Ten Steps to Victory

Naruto left the Oto-nin and a few clones in a cave he had found, then went to search for Jiraiya. He found the inveterate drunk in a host club with a woman on either arm, red-faced and outrageously flirting with the girls. Naruto made sure to tip them well, blushing as they laughed at him dragging a protesting Jiraiya out of the club. Luckily, Jiraiya got serious as soon as Naruto told him what had happened. Naruto remembered how Jiraiya had pretended to go off with a pretty woman who Uchiha Itachi had placed under a genjutsu. Maybe Jiraiya’s behavior was all an act, or at least some of it was. Regular people couldn’t go from shitfaced to sober so quickly. Perhaps it was some kind of medical technique Jiraiya had gotten from Tsunade. Maybe he drank so much it barely affected him. Whatever it was, Naruto doubted he’d get a straight answer about it.

A cruel laugh broke through his thoughts, and Naruto blanched. He recognized the voice. He heard it in his nightmares.

Don’t waste your time thinking about stupid things, the kyuubi said. You can’t get drunk.

Naruto opened his mouth to reply, but stopped himself. If the kyuubi could talk in his thoughts, maybe the kyuubi could hear Naruto’s thoughts?

You’re not as dumb as you look, the kyuubi said mockingly. Now that the seal has weakened, I can do this.

Did you not want to before? It's been months since then, Naruto said. Whatever. Why can’t I get drunk?

Another consequence of the seal weakening, the kyuubi said, along with you maturing into your Uzumaki heritage. My chakra is entering your system at a higher volume, and coupled with your natural healing ability this means poisons and other harmful substances are less effective. Including alcohol. 

Was it like that for kaa-chan?  

The kyuubi didn’t respond, and Naruto could feel a wave of hatred at the mention of his mom. The kyuubi’s previous jailor. 

Naruto reached the cave, little more than a crack in an otherwise indistinguishable rock formation, and led Jiraiya inside. The clones he had left dispelled, leaving Naruto with several sets of rather mundane memories. Nothing had happened, except anxious waiting.

Jiraiya summoned a blue toad with tan legs. Naruto wasn’t sure what to expect from this new toad, but he certainly didn’t expect it to turn into an entire house. The toad's eyes turned into windows, and his mouth into a door, which creaked open to reveal a plain looking room. Jiraiya picked up the Oto-nin and carried her inside. Naruto followed, impressed by the toad’s transformation. 

“What is this?” he asked, watching in awe as the walls turned pink and fleshy. Jiraiya pressed the Oto-nin into one, and the flesh bulged out to lock her limbs into place. Naruto had seen much the same thing after Itachi had attacked Sasuke, when Jiraiya summoned the throat of a toad. He copied Jiraiya and gathered chakra to his feet so he wouldn’t get stuck to the floor.

“Gamamise,” JIraiya said. “You’ll have to learn how to speak toad, or at least understand it, if you want to work with him. Not all of the toads are able to speak our language.”

“Got it,” Naruto said. “Um, what are you going to do to her?”

Jiraiya had a cold look on his face, the same determination Naruto had seen when he had fought Itachi and Orochimaru.

“Getting information out of people isn’t always a pretty sight,” Jiraiya said. “I think you’re old enough now to see some of the dirtier things shinobi get up to in our line of work.”

“You’re talking about torture, right?” Naruto asked, glancing at the unconscious woman. He knew one of the branches in Konoha specialized in torture and interrogation. It wasn’t something he had ever thought he would have to do, or be a part of. He swallowed nervously, wondering if Jiraiya would ask him to assist. Naruto was the one who had captured this woman, so it was kind of his responsibility. 

“If it comes down to it,” Jiraiya said grimly. “She’s one of Orochimaru’s, so it’s likely she has training to resist ordinary interrogation methods.  Most shinobi won’t cave under simple intimidation.” Jiraiya glanced at Naruto, then walked towards the Oto-nin. “Stay back and watch. It’s time to wake her up.”

Later that night, Naruto carefully wrote down all he had learned in his new journal. It was filling up with notes about the toads of Mount Myoboku, because there were a ton of different toads living there. Gamamise, who could turn into a building. The gourd toads, who acted like living prisons. Jiraiya had summoned one to place the Oto-nin in. She was being taken to Konoha, to be delivered to Torture and Interrogation and the Yamanaka mind specialists. They were better equipped to extract information, as Jiraiya had put it, as all of Jiraiya’s threats and feathers had yielded nothing but silence. Naruto was concerned that Jiraiya had held back because he was watching.

The inside of a gourd toad was like another world. The one Jiraiya has summoned had a lake of acid in her stomach, interrupted by small rocky islands and larger pillars of rock. Restrained as she was, the Oto-nin wouldn't be able to leave until the toad spat her out. Someone strong enough could kill the gourd toad from inside their stomach, and Naruto had seen the black flames left by Itachi when he and Kisame had fled the fire-breathing toad’s throat. They were animals. Special, chakra-using summoned animals, true, but they could still be hurt and had vulnerabilities. Naruto didn’t want to get one of them killed by using them recklessly, or inconsiderately. So he had to get to know them better.

Once he was done writing, Naruto found his yukata and went down to the hot spring, where Jiraiya was waiting for him. He scrubbed all of the grime from the day off of himself. The dirt, the sweat. The blood. He dumped water over his head to drown out his thoughts, and, newly clean, slipped into the shared bath. 

“So,” Jiraiya said. “Your mission was a failure.”

Naruto flinched, but reluctantly nodded. “That guy said the clan fight was further north. I can go back tomorrow.”

“He might still be around,” Jiraiya said. “You said he talked about Jashin-sama?”

“Yeah,” Naruto said. “Have you heard of that?”

Jiraiya shrugged, leaning out of the water to pour himself more sake. “It’s a death cult in Yugakure, and that’s the most anyone knows about it. I haven’t heard about the guy you ran into.”

“Should we go to Yugakure to investigate?” Naruto asked. 

“No,” Jiraiya said, leaving no room for argument. “I'll mention it in my report to the princess. It’s up to the Hokage to devote resources to something like that. We’re avoiding the hidden villages, you know that.”

“I know,” Naruto said, sinking deeper into the water. 

“We’ll go north tomorrow,” Jiraiya said. “Hopefully that guy’s gone off to find himself some victims elsewhere. If we run into him, it might come to a fight, but we aren’t going to seek one out. Understood?”

Naruto nodded again. “Why does baa-chan want to know about Rice Paddies clan fights?”

Jiraiya took a sip of his sake, then leaned back with a sigh. “Most of the clan skirmishes happen in the interior of Rice Paddies. This one was at a border. Their conflicts are spilling into other nations.”

“You think they might start a fight in Fire?”

Jiraiya shrugged. “It’s not a good sign that they’re leaving their ancestral territories. If we run into any survivors, it could give us some insight as to what’s happening in Otogakure.”

There were some places they were definitely not going on this training trip, and that list included the majority of other countries. Lightning was off the table because of the attempted kidnapping of Hinata, and Neji’s dad getting killed in recompense. Water, because of the civil war between Kiri and clans with kekkei genkai. Rice Paddies, because of Orochimaru. The country Amegakure was in, also embroiled in civil war. Earth, because of Yondaime’s flee-on-sight order and Naruto’s unacknowledged resemblance to his dad. Jiraiya hadn’t explained it, but Naruto knew that was the reason. His dad had killed a significant number of Iwa-nin using his hiraishin. 

Even with henge and a supposedly legendary Sannin and the kyuubi, it was best not to borrow trouble, or walk into the snake’s den, or whatever metaphor Jiraiya used when Naruto asked. He had a lot of them.

Naruto watched Jiraiya carefully, while the man blissfully relaxed and sipped his chilled sake. He knew, whatever happened tomorrow, they would be leaving Hot Springs soon.

Jiraiya had been teammates with Orochimaru. It was hard to imagine any of them as kids, what Orochimaru had been like as a child. Naruto did know what it was like to lose a teammate, and while he didn’t believe Sasuke was bad in the way Orochimaru was—killing Hokages, experimenting on those genin from Oto, taking Sasuke from him—the parallels between Naruto and Sasuke, Jiraiya and Orochimaru, were apparent. 

Jiraiya had told Naruto to give up on Sasuke. He wondered if the pervert spoke from experience. If he had given up. If he regretted it.

Naruto followed Jiraiya sedately as they traveled north, past where he had found the Oto-nin and into sere foothills interrupted by tall, skinny pine trees tipped in the fresh green of spring growth. They traveled light, Naruto now that he had learned how to consistently make storage scrolls.

It struck him how few people recognized Jiraiya, even in his usual garb. He was big and loud, both physically and in personality, as if his presence was a constant challenge to the world. How could such a foolish old man be one of the greatest shinobi to come out of Konoha?

Naruto knew how that felt, to be underestimated, to be mocked. He was starting to recognize how Jiraiya used it to his advantage. Naruto resented how people looked at him, how people treated him, but it gave him an edge whether in pranks or in a fight when he outsmarted his opponents. 

His dad had come off as kind of a dork too, and what little he shared about Naruto’s mom made her seem, well, a lot like Naruto. You remind me of her, his dad had said, and it had sounded like a good thing. She was an amazing ninja, the one who had taught his dad fuinjutsu, who had sealed the kyuubi under her own power, and who had survived everything else that came with being a jinchuuriki. Until the kyuubi was ripped out of her, and even then she clung to life and used her chains to bind the kyuubi again, to protect Naruto.

Naruto had never heard the term jinchuuriki before his dad said it. The power of human sacrifice. Haku had made it his reason for living, sacrificing his own life to become a tool for someone else to use. It wasn't a unique thing, sacrifice. Parents died for their children, shinobi died for their village. They weren't hated for it, but praised. Respected. Loved.

His parents chose him to carry the burden of the kyuubi, which he now knew was first sealed by Uzumaki Mito, Shodai’s wife, after the kyuubi had been summoned by Uchiha Madara. They never learned about that in the Academy. No one wanted to talk about three generations of Uzumaki being sacrificed to imprison the kyuubi. No one knew at all about Uzumaki Mito or Uzumaki Kushina, but everyone knew about Uzumaki Naruto. He doubted any of them knew what it even meant to be who he was. What he was.

At least the kyuubi wasn’t trying to drive him insane like Shukaku, the ichibi, had done to Gaara.

He frowned. It was odd that the ichibi had a name, but the kyuubi didn’t.

I have a name, brat, the kyuubi snarled.

Naruto winced. Sorry? What is it?

As if I’m going to tell you!

Naruto sighed. There was no point in trying to hide anything from the kyuubi. The stupid fox seemed to know all of his thoughts, seemed to know things about Naruto that Naruto wouldn’t even acknowledge. In turn, he barely knew anything about the kyuubi.

Jiraiya’s arm shot out, and Naruto ran into it before he could stop himself. He heard the tinny sound of blades clashing nearby. He looked up at Jiraiya, who was staring in the direction of the fight. 

Someone was laughing uproariously, his voice rising about the cries of pain and shouts of warning. 

“Ha! You’ve fallen under my curse, you godless fuck!”

“It’s him,” Naruto whispered.

“The Jashinist?” Jiraiya asked. “Stay behind me. We’ll only observe. If there are allies, follow my lead.”

Naruto nodded, keeping his distance as Jiraiya approached the fight. Naruto’s awareness of the man dimmed. He felt less…red. 

He’s suppressing his chakra, the kyuubi said, clearly irritated. All that extra reading you’re doing and you’re still an idiot.

I would have figured it out on my own, asshole!But if he’s suppressing his chakra, that means he can’t use it, right? Like that thing Orochimaru did to me…did to us.

The fox grumbled, which Naruto took as agreement. 

“Ah! The sublime agony of penetration! Only through this will pieces of shit like you find absolution! You should be on your knees, begging me for a chance to see Jashin-sama’s face! He speaks through me, he acts through me! Hey! Where the fuck do you think you’re going? Don’t you know it’s rude to walk away when someone's talking?”

Naruto ducked behind a particularly large fern, looking between its leaves to see a ninja collapse with a familiar red scythe sticking out of his back. 

“Nobuo,” someone groaned. “Damnit, Hidan…you’ll pay for—”

The woman speaking gurgled, then fell silent. 

“Not fucking likely,” the Jashinist, Hidan, said, cackling madly. “That dumbass village head keeps sending you deadweight chuunin like lambs to slaughter! I love it!”

Naruto looked around for Jiraiya, who had completely disappeared. Naruto had no idea what technique he had used to do it, and was a little annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to teach it to Naruto. His irritation grew with his anxiety as he shifted his position and Hidan came into view. 

The man looked totally different from when Naruto had seen him. His tan skin had gone completely black, with white, skeletal markings. He was bleeding heavily, but it didn’t seem to bother Hidan since he had begun chanting, laying himself out on that strange symbol to perform his...religious ritual.

A hand fell on Naruto's shoulder, and before he could react he was whisked away.