Well here is a treat for all of you. Longer chapters. I really hope you all can appreciate the hard work I have to go through to please all of you. Enjoy the chapter!

-

"Wake up, wake up! You piece of crap!"

Naruto shifted on the bed as he felt repeated slaps hit his face. It was getting annoying but with the amount of 'tired' he was in, there really wasn't much he could do. Thus ignoring the slaps was the best option for his sorry, meager state.

That was until he felt something hit him in the balls.

Then Naruto got up, it was a remote reaction that all men have to deal with after all. He was indeed male if his sore testicles were any indication. His bleary eyes looked around frantically getting more afraid, realizing that the entire room was white.

"Oh shit, I am in a hospital!" Naruto yelled jumping off the bed and falling face down onto the ground. Knocking whoever was on top of him onto the floor with him. Naruto's hand grasped for something to land on and held firm to something small and soft.

Squish, squish.

Slap.

Naruto was knocked back into the hospital floor, groaning as the pain in the back of his head reached to an epic conclusion. Looking ahead of him, while he stayed on the floor with the hospital gown displaying his nakedness in the back, Naruto tried not to curse as he saw who was in front of him.

"What the hell! Can't you Cloud bastards just leave me alone!"

In front of him was the trio that had been pursuing him earlier. Apparently his clever plan did not turn out so well if the three have caught up to him so quickly. Though the last time he had seen them they didn't appear so angry, Naruto had a gift in pissing people off after all and growing up his reputation only increased it seems.

"You asshole! Do you have any idea how much shit you have put us through!" Karui shouted as she stomped her feet on the hospital floor, she glared at Naruto, holding back from unleashing her full strength on the injured blonde-haired person.

"Hey, I am not the one who attacked first! You should have thought of that before you messed with Uzumaki Naruto!" Naruto replied trying to stand, as his wobbly knees gave way.

Samui placed a hand on the tanned girls shoulder. "Hold on Karui, this isn't the time to lose your cool."

"Yeah, we still need the dude. He has to show us our katanas, yo."

That brought a gulp from Naruto.

The three looked back at the blond who started sweating from the top of his forehead. Before reaching the village he had dropped the two swords into a bush somewhere, he could not walk into a village carrying two large swords while not wearing a shirt.

That would probably have scared the locals: "Ignore the sword and my feral look, I am not a bandit, really I am not! Oh the whiskers? No they aren't tattoos; this doesn't mean I am part of some gang, really! You have to believe me! Please believe me!"

Now that he thought about it, he could not recall where exactly he hid the two swords. He could not even recall a landmark where the bushes might be, if someone had not stolen them by now.

He just assumed that he would have been able to grab some food from the village, get some information and get back in time before his short-term memory ran out.

Seemed like his STM ran out, and he probably wasn't going to get a chance to ever remember anything again looking at the snarling girl who was being held back by the taller Samui, who looked quizzically at the blond with a deadpan.

Samui immediately read Naruto like a book. "You lost the blades didn't you?"

"What!? No! No! I know exactly where they are, it is by the err river! Yeah that is where I put them, by the river, it is in a bush by the river and I err I can find them, but how do I know you won't just kill me once you get them, eh?" Naruto said, trying to regain some ground before he gave everything away.

He could really have used that Sage training right now to keep his cool.

Omoi spoke up "You do realize there is no river for miles and miles away?"

Naruto didn't answer.

"Even so there are several bushes nearby, this whole places is crawling with them so how exactly would you remember where it was when you are not familiar with the geography of this area?" Samui added.

Naruto started to shiver.

"Let's just fuck him up!"

No need to mention who said that.

"Karui, later. Not now. We have bigger things to deal with," Samui said pointing to the blond's whiskers.

Karui looked at what she was pointing to and calmed down. Relaxing in her grip Karui scowled and turned away and walked out the door followed by Omoi who just looked lazily at the two before making an exit. "Can ya make it quick, I want to see some of those Konoha girls. Heard they were ez."

Naruto wanted to call out that Konoha girls weren't easy, they were not sluts! After all Ino and Sakura were perfectly decent ladies! Despite the fact that there was a rumor going on that Ino had been giving head since she was 13 and the less said about Sakura's sexual exploits the better.

With all the STD's travelling up and down Konoha it probably isn't that big of a surprise that Naruto was a virgin.

When Omoi left the hospital room Naruto heard a slap in the hallway but he had bigger things to deal with, bigger than the problems the Cloud captain had to face most likely.

Mainly the big breasted Samui.

She looked down at Naruto who was still on the floor. Getting up Naruto used whatever energy he had left to make his way into the bed and take a nice nap. Before a cough reminded him that he had to stay awake to answer the girl's questions.

"You are a Biju container?"

Naruto nodded. He was too tired to talk right now; he could see the needle mark where an IV had been placed into him was located. Looked like this hospital relied on old fashioned healthcare instead of minor medical jutsu.

"Hidden leaf affiliate?"

Naruto got a questioning look when she asked him that question but nodded anyway, sounded about right in his books.

He fluffed up his pillow and stared up at the girl's large eyes and old-fashioned hair style. For some odd reason flashes of Tsunade popped up when he kept looking at her, they seemed to have the same vibe going on.

Or maybe it was just the breasts.

He didn't know what changed in the girl's attitude since the last time he saw her. Instead of looking at him with suspicion, she looked at him with both curiosity and slight pity. Naruto did not enjoy being looked down on by anyone and he made his disapproval shown by his frown.

Samui caught onto it quickly and changed her eyes to look more serious. No need to show her true feelings on what she thought about the containers of Chakra beasts.

Sympathy for enemies was another reason she clouded her emotions as she spoke to him, revealing any trace of compassion was also a huge 'no' in her book when it came to deal with foreign Ninja, hell it was also a tactic she used against Ninja in her own village.

Even so Human Sacrifices had a difficult life and she could respect the huge burdens they contained. Especially if her suspicion of what was inside him was correct.

"Nine tails?"

That got Naruto to narrow his eyes dangerously.

The topic of the beast with enough malice to make hell look like paradise upset him greatly. It wasn't enough that he had to protect his village from the thing while keeping mental focus on his sanity, but also the beast's stigma was something that made other people he never met afraid.

Travelling with the Toad Master had shown him that Konoha was not the only country that hated the Kyuubi, far from it. The creature's rampage had destroyed cities and towns far longer than living memory.

There were many who still sought revenge against the creature, many were even willing to kill the container to unleash the beast so that they may have a one-to-one duel. No matter how futile the outcome would be these people kept trying, luckily Naruto's status was not well known in the Shinobi world and he hoped it would remain that way.

"No."

"You're lying." She countered easily.

"Fuck off! I don't need to say anything to you!" Naruto screamed tossing a pillow at the blonde-haired woman who caught it easily and held it close.

She then tossed it back at the Uzumaki who caught it and placed it back onto his head, staring at the ceiling. After a moment of silence, the older girl sighed and grabbed a chair to sit beside him. Naruto stumbled back into a sitting position and looked at her.

"Yes."

She simply nodded. There was a pause.

"My teacher, he was one as well," she said still looking at Naruto.

"Huh?" Naruto said.

"A Human sacrifice, he was one as well. In him was sealed, at the time, what could only be described as one of the strongest of the Tailed Chakra Beasts," she answered patiently.

Naruto could hear raindrops hitting his window. He tried not to scowl thinking how often it rained here. Though given how the country was called Lightning, perhaps it was aptly named?

Naruto looked puzzled at this. "Uh huh, so what does this have to do with me?"

Samui tried not to frown in her attempt to get the boy to open up; her mission would go a lot easier if the boy could at least trust her. "Would you please not interrupt me while I am talking, it is very rude."

Naruto did the mature thing and stuck out his tongue.

"His name was Kirabi, or "Killerbee" as he liked to be called. He was our mentor and a good man. Inside of him was a creature called the 8-Tails, he had a nick-name for it: Eight-O."

"What the fuck?" Naruto mumbled.

"O for Ox, the beast took the shape of an Oxen: One of the creatures in the Zodiac, the ox for strength, power, and resilience. It really described him really well. He wasn't the most intelligent of people but he was as tough as they came and he was near unstoppable when he got started," she admitted thinking about the memory of his battles.

She did not mention that his bestial rudeness annoyed the hell out of her.

"He was a kind man, a good man. He had his faults but overall he stuck to a code that was more close to Samurai than to a Ninja," Samui admitted thinking about her teacher's ethics.

Naruto still did not know what this had to do with him. In his mind, he was thinking about how to escape this place without getting captured. Though he figured that he was a prisoner either ways given how little strength he had left. He got back a good chunk of his Chakra from the rest but apparently, the trio had captured him sooner than he expected if he only had a few hours of sleep.

"If you ever meet him I think you would have to agree that the two of you may have more than one thing in common. He wasn't someone who thought things through and I have to admit there were times I almost ran him through with a kunai thinking about his insensitivity, but he taught us well and never complained about the great burden placed upon him by the village," Samui began to look sad."The village though didn't see him that way."

Naruto understood that part rather well.

No village ever really saw someone with a Chakra beast inside them as normal, but Naruto had to admit a part of that might have to do with the amount of killing intent the containers gave off in any given fight.

After all, he was sure Sasuke almost wet himself in their second duel when a giant man eating fox-shape appeared behind him threatening to devour him whole.

Naruto had enough of this. "Look, lady. I get it, your sensei was not a monster, he had a hard life, and I remember you were talking about him being captured by-Oh shit! Sasuke! Sasuke caught your Sensei! I get it, now! But why the hell would he be going after Kirabi when-oh no, no, no! Hell no! Akatsuki!"

Samui had the sense not to look stunned. It would not due to insult the boy's intelligence.

The boy had taken pieces of information and put them together to form the whole story. He had done this within moments and in such an abstract and ridiculous way that she was sure that he could not be faking it.

Perhaps there was more to him than what met the eye?

"I am going to kill that teme, when I catch up. Joining up with those Akatsuki assholes! It's like he wants to get me killed or something."

Naruto rubbed his knuckles together looking feral.

Samui frowned. On second thought, maybe what you see is what you get.

"I want to apologize for what my team and I did," she said after a moment.

Naruto got his attention ready, set on 'focus.' "Why?"

"I was thinking about our encounter and realized that we misunderstood your intentions. With the Akatsuki laying around, we were a bit paranoid and we did not know your status at the time. You could have been just about any spy giving away information and with the "Red Dawn" out there, we couldn't risk letting you go."

Naruto thought about that, he had to swallow that given a chance he probably would have been instructed to do the same thing by the old Toad Hermit.

"Still we tortured you, and for that I am hoping that you could overlook that when we bring you back to the Leaf."

Naruto jumped off the bed. "W-what!?"

Samui did not react. "You are lost aren't you? Surely this is miles away from Konoha."

"How did you figure that?"

"You kept mumbling "Home, got to get home, Sakura-chan!" and the like while you were asleep. If we had known we would not have needed to resort to torture to get you to talk, we probably would have drugged you. Though I am guessing the demon in your belly would have killed off the poison." Samui admitted.

"H-how much did I say?"

Samui frowned. "It is all a bit mixed up, I had to put many of the things you said in your sleep together but from rumors I could assume that the Toad Hermit is no longer within the living?" Samui questioned. She already knew the answer considering how much the boy had been crying about his master in his sleep.

It was painful to see him confess his most twisted familial feelings and desires while he slept, but she observed it all with a cold and indifferent face. After all, one does not become a good Ninja if they cannot come to the realization that other people in the world suffer as well.

The boy was telling his entire life story as he wept and Samui was sure that on more than one occasion Karui had a tear in her eye and even Omoi had to stop munching on his chips to get a hold of his emotions.

Sad. Pathetic. Empty. This was the life of Uzumaki Naruto, a 16 year old orphan from Konoha.

Naruto held back an angry retort and the blond cloud girl could almost see tears forming in his eyes. "You have no right to talk about him; you don't just ask questions like that out of the blue!"

Samui expected that kind of reaction, seems like the info was confirmed. At the least the Raikage would be pleased at this news.

"Fair enough Uzumaki-san, I take it this is a hard topic," she said, not showing off the pity she felt for the boy.

Naruto looked at her coldly. "You got your information; now tell me why you are bringing me back to Konoha."

Samui got tightlipped. "That is classified, though you could say we have a message to deliver to the Hokage and having you as an escort may save us some trouble."

Or cause trouble considering how much hatred the village had for the boy.

Naruto must have been thinking along the same lines "I don't think that would be such a good idea, I already made this promise that I have to get Sasuke back and you were heading to get him back weren't you? So why not just go after the Teme."

Samui just looked at him tiredly. "It is on the way Uzumaki-san, the Hidden Rain is the place we are headed and Konoha just happens to be located on the way to our destination. We have something to deliver and you might save us some time if we need to run to our next target."

Naruto mulled this information in his head. "So you are going to use me as a delivery boy if you have to blast?"

The Jounin sighed. "I would prefer it if I did not have to, however if things get bad we might need to hurry, it takes a while for the full extraction process and they probably finished a good chunk of it. However they are going to need much longer to get all 8 tails worth of energy, we may have time." Samui stared away from the blond and looked at the raining window.

Silence hit the room, as more rain filtered into the earth.

"Alright, thanks. I get it," Naruto mumbled stepping off his bed and trying to walk only to fall down part way, before he hit the ground the girl caught him and let him lean on her.

Naruto had to admit despite how top heavy the girl was, she had good balance. She easily brought him upright and Naruto felt that he might have had enough feeling back in his leg to walk once again. Naruto stared around the room to look for his clothing seeing that he was still in the hospital gown.

Spotting it in the corner in a box he got there and started taking off his hospital gown. Samui seeing what the blond was doing turned away giving the boy some privacy while he changed. Though like all females, it wasn't like she was going to peek. She had seen him naked before and his body despite being strong was far from impressive.

However, she had to give credit that the boy was tough despite being relatively thin.

"Done, I am ready. When do we start?" Naruto asked wiping off some sweat from his brow as the girl looked at him, up and down.

"Do you need to take a rest?" she asked. It was better if he did not pass out some time along the journey, they had a long way to go after all.

Naruto shook his head. "Give me a minute and I will be alright, this isn't the first time this kind of shit happened and it probably won't be the last."

Samui wondered what was the last situation that involved him being nude and running away from enemies might entail, but she digressed and just grunted.

Naruto followed her down the hospital stairs and into the foyer where the rest of her team was waiting. He waved at the Karui-girl and she responded with a good old-fashioned one fingured gesture, which earned some rolled eyes from the other team members.

They made their way out into the pouring rain and came to the conclusion that they should probably get some weather gear. Naruto directed them to a store he had seen before he passed out and they bought some rain clothing similar to what he wore when he was out hunting for Sasuke with the Hinata-Shino-Kiba team.

They were a really good team; he hoped he would have a team like that one day.

Though Sakura wasn't a bad team member, she had a lot of problems to deal with and Naruto wasn't really sure how long it would take before the girl got fed up with all the tension the three of them, with Kakashi and Sai, had to go through.

Unlike his team and Team 8, this team was different. It had similar feelings that were close to what he shared with Team 7 but they seemed much calmer about the entire situation. Despite the fact the the tanned duo, were constantly arguing, the team was close, very close.

His arguments with Sasuke only ended with him getting hurt while Sakura fawned over the Uchiha and Kaka-shit-sensei ignoring him. Naruto figured he would punch the asshole the next time they met, just on principle.

In addition, to calm down some of the rage he felt for that silver haired shit head.

Still the rain was not getting any lighter and their flight out from the area was becoming much harder to deal with. Naruto slipped more than once but Samui and surprisingly Karui helped him out, it seemed that when they were on a mission the team was dead focused on completing it.

Another difference between the assholes of Team 7, though Naruto probably shouldn't call them assholes considering he was the biggest ass of the bunch.

"How long do you think it is going to take for us to get there?" Karui asked.

"Omoi, how long do you think it will take to cross to the Ghanghi River?" Samui asked Omoi.

Omoi thought about it, but the rain made it hard for communication. Though Samui seemed to have understood, what he was saying judging by her confirmation, which prompted everyone to speed up.

Seeing their teamwork and watching them travel together brought out feelings of bitterness and resentment. He missed his old team. Not the team with Sasuke, but the team with him, Sai, and Sakura. Never having a family while growing up he relied heavily on the companionship of his peers.

Samui must have caught the glares sent their way by the blond as they traveled and turned to face him. "What is wrong, you look troubled."

Naruto turned away, his eyes still angry. "It is fine, there isn't anything wrong. I am just in a bad mood."

The Cloud girl knew that, it was not hard to guess what the kid was feeling after all. "Do you need to talk about it?"

"No."

"It might help," she answered.

"It might not."

"Hey hurry up back there!" Karui called from the front of the group.

Samui looked back at Naruto before catching up to the other girl in the front. In truth, Naruto really did want to talk about it. He wanted to tell her how much he envied the three. Seeing them travel and work together so easily without any difficulty.

The moment he had found their swords in a local pawnshop he watched as the trio haggled their weapons back, they looked like family bickering for lower prices and the three had such harmony that Naruto was sure that they might have once share the same body.

His team never had anything like that.

All Sasuke and Sakura gave him was trouble and did he honestly need it? Did he need more anger and frustration in his life? He had a temper and he knew it. He had a foul mouth and that got him exiled from one of the best training grounds on the planet and now all he had to show for it was to arrive in his village with his country's former enemies.

He had been naked, hungry, starved and after all this time, this is all that it had amounted to.

"Hey hurry the fuck up fox-boy, we got ground to cover!"

Even so, Naruto knew he had a long way home, and he was not talking about the distance either. So what if he was exiled, he didn't need the toads, in truth he probably never did. They were just tools. So what.

Ninjas are tools.

Lose a tool, no problem. Just steal someone else's.

"Hold your panties, no-tits, I'll be there!"

-

Sitting by the fire, Naruto watched the three unpack their things and setup tents. He noticed that Karui and Samui were arguing about sleeping arrangements, apparently he was going to have to share a tent with Omoi.

Naruto didn't have a problem with that, as long as Karui wasn't getting anywhere near him he could deal with it. Omoi after all did not ask for his pants back, which Naruto was grateful, as he did not really want to be running around without pants, again.

"You ate while you were in town?" Omoi asked.

That was a stupid question and Naruto just glared him down. Omoi shrugged. "Couldn't help it, I had to ask."

Omoi made dinner that evening, which really did not come as a big surprise to the blond after seeing how he was willing to eat large amounts of food for no reason; the boy had to have been some expert nutritionist or something.

Seemed like Chouji had some competition.

"Dinner is served; get it while it is still wet and soggy from the rain." That was another thing, eating while there was a lightning storm outside their make shift tent was depressing and Naruto became even more glum as he ate his meal in silence.

"Is my food that bad?" Omoi asked, he looked puzzled but there was no hiding that he had caught Naruto's mood.

"No, it is fine. I like it. You make good beef stew." Naruto took another bite of the food and went back to his thoughts; it was all he had at the moment to keep from all the rage and stress he kept bottled up, inside of him.

So much running for no reason, and he had to explain to Tsunade all of this.

He was not looking forward to this. The only reason he went with the toads was because he wanted to become strong enough to avenge Jiraiya. Without the distraction from training he went back to his musings about all the time he had spent with the old man.

Oddly, it was sort of like this.

The two of them were constantly on the run and many times he had been across rainy countries that almost flooded the landscape. The Toad Master always found a way to get them into the most cheap and dirty brothels and Naruto had opted to sleep outside of them; all of this was déjà vu.

"You look a bit lost kid, you sure you don't have something to say," Omoi said, burping when he felt some gas swell up in his stomach.

Naruto looked at the older boy, but turned back when he realized that he might have been crying. These people had tortured him for information when he was helpless and now they wanted him to open up. In his state, he might have been willing to say anything, give away any secret.

He did not want to talk, not right now at least.

"Leave him alone, clearly he thinks we are too good to have a conversation with. He should just talk to that big fox sealed up in his stomach," Karui mumbled eating another one of Omoi's servings.

"Oi, don't eat it all, leave some for the rest of us," Omoi said trying to stop the girl from taking the whole pot.

Samui came back and sat by Naruto near the campfire, they had set up a large tent design so that they could cook around the fire while keeping the rain at bay but she had to occasionally nail the pikes around the tent, in order to keep it from moving around with the wind.

The only good thing about the weather was that it was cold and it made it easier for her to move around without sweating. Her chest added a significant weight to her anatomy and despite how much some people though the twins were assets, they had their disadvantages.

Tsunade could certainly attest to that.

"You aren't eating as much as I though you would," the woman said, taking away Naruto's bowl.

"It's not ramen; I eat a lot of ramen. If this were ramen, I might eat it, but this isn't."

Samui wasn't satisfied with that answer. "Do you eat anything besides noodles?"

Naruto looked at her puzzled. "Well, not really. It depends. Ichiraku is the food I am most likely going to eat at, they make good stuff but ramen they make the best there."

There was a pause as he thought about what to add.

"I also don't mind popsicles."

"Why do you like that?"she asked curiously, sitting closer to him.

Naruto was about to answer when an image of Jiraiya came up in his mind, prompting him to close his eyes. His depression was hitting an all time high and he thought about all the times the two shared.

They had spent so much time together. So much useless time, doing almost nothing but talking about philosophy and talking to each other about the state of the world. About likes and dislikes, about feelings and emotions, what to do next. What his goals were, what kind of girls he liked.

So much wasted time.

So much time that could have been used training.

So much…

No.

Naruto's mind caught a glimpse of another truth.

The Toad Sennin, never really intended to teach him much on the Art of Ninjutsu. The amount of time they spent was used in things that were something you would see a father or son would do, something a grandfather would do to his grandchildren.

Walking out in the woods.

Camping.

Fishing.

Talking about nothing.

These were things one would experience with a loved one, things you would share with family. Jiraiya never meant to train Naruto much at all, he had meant to give Naruto his time, give him a taste of a childhood.

Show him what it was like to have a father.

That thought sent the boy over the edge, he grabbed his stomach and bent his head down. His eyes started to water and his tears ran freely down his face, he started sobbing uncontrollably and his mind was spinning.

Jiraiya knew he was going to die. It was like the last moments you would spend with a loved one, waiting for the clock to take him.

The trio just watched as the blonde-haired teen sobbed into his meal.

-

A/N: Man that latest chapter of the manga was unexpected, I am getting curious on where kishi is taking this story now, anyways hope you enjoyed the chapter. Later.