Before they left, Asuma made sure that they recovered Chiriku's body from the bounty station. He was a monk from the Fire Temple and a former colleague of Asuma's from the Twelve Guardian Ninja. Evidently, Akatsuki has attacked the temple for Chiriku's bounty and Tsunade had sent Asuma's team to hunt then down.

Naruto ended up making four clones to carry Shikamaru and Asuma in order to have people who would not be dispersed with a good hit alert for any further mayhem from Akatsuki. She had to use her modified Disguise Technique in order to be tall enough to manage it. After traveling for an hour they stopped and camped. While her clones set up camp, she examined Kotetsu and Izumo. Neither one of them had more than superficial injuries and she set those toward healing quickly.

The next day all seven of them left for Konoha. After a good night's sleep, Naruto judged that both of her patients were recovered enough to travel on their own feet. Asuma's gut wound, while it would have been fatal without prompt treatment, was easily healed. Shikamaru had only been suffering from ordinary chakra exhaustion and was mostly recovered by morning.

When they arrived in Konoha, Naruto sent a clone to make sure that Karin and Haku had made it back safely. The clone dispersed right as they arrived at the Hokage Tower. Her memory let her know that her cousin and friend had arrived back in Konoha yesterday without incident. The chuunin on guard quickly let them in to see the Hokage.

"Report," Tsunade commanded. She gestured to Asuma. "You first, Asuma-san."

Asuma repeated what his team had told her of their scouting of the Fire Temple and tracking Akatsuki to the bounty station. He gave a concise report of the combat abilities of the two Akatsuki and the short combat he and his team had had with the Jashinist. He then gestured at Naruto to continue.

"Our mission was a success, but turned out to be even more sensitive than we had supposed," Naruto said. "I'll inform you of the details in private, Baa-shishou."

She then mentioned that Karin had observed the setup to the fight and noted that Asuma's team was facing opponents with S- and A-rank chakra. She had decided to help and they had hurried to arrive just as Asuma was incapacitated. She described the fight and told them what the Kyuubi had told her some basics about Jashinists without disclosing the source of her knowledge.

"I have the bodies of both Akatsuki in storage scrolls," she said. "I also have the bounty station proprietor in a prisoner scroll. The Jashinist is still animated. I have his head in a separate scroll. I suggest keeping it away from his body and especially his weapon when he's interrogated."

"Good work, all of you," Tsunade said. "Shikamaru-kun, Kotetsu-kun, Izumo-kun, don't feel too bad about your performance against the Akatsuki. Naruto-chan and her team have had special training to deal with them in particular. Asuma-kun, you and your team are dismissed. I'd like to talk to Naruto-chan and her team about their mission in private."

Asuma nodded lazily and he and the three chuunin sauntered out of the Hokage's office.

"Well, Brat?" the Hokage asked once they were gone and she had engaged her special anti-snooping seals.

Naruto nodded toward Sasuke and he succinctly summarized what they had learned from Itachi.

Tsunade grimaced. "Danzou. This explains why Sensei forced him to retire after the Massacre. Unfortunately, while he doesn't have any overt power in the village anymore, he does control considerable influence. He's also somewhat of a hermit. There aren't a lot of opportunities to spy on him without doing something the Clans and individual jounin will make me regret."

"Just don't get caught," Sasuke snarked.

The Hokage glared at him. "The man was the head of ANBU for several decades. One does not simply 'not get caught.'"

"I've only ever seen him in certain formal situations," Naruto commented.

"There's a rumor going around the clan that he specifically avoids Hyuuga in any situation where it would be acceptable to use the Byakugan," Hinata added.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow.

Hinata shrugged. "The clan likes to keep tabs on prominent members of the village, including chakra strength. It's been almost a decade since anyone has submitted a brief on Danzo-san."

Tsunade sighed and rubbed her temple. "Based on your report, I have enough to keep an eye on him, but I can't just send him to Morino-san without airing a lot of dirty laundry—at least at the highest levels of the village." She looked at Sasuke. "Do you want it known that your parents and clan were traitors?"

Sasuke grimaced. "No, let the dead stay dead."

"As for Itachi-san himself," the Hokage said, "I'm sure I can do something for him medically. Actually rehabilitating him politically will raise those same issues."

"Not necessarily," Hinata murmured. "A case can be made for him to have been on a deep cover mission against the one who actually killed the Uchiha. After all, only Sasuke-kun saw him actually doing the deed and he was the victim of a genjutsu."

Tsunade frowned. "It's possible, but not trivial. It would have been better if he had never acted against Konoha, and for the most part he hasn't, but there was that well-publicized attack against Kakashi-kun and others right before I came back to the village." She shook her head. "An issue for another time. His recovery will be quite involved due to his body failing and having chakra shock at the same time.

"Do you have anything to add about the battle with Akatsuki?" she asked.

"Yes, actually," Naruto said. She explained that the Kyuubi was the source for her knowledge of Jashin and explained everything he had told her.

"Disturbing," Tsunade said. She looked at Sasuke. "Isn't your turn to use the Human Path for intelligence extraction?"

Sasuke blanched, but nodded.

"We'll let Morino-san and Anko-chan have a go at him first," the Hokage said, "but based on your description of him, it will probably come down to the Human Path."

Sasuke nodded again, still pale.

Tsunade nodded in turn. "Once again, good work, brats. Take a few days to rest and we'll see if this Hidan has any actionable intelligence we can use. Naruto-chan, you know what to do with Itachi-san."

Naruto nodded and the three of them exited the Hokage's office. She said her good-byes to her teammates and headed to the hospital.

The hospital had a secure floor for A- and S-rank secret patients. She dropped off the scroll containing Itachi with the on-duty nurse and made sure she deposited the scroll in one of the S-rank rooms. She filled out orders instructing that no-one could release the patient from the scroll without specific orders from the Hokage due to the patient's condition as well as an encoded description of his condition. She also noted the assigned codename for the patient—they were assigned by the hospital in order so that it would be more difficult to tell who they were—so that she could tell Tsunade. There were a small number of medic nin who covered the secure floor—although for S-rank patients only the Hokage and the assigned physician had access. In all likelihood, the treating physician would be herself, Tsunade, or Shizune—depending on who had time.

While the new Team Naruto was technically on Rest and Recovery, none of them were the type to sit around doing nothing. The three reflexively gathered at their training ground each day and trained together.

The third day after their return, Sasuke showed up to training late, looking slightly disturbed. Being a Uchiha, to most he looked as stoic as normal, but Naruto and Hinata could both tell something was bothering him.

Naruto and Hinata both activated their Byakugan and scanned the area for chakra sources.

Naruto glanced at Hinata for verification.

The Hyuuga nodded and said, "We're clear."

Naruto said, "I concur. What's got you bothered, Sasuke-kun? Did you get called into T&I to deal with Hidan?"

Sasuke grunted affirmatively.

"That bad, huh?" Naruto commented.

Sasuke grunted with disgusted humor. "Yes, but not how you'd think. From what I could tell from Anko-san and Morino-san when they called me in, they hadn't gotten much from him and asked me to use my Human Path to drain him of knowledge. However, when I tried, his soul resisted leaving his head for a moment or two before shredding and dissipating with a shriek. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever felt." He shook his head. "They had me check the rest of his body, but it only held a residue of his soul—not enough to use the technique on."

Naruto and Hinata both grimaced. It was disturbing to hear about the destruction of a soul, but if any soul deserved it other than perhaps Orochimaru, it was that of a Jashinist.

The day after the Human Path failed on Hidan, two toad summons interrupted their training. One was the small, white-haired toad that Jiraiya called "Pa" . He was standing on the shoulder of the other, much larger one with a polearm and a shield that Naruto didn't recognize.

"Fukasaku-sama, Gamaken-san!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"Spit him out, Ken-chan," Pa Toad directed his companion.

The huge toad nodded and spit out Jiraiya.

Naruto rushed to her godfather who was in bad shape. Most alarming was the loss of his left arm just above the elbow. A quick examination showed that he was still alive, but suffering from shock due to the loss of his arm and chakra exhaustion. The examination revealed that his other wounds appeared to be superficial.

"The fool boy stayed longer than he should have fighting Pain," Pa groused. "We almost didn't make it out."

Naruto activated the Mystic Palm Technique to stop the bleeding from her godfather's arm stump.

"Hinata-chan, go tell Baa-chan," she ordered. "Have her meet us at the hospital."

Hinata left with a Body Flicker.

Naruto turned to Pa Toad and forced herself to remember his real name. "Fukasaku-dono, can you stay and tell us what happened?"

"Call me Pa, child" the toad said. "I won't accept anything else from Minato-chan's little girl."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. The boy had loosened up since his Academy days, but Pa Toad was way more informal than the Uchiha would ever be when he wasn't teasing someone he considered family. Naruto idly mused as she was giving her godfather a more thorough examination for other injuries that Pa Toad was on the very short list that Sasuke referred to as "sama." Her initial thought that only the arm injury was serious bore out.

The venerable toad nodded and said, "Yes, I can stay for a bit, Naru-chan." He hopped off the other toad and onto her shoulder. "Ken-chan, return home and tell Ma that I'll be back after I tell Naru-chan, Sasu-chan, and the Hokage what happened."

Naruto snickered a bit at what the old toad called her teammate before her godfather's condition sobered her again.

"Sasuke-kun, pick him up," she ordered her godfather's apprentice.

"Hold on, Pa," she said and then Flickered to the secure entrance to the hospital. This entrance was guarded by ANBU so that enemies of the village couldn't monitor which shinobi were admitted to the hospital. Sasuke appeared moments after her.

"Follow me!" she ordered and ran in. A glance at the coded room board showed her an appropriate room that was available.

When they arrived at the room, she directed Sasuke to place her godfather on the bed. She checked his arm again and made sure it hadn't started bleeding again and then gave him another examination just to make sure she had not missed anything. Other than the obvious injury to his arm, the only thing wrong with him was chakra exhaustion. Luckily, he wasn't suffering from the more serious chakra shock, which meant that his exhaustion was due to extended usage rather than a sharp and sudden depletion of his chakra reserves.

Just as she was about to start replenishing his chakra, the Hokage ran in with Hinata following her.

"What happened?" Tsunade demanded.

"He lost his left arm, just above the elbow and has passed out due to shock and chakra exhaustion," Naruto reported as she manifested medical chakra in her hand and matched it to the Toad Sage's and began to feed it to him. "I've closed the wound on his arm and was just about to treat his chakra exhaustion."

"Was the arm recovered?" Tsunade asked.

Naruto looked to Pa.

The toad sighed and shook his head. "There was no chance and I can't recommend going back to look for it."

Naruto grimaced. "It appears to have been long enough that re-attaching it would be doubtful anyway. He had been using chakra to keep from bleeding out."

Jiraiya was starting to regain consciousness, but she let him recover at his own pace.

"Is there anything you can do for him?" Sasuke asked.

"We can make a prosthetic," Naruto said, "but it would be rather crude."

"So no hand signs," Sasuke said, getting right to the point.

Naruto shook her head sadly.

"It figures that the Pervert is the one of us that gets to retire first," grumped Tsunade.

"I have over a decade of retirement to catch up to you, Hime," Jiraiya said in a scratchy voice.

Tsunade huffed and said, "It doesn't count if I had to come out of my retirement for this job." She shook her head. "What happened, Jiraiya-kun?"

Jiriaya cleared his throat. Naruto handed him a cup of water. Jiraiya sipped from it and began his tale. "I traveled to Amegakure no Sato looking for information on Pain. The villagers were reticent, and so I captured a pair of shinobi. Despite also not wanting to talk, I convinced them to do so. They told me that Pain had single-handedly beaten Hanzou of the Salamander to take control of Ame."

Tsunade grimaced. It had taken all three of the Densetsu no Sannin just to survive Hanzou. Hanzou was egotistic enough to label them "legendary" just for that feat.

"I sent one of the shinobi to Morino-san via a toad summon and then went looking for more information," Jiraiya continued. "I was quickly confronted by one of my old students from Ame." He looked at Tsunade. "You remember the girl, Konan-chan? We fought briefly and I captured her. She used a type of paper-control technique—including being able to make functional paper wings. I didn't have much time to interrogate her before she was rescued by Pain. As we had suspected, Pain had the Rinnegan, but no Sharingan tomoe. I had thought he was my old student Nagato-kun, but he looked different if vaguely familiar. I talked to him and confirmed that he was Nagato-kun despite the different body. I asked him why he had abandoned the path of peace to lead a criminal organization. He claimed that as god, any path he chose was right. He then went on to explain his plan. He wants to collect the bijuu in order to create a weapon so terrible that the nations will have no choice but to 'mature' and forgo war."

He thinks he can control the Juubi, Kurama growled. Perhaps he can, with Father's eyes, but the plan is still ill-thought.

Naruto snorted. "Peace through fear and hate? It will never last."

Sasuke grunted. "If nothing else, it will cause people to try and steal the weapon or duplicate it."

Naruto nodded. "The Kyuubi thinks that the weapon Pain is trying to make is the Juubi. It's really the only thing that can be created using all the bijuu."

The others all grimaced remembering the devastation the Kyuubi had wrought on Konoha. If the other bijuu were destroyed in the process, then there would be no defense other than perhaps Naruto herself or someone else with either the Rinnegan or Sharingan.

"That means he will come for Sasuke as well as me," Naruto said. "He can't risk anyone else having a doujutsu that can control his weapon."

Jiraiya nodded and then continued. "Pain summoned animals to attack me. I summoned Gamaken to hold them off and summoned Pa and Ma, knowing I would need Sage Mode to compete if he was able to use more than one path at a time. Pa and Ma were able to discover where Pain was hiding inside a chameleon and destroyed it. Pain summoned two more bodies—his Preta Path and what I later guessed was his Human Path to join his Animal Path. Neither of the new bodies were Nagato, but they again were vaguely familiar—perhaps shinobi I had encountered somewhere. Pa and Ma used the Toad Confrontation Chant genjutsu so that I could fight them separately. I killed each of them in turn when a fourth path, the Asura struck me from behind, severing my arm."

Jiraiya grimaced in reminiscence. "At that point, I was confronted by the remaining three paths while one of them, call it the Naraka Path, summoned a huge demon-like face with the Rinnegan which ingested the three incapacitated bodies and spit them out whole later. I did recognize one of the Paths as Yahiko-kun, the third of my three Ame students. I questioned him again about his identity and he again claimed to be Nagato-kun and said that Yahiko-kun was dead. At that point he attacked again. The battle was fierce and I was forced to retreat into a Gourd Toad even in Sage Mode. The Animal Path followed me and I captured it. A closer examination of the Path revealed it to be someone I had met in my travels years ago. This led me to believe that Pain was controlling dead bodies to use as his paths rather than using clones like Naruto-chan or using them sequentially like Sasuke-kun does. The Animal Path had these dark rods piercing its body at various places—perhaps they were the control mechanism."

"At this point, Ma and I recommended he retreat to Konoha and report on his findings," Pa said.

"I was tempted to keep fighting," Jiraiya admitted, at which point both Naruto and Tsunade bopped him lightly on the head, "but I knew that knowledge of the sixth path was more valuable than any additional intelligence I could gain by continuing to fight. At that point, it had penetrated even my thick skull that I wouldn't be able to win. Ma and Pa went back to Mount Myouboku and then Reverse Summoned me. At that point I realized how low on chakra I was and had Gamaken-kun deliver Pa and me to Sasuke-kun. I must have passed out during the trip."

"The fact that Pain can use all six paths at once without the limitations of using Shadow Clones is problematic," Sasuke said.

"There is a solution that could put Naruto-chan on equal footing," Tsunade said. "The Sage Mode of the Slugs."