Hiashi knew the second he looked into his former sensei's eyes when the man returned to Konoha and gave his report. He also knew that there was nothing he could say to change the man's mind. Jiraiya was already gone. What was left standing in front of his new desk was a shell of the larger than life man who had trained him when he was a Genin. That man had been scooped out and torn away more than a week ago.

Team Sarutobi, more commonly known as the Legendary Sannin, had been Jiraiya's family for nearly forty-five years, ever since a trio of geniuses had graduated the ninja academy at the age of six and been personally selected by the Sandaime Hokage, and Jiraiya had been forced to kill two of them shortly after losing his sensei.

He'd seen something similar to this during the war when a Jounin had turned traitor, and one of his Genin had taken him and the teammate that had chosen to join him out before killing himself. One's Genin team quite often became closer family than one's own blood, especially when one didn't have anyone else. Losing Minato had been like losing a brother, and losing Ayumi had been like losing a sister. He should know, he'd lost a brother three years after Minato had sacrificed himself to save the village.

He had been right to fear losing someone when the Elders had sent their request for a meeting. As soon as Jiraiya finished his final tasks, he would be gone, and he would learn what it was like to lose a father before the one who was his flesh and blood died.

"I had planned on training Naruto, but..." Jiraiya said after he'd finished his report.

"I understand sensei." he said, knowing that this was goodbye. He could try to order Jiraiya to live, try to force him to live and train Naruto like he'd promised, but what life would that be when Jiraiya's heart had been torn away along with his biggest reason for living after he'd lost just about everything else?

Jiraiya left, and with him went the last of his own team that had been like family in a way, the team to whom he'd just been chubby little Hiashi rather than Hiashi-sama. The team that had shared his hopes, his dreams, and fought alongside him on the battlefield was now dead. Like the Hatake boy his teammate had trained, he was the last of his team. A part of him understood Jiraiya-sensei's desire to die.

When it came to the boy who was to be Jiraiya-sensei's apprentice, he would have to make sure that he would find someone to do a good enough job that Naruto would be able to succeed him when the time came. None would do as good a job as Jiraiya, but maybe someone would come close. He didn't know who though.

Top priority in Naruto's training would be seals. That had been the specialty of both of the child's parents as well as the boy's mother's clan. He had little doubt that that had been what Jiraiya-sensei had intended to teach the boy before everything went to hell. Perhaps when Naruto became a Seal Master like his parents before him...

Naruto was the closest thing they had to Minato. Being Minato's flesh and blood, perhaps he would be able to think along the same lines as the man had that day and make a similar leap in logic, a leap that dozens of Seal Masters and thousands of others that were proficient in seals had been unable to make. Minato had always been able to make wild leaps that nobody could follow, and strangely they had almost always payed off.

He opened a drawer in his new desk and pulled out a certain object, an object that might one day be the key to bringing Konoha back on top before the wolves that were already starting to circle brought it down.

A three pronged kunai...

Hiraishin.

The gods willing, there would be a new Yellow Flash in a few short years.

&!&!&!&

Shizune poured through Tsunade's old notes and journals, hoping to find something that would allow both Hatake Kakashi and the last loyal Uchiha to awaken. Konoha needed them both right now. Many of these notes had been gathering dust for years, unable to be used to help people because they had been written in a rather unusual shorthand that only two people could read, herself and Tsunade.

No, only she could read them now. Her teacher was gone. Her teacher had turned traitor to Konoha, and paid a traitor's price.

The notes on an experiment performed on an Iwa prisoner of war looked somewhat promising...

&!&!&!&

Danzo entered the Hokage's office, hoping that the Godaime Hokage would have the balls to do what the overly soft Sandaime could not. Hiruzen had been his friend and rival for almost as long as he could remember, but he'd also been soft when he should not have been. The man's Byakugan was active when he entered, preventing him from using Shisui's eye as a means of persuasion. He would have to use words then, words and inescapable logic. The sort of inescapable logic that Hiruzen had refused to listen to.

Other villages were already testing the waters, poking to see where Konoha was soft and vulnerable, testing the new leader who had only been in office for a couple of days. Despite the fact that Tsunade had been a gambling addict who was legendary for her bad luck, she would have been a better choice for Hokage if only because she would have provided an illusion of strength, an illusion that would have made those who were more familiar with her other reputation more cautious in their approach. It was a pity she'd turned traitor and had to be put down.

He decided not to beat around the bush with the new Hokage. He would be here all day otherwise. Hyuuga Hiashi could verbally spar with someone for days on end before they finally spit out what they'd come for outright.

"I came to ask about the Uzumaki boy." he said when all of the initial pleasantries were over.

"What about him?" the new Hokage asked.

"I wish to train him. The boy is a weapon that should be utilized for the good of the village. To our detriment, the Sandaime was too soft to do so." he said.

"You're right. The boy is a weapon." the Hokage said.

He quickly suppressed his feeling of shock. The man had agreed with him? Of course the man had agreed with him. The man had proven before that he was willing to do what it took to secure the safety of his clan and his village, even sacrifice his own brother.

"I have different plans for the boy though." the Hokage continued.

It was then that he noticed exactly what the Godaime Hokage was holding, what the man had been looking at when he'd entered the office. A tagged three-pointed Kunai.

Hiraishin.

The man intended to turn the Uzumaki child into another Yellow Flash.

This would clearly be to Konoha's advantage if he could actually pull it off. There had never been a ninja like Namikaze Minato before, and he'd feared that Konoha would never see his like again. Someone like the Uzumaki boy who was already gaining a reputation of his own on the battlefield with the Namikaze's skills would aid the village greatly and provide the sort of hope amongst the populace that a rampaging Jinchuriki could not.

He would offer any help that was needed. A couple of his operatives were near a mastery in Seals, and he had a boy around the Uzumaki boy's age that had a rather unusual skill that allowed him to move ink just about anywhere. If the boy learned that, he would be able to copy his father's ability to slap seals on just about everything, up to and including Koharu's ass, as had happened on that one memorable occasion where Jiraiya had made a particularly inappropriate dare, and the man had been drunk enough to take him up on it.

"I will be willing to provide any tutors the child may need should you ask it of me." he said before bowing politely and departing.

He'd had some reservations about Koharu and Homura's choice of Hokage, but now he could see why they had selected him. Unlike Tsunade, that man was unable to skate by on reputation alone, and unlike his predecessor, that man could be completely ruthless when the situation called for it. He would adopt a wait and see policy, but for now, it seemed that Hiruzen's teammates had made a wise choice.

&!&!&!&

Naruto had known that something was seriously wrong since the day they had killed Orochimaru. Jiraiya had been seemingly irresponsible and happy-go-lucky for that entire trip to retrieve the Tsunade woman, and on the day she turned traitor, it was like someone had flipped a switch. The fire that had been in the man's eyes had completely blown out.

He'd seen something like it once before when he was small. It had been one of his downstairs neighbors. The man had all but vanished for about a month, and then one day, the man had quietly finished a bottle of sake on the front stairs, patted him on the head, gone back to his apartment, and hanged himself.

Jiraiya was dying, and he didn't know what to say or do to stop it.

He'd tried. The entire way back, he'd tried. He'd done anything and everything he could think of, and nothing worked. Jiraiya was one of the walking dead. He'd died the minute he'd put that kunai through his teammate's heart. All that was left was for the man to finally stop breathing.

He didn't want the man to stop breathing though. He wanted that fire that had been in Jiraiya's eyes to return, and for the man to teach him something neat while he did something extremely stupid and perverted.

As he followed Jiraiya around town hoping that the man wouldn't do it if he knew he was there, the man went to a bar where he wrote out several letters which he handed to various toads to deliver. After that, the man talked to a pair of elderly toads who looked very sad for some reason. He suspected that he knew what the reason was.

Eventually, Jiraiya left the bar and made his way to one of the training fields, the field where Kakashi's farce of a Genin test had taken place to be exact. When he reached a spot next to the three training posts, he pulled out a short sword and...

And Naruto found his view being blocked by Tetsuo-sensei who was holding him, trying to keep him from going over to Jiraiya and...and doing something.

When he finally got loose, the deed was done and the last of the Sannin was gone.

There was a funeral two days later that was attended by a large number of people including a rather angry looking white haired man who looked to be about thirty. At the back of the group, trying to be invisible, was a strange looking orange haired man with piercings everywhere, and a blue haired woman. Naruto had no idea of who they could have been, and nobody he asked had any idea either. He couldn't ask them, since they had vanished into thin air the instant the funeral was over, and he hadn't seen them again.

It was after the funeral that Hinata's father who was the new Hokage approached him and told him that he would be trained in the sealing arts amongst other things.