Naruto Shippuden - part 19

Hidan pulled harshly against the chain that held his arm imprisoned, finally managing to get it free.

I wasn't without a cost though, as his hand was completely mangled, the bones crushed and skin peeled off from his attempts at getting free.

He'd been trying to get free for two whole weeks(well that was his best guess anyway). The fucking heathen had bound him tighly, so tightly that he could barely move a muscle. It had taken days of pulling at the chains with all the strength that he could muster to budge it enough that he could get some more leverage.

After that it had taken some more days to get into a position where he could start pulling at least one hand out and then some more days to finally loosen the manacle enough to mangle his own hand and pull it out.

Now here he was, waiting for his hand to heal so that he could mutilate the rest of his limbs in his attempt for freedom. At least, the rest of them would be relatively quick now that he had one hand free.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several hours later

The Jashinist was laying on his back on that very same metal table, just waiting for his left foot to get back to normal. Crushing your own heel and then waiting for it to fix itself was not fun at all.

As soon as it was healed, Hidan swung himself onto the floor, with every intention of getting the fuck out of the hated basement.

Unfortunately for him, his chakra signature was not recognised by the Fuinjutsu traps on the floor, which immediately caused the very same traps that had killed Obito to activate once more.

The Jashinist spat out a string of foul curses as he felt what little chakra he had being cut off. A frantic attempt at escape later revealed only an impassable barrier that he had no hope in hell of actually penetrating.

Within twenty minutes of the trap activating, Hidan collapsed face down on the ground, temporarily dead.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Myobokuzan

Naked and covered in toad oil again, Naruto smirked, feeling the beacon inside his basement trap array pinging off his chakra.

Apparently Hidan had finally managed to get free.

Exactly how stupid do you think I am Hidan? He thought to himself.

Honestly, Hidan's intention to escape was as transparent as air and Naruto wasn't so arrogant that he would say it was impossible. Those seals had enough chakra to stay active for a good long while, so Hidan was just going to be chillaxing on the floor until he got back and turned them off.

It was kind of an asshole move to give Hidan hope of escape like that, but honestly, the lunatic immortal would have tried it eventually anyway. Might as well crush all hope sooner rather than later.

THUNK.

"Ya can't space out and think about pretty girls while yer learnin' Senjutsu Naruto-chan! Focus!"

A golden eyebrow quivered in irritation. He hadn't even been thinking about girls!

Although...he really did miss Xanna. That lustrous red hair, those shining red eyes, that absolutely perfect body! The way she sank her fangs into his neck when she was just about to...

THUNK.

"Damnit Naruto-chan, stop thinkin' whatever it is yer thinkin'! Yer flagpole is creepin' out the lady toads! I swear, yer worse than Jiraiya-chan."

Naruto snickered. What a bunch of ridiculous toads. They weren't even the same species! Why the hell did they care if he was at full mast?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You've done it Naruto-chan! You've mastered Senjutsu!" Fukasaku said with pride in his voice.

Naruto opened his eyes, now golden with toad like bars instead of pupils and orange pigmentation on his eyelids.

It had taken him quite a while, but he had managed to synchronize with the natural energy the way that Fukasaku had been teaching him.

Why then, did it feel so uncomfortable? Don't get him wrong, he felt far more powerful now than he was before, but using Senjutsu like this just didn't feel quite right.

He felt more at peace...passive and accepting.

But Uzumaki Naruto was not passive and accepting, he couldn't afford to be. He still had so much to do and so far to go. The threat of Akatsuki didn't matter to him, they had already proven themselves incapable of stopping him, but he couldn't allow himself to slow down until he was immortal. He could not be passive and accept the fact that he was mortal.

"Now, I know that standin' still in the middle of battle to enter Sage Mode isn't possible, so Ma and I will be workin' on fusin' with you and helpin' you in battle that way, along with teachin' you the Frog Kata"

The memory of how Chiyo had been able to feel the lack of Bijuu inside him through her reincarnation technique surged through Naruto's mind. He couldn't allow that information to get out yet and he didn't trust these toads enough to tell them.

"I don't think that's a good idea, the Kyuubi doesn't really play nice with others." That should be a good enough excuse.

"Still, it's worth at least a try isn't it?" Fukasaku insisted.

"I have no idea what would happen if we tried that, so let me try to find an alternative first." There were always alternatives.

"Alright, I guess there's no harm in tryin' to find another way." The old toad agreed.

After that, Naruto was left alone and allowed the natural energy to leave his body. He almost sighed in relief when he felt the annoying sense of peace leave him. It was artificial, a result of having the natural energy moulded in the style of the toads. There would be no true peace for him until he was immortal and could call Xanna his wife.

Honestly, Naruto could easily see now that he was a poor choice as a Toad Sage. The toads were good company to be sure and he rather liked Gamabunta in particular, but their version of Senjutsu simply rubbed him the wrong way. He would have preferred to learn Senjutsu from a more predatory tribe of summons, but he didn't know any.

Well, he supposed the snakes were fairly predatory, but it would be rather hard to convince Orochimaru to give up the snake summons.

Naruto shook off the unproductive thoughts, it was no use thinking of things like that. Toad Senjutsu was better than no Senjutsu, even if he didn't like the side effects it had on his feelings.

Turning his attention to the more pressing problem of how to stay in Sage Mode without staying still, Naruto's mind immediately drifted to his magical solution to everything, Fuinjutsu. It would probably take a lot of work to make a seal that would allow him to store natural energy and then release it into his chakra network without overwhelming him, but he was sure that it could be done.

Fortunately, due to his vast reserves of chakra and extremely developed chakra coils, his margin for error was actually quite considerable. It would take a large blunder to turn him to stone.

What he needed was a seal array that would allow him to hold a large amount of natural energy and simultaneously still be connected to his chakra network. This meant that he would need to paint it on his skin. He would need to calibrate it in such a way that he could control the flow of natural energy or perhaps even make it automatic so that it would always release just the right amount, but that would require him to do a lot of fiddling with the seal to test it out. It would also need to be very powerful to hold in the natural energy, because that stuff was strong.

Naruto sat on the ground, taping his finger to his chin, deep in thought about all the things he would need to do for this. It would definitely be one of his more ambitions undertakings, not to mention dangerous.

Suddenly, an idea hit him with such force that it practically made his head snap back.

He looked down at his stomach and channeled some chakra.

The Reaper Death Seal appeared, sitting oh so innocently on his skin. He could swear it was winking at him.

It was a seal empowered by a god, designed to hold the most powerful demon in existence.

That powerful demon just so happened to be a soul fragment of a demonic god with chakra powerful enough to form a physical body.

It was connected to his chakra network and designed to release measured amounts of that demonic chakra into him.

He had fiddled with it enough that he knew it forwards and backwards by now. He could change it to suit his purposes.

And it was ever so conveniently empty, just waiting to be filled up with something else...such as natural energy.

A slow, but utterly massive grin formed on Naruto's face. With the amount of chakra that Xanna held, he could store enough natural energy into the Reaper Death Seal to keep him in Sage Mode for weeks if he had to. Maybe even indefinitely if he could find a way to tweak the seal in such a way that it would passively absorb natural energy , while simultaneously releasing it into his coils.

Still grinning, Naruto got to work on altering the Reaper Death Seal to his specifications. He wanted to leave the mental link aspect of it alone, but pretty much everything else was fair game.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jiraiya and Tsunade were in the Hokage's office and the toad Sannin was just about to summon Naruto and Fukasaku. He had received word just a few minutes ago that he urgently needed to summon them both and it made his gut clench with worry at the thought that something had gone wrong with the Senjutsu training.

He sped through the hand seals and slapped his hand on the floor, causing the summoning script to spread across the office.

"I already said I was sorry damnit! How was I supposed to know that was going to happen!?" Naruto was saying in a near yell, sounding extremely agitated.

"What the hell did ya think was going to happen ya stupid tadpole!? Ya can't just do somethin' like that without any consequences!" Fukasaku yelled back.

"Well nobody ever told me that something like that was even possible! From the way that you were talking, it seemed like there wasn't any kind of limit on this thing!" Naruto yelled and threw his hands into the air in exasperation, walking out of the office without sparing the two perplexed Sannin a single glance.

Jiraiya and Tsunade blinked owlishly at the scene, turning questioning stares on the angry looking toad elder.

"What happened?" Jiraiya asked slowly. He was glad that Naruto was safe, but this looked serious. He had also caught a glimpse of the Reaper Death Seal and it was markedly different. Instead of the relatively small spiral on Naruto's stomach with script extending outwards a small distance, The lines of script were now much longer and extended all the way up to his chest. There were also additional pieces of script that connected those extended lines in a circular pattern. Not to mention that the seal usually wasn't visible like that for no reason.

"Yer idiot apprentice pulled most of the natural energy in Myobokuzan into himself, that's what happened!" Fukasaku yelled, still incredibly agitated.

The two Sannin stared at the angry little toad with their jaws hanging, completely unable to process that statement.

"Maybe you should explain from the beginning." Tsunade suggested once her brain had rebooted enough to form words.

Fukasaku took a deep breath to calm down a bit and begun explaining.

"Naruto-chan had just mastered Senjutsu and we were going to move onto training to fuse ourselves with him, but he said that the Kyuubi probably wouldn't let that happen and to let him try somethin' else."

Tsunade and Jiraiya nodded their understanding, Jiraiya also feeling intensely proud of his godson for mastering something that he wasn't able to.

"Well, I saw no harm in it and left him alone so that he could think of somethin'. Since he'd already learned how to balance the natural energy with his own chakra, there was no more danger of him getting turned to stone and I didn't need to be there anymore to keep that from happenin'."

Fukasaku started looking angry again as he progressed further with the tale.

"Well, apparently I should have known better than to leave him alone. Me and Ma were woken up that night when we felt massive amounts of natural energy being drawn somewhere, far more than should be possible for any single person. We went to investigate and found Naruto-chan drawing all of it into himself, but not balancing it with his chakra."

"Wait a minute, shouldn't that have turned him to stone?" Tsunade interrupted. She wasn't a sage, but she did know some things about Senjutsu.

"It should have, but the damn fool was funneling it into the Reaper Death Seal and sealing it away!" Fukasaku said, starting out in a normal tone of voice and ending in a yell.

"But how? The Kyuubi is already in there." Jiraiya protested in confusion.

"From what I've been able to gather so far, he's made some additions to the seal, such as sectionin' off some of it to allow him pull in that much natural energy, but keeping it separated from his chakra network so that he ain't turned to stone."

Jiraiya shook his head in amazement at his godson's ingenuity. That was quite the achievement. But there was one thing that still needed answering.

"That all sounds like a good thing though, so why are you so angry?" The toad sannin asked.

"Because Jiraiya-chan, nobody was ever meant to pull that amount of natural energy out of the environment. It'll take decades, maybe even a century before Myobokuzan will be able to teach another sage."

"But that's...How is that possible?" Jiraiya stammered out in shock. He hadn't thought that natural energy had any kind of limit.

"Natural energy builds up in areas where there's a great vibrancy of life. That's actually how the summon clans came to be, the life force of the environment allowed us to evolve into more than just animals. If it wasn't for that, Myobokuzan would be just a mountain full of regular toads. When a sage draws in natural energy, he takes on the characteristics of the species that the natural energy is most familiar with, as well as being empowered by the essence of the natural world. When sages do this, they borrow a tiny amount of the strength of the world around them and when they exit Sage Mode, that natural energy is released back into the environment."

Fukasaku took another deep breath and continued his explanation.

"What Naruto-chan did was draw in nearly all of the natural energy around him and is now keeping it imprisoned inside of himself, just like the Kyuubi."

There was a long silence while Jiraiya and Tsunade took all of that in, hardly able to believe what the blond Fuinjutsu master had done.

"So what happens now?" Jiraiya asked, hiding just how nervous he felt. Effectively stealing all the natural energy from Myobokuzan was a big deal and the white haired Sannin knew that there would be consequences for it.

Fukasaku sighed and answered. "The other toads are very angry, Ma is angry, hell I'm angry, even the old geezer sage is angry! There was talk of removing Naruto-chan from the Toad Summoning Scroll and it looks like it's going to happen."

"Can't Naruto just go back to Myobokuzan and release the natural energy back to the environment? He didn't do it on purpose after all." Jiraiya asked desperately. He'd never heard of a summoner contract being broken before and knew that they must really be angry if they were considering it, but he didn't want his godson to be rejected by the toads.

"I don't know, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. He'd probably get turned to stone if he tried to release it all at once and even in that case, it would still stay trapped inside him." Fukasaku grumbled.

"Well, we might as well ask him, maybe he knows how to release it safely." Tsunade said hopefully. She knew that Naruto's Fuinjutsu skill was truly ridiculous, so the crazy blond might know how to reverse this disaster.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

ANBU had brought the irritated Uzumaki back to Tsunade's office before he got very far and they had just asked him if he could release the natural energy that he had trapped into himself.

"Not without killing myself." Naruto admitted.

"But why not? If you've managed to get the energy in, surely it couldn't be that hard to get it back out?" Tsunade asked.

"Because I've got the seal set up to allow the natural energy to flow into my coils and then be returned into the seal once I'm done using it. If I tried to direct it outwards, it would clash inside my coils, causing them to rupture and then turn me to stone right after." Naruto explained.

His original plan had been to just store the natural energy into the Reaper Death Seal and then release it into the environment when he was done. That plan had gone to the wayside when he had discovered that natural energy didn't behave like chakra at all. It didn't get expended when used. When a sage created Senjutsu chakra and used it to empower their techniques, the natural energy component of the Senjutsu chakra was dispersed back into the environment, while the chakra was used up.

This meant that natural energy was essentially inexhaustible and could be...recycled for lack of a better term. Some alteration to the Reaper Death Seal and he had a closed circuit between his chakra network and the Reaper Death Seal that did not allow the natural energy to escape his body. It would still do so if he actively pushed it outwards, but the truly marvelous thing about natural energy was that even when used to power Ninjutsu, it didn't actually leave the chakra network. It provided a vast empowerment to any and all techniques, but it did so from within the chakra network.

He had blatantly lied to them when he said that he couldn't release it. He could have done so, it would have taken a long while to do it safely, but he could have done it. Having that kind of power trapped within himself forever, his to be used at will, was however far too good to let go. The toads were just going to have to suck up the fact that it would take a while for Myobokuzan to regenerate to its usual state. The way they were freaking out, you'd think it was permanent.

"Damnit Naruto, didn't you promise Xanna that you were going to be more careful?" Tsunade asked in exasperation.

"Hey, I was being careful!" Naruto protested. "I tested things thoroughly and I knew that I was going to be fine. The only problem is that nobody told me that natural energy is a finite resource."

"I didn't know that either." Jiraiya admitted. "Since you can't release it safely, I guess that's the end of it then."

"I don't think it would do us any good anyway." Fukasaku admitted after several moments of silence.

"Huh?" Naruto said eloquently. He didn't get it at all.

"Ya've only just become a sage, so I'm not surprised that ya can't tell yet." Fukasaku said vaguely.

"Tell what?" Jiraiya asked, similarly confused. "I can't sense anything either."

"You never completely mastered Senjutsu Jiraiya-chan, so of course you can't sense anything." Fukasaku stated in a matter of fact tone before explaining what he was sensing.

"I can feel the natural energy changin' inside Naruto-chan. Even if he could release it, it would be too changed by the time he managed it to return to Myobokuzan. I guess we're just going to have to wait for it to be replenished naturally."

Naruto had to struggle hard to prevent a near manic grin from forming on his face. This was going better than his wildest expectations. If the old toad said that the natural energy was changing, then that could only mean that it was adapting to fit him personally. Consequently, this would mean that he would get the maximum possible empowerment from Senjutsu, as it would be suited to him personally. Not to mention that since it was being directed by his Fuinjutsu and held inside of him, he wouldn't need to stand still like a lemon in order to draw it from the environment.

Sacrificing the ability to summon in exchange for something like this? Screw the summons!

"Summon me back in two days, we'll have come to a decision about Naruto-chan's contract with the toads by then." Fukasaku said with a sigh and burst into smoke, signifying his return to Myobokuzan.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto was sitting cross legged on the floor of his apartment with his eyes closed, meditating to better focus on the natural energy inside of him. Xanna was sitting on the nearby couch, demolishing a tub of ice cream while she looked on with interest.

She was very happy to have her lover returned safely and more powerful than ever. They had already gotten 'reacquainted'.

But what truly held her interest right now was Naruto's latest bit of mad genius. As far as she knew, nobody had ever attempted to keep natural energy locked inside of their body before, so she was highly interested in what would come of it.

Naruto entered Sage Mode, manifesting the distinctive orange coloring around his eyes and the eyes themselves turned toad like.

The observing demoness frowned with some distaste. She could sense the change in Naruto as he took on some rather toad like characteristics beyond just the visible ones. It did not suit him at all.

The blond was fully in agreement and couldn't wait for the natural energy to finish mutating. With this in mind, he circulated it through his coils and back into the seal and then back into his coils in an endless loop.

He was essentially holding the energy hostage and brainwashing it. Within the first hour of doing this he already began to feel the change. The toad imprint that the energy had from centuries of buildup on Myobokuzan began fading, until it was completely gone. Soon after that, it started taking on characteristics of it's new home.

The Reaper Death Seal had been the dwelling place of the Kyuubi for fifteen years and some of that remained, as the seal remembered the great power that had once dwelt there. In addition, the seal was located on the body of a man that was determined achieve his goals no matter what he had to do. As the natural energy moved through his coils, it forgot about the peaceful mountain where it had come from and adapted to the ruthless will and predatory intensity of it's new home.

Feeling the change, Naruto did not try to mould Senjutsu chakra the way that the toads had taught him, but instead allowed it to do as it pleased, only keeping it from overtaking him and turning him to stone.

Xanna watched with great interest as the orange pigmentation vanished, along with the feel of 'toadish-ness'. Gradually, new markings began to appear. The whisker marks on Naruto's face began sporting black lines that extended further up his face. Along the sides of his eyes more black markings appeared, these being thicker and curved. The upper curve reached nearly to his eyebrows and the lower one stopped just short of the now elongated whisker marks. Now he exuded a sense of danger, something that she very much liked.

Two hours after he started, Naruto stopped, finished adapting the natural energy to himself. It was leagues more comfortable than the Toad Style Senjutsu he'd been using before. Not to mention that the natural energy was now thoroughly brainwashed into liking it's new home, which meant that it was much easier to mould and prevent it from turning him to stone.

The blond opened his eyes, revealing a pair of slitted gold-orange eyes, like the color of fire.

"How do you feel beloved?" The demoness asked with interest.

"I feel amazing." Rumbled from Naruto's throat.

Xanna shivered with pleasure at the sub-vocal growl that her lover's voice now held. This was much better than the Toad Style Senjutsu that he had been using before.

Naruto's eyes snapped over to her, his nostrils flaring. He was utterly delighted by the discovery that his newly empowered senses allowed him to smell her arousal. He was definitely going to be taking care of that right now.

He also marveled at the well hidden power that he could sense behind the cloaking that she was putting up to block any sensors from detecting her. He very much doubted that anyone but a sage would have been able to sense her true nature and even that only at close range, despite the vast ocean of power he could sense behind that concealment.

Naruto stood up and moved towards her, fully intent on taking advantage of her attraction to him. He grabbed her and pulled at her yukata, intending to simply take it off when he heard a ripping sound.

Taking a surprised look at his hands, he saw that they were now tipped with sharp claws, which made him grin again. Every new thing he discovered about his own version of Sage Mode just made him feel that he had definitely made the right decision when he had chosen to take all of that natural energy and store it into the Reaper Death Seal.

Xanna gasped in slight surprise when she felt his new claws rake across her back. That they were strong and sharp enough to break the skin on her human form was very impressive, even if she did heal immediately.

Naruto shook off his interest in the fact that he now had claws in favor of the woman in front of him. Casting aside her now ripped clothing, he dove for her lips for a kiss, which was eagerly returned. His coat was already discarded and her hands were working on removing his pants. As soon as they were off, she grasped him in her hand and gave his member a few slow pumps, eager to feel him inside of her.

Naruto was suddenly struck with a devious idea however. He wanted to play with her a bit before they got to the main event.

"Tsuyo no Fuin: Hatsudou(Seal of Power: Activate)." The seals glowed all over his body, increasing his already Senjutsu enhanced strength even further.

Xanna was surprised by what he was doing and he used the opportunity to grab her wrists and force them behind her back, his raw physical power now greater than hers by a considerable margin.

Xanna let out a surprised gasp when her hands were forced behind her back and then bound in chains. Chains, which she realised, were now too strong for her to break. Unable to use her hands, Naruto moved her to the couch that she had previously been sitting on and sat down on it. He had her straddle him, again using chains to keep her legs parted and keeping her suspended with her opening hovering just above his member.

Getting some inkling of what he was planning, Xanna realised that this could be fun. There were still some powers that she could use even if she was immobilised like this, but they would almost certainly cause him serious injury. There was also no denying the fact that this bold and aggressive move excited her and she wanted to see what he was up to.

She let out a soft groan as he set her down so that her nether lips were just barely sitting on his rod, not enough to cause any penetration but enough to be a terrible tease. She tried to move herself further down, wanting to take him inside her, but he wouldn't let her move no matter how much she wiggled or struggled against the chains. The only thing she accomplished was to get herself even more aroused from the feel of the head of his shaft rubbing against her.

Naruto meanwhile had to struggle hard to not let a frustrated groan escape him from her wiggling. This was going to be harder than he thought. Looking over at the struggling demoness made him smirk at her struggling. It felt good to know that he was now much closer to his goal, not to mention the fact that he liked the idea of being capable of truly restraining her. Spotting the mostly empty tub of ice cream gave him yet another idea about what to do with her now that he had her at his mercy.

Xanna stiffled a suprised cry at the sudden feeling of cold on her right nipple. Apparently Naruto had taken the opportunity to apply some of the leftover ice cream to her breasts. A moan escaped her as his hot tongue slowly licked off the small bit of ice cream. When it was gone, he repeated the process with the other nipple. He kept teasing her like this until all of the ice cream was gone, which wasn't too long, but it felt torturously long for the demoness.

Her legs were shuddering due to being very close to an orgasm from his ministrations and she had already drenched his member with her fluids. When he suddenly and without warning slammed her down so that she was completely impaled on him, a roar that sounded anything but human ripped itself out of her throat.

Slumping onto his chest and gasping for breath from the force of her orgasm, she was only given a few moments of respite before the blond began thrusting into her again. Since Naruto had only barely managed to restrain his own orgasm when she had clenched around him, it didn't take long before he was filling her up.

Xanna was once again taken by surprise by the reaction of her body and only prevented herself from screaming because she sank her teeth into the juncture between his neck and shoulder. The chains released her when he came, but she still couldn't move due to the shudders wracking her body. His seed tingled and burned inside her, prolonging the already intense orgasm until it left her unable to do anything except moan around the flesh in her mouth.

Distantly she noted that his skin had now proven to be remarkably difficult to break with her teeth.

He shifted slightly, causing his once again hard shaft to rub against her hypersensitive nether lips,this in turn caused her to bite down harder with a groan. His blood flooded her mouth, making her feel as if she'd just bitten down on a power plant.

Naruto raised an eyebrow as the demoness on top of him didn't recover, but instead seemed to be dazedly drinking his blood like a drunken vampire and generally acting as if she was a bit high. Still, he couldn't prevent a massive grin from forming on his face, his ego skyrocketing. Every man liked to see his woman satisfied with their performance and Naruto knew that Xanna was quite a bit harder to satisfy than other women.

When the demoness finally got her senses back, she gave the already healed bite marks a few licks to clean the blood off and then just rested her head on his shoulder.

If I'd known that having sex with a sage was like this, I would have seriously considered raping the Shodai Hokage. She thought to herself with a silly grin on her face. It was impossible to be in anything but a good mood when you're nearly knocked unconscious because the sex was just that good.

"What's this about raping the Shodai?" Naruto's amused voice asked. The mental image of Senju Hashirama, renowned as one of the most powerful men to have ever lived, getting raped was pretty ridiculous. It was even funnier because Xanna would have had more than a fair chance of pulling it off.

The demoness snapped out of her mellow daze at the words.

"You heard that?" She asked in shocked disbelief, sitting up in his lap and ignoring the fact that she was still impaled on him.

"Of course I did." Naruto answered with some confusion. She hadn't exactly been quiet after all.

I didn't say anything beloved, I only thought it. She thought again, projecting it towards him as much as she was able. She didn't exactly have any practice with a two way mind link, which seemed to be what they had on their hands.

The blond furrowed his brows in confusion. He had clearly heard the words and yet her lips hadn't moved. Now that he thought about it, it had sounded kind of strange. He'd ignored it the first time, but now that he could clearly see that she wasn't physically speaking, he easily noticed the difference between normal and mental speech.

Are you telling me that I can finally read your mind?! He projected towards her as loudly as possible.

Xanna rolled her eyes at his excited mental yell. Despite everything he'd done and how powerful he had become, Naruto still had his stupid moments. She was pretty sure that she had already told him that the mind link didn't allow them to just read each other's minds with impunity, but there would be time to talk about that later.

"Enough about that, we can figure out the mind link later." She said firmly and then barred her fangs in challenge. "Right now, I'm going to ride you until your balls are the size of raisins!"

Naruto barred his own teeth at her, eagerly answering that challenge. "No you won't, because I'm going to pound you until you're bloated and making sloshing noises every time you move!" He said with a snarl and surged out of his sitting position, driving the demoness into the floor with enough force to damage it.

Her answering snarl and the claws cutting into his back as she tried and failed to get out from under him only served to excite him further.

The demoness struggled furiously against him only to see that he had her pinned down too well. She swore to herself that he wouldn't be allowed to get the drop on her like this for round three. Until then, she would just enjoy her lover's newfound ferocity.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Much, MUCH later.

The two lovers lay together, the redhead spooned against the blond, still connected.

Xanna had her eyes closed as she ran a hand over her bloated stomach, just enjoying the tingling of his Senjutsu chakra saturated sperm inside her. She could have long since absorbed it, but it felt far too pleasant to do so just yet. Naruto needed to use his rod to keep her plugged to prevent any leaking, but that was certainly something that she wasn't going to complain about.

A larger and paler hand rested itself over her own and the demoness 'heard' him thinking if this was what she would look like if she was pregnant.

Xanna had to smile at the sappy thoughts going through his head. She might have a perfect simulation of a female reproductive system, but she could not replicate the ability to create life. She did not ovulate, or menstruate or do anything related to reproduction for that matter. Her womb was for all intents and purposes just a place for him to deposit his release.

Xanna knew that Naruto was aware of this and that he didn't care. To him she was perfect and nothing could make him think any different. His passing thoughts about her being pregnant were just a result of post-coital bliss.

And bliss it was, for both of them. The sudden awakening of the mind link had allowed them to make love in both body and mind, the pleasure that one of them felt being shared by the other in an endless loop.

Considering that Naruto had become capable of hearing her thoughts just after he had released into her for the first time while in Sage Mode, she was almost sure that it had something to do with that. Oh well, the how wasn't that important in the end. The fact that the mental connection was fully established was more important, not to mention just how much better it made the sex.

They had no idea just how long they had been at it, having completely lost track of time in their sexual frenzy, but judging by the damage done to the apartment, as well as the many stains from blood and other bodily fluids, it had been quite a while.

The redheaded demoness sighed in happy contentment at the love and devotion she could feel from her lover. There was no paradise or rest for her at the end of the road, but she had found her own paradise in the arms of the blond that now held her. There was even more cause for happiness, as she could feel the tremendous life force that he exuded now, much greater than it had been before his training as a sage. She couldn't be certain, but she strongly suspected that he had accidentally extended his life by several centuries with his little natural energy absorbing stunt. No doubt her violently pleasurable reaction was because of the relatively miniscule amount of life force carried in his seed. That hadn't been there before.

It gave her hope that he truly would find a way to become immortal and stay with her forever.

"Will you marry me now?" Naruto asked into her ear and pressed himself against her a bit more firmly.

Making a small noise of pleasure at the movement, the demoness smiled and asked a question of her own in a teasing tone. "You think you're strong enough already?"

"I was able to overpower you wasn't I?" The blond asked with a satisfied smirk.

"You're assuming that I wasn't just letting you think that." The smirk on her face was practically audible.

"I can read your mind now remember? I know that you weren't letting me do anything." Naruto countered with a grin, enjoying their wordplay.

"You're assuming that I wasn't purposefully projecting those thoughts to you." She said back, her smirk widening.

"You can't do that." Naruto said firmly, but she could detect the hint of uncertainty in it.

"Can't I?"

Naruto frowned in thought, doubts popping up in his head about whether she could or could not do something like that. He was the rookie as far as mind links went, so for all he knew, she could do something like that.

Focusing on her again, he could detect the amusement bubbling just under the surface.

"You're just messing with me aren't you?" He asked, trying to scowl, but the grin pulling at his lips made it impossible.

"Am I?" By this point, Xanna was having serious trouble not bursting into laughter.

"Stop asking those damn psychotherapist questions woman!" Naruto demanded with the best stern tone he could manage at the moment, which was not very stern at all.

"Will I?"

A moment of silence passed before Naruto groaned and chuckled at the ridiculous conversation, with Xanna losing the battle against her own amusement right after him.

"So, was I actually able to overpower you?" He asked seriously once their amusement had subsided.

"I suppose you did." She admitted. "Though in my human form, much of my chakra is used to sustain the complexity of this form and keep the rest of my power hidden."

"I would think that it would be harder to sustain the body of a giant nine tailed fox." Naruto commented.

"You would think that wouldn't you?" She said with a grin before explaining. "Despite appearances, the giant fox body is actually rather simple. In that form, I have no gender, no organs, no blood nor anything else of note really. It is basically just a physical manifestation of my power and not much more complex than your chains, though it is on a much greater scale. All nine Bijuu have a default form that was given to us by the Sage of Six Paths. The Ichibi and Nibi have too little chakra to create a corporeal body for themselves without an outside medium, one using sand and the other fire respectively. The Sanbi and up can create their own bodies, but their minds have long since reverted to their base instincts due to them lacking the chakra to sustain complex thought."

"So you're basically saying that you're much more powerful as a giant fox?" Naruto asked.

"But of course, though I will admit that you've become very strong." She responded.

"So will you marry me?" Naruto asked, going back to his original question.

Xanna hummed to herself and wiggled against him, giving a happy sigh when he held her closer.

"Well, I did say that I would only marry someone who was my equal in power." She said lightly.

"I've come to the conclusion that you only said that to get me off your back." Naruto stated with authority.

"Oh? If that is so, then why are you still trying to get stronger?" She asked with a raised eyebrow which he couldn't see in their current position.

Oddly enough, he was actually right for the most part. When this whole thing had gotten started, she had no intention of marrying him, so she had given him an impossible task, only for the stubborn blond to bulldoze his way into her heart.

Funny, how things work out sometimes. She was actually seriously considering if she should just agree to become his wife in spite of the fact that he wasn't as strong as her yet. She had stopped doubting that he would find a way eventually anyway.

"Well, I figured that it didn't really matter as long as I got you to agree to become my wife."

Xanna's shoulders shook with laughter at his reasoning. "You're worse than a rabid wolverine Naruto."

"Much worse." Naruto agreed easily, his mouth set into a wide grin. "So you might as well just give in and marry me already.

Xanna hummed to herself again and considered what she should say. She loved him dearly and certainly had no objection to being married to him at this point, not to mention that he had become quite impressively powerful.

Making her choice, the demoness gave her answer.

"Well, I would like to marry you, truly I would," She said in a mournful tone that she was sure Naruto could tell was faked. "but I don't agree with the 'til death do us part' part of marriage, so you're just going to have to do something about that first."

"You know I intend to do that anyway. You're giving me a hard time over this on purpose aren't you?" Naruto accused suspiciously.

"Would I do a thing like that?" She asked innocently.

"Yes." The blond deadpanned back at her instantly. He didn't buy that innocent tone for a second.

"You're right of course." She agreed."It's the small things in life, such as giving your favorite human a hard time, that makes life bearable for superior beings such as myself." She finished with deliberate arrogance.

Naruto responded by forcefully thrusting his fully erect member into her, making her give a surprised cry. She was just glad that she had absorbed all of the sperm that had been inside her during the conversation, otherwise that thrust would have caused it to spurt out of her rather spectacularly.

"Well, if that's the case I'm sure you'll like it when this favorite human gives you a hard time of a different sort." He said with a suggestive leer.

"Your puns really suck Naruto." She retorted, suppressing a groan when he rolled on top of her for easier access.

"Keep talking and I'll give you something to suck on." The blond shot back while lifting the demoness onto her knees so that he could push himself all the way inside her.

"I'm going to make you regret saying that." Xanna said ominously, manifesting her tails and using them to push him off balance so that she could rapidly take the top position. He was prevented from taking control again as her tails kept him pinned down on his back.

Naruto had long since deactivated the strength seals, so their physical strength was now about equal and his spread eagle position didn't allow any leverage.

Despite his disadvantageous position, he didn't stop struggling. If his demoness thought that he was just going to let her do as she pleased like he had as a clueless sixteen year old, then she had another thing coming. He was taking control of the situation as soon as an opportunity presented itself.

She was sexy as hell when she was snarling like a wild animal while he ravaged her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Uzuki Yuugao, also known as Cat in ANBU, approached the door to the apartment of Uzumaki Naruto carefully.

It wasn't that she was expecting to be attacked or anything, but she'd been hearing some rumors about the blond Uzumaki and there was no sense in taking chances. Most of the time, ANBU such as herself wouldn't bother with this kind of caution inside the village, but Naruto had a reputation by now.

For one thing, most Konoha shinobi had figured out by now that he was one of the most powerful ninja in the village in addition to being a seal master and it was usually a bad idea to just enter through the window with people like that. Additionally, it had been her squad that had found him after his near fatal accident during a Ninjutsu experiment and she had seen the damage his incomplete technique had done.

Which was why she was going to approach slowly and knock on the door instead of just showing up out of nowhere.

Knocking on the door produced no answer, even after the second time she did it, so she just tried to open it. To her surprise it swung open easily.

The scene that greeted her was something that had her instantly drawing her sword and standing in a ready stance in case the attackers were still there.

What had once been a rather nice apartment was now a battlefield. There were claw marks all over the walls, splattered liberally with bloodstains. The furniture was in a similar state, though some of it also appeared to be broken with blunt force.

The ANBU operative silently kneeled down to inspect a piece of cracked and broken flooring in the next room. It looked as if someone's back had been slammed into it. There was also blood around the damaged area that looked as if it had trickled there from a small height. Two smaller areas of broken flooring gave the distinct impression that someone had made them by pressing their knees into the floor too hard.

All together it painted the picture of one person being pushed into the floor while another was laying on them and using their knees as a point of leverage. Yuugao felt her blood boil, because every bit of evidence painted a picture of a woman being raped and fighting back as much as she was able. She had seen things like this before, though usually on bare earth and even then the markings were much fainter.

Still, she did her best to keep her head cool and not jump to any conclusions. Despite his reputation as a raging pervert, there had never been any accusations of sexual harassment or similar behavior made against the Uzumaki.

Moving towards what she guessed was the bedroom(the piece of wall missing from the door frame was something of a clue), she came upon the cause of the devastated apartment and it caused her to sweatdrop heavily behind her mask, along with lowering her sword.

Most of what she could see was a mass of red and blond connected to two naked bodies, with the male one lying half on top of the female one and half on his side. The bed they were on looked as if it was one good shake away from collapsing, what with all the claw marks and places where it looked as if someone had ripped chunks out of it with brute force. Both of them were snoring rather loudly, which made her wonder how she hadn't heard it before.

Out of curioisty she took a step back and the sound immediately cut off. Yuugao figured that Fuinjutsu of some sort was involved, though she had never heard of a sound blocking seal before.

Unknown to Yuugao, Naruto had developed it because all the complaints about the noises coming from his apartment had started getting on his nerves.

Somewhat disgusted by the lack of situational awareness even if they were in Konoha, Yuugao moved back into the room to wake the blond and inform him that he was to report to the Hokage's office.

"Uzumaki-san." She called in a normal tone of voice, expecting him to wake up. Considering the fact that most shinobi would have woken up the moment that she entered the room, or even the apartment, this wasn't an unreasonable expectation.

It was however unfulfilled, as both blond and redhead continued snoring, much to the incredulous disgust of the purple haired intruder.

"Uzumaki-san." She said, louder this time.

In response, Naruto grumbled something, sounding more like a sleepy lion than a man for reasons that Yuugao didn't know.

Now starting to get angry, Yuugao stepped closer and called out to him again, a good deal louder this time. "Uzumaki-san!"

Her irritation had caused her to drop her guard, which, along with her proximity, did not give her a chance to react when chains shot out of the blond's back and dragged her onto the bed. In short order she was manhandled into a spread eagle position, two pairs of slitted eyes boring into her from one side each, one crimson and the other gold-orange.

Her right hand was pinned down by Naruto's forearm on her wrist and his armpit on her biceps, while her right leg was kept immobile by his own right leg. Her other side was similarly occupied by Xanna. A brief struggle proved that her strength was far less than theirs.

Yuugao had no idea what the hell had happened to the Uzumaki's blue eyes, but the predatory light in them was unnerving her severely. She assumed that the change in eye color as well as the markings on his face had something to do with the Kyuubi.

"What do you want?" Naruto asked her, his voice rumbling with irritation at being woken from his nap. There had been very little sleep for him lately and he was not happy about having it interrupted. Not that he was complaining about the lack of sleep, considering the reason for that, but this random ANBU visit did not count among the things that he didn't mind losing sleep over.

"Hokage-sama sent me to get you. You were supposed to report to her office an hour ago." Yuugao said as neutrally as she could, ignoring the growl in his voice. The initial fright and adrenaline rush from getting chained up and having those creepy eyes aimed at her had mostly dissipated upon seeing that he was fully in control of himself. Now however, she was starting to feel deeply uncomfortable about being pinned under two naked people, both of them reeking of sex.

"The hell does Tits want this early in the morning?" Naruto grumbled to himself and yawned, giving Yuugao an up close view of his disturbingly sharp teeth. There was a foggy notion in his mind about needing to show up soon in Tsunade's office for...something. Mental clarity was currently buried under two days of sex and sleep deprivation, combined with the fact that he had only recently woken up.

"It's noon Uzumaki-san." Yuugao said with a sweatdrop and then continued in a scolding tone." And you shouldn't refer to Hokage-sama so disrespectfully."

During this conversation, Xanna had been curiously peering at the ANBU mask, but had gotten bored of it by now, so she grabbed hold of it and removed it.

Yuugao glared at the redhead that had dared remove her mask. ANBU were always supposed to remain masked while on duty and it was considered shameful to have the mask removed by force. "Give me my mask back and let me up." She hissed at them.

She hadn't made any demands to be let up so far because Uzumaki had still looked mostly asleep until now, which meant that his restraining act must have been instinctive. Despite the awkwardness of the situation she had been pleased to note that he wasn't completely oblivious to his surroundings, but now that her mask had been removed, things had crossed a line.

"I say we rape her for interrupting us." Xanna said musingly, running a clawed finger down Yuugao's cheek.

The purple haired woman's eyes snapped over to the redhead in shock, her mouth hanging open as she tried and failed to say something. She couldn't comprehend that something like that had come from the mouth of a fellow female and it left her unable to respond.

Naruto had no such impediment as he started chortling at the suggestion, remembering the incident with Ino. He was almost certain that the sexy demoness was just messing with their 'guest', but the look on the purple haired woman's face was just too damn funny.

"First Ino and now her? Are you going to suggest we bend Tsunade over her desk next?" The blond asked with amusement.

Xanna's eyes gleamed at his words, deeply unnerving the still silent Yuugao. "An excellent suggestion beloved. That silly girl was rather unsatisfying." She absolutely loved the fact that Naruto liked to play these mind games on people with her. Making fun of humans like this had always been an endless source of amusement.

Yuugao didn't know that it was just a rather cruel and unusual joke, so her mind started coming up with images of the young Yamanaka clan heiress being raped by these two deviants. She didn't believe that someone as powerful as Tsunade could end up in a situation like that...though she hadn't thought that it could happen to her this easily either.

"Let go of me." Yuugao hissed angrily at her two captors. She was reporting the both of them to the Hokage as soon as possible.

"Oh calm down will you? We didn't do anything to Ino and we won't do anything to you, so don't get your panties in a twist. It was just a joke." Naruto said to the angry woman with an eye roll.

"Some joke." Yuugao shot back, still pissed. "And let me up already!"

"Whatever," Naruto said with an uncaring shrug. "I'd rather rape Xanna again anyway." He finished with a leer at his lover.

"You took away my fun with this one, so I'm going to rape you first." The demoness said back, her eyes narrowed at her lover, the woman under her almost forgotten already.

"I'd like to see you try, especially since the rape score is 101 for me and 99 for you." The blond countered, giving her a challenging grin that was more a show of teeth than amusement.

Rape score?! Yuugao thought to herself incredulously.

Xanna snarled at him at the reminder of her defeat, even if it wasn't exactly in combat. Her pride would not allow her to take that challenge lying down, so she launched herself at the blond, the ANBU under her completely forgotten. Before the day was out, that score would be turned back to her favor.

Despite her seeming irritation though, she was having a lot of fun. He was the first human she had ever met that she could play these kinds of rough games with. Anyone else would have died either of wounds or exhaustion, not to mention that most didn't even have the stomach for it.

Yuugao could do nothing but watch uncomprehendingly as the two naked lovers went at each other with more viciousness than you'd expect to see in a shinobi battle. They were snarling and tearing at each other with claws and fangs while they grappled for position, ripping apart everything around them and and splattering blood everywhere.

When Naruto managed to use his superior size to seize the advantage and press the redhead face forward into a wall, Yuugao snapped out of her daze and focused on the reason that she'd been sent to the lair of the two clearly insane perverts.

"HEY!" She shouted, just in time to stop Naruto from apparently adding another point to his 'rape score'.

Naruto and Xanna froze and turned their heads to glare at the person interrupting them. Couldn't the woman tell that they were in the middle of something?! The nerve of some people.

The purple haired ANBU suppressed the urge to flinch at the creepy dual glare and pressed on with her mission, all the while also keeping her eyes carefully averted from the very large, throbbing manhood that was aimed between the redhead's legs.

"You're supposed to report to Hokage-sama right away." She said, seriously flustered by all the weird shit that had happened within such a short amount of time.

The dual glare remained fixed on her for several moments longer before Naruto grunted and spoke "Shower."

Yuugao sighed in relief at the fact that they were apparently going to restrain themselves.

The wet squelching noise and loud female cry disabused her of that notion. All she saw was the blond's broad back as he apparently marched over to the bathroom with his lover impaled on his member the whole time, with the woman herself squirming on it and attempting to free herself.

Yuugao really hadn't wanted to know, but judging by how wet that had sounded, not to mention that the cry hadn't sounded pained at all, the redhead was seriously getting off on this.

She quickly put her mask back on and left the apartment, glad that her flaming blush would be hidden. She had done what her Hokage had asked of her and informed Uzumaki that he was to show up in her office. She didn't care if he took another day to finally show up, but she was never coming back to this apartment, for any reason, ever again. Tsunade would just have to send someone else to get the damn pervert away from his equally perverted lover.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tsunade was currently leveling an irritated glare on Naruto. The reason for this was because he had neglected to show up on the agreed upon time to hear what the toads had decided to do about his summoning contract, forcing her to send ANBU to fetch him and even then he had taken two hours to arrive. Cat had returned within thirty minutes of being sent to get him, but had been oddly reluctant to speak of the encounter beyond confirming that Naruto was coming.

Naruto himself had decided to turn Sage Mode off for now. He'd kept it up for the past two days and hadn't noticed any particular side effects, except for the fact that it increased his aggression while it was active. Needless to say, he loved it, but he figured that Jiraiya and Tsunade might need to see him activating it before he walked into the office with his eyes a burning gold-orange with slitted pupils.

"Is there any particular reason that you decided not to show up to a meeting where your continued association with the toad summons would be decided?" Tsunade asked pointedly.

The busty Hokage was baffled as to why he would seemingly blow off something this important. Naruto had always been on time to everything before and she knew that he hated to waste time, so this sudden Kakashi-ish behavor was very strange.

"Well, it's not that I decided not to show up, I just really lost track of time. I didn't even know what day it was before that ANBU showed up at my place." Naurot explained with a stupid grin on his face. He couldn't push that grin down no matter how much he tried(not that he tried very hard mind you). It had been the best two days of his life so far.

"What the hell have you been doing for the past two days if you couldn't even tell what day it was?" Jiraiya asked incredulously.

"I've been continuously raping Xanna." The blond stated with absolute seriousness.

The two Sannin opened their mouths several times, trying to say something, only to close them again. They honestly didn't know what to say to that.

"What?" Jiraiya finally said, more for the purpose of actually saying something than anything else really.

"Don't worry, she was raping me right back. It was awesome." Naruto responded with a grin.

"For two days?" Jiraiya asked in an awed whisper while Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.

"Why couldn't you just say that you made love or had sex or hell, even fucked? Why do you feel the need to give people such a terribly wrong idea?" The busty Hokage asked, doing her best to prevent her hand from flying into a punch towards one of the two perverts in range.

"Trust me Tsunade, if you saw it, you'd definitely agree that we were raping each other." Naruto told her with some condescension.

Tsunade stared at her most insane subordinate for several long moments before she spoke. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Nothing is wrong with me Tsunade, for my drill is the drill that pierces the heavens." He said back, making an incredibly overdramatic pose as he pointed a finger at the sky. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, my definition of heaven is between Xanna's legs." He added with another grin.

Tsunade was once again reduced to just staring at her fellow blond stupidly before speaking. "I repeat, what the hell is wrong with you?!"

Naruto snickered at the woman. Damn but he was in a good mood today, despite his lack of sleep.

Jiraiya meanwhile was rapidly writing in his omnipresent notebook before looking at his godson. "That was great! May I use that?" He asked.

"Be my guest, but make sure to give me credit, along with ten percent of the profits from the book it's in." Naruto said with a shrug.

"TEN PERCENT?! That's way too much!" Jiraiya protested loudly.

"I didn't give you any crap about the fact that you used me for inspiration several times already, so you've already come out ahead. Either you agree to the ten percent or you're not allowed to use that line in your books." Naruto countered.

"I'll think about it." The toad Sannin grumbled, muttering to himself about disrespectful students not respecting their sensei.

"Can we get to the goddamn point of this meeting?" Tsunade growled out with a twitching eyebrow. She was seriously going to kill the two perverts one day. Why the hell were so many of the people she was close to perverts anyway?!

"Hey, don't be mad at me, you were the one that started this conversation." Naruto felt the need to point out.

"Will one of you just summon Fukasaku already?!" The female Sannin snapped.

Seeing that his old teammate was about to go into a punching rampage, Jiraiya quickly moved to summon the old toad sage.

"It was about time Jiraiya-chan! I expected you to summon me hours ago!" The newly arrived toad griped.

"Sorry about that Pa, we've had some...hehe...delays." Jiraiya explained with a grin and a quickly suppressed giggle.

"Well, the toads have come to a decision about...Naruto-chan's..." The diminutive toad started and trailed off once he laid eyes on the blond in question.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the shocked and vaguely horrified look that the elderly toad was leveling at him. "What?"

"Naruto-chan...what have you done?" He whispered.

"Huh?" Was Naruto's intelligent reply. "What are you talking about?"

"The natural energy you've absorbed, what have you done to it?" Fukasaku snapped impatiently, his eyes still fixed on the now permanently visible and modified Reaper Death Seal.

The two Sannin, Jiraiya in particular, were surprised at Fukasaku's tone of voice. It wasn't really out of the ordinary for the old toad to be cranky, but he sounded seriously upset and angry.

"Well you said that you sensed it changing, so I sped up the process." Naruto answered with a shrug. He didn't see what the big deal was.

"To this?! Can you even go into Sage Mode with the natural energy bein' warped like that?"

"Sure I can, it's just not the Toad Style Senjutsu." Naruto said with a grin.

"Not Toad Style Senjutsu?" Jiraiya and Tsunade echoed in confusion. They were completely clueless here and it didn't sit well with them.

"Go into Sage Mode for me then, I want to see what ya've done." Fukasaku said with a sigh, hiding his aphrehension. The things that he was sensing from Naruto right now left him feeling deeply disturbed.

With another shrug, Naruto released the blocks that held the natural energy contained inside the seal, easily balancing it with his chakra. It seemed almost eager to return to being melded with his chakra.

The three observers stayed quiet as an almost palpable aura of menace started to emanate from the blond Uzumaki. The formerly unobtrusive orange pigmentation of a Toad Sage were now a series of black markings that only made the predatory cast of his face more prominent and the slitted gold-orange eyes certainly didn't help.

"What do you think? It's great isn't it?" Naruto asked with a grin, bringing one of his hands up to show the deadly claws that now tipped his fingers.

The two Sannin and the small toad suppressed their instinctive defensive reaction to the growl permeating the words, but couldn't prevent a small tensing, as if they were expecting to be attacked at any moment. It was a gut reaction to being in the presence of a dangerous predator and couldn't be helped.

Jiraiya and Tsunade now had a pretty good idea why Fukasaku had been so upset earlier. He must have sensed just how far Naruto had deviated from the teachings of the toads. This must be more or less the exact opposite of what they had been teaching him.

"Great?! You think this is great?!" Fukasaku burst out angrily.

"Well...yeah." Naruto replied in confusion. He honestly didn't understand what the old geezer of a toad was so upset about.

"This is a perversion of everything I taught you! A perversion of everything the toads stand for! You took almost all the natural energy that Myobokuzan had and corrupted it!" The old toad yelled at his former Senjutsu student, unable to keep hold on his temper any longer.

"I didn't corrupt anything you senile old wart! This is just what feels the most natural to me, you're just pissed because it's not what you wanted me to learn!" He snapped back, his temper roused by the confrontational old amphibian.

"Do you really think I'm that petty?! You have no idea what you've done, what kind of sacrilege you've committed!"

"Sacrilege?!" Naruto asked incredulously. "You're talking as if natural energy was something holy. All it is, is the run off life force of everything that has ever lived and died on this world. Don't be so fucking dramatic." He finished disdainfully.

"Look at you, a sage for less than a week and you already think you know everything! How arrogant and conceited can you be?! There is more to being a sage than just exploiting the power it gives you! This so called 'Sage Mode' of yours is an insult to every sage that has ever lived and a disgusting violation of nature." The toad elder shouted angrily.

Naruto had been trying to stay calm up to this point, but he had just about enough of this shit.

"I don't give a damn about what a senile old bastard like you has to say! You've spent so long on that mountain, catching flies with your tongue that you can't even deal with the fact that I did something different! I hated Toad Style Senjutsu, it always felt wrong! This finally feels right and I don't care if I had to dry fuck your precious 'nature' up the ass for it! If I could go back, I'd do the exact same thing all over again!" He roared back at the small amphibian.

The two glared at each other for several tense moments, both breathing hard. Fukasaku had a tight grip on his staff and Naruto's fingers were twitching as if he was barely holding himself back from swinging his claws at the toad.

"Uzumaki Naruto is no longer a toad summoner. His name is to be removed from the scroll immediately." Fukasaku intoned solemnly and vanished back to Myobokuzan.

Naruto snarled at the spot where the toad had been a moment ago, sounding more like one of the giant tigers in the Forest of Death than a man. He only spared the two Sannin a glance before he stormed out of the office. He needed some serious stress relief right now he hoped that a certain redhead wouldn't mind if he was a bit rough, it was either that or destroying a training field.

As soon as he was gone, Tsunade and Jiraiya shakily collapsed into a chair each and wiped the sweat from their foreheads.

"That was scary." Tsunade said, pulling out a bottle of sake and drinking deeply from it before passing it to Jiraiya, who did the same thing.

"Yeah." The toad Sannin agreed wholeheartedly. "I think I may have made a mistake when I offered to let Naruto learn Senjutsu."

"Really? What was your first clue?" Tsunade asked sarcastically.

Jiraiya didn't react to the scathing tone, he knew that was just how Tsunade was coping with it. She had always reacted with anger first.

"What are we going to do about this now?" She asked, much more calmly.

"I don't think there's anything we can do. We can't make him unlearn Senjutsu and despite how much that outburst of his scared me, I don't think Naruto would turn traitor." Jiraiya reasoned.

"But his eyes...they look so much like Orochimaru's." Tsunade said softly, worried that her fellow blond would go down the same path. Orochimaru had been a friend and teammate, someone precious to her and yet he had turned out to be such a monster. She didn't want that happening again.

"I know, but all we can do is hope that it doesn't happen that way." He replied grimly.

"But what if it does?" She persisted.

"I hope it doesn't, because I'm not sure if I could bring myself to kill him. To be honest, I don't think I'm capable of it anymore." Jiraiya admitted. "I'm not as strong as I used to be and he's in the prime of his life. Now that he's fully mastered Senjutsu and found a way to keep it active indefinitely, he has an big advantage against me and I don't think it's going to take him very long to figure out how to power up his Ninjutsu with it either."

Tsunade said nothing. Her main combat strength was in her super strength enhanced Taijutsu and Naruto had been capable of overpowering her even without Senjutsu. She couldn't even imagine how strong he was now that he had that as well as the strength enhancing seal he had developed. That wasn't even considering the fact that he also knew how to open at least some of the eight gates.

For all that Jiraiya had been the dunce during their youth, he was now the strongest of the Sannin, with Orochimaru very close behind, if he felt that he couldn't beat Naruto anymore, then she had no chance at all.

If Naruto ever turned against them, they would likely need to throw everything that Konoha had at him and he would probably take most of those fighting him down with him. The fortitude enhancing properties of Sage Mode combined with his ridiculous healing factor and vast chakra reserves would see to it.

Speaking of healing factors..."Jiraiya, does Sage Mode grant any kind of increased healing?"

"The Toad Style does grant some, but not much." Jiraiya admitted.

"Do you think this strange Sage Mode of his does too?"

Jiraiya sighed and answered. "Probably more than the Toad Style. If I understood correctly, then Naruto has pretty much adapted the natural energy to himself, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it boosted all of his natural qualities, such as strength, toughness and his healing factor."

"So we're basically supposed to hope that he doesn't go Orochimaru on us, because we can't stop him if he does?" Tsunade asked, rubbing her forehead.

"Yeah, but fortunately, I haven't seen anything that would make me think he'd go that way aside from this argument with Fukasaku just now."

The two Sannin lapsed into silence, just drinking together and hoping that everything would turn out all right.

Unseen, a small insect stealthily left the room through a tiny hole in the wall, never drawing the attention of the two veteran shinobi.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto made his way to his basement, finally deigning to check up on Hidan.

Naruto knew that blowing up at Fukasaku like that had been a mistake. Losing control of your own emotions was always a mistake. If he couldn't control himself, then he damn sure wouldn't be able to control the things happening around him. No doubt that outburst had kickstarted some dangerous thoughts in the heads of Tsunade and Jiraiya.

Normally he would have covered his irritation at the toad by making perverted comments or playing up the ignorant act, but his new Senjutsu style seemed to have unseen pitfalls. He had been challenged and his blood had boiled at the idea of backing down.

After his infuriating argument with Fukasaku and his removal from the Toad Summoning Scroll, he had gone after Xanna with a vengeance. Fortunately, the demoness had been more than happy to accommodate him. She had even confessed that it made her feel happy to know that she could calm him down, which had in turn completely erased the last of his anger. What had followed could actually be called making love instead of the frenzied rutting they had been engaging in for the past couple of days.

After finally getting some sleep, he had decided that it was time to check up on his immortal guinea pig.

"Good morning Hidan, I hope you're not too stiff from being functionally dead for the past few weeks." Naruto greeted good naturedly and moved into the room without concern after he had deactivated all the Fuinjutsu traps. Hidan had been a rather underwhelming combatant even before he had become a sage. He could probably beat the Jashinist down with his index finger at this point.

The only warning that the blond received was the scent of something utterly unfamiliar before the prone body launched itself at him with speed and force far exceeding what Hidan had displayed during their battle.

Just before the silver haired man slammed into him, something of a blazing red color passed through his vision.