the impression she planned to go before her little brother came back. Before the Chunin Finals and attack, she'd mentioned flashing Naruto to Uzushio to show him around and pick up some fish for the tank there.

"We'll be able to smell her if she's been in the area of the shrine, though," Gaku assured his leader. "Then we can wait for or try to signal her"

"That's my hope."

Shino pushed his glasses up. "From what I observed upon arriving, Mito-sensei signed out before leaving?"

"That's right," Gaku said, his lips twitching at Minato's grunt at the reminder. "Her destination is listed as 'North.'"

"North?" the team repeated as one. Normally one was required to enter an exact destination they had in mind.

"Hai," Gaku and Minato groaned, both looking quite put out. The gate guards on duty had succumbed to Mito's charms, it seemed.

- Actually, they'd just been away from their post for a second.
- If Mito had been there she would have reminded them that she had no charm! –Didn't they know that?!

Minato planned to have a long talk with his daughter as soon as she was back.

If she makes it back.

What was he thinking?! Of course, she was fine!

Mito's STRONG.

Minato had seen it for himself when her clones were holding up extremely tedious but incredibly strong barriers while battling Lord Second and First - and assisting with Hiruzen. But considering that Itachi and his partner had gone after Naruto only days ago, he should point them in that direction. "Mito recently had a run-in with Uchiha Itachi near the border. –Quite close to the Valley of the End. –Which… is also just south of where she ran into the Kumo squad," he added while pinching his brow in an even more glum tone.

Gaku made a mental note of that. He had several places to check out.

He'd had to track a teleporting shinobi before, early in Minato's career as a Jonin and right after he had re-worked the Hiraishin. Back in those early days, the future Hokage often ended up in places he hadn't intended to.

Tracking someone that could teleport was a real pain in the ass, however. "We'll head there if there's no sign of her near the Shrine."

Asuma finally spoke up, thinking of Itachi. "That's why I'm going with you." He wished Gai was here since he was accustomed to fighting the Sharingan but if ninjutsu was needed, he was the best bet outside of Kakashi. And speaking of…

Shisui had just sunshinned in. "I was told you requested my presence, Hokage-sama. And our guests have arrived."

Minato nodded, accepting the report. What timing. The village had just suffered a multi-pronged attack, his children were gone after being "introduced" to the Akatsuki that was hunting them, and now he had a Hidden Mist entourage to deal with on top of Rasa's kids' situations. "Escort them to their quarters, please, and let Mizukage-sama know that I'll meet with her in two hours."

"One of them doesn't want to turn in his sword."

"Tough," Minato said. "A shinobi can't always rely on his primary weapon." He groaned and looked up at the sky before turning toward the trees where the team that was off to find his errant daughter had just disappeared. "Bring her home, please."

.

"I had hoped Naruto might drop by," Gaara admitted as he looked out the window.

"Not a chance," Kankuro grunted but then tried to smile apologetically at his little brother. Smiling was useless and beyond him at the moment, though.

"I'm sure Hokage-sama will be keeping him busy," Temari sighed from the bed she was sitting on. "I'm glad that, in the end, you two had time to make things right between you."

"Before we all die?" Kankuro wondered out loud.

Temari scoffed. "Hokage-sama could've killed us many times over, but instead, he repaired Gaara's seal and allowed us to stay in comfort - in our own hotel suite." Of course, we're sealed in here tighter than a drum.

Their chakra had been sealed, too. Damn fuuinjutsu masters of Konoha.

"We should be in Suna for the funerals," Gaara whispered more to himself than his siblings before speaking up more a few minutes later. "Did you find Hokage-sama's remarks about Uncle's death to be suspicious?"

"Why would they be?" Kankuro asked bitterly. He knew that his brother was closer to their uncle than he and Temari were but they had basically begged Yashamaru-oji to at least reconsider the attack Suna was planning. And unlike them, their uncle was able to make command decisions.

"I don't know," Gaara sighed. Something had just seemed off when Hokage-sama had delivered the (not-so-) shocking news of his uncle's death. He felt numb. Temari looked thoughtful but didn't say anything so he went back to gazing out the window.

Konoha is so green, he thought for at least the thousandth time. So colorful in general: spring really has sprung here. Konoha definitely had the most ideal climate in the Elemental Nations but Gaara still missed his home.

From the corner of his eye, Kankuro watched his older sister fret. Eventually, she began biting her nails. It was an old but bad habit of hers that their father wouldn't allow but now he's not here, is he? "I'll kill myself and anyone else that tries to marry you off to a tree-hugger, Temari!"
He winced, shouting when his sister responded by bonking him over the head.

"Baka! –For all you know, Hokage-sama may want to marry YOU off to one of his nins!"

Temari was older, though, and women were always the ones saddled with these things.

"You think?" Kankuro asked, seeing the benefit of that. "That could work but I see myself as more of a bachelor." Temari threw a pillow at him.

She was violent.

"He doesn't seem like that kind of kage," Gaara commented as he observed a certain boy in green happily running back and forth with a small boulder on one shoulder even though he was using a crutch. Konoha nins were so strange. He had seen some amazing taijutsu here, including from that boy - whom he hadn't intended to hurt so badly - and Gaara had realized just how much his taijutsu was lacking. It was something to think about.

"Yeah, it SEEMS that way but believe me, Gaara, the Hokage's gonna demand something BIG from Suna for restitution." He knew that Temari was worried about being forced to marry so that a future alliance would have some teeth and blood in it.

"This was all Orochimaru's doing," Gaara said firmly. Although it might be befitting of a shinobi, Gaara still found it cowardly that the rogue Snake Sannin had not participated in the attack he had induced.

"The Hokage found out that father had met with him."

"Be careful of what you say," Temari reminded the boys. "I'm sure we're being monitored and although father met with Orochimaru, he also tossed him out of his office, did he not?!"

"Yes, Temari," both boys groaned.

"We've already been Mind Walked," Kankuro bitterly reminded her. "What can we say that they don't already know?"

.

Naruto sighed loudly, thinking about all of the crap he was dealing with. He loved his godfather very much but the man was a total perv and every time he went off to get info from his "contacts" or "network" or "spies," Naruto couldn't help but figure he was out getting it on with a lady or two.

And this time, he was definitely right. He crossed his arms over his chest, wondering - not for the first time - why his father, a great man, looked up to Jiraiya so much or why he trusted him with his son. Me!

Jiraiya HAD helped raise Mito, going so far as taking her out on the road with him for long stretches of time when she was little, so Naruto guessed he was capable of being a decent and responsible adult. Considering that more, it was no wonder that Mito read those perv books Kakashi-nii was into. Shame on you, Ero-sennin! Mito's a girl, you idiot - and that just made being a perv-book reader even worse!

Jiraiya HAD had taught him a few things and had better explained things that his father tried to teach him (his dad tended to talk over his head.) Naruto really wanted to learn that hair thing Jiraiya did but wasn't sure he wanted to grow his hair out. Considering how much Mito's long hair still stuck out here and there, he figured it was hopeless. WHY couldn't they have gotten their mother's awesome hair genes?!

Thanks for the crazy hair, Dad!

Mehhhhhh. At least Naruto's hair wasn't as insane as Mito's was. And speaking of bad hair that had to be massively gelled to style that stupid way…

What the hell is wrong with Sasuke? They were teammates! Teme should WANT him to be strong! But ~no-o-o~

- Sasuke's psychopathic big brother did something terrible to him again and now Sasuke wants to kill him even more.

- Sasuke's psychopath big brother - Itachi used to be so nice and awesome! - was hunting him!

- Gaara lost control of his seal: so what?

Naruto hoped it would never happen to him.

What was Naruto supposed to do? Let the sand tanuki run wild in Konoha when he was RIGHT THERE and the sand was about to kill Sakura-chan?

The damn thing had even grabbed his sister - although Naruto didn't see when it tossed Mito into a giant Hashirama tree so hard that it broke her! Did Sasuke not know how strong Mito was and thus how hard she had to hit a tree for it to break her and not the other way around?!

And so what if he wanted a little credit for waking Gaara up?

Shino was the one who helped Kankuro with his wounds.

There was plenty of credit to go around!

Dammit: Sasuke's mom might have arrived to help but Gaara was already awake by then.

- And Mikoto-oba made Mito have a seizure.
- And her especially powerful eye thing made him freeze after punching Gaara. He couldn't do anything and Kyuubi lost his shit.

Naruto knew that Mikoto-oba didn't mean to do it - and Naruto had even told Sasuke that!

"I should have kept my mouth shut about the whole thing," he muttered to himself.

- So what if Sakura thought Sasuke had saved her - and then later said she was forever indebted to "my future mother-in-law, the incredible Mikoto-sama."
- It wasn't his fault that it stung. He was Sakura's teammate, too; didn't he matter? He'd ALWAYS been nice to Sakura while Teme was such a… teme! "Stupid bastard."

A scantily-clad lady with blonde, really messy hair came out of his room and blushed when she saw that he was waiting for Ero-sennin, cross-legged on the floor. "Are you two done?" The lady squeaked in a weirdly deep voice and ran away. Naruto went into the room and ANOTHER lady was in there with his godfather. "Ero-sennin," he said darkly, feeling his blood boil.

"Naruto," Jiraiya grinned at his godson: the cute total brat. "We were just finishing up! Have you been practicing your chakra control?" Naruto groaned and stomped around the room. Jiraiya was glad that he'd asked his operatives to henge but ever since he told a few about the sexy jutsu, his spies had begun to use it themselves. God only knows what the kid thought he was doing considering the young, beautiful blondes around him all day today that were actually henged ugly old, broken down, former shinobis.

Naruto waited for the lady to leave and leaned against the back wall of their room. He pressed his hand against the fox's seal on his stomach. "If Itachi and the Akatsuki are after the Nine-tails, doesn't that mean they're after Mito-ane, too?"

"Mito can handle herself, Naruto. You don't need to worry about her," Jiraiya said convincingly although he was certainly concerned about her, too. –And not only because Mito wanted to destroy him for flicking Naruto down that ravine.

Naruto hummed. He shouldn't be jealous and he wasn't - much. He looked away when Jiraiya seemed to look right into his soul. The way the geezer smiled at him made him uncomfortable. The old perv was some kind of genius in his own right. I'm surrounded by them.

Jiraiya sighed as he passed off a message to a toad who then dispelled. "You and your sister are more alike than you think, brat. Mito's a hard worker like you can be. She just likes to read books and has a great memory," and, unknown to us when she was small, she used to drug or use iryo-ninjutsu on herself to sit still, "unlike someone I know."

Naruto hummed, unsure but guessing he had a point although he (secretly) had a very good memory. Kakashi-nii/terrible-sensei was supposed to be a bonafide genius and from what Naruto had seen, his older brother/sensei was a little odd and could hardly talk about things that weren't strictly related to shinobi business. Shikamaru was a genius and was saddled with intrinsic, almost never-ending laziness. His father was a genius, too, and he had a penchant to be naturally boring and long-winded while somehow remaining oddly charismatic (but only in short bursts.) He grinned at his godfather mischievously. "I guess she can't be a genius if she likes books, ne?"

"VERY funny, Naruto," Jiraiya said while ruffling his bright blonde locks. "So, Young Tadpole! –Before we go back to Konoha, what do you say we start training in some slightly more INTERESTING bukijutsu than what you've used up until now?"

"Yes, yes! Yatta!"

.

"You should stop breathing," Kurama advised helpfully.

"YOU should stop breathing," Mito snarked before nearly bursting into giggles.

"What will you do when you run out of oxygen?"

"There's oxygen here." Mito was almost sure there was enough to last a while longer. When the cave-in first happened, she had coughed and hacked so much that her chains almost retracted but in the end, Mito had prevailed over the weight of the mountain. The decimated land mass was definitely more than a "very big hill," as Kurama had called it while they were arguing an hour or a day ago. "If I couldn't take in oxygen, I'd be dead by now, ne?"

Kurama tilted his head and wondered if his observations were correct. They usually were. "I think your chains are filtering what little air there is in here."

"No shit?" Mito asked in wonder. Even though she had lots of rocks on top of her, she was feeling GOOD! Who knew being in a landslide was so AWESOME?! She broke into more laughter.

"But you're going to die soon." He sighed when the Uzumaki pouted at him with sad, big eyes. She was slowly being poisoned by something seeping through the air. And then she started laughing - and then coughing - again. Probably. "You said you'd let me go."

"I will," Mito promised. "Can we just hold on a little bit longer?" She guessed the fox agreed because he only lay down and closed his eyes although he kept blinking up at her now and then. She also supposed that she'd have to unlock the seal - oh, shit: I still don't have the key - meh, she'd force her way through it and hopefully wouldn't get crushed first.

It could have been minutes or hours later that she felt a real, honest-to-goodness shinobi-sized chakra signature nearby - or a bunch of them!

Everything above and below her started rocking.

"MITO!"

Mito felt her students nearby but the first thing she saw when she let her chains disappear were some incredibly blown-up Akimichis towering over and clearing the area. There was hollering, and applause, and someone was hoisting her up and yelling about her hand and… Man, she was tired.

Of all the things my father and the village did not need right now was an expedition of this size, post-attack.

There were a LOT of shinobis that had been sent to retrieve her.

Her core muscles AND her chakra coils had been at their limit, though. She looked around in wonder, unable to muster the energy to properly thank those who had come out to find her or even move much. It was near dawn; Mito wondered how long she'd been down there. "Thank," was all she got out before coughing a lung up - or that's what it felt like.

One of the giant Akimichis plopped her on the ground where Hinata and a medic Mito didn't really like, Kino-something, began running a diagnostic or working on healing her hand while someone else put an oxygen mask over her face. Sometime later, after she was injected with something, she realized what an enormous physical relief that was. "Asuma?"

She hadn't even realized Asuma was here.

Asuma was relieved - because when the Hyuuga girl had said she saw Mito's weak chakra signature in the center of a fucking landslide, he'd almost lost it. He loved that little… "pain in my perfect ass," he muttered weakly.

Mito coughed some more and kept her VERY sleepy eyes on her older brother while everyone else helped or secured the area. She really hadn't given up hope while she was laying there but she hadn't been alone or on the other side of it, wondering if she was dead.

She'd thought a lot about her life and the wonderful people in it while laying inside that cave-in.

Mito really needed to talk to Kurama about all of this shit, too. There were going to be questions about what she had done!

God, this sucked! Being alive was really good though, now that she thought about it. –Now that she could breathe.

An Inuzuka soon tossed her on his back as if she weighed nothing, laughing as he discussed something with Asuma and they adjusted her oxygen mask again. She looked up and blinked a few times when she realized that he had one of her kunais.

Wait.

No. That wasn't her kunais; it was her father's seal on that special kunai! "As'ma," she tried to begin apologizing to her brother but he was smirking at her. "Wait. No" no, no, no: "please no!"

Asuma leaned into her filthy hair and whispered to her as if she was the same naughty child she was when she used to do this same thing to him. "I'm really glad you're okay, but I'm telling your dad on you." He tossed the kunai into a tree.

An ashen-faced, ready-to-come unglued Hokage appeared and Mito clutched the Inuzuka shinobi's vest with all of the remaining strength she had.

The Inuzuka guy struggled to get her off of him and eventually had to give up his vest. "Sorry, Princess! Hokage-sama's orders!"

"Yes," Minato quietly agreed, trembling, "let's go, Princess. Tsunade's looking forward to evaluating you."

"Oh, crap."