Author's note: Junior year was the hardest year of high school. AP and Honors classes for everything. And I was sick a lot. Not conductive to the whole freetime thing. Plus the manga has been pissing me off to no end so less inspiration to re-write this. Mostly I'm just editing the old stuff and once I finish with that the chapters will be from scratch and completely different, I did get better at writing. Thank you AP English

o-Chapter 6: Searching-o

Kin cracked her knuckles. "Hello Jiraiya-sama...how ARE you today?" This was the first town they'd come to and the SIXTH hot spring she'd found him peeking in.

The Toad-Sannin gulped. Last time she caught him off guard he'd been made so loopy that the women in the spring caught him! He tried some handseals and...uh oh...didn't work. He used the wrong ones. He paled.

Kin grinned. "Yes I threw the senbon BEFORE I made my presence known." Jiraiya was screwed. She walked off and changed courses when she saw Naruto and ran to catch up to him. "Hey Naruto-kun!"

Naruto turned and smiled. "Hey Kin-chan! I hope we find this Tsunade soon. I'm hungry."

Kin sighed. "You're always hungry. But let's check one more gambling parlor and then we can have a ramen break."

The blond punched the air above him. "YATTA!"

-Back in Konoha-

Saskura was pacing. Sasuke had disappeared again. "Well atleast Naruto isn't here. Hehe...thank Kami he got a girlfriend." She giggled. "Means he finally will leave me alone."

As if matchmaking was a cue Anko appeared behind Sakura. "So...you think it would funny for them to get together?"

The pink haired kunoichi jumped. "Eek! Crazy exam lady! Don't do that!"

The snake jonin frowned and leveled minor killing intent. "What? No respect?"

Sakura gulped, "Anko-SENSEI...and yes it means Naruto would leave me alone...with Sasuke..." She got all sparkly-eyed.

Anko sighed. "I have interest in Kin and I think it would be so FUN if they got together...so here's the plan once they get back to Konoha..."

As Anko whispered in Sakura's ear a certain Hyuuga looked upon them with tears in her eyes. So it's true...

-With Sasuke-

"Now Sasuke...the FIRST thing you must learn is tactics. You have been focusing on causing maximum damage with maximum output. I will show you how to do maximum damage with minimal output." Danzo grinned as Sasuke's frown turned to a look of interest. The lessons had begun...

-Random Ramen Stand in some other town-

Naruto sighed as he finished his tenth bowl. "Kin-chan how can we search for Tsunade if we get kicked out of the places she might be in."

The former oto-nin had been thinking about this too. "I think we should disguise ourselves Naruto. If we LOOK older they may just let us in."

Naruto sighed. "But I'm short..."

"Then be a midget!" Kin snapped at him. She sighed when she saw that he was hurt. "I'm sorry Naruto...this is just so annoying. This entire mission! He hasn't even started training you!"

Naruto nodded sullenly. "I know..."

Just then Jiraiya came back. "OK! How has the searching gone?"

Kin sighed. "Horrible...maybe if we used Naruto's shadow clones and had them report back we could search more places..."

Jiraiya grinned. "You mean Naruto never noticed that he learned what the clones learned?"

Naruto jumped up. "NO WAY? I do?"

Jiraiya smiled. "Well in that case. Time to start your training...BOTH of you."

Kin blinked. "BOTH?"

Fifteen minutes later saw them at a field near the town. Jiraiya handed Kin a piece of paper. "I'll be teaching Naruto Rasengan but you need something else. Elemental. So put chakra into that." The paper crumpled when she did so and Jiraiya blinked.

"Doton? That's easy. Here ya go!" He tossed her a jutsu scroll. "You have three techniques and nature manipulation basics on there. Learn them." He turned to Naruto. "Ok...so...time to learn Rasengan..."

Kin stayed at the field and read the scroll. Naruto went with Jiraiya to the other side.

"Ok Naruto. Now there are three steps to this. First is to use your chakra to spin the water in this balloon and pop it." He tossed him a water balloon. "And you learn EVERYTHING your clones learn. Just a hint." He left a box of balloons and he went to go to his lecherous doings.

Naruto frowned. "I think he meant I should use this...TAJU KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" he created fifty clones. "Ok everyone! Take a balloon and start working!"

The clones scrambled over each other to get balloons. Finally they all settled down to try the first step.

The field was full of cries of frustration.

Kin looked over from her scroll and blinked at the amount of Narutos. "Wow..." She sighed and turned back to the scroll. Hmm...'Retsudo Tenshou' (Revolving Split Earth Palm)?

Every so often one of Naruto's clones would scream. "I got it!" Then the other clones would yell at him to 'show us show us!' said first clone would stab its stomach to disperse itself giving the others the knowledge. Eventually the real one was the only one left.

Naruto moaned as he got up. He was sweating. "I think I can do it..." He took the last balloon and put it in his hand. He pushed chakra into it. He swirled it. Left...right... He tapped it with his other hand.Forwards...backwards... He tapped it in another place. This way...that way... It popped. "YATTA!" He screamed loud enough for Kin to hear.

She smiled. He did it...She blinked as he took off to find Jiraiya. I need to keep practicing though...

"DOTON! Retsudo Tenshou !" She slammed her hand into the ground and two human sized pieces of rock came out of the ground and slammed together. Almost...I need two more pieces and it needs to be bigger...

-We don't want to know where...-

Jiraiya came out of a...'place' right smack into Naruto. "HEY ERO-SANNIN!" The blond was jumping up and down in excitement.

Jiraiya put a hand on his head to calm him down. "You did it?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah!"

Jiraiya sighed. It was barely afternoon. "Well come on I'll get you started on the second step..."

They got back to the impromptu training ground and Jiraiya set Naruto up with some rubber balls. "Now add power to that...if your hand shakes you just need to rest your coils." Naruto nodded. 'TAJU KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" Again fifty clones.

By supper only three clones had disappeared and Naruto himself was tired. He dispersed the rest of his clones and let Kin help him back.

Jiraiya sighed. "She isn't here we leave tomorrow."

Later that evening Jiraiya found out about Kin's 'strange sleeping habit'. Unless Naruto was there she had nightmares like that first night. So they always ended up sharing a room or tent. Good material...FUFUFU!

-The next day-

They started out early. Naruto complained about this but Kin shut him up with a package of instant Ramen.

The toad-sannin had Naruto create his clones to work on the rubber balls while he taught them something he excelled in...spying. "It is an integral part of a Chuunin, Jonin, or Sannin's carreer to gather information. This is not taught so much at the academy because mostly Genin and new Chuunin do D-C or B rank missions. Mostly bandit control for C or B ranks." He explained. "Subtlety is not needed. BUT for other missions it is."

Later on something strange was done by their sensei. Naruto was puzzled by Jiraiya's insistence that they stop by a theater. The play wasn't boring; rather, he hadn't pegged Jiraiya as the sort who liked these things. In a case of mind over matter, though, he refrained from commenting on it. There was probably a reason for it, after all.

Which assumption had been proven correct when Jiraiya took his charges backstage after the show to speak with the actors. That conversation had quickly gotten to how much work they had put into everything from costumes to mannerisms...

Once on the road, Jiraiya had been about to ask if they had any idea why they had made that stop. I dunno... Naruto thought. It was pretty neat how th- Then it hit him, and he wanted to kick himself. He remembered disguising himself as Sasuke in an effort to find out what Sakura thought about him. Between a henge and his knowledge of the teme's mannerisms, he'd pulled that off fairly well, hadn't he?

But, the train of intuition continued, because henge used chakra, it wouldn't really fool another shinobi - even if they couldn't see through it (like Kurenai or any Hyuuga), the technique's very presence was sure to arouse some suspicion...

And, he also recalled, quite a few shinobi missions required the discreet collection of information unobtrusively (Ibiki had provided ample proof of what could happen if one blew that). "Aha!"

"Oh so did the hamster start running Naruto?" Jiraiya asked condescendingly.

Naruto twitched. "Hai Jiraiya-sensei..." He felt stupid and grudgingly gave him some respect. He sighed. "I'm gonna have to get rid of my orange won't I?"

Kin moaned. "Yes Naruto-kun...yes you will..."

All in all by supper Naruto and Kin had learned a lot about the Art of Disguise. And most of Naruto's clones had gotten the rubber ball step down.

-Sasuke's next meeting-

Danzo was teaching him to use a new technique with his new 'tactics' training. "Now this attack is for when you absolutely must kill, " He grinned, "every mother fucker in the room."

Sasuke smiled when the Katon: Kasumi Enbu no Jutsu (Mist Waltz Technique) was explained. Combustible gas huh? Useful...but I bet I could turn this into something to one-up whatever this old man is teaching me...Maybe I could use Kakashi-sensei to teach me to make tags with it?

o-fin-o