Chapter 16: Meetings

Tanzaku Gai was large… much larger than I had expected it to be. Much like Konoha, it was surrounded by massive walls and was the home to tens of thousands of people, unlike Konoha, it was a purely civilian city.

I let out a whistle as I stepped through the city gates. Without Karin or Kurama, finding Tsunade would have been extremely difficult. I suppose that I could have just made a few hundred shadow clones to search the area, but I doubt that would have gone over well with the locals. Odds are, I would have been seen as a nuisance and they would have hired Shinobi to apprehend me, or kick me out of the city.

"Naruto," Jiraiya drew my attention. "Are you sure that the Kyuubi can't help find Tsunade?"

"Pretty much," I replied, taking a brief glance around. "The Kyuubi's sensing works on negative emotions, he's not that proficient in sensing chakra."

"Damn," Jiraiya cursed. "It looks like we're going to have to rely on Karin's sensing ability… barring that, we'll have to search the old fashioned way."

"Right, did you get that, Karin?" I looked down to Karin whom I was still carrying and found her to be asleep.

"For the love of… she's still under that earth style jutsu, isn't she?"

"Well…" I trailed off. I wasn't really intending for Karin to do any fighting while we were here, so I hadn't removed the added weight.

"Not everyone can handle that jutsu as well as you do, Naruto. Thanks to the Kyuubi, your body naturally adapts faster and your stamina refills at an amazing rate, Karin doesn't have that benefit," Jiraiya explained. "Being under that Jutsu, even without exercise is draining to the body. Karin's body is working harder just to do the basics, like breath or pump blood, it's no wonder why she's passed out."

I already knew all that… I also knew that Karin is an Uzumaki and, given time, she would be able to handle a much larger increase in gravity than what she was currently under.

Now, however, wasn't the right time to train her to exhaustion. We both needed to be ready. Cancelling the Jutsu, I immediately noticed the difference on not just myself, but Karin as well. With the invisible strain removed from her body, she relaxed and shifted, stretching as she let out a loud yawn.

"Good evening Karin, have a nice nap?" I asked as she woke up.

"Naruto?" Karin yawned loudly. "When did you start carrying me?"

"Sometime after you collapsed," I chuckled. "You were pretty out of it back then, so you probably don't remember. You woke up just after I released the earth jutsu."

"Oh," she mumbled as she snuggled into my chest. "You're really comfy."

"Right," I drawled. "Don't go back to sleep just yet. We've just arrived in Tanzaku-Gai and we need you to use your sensing ability to find Tsunade."

"Don't wanna," Karin whined.

"Oi, annoying red haired brat," Jiraiya interrupted.

"What, you old bastard?" Karin snapped.

"I'll make you a deal. If you find Tsunade, I'll rent you and Naruto a single room to share and you can snuggle up to him all you want!"

"Deal," Karin replied immediately

I blinked at that. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Sacrifices have to be made," Jiraiya smirked.

You know what… fine. Sharing a room with Karin alone shouldn't be too bad. It's not like I was going to let anything happen… If need be, I could just rough it in the forest. Or convince Tsunade and Shizune to let me share their room to mess with Jiraiya.

Placing Karin on the ground, she took a wobbly step forward and looked down in wonder. "I feel so light… like If I jump, I might just reach the clouds!"

"Well, you have been under that jutsu for about a good amount of time," I explained. "Your body should feel normal in about an hour, but for now, you're going to feel extremely light."

"It's amazing," Karin replied. Giving a short hop, she jumped several meters into the air. "Is this what it's like for you?"

"Pretty much," I grinned. With the amount of weight I'd trained under, I was pretty sure that I actually could jump to cloud level if I put enough effort into it.

"You can marvel over your bodies later," Jiraiya interrupted. "For now, we need to find Tsunade."

Karin blushed lightly. "Pervert."

Bringing her hands together, Karin closed her eyes and began to focus.

"You sure she can do this?" Jiraiya asked.

"Pretty damn," I replied. "While we were in the forest of death, Karin used her sensing abilities to locate potential ambushes and we avoided those areas. It actually made the whole second phase incredibly easy… besides the whole deal with Orochimaru marking Sasuke and then having his genin attack us."

"That was a mostly empty forest, there are tens of thousands of people here. It will be much harder for her to find Tsunade here."

"She'll be able to do it, I have faith in her," I replied.

We fell into a silence as we let Karin do her thing. A minute passed and Jiraiya was on the verge of interrupting, before Karin shivered and pointed behind him.

"There are two chakra signatures just as powerful as the perverts. One feels incredibly potent while the other feels vile… and wounded. The vile one seems to be moving away from the potent one."

"Orochimaru," Jiraiya growled. "I should have known that he would try and get Tsunade to heal him. You two stay here, I'll deal with him."

"Not happening," I replied. "You would need Karin's help to find him and I'm not going to let her go alone to face off against Orochimaru… not to mention, bringing Tsunade back is more important than killing Orochimaru."

"Fine," Jiraiya grunted. "Lead us to Tsunade."

"Don't be so angry. If Orochimaru left and Tsunade hadn't healed him, it's likely that he'll be back and you'll get your shot."

"You're right," Jiraiya let out a breath. "In the grand scheme of things, killing Orochimaru is quite low on the list."

Well… that wasn't entirely true. Killing Orochimaru and more importantly, Kabuto, is extremely important. Their deaths mean that Madara isn't resurrected in a form beyond his prime… hopefully he wouldn't be resurrected at all.

"Well, let's go find our future Hokage," I announced as I turned towards the direction Karin initially pointed.

From the moment she woke up, Tsunade knew that today was going to be a bad one and it wasn't because of the hangover. She had started her day of normal enough, breakfast, sake and a visit to one of the casino's… where she won the jackpot on a slot machine.

Warning bells rang in her head. She had tried again and was met with the sight of another jackpot. Her luck had never been good… scratch that, when her luck turned good, something bad was bound to happen. It had been that way ever since she was a child and won several card games against her grandpa and even got his necklace… He died a week later.

When she played against her grand uncle and won, the first Shinobi world war had started which also claimed his life. Each time she won at a game, bad luck was sure to follow.

Bad luck in this case seemed to be Orochimaru. The man had finally killed their sensei and was planning on destroying Konoha, only, he was injured. Orochimaru needed Tsunade's help, he needed her to heal his arms and in turn, he would use some forbidden jutsu to bring back two of the people that meant the most to her. The two who's deaths she blamed herself for.

Her little brother Nawaki and her lover Dan. She had been the one who gifted that cursed necklace to them, it was her fault they died.

Orochimaru's offer… It was more than tempting. She had little connection to the leaf village, so what did she care if Orochimaru wanted to destroy it. She would get those she loved back, those that had died while fighting Konoha's wars.

And yet… She couldn't help but wonder what Dan and Nawaki would say about all this. What would they think of her if Konoha was destroyed because of her… because she helped heal the man that destroyed it, just so she could have her selfish wish of seeing them again!

Orochimaru had given her a week to decide. It was a difficult decision for her. Forsake her old home and be reunited with those who had passed too soon, or decline, kill Orochimaru and lose the chance to see Dan and Nawaki again.

There was also the issue of Orochimaru knowing her secret. She was afraid of blood. If she chose to stand against him… to kill him, he would exploit her fear and… she couldn't fight him like that. He'd likely kill her and more importantly, Shizune…

Shizune, her faithful follower and Dan's niece. Konoha was Shizune's home too and if it was destroyed… Tsunade didn't know how Shizune would cope.

Her faithful follower of over a decade had begged her to decline the deal. 'Dan and Nawaki wouldn't want such a thing. They gave their lives to protect Konoha, they wouldn't want it destroyed.'

Tsunade had snapped at Shizune to be quiet. It was the very same thing Tsunade herself had considered. Whichever choice Tsunade made, to save or destroy Konoha, she knew that she would regret it.

Tsunade shook her head. Nothing would come from this. Her thoughts were too erratic for her to decide. She needed to clear her head first and what better way than drinking some sake.

With a decision made on one sure thing, Tsunade spun around with the intent of going to her favorite bar. Taking a single step forward, She looked up and her eyes widened.

"Jiraiya?!"

"Tsunade," Jiraiya cheered. "We finally found you!"

With Karin's directions, finding Tsunade had been incredibly easy.

From my first look at Tsunade, I immediately felt nervous. This was a woman who was known as the world's greatest medic, she was strong enough to kill a regular person with a single flick of her finger… but more than that, she was incredibly beautiful.

I could see now why Jiraiya had found it funny when we made that bet on the first day of looking for Tsunade. Getting her to agree to a date was incredibly unlikely, if not impossible.

"What do you mean we?" Tsunade asked, finally getting over her shock.

"Yo," I greeted, stepping out from behind Jiraiya with a tired Karin in tow.

"You took on a new genin team?" Tsunade asked.

"As if," Jiraiya snorted. "Naruto here is my apprentice and the redhead is his friend, Karin, who happens to be a great sensor."

"Damn right I am," Karin huffed and crossed her arms.

I bit back a chuckle as I began to resolve myself for what's to come. I need to somehow convince Tsunade to become Hokage… and help us kill Orochimaru and Kabuto, funnily enough that was the easier part of this trip.

"And why were you looking for me to begin with?" Tsunade arched an eyebrow.

"Maybe we can find somewhere to sit down for this," Jiraiya suggested. "All I can say now is that Konoha is in a bit of a dire situation."

"Fine," Tsunade sighed. "I'll hear you out. You're lucky that I was already on my way to a bar!"

Stepping past Jiraiya, Tsunade lead the way, Shizune stepped in line with Karin and myself, carrying a pig with a pearl necklace.

It didn't take long for us to reach the bar, which also happened to be a restaurant. The booths didn't have enough seats for all of us, so we were split into two groups sitting in separate booths that sat next to each other. Jiraiya and Tsunade sat in one, while Shizune, Tonton, Karin and myself sat in the other.

"Well… this is awkward. You've been banished to the kiddies table," I commented, shooting Shizune a smile while Karin stared at her menu.

"O-oh, it's no issue. Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama just want to catch up," Shizune returned my smile. "My name is Shizune, I'm Tsunade's apprentice."

"Well, you probably heard Jiraiya, but let me introduce myself. I'm Uzumaki Naruto and this is–"

"Karin," Karin interrupted, before glaring back at her menu.

"Nice to meet the two of you," Shizune said kindly. "So, do you know why Jiraiya-sama was looking for Tsunade-sama?"

"Um, that would be to–" I began.

"HA, like hell. Being Hokage is a fools job," Tsunade smacked her table.

"Offer Tsunade the position of Hokage," I finished.

"Oh… that won't go over well," Shizune commented.

"No shit," I commented. "I'd do the job myself, but I have way too much to do right now… not to mention that I'm not even a chunin… but I think that has more to do with Orochimaru screwing up the chunin exams than a failing on my part."

"A weakling like you become Hokage?!" Tsunade laughed. "Yeah right. Even though it's a shit job, there is a strength requirement, you're nowhere near strong enough to become Hokage."

I smirked at that, it seemed I had her attention. "I'm not strong enough of my own right now, that's true… but I did say that I was a little busy right now. I'll become Hokage in a few years time."

"Big talk from a little brat," Tsunade mocked, before taking a sip of her sake. "And what could you be so busy with that you would decline becoming Hokage?"

"That… is classified. Hokage's ears only, I'm afraid," I grinned. "If you want to know, you'll have to become the next Hokage... or go out on a date with me." I felt stupid the moment that left my lips.

Shizune let out a choking noise as Jiraiya chuckled.

"What?" Karin snapped as she slammed her menu down. "How's that fair? You're really asking that… that blonde bimbo out on a date?"

"I said dating someone my own age would be awkward," I explained. "Not that I wouldn't go out on a date with anyone."

"That's not fair," Karin whined.

I chuckled and patted her head. "Don't worry, I doubt much will come from a single date."

"You got a real weird brat this time, Jiraiya," Tsunade commented.

"Don't I know it?" Jiraiya chuckled. "But what he said was true. There are things… important things that only the Hokage can know. We need you on our side, Tsunade."

"Hmmm, pass," Tsunade refused.

Jiraiya sighed.

Turning around, I leaned over the divider between tables. "Well, think of it this way. You're only a candidate for becoming Hokage, the other candidate being Danzo. If Danzo becomes Hokage, I don't see why he wouldn't order you to return to Konoha and if you refuse, he'll likely mark you as a missing-nin."

"That's right," Jiraiya perked up. "Danzo would do that. You would be labeled a traitor and have Konoha Shinobi hunt you down."

Tsunade snorted. "Let them try. I'm still the most powerful Kunoichi Konoha has ever produced."

"You are… but your apprentice, Shizune isn't!"

Faster than I could see, Tsunade stood up and spun around, her hands clamped down on my shirt as she glared down at me.

"Say that again!" She snapped.

"Naruto," Karin squeaked.

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune started.

I blinked. It seemed I had struck a nerve… I could work with that.

"Danzo is a major bastard, if he can't beat you then he'll do the next best thing and hurt you as much as he can. Everyone is expendable to him." I stood up, ignoring my tearing shirt as I leaned in close to Tsunade. "You want to know a little something about Danzo? We can't prove it right now, but he has connections to Orochimaru. He has had Orochimaru experiment on him, he has killed people just to gain access to their bodies… Right now, Danzo has access to Mokuton, through Orochimaru grafting the first Hokage… your grandfathers' cells into his body," I whispered into her ear.

Tsunade let go of my tattered shirt and I leaned away. "That… that can't be true. If he really did that, sensei… the Sandaime would have stopped him!"

"Not if he had found a way to control the Sandaime," I shook my head. "Trust me, the more you look into this, the deeper it gets. What I told you about Danzo was only the peak of the mountain."

"Jiraiya," Tsunade turned towards her teammate.

"Everything he said was true… unfortunately," Jiraiya sighed. "That's why we're here now. Something big is coming and we need your help."

"I'm going to need more information," Tsunade sat down and finished her sake in one gulp. "And more sake."

"And I'm going to need a new shirt," I sighed and looked down at the ruined white shirt along with the torn metal wire shirt underneath. Getting up from my booth, I went to sit next to Jiraiya. "But I suppose we could tell you a little bit more of what we know."

"All of it… your sources included," Tsunade demanded. "I need to know that the information is accurate."

"Not possible," Jiraiya disagreed. "We don't know what you would do with that information."

"You don't trust me, Jiraiya?" Tsunade smirked.

"No," Jiraiya said simply. "I know you met up with Orochimaru today."

The smirk fell from Tsunade's face. "I see."

"Well, there is another way to see if she's trustworthy," I interrupted, lifting my fist a little above the table.

"What, you want to fight?" Tsunade snorted.

Jiraiya hummed as he considered my offer. "That could work… but as you've explained, it could backfire spectacularly."

"I don't think so. If she's open to it, that would mean she's trust worthy and if she's not, nothing should leak through," I argued.

"That is true," Jiraiya replied.

"What're you two talking about? You want to use some kind of jutsu on me?"

"Kinda," I shrugged. "It's not really a jutsu so much as it is a way to understand a person. You've heard how two powerful Shinobi can almost read each others' hearts while fighting each other, right? Well, this is a lot like that, but it skips over the whole fighting part of it."

"And you know how to do it?" Tsunade asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Yep," I smirked as I held my fist in front of her. "Now we could spend the entire night talking everything over, or you could bump my fist and find out for yourself."

"Whatever," Tsunade sighed. Lazily leaning on one hand, she knocked my fist with her own.

The connection was established and Tsunade's eyes widened in shock. Sorrow and anger flowed into me, before an overwhelming flooded through my body and my world exploded and the connection was broken just as I felt Kurama's chakra flood my body, wrapping me in a single tailed cloak.

Multiple colours and bright lights flashed across my eyes, before I felt wood and stone collapse onto my body. Rolling out of the way of a falling roof beam, I let out a strangled cry of pain. My arm, it hurt like hell.

No, not just my arm, my ribcage and my back hurt too, but not nearly as much as my arm. Stumbling out of the wreckage, I saw civilians rushing down the street, their screams were muted by the blood rushing through my ears.

"What happened?!" I asked as I looked around weakly.

"You attempted to connect with Tsunade through Ninshu and she panicked," Kurama explained calmly. "She punching your fist."

"What?!" Looking down at my injured arm, I saw that it was mangled, it was twisted horribly in several different locations with some bone sticking out and my fingers looked to have burst. "Oh shit." I felt sick.

"If I hadn't protected you with my chakra, your entire arm would have been blown off."

More of Kurama's chakra flooded my body sand I felt several painful snaps inside of my body. My arm untwisted itself, bone was pulled back in and fused together, muscle and skin knitted itself back together. It had only taken a few seconds for my body to be back in perfect condition.

"Thanks," I breathed. Looking down at my arm, I was amazed to see that there wasn't even a single scar from that wound.

"You might want to hurry back. It seems Jiraiya is now fighting Tsunade."

"Shit," I cursed, before jumping to a rooftop. I had no doubt Jiraiya thought Tsunade was a traitor.

Looking around, I found that Tsunade had literally punched me through several streets. I hadn't just landed in a building across the street, I had been thrown through several buildings and had stopped in the last one. The area my body was thrown through was devastated.

I created several shadow clones to go through the wreckage and look for anyone that might be hurt, before speeding off towards Jiraiya and Tsunade.

I had screwed up severely. Ninshu worked by revealing what was hidden in a person's heart, it was great for gaining a true understanding of someone, but there was a major flaw, sometimes the person didn't want others to know how they truly felt.

Tsunade had been a Shinobi for around 40 years and she spent those years hiding how she truly felt. For me to come in and look it at so blatantly, it must have been jarring, terrifying, rage inducing. I needed to fix this, if I didn't there was no way in hell that Tsunade would become Hokage.

Rushing towards the fight, I briefly noticed Karin and Shizune who both appeared to on their way towards my crash site.

"STOP!" I yelled as I landed in between Jiraiya and Tsunade.

"You're alright," Jiraiya let out a sigh of relief, before his face hardened. "Get out of the way, she's a traitor to the village!"

"No it's not, this is just a major misunderstanding," I argued. "She just panicked! I'll handle this… it was my screw up."

Jiraiya and I stared at each other for several seconds before he sighed. "Fine, I'll trust you on this."

"Thanks," I nodded, before turning to Tsunade. "After this is all over, do you think I could get you to give me a checkup, that punch of yours really hurt."

"Not many would be able to survive that punch, but it seems you were able to shrug it off… Kyuubi Jinchuriki," Tsunade glared at me. "That technique of yours… it's more intrusive than a Yamanaka's mind transference."

"I suppose it is, but then again it's used for two people to understand each other. You broke it off too early for it to really run its course," I explained, before raising my fist to her. "We could try again."

"Not happening," Tsunade snapped.

"It wouldn't be that easy, would it?" I sighed. I needed to get Tsunade on my side and gain her trust. It felt a little crazy that it was easier getting Kurama on my side than Tsunade.

"You got me on your side by sharing everything," Kurama replied. "It's likely that you'll need to do the same with Tsunade, especially with how much she disliked having others see how she truly felt."

'I know… You can drop the cloak, I won't need it for this.'

"Very well."

"Can't control the Kyuubi's power for very long?" Tsunade asked, before freezing up.

That hadn't been it. The bubbling orange chakra cloak had been obscuring my body from Tsunade… more specifically, my blood that coated my entire right arm and upper chest. Taking a step forward, Tsunade stumbled back.

"S-stay away," Tsunade stuttered, her whole body shaking.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," I replied as I walked towards her.

Tsunade tried to step back again, but tripped and ended up falling to the floor. I heard Shizune yell something in the background, but I ignored her as I crouched down in front of Tsunade.

My own hands shook as I clasped hers. It was ironic, I was shaking because Tsunade was very capable of killing me in a single hit and she was shaking because of my blood.

"For what it's worth, I really am sorry about this. I hope you'll be able to understand why I'm doing this," I apologized in a shaky whisper. Seeing Tsunade struggle to say something, I shook my head. "Don't talk for now."

Joining my chakra with Tsunade's, the world disappeared from around us and we were greeted to the sight of each others' memories.

Alright and that's chapter 16.

They've made contact with Tsunade. Naruto tried to use a shortcut to get her on their side and it went very wrong and now he's taking a risk in an attempt to fix everything. Ninshu is great and all, but it doesn't work well with those that are secretive and want to keep their past buried.

In other news, this story now has over 1K followers. That's just completely insane to me.

Anyways, I'm up to chapter 23 on the Spooky P word website, 7 chapters further than here. I'll always be 5 chapters ahead on there.

P
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I go by the name of ThatKircguy. Just copy the name and paste it in the Patty Rio On search bar. It'd help me out immensely, but don't worry if that's not your style. I will be uploading weekly, so it's not going to be stuck there permanently.

Also, I post my original stuff there as well. It's nothing much, just two short stories for now, but I'll post more as I write them.

Thanks for reading, everyone. The next chapter is going to be posted on the 19th of April.