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

Anko frowned. Mito's smile was tight and frozen as she watched her brother and Sora joking around with some other young monks from afar. Normally, Mito would put herself into the thick of things - dragging her along for the ride - while throwing herself on Naruto (and Sora but to a lesser extent.) Anko had expected to endure Mito hugging and wrestling them to the ground or swooping the kiddos up in her chains, telling them how they should be better prepared next time if they wanted to evade her. As if anyone's ever prepared for Mito.

Then Mito half-bowed to her hot, bald monk friend. Anko tilted her head, studying him. Was this not the same dude Mito was so close to, Chiriku? There were loads of hot bald monks here but Mito's monk was the one with the eyebrows that rivaled Gai's. No, it's definitely him.

"Chiriku-sa… How are you?"

One of Anko's eyebrows began a quick, upward ascent behind her purple bangs. Had Mito been about to use an honorific with him? Mito didn't do the more essential honorifics (the ones that showed the most warranted respect especially) and her friends knew it. Plus, Chiriku was her buddy.

"...You remember Anko-chan, don't you?"

"Yo," Anko nodded at him, curious. "How's it goin'?" The monk could hardly take his eyes off Mito but then turned to her abruptly, bowing to her a bit stiffly and offering her a strained but somewhat genuine smile.

"Of course. Anko-san!"

"Meh, just Anko's fine. Again," she reminded him as the monk's giant eyebrows moved around his forehead like a snake, ready to crawl straight off his face or up his shiny head (or as if awaiting her to say something else.) Oh, that's right. In the oddness of the moment, Anko had nearly forgotten one of the things she used to often call him: "Bald and Bulky."

Chiriku bobbed his head and ran his hand along the back of his head, looking sheepish. And blushing? That's unusual, too. Normally Enlightened-san would just sigh and smile coyly but otherwise ignore her awesome charms.

"It's good to see you both." There was so much Chiriku wanted to say; needed to say. Instead, what came out was, "What brings you to the temple?"

"Mito was being an idiot." Flashing us around drunk, unsure which "reality" or "dimension" we might be in. Anko pulled out her phone and scheduled Mito for a good ass-kicking on Tuesday at 0900.

"Ah, I wanted to see Naruto," Mito tried to grin, looking at the ground and ignoring what Anko said for the moment. They were really here for Jiraiya but Naruto was a super bonus - and is little of Chiriku's business anyway. "Jiraiya, too. –I ran into him right before you caught us, in fact." She couldn't help but snort when she looked up, trying NOT to look at her old (?Former?) friend but then caught a glimpse of how irritated he looked at the reminder. "Yeah." Jiraiya was at it again.

"It's good to see you," Chiriku said, not realizing he'd repeated himself. "I'd hoped to speak with you for some time, Mito. Maybe we could speak in private later before you leave?"

Mito nodded but continued looking at her kawaii brother, barely seeing him and finding this whole experience painful. Maybe she shouldn't have bothered with Tsunade's trick for sobering up. Right now she was ready for another drink! "If it's about the missing person's case, Anko knows as much as I do."

"Damn straight," Anko hissed, thinking of what those assholes did to Tou.

"Right. The case," Chiriku breathed, reminded of the child abductions Konoha's alliance was investigating. "As you can see, Senshi-kun has returned to training. He is healthy and…" He tried to withhold a grimace as the boy who'd been kidnapped along with Tou put on Mito's brother's horrid orange jacket, seeming delighted with it. "Yeah," he finished blandly. "He's good." Not great, but bouncing back as well as could be expected, he supposed.

"Ha. Kids are resilient, I guess," Mito commented, truly glad the boy was doing well after his ordeal. Senshi was looking up at Naruto, her brother's clone, and their combined newly formed Rasengan with stars in his eyes. "Anyway, we'd better get to Naruto! It was good seeing you…"

Clearing his throat, Chiriku stepped closer to her. He wasn't sure what to say to Mito, and it was only made worse by the way Anko was closely watching them. "How is Sora really fairing in Konoha?"

Mito blinked, feeling Anko's eyes all over them. "He's great - or he seems great to me," Mito said, taken aback a bit at the question. "He's teamed with a couple of other very talented boys his age, you know. One of them is recovering from some injuries he suffered but will be back, stronger than ever, I'm sure." Mito hoped Torune would be okay anyway. Shino had told her the experiment his father had come up with to lessen the challenges of housing Torune's incredibly poisonous hive was working out. "Sora and Naruto are doing a training trip with his Grandpa Jiraiya, though."

Chiriku nodded, having heard that.

Anko decided to rescue her discombobulated friend. "Sai's the third member of Team 11 under Yuhi Kurenai. You know her. I think Sai-kun wants to be Mito's apprentice."

Mito chuckled. "Nah. I've got Team 8; if Sai wants to apprentice to anyone, it's to Kakashi."

Anko didn't know that. Her eyes narrowed when she could've sworn the monk's expression showed a pinch of aggravation or… jealousy? Mito had turned a little pink when she said Kakashi's name: that baka. Maybe she'd just been reading too many shitty romance novels lately, though… "You two talk. I'm off to see the Baka Boys." She ignored Mito's lame attempts to stop her, eager to check out what was going on between these two from a distance. Clearly, they weren't going to speak openly in front of her which was just weird.

Mito hadn't even told her she and Monk-kun weren't getting along!

"So…"

"Mito," Chiriku sighed, knowing that he had to be the one to start.

"Sorry, Chiriku," Mito interrupted, caring very little at the moment that he seemed surprised. "I shouldn't have come unannounced after it's been made very clear that my presence isn't wanted here." By both the daimyo and the head monk: YOU, right?

"That's… not true."

"It is. Or it seems pretty true to me." They stood in silence for a while, watching Naruto and Sora go through the katas the other monks were going through. Naruto didn't look terribly tasked but was serious about learning the kata, and Sora looked thrilled so that was interesting, she told herself. "I better…"

"Let us speak privately in my quarters," Chiiku suggested.

"Oh fuck no: that is not happening," Mito told him, snorting awkwardly.

"No, no! I meant… Ngh, Mito," Chiriku groaned. He wiped a hand down his face, chastising himself for acting this way. Usually, it was so refreshing to be around Asuma and Mito, or their friends. "Be mature about this," he whispered to himself - immediately regretting it when Mito's eyes flashed red and she looked at him with what could only be called loathing. "I'm sorry. I'm TRULY sorry." He was better than this and normally far more composed. "I was speaking to myself."

Her presence here had really thrown him.

"I'm sorry, too, Chiriku: you have no idea," she said, withholding a quick dark laugh. Mito shook her head, breathing deeply in through her nose and arching her back as she put her fists on her hips. Before their stupid, definitely-not-worth-it one-night-stand, she'd thought of him as one of her closest friends. Or at least one of her oldest friends. She loved him - as a friend, of course.

At least she had finally, FINALLY gotten laid. And really, Chiriku wasn't a bad guy to lose her virginity to, even if the sex did kinda suck.

Unknown to Mito, while she spoke, Chiriku was already practicing his meditative techniques, focused for now on openness, acceptance, and mindfulness- although that was difficult, considering the topic he planned to broach. "I found something regarding the elders we last spoke about." Chiriku's lips twitched up into the semblance of a snarl just thinking about it as he stared at the ground. "I wanted to- I had hoped to show you. In fact, I found something last night… Once again, your timing is fortuitous."

"The elders," Mito sniffed, looking him up and down for either deception or another threat. She let out a huff, not ready for all this drama in the early morning. "Which elders?" The ones Kurama and I offed or the new ones?

Chiriku licked his lips, keeping his eyes focused on her heavily lashed magenta ones. For probably the thousandth time, he wondered how and why they changed color the way they did - aside from the fox. Mito said it was a trick of the light or environment, such as was commonly seen in those with hazel eyes but Chiriku believed it to be more than that. Whatever color they were, they were really very beautiful. Maybe in another life, he might have been a very proud, happy man, partnered with her. "I've found that what you said was the truth."

Mito shifted her weight, looking away from him. "No shit? Ha. –iF you're talking about what I'm afraid you are. Who'd imagine: me being honest?"

Chiriku internally winced at her sarcasm. "Let us speak about this in my quarters, in my study. I have the unfortunate details there. Please."

"Fine." She decided to mess with him as the words Kakashi had slurred into her hair only hours before rang into her ears:

"Maa, the only thing better in life than your legs is your ass, hime-sama… Mito-chan."

Oh, Kami. Mito's cheeks heated up alarmingly as she followed Chiriku through the temple. Forget Kakashi's temporary (and drunken) insanity - she'd smoothed her hand down his ass for that cheeky comment last night! Oh, sure, Mito: you finally manage to keep your lips to yourself and then you drunkenly manhandle a ninja without consent and chase him around.

Nice ass, though… And Kakashi had let out an embarrassing "whOOP" when she did it - and then face-planted straight into a building in front of them, which was very funny. How had she so easily moved past all of that? Oh, right. I was shitfaced enough to accidentally teleport into the Fire Temple and land on Jiraiya's naked ass instead of in front of Naruto. Mito shook all that off, however, and fixed Chiriku with a sly glare before entering his place. She leaned against the door frame, a cocky look on her face. "But let me tell you this, Chiriku: if you're thinking about getting another piece of my forbidden - and from what I'm told: awesome ass - you can fuck straight off."

"Y- yes, ma'am. L- let's keep our voices down."

"Right. How could I forget," Mito laughed, feeling a tad bit bitchy as she followed him toward his place. "Otherwise I forfeit my life."

.

"Rngh. What're you doin' in my lair?" Kakashi asked the overly bright kage leaning over his bed, slurring. He dropped his head back into his pillow again, closing his eyes. Kakashi was giving Minato a deservedly hard time (he didn't like people here; Minato knew that) and was sure he was still drunk - and it was EARLY. "Nearly stabbed you."

Minato grinned, all teeth. "Before I tucked you in last night - or early this morning, I suppose - I did a weapons sweep." He sat down in the armchair Kakashi must have purchased since his last time here. "You call your flat a lair?"

"No," Kakashi half-lied. He had all kinds of names for his sanctuary. More pressingly, his head was killing him. How strong DID they make those drinks at that place? And what the hell had Mito been feeding him? He hadn't been that drunk - or this hungover - in a while. "Mission?"

"No," Minato admitted uncomfortably. "I saw you walking my daughter home last night. –Wanted to properly thank you."

Kakashi's good eye slid open as he gave Minato an unimpressed look. Minato was smiling that weird smile he'd get when he was threatening someone with death or bodily harm and Kakashi hadn't done a damn thing wrong. The last thing he recalled, a bush jumped out to attack him and Mito but he was fairly sure he'd fought back well. He frowned, remembering the bush henging into Minato. –Something wasn't adding up. "You're welcome. -Now please get out." He closed his eye again, pulling the covers up over his thankfully still-masked face.

"If you're alright," Minato acquiesced. "There's aspirin and water on the nightstand."

"Thank you."

Minato opened his door, taking his leave but not before he gave Kakashi a hard look. "Again; thanks for assisting my daughter last night." He shut the door behind him after watching Kakashi take his pain reliever through a genjutsu.

Kakashi pulled his mask off over his hair, stumbling up to lock the door. Crawling back into his bed, he let out a snort. "Maa, that shit's not going to work on me, Sensei."

.

An hour later, Mito tried to focus on what Chiriku had found under a tree outside the temple. Her scar hurt for the first time in a long time and she gingerly rubbed the area around it, trying to play it off as if she had an itch or cramp there. "Where did you find this stuff?"

"You know that Hermit chakra leaves a trace. And the scroll was under a marked tree."

Mito's lips curled up as she tapped one of the books that had been inside the scroll he found, staring straight ahead of her and feeling sick. She was beginning to have phantom pains or weird and disgusting sensations everywhere that fucker had touched her. "This part's coded; it could be anything. If it's connected to Gato, I may have the key but I doubt it would still be relevant if it's just been sitting there all these years." Her kidnapping and the rest of it had happened a LONG time ago.

Chiriku had thought the same thing. Sometimes adversaries could be quite foolish, however. He sat down beside her. "Are you alright?"

Mito shrugged and laughed - and not slightly hysterically. Points for me, I guess. "Oh, sure! I learn that the elders of the freaking Fire Temple planned to rape and later traffic me… Thanks for showing me Eren's diaries, by the way." That was sarcasm in case he didn't know. Elder Eren might have "only" put his filthy hands (in me:NO) on her but Mito sure as fuck hadn't wanted that old man to.

"Mito, I hope that, together with what I found in the scroll, we can prevent this from happening to anyone else." Otherwise, he wouldn't have shown it to her.

Mito nodded and then finally looked at him, determined, shaking off her own shit. "You're right. Thank you, Chiriku."

Her stomach tried to revolt, however. Having burned away the alcohol affecting her thinking or not, all the crap she ingested the night before was still "processing." Reading a little about Eren's and TWO other elders' fantasies about her, from age 10 on, was beyond disturbing. They even had the nerve to write about it! "Monsters. …I was just a kid, Chiriku." Mito was questioning everything. She never liked how they looked at her (all are dead now, she assured herself) but Mito never dressed in a revealing way or anything. Idiot! If someone else said something about dressing a certain way leading to rape or harassment you'd beat them sensible.

- Rape is about power.
- This shit's ALL about power.
- And these fiends didn't like the power my father holds over Fire Country.

It's probably not even about me.

- It sure feels like it is, though.

Chiriku wished that he could make it better; make everything up to her. "I… I'll leave it up to you whether or not to tell your father." Mito's eyes slid over to him, one red eyebrow rising, and he bobbed his head, meaning it. He knew what her and the Hokage's relationship (or lack thereof) was like for some time. "I trust you to follow up on the code and use all of this however you see fit."

Mito took a slow breath. Her first thought was to go to Shikaku with some of it - if anyone. Her father would probably see actual evidence of what he always feared happening to her as –well, evidence, and try to lock her up for safekeeping or something. Plus he'd be blaming himself again for shutting her in a spot where she was prey to traffickers and pedophiles. Shikaku would be level-headed about it. Those kinds of fiends could be anywhere; not just where she'd been sent. "You don't want to keep it?" she asked Chiriku in just over a whisper.

It would lend an anecdotal reason for her being responsible for two of the elders' deaths - and thus, still gave him leverage over her. She wasn't sure how Eren died but was glad he was gone. "And Kurama… Thank you for helping me. For making sure I was safe."

Eyes closed again, Kurama's eyebrow twitched before he shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mito sighed. That guy was such a tsundere. She and Chiriku sat in his study, neither saying anything as Mito tried to either digest or forget about what those vile old men did and had wanted from her. She had been an easy target, Hokage's daughter or not - being the only non-noble female living here for so long. She bent over, resting her face in her hands and trying to ignore the way her scar ached. Her head was also pounding again.

Chiriku broke the silence. "I should've never threatened you."

"No, you shouldn't have." Especially not right after we'd been intimate like that. She sweatdropped just thinking about it. Seriously, Chiriku: what the fuck?

Chiriku sighed miserably. I regret to say that I was afraid. Or felt as if I'd tumbled into a maelstrom." Mito snorted. "You could've told me what they were like."

Mito shook her head. "I didn't know for sure or even rem– I can't talk about this!" she reminded him defensively, just in case anyone was listening. Chiriku seemed sincere, though, and desperately sad. "If you're really sorry, you'll let it be. Just…" She stood up, ready to leave and go somewhere she could lose herself. "Just let me know if you come across more evidence, hear anything, or are worried about the kids or something. I'll see ya, Chiriku."

Mito let herself out, not seeing how worried Chiriku looked - or hearing what he said afterward. She only wanted to find Anko.

Anko could tell something was wrong and put her fists on her hips anyway. "Mito!" Mito was rubbing her back or side and looked like she was hurting. She huffed, wanting to know what the hell was going on. Just now, Mito had been gone for an awfully long time. "D'you fuck that guy?" she whispered.

Mito balked, throwing her hands out toward the giggling teens that were in the distance. Too close! Thank God her brother was out of range to hear them, even with potential fox senses. "Just now?! No! Of course not!"

Anko blinked several times. That was quite the answer. She followed Mito, running and jumping up onto one of the temple's high walls to stay with her. "You did before?" she hissed. Mito's face flushed. "AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME? YOUR BEST FRIEND?! What the FUCK, Mito?!"

Mito turned, very tired. She held up a finger. "ONE: It was none of your business! TWO," she went on, feeling bad that Anko looked hurt of all things, holding up a second finger. "I got… threatened about it. I couldn't tell you or well, anyone. I… I wanted to."

Anko's mouth fell open. Being upset that MIto kept such a big thing from her taking a far backseat to wondering whose ass she needed to kick. Wait! It was hard to believe that it was Chiriku of all people. No way! Her brain tried to reboot what she'd always known about him and their relationship. Maybe her brain wasn't functioning yet. She needed to do that Undrunk jutsu Mito earlier told her about. "WHAT?!"

Mito slumped and let out a pained sigh, feeling like she weighed three times her weight. "Three," she added, holding up a third finger, "it was… bad," she whispered. Anko's sexual experiences always sounded great. What the hell was wrong with her?

"Oh," Anko breathed, not sure how to address that. She was more worried about Mito being threatened.

"I can't talk about it here. BUT," Mito sighed, leaning on one leg against the barricade and holding up one of the books she was now carrying, shaking it. "I need to get this back to Konoha."

"Okay," Anko breathed after a minute. "We can go."

Mito almost grabbed her shoulder to do exactly that before she got her act together. "No. We need to see Jiraiya about the Sage thing."

"You don't have enough chakra," Jiraiya said between bites of overly-cooked eggs in the mess hall. "You need a lot more chakra and being a sage is too dangerous."

"So is having Asshat-sensei's mark on my shoulder," Anko fumed. "He could control me! –He DID control me."

"The oil in Orochimaru's cursed seal has very similar properties to the oil the toads have on Mount Myoboku," Mito explained, summing up part of their reasoning for Anko either becoming a sage, or at least getting the advice of the older snakes. Anko's oldest familiar was only 15. "Our hypothesis is that the oil in her cursed seal originated in Ryuchi Cave."

"If that's true," Jiraiya sighed thoughtfully after a moment, "then the snake sages could control you like Orochi did if you were to come into close contact with them. And they're worse than Orochimaru."

"How do you know?" Mito asked at the same time Anko responded with a curious "Snake sages?"

"Yep," Jiraiya said, wrinkling his nose at a fairly hard biscuit he'd picked up on the cafeteria line. "I don't know how you ate here all those years, kid," he said, glancing up at Mito, who only shrugged. He turned his dark gaze back to Anko and munched on the bland meal anyway. "Orochimaru didn't tell you? Ha. When he was younger, he tried to become a sage after finding out what I could do." He paused, remembering that, for once, it had been Orochimaru who was jealous. "The snake sages tried to kill him and… I guess they came to some kind of understanding in the end," he shrugged. "MY guess is that he's so damn snake-like, and was already their summoner, that they didn't want to kill him or hesitated. -Either that or he made them some kind of deal; that's how he wound up with Manda, anyway. I know that later, he made his soul so filthy, he simply couldn't become a sage."

"Filthy?" Anko asked, not that she didn't think Orochimaru was filthy because fuck him. Mito bumped her shoulder, looking concerned. Anko was more worried about her. She needed this information but wanted to go somewhere safe where they could talk as soon as possible afterward.

"Orochi wants Sasuke's body, right?" Jiraiya asked pointedly, understanding how both girls shuddered. He shrugged and dug into the western-style grits that weren't so bad. "'Rochi's probably taken over other bodies in the past, corrupting his soul. –Wholeness matters when it comes to nature chakra!" And with that curse seal, it could be bad for Anko; bless her heart. "…And girls, I wouldn't worry about him absorbing Sasuke too much. I keep trying to tell Naruto that. Itachi will kill anyone who touches Sasuke."

Anko was very skeptical of that. "So only he gets to touch him? Itachi hurt the little fucker, right?"

Mito snorted. She appreciated Anko's view of Sasuke - after what he did to Naruto, although neither of them wanted Orochimaru to hurt ANYONE else. Nor did they want him to get the Sharingan.

"He did," Jiraiya sighed. "But he could've easily killed Sasuke. Uchiha Itachi's a beast."

Mito reached out her senses and looked around, doubly ensuring no one else was listening. "Is he on your payroll?"

"He is not."

Mito grimaced, her (now) indigo eyes moved to the ceiling. "What the hell is he doing?" It was so hard to believe that Itachi was a mass-murdering traitor, siding with Obito. Although he might have gone insane. Orochimaru did, after all, and that guy used to be the most level-headed of all the Sannin. Itachi said he was protecting Konoha, though…

"I'm not giving up," Anko bristled, looking back and forth between the two of them as Jiraiya's lady friend joined them. "Morning."

"Good morning," Akimichi Mirachi winked, brushing Jiraiya's arm as she sat down with a tray heaped with food.

"Meditate every night," Jiraiya advised the kunoichi snake summoner. "Active meditation: two hours minimum; doesn't matter if you fall asleep at first; just try again in the morning and work up to it. That'll take some time. And wear your chakra down to where you've only got around 20% remaining as often as you can, every day if possible. We'll revisit this in a year although I'm not sure if there's ever been a female sage. I'll look into it."

Anko was hung up on the two-hour thing but she respected Jiraiya enough to give it a go. She had a hard time meditating for even 10 minutes, though. She wasn't alone.

"I can't sit still that long!" Mito couldn't even imagine doing it. "Did Tou-san have to do that?"

"He sure did. Back when he was a teenager," Jiraiya responded, grinning as he accepted a forkful of overcooked eggs from his current favorite Akimichi. "Yep," he agreed with her, "They're gross. …Anyway, I was just writing about meditation enhancing sex, DURING sex," he told the kunoichis excitedly. Mito playfully rolled her eyes, resting her face in her hand until he told her the good news. "In fact, I was just putting the finishing touches on a chapter that includes exactly that." He leered at his large, tattooed-cheeked female companion. "Wanna give it a try?"

"We should probably go," Anko said, amused and picturing the two big-ass people together, going at it. Which is easy to do since we teleported, tripping onto their naked bodies. Mito, you idiot!

"Tactics?" Mito asked in awe about the upcoming big novel.

"Yes," Jiraiya cheered, reaching into his haori and pulling out a thick manilla envelope. "Speaking of. Edit this for me, would ya?"

Mito sucked in a breath. "Is this it?! Part of Icha-Icha Tactics?!"

"Nah," Jiraiya waved shiftily. Naruto was editing that one but neither Mito nor Minato needed to know that. It was only fair, though. Both of the other Namikazes edited his earlier books and so far Naruto was doing a bang-up job - although the kid understood NOTHING.

"Ero-sennin? What's a 'clit?'"

"Don't worry about it, Naruto. I'm sure it's nothing you'll ever find."

"I put together some of my old shit and came up with another ficlet," he continued. "I'm thinking about calling it 'Two to Tango, Three to Tie' and… Can you keep a secret?" he asked, wiggling his big white eyebrows. The question was directed at Anko. He knew damn well Mito could, especially when it came to his books.

"Course," Anko shrugged.

"The secret is, it's about a THREEsome that potentially turns into a foursome!" Or maybe more.

Still trying to impress Tsunade via Shizune, I see, Mito thought. "So like a… chibi-orgy."

"Nah, not really. An orgy would be far more interesting. Mm!" He pulled out a fresh notebook and began writing feverishly.

Mito hummed, frowning as she read what he was writing, upside down. Jiraiya was making quick notes, beginning with "a big-hearted shrew's search for love in a village full of mainly chickenshits." Nice. She waved her manuscript at him since she'd like him to live to publish the next great idea. "This polyamorous stuff better not be about You Know Who, specifically." You Know Who being Shizune, of course.

"Never," Jiraiya grinned, lying his ass off. "It's alllll from up here," he said, tapping his temple. "And Mito," he added, giving her a look she didn't understand. "FYI, the latest player in this sexy party has always had a huge thing for his romantic target's MOTHER."

Mito's nose screwed up. "Yuck."

"Indeed." Jiraiya paused, remembering what Shizune drunkenly gossiped about the last time they hung out. "Meh. It might not be 'yuck' depending on how hot the mom is and… other things," he said sourly, almost looking pained. "Anyway - awkward or not, it's fun to write about. —Hope it's fun to read!"

Mito let out a put-upon sigh, hiding a grin. "I'll let ya know."

.

Shikaku chewed on the inside of his cheek as he considered both kunoichis before him. Yoshino was right (as usual, his mind whispered,) Anko and Mito seemed really weighed down. "I guess I can run the data," he sighed. "See if it matches up. But what makes you think this is related to Gato Industries?"

Anko grimaced, glancing over at Mito, who groaned as she threw her head back. "Here," she said, pulling out Eren's diary and the other book she refused to read more of, pulling it back at the last second. "I can't recommend it. Unless you're a secret pedophile or something. –Burn it after you read it, won't you? And don't mention it to my father?"

Anko cleared her throat, seeing how Shikaku's eyebrows went up and wanted to smooth things over. "This relates to the Danzo affair; to the kidnapping of Mito and Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze."

Mito reeled. "Naruto?" she gasped. "N- Naruto was KIDNAPPED, too?"

"You didn't know?"