AN: New chapter.


A blue fist broke the blade coming towards her. Seconds later, the attacker was swept off her feet, slammed into the ground. She was quickly on top of her fallen foe, moved faster than her opponent could move even if she wasn't exhausted to the point of falling. Her fist put a hole in the ground, purposefully missed the head of the girl on the ground.

"Nice job." She pulled her fist out, shook the dirt off. "You've gotten faster."

The woman beneath her only laid on the ground, partly out of exhaustion and partly out of frustration.

"I still can't beat you." She finally sat up, Jade standing back up on her feet. "We've been doing this for years and I still can't win. I can barely even hit you."

"Don't be so hard on yourself kid." Jade jerked her thumb to where the rest of her old team were laying on the ground, neither Kakashi or Obito able to do much after she was done with them. Whether they were the Prodigy or "Ghost man", it didn't change the end results. "I kicked their butts too." She pointed to herself, offered a fanged grin. "Jade Chan, Professional Butt Kicker Extraordinaire."

She at least earned a tired laugh from where Rin sat on the ground.

The brunette Jonin finally got to her feet, accepted a helping hand from Jade as she did so.

"Now take five with those two. We'll work on your evasion more later." Jade glanced up at the sun, it extremely weird but her red eyes no longer burned when exposed to the intense light. Even odder, it, and the moon, helped with her sense of time. There was just a certain feel every hour brought with it, the shadows she could sense around her changing in weird ways. She was almost set on calling it Shadow Time. "But I've got to cut out here. Almost time to pick up Naruto so I've got to go and get the show together."

She snapped her fingers, a pinch of Shadow Magic added to it, and her shadow quickly expanded.

She gave Rin a wink before she dropped into the Shadow Realm.

After a brief stop to grab her mask, she reappeared at the Academy. She was more than a little surprised to see her usual spot was occupied.

"Surprised to see me?"

She shrugged her shoulders, moved to stand next to him.

"A little bit. Didn't think you'd be back in the village so soon. Or at all after last time you dropped by."

"Meh. I can only stand so much of all that rain. Besides, Yahiko wanted to meet with Minato. I went ahead and put in a good word before their meeting."

"What, did you offer him an autographed copy of your book?"

"No but that's a great birthday gift idea." He took out his seemingly ever-present pen and notebook to write down said idea. "While we're on my work, you mind proofreading my next book?"

She hated that her blush was that much brighter thanks to her blue skin.

She still gave him a punch to the shoulder.

"Don't mention stuff like that in public. You know Kushina would totally send me to the Shadow Realm if she heard about me helping you out."

"Can't be any worse than what she did to me." He laughed despite the memory of how she had mopped the floor with his face. "We'll talk later. Looks like the kids are about to get let out."

Jade turned her eyes to the Academy, feeling out the familiar shadow of Naruto.

"Nah." She spent a moment to listen in, one of the many tricks she had developed over the years. A portal that opened in her ear, just big enough to do its job of eavesdropping. "Sounds like he got in trouble?"

"Hmm?" It was an invitation to go on.

She focused, tuned out the ambient noises around her.

"Something about a toad...a teacher ended up with it on his face...some croaking…he's either getting detention or something else..."

"Hmm...probably shouldn't have let him sign the contract so young. But it's pretty impressive he can summon anything at that age. Really shows what the kid can do if he sets his mind to stuff." A hand was raised to his burgeoning beard. "Yeah, I'm counting this as a win."

"You totally would." Jade couldn't help but roll her eyes. "You better hope Kushina doesn't figure out you gave her kid that contract when she gets back or last time's going to look like mercy compared to what she does to you this time."

"I'm doomed either way. She'll either blame me or Minato since we're the only two contractors she knows. And there's no way she's going to beat up her husband. So I'm dead meat. Or…maybe I could blame Yahiko? Yeah, a late birthday gift from his favorite honorary uncle!"

"OK, couple problems there Jiraiya." Jade went so far as to raise up two fingers. "One, Kushina totally saw you take Naruto away at the party. Two, I literally have to tell her if she asks me about it. Weird contract stuff." She waved her hand through the air in lieu of any further explanation. "I say just own up to it, maybe the beating will be lighter."

"Lighter? It'll be a thousand times worse if I confess to it now. I'm going to start running once she gets on the hunt. That way she may burn off some of her anger looking for me. Trust me, I had Tsunade as a teammate. I know how to deal with powerful angry women. Especially the ones who want to hurt me."

"If you say so." Jade only shook her head. She focused that bit more. "Alright, I've got it." She turned red eyes back to Jiraiya. "Looks like the teacher's mad but he's also really impressed. Naruto's going to be writing a paper on the history of the Summoning Technique. I'm guessing he's going to be asking you and Minato plenty of questions this weekend."

"What about you? You've got firsthand experience with it."

"I told you already, I've got a contract with Kushina. Not the summoning thing you've got with the Toads."

"If you say so." Jiraiya only repeated her earlier words back at him, a grin on his face. "I'll have to let Gamabunta know he's going to get quizzed by a ten year old."

"That big grouch? I'm sure he'll be happy about that."

"If I give him enough booze afterwards he won't even remember any of it."

"Fair enough." Jade snapped her fingers again, a dozen or so Ninja Shadowkhan making their presence known from the Shadow Realm. "So, want to be part of the show?"

Her question earned an excited grin.

"As if I'd refuse. I still remember back in the day when you were carrying Kushina around on that palanquin."

"You carry a little girl around for her birthday and people never let you live it down."

"Not like you only did it once. When was the last time? Oh right, just last year."

"I like making her birthdays special, so what?"


AN: And ripples have happened courtesy of Jade being around. Let's just call this the "mostly went right" dimension. Beyond that, 1-3 weeks between updates depending on what happens.

Review/PM if you want.

Peace.