Chapter 82 On the trail

It had been over a week and already the united team had been on Jiraiya's trail. So far they had tracked him to several inns and a couple of towns. They were currently in a field one day away from their next target and from their information Jiraiya was most likely in the town. But it was getting late and Kakashi said that they would make camp before they got into the town as they would have all day then to start their search.

So the teams made camp as usual like they were used to but one particular female was in an open area practicing. Temari had her eyes closed as she moved in slow practiced movements with her fan fully extended. She swept it in very practiced movements, movements that had been burned into her muscle memory as she imagined the flow of her body. It looked like a complex fan dance to an outsider and in part it could be but in reality it was the Suna's fan style battle movements. She breathed in time with her movements as she was currently feeling the flow of chakra in her body.

Slowly her moves built up until she did a twist with her body and went a rush of deadly wind ahead of her the invisible wind sliced through the trees on the other side of the clearing sending the pieces crashing down.

She took a cleansing breath to look at her work from her view it wasn't bad. She was more used to using rocks as targets which were much tougher to cut through with a wind jutsu. Trees were much easier to cut so she wasn't sure how to judge the power of her attacks.

"Whoa that was cool," Naruto's voice jarred her from her thoughts as she quickly looked behind her with an annoyed look.

She had wanted to get in a little private practice plus the fact she hadn't even noticed him coming up on her also annoyed her. Both that he was able to do it and that she let it happen, if he had been an enemy she would have been killed.

"I'm busy," Temari told him folding up her fan looking away.

"Sorry but I really wanted to see you use your wind jutsu," Naruto told her honestly. "I mean I've never seen someone as good as you before, you're a hell of a lot better than I am." Naruto wasn't kidding the only other wind user he knew about was Asuma and he hadn't seen much of his skills in that.

Plus he figured that maybe if he appealed to her skills it might make her warm up to him. He had kind of made a bad impression on her and after getting to know her and her brothers more on this mission he felt that he didn't want to have her hating him. Plus maybe he could learn something from her it wasn't often he got the chance to talk about wind chakra with someone.

Temari paused as she listened to his compliment. "So you know wind chakra as well if I remember."

"Yeah I can do the wind blade with my sword easily enough but when I try this wind armor thing I keep screwing it up." Naruto jumped down to join her. "Every time I try it I can only get parts of my body to be covered like my arms but when I try my whole body I can't hold it."

Temari thought about it, "I've only heard of that technique so I can't really give you any hints on it really. It's supposed to cover your body in a protective wind shield. It's really hard to pull off because you have to hold it and yet have it flexible enough to move. You have to have lots of chakra and lots of control for it."

Naruto made a face at that last part, "Yeah that's my problem, every time I try to move it just kind of explodes."

Temari winced a wind jutsu that went wrong could be really dangerous. She had heard the horror stories of people both caster and bystander being shredded. "Maybe you should hold off on it until you get your concentration down."

"Yeah that's why I don't use it much anymore," Naruto muttered as he pulled his small sword out. "But at least I got this." He took a moment and concentrated thankful that the weapon was made to take chakra as it made this much easier. He slashed with the weapon as he used the wind slash technique. An invisible blade of wind travelled across the field making a slash mark into the ground and took three trees out.

"How's that?" Naruto asked grinning at her.

Temari nodded her head, "Not bad but how about this?"

The two of them spent the next ten minutes trying to show what they could do with their wind chakra, Naruto was eager to learn anything he could from her trying to get hints and advice from her. She really seemed to know a lot about wind chakra and as always he was eager to learn. Plus it was something they had in common and he hoped with this he could get a bit more friendly terms with her.

"Not bad your wind chakra is a little rough around the edges but with time and training that should work itself out. Although I'd put that wind armor of yours on the back burner until you're ready to use it."

Naruto pouted at that, "Isn't there a way to improve on it?"

"Not right away," She told him, "You can't force something like this it takes time to master. I can only think of three people off hand that even could pull that move off and I'm wondering how you even got it."

"My Dad got it."

"Ah," That explained a few things to her given that Kakashi Hatake most likely copied it from somewhere.

"I really wanted to learn it soon though," Naruto sighed.

Temari rolled her eyes, "Why are you in such a hurry? Don't you already got a wind technique and other techniques? Hell you got both shadow clones and those exploding ones, I hear they are still rebuilding from the last time you used it in the exams."

"That was to save the Old Man!" Naruto really hated how everyone kept brining up blowing up part of the stadium. It wasn't like there was anything else he could have done or anyone else could have done with that barrier put up. "But I wanted to learn more because I wanted to catch up to my dad."

Temari blinked at him, "Isn't he supposed to know a thousand jutsus?"

"Yeah which means I got a lot of catching up to do before I become Hokage."

Temari really didn't have anything to say about that she was at a loss for words not sure what was a more insane goal for himself. Trying to catch up to Kakashi Hatake or trying to become Hokage both goals weren't exactly the easiest to get to but the way he looked and sounded he really meant it. In the end she just shrugged it off if he wanted to try and go for it then she wasn't going to say anything.

Besides this afternoon showed that maybe he wasn't all bad after all.

-Village, Next Day-

The ninja group had arrived in the town that they felt that Jiraiya was supposed to be in. It was a decent sized place although they had spent the last few hours looking around for the usual spots that Jiraiya would usually hang out with. They soon found themselves outside of a hostess bar the bright paint and colors not to mention showing the images of women on posters out front you could hardly miss it.

"So...whose going in to see if he's in there?" Kankuro asked looking at others in the group. He noticed Naruto shift slightly as he was a little worried that Temari might still hold something about what he did by bringing Gaara into such a place. He had just finally managed to get the older girl to be on better terms with him.

"Well I supposed I'll have to since I'm the adult here," Kakashi sighed with his hands in his pockets.

Naruto chuckled at that, "I would have thought you would like something like this dad, or are you afraid that Aunt Anko will find out?"

Kakashi gave his son a sideways glance, "most likely differently than Hinata would if she found out what you and Gaara went to."

Naruto paled at that and nodded the little game he was playing just got turned around on him in a big way. Although it was for the mission he really didn't want to explain this part to Hinata if just because he didn't want her to think he went to places like this all the time even when he was dating her. Besides he was just making a joke it's not like he was going to tell Anko anything like that.

However Kakashi apparently didn't need to go in as the door slammed open as a big man in red with long spiky white hair came out looking slightly drunk with a woman way too young for his age wrapped around his arm. She was giggling about everything he said it seemed and he looked like he had been enjoying himself.

"Well that was easy," Naruto muttered at the sight.

"If it had been easy we would have found him in the first village," Sasuke commented dryly he was just glad that they had finally tracked him down.

"Okay you got a point," Naruto told him before taking a deep breath and yelled out. "Hey Ero-sennin I thought you liked older women who were blonde?"

Jiraiya for his part had been slightly enjoying himself before that yell broke him out of his thoughts on if he could get the girl back to his hotel room. He looked to where that familiar voice was with a slight glare there was only one person in the entire universe that would call him that and there he was. The little blonde boy with the mask on his face waving over to him, Jiraiya also noticed the others there as well.

The entire team was there with Kakashi as well as three other young ninja most likely from Suna if he remembered right. He sighed knowing that it was business time and he couldn't 'play' anymore.

"Sorry my dear but looks like I have to go back to work now." He told the woman taking his arm away from her.

"Awww do you really have to go?" She cooed at him.

"Sorry maybe another time," He grinned at her as he walked over to the group and placed his hands on his hips as he stood before them. "You couldn't find me just one more day later?"

"It took us long enough to find you as is," Kakashi told him. "You couldn't leave some kind of messages or way to contact you?"

Jiraiya only laughed, "I wouldn't be much of a spy master if I was easy to track down but I knew that Tsunade would send someone that could track me down eventually. So you're all here about my last report I sent in I take it, well we can't talk here out in the open. I got a room we can use in a hotel I'm staying at."

With that he lead them through the town eventually going to his hotel, it was a simple one that served his purposes as he led them all into his single room. It was a tight fit but they made it work he sat down on the ground as he dug through this things. Pulling out a scroll he opened it up onto the ground showing everyone a map of the county they there in. It was written in ink with marks and notes all over it.

"Ever since Orochimaru escaped I've put my contacts into find him." Jiraiya explained to them. "Took some time but after I got back from getting Tsunade to the village to lead it." He was interrupted by Naruto coughing. "Okay fine with help after getting Tsunade home I got a message from one of my contacts in this nation."

"Sound ninja have been sighted lot in his country which makes sense as it's a country without an official ninja village also after some digging I think the local lord is in his pocket. The man has gotten a hold of some extra income and certain enemies of his have disappeared the kind of disappearance that only a ninja could pull off."

"So he's set up shop here?" Kakashi asked.

Jiraiya shrugged. "Not sure even with all that, he's always been a slippery one and too damn smart to show his hand openly. At the very least he does have a presence here and we need to confirm if this is just some kind of outpost or secret base or if the Sound Village is really located here."

"If it's not the village then what is the plan?" Temari asked him knowing that both their villages planned to decimate the Sound Village for what they had done. If they confirmed the actually village then they would unit and crush it to dust. She knew that the smaller villages might see it as larger villages bullying around the smaller ones but Sound had attacked the Leaf and betrayed Suna both villages were in their right for revenge as the larger villages would see it.

Jiraiya had thought about it, "If it's just a small base we take it out there might be something there we can use which is why I wanted a team from both villages. This way Suna will learn everything we learn as we learn it. Plus I figured they would want a chance at some payback of their own although I didn't expect them to send you three."

"It was our father that was killed by Suna," Temari told them although she and her siblings would admit that their father had been more focus on being a leader than as a father. But despite everything he was their blood and he had been killed by Orochimaru. The fact that he had also fooled them and their entire village was also another sting they felt.

Jiraiya didn't say a word as he just nodded as he went back to the map. He pressed a finger into a large circle on the map.

"I've narrowed it down to this area."

"That's kind of a large area," Sasuke commented seeing it and if the map was to scale.

"To make matters worse the area is also a forest area," Jiraiya told him. "That means that there's plenty of places to hide in there. Not only that but it gives good cover for ninjas who want to move around hidden from view."

He leaned back stretching out, "All in all it's going to be a pain."

"Well at least we have an idea of where they might be in a whole country, that's something right?" Sakura asked trying to find the silver lining in all of this.

"Maybe so," Kakashi shrugged but it was still a big area. "Anyways you all get supplies we're going to need to stock up before we head on out."

Jiraiya sighed, "Well it was a nice break but I guess it's time to get back to work, Kakashi can I talk to you for a moment?"

Kakashi gave him a questioning look before nodding and sent the others off. When they were gone he closed the door behind them as he knew Jiraiya wanted to talk to him alone about something important but didn't want the others to hear. He sat down across from the old man as he rolled up his scroll and put it into a small sack.

"Something wrong?" Kakashi asked.

Jiraiya nodded, "Yeah a couple of things. First were you followed?"

Kakashi nodded, "I picked up a few tails while looking for you. I wasn't sure who they worked for but two of them I spotted but they are being smart about it. They keep switching up the tails so I'm not sure about the others but I get the feeling that eyes have been on us for some time now."

"Yeah I had a feeling about that, I had to shake several people spying on me since I got into this country it's one the reasons I stayed to look around. When someone is very interested in what you're doing or where you are it's a good sign that either they're looking for the same thing you are or trying to make sure what they got hidden is going to stay hidden."

"So it's a good bet that Orochimaru might know we're already here." Kakashi didn't ask it like a question more of a statement but Jiraiya nodded anyway. That was unfortunate since that meant they could face some stiff opposition if they got too close. "What's the other thing you wanted to talk about?"

This Jiraiya got a bit more serious, "While working out here I also picked up a few more interesting details. I've heard that Akatsuki has been a bit more active lately since they had the balls to actually go into Konoha. I heard that they've started looking for specific ninja in all the major nations and even in the smaller ones."

Kakashi remembered what they had been looking for when he had faced Itachi and lost. If they were close by then not only was his son in danger but Gaara as well. This could complicate the mission if they ran into that group and the thing he hated was that they weren't even sure who made up this group. He had been given access to the reports Jiraiya had made of this group given that Naruto was his son, but there was still too little information to know what could be coming.

Jiraiya could see the man across from him was deep in thought and it wasn't hard to know what it was that was keeping his mind occupied. He didn't envy the man, he had taken on Minato's son and Jiraiya had to admit that the man had been a great father for the boy. But he had also inherited many powerful enemies that would see harm to the boy. Not that he thought Kakashi would shy away from protecting Naruto hell he knew the man would give his life for the boy.

But this was a long hard road ahead of him to be a parent to such a boy but the thing was Naruto couldn't have his father protecting him all his life. Sooner or later the boy would have to grow up and stand on his own. The kid had talent but that talent needed to be forged into something that could become something really special.

Maybe it was time to have a talk with Kakashi about an idea of his that he had for Naruto.

While this was going on inside of the hotel outside of the hotel by a nearby building a single figure was standing in the shadows. He had been watching the hotel for some time now as he had been ordered to. He had been watching for the Leaf team to enter the village as one of Orochimaru's spies they all have been keeping a close eye on them but he hadn't expected to run into Jiraiya as well.

This was information that needed to get back to Orochimaru he would watch for an extra hour before reporting to his handler. He would than keep an eye on them and see what they were up to he quickly ducked back deeper into the shadows as he the six youths coming out. They were talking about something he couldn't hear from the distance away as they seemed to split up and move off in several different directions. He would wait for a moment to make sure they were well out of the area before slipping away to make his report.

-In a previous Village-

An old man was working his little book shop it was getting close to closing time and it had been a long day but at least he had decent sales for the day. Looking around the last customer had left thirty minutes ago, maybe he would close up early today he could use the rest. He was beginning to think of packing up when the door opened and two figures walked in.

He signed in annoyance he hated late customers as he always had to kick them out as they usually stayed too long. It was a long day so he never understood why some people waited until the last moment. He missed how one of them turned the sign on the door to from 'open' to 'close' as the other found some blinds by the window and pulled them down.

That got the old shopkeepers attention as he looked up, "hey don't touch that what the hell do you two think you're doing?"

He looked at the two tall figures they wore strange black coats with red cloud designs on them and wore large hats that hit their faces. They slowly came up to his counter and his anger slowly started to fade away as he started to worry now. The feeling he was getting off these two was making him very nervous now as he felt his throat go dry. One of the figures pushed up his hat just enough to get a look at part of a face.

The high collars on the coats hide the lower face but what he could see was what looked like a handsome young man with dark eyes but with two distinct lines below his face they weren't age lines more like some kind of facial feature. When he spoke it was in a deep and calm tone but there was nothing calming about his voice to the old man's ears.

"We were told a boy was in here, he was blonde most likely wearing a mask with orange markings on it." He said to him.

"I...I don't know what-" he was cut off by the other was the partner that hadn't spoke up suddenly grabbed him by his shirt.

"Don't pull that crap on us people saw him coming in here plus we found out he was headed this way." This man's voice was more gruff and threatening than the other man's.

"Kisame," The man said in warning.

"Itachi we can't keep screwing around with this guy," Kisame growled out still holding onto the man ready to go for the throat if the man even thought of yelling. Good thing he looked too scared to even try it. "We lost track of the brat when we left the Leaf Village and now that he's finally outside of it and we got on his trail again we can't let him get too far away again."

Itachi knew that after Konoha they had tried looking for Naruto even though they had found out he had been with Jiraiya looking for Tsunade of all people they had missed him. They had been a little too behind on the trail and by the time they had picked it up he had managed to get back to Konoha. That had been not only a disappointment but Kisame had been in a mood for a week after that.

So they had done a few jobs for the group that needed to be done after all they were an S Class criminal group that others hired when they didn't want to have any links back to them. But while on a mission they had been given a notice from their group that rumors about the Kyubi boy was outside of the village. They had been sent to investigate and here they were back on his trail and this time they didn't want to let him get away.

"I have an easier way of dealing with this," Itachi closed in on the man as he activated the sharingan. The three black tomes slowly started to move around as the old man's face suddenly went slack as his eyes went dead. It was a simple genjutsu that worked like hypnotism only much more powerful the weaker the mind the easier it was to get to the heart of the matter. It had been one of the reasons why the Uchiha police force had been so effective.

"Now listen to me was the boy we asked about here?" Itachi asked the old man.

"Yes," He said in a slow tone. "He was here with a red headed boy with a tattoo on his head and a tall blonde girl."

"Hey wasn't the one tail's host a kid with red hair and a tattoo?" Kisame asked remembering that description. They only knew of a few of the hosts so far but that description seemed to fit plus he remembered it as not many people had red hair and a tattoo on their head.

"What was the tattoo of?" Itachi asked wanting to be sure.

"It was a tattoo of the kanji for love," the man replied.

"Was that was the tattoo supposed to be?" Kisame asked Itachi to be sure.

Itachi nodded as that did fit what they knew all the teams were made aware of the other hosts just in case something like this happened. When another team ran across another target, they weren't supposed to actively go against targets by other teams were assigned. But this might be an opportunity to get both hosts for tailed beasts.

"If both are here and we get them it will piss off Sasori and Deidra," Kisame grinned showing his shark teeth.

"I care more about taking the Tailed Beasts," Itachi coldly said as he turned away. "We're closing in on them, if we hurry we should hopefully catch up to them."

"What about him?" Kisame asked nodded his head to the store keeper.

Itachi gave the man a silent look before turning his back and heading to the door. "Do what you think is best."

Kisame grinned like a shark as he reached up behind his shoulder for his sword.

Next up Chapter 20: Snake in the Grass