DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe. This is my Mito, though.
Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Mito speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)
Emphasis
Bijuu, etc. speaking
Bijuu, etc. thinking
"Gai's not here?" Mito asked mildly - not bothering to reach out her senses after greeting Kakashi. Gai had been with Kakashi when she came in from the downstairs main entrance. "I'm surprised to see you here, 'ttebane." Mito knew Kakashi hated the hospital. He looked fine. Mito softly but insistently pushed him down anyway and began running a scan on him. It didn't take much.
"You've got a lot of bruising?" Geez, Kakashi didn't look like he was in pain at all! "Let me see it; take off your shirt," she ordered. "Your chakra is low - but considering your damn eyeball…"
"I think Gai's with sensei," Kakashi interrupted, answering her first question and then painfully pulling off his extremely tight compression tank. He frowned at his favorite kunoichi when he noticed a slight pull in her upper lip: a bit of a little snarling look at what he had said. He didn't think that she was angry with him. No, it may have been the mention of her father that caused that reaction.
Something had happened between Mito and her father and considering the timing, Kakashi bet it had to do with Mito's clandestine sexual… whatever she would call it that burned his very soul with the head ninja monk.
He thought - maybe he even hoped - that she might now be checking him out, however. Hee! Mito had been blushing a little before she got that determined look he so loved on her pretty face.
And you said I was "skinny," ne, hime-sama?
Kakashi would never admit that he had dramatically increased his caloric intake after what she'd said all those months ago. She had been maybe not "right " but she was onto something. Damn med-nin. He used to often forget or skip meals or simply rely on soldier pills and ration bars for days, even after coming back to the village.
Frustrated that she had been right and glaring even harder to screw with her (and only getting what he guessed was a knowing, pretty grin up at him in return for a second) he gave up. Why did she have to smell so good?
Aside from the scent he craved was used to, Mito had a perfume on that was subtle but… rich. He'd never encountered it before. The amber and jasmine in its base were making him dizzy.
Head in the game.
Don't get distracted by a female.
Back to business. He knew that Mito favored him having another eye implanted but Kakashi would never do it. Yes, Obito was for whatever reason a traitor to Konoha: that had been supposedly confirmed, but Kakashi would be even worse than the man he is now if not for what a young, innocent but fiercely brave Obito had taught and done for him.
Plus, Rin implanted his Sharingan. He'd promised… He'd promised to protect Rin and I killed her
STOP .
.
The Chidori: I need the Sharingan for the Chidori to protect the village and the ones I care for.
That was Obito's mistake: giving me something that I could use to protect the village he attacked.
WHY? Why would he do that?
Why would he do any of this?!
Surely, he couldn't be on a deep undercover mission…
How were those kinds of doubts any better than the way Mito had doubted Orochimaru's treachery?
They weren't.
Kakashi licked his dry, masked lips and took an uneasy but calming breath as Mito's chakra fully eased his pain. He tried not to think about how her chakra felt but Back To Business:
High risks were involved with an organ transplant.
Then there were his memories of his previous eye injury and transplantation surgery - without anesthetic - that had been absolutely horrific.
Shoving that trauma away, too, (as he was accustomed to doing,) he breathed in Mito's scent over the disgusting hospitals and allowed himself to enjoy bathing in her chakra to calm himself. As soon as he did, he had to try to pray away his growing hard-on as her hands and chakra moved over and through him.
Don't be a pervert!
Back To Business. He was always puzzled about one thing and finally asked her about it - glad that she was concentrating on his shoulder instead of over his core now. "The first time you, um, did this, I thought you were transmitting a message." The last of his words came out in a near mumble. Jeez, this woman did things to him…
It was all so confusing. She was so soft and warm yet hard and terrible. And LOUD but more often quiet?!
Considering that more, he'd once read The Taming of The Shrew and wondered if it would be worth re-reading. He only really remembered the title.
Mito blinked at him and wondered for a second if she'd heard him right. Smiling more, she thought of a flirty comeback but figured that Kakashi would be too uncomfortable to joke about things like that. Goodness knows, she'd seen women try to flirt with him before and Kakashi always disappeared on them or walked away - after staring at them blankly long enough to make them (or anyone) uncomfortable. She always thought that was endearing but back to what he mentioned. "What do you mean?"
"Ah," Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he hadn't brought it up so he could just run. And after requesting her presence, you baka. "Your chakra pulses?" He sat forward more, hopefully covering his pulsing erection with the flack jacket in his hands - and praying she hadn't noticed. How could she not have, though?
Trying desperately to will away his damnable problem, Chibi Mito's raspy voice unwantedly entered his head:
"Did you know it's normal for adult civilian men to have over a dozen erections a day?" a 10-year-old Mito asked her mother as if that was an acceptable thing to talk about in the middle of their living room.
Kakashi wanted to be anywhere but there now - but worried that it would look suspicious and telling if he got up to leave or sunshinned away.
"A dozen?" an extremely pregnant Kushina asked, propping her feet up on the couch. Mito jumped up and put a pillow under them and another behind her mother's back before planting herself in front of her book again. "I suppose that's not surprising," she huffed and opened a magazine.
Then she looked at ME!
No, no, no, a young Kakashi thought. Kushina was always teasing but THIS kind of thing was too embarrassing even for her, right?!
"Oh my God," Kushina gasped before looking back at her daughter. "If an adult has that many, can you imagine how many a teenage boy gets, 'ttebane?!"
Mito began trying to look up the answer to that in the thick book she was reading but Kakashi had already muttered an excuse and sunshinned the heck out of there.
"Pulses, huh?" Mito asked softly. Kakashi shrugged and was still looking away from her. "I think… Well, no one's ever mentioned it before but… I don't mean to freak you out but you know that I have the fox's chakra running through my coils, right?"
What a dumb question and thing to admit to a patient. Especially one she was using that chakra with.
Kakashi didn't look disgusted or flinch or anything, though; he only now looked sleepy but interested in what she was saying which was a huge relief. And obviously, he did know.
He also knew how iryo-ninjutsu worked: melding the practitioner's chakra into something that will work with the patient's own - even if for some reason he almost never used it himself, so there was no reason to delve into that. The chibi Mito in her head ranted about that little nugget: You've got a thousand jutsus but you can't heal yourself? What the hell?!
"Well, when I relearned or refined my medical ninjutsu, I had to be very careful I didn't allow the fox's chakra to flow through my techniques." She rubbed the back of her neck after finishing up, feeling weird about discussing it. "You can put your shirt back on. Anyway, I learned to feel for or anticipate the bubbles of demonic chakra running through my tenketsu and meridians before they made their way through my hands, I guess you could say? –Although my chakra has smoothed out a lot over the years, it's still a habit."
I still have to be careful.
"Interesting," Kakashi said after a beat. Internally, he was struggling to maintain control and not say or do something outlandish. Mito looked so unsure and almost submissive right now…
She'll punch you to the other side of the world for even thinking those things, you animal! Calm down!
"You must have very fine chakra control or sensitivity to notice though, huh?" Mito hoped that was the case; that she hadn't been simply freaking people out when she healed or scanned them using her wonky chakra.
Kakashi shrugged lazily. "Maa, I don't know about that."
"Okay," Mito said, trying to be nice about leaving. If Tsunade caught her here, she knew she'd force her to do something boring since her mentor hadn't called on her. "Well, you're okay but you need to rest up. Where's your chart, anyway?"
Kakashi figured he'd better explain himself before he ended up with a banshee nurse or Mito left. His chart wasn't here. "I sent Pakkun because I thought you could assist me." Mito tilted her head and nodded, temporarily ending her search. "I've been trying to find Sasuke."
"Ah," Mito nodded lamely, feeling so… ambivalent about the Uchiha teen. Both of those Uchiha boys. "Where are you looking?"
"Maa, that's the thing," Kakashi admitted with a heavy sigh, feeling like a giant failure again. "All leads and trails have long since gone cold. My nose and the pack's noses could find him if we got close enough."
Mito understood and sat down beside him, thinking about aiding him in his search. "I bet Orochimaru's keeping him close."
"That's certainly probable." Kakashi shook his head in frustration; he'd snuck out of the village with Mikoto-sama this time - so to speak - and she'd been a nightmare to deal with. Kakashi didn't blame her for blaming him (as well as so many others) for her sons' actions but Kakashi feared she would eventually pull something similar to the Tsukiyomi on him.
He let out a huff of bitter laughter when he thought about the last time he'd faced the Snake Sannin. "Orochimaru made me freeze up. I hadn't done that in years."
It was mortifying; that hadn't happened to him since the war. He was the Copy Ninja for fuck's sake.
Mito took in a deep breath, remembering that nearly happening to her - and not in battle when Orochimaru would conceivably be doing it for real and on a whole other power level. "He has this thing he does," she whispered with a little shudder, remembering. "He - all my mentors, really - used to try to prepare me for Killing Intent but Orochimaru's was different and changed over time: only getting worse. I think he may incorporate a genjutsu to make it even more profound or - or maybe he's just corrupted so much within himself that…"
Gross. Mito didn't want to finish her thoughts on that.
"I think we could handle him together," Kakashi said in his soft baritone.
"You really think so?" Mito asked. It was nice that he believed in her abilities, she thought.
"I do. –But we'd have to find him first."
Mito nodded. She could only imagine the lengths that she would go to to get Hinata back had her kidnappers been successful in taking her to Kumo. Hell, she really wanted to find Karin-chan and she'd only met her once.
Sasuke, for whatever insane reason, had wanted to leave, however. Despite that, Mito could get where Kakashi was coming from. Maybe.
Sasuke was not only Kakashi's student but thanks to Naruto (and then Itachi,) Kakashi had known or known of the little brat for the boy's entire life.
I'll help you," she finally said, trying to psyche herself up for it. At least for the moment, there wasn't a whole lot more that she could do, search-wise, with the Gato investigation: not here, anyway. "I've got my Genins, though; the hospital; Kiri in around three weeks again, another project, and uh… I… maybe on loan to ANBU. Let's keep that last thing between us, though, ne?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrows. That didn't sound right. Instead of asking about it, he let it be, glad that she agreed to help him out. Mito's sensory abilities were no joke. And who knows? Maybe they could be assigned as ANBU partners.
Mito huffed as she felt her father's chakra signature headed their way. "Let me know what your schedule's like. Umm… I'll do what I can but normally Tsunade's pretty flexible with me." The door was soon to open and she flashed away.
Mito had flashed home but then sunshinned to the middle of a large, well-kept grassy area that was near her apartment complex. Fortunately, it was empty so she plopped down on the hard grass and forced herself to deal with and train what she'd been avoiding for so long. Imagine Karin or Sasuke being close to us all of this time and I've been avoiding doing my best.
Or Orochimaru.
Closing her eyes, Mito let her senses and chakra trickle out little by little, forcing herself to unwind and simply breathe. "My ancestors, the Sage, and all the gods new and old, please let me protect these people. Please let me find those who are in danger."
It was uncomfortable but not nearly as bad as she'd thought it would be as she concentrated on those two ideas, first and foremost. She let out an involuntary chuckle at feeling what had to be Lord First's chakra all around most of the village and the surrounding part of it on the north side. It was especially concentrated in Training Ground 44 and less so toward Tsunade's place but Mito wouldn't have recognized it for what it was had she not met (and wrapped her chains around) the reanimated man, himself, on the day of the attack.
It was weird but nice to think about: that the man's chakra was so integrated into the village he founded.
…
The chakra wasn't identical but it was close enough. Always inquisitive, Mito tried to concentrate on what she recalled the differences being - between what she was feeling now; what she had long felt in the village, and what Senju Hashirama in his jutsu-ed form had felt like - only as she did, she felt more and more anxious again.
The idea that something was OFF about what Lord First's chakra was supposed to be based on how Konoha "felt," and delving into that, felt wrong. It seemed way too intimate somehow.
Just like when she'd keyed deeply into Obito's chakra, the Edo-Tensei-ed Senju's chakra felt off from what she thought it was supposed to be.
Yuck.
Back to her self-assigned mission, tens of thousands of people lived in Konoha. Instead of zoning in on a particular person she knew in the city as she was used to doing, she searched what she could - outside of all the chakra signatures clouding my mind! - outside of it, her chakra reached out, and blanketing, blanketing, blanketing: just a thin, tiny layer is all I need. Don't concentrate on any one person.
She took a deep breath and tried again.
Searching again for Sasuke or Karin.
Let me find and protect them, please. Let me find and protect them all!
And suddenly Mito found herself in front of Kurama.
He was looking at her with interest, although from the way he was curled up in the grass, she guessed he had to have been sleeping. It was kind of cute the way his tails often wound around him as he slept. (Cute for a giant demonic fox with a bad attitude, terrifying claws - and everything else about him, really.) Sometimes she would only see his big red eyes and long ears from behind all of those tails; he always tucked his nose in when he curled up.
"What are you doing?"
"Ah, I was trying to find a couple of kids," she admitted.
"You were praying and..?" He hadn't heard her but the actions she'd taken with her chakra woke him up. Not only that but since his other half pulled that stunt and yanked out the rest of his yin chakra, her chakra had been a mess.
How hadn't she noticed? Wait until she tries to make so many damn clones again, he thought in amusement. Watching Mitwo screw up and lose her shit amused him.
He also couldn't help but wonder what was going on with her sibling.
Kurama bet that when his then-smaller half grabbed his chakra and yanked as Mito saved the brat he guessed was Asura's latest vessel, he hadn't intended on only getting more yin chakra. Ha!
That would be just like Asura. Asura had often told him that he was a "completely useless baka" when he was younger. Not me so much, Kurama hoped.
Somewhere in southern fire country, Naruto was screaming at Jiraiya again that he couldn't help but that his clones were always pissed off, acting weird, and that he couldn't make as many of them as he used to.
"Yeah. Did something happen?" Mito asked. "Did you notice something?"
"I was only curious," Kurama said as he laid his head back down.
And then Mito was back, staring at an empty training ground again.
That was weird. She never knew when that fox was going to bring her in front of him or just start chatting! She got up, automatically coiling her chakra within herself again, knowing that Shikaku was home and probably had been for a while now. She might as well see if she could give him a hand with verifying and inputting that data so that they could ready a corrective strategy for Kiri.
Sasuke and Karin hadn't been within her range.
.
Kurama, on the other hand, was busy wondering if his vessel had really been trying to use Ninshu - or if Mito even knew that she'd been attempting it.
Their chakra was so weaved together at this point, (although he had an incredibly massive amount still within him that was his own, thank you very much,) Kurama wasn't sure how he felt about that.
As that was going on - in the hospital room Minato had ordered his student to stay in - the Hokage sighed as he opened the door and found Kakashi alone. "She left, huh?"
"I think she was training," Kakashi replied, although he was sure that Mito had recently showered. Gai had mentioned he and Mito were going to train together today, however.
Minato nodded, reluctantly figuring that this time, he'd give his daughter as much time as she needed to cool off. "Report."
Kakashi crossed his arms defensively over his chest. "Didn't Mikoto-sama and Shisui-kun tell you what happened?" He knew he was being bratty but didn't appreciate being here or having Shisui of all people sent after them. I can't be sure that Shisui was supposed to leave the village again.
He was in his ANBU uniform, though. Minato-sensei probably sent him after us.
Minato groaned, his posture sinking, and sat down in a very uncomfortable plastic chair. It didn't matter how much money he funneled to the hospital, the money never went to guest accommodations. Maybe he'd have to simply order "furniture" from somewhere and have it all delivered here. Heck, Mito might even appreciate it and that would ease tensions between them. "Kakashi, you could get into a lot of trouble out there! You're in virtually every Bingo Book there is!" He didn't like sending Kakashi out alone.
- Mikoto was also in a couple of old books, too. She wasn't supposed to be out of the village at all.
Kakashi shrugged but his leader was right. "Sasuke's in trouble and you were the one who made me a sensei."
Boy, Kakashi realized that he was being a brat! Brat or not, he didn't want to get either Shisui or Mikoto in too much trouble, however. Not after losing Sasuke and Obito - and Itachi. I was responsible for all of them. "It's a sensei's privilege and responsibility to look out for his students." He saw Minato's slight wince and felt a little guilty. "Anyway, Mikoto-sama approached me when I was on my way out of town and… Yeah."
Kakashi slumped as the Uchiha matriarch ran up to him just as he was about to leave the village. Her eyes activated for a second and Kakashi withheld a grimace, remaining polite. "Mikoto-sama."
"Are you leaving for a mission?" Kakashi only stared at her but then Mikoto dragged him into the trees, away from the nosy gate guards by his elbow. "I know you've been looking for Sasuke! Take me with you!"
Kakashi internally groaned but got himself together. "No." Her dojutsu activated and Kakashi was caught in the genjutsu. He knew it and he'd even begun to raise his headband as it happened but was having a hell of a time discharging it.
"Let's go," Mikoto ordered.
And hell yes, they had gotten into a nasty fight as soon as Mikoto's back was turned.
Mikoto was out of fighting shape - or at least wasn't in the condition he was in. I can't believe she summoned her cats to go after me.
That was a huge mistake and proved how emotional she was being. Dogs at least figuratively ate cats for dinner when they could get 'em. Mikoto's cats had taken one look while running from Kakashi's extremely excited pack and dispelled.
Kakashi did not appreciate Shisui stopping them right after that either. Shisui had immediately seen that Kakashi wasn't fighting his clan head at full strength or speed - he was only giving Mikoto "corrective behavioral training" that Shisui was well-accustomed to thanks to ANBU - but that son of a bitch pulled a (relatively light) genjutsu on him, anyway.
What? Was Shisui's speed not enough? Kakashi had used his borrowed eye to dispel the illusion but even keeping the thing open drained him like mad! Shisui knew that. And of course, then he had to fight both of them.
He needed to go train.
Minato watched his former student's microexpressions change and felt his lips twitch. "Let me guess. Mikoto took off again to find Sasuke." Kakashi only looked back at him lazily. Shisui and Mikoto had been quite cagey about the whole thing that got three of his Jonins injured (probably fighting each other,) too. "Hnnnn. I may just have to put her back in ANBU and let her do what she wants. I don't think she's going to stop, either way," he said miserably.
And yet you try to stop me, Kakashi thought. "She's too old."
Minato was highly offended! He and Mikoto were the same age. "She is not!" Kakashi only shrugged and looked like a pompous masked creep to him - although he hadn't moved.
Kakashi eventually sighed miserably, wanting to get out of this smelly dump. "Mikoto-sama's kenjutsu is impressive but her speed is lacking. While reportedly a tactical thinker, she loses that edge when it comes to her kin and particularly her sons. Maa, her genjutsu is excellent; her taijutsu is explosive and quite good but she needs to train. A lot."
"She has been," Minato said rather softly.
Kakashi thought as much. "I'm saying that her speed is lacking for ANBU."
"You think she could get up to speed?" Kakashi only shrugged, aggravating the Hokage. "And her endurance?"
"High-Chunin level at best. –That, she obviously could improve upon." Grinning a bit and deciding to make his escape, Kakashi stood up and stretched. The window was open enough, Minato had obviously already heard from Shisui and Mikoto, so why not? "Maa, even geezers like you two can improve your endurance, ne, sensei?" He used a quick substitution to make his safe escape, enjoying the fact that Tsunade was probably going to pound her village leader for using a wind jutsu to destroy a log along with half the room.
Minato, in the meantime, had flashed away, leaving only a split log (and a bed - and a wall - and eventually an irate Tsunade) in his wake.
"Man, that is not right," Mito winced, rubbing her chin and wondering what had happened. She looked back at the shogi board that she was playing on with Shikamaru and sweatdropped. "You're cheating."
Shikamaru shrugged. "Who knows." He'd learned this absolute nonsense from her. It was her own fault that he had that monopoly car to drop in lieu of his rook in the first place. "Play seriously and I will, too."
Mito was more interested in why she'd created ten clones when she'd only meant to make one. It wasn't the first time it had happened but everything else seemed okay. "So weird." Nine of them dispelled themselves - all grumbling about being bothered (what a weird jutsu) - so Mito had her sit down with Shikamaru so that she could help Shikaku now that he was available.
"Have you found anything interesting - and uh, no offense or anything but why isn't someone from encryption doing this?" Shikaku only gave her a sly look that seemed to say that he didn't know who he could trust there. Maybe. And wouldn't that be lovely if he can't? It was only when she realized that as she was madly entering things, he'd begun napping that she knocked on his desk. "Seriously!" She was entering stuff from the papers someone had gotten a hold of, but it's not like she could just add that to Kiri's original code in her head.
Mito had a great memory but she wasn't a computer that could sort and manipulate that kind of thing and didn't want to be.
"Troublesome. I'll tell you if you'll let me rest and keep it to yourself and Asuma."
"Okay," Mito nodded, feeling dread begin to pool in her coils.
"So far, most of what we've entered refers to invoices."
"Thus the numbers. I mean, you know: the pages of data that only had numbers on them."
"Correct. But this morning, I came across what looked like a dubious, dense but spread-out message that was easy to make inferences from." The message had been ridiculously easy to put together but Shikaku doubted that the Gato Organization was filled with geniuses. "I think we're finally on to something."
"That will help us find those kids?" Mito asked eagerly.
"People. And black-market trade routes. -At least, I hope so. The numbers of what I'm assuming are either weapons or people are small and from what you reported, Kiri's missing a lot more people than the numbers the message mentioned in total. –How's your English, Mito?"
"Excellent, or at least that's what Momo-san says," she replied in English. Shikaku's eyes lit up in that dark, vast intelligence she so admired. "What are you thinking?"
Shikaku closed his eyes again, leaning back fully in his chair. "I'm thinking that you'd better put that crap into the computer for me so that I can think." Mito grumbled and Shikaku tried not to smile: Mito had just given him an idea. He needed a few insights from someone that had lived outside of the Elemental Nations and Momo-san was trusted by his best friend - so Shikaku would (somewhat) trust her, too. "I also need to talk to Momo-san."
Raising an eyebrow at the kunoichi who sucked in a little breath, he decided to ask her how deeply she was willing to go with this. "What's your schedule like?"
"ONLY between us?" Mito asked because she did not necessarily want word getting back to her father. She wasn't doing anything wrong but she liked her privacy. "I've got the kids, hospital rounds, or training with Tsunade, plus training my Genins. And this and Kiri, of course." She wrinkled her nose as she mentioned the rest, really not enjoying the thought of going after Sasuke. "I told Kakashi-kun I'd try to help him find his punk-ass-bitch of a missing student, and then, the Vice Commander approached me, saying I'd be working with him beginning next week."
Shikaku's eyes opened and he felt his stomach churn. "Did he now?" From reports following the Chunin Finals disaster, there was a Nara who had been seen with Yakushi Kabuto, although both were in ANBU masks.
Minato had also specifically told his cousin to keep his hands off his daughter. It wasn't like his cousin to make a mistake like that, though. What are you up to Ensui? "Hmm. So your responsibilities are light." He stifled a snort when Mito looked like her head might explode in outrage. "How do you feel about infiltrating ANBU for me?"
Mito's mouth fell open. "Oh, hell no!"
"Be a sport," he grinned, closing his eyes again. "It'll be fun."
Kurama watched his vessel struggle with a jutsu - and by that he meant that it looked like Mito might have vastly changed Fire Country's coastland, bringing it within reach of Konoha.
The "Megawhirl Tsunami Awesomeness of Might," Mito's attempted expansion and combination of the water vortex combined with the great waterfall jutsu with wind chakra added - while she was mad about her latest assignment - made Kurama snort. Perhaps as he wished it, so it would be. He'd wondered when she would finally realize that her chakra was off and come to him about it. Now the weird-haired baka was panicking, standing in front of him, probably blaming him for her chakra issues.
"What the hell's the deal, 'ttebane?!"
Kurama internally groaned and rolled his eyes. Oh, how he hated that Uzumaki tik. "Hmm? This seems like a you-problem and not a me-problem." That may or may not have been a lie. It certainly wasn't his problem now and Kurama was glad for it.
Mito, in the meantime, held up her hands as she surrendered to the ANBU squads beginning to approach. They were looking around, probably wondering where the forest had gone. "Uhhh. Ooops? I was trying out a new technique, you see."
Her father even showed up to see what the huge disturbance was all about! And he brought her godfather with him. Mito pointed at the old pervert rudely. "Oi! Where's Naruto?"
Minato sighed, knowing that he was going to have to ask Tenzo to repair this part of the… area. That was a heck of a water jutsu he'd seen spiraling up like a tornado into the air beyond the Hokage monument. "I'll leave you to sort this out, sensei."
He left in another flash and Mito tried not to pout like a little kid. She didn't want her father's attention or meddling but she also didn't want him to hate her. I shouldn't have said those things I said, then.
"Please alter where you practice, Namikaze," Yugao said from behind her mask as she refused to laugh. Man, Mito had done a major number to the forest. Mito winced. "I would suggest standing in the middle of the ocean next time."
"Hai." Holy shit, there was water everywhere! "I really am sorry about this."
"Can you fix it?"
"Uh, no." Yugao laughed but how the heck was she supposed to reforest the area? "I guess I can re-route the water."
"I'll take it from here," Jiraiya said, folding his arms over his chest. He waited for the ANBUs to leave and gave his godchild a reprimanding look. "What were you doing?"
Mito rubbed the back of her neck. "Practicing?"
"Was it supposed to be that big?"
"No," she said rather obviously as she looked around. She needed to soak up this water and reroute it from wherever else it came from. She sniffed and bent down to taste and see if there was salt water in this mess. Surely she hadn't gotten so carried away that she summoned the damn ocean accidentally, right? Don't be stupid, Mito. Quite a long way over, there WAS a bayou, though - or at least there had been.
"Your jutsus are off then? Funny," Jiraiya remarked sarcastically. "Naruto's been having a lot of trouble with his chakra, too."
"Really?" Mito asked, feeling dread once again pooling in her gut. "Since when?"
"Since he got out of the hospital."
"Oh. –Shit."
After a brief and disturbing conversation, Mito flashed Jiraiya back to camp and jumped on her brother and Sora, catching them off-guard and rolling them to the ground.
"GAH! GET OFF ME, 'TTEBAYO!" Naruto could only see red and yellow hair. "Crazy Mito!"
"HA! Nee-um -sensei: haha! I didn't know you were here," Sora grinned and dusted himself off as Naruto continued struggling to get his big sister to let him go. "I don't think he can breathe, Mito. Maa, I never know what to call you now."
Mito patted her brother off while he dramatically faked being close to death thanks to her awesome hug attack. "You both went and got big! And you can call me anything you want, Sora: you know that."
"We've only been gone a few months, Ane," Naruto reminded her. He did put his hand over his head so that he could see if maybe both he and Sora had grown that fast but couldn't tell when he compared his height against hers. He hoped he had. Everybody was taller than him; it sucked. Mito was nice enough to put her back to his so he could better compare.
"Nope," Jiraiya helpfully replied, remembering a time Mito used to do this all the time with Asuma. It was heartwarming seeing his godchildren finally together and acting like normal (but Uzumaki-weird) siblings. "You're still short and pathetic."
Naruto had never been so glad to see Mito punch someone. Jiraiya went flying.
"So what have you two been up to?" Mito asked with a grin - as if she just hadn't possibly killed someone. "Details, details! Tell me everything!"
A couple of hours later, Naruto was out cold and Mito's hands hovered over his midsection, using iryo-ninjutsu as a medium as she tried to figure out what was going on with his - and possibly her - chakra. She'd used the Yamanaka ripoff again but neither of the foxes was talking then. They weren't even talking to each other!
Eventually, her side of Kurama had come clean but Mito wasn't sure what it would mean for either of them. Mito needed to do a lot more research into the ins and outs of yin and yang chakra. She'd thought she understood it well enough but obviously not.
"Odd," she eventually sighed, turning toward her godfather. "He's healthy enough. And there's nothing we can do about it."
Jiraiya wanted to throttle her. "You dumped 'around two tails worth' of demonic yin chakra in him?! What the hell, Mito!"
"Hey, man; I didn't intend to - and that's what K- Kyuubi-sama said. It's not like it was planned!" It's not like I wanted it, either!
"You shouldn't have…"
"Did you not want me to save his life?! He was DYING, Jiraiya!"
Jiraiya fisted his hands and felt sick. "It was that bad?"
"It WAS that bad. I couldn't heal him. My techniques just ran right through him like water." Like Naruto's blood that was running through the water that Sasuke had left him lying to die in!
"How did you… How is he here then?"
"The fox saved him. That and I helped Naru bite me to heal him enough so that I could get him to Tsunade."
Jiraiya wanted to puke. "He cannot go after Sasuke."
"Kakashi and I are going to try to find him - but I want Sasuke locked up if and when we do. Inoichi-sama can go over him or whatever but I'm serious, Jiraiya. That kid's a mess."
"I'll… bring Sasuke back. Sakura," Naruto mumbled. Mito checked on his status but her little brother was still out. What he'd said in his sleep gave her chills. She wasn't the only one.
"He's obsessed with Sasuke - or with bringing him back," Jiraiya said, stressing out. The whole thing with Naruto and Sasuke seemed way too close to how he and Orochimaru once were. Add a bunch of demonic yin chakra out of the blue/Mito on top of it? Jiraiya didn't like it at all.
"Jiraiya," Mito said seriously. Thinking about what she wanted to say more, she set up a barrier and a silencing seal in the room so that Naruto couldn't hear them. "Have you ever heard of the story of the Sage of Six Paths - and of his two sons, Asura and Indra?"
Jiraiya's eyes narrowed on her. "Perhaps. –How did you hear about that, Mito?"