Oh, my goodness! All of your reviews are awesome! I greatly appreciate every one of them.

Shout out to 'Legendary Earthling' for your awesome review: I'm glad you think so. Daku is ever growing in strength and skills so he's definitely an A-rank ninja, slipping slowly into S rank.

Shout out to 'Ezeakel' for bringing this chapter idea to me. I mean I LITERALLY wouldn't have written this chapter if he didn't mention a few names for me. If you're still reading this Ezeakel, you are freaking fantastic!

Give Akatsuki some time and they'll make an appearance ;)

Once again, thank you all. Don't stop there, please review some more :D

CHAPTER 8

Konoha

Naruto was in the middle of training Hinata on how to control her speed and strength whenever her weight seals were completely down when Jiraiya entered the clearing.

The toad sage curiously looked at Hinata, who was going through the kata for the gentle fist painfully slow. She was barefooted, standing on a bed of sharp needles. He noted that she was not wearing her usual purple jacket; she was now wearing a tight black shirt that stopped mid-riff and dark blue ninja pants. He wasn't aware of the fact that she had tightly wrapped chest bindings under her shirt to make sure that her budding breasts didn't throw off her centre of gravity. He did see that her arms to her fingers and her stomach were wrapped up in bandages, probably from intense tenketsu training.

It was a month after the chunin exams and Konoha was still mourning the death of the Third Hokage.

What Orochimaru had said came to reality; the old man's fragile immune system couldn't handle the calibre of toxins in his body. Jiraiya was at least glad that the man died peacefully.

The girl, who had long since noticed his presence, kept going with her training. She slowly pushed her palms forward then carefully brought them back, then lifted her right leg forward and spun on her left in a passably executed roundhouse kick, something that was not in the Gentle fist taijutsu style.

The man furrowed his eyebrow at that, then frowned thoughtfully, wondering when Naruto had started training the girl, as the boy's vacant wheelchair was under a tree along with Hinata's purple coat folded neatly on the seat. He had deduced Naruto was training her because he had watched how Kurenai trained her team, this was much harder and he knew as a fact that the Hyuuga heiress would not purposely put herself through this.

"Where is Naruto?" he asked, the girl slowly stretched her body, with her right foot still on a senbon, and pointed to her left. "Thank you."

Hinata went back to her training.

Jiraiya, choosing for once to be serious, entered a small thicket of trees into a significantly smaller clearing to find Naruto relaxing on a tree branch, looking down at a young girl, probably eight years old, with brown hair. She had on simple clothes; brown shorts, a black shirt, and no shoes. The girl was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the small clearing with her palms together.

Naruto glanced at him. "Hello, Lord Jiraiya." He waved for the girl to keep meditating when her eyes opened. Naruto sat up on the branch and looked at the older man. "To what do I owe this visit?"

Jiraiya crossed his arms. "A better question is why are you training the Hyuuga and the Kurama heiresses?"

Naruto shrugged in reply. "I don't see how that is any of your concern." He didn't break under the pressure of the war veteran's stare, asking dismissively, "Why are you here again?"

"I came to tell you that we have a mission," the man said.

"I remember quite vividly that the Third Hokage disallowed me from joining the academy. I'm sure he told you that," the younger seal master said as he tossed a pair of earplugs to Yakumo Kurama when her eyes opened again, quietly eavesdropping on the two seal masters. "Focus, Yakumo."

The girl quietly nodded and plugged her ears before she went back to meditating. He had found the girl about to slip a kitchen knife through her throat in his special clearing; he had stopped her just in time with his snake rope. The reason behind her suicide attempt was that her mentor had blocked her from becoming a ninja, seeing as how she had a demon locked up inside her. She told him that since before she could walk her ambition had been to become a ninja but after she had been found in a pool of her clan's main branch blood by her mentor, Kurenai Yuuhi had sealed up her chakra, leaving only the barest minimum for her to live.

The woman did so with a heavy heart, ready to bear the full brunt of the younger girl's hate instead of transferring her rage to Konoha.

Her case reminded Naruto of himself, besides the suicide attempt.

He had always wanted to be a ninja and had pushed fuinjutsu to its limits to accomplish this, but the person he once looked up to barred him from becoming one, telling him that he was too weak. The boy had, begrudgingly, asked her if she wanted to come under his tutelage. He summoned Hinata and had her display the extent of growth she had gone under since she started training two months and a half ago. Thankfully she agreed.

The Kurama heiress's physical and mental problems were worse than Hinata's; utterly laughable, if Naruto was the kind to laugh at misfortune.

She had also been a recluse in her clan, even though she was the Kurama heiress. Her confidence was worse than Hinata's and, quite frankly, Naruto's toes were stronger than Yakumo's whole body, and that was saying something since the boy didn't know any taijutsu style.

But Naruto wasn't one to back down from a challenge; he suspected that it was his Uzumaki genes working up. He first tore off the seal on her chakra and taught her how to meditate, making sure to oversee their sessions in case her inner demon managed to come out. The boy insisted on knowing what the demon could do before he could create an effective seal against it.

His eyes refocused on the Sannin and looked questionably for an answer to his question. "When we found you, you were in the centre of a sleeping Sound shinobi, and all your guards were dead." Naruto shrugged, unmindful of the point Jiraiya was drawing towards and carefully observing Yakumo as she meditated. "Information about your jinchuriki status has leaked out of the village and the council has decided that for your safety it would be best if you had the strongest guard."

The blonde boy raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it be best if I was left alone? I did more by myself than my supposed 'guards'" he air quoted, making the Sannin chuckle.

"The fact remains that I have to have you with me for as long as possible."

Naruto looked the man in the eye for a full minute, making a cold sweat break out on his forehead. "What else did the Third Hokage request?"

The man's shoulders slumped tiredly, already giving up the charade. "That I teach you how to handle Kyuubi's chakra."

"I can learn that on my own." He turned around and looked at his youngest student.

"Have you unlocked it?" His eyes widened in horror.

Naruto made a flippant hand gesture at his side. "More or less."

"And what does that mean?"

"That means I have met the beast and we have reached an agreement," he said slowly like he was talking to a toddler.

"You met Kyuubi!?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Yes, and he is fairly pleasant, but that is beside the point; I wish to exercise my legs outside the village. What 'mission' do we have?" He air quoted again.

Jiraiya chose to push the discussion on just how the boy had unlocked the Kyuubi's chakra for later. "The Third Hokage says that he wants us to go and retrieve Tsunade Senju." The Slug Sannin. Knowing Naruto he won't get any sort of surprised response, and he was proven right when Naruto merely nodded. "There are many injured ninjas as well as the fact he wants her to become the Fifth Hokage."

"When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow at noon."

"I'll be there…. Can I assume I still won't be a ninja?"

"I'm sorry kid—" another flippant hand gesture and he stopped, changing the conversation. "How long can you walk,"

"About five hours. I can run for four." Knowing a dismissal when he sees one, Jiraiya left the clearing to wherever he usually went for leisure. At the end of supervising Hinata's training, he gave her an A-rank water jutsu to perfect and tasked her to learn and master as many Hyuuga taijutsu attacks as possible.

He handed over the shy, introverted Yakumo to the recovering, openly caring Hinata, tasking the older girl to look after the younger girl while he was away. Hinata was coming out of her shell, and Naruto wanted his first student's growing confidence and self-assuredness to rub off on Yakumo.

He then gave Hinata a scroll filled with body lock seals just in case Yakumo's inner demon showed up, as well as chakra-draining seals to knock the girl out. He told her that the first sign of trouble was if black veins began creeping up Yakumo's neck. Though Daku shadow clones were always secretly looking over the girl at night.

Hinata, choosing to be the bigger girl, promised to look after her fellow student, adding that she would also look over the girl's training while he was away.

Like during the Sand-Sound invasion, Hinata was going to make her teacher proud.

Leaving the village with the chatty Jiraiya, Naruto reflected on his skills. He was a level nine master of fuinjutsu, which meant that the simple barrier seals he made were practically impenetrable if the attacker had less chakra than him.

He had his shield seal tattooed to the back of his forearms and his shins; with new seals he developed called Tree Root seals on his calf. Those seals reinforced his legs into the ground in case he had to block an attack from an opponent with a larger body mass. The tree root seals made chakra roots stick Naruto's legs into the ground and increase his arm muscles strength significantly only for blocks.

The shields on his forearms and shins doubled up as cutting weapons as well.

He had a seal between his shoulders called Iron Blue Bubble seal that activated automatically if it sensed an object or a person coming at him too quickly for him to raise his shields. The bubble shield was formed out of a combination of his Wind and Water chakra into multiple seal complexes stacked into a complex seal, this meant that the attacker or object bounced off the bubble on contact or, if it was slow enough, the object would enter but would seem like it was swimming in a pool of thick syrup. This was the seal that saved him when the one tail threw him into a wall with a massive backhand swipe. He could personally activate the seals to cushion his falls if he wanted to.

Gaara's automatic sand defence might have sparked an idea in Naruto's head, but the seal was years in the making. Seeing the automatic defence activate ahead of Rock Lee's strikes opened Naruto's mind to another angle in creating that seal.

Truly, Naruto loved fuinjutsu.

Before he could get carried away and start fantasising about his backlog of seal plans and ideas, Naruto shook his head and recalled that he needed to focus a part of his mind on walking.

Still, to distract himself from the annoying prattle of the toad sage, his thoughts retook.

Naruto, while he was at Wave, commissioned a local tailor to sew a set of his usual baggy black pants and a blue-black long-sleeved shirt, throwing in a blue scarf in case he ever wound up in a desert for some reason. The young tailor, greatly appreciative of his country being liberated and the economy being revived successfully, didn't question the fact that Daku, known as Part of Wave's saviours, obeyed the beck and call of the young boy. Correctly assuming he was the real leader and addressing him as such. Naruto had already reconciled with himself that if information about his leadership status ever came out he was confident that his seals would help him escape Konoha, and Zabuza, Haku and Daku would escort him to Wave.

The blonde seal master was fairly good at throwing punches and kicks, but he didn't know any taijutsu style. But that fact didn't perturb him because his whole body and his clothes were riddled with so many secrets, counterattacks, defensive seals in case the frontline defence seals failed and booby traps.

Just to be careful, he altered his 'X' contact seal and Daku's 'creation' scroll so he would be able to send out a 'tingle' to Daku if he was ever in trouble and vice versa. The loyal dark shadow would follow this beacon to him, with lightning-fast speed, and come to his aid.

Yes, Naruto didn't necessarily need a guard anymore, Daku included seeing as he was currently in Wave administering in his steed, but if Jiraiya wanted to humour himself then he would allow the man to have his fun.

Besides, he was getting to see other places out of all of this, which was fine by him.

Unknown to the pair of travellers, a pair of yellow eyes watched them walk towards Tanzuki town. Zetsu looked fixedly at the younger traveller, Naruto.

He had witnessed his fight with the One-Tails and was fairly certain that he could have taken the sand beast down sooner if he wanted to. The boy was much more skilled in his craft than he had anticipated, wrongly judging at first that he would drop fuinjutsu after seeing how complicated it was.

He would have to somehow convince Nagato to come after him early.

With those parting thoughts, Black Zetsu melted into the ground.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Root headquarters

Konoha

A female donning a featureless white mask knelt in front of a man. The man wore a formal kimono that covered his whole left side and his feet, leaving his right arm, wrapped up in bandages, to hold his cane. Half of the man's face was wrapped in bandages as well. The female didn't quiver under Danzo's intense stare as she waited for permission to speak.

"Mole, report," Danzo droned in a deep, empty tone.

"Wave is a thriving country with an abundance of natural resources and a growing economy, which is still reviving from what Gato had done to it. The ninja there are of unbelievable strength and the wall's defences, as well as the defence on the water boundary, is almost impossible to bypass. That is why I am the only one to survive. There seemed to be a lightning field that sprang up around us after we touched the walls and I jumped out in time. My comrades disintegrated before I could rescue them. I apologise for my failure, Lord Danzo."

"I will punish you later, Mole. What about the leadership there? Do you know who leads Wave?"

"No, Lord Danzo. The people were very closed-lipped about it and the Wave Leader's tower was fortified with too many defence seals, ones I couldn't even find. I couldn't infiltrate there without dying."

"This mysterious leader that is reviving that cesspool is very good at what he does and already has strong ninjas under his command…. That is very questionable," he mumbled to himself. "The probability of infiltrating again, tell me with all honesty, is it possible?"

Mole was silent for a few minutes. "No, Lord Danzo. As I was leaving disguised as a worker, I saw someone looking over the seals behind the walls and a few other people entering the water, probably to check the seals there. I think they are improving the defence. Wave is too defensively strong to infiltrate, Danzo."

The man refrained from glaring at her. 'How are you so prepared, Wave leader?' He swivelled around. "Report to Fu Yamanaka for your punishment. Dismissed. 'I shall have your remarkable strength, Wave. Not now though; I will prepare my men to take it from you and make it mine. For Konoha.'

Mole silently stood up and marched down the semi-dark tunnels of Root headquarters.

Her mind was in a blaze.

Naruto personally set this mission to her, seeing how she had sworn her loyalty to him, as well as the three others. She was the most skilled out of the three reformed ROOT ninjas, which meant that the probability for her to survive his defences and his trackers was higher than the rest, so Danzo would believe she survived.

To prove her loyalty to Naruto, she willingly asks to be put under a Loyalty seal. The difference with the one she had under Danzo was that she wasn't in her right senses, doing things blindly for the War Hawk, but since she had willingly asked for a Loyalty seal from Naruto, she knew what she was doing.

The boy had put a mind-block seal in her in case a Yamanaka was ever to search her memories, sifting through the false ones instead of the real ones. That seal was still very experimental; seeing as there weren't any Yamanaka available to test the seal on. The boy had assured her that the seal would at least make it very difficult for her thoughts to be read or her actions to be influenced.

Mole didn't think she would ever look up to anyone younger than herself but Naruto had broken that thought process down with his show of fuinjutsu mastery and his command over the single strongest creature in the nation—Daku—who was much stronger than anything she had ever seen in her nineteen years of living and her fourteen years of serving in ROOT.

The boy, as a reward for her loyalty, sealed off her pain nerve endings, giving her the key to switch it back on if she ever wanted. This meant that she would never feel pain ever again unless she wanted to, something she would forever be grateful to 'Master Naruto' for doing.

The young fuinjutsu genius had promised to liberate her from ROOT if he had gotten all the information he needed.

Her fellow reformed ROOT ninjas were back in Wave.

Naruto had set Rat to look over his academy as a teacher and the headmaster. He was still very much wary of the ninja since the man spilt the beans so quickly. He placed a Body Lock seal on the back of his neck if he ever raised his hand to beat a comrade with the tattoo given to all that were allowed to visit Wave and all of Wave's citizens. The seal was connected directly to his brain, so if he was going to punish a student justly it wouldn't stop him.

He had also placed a Parole seal under the first seal, which blocked him off from certain places like the DARK Headquarters—Wave's equivalent to ANBU—, and also to the S-rank section of the library, Wave's water and electricity distribution centres and Wave's main forge.

The man, truly feeling repentant of all he had done against his will, tried his best to prove to Naruto that he meant no harm. Gradually teaching the academy students all he knew, limiting his knowledge to their current level. He also willingly asked for a loyalty seal, albeit the last to request this.

The other reformed ROOT ninja, Frog, was more trusted than Rat since he also willingly asked for a loyalty seal to be placed on him. Frog was left in charge of sorting through official documents before they were brought to Daku or Naruto. He was also added to the active ninja roster and was given B-rank missions, supervised by Zabuza.

He was fairly content with his position in Wave.

What all the reformed Root ninjas had in common was that they didn't want to disappoint Naruto.

Naruto didn't want to send Rat back as a spy for him because he still didn't trust him to squeal. Mole, which is the most ironic name in the world, was trusted enough with the mission. She was mid-jounin in taijutsu and speed, but with her pain nerves shut down and her ninjutsu prowess, she was high-jounin.

This was made clear when she beat both of her comrades in a fair fight.

She nodded silently to Fu Yamanaka and walked into ROOT's Conditioning room, a place where those who failed in their missions or didn't perform satisfactorily were punished mentally or physically.

She didn't flinch when the solid wood door slammed shut behind her.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wave country,

Daku, in full Leader of Wave clothes, was currently at his (Naruto's) desk, going through permissions to start constructing or re-modelling various buildings in the country.

He hummed and looked through a document asking for another hotel to be built for visiting fishermen and farmers, then he looked at Wave's general accounts and nodded in thought, stamping the approval for construction to bring out another document.

"Frog?"

The ninja named Frog was seated on a smaller desk beside Daku's (Naruto's) reading through the growing mission reports of Zabuza, the Demon brothers, Haku and Daku's shadow clones. His plain mask was off to reveal his pudgy facial features and a large green birthmark over his left eye and almost over his cheek; it was because of this he was named Frog by Danzo. He had a slim, average body build, going against the thought that he was fat. He wore camo green ninja pants and a black vest under his official chunin flak jacket. The flak jacket was light blue with black lines on the shoulders and a large Wave symbol on the back. The collar wasn't high, high collars were for jounin.

The man looked at his leader with wide, surprised eyes before he stuttered out a response, "Y-Y-Yes, My Lord Daku."

The loyal dark shadow leaned back in his comfy chair with his head propped up on his right fist. "Do you think building a mall in the centre of Wave is a good idea?" He turned to Frog with an expectant look.

"U-Uhm…"

"Your honest opinion, please."

Frog scratched his cheek and calmed his heart. "I-I think a mall is a good idea." Daku motioned for him to continue. "If we have a mall, traders would have a set place to sell their wares, even if it's raining or the sun is too hot. It would be a casual recreational spot for all ages. Also, it could help further reduce the crime rate, as more job opportunities and hobby centres would come from a mall. Then there's the added side of a place where not only food and furniture, a mall is a good idea."

"What else do you think can be in the mall?"

"Restaurants that can't afford to set up separate buildings, toy shops for children, recreational rooms for both kids and adults, hobby stores for casual fishers and tinkerers, and more. I'm sure that with the increase in money in circulation the mall would be a very popular nerve centre for Wave." Frog knew he was rambling, but the piercing red stare he received from his boss urged him to spill out his thoughts.

Daku looked down at the document and looked over the blueprints for the mall, noticing that there would be room for all the ninjas had mentioned and also room for the mall to grow. "You seem very knowledgeable in these sorts of things, Frog." He tapped his pen on the document.

"I-uh-I saw a mall in Snow Country when we were passing through to Hidden Chill during my last mission." He and Haku had been tasked to deliver a batch of Security seals to protect Yumi Chou's vast territory. These security seals were stored in a large storage scroll. They also took with them instructions on how to administer them. It was a success with only a small hitch when bandits tried to ambush them just outside Snow Country's borders.

Naruto's representative as leader nodded his head and stamped down his approval on the document, again after calculating the loss from Wave's accounts. "I shall be putting you in charge of overseeing the construction for this mall, supervising the progress and reporting problems directly to me," he said as he was writing a note on a scroll, telling the appointed contractor for the mall that Frog was also in charge.

"Thank you, sir. I will not disappoint you." The man stood up and bowed.

"I hope not."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A mile outside Tanzuki town,

'How much longer can this man talk?' Naruto, with his face a perfect slate, clenched his fists and mechanically kept marching forward, trying his best to ignore the stories Jiraiya was telling him.

"Then I grabbed him by the neck and I said, 'Little boy, I was a ninja of high calibre before you could walk!' and I slammed him into the ground." He laughed boisterously. "The guy passed out from my awesomeness, of course," Naruto grunted. "Hey, boy," Naruto grunted again and looked at him from the corner of his eyes. They had camped for an hour a while ago; allowing Naruto to rest and begin their trek to the last place Tsunade was located.

So far, they had passed three towns and Jiraiya had immediately gone to the casinos and asked for the slug Sannin's location. He had to pay off the woman's building debts before he was told. The boy just shrugged all this off, noting that each Sannin had their quirks.

Jiraiya was a pervert, Orochimaru was another pervert, and Tsunade was a (terrible) gambler.

"Yes?"

"Want to see something cool?" Not even waiting for a reply, Jiraiya dramatically whipped out his hand and a blue, spinning ball of chakra began swirling on his hand. "Neat, huh? It's called the Rasengan, the Fourth Hokage made this jutsu." He at least thought Naruto's eyes would widen in amazement just a little. He was sorely disappointed when Naruto only pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows, confused as to the point of the whole presentation. Jiraiya relented and asked, "Wanna learn it?"

The boy turned and kept walking. "Nope. I'm good."

The man's face planted straight into the ground. "What!? You don't want to learn this?" He slammed his Rasengan into a tree and smirked proudly when it exploded into splinters. He looked at Naruto and sweat dropped when he saw the boy had his shield up to block the wood shrapnel, lowering and shrinking his shield, looking at Jiraiya with a frosty frown, annoyed. Jiraiya overlooked Naruto's annoyance and stated, "That was only less than half its power, y'know."

Naruto deactivated his shield and crossed his arms. "This is like Kakashi's Chidori, correct?"

"This is better than the chidori. Kakashi admitted it himself!"

The blonde seal master scratched his chin and again pursed his lips in thought, "I think can create a Fuin-Ninjutsu equal to or even better than that—"

"What!? Impossible! It took Minato years to create and master the Rasengan. What makes you think you can one-up him?" Naruto shrugged and kept walking, and Jiraiya ran up to him. "Won't it just be easier to just learn it?"

"Why do you insist on teaching me? I just said I was fine without it." The man mumbled something childishly and scuffed his feet. "I thought so."

"A bet then. If you make something 'equal to or better than' the Rasengan, I will make you my apprentice. If you lose, you have to learn the Rasengan and become my apprentice."

"A better bet. If I win you leave me alone, and if I lose, I learn the Rasengan. Agreed?"

"I'll take what I can get."

Both shook hands and walked into Tanzuki town.

As per the norm concerning their mission, they searched through a large casino and looked around. Naruto poked for Jiraiya's attention when his eyes got drawn to the waitresses behind and pointed at a large busted, blonde woman sitting alone in a booth.

"Is that her?"

"Let's go and check." They pushed through the crowded casino and stood over the hazy-eyed woman.

"Look, I told you I don't have your money…" she slurred as she looked before all signs of being drunk immediately cleared out, vanishing in a single blink of her eyes. "Oh…it's you."

The white-haired Sannin slipped into a seat across from her and patted the seat next to him for Naruto to do so, but the boy chose to swipe a chair from beneath a drunk man and sat down, pleasantly thoughtless of the messy crash of limbs behind him from the drunk man collapsing into his even drunker friends. "Glad to see you still love me, Tsunade." He grinned at her, wincing when the lady stomped on his foot. "Owie,"

"What are you doing here, Jiraiya?" she tilted a bottle of sake into her mouth. She briefly met Naruto. "And who the hell is he?"

"I'm not sure you're aware, but Sarutobi-sensei is dead."

"Dead, huh." Her shoulders sagged tiredly. "Another one bites the dust."

"He wanted you to become Hokage."

She snorted rudely. "Over my dead body."

"…What happened to you, Tsunade?"

"I can see now what happened." She snapped and glared at Jiraiya. "I lost Nawaki and Dan to shinobi life and now sensei is gone!" She stood up sharply, roughly toppling her chair.

The toad Sannin kept his cool. "They all died honourably protecting what they loved. They died protecting us, Tsunade."

"There's no honour in our line of work. You know that better than me." She slowly sat back down on her seat and chugged down a mouth full of sake. Jiraiya's eyes hardened, and as he retorted to her last words, she continued, "They didn't have to die…. There was nothing to protect. The Will of Fire died with the First."

"The Will of Fire still burns bright in the leaf. It will always burn bright as long as there are people alive to look out for the future." The woman snorted again. "You let yourself go, Tsunade."

The woman merely shrugged and her eyes spun to Naruto. "Enjoying the show, brat?"

Naruto nodded and spared a barely visible smile for her. "Yes. Very much so."

Tsunade slammed her fists down on the table and glared harshly at the young boy. "You've got a lot of nerve, brat."

"So I've been told," was the sharp reply.

"You think you're so smart…" Naruto shrugged and nodded, graciously accepting her words.

"Yes. Jiraiya is right, though, Tsunade. The history books say you're a powerful kunoichi able to level mountains with a single punch. Now…I'm thinking the history books exaggerated something that died a long time ago."

The woman stood up sharply. "I'll have you know, I'm stronger than ever."

Naruto rolled her eyes and sipped a glass of water she had ordered. "I doubt that—"

The woman slapped his glass of water out of his hand, smashing it against the wall of the booth. "You are being very disrespectful, brat."

"Knocking my glass of water out of my hand is disrespectful, Tsunade," Naruto grunted, a tinge of sourness in his tone. He looked at where the broken shards of his glass cup lay on the ground. "And it's very rude. I advise you to cool down before you do something you regret."

"What can a brat like you do?" she was clearly trying, and failing, to rile him up. "I bet I can beat with just this finger." She wagged her index finger near his face.

"I'd rather not—"

"You scared of being beat up by a girl," Naruto wanted to point out that she was a woman, not a girl, and that it was the alcohol in her system that was talking. He looked at the woman, who was smirking cockily, and smirked lightly in reply.

"I haven't exercised my legs in a while. If I win, you follow us back to Konoha and become the Hokage."

"And if I win you pay off all my debts." Dark shadows crept out from under her bangs. "And I mean all of my debts." She began listing off on her fingers, "Loans, tabs, and property damage."

Thinking the boy didn't have any money, Jiraiya chose to finally enter into the conversation. "Tsunade, I don't think—"

"It's fine. I agree." Naruto pushed away from the table and motioned with both arms to the casino's exit. The slug Sannin hmphed and walked briskly out, followed closely by the toad Sannin and Naruto. The woman pushed a smaller girl, who was holding a pig, back out with her just as she entered.

The two stood a few feet apart across an empty street. It seemed the residents sensed a fight, murmuring and moving away a safe distance. "You got jelly legs or something? Come at me brat." She proudly crossed her arms, leaving a single index finger in the air, a proud flag she intended to use to crush humility and respect into the boy's skull.

"Why don't you come at me? 'You scared'?" the boy oddly imitated her, trying, and successfully, riling up the drunken Sannin. The woman growled and ran at the boy with mid-chunin speed, with her right pointer finger leading the attack.

"Tsunade, no!" Shizune yelled after her attacking mistress.

Under the seal master's baggy pants, a spiral seal flared to life on his calves and his blue rectangular shield spiralled out of his right forearm. The woman, with an almighty flick, smashed her finger against the ridiculously sturdy shield. Not even a speck of dust kicked up and silence fell all around.

"He…He…He…" Shizune blubbered quietly with Jiraiya.

"He blocked her…. Impossible…"

Behind his blue shield and his seal-enhanced forearms, Naruto allowed his smirk to widen minutely as he saw the shock dawn on the slug Sannin. He lifted his left leg, a clump of earth over his foot, and he swung it at her, hitting her left arm and destabilising her. She tried to get her bearing back to her and flicked the boy again when he ran at her with his shield. His tree roots seal only prevented him from skidding seven feet away from her. The ground broke up as the seals forced him to a grinding halt.

Naruto squinted his eyes and blocked another flick, jabbing her stomach with his free hand and pushing her back with his seal-enhanced forearm. As she slid back he briefly deactivated the seals on his calves and leaped into the air, bringing the edge of his shield to the ground.

The blue shield shook the ground on impact and fractured the earth, splintering speedily into the woman. Tsunade grits her teeth and smashes a finger flick to the ground to counter the attack, this being successful.

She lifted her eyes and leapt away from a silver rope coming at her straight from Naruto's free forearm. It snaked after her despite her dodges, driving her up the side of a building. She flipped on the wall, over the rope—

Her legs got caught by a second and third rope.

In a second, similar reactions rippled around all who watched the brawl.

A hissing curse exhaled from Tsunade's clenched teeth.

Jiraiya and Shizune winced.

The crowd of people recoiled, predicting the next sequence of attacks.

"Shit."

The silver snake rope whipped her savagely into the ground, denting the earth and thrashing her into the side of a building, leaving a body imprint and bashed her against the rocky ground again. The silver ropes quickly wound around her and squeezed.

Tsunade coughed and struggled against the fuinjutsu-enhanced ropes but this was a futile attempt. The younger seal master harshly dragged her to him and held the edge of his shield to her neck, pressing it in to show her just how sharp it was. "I win. We'll pick you up tomorrow."

He unwound the rope from her not too gently and nodded in satisfaction when she spun in the air and landed on the ground with her eyes unfocused and dizzy.

The boy coolly walked past his gaping audience to a nearby hotel. He didn't care if the toad sage helped his teammate pick up the last pieces of her pride; he just wanted to go and eat some food, maybe start working on that Fuin-Ninjutsu he had bet with Jiraiya.

He got his own room and ordered some room service. An hour into his research he was done with his lunch of ramen and we now find Naruto sipping a cup of green tea and tracing his pointer finger over a seal for a basic storage scroll before he heard a knock on the door. He furrowed his eyebrow when the custom alarm seal he slapped on the door told him that two people were waiting outside the door.

If it was Jiraiya then the other person must be Tsunade, but if so then why wasn't the smaller girl with them, why was it that one had Water affinity and the other Fire affinity? Jiraiya had Fire affinity but Tsunade had Earth affinity…

The people at the door knocked again and he stood up to answer, tucking his arm behind his back. He opened the door and kept his face blank when he saw who was behind it.

"Hello, Naruto," Itachi said calmly. Kisame grinned beside his partner. "Would you be so kind as to come with us?"

Naruto wasn't looking at him or his sharingan though, thankfully. He was looking at Kisame and the shivering bundle of bandages on his back.

He cursed under his breath. "…Great…"

Authors note

So? How was it? Did I do well?

It may seem like a coincidence how Yakumo was found but think of it like a female version of Naruto (in this story).

Believe me, when I say this, Naruto is not overpowered. I agree that all the seals he has on his person are very powerful, but he still can't move past mid-chunin speed and strength without the seals augmenting his body parts. He also doesn't have enough experience to predict his opponent's moves. He isn't immune to the sharingan and he doesn't have any seals that negate the byakugan. But he is growing, meaning he would soon reach S-rank if he wanted.

Daku didn't have any fight scenes in this chapter to show that he isn't all muscle; he has an outstanding memory and leadership skills.

In all honesty, Wave Country is growing very, very well. There's more money in the economy and more visiting traders from places besides the villages he is allied to.

I hope I didn't underpower Tsunade. Remember she was limiting her attacks to finger flicks. Naruto could go all out (or as hard as he wanted). He has pretty much-prepared seals for any circumstance he would come up against; monstrous strength included.

What's going to happen with Itachi, Kisame and Naruto? Want to find out, you have to keep reading.

What do you all think? I really like to know,

See you on the flip side,

Please review,

Foy.