Naruto Shippuden - part 18

Naruto glared at a field full of kunai, kunai that were inscribed with temporary Hiraishin formulas.

He'd been practicing the technique for the whole damned morning and he was absolutely no closer to getting any better at it than he'd been at the start of it. He could use the technique just fine and he could even lock on to a particular kunai, provided that he was given time to do it, but he was failing miserably at making it combat worthy.

For one thing, it took him too much time to lock on to a particular Hiraishin beacon to make it usable in combat and for another, the disorienting feeling of the teleportation made him a sitting duck for the precious moments that he needed to get his bearings.

Slowly, he had gotten familiar enough with the teleporting to lessen the disorientation slightly. He could only imagine how much practice his old man had needed with this shit to have gotten his nickname of 'The Yellow Flash'. Granted, Naruto thought it was a pretty lame nickname, but being able to teleport around with that kind of speed would have been great. An unfortunate side effect of being 6'7'' however, was that you simply couldn't move as fast as a smaller person would be able to.

The other problem was something that Naruto had no choice but to give up on for the moment. The main issue was that the Hiraishin was just as much Ninjutsu as it was Fuinjutsu and he simply couldn't muster the chakra control required to properly lock on to a specific beacon with anything resembling speed. At least it was still good as a way to move around quickly and covertly when out of combat.

Maybe one day, when life had calmed down and he was sitting his immortal ass on a rocking chair somewhere, bored out of his mind, he might put in what might end up being several decades worth of chakra control training. Then maybe, just maybe, he'd actually be able to use a technique that could be called subtle. That was, if he didn't manage to find some kind of convenient alternative before that.

Naruto wasn't even going to consider the possibility of failing to become immortal. He felt more certain that he could do it than ever, especially since he now had conclusive proof that immortality was possible in Hidan.

Left with no choice but to label a combat worthy Hiraishin as an 'indefinite work in progress'(because Uzumaki Naruto did NOT fail. He got delayed, set back, stymied or obstructed, but he did not fail.), he gathered up the scattered kunai. On another note, he really didn't like using kunai either. The all purpose shinobi weapon of choice was just so damn tiny, not to mention that he couldn't help thinking of them as a sharpened gardening tool ever since he'd learned of their original purpose.

Deciding to refocus his attention on the other famous technique that his father had been known for, he created a Rasengan.

It was...shiny.

He'd avoided using the technique because, as a side effect of his massive chakra increase during the three year training trip, the Rasengan was now a very bright miniature sun in his hand.

The one time he had tried to actually slam it into something, it had exploded rather violently, fortunately he'd been paranoid enough to make a clone do it. Naruto was forced to label his Rasengan a Kinjutsu, because it would fuck him up almost as much as the guy who got hit by it. Well, not quite as badly...he was pretty sturdy after all, but he wouldn't be getting out of it unscathed. As it was now, he might as well stick to punching things.

He'd focused most of his attention during the training trip on researching various seals that might be useful to his end goal of immortality and becoming powerful enough that Xanna would marry him.

Unfortunately it appeared that except for increasing his own chakra capacity, he hadn't made a lot of progress on that front. And honestly, that chakra capacity was for the most part only good for powering his healing factor.

The entire three years spent with Jiraiya had sucked. Mostly because he'd been separated from Xanna, but also because he felt that his progress had been glacial. He just didn't have enough information to go on. A man could only get so many ideas before he got stumped and needed new experiences to spark more ideas. He couldn't wait to run into some more Akatsuki members, so far they'd all been freaks with some unique abilities. If he was lucky he might run into some kind of combination of things that would let him live forever and give him a way to achieve ultimate power. He could hope, though he doubted it would be that simple, though experimenting on Hidan had already given him quite a few ideas. He'd really struck gold with that one.

The fight against Hidan and Kakuzu had highlighted that he was distinctly deficient at ranged combat as well, which was why he was in his self made training field, trying to figure out how to fix that problem.

Jiraiya had mentioned something about adding an element to the Rasengan and completing it. His old man had apparently died before he had time to do it and Jiraiya had tried and failed.

Naruto wasn't entirely sure that adding an element to his already dangerously overpowered Rasengan was altogether wise, but he'd never made any claims to wisdom anyway.

He was going to stay away from wind for the moment, because his control with that was bad enough as it was, there was no need to try controlling it while added to the Rasengan. Wind was such a damn finicky element.

His first attempt to add water to the Rasengan achieved nothing except to spray a very fine mist of water into his face at high speed. Apparently there was just such a high chakra pressure in the Rasengan that the water was repelled violently.

Well, at least it would cause some damage if he could somehow make the water stick to it for a while.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several hours later

Naruto and four clones of him were working on their latest attempt at creating some kind of water infused Rasengan.

It was rather simple in principle really. If the Rasengan pushed the water away, then all he needed was something that would push it back. This was why the original was holding up the Rasengan, while three of his clones used their chakra to push the water against it. The final clone was used to add water.

Naruto had also discarded his coat, because previous attempts at this had proven that it had explosive results upon failure and there was no point in damaging a perfectly good coat.

A bead of sweat rolled down his face as he struggled to keep the technique stable despite the crushing outside force that his clones were applying to the shell of water that was now swirling violently around the inner core.

The fourth clone kept adding more and more water, but the sphere didn't get any bigger due to the tightly controlled area of pressure the other three clones were applying. Naruto wasn't exactly sure just how much water was compacted into the sphere by now, but he knew that it was a lot.

By the time that the fourth clone had stopped adding water, the sphere of extreme density water was spinning with blurring speed. Naruto tried to slow it down, but the whole thing had gone into an unstoppable chain reaction. The pressure being exerted from the outside was causing it to spin ever faster, but if they stopped putting pressure on it, then it would explode with shattering force, so Naruto decided to try and slow it down before he took away the pressure.

He also didn't want to just dispel the Rasengan spinning inside the water dome. The last time he had tried that, all the water had naturally exploded into the only direction where no force was being applied...downwards, right at his hand. It was a good thing he had only tried that with a small amount of water, or else he would suddenly have become left handed.

Unfortunately, the volatile experiment had gotten away from him and it just kept getting faster despite his best efforts. It was sort of stable, but Naruto knew that it wasn't going to be pretty when this finally blew up on him.

Going for a rather desperate attempt at minimizing the damage, Naruto placed his left palm near the ball of water, gathered a massive amount of chakra into it and gave a look towards the clone on the opposite side of him. Nodding its understanding, the clone in question prepared to stop exerting pressure.

The original slapped his palm against the ball of water a split second after the clone stopped exerting pressure. The repelling nature of too much chakra pushed violently against the water and the Rasengan inside it, deforming the sphere and destabilizing it beyond hope of recovery.

The unstable Ninjutsu experiment was blasted away from his hand and towards the clone on the other side, losing coherency even as it flew. The incredibly fast spin caused it to spit out tiny, but extremely dense, water needles at near super sonic speeds in all directions. When it hit a tree that was behind that clone, all of the water that had been funneled into it exploded violently,

Naruto instinctively used his arms to shield his head, which saved him from getting his eyes shredded by the tiny water needles. The rest of him however, was not so fortunate as he was struck by the aftermath of his latest Ninjutsu failure.

He was rather lucky all in all, because he had gotten into the habit of using his mostly useless Body of Iron technique as much as possible and as fast as possible whenever these failures occurred. So technically, he had actually managed to make some progress with Ninjutsu, just not the one he had been going for.

Despite the protection granted to him by toughening his body up like that though, he wasn't particularly well off. Instead of being reduced to small bloody chunks by the spray of water needles, he was turned into a single, large bloody chunk.

The blond collapsed into a large pool of water that was rapidly being stained red, even as his healing factor struggled to get him fixed up.

At the edge of the clearing, all the trees started collapsing due to having their trunks torn to shreds by countless thousands of water needles.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Tsunade yelled at Naruto, who was currently lying in a hospital bed after his brush with near death.

The disturbance that his explosive attempt at adding water to the Rasengan had caused more than enough of a ruckus that ANBU had come to investigate and found his mostly dead carcass lying in a bloody puddle. If it hadn't been for the many Mystical Palm seals he had on him, that would have killed him for certain.

"I was trying to see if I could add my water element to the Rasengan." Naruto answered with a shrug. He honestly didn't see what the big deal was. He was alive wasn't he? Okay, so he'd been in a healing coma for nearly five hours and he only had about as much chakra as your average Kage left, but so what? What he'd been trying was very chakra intensive and the healing was also chakra intensive.

"Without supervision?! Do you have any idea how dangerous something like that is?" Jiraiya, who was also present, asked in disbelief.

"Kind of hard to miss since I'm the one that got turned into hamburger meat." Naruto answered with a snicker. "Besides, if anyone but me had been there, they would have been torn to shreds."

The two Sannin were a bit disturbed at how nonchalant the blond was being about his near death, but conceded that he had a point about anyone else being killed. It didn't mean he was off the hook though.

"Or they would have told you that what you were doing was incredibly stupid!" Jiraiya countered angrily. Most of his anger was because he'd been truly terrified that his godson would die after seeing him practically torn to pieces. "Why did you choose now of all times to try that anyway? You never showed any interest in finishing the Rasengan before."

"Because I need some Ninjutsu aside from my chains. I know that I'm easily S-rank even without, but I've got no versatility. Sooner or later someone is going to come along that has some kind of weird ability to neutralize my chains and then I'll be stuck with nothing but Taijutsu. Even my gloves are just a poor substitute, no matter what an awesome piece of work they are." Naruto explained, causing the two Sannin to look at each other comtemplatively.

"Well, I've got a proposition for you. It's something that I've been meaning to ask for a while now, but something always came up." Jiraiya said with a serious tone.

"In other words, you got caught up in your peeping and forgot about it." Naruto countered blandly, causing Tsunade to smirk and Jiraiya to face fault.

"ANYWAY, it's about the next stage of your training with me." Jiraiya said, making no attempt to deny his peeping. He knew that Naruto didn't really care if he peeped anyway.

"I thought you already taught me everything you could, oh lesser seal master." The blond said back with a smirk.

Jiraiya's eyebrow twitched at the reminder that some brat over thirty years his junior was leagues better than him at Fuinjutsu. Even if it was his godson and he was proud of him for it, that was really frickin' embarrassing.

"There is one last thing that I can teach you, or more accurately, I can recommend you to the toad elders for teaching." The white haired Sannin said, being deliberately vague.

Now Naruto's interest was peaked and he made no attempt to hide it. What in the world could the toads possibly teach him that was worth all this hype? "What kind of teaching are we talking about here?"

Jiraiya puffed himself up, intending to go into a long winded and dramatic introduction to Senjutsu when his thunder was stolen by Tsunade.

"Senjutsu, the Sage Arts." She said flatly.

Jiraiya deflated.

"Do tell." Naruto encouraged, very intrigued.

Jiraiya gave him the short explanation of Senjutsu, claiming that the toad elders would explain it to him in greater detail once they summoned him to Myobokuzan.

Naruto was going to press for some more details when a rather pissed off looking redhead slammed the door open.

Naruto bounded out of bed, dressed only in the ridiculous hospital gown that he'd been given. The hospital staff had quite a lot of trouble finding one in his size. His pants had been a lost cause unfortunately. He'd really liked those pants too.

"Xanna! It's great to...see...you?" He trailed off into a question uncertainly upon seeing that she was still looking incredibly angry.

"What is this I hear about you nearly getting yourself killed during training?" She hadn't actually heard it from anyone. She'd read his thoughts when he hadn't come home after his training. She'd gotten...worried.

Naruto sheepishly scratched at his head and let out a nervous laugh, much to the incredulity of the two Sannin in the room. They had never seen the blond act even slightly awkward and yet here he was being scolded for his recklessness and looking almost normal.

Unknown to them, the situation was very far out of normal as far as Naruto was concerned. This was the first time that Xanna had reacted like this to a training accident. Sure, he'd never been hurt this badly before, but this reaction seemed quite extreme. He found himself unable to be flippant about his near fatal blunder during training in the face of her anger. Not because she was angry mind you, but because of the reason for her anger.

"Well?"

Everyone in the room stiffened at that one word.

Tsunade and Jiraiya could feel something off about it, but were unable to point their finger at what exactly it was. There was quite simply, a sense of power in that one word that they had never heard from anyone before.

Naruto stiffened because he knew exactly what it was and it must mean that Xanna was well and truly pissed off to not bother suppressing the chakra flow to her throat and voice box.

"Well, I was trying to add water to the Rasengan and it sort of blew up on me." Naruto explained, trying to make it sound like less of a big deal than it really was.

"And you didn't think to exercise some more caution when doing this?" She hissed at him, her displeasure still vividly clear.

Naruto said nothing and just shifted awkwardly. It had been a long while since he had needed to exercise any kind of restraint, especially with his new and improved healing factor, so it had not in fact, occurred to him.

"Man Naruto, you got a real spitfire on your hands, and such a babe too." Jiraiya said, quite obviously leering.

Xanna turned to the white haired monkey in irritation. If she had been in one of her better moods, which were now quite frequent thanks to Naruto, she might have found him amusing and done something to mess with his head. Right now however, was not one of her good moods. It was not even a neutral mood. Right at this moment, she was in fact in a foul mood and thus didn't feel like humoring some idiot human.

Jiraiya didn't know what hit him as he went flying ass over teakettle right out of the closed window, The window which was on the third floor. As he lay on the ground outside of the hospital, sporting several cuts from the glass and a bruised back from the fall, he admitted to himself that perhaps it would have been wiser to stay silent. Fortunately he was a shinobi, so it was nothing life threatening, but he got the feeling that Naruto's sexy girlfriend had pulled her punch a great deal. Was this attraction to volatile redheads some kind of genetic quirk that Minato had passed down to his son, Jiraiya wondered?

Tsunade watched her former teammate get smacked out of the window like a misbehaving academy student with some shock and no small amount of satisfaction. Served him right for trying to perv on Naruto's girl.

"Um, right, I suppose I should do the introductions." Naruto muttered more to himself than anyone else. "Tsunade, this is Xanna. Xanna, this is Senju Tsunade, the current Hokage."

The two women nodded towards each other and then Xanna turned away from Tsunade in the most arrogantly dismissive gesture that the slug Sannin had ever seen, returning her focus to Naruto.

Tsunade clamped down on her volatile temper, which had been roused by the apparent insult, telling herself that the redhead was simply more concerned about her lover than propriety right now.

Not wanting things to escalate any further, Naruto gave his favorite demoness a hug. "I promise I won't be so careless again."

Xanna instantly calmed down, even though she still felt like being angry at him for nearly getting himself killed. She knew that he would never break a promise and it was hard to be angry when he hugged her like that.

Infuriating blond idiot. She thought to herself without any rancor.

Tsunade looked at the touching scene and couldn't help smiling. It was so nice to see Naruto acting normally around the woman he loved.

"Wanna have sex in the hospital break room?" Naruto suddenly asked.

Tsunade ground her teeth together. How dare the bastard even suggest something like that?!

"I'd love to, but if any of them interrupt us, I want you to put them in chains and make them watch."

Tsunade couldn't quite keep her jaw from dropping. What the hell kind of woman was this?

"And force their legs apart so that I can mock them about how wet it makes them."

Tsunade very calmly closed her gaping mouth and realised that so many things about Naruto suddenly made sense. If this was what he'd been exposed to ever since he was ten years old, then it was no wonder that the concept of shame eluded him.

"What if it's Sakura or Ino?" Naruto asked with amusement, knowing that those two were a special case for no other reason than the fact that he knew them.

"Then I will permit them to join if Sakura can deep throat you and if Ino slurps all of your cum out of me." Xanna very much doubted that either one of the two teenagers could or would do that, respectively, but it would be amusing to watch them blush and stammer.

Seeing the wicked grin on the crimson eyed woman's face, Tsunade decided to just leave. She wasn't going to deal with this shit right now, there were simply too many perverts everywhere.

And in some dark corner of her mind that enjoyed tormenting her apprentice, she found the mental image that the words evoked to be strangely hilarious.

Tsunade rubbed her forehead as she walked out of the room. She had definitely been spending too much time with Naruto if his warped sense of humor was rubbing off on her to this extent, but damnit he was the only one that would go drinking and gambling with her. Shizune was always harping about how it was improper for a Hokage to do such things.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several hours later

Naruto and Xanna were lying in each others arms, facing each other, having returned to the apartment after their fun in the hospital break room.

Naruto was asleep, but Xanna was not. She'd been truly afraid today after taking a look at his memories, afraid of losing him. He had been unconscious when she had done so, so the memories were confused and fragmented, all she had seen was him getting torn to pieces by that attempted technique.

It had been so very close, all it would have taken was a little more damage and he would have died this day and left her alone. The thought of it seemed so much more terrible than anything else that she could imagine. If it was in her power, she would have kept him young forever, would have asked him to seal her back inside of himself so that she could do it, but that wasn't something that she was capable of. She had made changes to his body, such as making sure that he would be as big as he was now, but that was a fairly minor change. Trying to keep him from aging was another matter entirely. It didn't help that her power was almost entirely focused on destruction, something that had been a source of pride for her at first, but now it just left her feeling bitter that she had so much power and it was utterly useless.

His time was already so very short and the idiot was going out of his way to put himself at risk. First his dangerous and reckless attempts at creating that powerful Ninjutsu and now Senjutsu training.

Senjutsu had ironically first been discovered by the summoning clans several centuries after the Sage of Six Paths had died, in other words, Otsutsuki Hagoromo had not been a sage in the same sense as those who mastered Senjutsu were.

Many had been turned to stone during their meditations when they had unknowingly drawn in the natural energies of the world, until one day someone had managed to tame the power and balance it within themselves. Only a rare few humans had ever managed this feat, but all of them had attained immense power from it.

Senju Hashirama had been the most recent human sage that she knew of. Empowered by natural energy and coupled with his powerful Mokuton, that man might have actually been capable of fighting against her on even footing for a short while before he exhausted himself. It was just a guess though, since she hadn't actually seen him fight, only seen the valley that he and Madara had carved out with their battle. It was unlikely that he could have sustained the effort for more than a minute at the very most though.

Madara had been able to use his giant Susanoo to defend himself long enough to escape her, which she had to admit was impressive in its own right, even though she hated the man.

Eventually word of Senjutsu had reached her and she had been curious about it. Her attempts at learning it however had only served to prove that it was impossible. The natural energy of the world avoided her like the plague, her demonic nature and chakra forcing it away. It had been the greatest proof of just how unnatural her existence was that she could have possibly received.

She was now rather ashamed of the fact that she had wiped out the wolf tribe in a fit of rage at the revelation, they hadn't deserved that. She had kept her true nature hidden from them and sought them out to learn it. It wasn't as if they had tried to run her out after discovering that she couldn't learn it or anything, she had simply been angry and they had been there. It had been an act of mindless spite that was beneath her, but she had been too angry to care.

That event had been what had truly convinced her that she needed to learn how to control her anger better.

Naruto seemed excited to learn Senjutsu, so she wouldn't try to stop him despite her misgivings, but she had told him everything that she knew about Senjutsu, trying to give him the best possible chance of mastering it that she could. She had even told him what she had done to the wolves, but her wonderful blond idiot hadn't cared. He easily acknowledged that it had been wrong to destroy them, but dismissed it as not being important any longer in the same breath.

But there was no helping the worry that plagued her. Would the toad elders send a messenger in a few weeks time to inform them that Naruto was now a statue, doomed to stand as yet another grim warning to prospective sages for eternity?

The thought of it was unbearable and she clenched her eyes shut tightly when they started to sting in response to her depressing train of thought.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked with confusion, some sleep still clouding his mind.

Xanna opened her eyes to find that she had unknowingly dug her claws into his chest. The sight of her fingers sunk into his skin with blood leaking around them, right above his heart, did nothing to soothe her distress and she jerked her hand away, feeling a sudden irrational fear that he would die on her.

"What's wrong love? Why are you crying?" He asked in alarm upon noticing the tear streaks on her face, immediately forgetting that she had just stabbed him. In all the years that he had known her, she had never showed even the slightest hint of weakness, so to wake up and see her crying was jarring in the extreme.

The demoness wiped at her face with her hand, noting with shock that she had indeed been crying. She had never cried before, but then again, she never had anything to cry about either. Eternal life may have been terribly dull at times, but this was the first time that she had something that would be truly painful to lose.

"Your injury today and the risks of Senjutsu have just made it glaringly obvious how fragile you are." She said sadly, the depressing thoughts of before still lingering.

"Don't worry, I'll be more careful from now on and I'll master this Senjutsu thing for sure. I'm not going to get myself killed." Naruto assured and held her closer.

"Even if you become a sage, you will still be mortal, I will still lose you." She said with the same despondent tone, leaning her forehead on his chest. It was wonderful to be held like this, but it was also terrible. Wonderful for the comfort it provided and terrible because it would only last for another hundred years at the most if she was lucky.

She almost regretted sticking around after he had released her from the seal, but his bullheaded determination had caught her interest and she found herself wanting to see what would happen. Interest had turned into a genuine fondness, not to mention that his obvious lust for her had been very amusing. Then one day she decided to reward his endless devotion and slept with him. He had been just as clumsy as you'd expect a first timer to be, so she had told him to get some more experience, though she had simultaneously also demanded that he stay loyal to her. That had been blatantly selfish of her, because she had enjoyed the thought of having him belong to her, even if she hadn't felt the same devotion to him. Contrary to most normal logic, as was usual for Naruto, he had been pleased by her selfish demand, seeing it as a sign that she felt something for him.

It hadn't been...or maybe Naruto had seen deeper into her own action than she had.

Despite his clear reluctance, he had done so, swallowing down his embarrassment to seek out those women in the brothel, but had stopped as soon as he felt he had learned enough.

But she hadn't been satisfied with that, so she had pushed him to continue, knowing that it would help him to get rid of that pesky feeling of shame that humans were so burdened with. Along with that, she also wanted to see what would happen when he would eventually run into a mortal woman that he could have stayed with.

When he had turned his back on that opportunity in exchange for a difficult and uncertain future with her, the first seeds of this current situation had been planted. After that, things had just kept snowballing until she suddenly found herself in tears at the thought of him dying.

She just knew that his death would destroy what contentment she had managed to get out of her life thus far. The few things that she enjoyed would no longer interest her, because he would no longer be there to share it with her. Poking fun at mortals wouldn't be funny anymore, because all she would be able to think about, would be how much better it would have been if he was there too.

"I'll never die. No matter what I have to do, I will become immortal and we will spend eternity together, that's a promise." He said with absolute conviction. He would not give in to doubt, not when he was so close he could practically taste it.

Xanna looked at her lover and saw the same unwavering belief that there was a way to achieve his goal that he had always carried. Maybe he truly would find a way to do it, she could only hope. It wasn't like she had any choice in the matter anyway. This was simply one of those things that she had no power over, so she did her best to shake off the depressing mood and enjoy the moment.

An hour later, Xanna was asleep, but Naruto was not.

Seeing her in tears...it brought home the fact that his death would hurt her. This hadn't been a problem when he had started on his path and it hadn't been a problem for years afterwards, but it was a problem now. He couldn't abide the thought of causing her pain, which meant that he had to be more careful with himself. He'd meant it when he had made his promise to be more careful, but now it held personal value to him.

It also brought home the fact that he could not afford to stay mortal, because his mortality was hurting her. He would find a way, even if he had to burn down heaven.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto stared contemplatively at the severed arm that Obito had left behind. He just knew that there had to be something special about that arm.

Well, anyone could have figured that much out if he was honest with himself. It was such a pale green that it was practically white and it had fallen off when it was starved of chakra after all.

With a shrug to himself, Naruto decided to just add chakra and see what happens, that would probably tell him something at least. He reached for the arm and was just about to forcibly channel some chakra into it when he stopped.

Maybe it would be better to cut off a small part of it and have a clone do it? He thought, his recent blunder with attempting to do too much at once still fresh in his mind.

Course of action decided, the original stepped away as the clone used a knife to cut away a small strip of skin from the arm and placed it on another table.

Naruto gawked in disbelief at the bonsai that sprouted from the strip of skin. What the hell kind of sense did that make? The only one to have have ever been capable of growing trees like that was the Shodai and Obito most definitely was not the Shodai.

Alright, so the arm was clearly not his own and Naruto doubted that Obito had robbed the Shodai's grave and hacked the right arm off his corpse and then attached it to himself. For one thing that arm would have been skeletal by now. He really wished that he could take a tissue sample and have it analysed, but he didn't fancy being accused of grave robbing or being asked uncomfortable questions about how exactly he came into possession of such a thing.

Not having that option at the moment, Naruto knew that he would need to make some educated guesses here.

Considering that the arm didn't seem to bleed and that it was apparently both heavily chakra reactive and reliant, he felt safe in assuming that it was somehow artificially created. His discussions with Xanna on the subject, along with his own experimentation with Yin-Yang combinations made that seem like the most likely possibility. Creating a functioning replacement limb from what was obviously Senju Hashirama's genetic material was far beyond his ability though.

Since Obito had admitted to the fact that Madara had taken him in after his supposed death, it made the legendary Uchiha the most likely culprit. There was no information about him having that kind of ability, which meant that the man had probably learned it sometime after he had gone to ground.

All very interesting and it did explain the mystery of the arm, but it was not particularly useful right now, so he sealed the arm into a scroll for safe keeping and to prevent decay.

He wasn't quite sure why the Shodai's cells had been used. Maybe Madara had tried to steal the Mokuton or something? Naruto berated himself for not asking Obito that question before he had killed him. Actually, now that he thought about it, there had been a lot of questions that he could have asked. There was no guarantee that Obito would have answered them, but it had been very stupid of him to not even ask. Now he was stuck making guesses and trying to figure things out himself from what few pieces of information he had.

Turning his attention to the other acquisition from Obito, Naruto unsealed two Sharingan eyes, one regular and one Mangenkyo. He was sorely tempted to implant at least the Mangenkyo into himself, knowing just how powerful it was, but knew that it would probably be unwise. For one thing, he was not a medic, so he couldn't do it himself and for another it would be terribly hard to explain.

He wanted to become as powerful as possible as quickly as possible, but he knew better than to blindly claw at every possible advantage and rely on power that wasn't truly his. That Mangenkyo Sharingan was quite possibly the single most dangerous thing he had encountered so far. The ability to so freely manipulate space-time was ridiculous and he knew that he'd been obscenely lucky that Obito had been so arrogantly certain that nothing could touch him. If the man hadn't blundered into his trap like that, then Naruto honestly didn't know how he could have possibly beaten someone that can become intangible with just a thought.

With a sign at the missed opportunity, because it really would have been hilarious to have the ability to become intangible at will, Naruto slammed his palm onto the two shiny red eyeballs and squashed them flat.

Cleaning the goo from his palm, the blond turned towards Hidan, who had been watching all of this with some interest.

Ever since the crazy blond had started using him as a test subject for his experiments, Hidan had been aware of the fact that Akatsuki wasn't as well informed as they should have been. Seeing him take down 'Tobi', who had turned out to be some guy named Obito and wasn't an idiot at all, and then mention that Madara had been his teacher...well it had put a lot of perspective on things. Hidan wasn't the most well educated of people, but even he knew who Uchiha Madara was.

The far bigger shock however, had been the fact that the Kyuubi was walking around scot free and conspicuously unsealed, in human form no less. That was the event that had well and truly told him that Akatsuki didn't really know what they were dealing with.

On the other hand, the blond didn't know what he was dealing with either. Obito had made no mention of the Rinnegan and Hidan refused to speak about it simply out of spite. The Uzumaki had certainly tried to interrogate him, but Hidan was well used to dealing with pain and the blond was far from being an expert at torture. He seemed to dislike the idea of torture actually. He certainly had no problem causing pain with his experiments, but he didn't do it out of malice.

He may have given up on the idea of getting out of here under his own power, but he refused to say anything that would help this heathen that had desecrated his scythe by giving it away like a party favor.

"Alright Hidan I'm going to remove the gag and we're going to have a short little conversation. If you can refrain from cursing like a sailor for a minute and listen to me that is." Naruto said dryly.

The Jashinist said nothing, simply glared murderously at his captor as his gag was removed.

"I'm going to be leaving for a whiile. I don't know how long, but it could be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, which is why I've got an offer for you."

"What kind of offer could a fucking heretic like you possibly have that I'd be interested in?" Hidan asked with a furious scowl, looking as if he'd like nothing better than to bite the blond's throat out.

"I can put a seal on you that will keep you unconscious for the time that I'm gone, so that you don't spend all that time chained to a table with nothing to do." Naruto said.

"As if I have anything to do otherwise!" Hidan yelled back, incensed.

"True enough, but I'm leaving this one up to you. Either you stay awake while you're chained here, or I knock you out, but you're staying chained to this table either way." Naruto said back with a shrug.

"You're a fucking bastard you know that Uzumaki?"

"You're the bad guy here, being a mass murderer and all, so I think I'm actually being incredibly nice by giving you a choice." Naruto said with another shrug. Honestly, a guy tries to be nice and gets verbal abuse in return.

"If you were so damn nice, then you wouldn't be keeping me locked in your basement and experimenting on me you fucker! And if you had a seal that could keep me knocked out, why didn't you use it before instead of keeping me conscious?!"

"Well to answer in order... I'm experimenting on you because I really need to figure out how to become immortal and you're such a conveniently bad guy that I don't feel very guilty about it. As for the seal, well I only figured it out when Obito activated that trap, and I can't experiment on you while it's active anyway."

It appeared that Hidan could only be properly knocked out if his chakra was suppressed completely. Technically, he was dead during that time, but he got better once the chakra was reactivated. Another oddity about Hidan that was, even if his chakra network was dead, it was quickly restored as soon as the Yin-Yang suppression seal was turned off.

Hidan growled at the infuriating blond and thought his options over. On one hand, it would be boring as hell to be awake for however long it would take the asshole to come back. On the other hand though, it was boring as hell either way, with the boredom only being interrupted by periods of getting experimented on. The choice seemed obvious, but Hidan saw an opportunity here. Escape was impossible as long as the Uzumaki came into the room frequently, but if he was gone for a long time, then it might be possible.

"Fuck you Uzumaki. Just get the fuck out of here and leave me alone."

"Suit yourself." Naruto said with a shrug and left.

He grabbed the miniature tree that had sprouted from the bit of skin that his clone had cut off. He was going to give it to Tsunade as a present, because he found the thought of her having a bonsai grown from a piece of skin that had been cut off an arm that had been made from her grandfather's genetic material to be hilarious.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Kisame, Itachi, have you located the Yonbi yet?" Pain asked.

He had needed called yet another Akatsuki meeting due to recent developments, so the remains of Akatsuki were once more together in their holographic forms.

"Not yet. The Yonbi Jinchuuriki lives like a hermit and tends to move around Earth Country erratically. It will take some time to capture him." Itachi answered in his usual monotone.

"Hey, why isn't Tobi here?" Kisame asked, having noticed his absence and being highly curious as to why Madara wasn't present.

"Zetsu has discovered that Hidan is being held captive by the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and Tobi went to extract him." Pain said and paused. "He did not return and I can no longer sense him through the ring."

Silence descended as everyone processed that information. Nobody was under any illusion that 'Tobi' was anything but dead.

Itachi did not care. If Sasuke had still been alive, he would have been relieved that Madara was dead, but now it no longer mattered. Nothing much mattered anymore.

Konan was relieved that Madara was dead. She had never liked him nor trusted him and the way that he had twisted Nagato over the years sickened her. She believed in their goal of peace and in their method for doing so, but she was also certain that Madara had ulterior motives, which was why she had prepared her trap of 600 billion exploding tags in case it was ever needed. As far as she was concerned the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had done them a favor.

Kisame was saddened by the news. He had put his faith in Madara and his plan to put an end to the world of lies, but it seemed that Madara's assurances had also been a lie. Not an intentional lie perhaps, but a lie all the same.

Nagato was relieved as well. Despite his Rinnegan, Madara was capable of simply teleporting to his true body and killing him anytime that he wished. Now Akatsuki would be led as he wished and not under Madara's direction. Now that Akatsuki was under the leadership of God once again, the world would be brought into a time of peace through shared understanding of pain and when they forgot their pain, he would refresh their memory and bring about another period of peace.

Zetsu, or the black half of him anyway, was furious. The damn fool had gotten himself killed and now Madara's plan was in ruins.

Madara had recruited Obito as a backup plan in case Nagato proved too difficult to control. There was only so far that a man could plan when they were near death and Madara had known this. He hadn't been able to foresee how Nagato would turn out after he had transplanted his eyes into him, which was why Obito had been such a convenient pawn, a pawn meant to control another pawn. It had been proven wise when Nagato had developed a god complex and started calling himself Pain. Obito had been able to control him with subtle manipulation and the clear threat of being able to kill him at will and now that was gone.

Pain would not resurrect Madara of his own free will, of this Zetsu was certain and there were now so very many holes poked into the overall plan, all thanks to the blasted Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and Obito's idiocy. There was a way to get the Sanbi out of the ocean, that was no big problem. The problem was that right at this very moment, all of Madara's plans were no longer achievable.

Actually, now that Zetsu thought about it, Pain probably couldn't resurrect Madara as he was now even if he wanted to. His body was crippled and weak and Madara had been dead for quite a while already. It would take an incredible amount of power to resurrect his creator and restore his youth. It would do no good if Pain used the Rinne Tensei to reverse the decay on Madara's corpse only to have the strain of it kill him before it was finished and that wasn't even factoring in how much more difficult it would be to restore the legendary Uchiha to his prime.

He would have to improvise and hope that something could be done to salvage this disaster.

"The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is clearly more dangerous than we had assumed. Everyone is to stay away from him while we focus on the other Bijuu. When the time comes to seal the Kyuubi, Uzumaki Naruto will fall before God." Pain stated.

Everyone nodded and their holograms disappeared.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tsunade, Shizune and Xanna were relaxing in Konoha's hot spring.

Normally, the demoness in disguise wouldn't bother socialising with humans other than Naruto and yet here she was.

Tsunade had seen that the redhead looked sad and worried when they had said goodbye to Naruto, right before he was reverse summoned to Myobokuzan and decided to invite her to go to the hot spring with her and Shizune.

It was now a few days since he had left and they had finally gotten organised enough to go.

Xanna had been feeling rather listless since Naruto had left, feeling uncharacteristically anxious about how her lover was doing. She could still feel through the Reaper Death Seal that he was alright, aside from the fact that he was somewhat irritated at something.

Annoyed with herself for being constantly worried about the possibility of her lover being turned into a statue, she had accepted Tsunade's proposal.

Still, she had to admit that Tsunade wasn't bad as far as humans go. A bit too much of a prude perhaps, but that was something that most humans seemed to be plagued with. At least it could serve as a source of amusement at times.

"So, I've been wondering...how did you and Naruto meet?" Tsunade asked. She'd already asked Naruto, but this was a chance to get a woman's perspective on it, along with perhaps some details.

"Oh, he was ten years old at the time and some of the village idiots had broken all the windows in his apartment in the middle of winter. He was pretty much freezing to death when I found him and took him in." Xanna explained nonchalantly.

Tsunade and Shizune's faces darkened upon hearing that. They'd been aware that Naruto didn't have a good childhood, but he didn't speak of it and didn't seem to let it bother him overmuch either, so it was easy to forget.

"I didn't expect him to propose to me, but he always has been surprising." She continued with a fond smile, remembering some of the things he had done over the years.

"That must have been awkward." Tsunade said with a snicker.

"A little, but it was kind of cute too. He would visit me every day that he could after that. Sometimes I needed to take care of any wounds that he might have gotten during training, since he has a habit of overdoing it." All three of them vividly remembered Naruto's recent brush with death because of training.

"Well, I'm glad he had someone like you around to take care of him when he was little. He's grown up into a fine man, even if he is a pervert." Tsunade said, only grumbling slightly at the end. Despite her usual dislike of perverts, it was hard to dislike Naruto. At least he didn't peek on women when they were bathing.

"The fact that he's a pervert makes it even better. It's something that I've spent many years encouraging." The demoness said with a smirk.

"But why?" Tsunade asked in surprise and confusion. Oh she knew that Naruto had no doubt gotten some of his perversions from the redhead, but she didn't why the redhead wanted him to be a pervert.

"Because it's so much more fun that way. You can ask Shizune all about it." Xanna said with a fanged grin pointed towards the silent woman.

Shizune had been quiet so far, just enjoying the hot water, but feeling a little bit of envy towards the redhead. Her envy stemmed from her slight insecurity about her small bust and lack of romantic partner, especially in comparison to the beautiful redhead.

Tsunade turned an inquisitive gaze on her first apprentice and raised an eyebrow.

Shizune slowly sank lower into the water until only her eyes were visible, her blush quite clear.

"Come one Shizune, do tell." Tsunade prodded with a smirk. She just knew that this was going to be good.

"I walked in on them in the hospital break room." Shizune said reluctantly, blushing fiercely.

Tsunade couldn't help bursting into laughter, remembering vividly what kind of plans Naruto and Xanna had been making for anyone that walked in on them that day.

"They put you in chains and made you watch didn't they?" Tsunade asked through her laughter.

"It's not funny!" Shizune insisted, her face burning so hot that the water was starting to feel cold.

"Alright, I'm sorry." Tsunade said, though still laughing slightly.

"Did you get mocked for being turned on too?"

"Tsunade-sama!"

Tsunade started chortling again. Damnit, she was certainly starting to see the appeal of Naruto's sense of humor. Watching people die of embarrassment was hilarious.

"You wouldn't be laughing if it happened to you." Shizune grumbled sourly, sinking back into the water.

"Well it didn't happen to me." Tsunade retorted smugly.

Xanna glided stealthily towards the busty Hokage and pushed her breasts into the blond's larger ones, putting her arms around Tsunade's neck at the same time.

"I'm sure we could accommodate you just as easily Tsunade. Who knows, if you live up to your nickname of being 'The Legendary Sucker', you might even get to join in on the fun." The demoness purred suggestively, severely violating the woman's personal space.

Tsunade immediately tried to squirm away, but the redhead kept her pinned with surprising strength. "That's quite alright, I think getting put in chains by Naruto once was enough." She said uncomfortably and tried to get away.

"Are you sure? I'm sure you'd enjoy yourself and you could compare the experience with your apprentice." Xanna prodded further and deliberately leaned closer as if to kiss her.

"Quite sure!" Tsunade said, somewhat panicked and her face looking like it was boiling. She managed to get free and leveled a betrayed look at Shizune, who was now giggling behind her hand.

Shizune completely ignored the look, feeling vindicated now that Tsunade had gotten embarrassed as well.

Tsunade scowled to herself slightly. It really wasn't all that funny when it happened to you.

She looked towards the redhead, with every intention of telling her not to do that again, only to see the woman hefting a stone about the size of her fist. Before Tsunade could ask her what she intended to do with that rock, Xanna had thrown it with great force towards the wooden wall that divided the male and female section, causing it to go straight through.

A high pitched, but clearly male scream resounded from the other side. More importantly, Tsunade instantly recognised that scream as belonging to Jiraiya when he got hit particularly hard in the nuts. She had been the cause of that scream several times.

The redhead walked towards the new hole in the wall, entirely uncaring about her nudity, jumped on top of the fence and pulled an agonized Jiraiya over the wall and into the female section.

Normally Jiraiya would consider being pulled into the female section paradise, but he was far too busy clutching his battered testicles to care about that at the moment. He couldn't even see anything, since his forehead was pressed into the ground and he was in a kneeling position.

"Jiraiya." Tsunade ground out in utter fury, fully prepared to kill her former teammate.

The toad Sannin began to sweat at the murder in her tone, but was in far too much pain to even consider moving. He could only hope that his death would be swift.

Before the female Sannin could make her move though, Xanna squatted right next to the toad sage and placed her hand on top of his head, preventing him from lifting it.

"Oh Jiraya, what a dreadfully perverted hobby you have there." She said in a breathy tone that was clearly designed to attract male attention.

The man in question tried to raise his head on instinct, but her hand kept his eyes lowered. All he could see was a pair of dusky skinned feet and ankles that were quite clearly naked.

"I'm rubbing my fingers between my legs Jiraiya, do you like the sound of that?"

Oh yes, Jiraiya did like the sound of that! His enjoyment of the situation was cut brutally short when his testicles throbbed with renewed agony because of his excitement, causing him to groan in a pitiful manner.

"Please stop." He managed to whimper out.

"But I thought you liked things like this? I was so looking forward to starring in your book, I was even going to pose for in any way you wanted." The demoness said in a pouty tone of voice that she knew would not improve the old pervert's situation.

Jiraiya groaned as his balls screamed at him to stop getting excited.

"Would you like me to give Tsunade a kiss? Just imagine it Jiraiya, our breasts pressed together and tongues duelling, a trail of spit connecting us and then falling between us, sliding down into the crack between them."

"You're a demon, a demon!" Jiraiya cried as his abused groin pulsed and burned with agony.

"I know...The thought of what Naruto is going to do to you when I tell him about this is making me soooo wet."

Jiraiya almost felt like bursting into tears and he wasn't sure if it was from the pain, the fact that despite all of this happening, he still hadn't even seen anything or the thought of one of Naruto's insane seals being placed somewhere to get back at him for attempting to peak on his woman.

Unable to take anymore, the gallant Jiraiya fled as fast as he possibly could, running with his legs spread wide in an effort to prevent anything from touching his jewels.

Tsunade looked at Xanna, feeling seriously impressed. Beating the crap out of Jiraiya was one thing, but using his own perversion against him like that was truly inspired. She was almost tempted to introduce the redhead to Ibiki, but reasoned that it was probably better not to.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hidan pulled at the chains holding him, trying to slip his hand out of the manacle. It hurt like hell, but it was worth it if he could just get free.

So far he was having very little luck, but he had to keep trying. Even if he had to get the bones in his hand crushed to pull his hands free, he was getting the hell out of this basement. Then he was going to get his scythe back and probably kill that blond fucker's apprentice while doing it.

He wasn't sure if he could make it out of the village, but he would damn sure take as many of them down as possible, even if they caught him again. If he did end up captured he was going to tell them that their precious Jinchuuriki wasn't a Jinchuuriki, but was instead a demon fucking mad scientist.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The head of a wooden staff smashed into Naruto's head, knocking the natural energy he had gathered right out of him.

"Ya gotta focus Naruto-chan! Peace, calm, balance, these are the things ya need in order to master Toad Style Senjutsu." Fukasaku scolded.

Naruto struggled mightily to prevent himself from scowling in irritation even as his healing factor took care of the slight bump on his head. Who the hell did that senile midget of a toad think he was calling 'Naruto-chan'? the diminutive amphibian didn't even come up to his knee!

He was starting to get really annoyed by now. Training in Senjutsu just seemed to consist of getting clobbered over the head with a staff repeatedly, eating bugs and listening to lectures about peace and harmony. There was no sexy demonic lover to make him feel better and he was pissed as hell at Jiraiya for failing to mention that he should bring his own food.

In addition to that, doing this Senjutsu stuff the way that Fukasaku was teaching it to him just felt wrong. The stillness part had been bad enough, but trying 'find inner peace' and 'let go of worldly concerns' so that he could 'connect himself to nature' was even worse. It was pretty hard to let go of worldly concerns when you wanted to be immortal. If he wanted to abandon all worldly concerns, he would commit suicide, that was much more effective than mind tricking himself into thinking that he didn't have worldly concerns.

Amusingly enough even the toads had seemed embarrassed that he had stripped completely naked when it was time to cover him in toad oil. He just didn't see any point in getting a pair of perfectly good underwear soaked in oil. On a side note, having long hair soaked in oil was disgusting and left him feeling as if he could get enough oil to roast a whole pig just by wringing his hair out.

Shaking off his irritation, Naruto tried again.

Gathering the natural energy of the world around him, the blond could immediately feel the way that it tried to change him. By accepting the energy of the world around him, he was also taking in it's nature. In this case, since he was on a mountain full of toads, covered in toad oil along with no doubt a hundred other toad related things, it tried to turn him into a toad. That was what the energy was used to after all. Natural energy had no sentience of its own, but it gravitated towards what was familiar and if a human tried to take in the heavily toad natured energy, then he would turn into a toad if he couldn't harmonise with it.

Xanna had told him that she had learned from the wolves that Senjutsu came far more easily to those who were already of similar nature. Therefore, a toad would have a relatively easy time learning Senjutsu in Myobokuzan, but a terribly difficult one in Ryuchi Cave, which was the home of the snake clan. Once Senjutsu was mastered, it wouldn't be a problem to mould the natural energy as they wished, but for a learner, location was very important.

She had also told him that the Shodai had been a sage, something that was probably not common knowledge. She didn't know where he had learned it, but considering the man's Mokuton, he may well have learned it himself. Maybe he had just sat down in a forest somewhere and accidentally discovered it for all anyone knew. It was only natural that he would be close to nature considering his Mokuton, so it wasn't all that far fetched.

Naruto was not a toad, and truth be told, did not want to be a toad.

Ignoring the words of the old-as-fuck toad sage, the blond decided to do things his way. What did the old guy know anyway? Naruto never did anything normally, so why should this be any different.

He moved his powerful chakra around the invading natural energy and tried to force it into submission. It fought back, struggling to stay the way it was. It didn't want to be changed, didn't want to flow in a way that it wasn't used to.

Well, that was too fucking bad, because it was his body and it would obey.

THUNK.

"Ya can't force natural energy to do things your way Naruto-chan! Calm down and synchronize with it. Let it flow through ya and become part o' ya."

Naruto's eyebrow twitched in irritation.

The hell I can't!