Jiraiya despairs. Getting the brats to go to bed wasn't all that difficult, but now he's faced with the prospect of getting everything ready for tomorrow, which is a lot harder now that he has to consider scrolls.

He was babysitting some kids while connecting with some of his more local spies in addition to seal research on the side! That's all this was supposed to be! He doesn't have a library's worth of jutsu scrolls on hand.

He's got some stuff on seals, notes both his own and gifted to him, mostly for the higher-level stuff that he'd rather reference than trust from memory. Can't be too careful with some bigger seals, especially seals like a jinchuuriki's or Orochimaru's custom abominations.

He can't exactly hand those to the kids though.

And he can't afford to make a clone when he's busy with Takara. Most of the time, if a clone suddenly dispels it's not going to make him break cover and ruin an infiltration, but with how big this whole mess is looking, Jiraiya can't take that risk here until he's certain about what's going on.

Not that he doesn't already have an idea.

He's just really hoping he's wrong, though he's already written up a preliminary report just in case.

He'll send it off tomorrow if he doesn't find anything to contradict it.

Should probably draw up a second copy for Kakashi, since he's investigating this himself.

That settled, Jiraiya scowls down at his belongings.

No scrolls appropriate for genin magically materialize before him.

But if he doesn't give these brats something to distract themselves with, they'll bankrupt him!

Nevermind the fact that he's pretty sure they did a lot more than just break his wallet. Too smug by half, the hellspawn, and all his instincts scream that they were doing a lot more than just wrestling in an onsen.

Unfortunately, he can't quite decide whether they snuck out, or practiced with their water-walking. Either one's likely, and if he accuses them of one but it turns out they did the other, they'll never let him forget it.

No matter which one it is, he needs something to distract them tomorrow, and he needs it now.

Maybe a creative exercise…? He could give them some sort of test or project…

Hmm…

"You kids better appreciate this because I spent all night working on it for you brats." Jiraiya starts, first thing in the morning, ignoring their bleary stares with sadistic amusement.

Natsu's only thought is that Kakashi pulled it off better.

"Huh? Whassat, Ero-sennin?" Naruto slurs around a yawn, and Jiraiya levels him a scathing look.

"This, is what you kids are going to be doing instead of earning me more fines. Got it?"

He drops a small pile of papers and notebooks in front of Sasuke with a thwap. The Uchiha barely reacts beyond a blink as he stares up at Jiraiya.

"You're giving us homework?" Naruto screeches, scrambling to his feet and pointing accusingly at Jiraiya. "Oi! We graduated the academy already, you can't give us homework!"

Jiraiya puts his hands on his hips. "I can do whatever I want brats, and don't you forget it! But no, it's not homework, even though I was very tempted."

"Then what is it?" Naruto asks, crossing his arms as he radiates an aura of skepticism.

"No trust," Jiraiya grumbles under his breath, before shaking it off. "This," he nudges the pile of papers with his foot, "is a puzzle! It's a sealing scroll, and inside it is a scroll detailing how to perform a jutsu of my own invention, designed for spying! Obviously, you two are not allowed to actually practice the jutsu, or unseal the scroll. But if you try to unseal the scroll the wrong way, it'll catch fire and destroy the scroll inside it with the jutsu! So the three of you can stay here, figure out how to properly unseal the scroll, and then blondie over here can get it out! Might even learn a thing or two about how seals are constructed, since I drew up a small list of basics in the notebook for you."

Natsu's half way to despairing over all the thinking, Sakura all giddy with excitement behind him, as Jiraiya suddenly looms over everyone.

"Now. Let me be clear. If you brats try to do anything else, try to build your own scroll, try to dissemble it with your fancy kekkei genkai, try anything other than decoding it and reading the contained scroll, I will make personally certain that the only mission you'll be taking for the next year is Tora duty. Are we clear?"

Naruto's head bobbles so fast it's a miracle he doesn't make himself dizzy, and Natsu hastily nods in agreement.

That cat's more a demon than anything Natsu's ever fought, and even Sasuke nods sharply, whole body tensed.

"Good!" Jiraiya claps his hands, voice suddenly cheery. "Then I'll leave you kids to it. You've got enough money for breakfast and lunch, I should be back by dinner, but if I get a single fine from the innkeeper when I return, I'm making you all eat ration bars instead. Any questions?"

"Um," Natsu starts, and Jiraiya sends him an absolutely exhausted look. The kid pushes through anyway, "what do we do if we get the scroll unsealed and it's nowhere close to dinner time?"

Jiraiya's face splits into a truly wicked grin. "Well, if you get that far without burning up your scroll, that's what the other two are for. If."

With that, he bids them a cheery farewell, and all but skips out the door.

Natsu stares down at the pile with growing dread.

"Wait so, if those are three different scrolls, then we only have one try to get each of them right…?"

Naruto whimpers. "What're we gonna do?"

Sasuke picks up the notebooks, flipping them open.

One's completely blank, pushed aside in favor of the other.

"Homework, I guess," he offers, lips tilting up in a smirk as he stares at Naruto.

Sakura presses forward so eagerly that he honestly wishes he could just swap and leave it to her.

He can already feel his brain steaming.

Natsu swears his eyes are bleeding. The words are swimming, characters blurring into one another as his brain melts.

"Stop being dramatic and just focus!" Sakura-chan scolds. "I can't read if your eyes are glazed over!"

Natsu thinks he'd like to never read anything ever again.

"Can't we just sneak out anyway…?" he grumbles, listing sideways until he collapses into one of his teammates.

He's unceremoniously shrugged off.

Sasuke, then.

"Absolutely not! We're gonna figure this out and make Ero-sennin regret his words!" Naruto crows, which is easy for him to say, he can actually tell the stupid squiggles apart-!

Natsu groans, clawing his way back to an upright position.

"This is way harder than I thought it'd be… no wonder he was so smug."

Even Sasuke sounds vexed when he says, "He's a sanin, and considered one of the best at his job. If it's a jutsu he invented, it's worth it."

"I mean, probably," Natsu concedes, slumping as he looks back at the notebook, "but it literally all looks the same to me and I'm bored."

"How hard d'you think this is to copy?" Naruto asks, squinting as he twists and turns one of the seals they need to decode. "Like, is it just copying the lines…?"

"One way to find out." Sasuke offers, pulling the book of notes away from Natsu.

"I think seals have to be drawn in a certain order though…? Jiraiya-sama didn't include anything like that but we aren't really supposed to be making one…"

"Sakura-chan says there's probably an order or something." Natsu repeats, propping his chin on his hand.

"And we probably gotta stick our chakra in it somewhere to make it work too…" Naruto adds, chewing on a fingernail. "That'll be tricky. But it'd be better than ruining our scrolls… Ne, teme, could you-?" he gestures, and Sasuke huffs, offended.

"Yes." he emphasises, grabbing a blank sheet of paper. "I don't need my Sharingan for everything." Then he glances at Natsu, "Oi, make yourself useful and see if you or Sakura can recognize anything in this sea from the one at the safehouse."

Natsu reluctantly grabs his own papers, tilting his head as he stares at them. "I barely even remember that thing," he admits to Sakura-chan, and she sighs.

"Let's piece together what we can, Sasuke-kun can check it over after. I remember there were those… wells, right? Where it stored chakra? I think they looked a little like… uh…"

Natsu gets an impression of Sakura tracing on the window pane and has absolutely no clue how to draw that.

"Ne, Sasuke, you stared at that seal with your Sharingan right? Could you maybe… copy that one too?"

"No."

"What- why not?!" Natsu protests, and Sasuke stares at him for a moment, as though questioning Natsu's intelligence. "Looking at stuff with my Sharingan is really different from looking at them without it. I remember them perfectly but they don't look the same without my dojutsu, and I can't just copy them. This," he gestures at Jiraiya's work, "is easy. I can look at it and copy it out, because they both look the same, because I'm not changing my eyes."

Natsu slumps. "Okay, okay, I get it. Sakura-chan's just not a visual memorizer, we don't really remember what that seal looked like."

"Just- do your best. I'll see how accurate it is later."

Natsu groans, squirming into a more comfortable position. "Fine, fine. Sakura-chan, can you do that thing again? But like, slower? Ugh this is gonna suck."

A ball of dread slowly settles into Jiraiya's gut. Not all of Takara-san's merchant contacts are in on the smuggling. But enough of them are. And most are the same thing, weapons, surplus medical goods, some kami-damned field rations. Not shinobi rations, but more generic ones from the land of Iron… It paints a picture, and Jiraiya doesn't like it.

Especially not when other merchants were assassinated.

Leaving the kids unsupervised was a difficult enough decision to begin with. Now he's wondering if he should find a safe place to put them so he can investigate properly.

Because just adding what he got from those papers to what he's hearing now, the numbers are far too big for anything he wants to bring genin to.

He needs to interrogate a shinobi. Something's going on here, and he needs answers.

Before his trouble-magnet brats get themselves killed.

He can't afford a shadow clone here.

Maybe summon a toad…?

Something to consider for tomorrow, he decides, carefully extracting himself from a conversation about tariffs. For now, he needs to find someone a little higher up the… food chain, so to speak.

There's a lot of civilians travelling through Fire.

The final phase of the exam is in less than two weeks, so that wouldn't be too surprising, but something tells Kakashi there's more at play here.

And it's not just Jiraiya's report.

"What do you think, Pakkun?" he whispers to his companion, staring at the small group of civilians.

"I think you're an idiot and you're going to get yourself pulled from active duty on psych eval."

"Nonsense, Hokage-sama likes me too much."

Pakkun gives him the deadpan stare that comment deserves, and Kakashi quickly pretends to be reading.

Pakkun continues to stare, and Kakashi breaks.

"Look, either they're innocent, and we apologize and go on our way, leaving behind a couple civilians ranting about how evil shinobi are, no big deal, or they're not, and we get some valuable information about what's going on."

Pakkun continues to stare.

Quietly, to himself, where no one can hear, Kakashi will admit that the plan is a little more Natsu-like than he should be comfortable with. It's true what they say, students really do grow on you - like a flesh-eating vine maybe, but Kakashi thinks he's doing this whole teacher thing right. Ah, what growth.

"I've done worse in ANBU." he mutters, and Pakkun rolls his eyes.

Fair.

"I'm doing it anyway." he says, ignoring Pakkun's muttered -don't say I didn't warn you- as he tucks away his book and leaps for the group of civilians.

One of them pulls a kunai as Kakashi crashes into their group, and he has a moment to think, ah, vindication, before he gets thrown into a six-on-one fight with at least two jonin.

Maybe he really is taking too much from his precious little genin though, because it's the most fun he's had in weeks.

"So is it just Sakura-chan or does this seal look simpler than the other two?"

"..."

"..."

"...HAVE WE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE HARDEST ONE ALL THIS TIME?!"

"RIGHT? WHY DIDN'T JIRAIYA LABEL THEM?"

"Could you two stop yelling? Before the innkeeper comes to investigate? And hand me that scroll before you break it, moron."

"...I have never felt so betrayed in my life."

"Right?! When Ero-sennin gets back I'm going to shove it down his throat! ...Ne, teme, could you-"

"What does it look like I'm doing? Shut up and let me concentrate."

"Right, right- ne, Natsu, wanna look at these two? Compare 'em while Sasuke does his thing?"

"...ugh, sure. Tomorrow we're sneaking out. If I have to deal with another day of this I'm burning down the inn."

"It isn't as bad as the safehouse."

"I was unconscious for most of the safehouse!"

"Weak."

"What was that you-!"

"Wait Natsu don't fight around the scrolls-!"

"Naruto lemme go-!"

"...Do I even want to know?"

The kids are definitely sneaking out. Gamaden reports it's just pure taijutsu sparring, that they leave Naruto's shadow clones in the room, and sometimes they just puzzle over his seals outside instead of inside.

If Jiraiya weren't neck deep in a right mess, he'd call them out on it. For now, he's a bit worried if he says anything they'll just try to be even sneakier about it next time, and the only thing worse than them sneaking out would be them sneaking somewhere he can't find them.

He consoles himself with the memory of the kids finally figuring out how to unseal the first scroll, only to scream when they realize he wrote the jutsu in code. Aah, it's the simple pleasures in life, truly.

He's so glad they figured it out before he left that morning, just so he could witness it. It would have been a crime to miss it.

Gotta keep those custom jutsu protected from unwanted eyes! Not that the brats had any appreciation of his impeccable logic.

He'll make sure they really do spend the next year running the most miserable D-Ranks he can find, if he has to assign them himself!

...he can't wait til the kids realize they have to unseal all three scrolls in order to break the code and figure out the single jutsu.

He'll have to sleep with one eye open, but he already knows it's going to be the most hilarious thing he's seen in his life.

Cackling, Jiraiya heads off.

He's going to have to move quick, if he wants to get to Kemuri and back before dinner.

He double-checks his disguise, his gear, thinks over his last interactions with Gamaden and the brats…

Everything's in order.

...So why do I feel like I'm forgetting something important?

They're having a free-for-all spar, scrolls carefully put out of the way so they don't get damaged, when Naruto trips and freezes.

"Dobe, what are you-"

"Someone just broke into the inn and killed all my shadow clones."

Natsu feels a cold chill go down his spine. "Who?"

"I dunno, I didn't recognize them, it was too fast-"

"Calm down," Sasuke orders, eyes flickering red for just a second. He takes a deep breath and they settle back to normal. "We can't stay here."

"Right, right, it's an open clearing- where's Jiraiya? He was with those merchants, right? Tryin' t'figure out what they're up to?"

Natsu nods, as he scoops up the scrolls and shoves them in his kunai pouch. "Yeah, over on the west side of town. If we head over there it should be safe enough."

"Right. Shiiiit, we were so close on that second scroll too! Why now?!" Naruto scrubs his hair, tugging at the tangles.

"Let's just go." Sasuke grumbles, and, yeah.

Natsu definitely understands.

But Jiraiya did say not to fight, and anyone willing to just assassinate three kids in their room probably should be avoided.

...even if it's really annoying.

Natsu stumbles to a stop, gagging, before they ever even get close to the merchants.

Naruto panics. "Natsu! Are you okay? You're supposed to be better there haven't been any problems the poison's supposed to be gone-"

"I think the merchants are dead." He mutters, hand clenched over his nose as he backs away. "It reeks."

"What- but Ero-sennin's with them, he was doin' that- right? They can't have- he's super strong, isn't he-?!"

Natsu's face nearly turns green, before he drops his hand and steels himself. "Guess we won't know unless we look. Maybe he ran back to check on us but since we weren't at the rooms we missed him?" his voice is still really tight, and Naruto wonders how bad it smells, to get Natsu to react like that.

...he doesn't have to wonder for long.

Sasuke looks away sharply, breathing uneven and rapid. Naruto wishes he could too, but he's just never seen so many bodies.

He- were there really that many merchants? Ryokan's big, but that- that's way too many! Right?

He tries to ask, but Sasuke has his eyes clenched shut and Natsu's pinching his nose closed again, carefully poking his way through the bodies.

His voice comes out nasally when he speaks. "I don't think Jiraiya's here. I don't-" he lets go of his nose for a second, sniffing, then immediately slams his hand back over his face. "'S kinda hard to tell, but I don't think he was here at all today. Don't smell him even a little bit."

"Wha- but if he wasn't here then-"

"Well what do we have here? A couple kids, lost their way home?"

Naruto spins around, putting his back to Sasuke's, as Natsu resolutely drops his arms into a fighting stance.

That's-

"We can't fight that many." Sasuke's voice ghosts out, quieter than Naruto's ever heard him.

Something's wrong with Sasuke.

It-

Natsu's too far away, and something's wrong with Sasuke and that's a lot of shinobi and there's so many bodies-

He tries not to panic.

"It's nothing personal, kid," a different shinobi says, "we just need leverage to keep your sensei from sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. He's gettin a little too close to things our employer would rather stay quiet, y'know? So why don't you just save us the trouble and come along all quiet-like? No need for anyone to get hurt."

"Much." the first shinobi adds, leering at them.

Naruto really tries not to panic.

The red bubbles up anyway.