I don't own Naruto.

The red haze faded from his vision as the chakra left his system, leaving behind soreness and exhaustion in its wake. The world around him blurred before he collapsed on the ground, into the accepting darkness.

0o0o0o0o0o0

The sun had moved from its high point in its daily journey. The sunlight was filtering through the sides of the clearing when the young blonde came back to his senses. A groan escaped through his lips as he tried to move his body. He looked about in a quick survey of his surroundings, trying to clear the last of the cobwebs from his still fuzzy head.

Trees were leaning precariously, roots half torn from the ground. Freshly dug trenches in the earth were littered through out what had once been a very peaceful meadow. The scent of scorched grass assaulted his nose, making him cough. The fourteen year old raised himself into a sitting position.

'What happened?' Naruto searched through his memories, trying to remember what exactly had occurred. 'Let's see. Got up. Broke camp. Tried to toss Ero-Sennin's stupid notebook. Lunch. Jiraiya had said something about starting a new type of training…Kyuubi!'

Panic began to race through him as he remembered what the training had involved. Jiraiya wanted to train him in using the Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto froze. 'What if the seal broke?'

He pumped chakra into the area around his stomach, relieved to see the familiar patterns of swirls and kanji appear on his stomach. Jiraiya still hadn't taught him what the arrangement meant, but he had promised to teach him about sealing. 'Jiraiya.'

The blonde got up in an attempt to find his teacher. If Naruto was out of it, the old man probably wasn't in much better condition. The genin did a quick scan of the area before he spotted his sensei. Dread filled him as he made his way to the slumped and still figure that was the Toad Sage. Blood was silently slipping from a huge gash in his chest. 'Oh god no… I killed him. I wasn't able to control Kyuubi, and I killed him!'

His face contorted into a mask of grief and shame. Tears flooded his cheeks in love for the one who had been like a father to him. The still meadow seemed to grieve with him. No birds sang their chipper songs. No playful squirrels enjoyed their games. All was quiet.

Naruto started gathering his sensei in his arms when he heard a small groan. His heart did a back flip. He did a double take and noticed the small, irregular pulse in Jiraiya's throat. 'He's still alive!' The teen hurriedly retrieved some healing seals from his packs and placed them over the wound. A slight green glow was being emitted from them. The slow flow of life blood trickled to a stop, and the pulse began to beat more regular, even though it was still weak.

Naruto watched as the seal began to stabilize his sensei. 'That seal won't heal everything, and I don't know what else happened when I lost control.' He remembered a town not too far from here. He could take Jiraiya there and hopefully get him some better medical attention than what he could. Checking to see that the seal was still secure, Naruto hoisted the injured man onto his back, and ran as fast as he could through the forest.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto watched as the village doctor examined his sensei. 'It's my fault. If I hadn't lost control, he wouldn't be in this condition. He wouldn't have come close to dying if he hadn't been near me. I really am a monster. I wasn't strong enough to control the demon, and he took over.' Naruto was yanked out of his guilt-filled inner lecture by the approach of the doctor.

"While he's still in pretty tough shape, your sensei should wake up in a few days. The wound in his chest was pretty deep. It came close to his heart and lungs, but thankfully it just barely missed them. I can't use medical jutsus so I can't heal it completely, but it should heal up just fine. I recommend that he rests for the next few weeks. No strenuous activity or lengthy travel for at least two months."

The doctor packed up his supplies and left the little room, leaving Naruto with the sleeping sannin. 'I did this to him. I'm a danger. I can't stay here. I have to learn to control this on my own, without involving anyone precious to me. I won't take the chance that this could happen again.'

Naruto rifled through his packs, finding a scrap of paper. He dipped his brush in the uncapped ink and started to write. After a few moments he picked up the short note, blowing on it to speed the drying process. He repacked everything, rolled up the note, sealing it so only Jiraiya could open with when he awoke. The blonde was happy that Ero-sennin had at least taught him that. He hadn't gotten a proper introduction to seals, but this one was a handy little tool. Unless someone completely overloaded the seal with chakra, which would burn the sealed paper to a crisp, the contents would remain secure. One of the handy little things he had learned over the months of travel with the sealing master.

Naruto left the note by the side of Jiraiya's bed. Tears once again began to trace his whiskered cheeks as he took one last glance at one of his precious people.

"Goodbye, Sensei." He whispered, before he left soundlessly, not knowing where he was going, except that it was somewhere he wouldn't hurt anyone who he cared about.

0o0o0o0o0

Jiraiya woke to see the sunlight making its way across the nondescript ceiling. An oddly shaped water stain caught his attention, before he heard soft footsteps echoing down the hall.

"I see you're finally awake." An older man cheerfully greeted him as came in with a tray of soup and medicine.

"Finally?" Jiraiya groaned, realizing how much it hurt to move as he tried to shift into a sitting position. He was stopped by the firm hand of what he assumed was a doctor, by his garb, and general sense of competency.

"You've been out for almost three days, son. I was beginning to think you weren't going to wake up. You did get quite the nasty set of wounds there." The doctor pointed with his chin, indicating the swathes of bandages around his patient's chest.

"Where am I?" Jiraiya asked, more to himself than his present company.

"The village hospital. Your student carried you in here a few days ago, begging for help. He didn't say what happened, just that you needed attention and fast." He explained as he rebandaged his chest. Jiraiya winced as the blood soaked bandages were removed from the open wound. He vaguely remembered how he got that particular wound, but he clearly recalled how he had ended up in that fight. He had pushed Naruto too far with the Kyuubi's chakra training. Naruto had lost control when he had reached the fourth tail. Jiraiya rightfully concluded that he was lucky to be alive.

"I will say this though, if he hadn't been able to stop the blood flow with that seal, you would have been dead for sure. I'd thank him when you meet up with him again." A smile crossed the wrinkled face of the doctor, meant to be reassuring. The old man got up from his task, and headed out of the room. The words he had spoken worried the toad sannin.

"Meet up again? Isn't he here?" Jiraiya muttered to himself, confused. Leaving a friend behind in strange territory, especially when hurt, did not sound like the Naruto Jiraiya knew. He took in the lay of his room, and finally spotted the note on his bedside table. He gently pushed out some of his own chakra to break the seal. As he read, his eyes got bigger, and his breath hitched. He quickly got up, and tried to leave his bed, but the blood loss and wound was too much. The older shinobi noticed the darkness encroaching on his pain filled consciousness as he very ungracefully fell to the floor, note in hand. His last clear thought wasn't very comforting to his retreating mind. 'Tsunade's going to kill me.'

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Toad Sannin was once again on the dusty road, traveling through the countryside between villages. His information network had people all over the major countries, collecting rumors and data that could hopefully help him in his objectives. He had just come back from meeting with informants in Iwa. While they still didn't particularly care for Hi no Kuni, at least there weren't any rumors of outright war at the moment, a small favor that Jiraiya was thankful to the gods for. His primary purpose was to be the ears on the ground for his village, but that didn't keep him from his personal search.

The sage absentmindedly raised his hand to his chest, resting on the disfiguring scar he knew resided under his tunic. His thoughts began to wander a familiar path, tracing their way down the memories of his wayward student. Jiraiya had tried for eight years to find him. The gaki had vanished without a trace. 'I suppose I must have taught him something about evasion after all' Jiraiya thought with a wry grin.

He turned his face to the sun, taking in the warm light as it filtered through the treetops. The sannin traveled at a relaxed pace, not really watching where he was going as he journeyed on the well beaten and oft traveled road through the forest. Travelers in the area had had their worries about bandits more or less abolished by the fact that the most notorious of them had been rounded up by an unknown vigilante.

Jiraiya suspected it was a shinobi but had been unable to gather enough of a description to identify him, although if it really were a rogue shinobi, that would hardly have mattered. Part of him hoped without reason that it was his errant charge, but there had been other times where a similar situation had occurred, and his hopes had been dashed. It had happened too many times over the years for him to blindly charge in. A sigh escaped his lips as he pondered the puzzle that Uzumaki Naruto had left him with. A familiar thought crossed his mind, 'What if he really doesn't want to be found?'

Jiraiya felt guilty about the circumstances that had led to his departure. 'I shouldn't have tried to push him so hard. I knew the Kyuubi's chakra was hard to control, and I still insisted he work with it. I just wish he would have stayed to let me explain…'

*oomph*

The sannin was abruptly pulled from his morose line of thought by his sudden impact with a young girl. He looked down to see a little girl with her blonde hair in pigtail braids sitting splayed out on the ground near his feet. She rubbed her hands around her head as if feeling for bumps when her face turned up to see what she had run into. Her emerald eyes widened in surprise as she saw the giant of a man standing in front of her.

"Ero-sennin! Is it really you? You've got to come quick. Otou-san's hurt real bad!"

Jiraiya's jaw dropped in shock. Whatever the toad sage had expected to hear, that was not it.

A/N: Test run. It's another fic I've got some chapters written for. Chapters would probably be between 1-2k, just to keep my sanity. Updates would be highly sporadic, just telling you ahead, if you're interested.

Should I continue it?

Adios

Soprano-in-Waiting