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Chapter 7

Naruto's training and search with Jiraiya was already nearing a month. Naruto had completed all three stages of Rasengan training a week ago, but had far from mastered it. He refused to begin working on anything else until he had completed all three stages. He could now make a Rasengan in about five seconds with the aide of a Kage Bunshin, but Jiraiya had deemed that enough of a success to official say Naruto had completed the Rasengan.

Since then, Naruto had split his time between summoning, fuuin jutsu, and creating his own unique jutsu based off of the Rasengan. The time he used for training were in unequal amounts, only learning fuuin jutsu and summoning for something to do. His main focus was on creating his own jutsu. The jutsu itself had taken on similar steps of learning the Rasengan, but Naruto knocked it down to one and a half steps. He used the idea of breaking open a balloon filled with air. After Naruto figured out how to do that, the half step was containing the force in a sphere and not breaking the balloon. His jutsu was just as deadly as the Rasengan, but less complicated. However, the down side was that it required even more control and did cause stress to the user's body.

Naruto had been trying to figure out the last half step for the past two days, and unlike his previous training with he Rasengan, was seeing no improvement as the minutes passed on. He had asked Jiraiya for any pointer his experience might provide, but Jiraiya could only scratch his head. Jiraiya told Naruto that the jutsu, in the final form Naruto wanted, might not be possible. That was not what Naruto wanted to hear and stubbornly went back to work on his creation of his 'ultimate jutsu.'

Naruto was futilely trying to make some kind of head way on his jutsu when Jiraiya barged in the room, frantically searching around the room for Naruto. He conveniently forgot to look in the middle of the room, on Naruto's bed. He found the boy three seconds later, "I finally found her!" the perverted man shouted out. Both Naruto and Jiraiya sighed with contentment, realizing the search was over and that Jiraiya would not have to become Hokage by default.

The two left minutes later and found Tsunade at the casino where Jiraiya had last seen her, winning money hand over fist and drinking Sake by the gallon. "Whoo hoo," the two heard her drunkenly shout out when she won another pot. Naruto noticed a mousy haired woman look around her and the busty blond, for what Naruto did not know, but it held a look of desperation to it.

"Tsunade-hime, long time no see," Jiraiya greeted her as he walked up to meet her. Tsunade tipsily spun around, trying to unravel the blurry face in front of her. The mousy haired woman gave a visible sigh of relief when she recognized Jiraiya, Naruto noticed.

Finally, Tsunade recognized the white haired pervert and muttered, "Oh, it's you," before spinning less energetically around to her slot machine.

"Yeah, it's me. How 'bout I treat us four to dinner!" Jiraiya boomed out, trying to seem as friendly as possible.

Tsunade spun around again when she heard 'us four.' In her drunken stupor, she missed the blindingly orange boy next to Jiraiya. "'Us four?'" Tsunade questioned. "When'd you learn to count, Jiraiya?" Tsunade asked drunkenly, before giggling at putting down the old pervert.

"Eh? I'm talking about you and I, and Shizune and Naruto here!" Jiraiya said, gesturing to each member in turn.

Tsunade blinked, then squinted her eyes when they fell on a too bright blob of orange. "Why are you walking around with an orange blob, Jiraiya? An' why'd you name it something stupid like Naruto?" Tsunade questioned with a crooked smile regarding the absurd situation.

"I'm not a 'blob,'" Naruto coldly stated. Tsunade's eyebrows rose comically as she heard the blob talk.

"Holy shit! It can talk!" Tsunade exclaimed loudly, attracting the attention of other patrons near her, wondering why she was questioning the ability of speech a preteen possessed.

"I'm not an 'it,' either," Naruto growled out. He turned to Jiraiya and asked, "Are you sure she's going to be the next Hokage? They might as well and appoint the town drunk! At least he looks like he can carry himself in a fight."

Jiraiya rubbed his fist in his face as Tsunade's happy-go-lucky facade faded. The orange blob had said 'Hokage,' and suggesting she was going to be one. Never mind the barb of her being a drunk (she was proud of the fact!), or not being able to fight while being drunk (she was stronger than anyone when she was drunk, the blob just didn't know).

"What's the blob talking about Jiraiya?" Tsunade asked in what appeared to be a sober voice.

"Sensei died and Konoha needs a new Hokage," Jiraiya tiredly explained. Beating around the bush would only piss Tsunade off more and he just didn't have the energy after the emotional roller coaster of the past month.

"Like hell," Tsunade growled out, slamming her fist on the slot machine, cracking it down the middle.

"Your damn right! Like hell I would let this lush be Hokage," Naruto said, slamming his own fist on an adjacent slot machine, cracking it as well. His however, was due to pure physical strength, not the drunkenly used chakra enhanced fist of Tsunade.

"What did you say to me, you Orange blob?" Tsunade asked, cracking her knuckles.

Jiraiya was confused. This was the first time he had seen to two blonds fiery for lack of a better word, in a very long time. He didn't know if it was the subject involved or the people, but he would be damned sure if things weren't about to get interesting!

"You heard me, hag, no way will I let you be Hokage! I'll kick your ass myself if I have to," Naruto exclaimed.

"How 'bout we continue this dance outside?" Tsunade drunkenly purred. Naruto was repulsed by it, a fifty year old hag purring at him of all things!

"Fine by me," Naruto whispered as he walked outside, with Tsunade following.

"Ah, Tsunade," Jiraiya said, tapping on his old teammates shoulder.

"Whassit?" She drunkenly asked.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Jiraiya began to explain.

Tsunade stopped in her tracks and whirled to face Jiraiya. "Don't worry, I won't hurt your precious student... much!"

Jiraiya's pointer fingers suddenly began tapping together, as if he was nervous. "It's not him I'm worried about, but you!" Jiraiya finally spit out before Tsunade.

Tsunade only laughed as she continued her trek outside. Jiraiya quickly shouted out behind her, "He's stronger than he looks!"

"How strong is he?" a new voiced asked Jiraiya, giving him a little jump.

"Oh, Shizune! I forgot about you there," Jiraiya said with his hand over his chest. Worst thing for a ninja was not not finding someone, but forgetting about them when you did!

"He's about ANBU level. Not as strong as Hatake Kakashi, mind you, but strong enough to make Kakashi sweat a little, if you know what I mean." Shizune's eye's widen and quickly rushed after her master. Normally, an ANBU level ninja did not present much trouble to a ninja the caliber of Tsunade. However, a drunken Sannin is still a drunken Sannin. More people have ended up dead to Tsunade 'handling' a creditor when she was drunk than she cared to think about. And if Jiraiya was right, collateral damage was about to become a sure thing.

The scene that greeted Shizune when she got outside was like something out of a sappy book detailing a samurai showdown. The eerily dark street was deserted, with litter and dust lightly blowing in the wind. The breeze was causing Tsunade's jacket to flap in the wind and her hair to gently ebb and flow with the wind.

Naruto looked unfazed as he stonily stared down Tsunade. 'I think I got a chance as long as I strike hard and fast,' he thought, taking in Tsunade swaying back and forth due to her drunken state. 'I don't think I can beat her, but I might make her sweat a little.' With that thought, Naruto reached behind his back, and pulled three kunai out with each hand. He quickly let them sail through the air towards Tsunade.

'This little shit sure doesn't know how to throw kunai,' the drunken Sannin thought, as each kunai began to pass her, each missing their mark by three feet. Before Tsunade could smirk, she was interrupted by six 'puffs,' which then kicked and punched her into the ground. However, they didn't stop there. The bunshins then began to pummel her into the ground.

Naruto smirked with how easy it was to get the jump on her. However, his smirk disappeared when the clones all simultaneously 'poof'd' out of existence. Tsunade ungracefully climbed to her feet, mostly due to the fact she was drunk. When she reached her full height, she cracked her neck a couple of times before fazing out of Naruto's sight.

Naruto was made suddenly aware of where Tsunade was when her fist buried itself in his gut. Luckily for Naruto, Tsunade's drunkeness made her timing slightly off, thus saving his internal organs from being obliterated from the Slug Sannin's uncanny strength. To Tsunade's surprise though, Naruto didn't launch backwards like nearly everyone hit with one of her punches, but held on to her arm.

Naruto couldn't breath and tears were welling in his eyes, but he had the presence of mind to hold on. Naruto took it a step further and extended his right hand as a blue spinning orb appeared in his hand. Tsunade's eyes widen when she recognized the jutsu, and just dodged it in time when she threw Naruto away. Naruto himself was also surprised since he finally created a Rasengan without the aide of a Kage Bunshin.

"Ugh," Naruto moaned from the rubble that used to be an abandoned shack. He groggily got up, but swayed due to the concussion to his head. It would be better in a matter of minutes, but Naruto warily looked towards the Sannin hoping he would be alive long enough to recover. To his surprise and relief, Tsunade had started attacking and yelling at Jiraiya for teaching him the Rasengan. Naruto smirked as he fell down to a knee, if he knew using that jutsu would get the pervert in trouble, he would have used it a long time ago.

It had been four days since his beat down from Tsunade. Naruto was currently just outside the town working on his own jutsu inspired by the Rasengan. Since his fight, Shizune had taken it upon herself to keep him company and they were quickly becoming easy friends throughout their ordeal. When Naruto took breaks from his experiments, they usually discussed ways to get Tsunade to agree to be Hokage, or more likely for Naruto, why she should not be Hokage. They often got into little spats when the conversations steered that way, but the quickly got over it, at least by the next day.

Unknown to those two, Tsunade was infinitely curious over the blond boy shrouded in orange. Jiraiya had relayed most of his history to the buxom blond, but she was still intrigued. She was also disgusted that Konoha threw him away, as he would be a boon to their forces, and upset with her former sensei for doing nothing for him. She refused to admit it to Jiraiya, but she was enamored with the blond enigma. Not in the sense that she was falling in love with him, but in the sense that she wanted to be around him and learn as much as she could about him. She was strongly considering becoming Hokage just to make his life better and make Konoha's hell.

The next day, Tsunade had come to the decision to accept the rank of Kage. Jiraiya, Shizune, and Naruto were all out at Naruto's training field trying to help him get over the bump in his new jutsu. However, she froze in her footsteps as a voice whispered in her ear that she hadn't heard since exactly one week ago, a voice that she had forgotten about since a little blond boy showed up in her life.

"Hello Tsunade. Have you made a decision concerning my offer yet?" The hissing voice of Orochimaru asked her as his tongue snaked around his smiling mouth.