A/N: I am trying to get back to Middle earth as quickly as a I can. Two more chapters after this one and we'll be checking back in with Dorana and his papa, promise. PLease enjoy ~ love, depressedchildren

Chapter 8: The Search for the Slug Princess

June (year equivalent to 3017 in Middle Earth)

A deafening crack filled the clearing followed by a groan and hurried apologies. "I'm so sorry, Sasuke-kun! I didn't mean to—"

"I'm fine," the clearly-not-fine boy grunted through clinched teeth.

Kakshi closed the manuscript he was "editing." In truth, he had a (technically illegal) copy of the equation Jiraiya had scrawled onto Shima's back taped inside the manuscript. Shikaku's team had taken a picture of Shima's and had the said picture under numerous protections while Shima had cleaned the evidence from her person. All of this was to prevent the knowledge of the equation being in Konoha possession from getting to Madara and his cohort.

Kakashi had been trying to figure out the equation Jiraiya had copied onto old toad's back but, since the picture should not be outside of a secure Konoha facility, Kakashi was using the late super-pervert's last manuscript as a cover for his copy of the equation while he worked it out. Granted, he had used Obito's sharingan to memorize the equation, but he couldn't solve it in his mind. So, he often scratched he equation down on whatever spare piece of paper he had so he could try to figure it out, but this was technically illegal to do, and such semantics wouldn't matter in the case of a court martial should his copy(ies) be discovered.

Matters of the mysterious equation aside, Kakashi hopped down from his perch to examine Sasuke. His surviving genin had been sparing in the clearing below until one of Sakura's punches had landed. Now, the last Uchiha loyal to Konoha (as far as the general public knew) was clutching one arm just above the elbow as if to keep the limb from moving. The arm was rapidly swelling and changing color.

Sakura was fretting just to the side of Sasuke. Her hands were held up before her like she wanted to touch or otherwise console her teammate, but she was afraid of hurting him further.

Kakashi sighed. "Alright, I think it's time to review field medicine. Sasuke-kun, your arm is broken."

The boy nodded; his face was pinched in pain, and he looked like he was fighting back nausea. Sakura gave a distressed cry and began flitting about her teammate in an even more worried manner.

"Sakura-chan, panicking will not help. In fact, you might make things worse if you try to treat a teammate while panicked," Kakashi reasoned. The girl paled further but stopped moving.

"I-I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Maa, nothing to apologize for—accidents happen," Kakashi said dismissively. Sasuke nodded his head in agreement, even if the boy looked close to vomiting from the pain.

"So, what should we do when a teammate has a broken arm in the field?" Kakashi asked his genin.

"Medic," Sasuke gritted out.

"We don't have one, so we need to stabilize the arm with a splint and a sling. If we can determine the kind of break, that will help as well," Sakura rattled off as she wrung her hands and her eyes remained fixed on the now purpling arm of her teammate.

Kakashi nodded his head. "Exactly. Sakura, do you recall the point of impact? Sasuke did you do anything to mitigate the force of the blow?" he asked his genin.

Sasuke took measured breathes to push past the pain. "I used chakra to strengthen my bones and muscles," he hissed through the pain.

"I made a solid connection with Sasuke-kun's bicep," Sakura stated worriedly. "I…I know I add chakra to my punches, but I didn't think it would bypass the augmentation of chakra," she replied.

"No, normally you wouldn't have broken your opponent's arm," Kakashi agreed. Sasuke scowled, likely because the boy was adding the caveat of "unless you had used more chakra than your opponent," but Sakura wouldn't have used more chakra than Sasuke. No, the reason Sasuke's arm was broken was for some other reason.

Kakashi turned a thoughtful look on Sakura. "You did something during the punch, didn't you?" he asked the girl.

Sakura's eyes widened in shock before she paled and began fidgeting. "I-I…I released the chakra in my punch at the moment impact," she explained.

Now it was Kakashi's turn to regard the girl with wide eyes—granted, one was hidden behind his headband. "That's advanced chakra manipulation. It would require significant control and…" Kakashi trialed off. Did his student just figure out Tsunade's legendary earth-shattering attack on her own?

Kakashi blinked a few times before fixing his female student with a thoughtful look. "Why did you do so? What was your reasoning?"

The girl paled further. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do something danger—"

"Explain your reasoning," he ordered, and the girl swallowed thickly.

"I-I th-thought that if using chakra in a punch strengthened the attack, then releasing it in a controlled burst at the point of impact would heighten the effects. I-it would build off of the kinetic energy of the attack and might even disrupt the opponent's chakra defenses."

Kakashi couldn't help but shake his head in wonder, but this just made the nervous girl pale further and begin to apologize. "Sakura," he cut the girl off, "I'm not mad, I'm impressed," he explained.

Sasuke and Sakura now stared at him in confusion.

Kakashi eye-smiled at his surviving genin. "Sakura, do that same move against the ground," Kakashi ordered gleefully.

Sasuke warily moved behind Kakashi while still holding his broken arm below the break—or quite possibly breaks. Sakura gave Kakashi a skeptical look but replicated the attack she dealt Sasuke but this time at the ground. The effect was beautiful.

Once the dust settled, Sakura looked up surprised from the little crater she had made while Sasuke stared wide-eyed at his teammate and then looked at his arm. "Does this mean my arm's shattered?" he asked quietly.

"Using chakra to bolster the strength of your bones would have prevented that from happening but you likely have multiple breaks," Kakashi replied quite cheerfully before focusing on his still stunned female student. "Maa, what do you think of your discovery, Sakura-chan?"

She just blinked and stared at the crater she had made. Kakashi fought back a chuckle. "Hmm, no thoughts?" he asked her almost teasingly. "How about you do an axe kick?" he might have come off a little maniacal if the shuffling Sasuke did away from Kakashi was any indication.

Sakura's response was to look at him uncomprehendingly and blink a few times before robotically following his suggestion. The resulting mini earthquake and splitting earth going out from the point of impact with her heel made him feel so proud. Sasuke sat down on the ground behind Kakashi in clear shock while Sakura stared at the deep crevices her attack had made in the earth.

"Well?" Kakashi asked his female student happily. "What do you think now?"

"This is what Tsunade-sama does with her taijustu," Sakura murmured stunned. Sasuke audibly swallowed from behind Kakashi.

Kakashi clapped once and then practically danced into the stunned girl's guard and patted her on the head. "Yes! Great job, Sakura-chan!"

"Does this mean she can heal my arm?" Sasuke asked in a still stunned voice. Sakura immediately perked up.

"No," Kakashi interjected before either of his students got too ahead of themselves. "Firstly, using too much chakra to heal someone can either result in them combusting or going into a coma. Moreover, the chakra needs to be altered slightly to be more palatable for healing."

Sasuke and Sakura both paled and stared at Kakashi. "Do you know how to heal with chakra?" she asked. He could hear the hope in her voice.

Kakashi coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Maa, I've copied a few techniques and might have the control for it, but I've never tired." In truth, he had only ever used medical jutsu while undercover in ANBU or ROOT to purposefully take out targets.

His genin stared at him for a moment before looking at each other. "Translation, he's too lazy to properly learn," Sasuke commented, and Sakura nodded her head in agreement.

Kakashi gave an overdramatic gasp. "My cute genin are so cruel!" he exclaimed. They gave him deadpan looks in return before each sighing.

"I guess it's good we're already searching for Tsunade-sama," Sakura commented before she pulled out the medical kit storage scroll Kakashi had given her (he had given each genin one such scroll).

Sasuke hummed in agreement as he continued to focus on his breathing in order to deal with the pain. Kakashi smiled softly under his mask as he watched Sakura go about setting Sasuke's arm and then putting it in a splint and sling. He helped her steady the limb at one point, but overall, she did an excellent job taking care of her injured teammate.

"I suppose I could practice one-handed jutsu until we find her," Sasuke commented.

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose, though the point of hand signs is to help you mold your chakra into the correct forms. Ninja can reduce the number of hand signs once they are familiar with the chakra molding of a given technique. Using both hands for those signs helps to create a balanced current through which the chakra flows, and thus makes the chakra molding easier," Kakashi lectured.

His genin listened raptly as he explained advanced chakra theory. "To properly teach either of you how to use one-handed signs will require intensive knowledge of chakra manipulation and chakra control, which you do not currently have," Kakashi explained, much to his genin's disappointment. "Of course…" Kakashi added thoughtfully, "we could begin going over the basics of elemental chakra manipulation while we continue our search."

Sakura gave a cheer as she raised her fist into the air. Sasuke just grinned. Oh, to be a naïve genin. He gave the kids an eye-smile and fished out a storage scroll with various training aids, like elemental chakra paper. He was happy he had had the forethought to clear such training with the Hokage before they ahd left on this "training mission" (after all, the general public wasn't supposed to know they were searching for Tsunade so she could succeed their Hokage).

As Kakashi handed out the chakra paper and explained what his genin were to do, he thought about their search thus far for Senju Tsunade. Normally, it would be easy to track the legendary sucker—follow the trail of gambling debt and drunken destruction. However, after news of Jiraiya's passing had reached the medical ninjutsu master, she had practically disappeared.

Kakashi initially suspected Tsunade had gone to her summon's domain to grieve, but a conversation with Shima and Fukasaku (who had visited him in an attempt to convince him he needed to sign their summoning contract and begin training to become a sage) revealed she was not in the land of summons. Thus, began Team 7's prolonged search for the woman.

Kakashi had started their search for Tsunade at her last known sighting. He then began to lead his genin to the woman's various haunts which Jiraiya had shared with him over the years. After the fifth dead end, Kakashi was starting to fear the woman had gone to seek revenge for Jiraiya's death and that two Sannin's bodies now lay rotting in Ame.

However, a moment of inspiration hit Kakashi, and he decided he'd check out one more possible location. Apparently, once upon a flirtation, Jiraiya had proposed to Tsunade and had described a mountain top temple at the southern edge of the Land of Fire where they could elope. It was remote and no one need know they were married. They could be married within the sage's eyes and no one else.

Of course, being a remote location far from Konoha proper meant that even if he was pushing his genin, it would take some time to get there. But that just meant more time for training! They had taken a mid-day break during which the kids wanted to spar, and he decided to review that equation. They were still three days from the mountain base and then another day from the summit on which the temple resided. He'd just have to make the most of that time if his genin were genuinely (or even if they weren't) interested in chakra manipulation.

Later that day, when Sakura complained that he was the devil, Kakashi just smiled. The fact Sasuke was silently glaring in agreement with Sakura's assessment just made him all the happier.

…

Senju Tsunade—granddaughter of the First Hokage of Konoha, student of the God of Shinobi, and one of the two surviving Legendary Sannin—stared blankly out at the sky before her. Despite being summer, it was cold up on this summit. While none of the Land of Fire mountains reached the heights of the Land of Lighting mountain ranges, the atmosphere was still thin and the wind was chilling. She watched the clouds drift by slowly as she breathed through her grief.

Jiraiya, the idiot, was dead. She had thought of him for so long as a cockroach, unkillable and appearing when she least wanted him to, but that wasn't true. Even when she was annoyed by his presence and flirtations, part of her had always been happy to see him. As for the unkillable belief…well, of course he died—everyone she had ever loved died. Why would Jiraiya have been any different?

In one of Jiraiya's rare moments of sincerity and vulnerability, he had proposed to her and spoke of this temple in the southern mountains of the Land of Fire. It wasn't even a co-ed monastery—the only holy people here were all men. Perhaps that had clued her in to his sincerity? Or perhaps that this temple was also meant to help those who had lost loved ones by allowing (for however brief a time) mourners a moment to connect with the Pure Lands and those they've lost.

She had been meditating for weeks to reach the state required to connect with the Pure Lands, at least according to the priests. Shizune reminded her to take breaks for water and food, but Tsunade barely noticed. If her body had to deteriorate into a withered husk so she could see Jiraiya, Dan, or Nawaki again, then so be it.

She felt the flow of her chakra through her body and the seal on her forehead. She heard the steady beat of her heart occur in time with her breath. The wind whistled past her and blew her hair into her face. She tried to think of nothing, but her mind drifted to thoughts of her lost loves. So, she shifted her focused and tried to sink her consciousness, into her chakra, in the hopes that connecting to the spiritual energy would lead her to the Pure Lands.

The monastery windchimes scattered throughout the temple rang melodically. Their resonances were meant to help one connect with the Pure Lands. So, she lost herself in their reverberations and the ensuing quiet. She envisioned each chime as the soul of a person she had lost. Jiraiya, Dan, Nawaki, Grandfather, Grandmother, Mother, Father. Her grief swelled inside of her with the rising din of the chimes as a strong wind blew through the temple courtyard around her.

And then the peace shattered.

"You are the devil!" a girl screamed while panting for breath.

"Maa, don't be so dramatic," a lazy voice drawled.

"You made me climb a mountain with a broken arm!" a young male voice exclaimed.

"You could wall walk," the lazy voice countered.

"With you sending disrupting chakra frequencies through the mountain side constantly?!" the girl exclaimed.

"And the boulders on our backs?" the boy added incredulously.

"Maa, I wasn't the one who wanted to learn the intricacies of chakra manipulation," the lazy voice remarked.

"I repeat," the girl hissed, "you. are. the. devil." The girl overenunciated the insult with her anger punctuating each word.

"Hmm, did you say something?" the lazy voice asked before there were two frustrated screams and a weak flow of killing intent permeating the air.

Tsunade's eye, which had begun twitching at the first disturbance, now opened to survey the area. She then opened both eyes to glare at the approaching figures. Two genin (who indeed had comically large boulders strapped to their backs) were glaring balefully at their instructor—oh great, it was the Hatake-brat.

Tsunade gritted her teeth and closed her eyes as she tried to find her center again.

"Oh look, Tsunade-sama is here!" the Hatake-brat announced in a gratingly cheerful voice. Of course, the brat was here for her. A vein in her forehead began to twitch in time with her eye.

"Neh, Sensei," the girl "whispered" it was just a lower pitched yell given the quietness of the temple courtyard. "I think she's meditating."

"No? Really?" the brat retorted with faux innocence and in a purposely too loud voice. "I thought she had fallen asleep."

"Your sarcasm is unwanted," the boy drawled through gritted teeth.

"What sarcasm? I would never use sarcasm on my precious, cute genin!"

Growling under her breath, Tsunade found a pebble near her and shot it at the annoying brat lightning quick. She didn't need to see to know the little shit had dodged it, though the resounding three cracks as the pebble pierced through a series of trees that had been behind the annoying jōnin assured her there were no unintended victims of her annoyance.

"Go away, brat," she practically snarled.

"Hello, Tsunade-sama!" the brat just greeted in that same annoyingly cheerful tone.

"Is he insane?" the male student whispered to his fellow genin. She could hear the awe and slight fear in the boy's voice.

"You're just realizing that?" the girl replied, though Tsunade could feel the girl's attention on her. It made Tsunade's eye and vein twitch even more.

"I'm trying to meditate here, can you all shut the hell up!" she snapped at them. She opened her eyes to glare at the three—three not four she thought. Did one of their teammates die or were they promoted and reassigned? No, the tension and closeness between the two genin suggested the lack of a third genin was due to death.

Tsuande felt her shoulders drop slightly as empathy for their situation flowed through her, but then that damn Hatake-brat spoke again.

"Maa, Tsunade-sama, when you are done meditating, we'd like to talk," the brat told her in a more serious manner.

"Let me guess, Sensei ordered I come back since—" she couldn't finish the sentence and so cut herself off as she pushed back the suffocating grief. She shook her head. "It's not happening."

The Hatake-brat couched down in front of her. "I know. I know you vowed to never return after losing…them," he was choosing his words carefully—likely because Jiraiya had been spilling secrets that weren't his to share, "but—"

"But nothing, brat!" she snapped. "I'm not returning."

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, well, since Jiraiya can't succeed as Hokage now, we need you to."

She stiffened and felt her stomach drop. Jiraiya was going to be Hokage before he died? Sensei wanted Tsunade to succeed him now instead because there was no other choice? Yet everyone who was Hokage died before their time—died violently and tragically.

Tsunade shook her head. "No," her voice was tight.

"Did she just say no?" the male genin, the last faithful Uchiha by the look of him, murmured incredulously to his teammate.

The girl was frowning, clearly disappointed in Tsunade. Well touch luck. "I'm not going to fill that doomed position. Clearly everyone who's Hokage or wants to be Hokage dies violently."

Both genin glared at her. "Sandiame-sama hasn't died!" the girl yelled.

Tsunade scoffed. "It's only a matter of time," she countered. She then sneered at the Hatake-brat who had been quiet thus far, "Let me guess, Sensei has some incurable disease?"

"No, he promised Jiraiya he would step down after I was trained in as his successor," the jōnin explained in an almost robotic tone. Tsunade narrowed her gaze at the Hatake-brat.

"Why does it sound like this was an ultimatum?" she asked.

"Because it was," the Hatake-brat stated without emotion.

Tsunade felt warning bells go off in her head. She had heard about Danzo Shimura's emotionless child army hidden behind the scenes. Such a vast operation couldn't have existed without some awareness from the village leader. She searched the brat's lone gray eye and saw his acknowledgement and resignation. Of course, Jiraiya would have demanded Sensei step down after failing so many Konoha citizens.

Tsunade felt restless and so stood up. She would have swayed from her low blood sugar upon standing had she not pulsed healing chakra through her system. She tried to work the knot out of her throat and the unease that had settled in her bones at the realization of what her Sensei had likely condoned. "Well, I'm still not returning. The Hokage is a fool's position."

The female student bristled, but her Uchiha teammate set his free hand against her shoulder as if to hold her back.

"Maa, regardless of whether that's true or not, we have no other suitable candidates. I don't have the name recognition, and Shikaku-san doesn't have the skill."

Tsunade did a double take at the Hatake-brat. "Since when have you wanted to be Hokage?" she asked incredulously.

"I don't. It sounds like too much paperwork," the brat countered. "But we need a Hokage."

Tsunade scoffed. "So, it's all about duty for you." She shook her head. "Well, I'm afraid I'm not as patriotic as you, brat. I'm not willing to die for my country anymore—not after all those it's taken from me."

"What?!" the female genin hissed. "How can you say that!?" she exclaimed. She moved out of her teammate's attempts to hold her back.

Tsunade snorted derisively at the bristling girl. "What do you even know, little girl? You've lost, what, one person to Konoha's ambitions? I've lost everyone." Her grief shook her voice.

The girl's green eyes practically flared with her anger, meanwhile the Uchiha's eyes flashed with the sharingan. And then two comically larger boulders were being hurled at her by the girl.

The Hatake-brat dropped his head forward into one hand as he jumped out of the way; Tsunade thought she heard him sigh while muttering resignedly, "Well, they'll learn a lesson at least."

Tsunade flicked the boulders with a finger, which led to them splintering into pieces and showering down around her. The two genin were charging at her in a well-timed pincer move that might have been effective on a genin. Tsunade evaded them easily, but the girl didn't change course; instead, she let her fist connect with the courtyard while her teammate jumped off of her shoulders to pursue Tsunade.

Tsunade stared at the crater the girl had made with her fist and absentmindedly blocked the Uchiha's round house kick. "You think you're the only one who lost everything," the boy hissed at her.

That girl used her technique, or something close to it. Tsunade could care less what melodrama the boy was spewing. Of course, the Uchiha followed his blocked kick with another kick aimed at her side, but she flicked him in the forehead before he could get half-way through his rotation.

All the while, Tsunade was staring between the girl and her sensei who was now perched on one of the temple's tiled roofs surrounding the courtyard. Shizune had also come to investigate the commotion along with several monks. A small audience was now forming at the engawa in front of the shrine's entrance.

The pink-haired girl was charging at Tsunade once more even while her teammate flew backwards and tumbled down the stairs of the mountain top temple. "You're supposed to be Tsunade of the Sannin!" the girl yelled at her.

Tsunade scoffed. "Did you not see me flick your teammate down the mountain?" she asked the girl as she side-stepped her punch.

"You're using your grief to hide," the girl snarled while once more purposely letting her fist connect with the ground.

This forced Tsunade to flip backwards away from the resulting crater. Of course, that was when her pernicious teammate threw a half dozen kunai at her back.

Kissing her teeth, Tsunade evaded the weapons and had to block the pink haired girl's next attack. As she caught the girl's fist, she felt the genin's chakra release on impact and attempt to disrupt Tsunade's own chakra. She countered the disruptive chakra while simultaneously healing the bones in her hands that had begun to shatter under the force of the attack. From the connection point, Tsunade could tell the girl had bolstered the strength and resilience in her own limbs, but would be developing chakra burns and possibly fractures if she continued using this technique without the medical knowledge—the girl hadn't perfected the technique like Tsunade had.

"You think because you figured out part of my technique that you know me?" she hissed back at the girl.

"Every kunoichi in Konoha looks up to you," the girl exclaimed as she dropped low and made a sweeping kick. Her voice was laden with the hurt of betrayal.

"Tch, I never asked for that," Tsunade shot back as she jumped over the attack only to have to substitute with a piece of shattered earth as a barrage of senbon tried to hit her.

She glared at the Uchiha from her new location. He was quite proficient with his projectiles even if one arm was useless.

"You don't get that choice," the Uchiha stated with a glare still directed at her. "You're a legend because of your past deeds. You could live up to that or you can keep letting people down."

"I don't owe anyone anything!" Tsunade yelled back. "I gave everything I had and what happened? My brother, my fiancé—everyone I've cared about died, and I was expected to keep going like nothing happened."

"We're ninja, that's what we do!" the girl shouted back with tears in her eyes. The three of them were more or less squared off still, but no one had moved to attack again.

"Well, I can't do it anymore," Tsunade confessed. She couldn't, not with Jiraiya now dead.

"So, you're just going to die then?" the Uchiha asked, his sharingan was still spinning. "You're just going to give in to the grief?"

"I never said that!" Tsunade snapped. She had thought about it during some of her worst days, especially after drinking too much, but Shizune was always there for her.

"But you're not going to move on," the boy pointed out.

"What is there to move on to?" she argued.

"You could be Hokage, the first woman kage too," the girl stated.

Tsunade shook her head. "I already told you, only fool—"

"Of course kage die!" the girl interrupted her angrily. "They are the last defense for their people; they're also the biggest hope for them too!"

"We need a kage that's going to inspire," the Uchiha agreed. "Not someone who'd rather the problem die than try to fix things." The boy's whole body was trembling with a mixture of grief and anger.

The girl looked over at the boy sharply before a horrified understanding washed over her face. Tsunade could connect the dots too. She glanced over at the Hatake-brat, who was now stoically placing modified privacy seals down around the courtyard, which was incredibly damning. Oh Sensei…what did you do?

She shook her head. "I can't be Hokage."

"Because you refuse to actually live?" the girl asked, her voice filled with disgust.

Tsunade gritted her teeth. "You have no right to judge me. You haven't lost what I have."

"But I have," the Uchiha retorted.

Tsunade shook her head. "You're too young to have been in love, kid."

"But I loved my family and my brother. I looked up to him, idolized him."

Tsunade closed her eyes. Either Uchiha Itachi had snapped when he had killed his clan, or (as previously alluded) he had been ordered. Perhaps it was both even. She wanted to tell the kid he couldn't keep using the massacre of his clan as his response, but wasn't that what she was doing with her own grief?

"My brother convinced me I needed to get revenge on him. That I needed to avenge our clan," the boy's voice was trembling. "But our mom wouldn't have wanted that. I don't even think my father would either. They would have wanted me to honor our clan, to remind the village of our importance. And if my brother is innocent, then they'd want him to come home." Which Sensei would never allow, not without revealing the travesty he had let happen.

"I'm not going back to Konoha. I'm not going to be Hokage."

"So, you'll just waste the rest of your life gambling and drinking?" the girl asked—no doubt she heard rumors of what Tsunade had been doing in the past decade plus, or the Hatake-brat had filled his students in on their quarry. "You could right wrongs," the girl stated with a gesture toward her teammate. "You could make Konoha something to be proud of again if you're that disillusioned with it."

"So I go back to a village that let everyone I cared about die so I can die some bloody, gruesome death?"

"How can the village let people die?" the girl retorted. "Because the commanding officers were unfit? Or some power-hungry warmonger manipulated things behind the scenes? Or maybe it's because the systems in place are bad and not working? You could change all of that as Hokage, but you're either too selfish or scared to."

Tsunade's fists clenched at her sides. She was going to pound this snot-nosed brat's face in. Selfish? She had given everything to the village. Scared? She'd lived through multiple wars!

"If we're done alluding to S-class secrets, I'd like to drop the privacy seal," the Hatake-brat chimed in, thus diverting her ire.

"Tch, you have some arrogant students, brat," she told the masked jōnin. "Haven't you drilled respect of rank into them yet."

"Maybe if you actually acted your rank," the Uchiha snapped back, "instead of cowering behind your grief."

Make that two snot-nosed brats she was going to pummel into the ground, but before she could take a threatening step toward the entitled pair, the Hatake-brat got in front of her.

"Maa, it seems we're at an impasse and we're all a bit too angry to have a civil conversation," the jōnin mediated. However, just as his genin began to properly protest and Tsunade began to grumble about his genin starting things, the jōnin continued speaking. "How about we make a bet?"

"No," Tsunade was not falling for that. "I will never go back to Konoha, and I certainly won't be Hokage."

"Would you say the odds are impossible then?" the Hatake-brat asked her.

What was this fool playing at. "Yes," she replied slowly.

"Then what if we had to do something equally impossible for you to return home and become Hokage?"

The brat was playing her; she knew he was, but now she was curious. She also realized where the genin's arrogance came from.

"What do you have in mind?" Tsunade found herself asking the brat.

The masked jōnin gave that annoying eye-smile of his. "What if my genin mastered an advanced technique in a set period of time?"

"No deal. You could pick something you've already been training them in. Besides, you should have to do something 'impossible' too."

"I was going to solve the equation which leads to our missing jinchūriki. It's stumped Shikaku and everyone in Intelligence."

"You have that equation on you?" she asked. He shouldn't have it on his person if it was such an important equation.

"I saw it with my sharingan," the jōnin confessed.

"Let me see how 'impossible' this equation is first," she demanded.

The brat sighed but moved to one of the craters and began etching the equation into the loosened dirt with a kunai (he'd be able to erase it easily this way). Tsunade peered over his shoulder and furrowed her brow. Something about the structure of it reminded her of something. She could remember a drink-ruddy face slurring about celestial bodies, and she kept listening to him because then he'd give her more to drink. Somehow, she had ended up a guest at his observatory and had seen numerous equations of his once she was sober.

"You know something," the brat stated. He was now standing in front of her, and she could practically feel his desperate hope.

She shook her head. "If that equation is what I think it is, then why would Naruto be…" be in outer space.

"Tsunade-sama, please. I've been searching for him since he disappeared. Jiraiya died getting that equation from the people who took him."

Tsunade's stomach dropped. "What?" She had heard Jiraiya died, but not why or how.

"An organization of S-rank missing nin have either the locations or identities of every jinchūriki, and Jiraiya had infiltrated their headquarters in Ame. He fought their leader but was…" the brat trailed off to compose himself.

"That equation is for a location in outer space," Tsunade explained.

"Outer space?!" the girl genin exclaimed, and Tsunade was jolted back to reality, as too was the Hatake-brat.

"What exactly is a jinchūriki, and why is it bad this organization has that information?" the Uchiha asked now. He must think his teammate's exclamation meant he could ask questions above his paygrade.

"None of your business," Tsunade snapped back at the mini-brat.

"Well, considering the man who helped massacre the Uchiha clan is affiliated with that same organization, I think its fair Sasuke knows about this," the Hatake-brat commented flippantly.

"That masked man is part of this organization?" the Uchiha asked with wide eyes.

"Yes, and the seal to ward against his teleportation is very taxing, so if we could wrap this up soon…" he trialed off. The brat was looking a bit faint; however, something the brat said stood out.

"Did you say there is an enemy that can teleport?" she stared wide-eyed at the jōnin. "Is it like Minato-kun's technique?"

The brat shook his head slowly. "The Hirashin requires an anchor, this one could be based on sight, familiarity, or…" the man trailed off and looked down at the equation. "Oh."

Tsunade felt her pulse quicken. Naruto could be alive. "Can you rework the hirashin to use coordinates like that?"

"It still needs an anchor at the location you're traveling to, but…" the brat trailed off again. "He called himself Uchiha Madara. What if that teleportation is a sharingan ability?"

"It would be the most advanced form of sharignan then, and I don't think your student is going to gain that any time soon," Tsunade reasoned back with a glance at the pale boy. He looked like he was going to be sick.

"But I do."

"What?!" the Uchiha exclaimed as he looked at his sensei in disbelief.

Tsunade ignored the child and focused on the Hatake-brat. "What are the chances that your sharingan manifests the same way this Madara's does?"

"Near impossible, but I could have sworn I made part of the Uchiha district disappear into a void not dissimilar to the voids Madara's teleportation creates."

"If you can actually teleport yourself using your sharingan, then I'll believe you," she drawled.

"Would that be the impossible task Sensei needs to complete for our bet?" the girl chimed in eagerly.

Tsunade blinked a few times and then gave a bark of laughter. "You're right, kid, I think that is the impossible task your sensei will need to complete."

"Then you should pick what we need to do to keep it fair," the girl added. "And what timeframe are you thinking of?" she asked.

Tsunade hummed for a moment, and the Hatake-brat swayed on his feet. "Drop the wards, brat. We're done talking about that. We have a bet to figure out."

While the brat went about deactivating all of the privacy seals around them, Tsunade tried to think of a suitable challenge for the genin and a corresponding timeframe. She could bet them to complete their tasks before she could successfully connect to the Pure Lands, but part of Tsunade doubted she'd ever be able to do so. No, it would be better to set a specific end date.

"There's a chuunin exam occurring in Konoha next month, isn't there?" she asked the courtyard more than any specific person.

"The exam starts July first," the tired jōnin explained. He was sitting on the ground next to his genin and panting slightly.

"Have you tested to see how quickly you lose chakra with the advanced sharingan?" Tsunade asked the brat.

"While I was undercover, I discovered how to limit the flow of chakra to the eye, so the drain was more manageable, but the advanced stage takes much more chakra."

"So, you'll be going in and out of chakra exhaustion," Tsunade reasoned with a sigh. The brat had the audacity to give his annoying eye-smile while nodding.

"You need more chakra," she grumbled.

"That's why we keep telling him he should become a sage," the girl genin complained.

Tsunade looked sharply at the girl before turning her attention back to the silver-haired man. "Fukasaku and Shima are offering to teach you how to harness sage energy?"

"They want me to succeed Jiraiya, and I…" the brat trailed off. She could practically feel his grief. It was too soon. It would feel like replacing him.

Her gaze softened. "I understand," she murmured. "But if you go into a coma, I might just change your bet to learning that." She did not want to deal with a chakra coma patient.

The threat came across clear enough it seemed because the Hatake-brat gave a quick nod. "Understood, Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade now turned to the two genin. "Have you done any medical ninjutsu training?" she asked the girl.

"No," the girl admitted.

"Alright then." Tsunade had a plan forming in her head. "Uchiha-brat, what have you been learning?"

"I know my family's signature fire jutsu," he stated proudly.

"Even though your primary nature is lightning," Hatake-brat chimed in amusedly. The Uchiha glared back at him but was blushing slightly.

"I'm good with most weapons, passable with genjutsu, and I've begun training with my sharingan."

"He also wanted to learn how to do one-handed jutsu since Sakura-chan broke his arm," the Hatake-brat added cheerfully.

"How far in training him did you get?" Tsunade asked the masked jōnin.

"Not very far. The last few days of travel they've been working on dividing their attention when using their chakra." Ah, the boulders were to make them bolster their strength with charka while the wall-walking with chakra disruptions was to get them to maintain control of their chakra under fluctuating circumstances.

"Very well, here's our bet. If you three can accomplish the tasks I assign you by the time the third round of the Chūnin exams starts, then I'll return to Konoha and become Hokage without a fuss." That should give them six or seven weeks to do what would normally be years of hard work.

"Our tasks?" the Uchiha asked. The Hatake-brat looked like he was going to be sick—likely from calculating how much time he had to figure out if he can teleport with his sharingan, which he might not even be able to do.

"You, brat, are to master your current jutsu repertoire using one-handed signs, and you better be able to do those one-handed signs with both hands."

The boy clearly didn't understand how daunting such a task was because he just stared back at her with a confident tilt of his chin. "Does that mean my arm's getting healed?" he asked cockily.

Tsunade just gave a cruel smile down at the Uchiha-brat. "If your teammate can complete her task, then yes. Otherwise, you're waiting for that arm to heal naturally." The arrogant look slipped right off the mini-brat's face.

Tsunade now turned to the female genin. "You, kid, need to be able to consistently heal with the mystical palm technique." Shizune gasped from the sidelines. It took months for the young woman to get to the stage where she was consistently healing with that technique, and Shizune had prior training in medical jutsu. The girl genin at least looked trepidatious now.

"And you, brat," she addressed the last Hatake. "You either need learn how to harness natural chakra or teleport with your sharingan." There, that way if the brat discovers his sharingan can't teleport him, he could still possibly win the bet—not that he was going to.

"Will I be supplied with soldier pills once mine run out?" the brat asked her.

"No."

"Does this mean I have to train and teach at the same time?" he asked next.

"Shizune will give the girl the materials she needs, but the boy is your problem," Tsunade announced.

"His name's Sasuke, and mine is Sakura," the girl practically growled. Heh, feral little thing.

"I'll bother remembering your names if you win the bet," Tsunade stated with a smirk before walking off to find a new meditation spot.

She heard the Hatake-brat groan behind her and then heard the Uchiha telling the man to stop laying on the ground and to start teaching him. She chuckled to herself. Even if the team of brats failed the bet, Konoha would be stronger for what those three nuisances would be learning in the coming month plus.

…

"Okay, I was wrong. You're not the devil, she is," Sakura stated as she sat down for dinner with her tired sensei and teammate. The devil in question chuckled as she sipped at some warm sake further down the table. Sakura gave the woman a glare before looking back at her sensei. "I need more paper."

Sensei blinked twice before shaking his head. "My paper is sealing paper—it's not for notetaking."

"I don't care," she replied bluntly. "It takes years for most medics to learn the mystical palm technique if they even get that far in their training! I need paper to take notes, make notecards, and diagram the body from memory."

The two sharingan users blinked at her almost uncomprehending. Stupid photographic memory. The sharingan was a cheat. She sulked in her spot at the table. Shin would have understood—the thought made her chest tighten and tears threaten to fall from her eyes.

"Neh, Sakura-san," the angel accompanying the Devil addressed her with a smile. "I have some paper, but you'll need to travel back down the mountain to the village at its base for more supplies."

"Thank you, Shizune-shishō," she said the title a bit pointedly. The woman blushed while the Devil across from her scowled.

"Maa, Sakura-chan, don't go replacing me," Sensei whined like a child.

"Are you the one teaching me medical ninjutsu?" she snapped back.

Sensei pouted—how she knew he was pouting when the majority of his face was covered could only be explained by the fact she had been his student for half a year. Sasuke gave the man an unimpressed look before redirecting his attention to Sakura.

"I'll go down the mountain with you tomorrow after Sensei passes out. I could use more chakra control exercise," he explained offhandedly.

Sensei made a noise of protest. "I will not 'pass out,'" he whined again. Sakura turned an unimpressed look on her sensei this time while Sasuke maintained his.

"Sensei, we've seen you pass out from chakra exhaustion once already from using your sharingan extensively," Sakura pointed out.

"And nearly three more times from that experimental seal of yours," Sasuke added.

"Three? He's only activated it twice," Sakura questioned.

"Remember when he took me to a Yamanka our first team meeting?" Sasuke replied dismissively. Sakura's eyes widened in recognition before she nodded. "Besides," Sasuke continued, "even she knows you're prone to chakra exhaustion if she made that caveat about going into a coma."

Sensei pouted even more. His normally slouched posture got worse and somehow read as petulant too. "Maa, my students have no faith in me, what should I do?" he asked the air.

Sasuke and Sakura ignored the man's antics; after all, they were just that. The man could be such a troll when he wanted to be. Sasuke, however, changed the focus of the conversation by taking on a more serious set to his expression.

"Sensei, how did you get the mangekyō sharingan? I thought you only got that by…" Sasuke trailed off and swallowed. He looked paler than usual.

Sensei immediately dropped his act. "I'm an only child," he replied seriously. When Sasuke looked skeptical still, the man added, "always have been."

"Then how…?" Sasuke didn't finish the question. He looked both awed and horrified.

Sensei sighed. "I think the texts your thinking of referred to killing one's brother because of the…the remorse and grief such an action would cause," Sensei explained slowly.

Sakura felt her stomach drop as she realized what exactly her teammates were talking about. How had sensei gained his advanced sharingan—mangekyō sharingan as Sasuke had referred to it. Sensei must have killed someone he cared about deeply. Sasuke had come to the same realization if the almost nauseous look on his face was any indication—did Sakura look the same?

"Who? Why?" Sasuke asked in a whisper. Sakura turned in alarm on her teammate and wanted to smack the boy upside the head for asking such a question, but (at the same time), she could understand why he asked them.

Sensei's entire body radiated grief and shame. "My teammate," he replied after a moment, and the horror Sakura felt was so profound.

Sensei had killed his own teammate? She couldn't picture it—it didn't fit with what she knew of the man. He was adamant about teamwork and putting your team before the mission. How could such a man have killed his own teammate.

"Brat, you're leaving out important details," the Devil chimed in. "If you're going to tell your genin you killed a teammate, give them the full picture."

Sensei sent a one-eyed glare at the woman. "I'm not," Sensei snapped. "I killed Rin. It was my fist through her chest." His voice was quivering with each word. Sakura could practically feel his self-loathing.

"She jumped in front of you. I read the Yamanka report after you kept spewing that line of killing her. I know what happened," the Devil emphasized.

"The circumstances don't matter. To me, I will have always killed Rin and I will always regret it." Sensei looked like he was on the edge of tears. He turned his gaze to Sasuke, "That's how I gained the mangekyō sharingan. My ongoing remorse and grief for her death activates it."

Sasuke swallowed thickly and nodded. Sakura felt numb, and the Devil slammed her sake cup onto the table—cracking both the cup and the table in the process.

"Enough woe is me," the Devil snapped. "Rin made her choice, and you better well respect it. She knew that if she got back to the village, and that if that shoddy seal put on her wasn't fixed fast, then a bijū would have been loose in the village. Your enemies weren't going to kill their weapon against Konoha, not after all the effort it took to seal the demon in her."

"Wait, bijū can be sealed in people?" Sakura asked horrified.

"Yeah, kid, that's what a jinchūriki is," the Devil drawled.

"Then that Naruto person you're looking for has the-the Kyūbi sealed in him." Sasuke sounded as awed and horrified as Sakura felt.

"You can't kill chakra," Sensei murmured, thus confirming the dawning realization she and Sasuke were having. The Yondaime didn't kill the Kyūbi, he sealed it in someone named Naruto who was then kidnapped and now floating in outer space. That put a lot of things into perspective.

"Does every nation have a…jinchūriki?" Sasuke paused before the title.

"The Big Five do," the Devil explained. "My grandfather tried to split them up evenly to ensure peace. It obviously didn't last."

"And now they're being hunted," Sasuke murmured.

"Maa, no talking about that, I don't have the energy for another privacy seal," Sensei whined.

"Then go learn how to harness natural energy," Sakura snapped back at the man. He was being so stubborn about it.

"I agree with the kid," the Devil chimed in, which just made Sakura glare at her.

"I'm not replacing Jiraiya," Sensei shot back.

"You're already the new spymaster," the Devil retorted.

"That's different. Konoha needs a spymaster!"

"And we don't need a sage?" Sakura challenged. The Devil pointed at her like she agreed with what Sakura had said. Sakura couldn't help but pout. She didn't want to agree with the Devil.

Sensei sighed after a moment. "Let me work with my sharingan for a month. If I can't make any progress, then I'll sign the contract with the toads."

The Devil began laughing. "You are one arrogant brat," she exclaimed. "Do you think you can learn to harness natural energy in three weeks? It took years for Jiraiya to do so without turning into a complete toad."

"I am a prodigy," Sensei retorted.

Sakura blinked once and then twice. Wait, three weeks and a month, did that mean they only had seven weeks to complete this bet?! "Shizune-shishō, could I have that paper now?" she asked the angelic woman.

Sasuke seemed to have come to a similar realization because he began to inhale his food while noticeably manipulating his chakra around him. The Devil caught onto their panic and began to laugh at their plight. Ugh! She was the devil!