DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

A/N: Quick rundown so as to avoid confusion:

- The head priestess at the Fire Temple is Kiko.
- 'Ruto-chan is the little nickname Mito's cooked up, rather than simply calling, her little pet "Naruto-chan"

Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Mito speaking to the Kyuubi in her mindscape," etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

"Nyyyope," Asuma drawled. "That's just a regular bird, Mito."

"Good," Mito chirped, using a wind gale to bring it down to the ground.

"Mito!" Asuma hissed. "One: that was just COLD," he groaned and took after his little sister who was probably going to get him into yet another one of her "grand ideas."

"I didn't mean to," Mito cried out as she ran to the fallen bird. "I don't have your level of wind-mastery, Asuma! If you hadn't just stood there lookin' at it, I wouldn't have hurt it! Oh no!" Mito picked up the greyish-black bird that had had its wing broken and began very carefully healing it. Thank goodness she had gotten better at stuff like this.

Asuma took the message the bird was carrying off of its leg and unrolled it. "Moving on… Number TWO," he added, holding up two fingers, "if your suspect is watching…"

"She's not: I got the signal from one of my clones. Kiko-sama always takes lunch at this time, but I've been having a clone signal me just to make sure she's out whenever I'm not there."

"Che! Now that the stupid thing's alive and healthy, it's going to want to go back to whoever it belongs," Asuma said in irritation about the bird. "Aaaaaand even worse: it looks like you were right."

Mito's eyes widened, having ignored the message and the idea that the bird would return to its owner while she healed the poor little thing. "No, it won't! I'll keep it and it'll be my friend."

"Oh, God," Asuma mocked.

"SHUT UP, ASUMA," Mito railed, her hair flying up in the air and scaring both the bird and Asuma. "Oh, sorry little guy! You and I are going to be great friends, ne?"

The bird, even with its beady eyes seemed to still look terrified, making the teen pout. "Anyway, we need to more carefully compare this handwriting to the samples Ero-sennin sent to make sure," Mito said before running off with the poor bird. Asuma followed more leisurely behind her, eventually waiting in her room and decoding the message, while Mito was out doing gods only knew what with a bird.

"Chiriku," Mito hissed, pounding on his door with her elbow and shoulder. "Where'd you get your birdcage?" she asked, barging right in after he opened his door.

"I made it," he explained, looking down at the bird struggling to get away from the teen. "It is wise to prepare for a pet before bringing it home, Mito-hime."

"I know that, but this one just called to me," she lied. She'd been watching that bird fly seemingly straight between Konoha and the palace for weeks! "Do you have an extra cage?"

Chiriku sighed, believing her since he knew that Mito could sometimes be a little impulsive. "That appears to be a… species of parrot?" he asked more than said. It had the physical traits of parrots he'd seen, but its coloration was nearly black.

"Maybe? And even if it's wild, he or she can be trained," she replied.

"Indeed," Chiriku replied with a challenging smirk.

"Are you calling me a wild animal, 'ttebane?"

"Of course not," Chiriku lied wisely before asking her to wait for his return. When he came back, he opened his door to reveal an enormous birdcage. "This one should do. It was formerly Chukaku-sama's." He ignored the immature way Mito stuck her tongue out, gagging at the reminder of his master. His master's bird had passed after a long life: that was what was relevant now, not his master's old-fashioned ideas. "You may hang it in your room."

Mito winced, now realizing what she was getting herself into. She'd never had a pet before. "Thank you, Chiriku. Uhhh, can you help me carry it to my room?" She had her hands full of bird, so she couldn't even make a couple of clones to help out, and it didn't seem right to let the bird fly around Chiriku's room, although it would be funny. On the way back to her dorm, Mito peppered him with questions about bird care, since his pair of lovebirds had just produced kawaii lovebird chicks of their own. Those little cuties weren't easy to breed in captivity for the average person, so Chiriku had to know what he was doing.

Asuma began laughing at the size of the birdcage when he found the monk struggling to get it into Mito's small room. He helped him carry it toward the back for now. The cage took up over a quarter of her space.

"Oh shut up. 'Ruto-chan will be happier in a big cage!"

Asuma stopped in his tracks before letting out a bark of laughter. "'Ruto-chan?!' Your obsession with your little brother is beginning to turn sick and twisted, Mito."

"Fuck you, Asuma!"

Chiriku cleared his throat and Mito apologized: her favorite monk did not like foul language. Mito and Asuma didn't particularly care one way or another. – This is probably why, years later, "Fuck you, Asuma," was one of the bird's favorite phrases other than cooing about itself, along with "Shut up, Asuma!"

Once placed in the cage, the bird immediately pooped in it, making Mito scold him in a gentle but firm manner. Both the older boys began laughing at her: one openly, while the monk hid it behind his hand before going to retrieve some newspaper.

Looking out the small window that had been created/rebuilt when Mito punched a hole through the wall, Asuma verified that no one was around them. "I've de-coded what I can," he said in a low voice. "You were right about the priestess being a kunoichi."

"Kiko's damn good at hiding her chakra," Mito said, a little angry with herself for not having figured it out immediately after Kiko transferred to the main temple. "Was the message from Danzo?" Asuma nodded his head, and Mito bounced in excitement. "Yes! TELL ME she's screwing Danzo, too: gross as that is!"

Asuma grimaced. The pictures Mito got of the priestess and the Daimyo going at it were bad enough, but her being Danzo's mistress or whatever additionally? That was soap opera-level stuff, right there! "I don't know about that, but there was a certain familiarity in the correspondence considering it's from THAT guy," he began, stopping when Chiriku let himself back into Mito's room. Asuma lazily repocketed the captured message so as not to raise suspicion.

The three of them had become quite comfortable with each other since Asuma got there. The Sarutobi watched as Mito cleaned up the bird's mess, complaining about its smell, then putting the newspaper down at the bottom of "'Ruto-chan's" cage. He just knew that Mito was going to be bitching about and freaking over that bird - and how "animals should never be caged" - endlessly.

After discussing where to place it, Chiriku advised that she would need several hooks to properly hold the big cage up over Mito's desk, in front of the newish window. Fortunately, Mito had the day off from her Miko duties, although she planned to later cry to the priestess about accidentally hurting a bird since there was little doubt that Kiko would be expecting its arrival.

.

Jiraiya snickered over his student's shoulder, grinning wickedly at the pictures he was delivering. When he went to visit his goddaughter, pictures were the LAST thing he expected to retrieve! Oh, but he had fun enlarging these pictures.

"AACK," Minato gawked before hiding his eyes behind his other hand. "Dear Kami! I did not want to see that." The look of euphoria that was clear on the naked Daimyo's face while mounted by an equally naked black-haired kunoichi was just disturbing. "And you're familiar with her sensei?" Minato quickly moved on to the next photo, which quite clearly showed the woman's face. She looked slightly familiar, and Minato supposed she could be described as "handsome," although that was about it.

She does have a nice body, though, he thought to himself before banishing the thought, lest his deceased beloved wife find out.

Although it had been over half a decade since she was killed - possibly by his former student, no less - Minato still thought of and missed Kushina every day.

"I know her rather intimately," Jiraiya tittered about "Kiko-chan." The Hokage's face soured: how in the world have I not turned Minato into a pervert? Honestly, Jiraiya felt like he'd failed him, whether Minato had become Hokage or not.

"Her real name?" Minato asked dryly - and pompously, Jiraiya thought.

"Her name IS Kiko," he said wiggling his eyebrows and trying to get his student to react. Finally giving up the game, he sat down on the edge his desk. "Shimura Kiko."

"No," Minato almost gasped. "She's related to Danzo?"

Jiraiya nodded his head before responding, heightening the drama. "She's his DAUGHTER," he snickered.

"Oh gods," Minato groaned before returning all of the pics to Jiraiya to do whatever he'd do with them: he really didn't want to think about what that might be. "Asuma-kun did an excellent job getting this material," he said, almost to himself. Although Asuma wasn't able to decode the entire message, Jiraiya had seen enough of Danzo's goons' messages to figure it out.

"Aside from the decryption, this is all Mito," Jiraiya exclaimed proudly, not reading the room's mood or the way its temperature changed. "She's quite the little infiltrator!"

"My daughter took these… pictures," Minato asked, feeling sick.

"She did! Said she'd crawled through the vents - that's obvious - but even the sewer to get the goods! ONCE," he continued, completely impressed, "she henged as a coatrack in the room they sneak off to fuck in!"

"Sensei! Oh, gods…"

"Can I see the pictures?" asked a droll voice from above them.

"Sure, kid!" Jiraiya exclaimed, jumping into the hidden rafters. Sadly for Kakashi AND Genma (in a way?) Minato flashed to their positions before smacking them each in the head with enough force to knock them down to the floor.

.

Weeks later -

Kiko-sama had just left for her lengthy lunch - Mito guessed that she might be with the Daimyo again, but didn't really care at that moment - when she felt a solitary presence approaching her. The entire Guard that wasn't actually guarding the Daimyo and palace was supposed to be either training or sleeping at this hour, so Mito wondered what the older man wanted. "Kazuma-san? Is there something I can assist you with?"

Kazuma rubbed his hand against his neck, looking embarrassed - but something told Mito that it was an act. "My uh, partner died."

Mito's mouth fell open, deeply shocked and saddened for her colleague. She also felt terrible for being suspicious about the reason he was here, especially as she was (sometimes, even now) dealing with grief, too. "I am so sorry for your loss. Please, sit. I'm afraid you just missed Kiko-sama. What can I do to help? …I can get her for you?"

"No, no. No need," Kazuma said with a sad smile. "Perhaps we can just… talk?"

"Of course." Kazuma, however, sat in silence next to Mito, occasionally grasping her hand for a good half hour. Finally, when he spoke, it sounded to her like he was near exhaustion.

"We had so many plans," he chuckled before smiling at her and in obvious pain. "Pretty silly for a shinobi monk like me, eh?"

"Not at all," Mito assured him. "A shinobi or monk is human first, and it's, fortunately, a part of human nature to hope and plan for the future." As she continued, she deeply hoped she sounded concerned enough. She felt like she wasn't very good at this stuff. "It's how we progress as a species and as individuals."

"Human, huh?" Kazuma eventually mumbled, seemingly deep in thought, but for some reason, Mito got chills and felt - well, she felt like stabbing him!

Shifting just slightly away from him, she took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was fine and... Well, hells! This poor man is grieving: what in the world is wrong with me?! "Would you like to talk about it?"

"I… haven't seen her much lately. She was a retired kunoichi, you see: wounded in the last war."

"Her wounds left her unable to continue in her career?" Mito asked.

Kazuma chuckled sadly as he took a few moments to again grieve for the woman he'd loved: the woman who'd actually died in the Nine-Tails attack when they were visiting her parents in Konoha. "She was a beautiful woman. And she gave me the best gift in the world."

"Your son," Mito assumed, knowing that Kazuma was the only monk that at least admittedly had a child that she knew of.

"Indeed. Sora-kun's going to do great things."

Mito hummed. "I'm sure he will," she said comfortingly. "How old is he?"

"Six! Sometimes I can't believe it's been that long. I remember when he fit in my hands," he began, gesturing and almost seeing the babe he'd sacrificed.

"My little brother is almost six; I miss him."

"Yes," Kazuma said, staring out into space as his lips curled up into a smirk. "Sora-chan will soon be taking his place here beside me."

"Really? That's wonderful."

"It'll be a test for him," he seemed to say to himself, but then shook his long hair out of his face and gave Mito a somehow bright yet watery smile. "I thought it was only fair to warn you; must be the Buddhist teachings..."

Mito smiled back at him, not completely understanding what he was warning her about, but guessed that he meant that his little boy was rambunctious. Kazuma suddenly stood and patted himself off, searching for something as Kiko, the priestess, came in with that old coot, Chukaku. Mito stood and bowed to them, and Chukaku immediately latched on to Kazuma, whispering prayers even as he dragged him to the alter. It seemed they had already been informed of his loss.

"You're excused, Mito-hime."

"As you wish, Kiko-sama," Mito said, bowing to take her leave. She couldn't wait to get out of her robes and train. Her Miko duties were boring, and obviously, she needed to burn away all her excess energy, considering the weird and violent vibes she was getting from a poor grieving man.

"I don't like him."

"Kyuubi-sama?" Mito asked, startled, as she delved into the deepest recesses of her Mind Palace. She had just reached her room and after sealing herself in was shocked to hear the Kyuubi speak to her FIRST. Yes, he'd threatened her probably a hundred times, but that was mainly in his sleep - or of course when she went to speak to him on a monthly basis - Every. Single. Time!

But just to say something else? That was really unlike him.

"Then again, I hate all of you."

"Right," Mito nodded, knowing he definitely did. The last time he'd talked to her, he'd compared himself to her bird and had made her cry for both him and the similarly imprisoned 'Ruto-chan.

But what was she supposed to do? Something (someone) needed to contain the Nine-Tails or he'd kill literally everyone, considering how much he hated humanity. She'd tried and tried over the past several years to appeal to him but found that she was repeating the same thing to him, over and over again. "I know you do. You have good reason to hate us, Kyuubi-sama."

And I can't release 'Ruto-chan yet, Mito mourned. She asked for forgiveness from all the deities she could imagine for capturing and loving that poor bird.

"Tch," Kurama growled, completely annoyed. His container was a tailed beast bleeding heart - no, she was just a bleeding heart for anything! Why couldn't she just hate him back like his other two jinchuurikis?

"I'll give you a tip, flesh bag: I can sense all negative emotions."

Mito drew back, amazed - and also not quite believing him. Seriously, what was in it for him to tell her that - if it was true? It was something she'd have to consider carefully. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're pathetic. Now, Fuck. Off."

Mito found herself staring blankly at 'Ruto-chan's cage: the damn fox had kicked her out of her own mind again. "'Ruto-chan! What am I going to do with that guy?" the teen moped. She made cooing noises to the bird who began bobbing his head at her, seeming to agree that the Kyuubi was impossible to deal with. "Who's a pretty birdy? WHO'S a pretty birdy?!"

"Pretty birdy," the bird parroted. Mito bounced up and down, thrilled until she heard a knock on her door. Answering, she found Anko - who looked TERRIBLE. "ANKO! Come in, come in," she grabbed her friend who leaned on her like she was about to fall down, although she also weakly slapped at her. It would take a lot more than that to make Mito stop, however. Running a quick diagnostic on her friend who still hadn't said anything, Mito found that her chakra system was running on near-empty and somehow polluted, for lack of a better word. "What happened to you?"

"Nothin'," Anko said before nearly falling on her face.

"Are you okay?" Mito asked reflexively. Her best friend looked ragged and was clearly pretending that she didn't want her to help.

"Yeah! I'm better than okay, I'm awesome," Anko lied. She tried to laugh, but she was in too much pain to come across credibly.

"I can sense something just… not right about you, Anko-chan," Mito said as gently as she could. Was this what the Kyuubi was talking about, or just her own ability to sense things? She really wanted to demand answers for whatever her friend had gotten herself into, and also wanted to hold her down and examine her, but she'd first give Anko a chance to come clean on her own.

It's how they were.

...Unless angry and beating the words out of each other with love: that was her and Anko's other way of dealing with shit.

Anko turned around and sat in the corner. "Can I just… please stay here for a day or so?"

Mito didn't even have a chance to answer her. Anko had passed out cold!

"Good God, girl! What have you… JUST A MINUTE!" Mito was carefully feeding her best friend her chakra, but ANOTHER knock interrupted her. No: someone was pounding on her door and sounded like she'd barge in if it wasn't for Mito's seals. Since a few of her seals were down after letting Anko in, Mito knew exactly who her newest guest was. "COME IN," she bellowed while putting some chakra into the wall to allow her mentor entry.

"You've got a LOT of explaining to do, brat," Tsunade steamed. "And what's that doing here," she began to ask, pointing to Anko, "and why is she asleep?!"

"I - I don't quite know, Baa-chan. Anko just got here: check this out," Mito requested and began running a proper diagnostic on her friend with the best version she had of her iryo-ninjutsu. Tsunade followed up on what Mito did and cursed loudly.

Pulling the purple-haired teen's collar away from her neck, Tsunade's angry chakra rolled through the room like thunder, scaring the literal poop out of poor 'Ruto-chan. Mito gasped at what she saw.

"That sick son of a bitch!"

"Who would do this to her?" Mito cried, trying and failing to understand the angry, red seal that was on Anko's neck.

"Orochimaru!"

"No! He- he loves Anko-chan," Mito assured her, knowing that was definitely true. Orochimaru-oji loved both of them like they were his annoying nieces. Maybe he even felt like Anko was his daughter, though Mito knew he'd never admit it. Tsunade seemed sure though, and it made Mito feel like crying. "Why?"

Why would she think it's him? And why would he or anyone do this to Anko?!

Tsunade sat down on the tatami mat, briefly looking up at the feathered new arrival since her last visit, (rolling her eyes because of it,) then put her face in her hands. "Your 'uncle's' a sick, sick man."

Mito frowned and was in disbelief, not to mention, afraid for her best friend - and even for her uncle. "What does that mean?" she asked in a small voice.

"I don't know," Tsunade admitted before nearly lying down next to Anko. "My old teammate asked me to consult on a few of the children he'd gathered: I can't believe I thought he'd changed; that he'd become a BLEEDING HEART!"

"From his and Anko's letters, it sounds like he's trying to help a lot of orphaned kids," Mito said, knowing that Anko was so proud to be his first student and official apprentice. She was also acting as a sensei to the smaller kids he'd taken in. Orochimaru was doing a hell of a job taking care of children from all over that had nowhere else to go.

"Then explain that seal, Mito-chan. You can see what it is!"

Mito didn't want to admit it, but there was no way to deny the truth. "A juinjutsu: a forbidden seal. 'Cursed,' even. Please help me get it off her! I don't know how she got it, but…"

"HE put it on her, Mito! I saw it on some of his other dead victims! They were CHILDREN! I thought they died from the various diseases they had, but… "

"No," Mito implored, absolutely unable to believe that Orochimaru would do something like that. Gathering her strength and focusing on the problem at hand, she asked in a stronger voice, "Do you know how to get it off her?"

"I don't," Tsunade sighed, shaking her head. "Your mother had all of my grandmother's scrolls, and… Anything on juinjutsu is probably under lock and key at the Hokage Tower."

Mito's emotions nearly overpowered her at remembering her mother beginning to teach her from an enormous library of scrolls, but as always, she pushed the memories and emotions away. Focusing on Anko was a lot easier and more important right now...

"Well then, we'll have to get them," Mito said, becoming more and more determined. "If the answer's not at the Tower, I'll go to Uzushio."

ALL sealing was based on what the Uzumaki founded, and she'd never had an opportunity to travel there. If her father couldn't find and forward something that would take the seal off Anko, she'd find the answer, herself! "I'll request any available scrolls in my report."

"Your father will never allow such dangerous information to leave the Hokage Tower, Mito," Tsunade said as she sat back up. "And your sentence means you're stuck HERE."

"Technically, that's not true," Mito said, knowing that she had a job to do but now her friend was in desperate need. "I'm exiled from Konoha. This is just where my father has asked - and tasked - me to stay: I finally looked at my damn sentence," she laughed bitterly. WHY it had taken her so long to look at it, Mito knew: it had just been too painful, but it still pissed her off - mostly at herself.

If she'd taken off before she got this mission, she could've grown so much.

The teen with the heterochromatic hair and eyes saw that her statement about leaving had made Tsunade nervous, so she spoke over whatever her mentor wanted to possibly say to dissuade her. "Anyway, how did Orochimaru-oji supposedly learn something like that? He's no sealing expert! Ero-ojii's said that a hundred times!"

"Who knows," Tsunade said, looking miserable.

Mito felt a migraine coming on. She watched as Tsunade fed her friend her healing chakra and was somewhat relieved when a little color eventually returned to Anko's face. "I appreciate you coming, but what pissed you off so much?" Tsunade had entered her room like a freight train before seeing Anko-chan.

"You thought I'd fucked Jiraiya," Tsunade replied with a disgusted sneer.

Mito groaned. "Shizune was supposed to keep her mouth shut," she growled to herself.

"Stupid girls! As if I'd let that lecher touch me!"

"Well, your blood was with you," Mito said rather stupidly, "and I 'obtained' Jiraiya's and Kazuma's… Kazuma really looks like he could be yours, ya know! OWWWWW!"

Tsunade had bonked her!

"After Shizune came to tell me that I might have a son," Tsunade growled out, furious at both girls (and trying to ignore the way Mito's expression changed to one of glee,) "I analyzed our bloodwork myself. This Kazuma guy is DEFINITELY not my son. But he is Jiraiya's."

"Holy shit!"

"Holy shit," Tsunade agreed, thinking that it shouldn't be such a surprise considering the way the man got around - but…

"So why did Shizune think he might be your son then?"

Tsunade clicked her tongue, regretting that she said that. Normally she was a careful person, she'd like to think, but with her girls, she always let her guard down. "The gaki you sampled has Senju blood."

"Oh my gosh," Mito exclaimed, holding her hands over her mouth. Kazuma really was related to Jiraiya AND Tsunade! "It was stolen?"

Tsunade shook her head and leaned back after ensuring Anko was still unconscious but stable. "Turns out that stupid Pervert is my grand-uncle's son. I should've seen it: they look so much alike, it's sickening!"

Mito checked on Anko again, running another diagnostic despite Tsunade already having done so, before letting out a chuckle, even as dire as Anko's circumstances were. "Well, maybe you and Jiraiya being cousins: somewhat distant cousins," she immediately clarified when Tsunade's upper lip curled - making her look rather psychotically murderous - "will finally get him off your back about marrying - or just doing him."

"Fat chance," Tsunade sighed before whacking Mito again as she got up. As one of her apprentices checked on her sealed friend again - goddammit: now they both have two seals on them - the Slug Sannin was relieved that Mito's chakra control seemed much better. Somewhat reluctantly (because of the stunt Mito and Shizune had pulled,) Tsunade bent down to give the teen a kiss on the head. "While I'm here, I'm going over to the Uzumaki shrine to check on it."

"Oh, Kami! Thank you," Mito cried, suddenly emotional for a whole different reason.

"You're thanking me now, but when I come back, I'm going to teach you a lesson for stealing my blood and thinking I had something going on with that Pervert!"

"Shizune took your blood, not me!"

The next morning, Tsunade beat the living crap out of her in a great spar, but she also brought Mito some of the scrolls that had been sealed away at the Uzumaki Temple. Anko stayed with her for a few days, claiming that Orochimaru only sealed her as a way to track her in case something terrible happened to her, but both girls knew he was lying.

Just what was Orochimaru's game?

Minato reeled after his conversation with Tsunade.

1. On a personal level,
A. His sensei was going to lose it when he learned that he had a son. And possibly a grandson! Hell: his sensei was going to freak out over who his father was - or perhaps Jiraiya already knew and had kept being the son of Senju Tobirama a secret all these years?
B. Mito's best friend had a curse seal of heaven on her person: a control seal!
2. He'd THOUGHT that a possible coup might be coming at the Capital, courtesy of Danzo.
3. Now he worried that Orochimaru might be involved, too. And, worse, it seems that Orochimaru is experimenting on children.
4. And from his sensei's spy network, he'd learned that the Kazekage had begun to sell his precious gold sand as a way to support his village. Sabaku no Rasa was an important ally: one of the few Konoha had. A trip to Suna was in order. He'd been stuck inside the village, a prisoner of politics, for far too long.

It was time to remind the village and the entire shinobi world of exactly who he was! He'd had enough of the Elders' BS to last a lifetime. They could either get out of his way, or he'd take them down.

"Boys," he said, addressing his guard. "I'm going to Suna, even if I have to surprise Rasa to do it." He was already rather furiously writing a meeting request to the Kazekage. "I want you ready to leave at a moment's notice beginning on Friday."

"Hai," Genma, Raido, and Iwashi barked excitedly. They hadn't been out of the village in a long time.

"Kakashi, you and sensei will act as my guards at the meeting…"