Chapter 16: Two Roads
They traveled light and fast.
Jiraiya set the pace — not brutal, but purposeful, the stride of someone who knew exactly how far they needed to go and had no interest in wasting daylight. Naruto matched it without complaint. Three weeks of Guy's conditioning had built his endurance into something that didn't notice distances the way it used to.
They didn't talk much for the first hour. The road opened up outside the village gates and the forest gave way slowly to open country — rolling hills, farmland, the distant shapes of smaller settlements tucked into valleys. Konoha shrank behind them and then disappeared entirely behind a ridge.
Jiraiya spoke first.
"Tell me what you know about the Rasengan."
"Blue sphere," Naruto said. "Pure chakra rotation. No element. You hit me with it and I went through an earthen bank."
"What else?"
"You said it was the highest level of chakra shape manipulation." Naruto paused. "And that you'd tell me where it came from on the road."
Jiraiya glanced sideways. "I did say that." He was quiet for a moment. "The Rasengan was created by the Fourth Hokage."
Naruto processed that. The Fourth — the one whose face was carved into the Monument. The one who had died the night Naruto was born sealing the Nine-Tails. He'd grown up in the shadow of that story the way everyone in Konoha had.
"The Fourth created it," Naruto said.
"He spent three years developing it," Jiraiya said. "The idea came from studying the Tailed Beast Bomb — the chakra sphere that Tailed Beasts use. He wanted to replicate the principle with human chakra. He never finished it the way he intended — never added an elemental nature to it. But what he produced is already one of the most powerful techniques in existence." He paused. "He was my student."
Naruto looked at him. "The Fourth Hokage was your student."
"Yes."
Naruto turned that over. Jiraiya — who moved like a mountain and fought like a natural disaster — had taught the man whose face was on the mountain behind Konoha. It reordered the scale of things in a specific and useful way.
"And you're teaching it to me," Naruto said.
"It's a powerful technique," Jiraiya said simply. "You should know it." He reached into his coat and produced a rubber ball — small, red. He held it out without breaking stride. "Start with rotation."
Naruto took it.
"The Rasengan has three components," Jiraiya said. "Rotation. Power. Containment — holding the first two together in a stable form simultaneously." He glanced at the ball. "Start with rotation. The chakra you put into your palm needs to spin — not push, not pulse. Spin. Continuously."
Naruto looked at the ball. Felt his chakra. Started trying.
The ball spun lopsided, wobbled, stopped.
He tried again. Worse.
"You're pushing it in one direction," Jiraiya said. "Rotation is multidirectional simultaneously. Think of water going down a drain — it pulls from all sides at once toward the center."
Naruto adjusted. Tried again.
Better. Not good — but better.
He kept working while they walked.
After twenty minutes he stopped, made fifteen shadow clones, and distributed the drill between them.
Jiraiya watched this with mild interest. The clones spread across the road and into the grass at its edges, each one working the rotation simultaneously.
"Shadow Clone multiplication for training," Jiraiya said.
"I learn fifteen times faster this way," Naruto said. "Each clone that figures something out sends it back when they dispel."
Jiraiya was quiet for a moment. "Did you figure that out yourself?"
"During the Chunin Exam prep."
Another pause. "Most jonin don't have the amount of chakra to pull this off." He went back to watching the clones.
An hour later three clones achieved stable rotation and dispersed. The memories hit Naruto in a clean wave — the precise feedback of exactly what had worked and why. He adjusted his own attempt.
The ball in his palm began to spin.
Not perfectly. Not smoothly. But continuously — actually rotating under his chakra pressure for the first time.
"First stage," Jiraiya said. He was watching with both eyes now, Icha Icha nowhere in sight. "That took me a week."
"The clones help," Naruto said. He was already thinking about stage two.
"Don't rush it," Jiraiya said. "The rotation needs to be stable before you add power. Add power to unstable rotation and it explodes in your hand."
"Has that happened?"
"Once. It was educational for everyone involved."
Naruto kept the rotation going — steady, learning the feel of it, the specific quality when it was right versus when it was starting to drift.
They walked in comfortable silence for a while. The road curved through a shallow valley and a small town appeared ahead.
"Tsunade," Naruto said. "Tell me about her."
Jiraiya's expression shifted subtly. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything useful."
"The greatest medical ninja who has ever lived," Jiraiya said. "Granddaughter of the First Hokage. Trained under the Third himself. She could heal injuries that would kill most people, reverse damage that medical science considers permanent." He paused. "She left the village years ago after losing people she cared about. She's been wandering since."
"That's the impressive version," Naruto said. "What's the real version?"
Jiraiya looked at him sideways. Then laughed — short and genuine. "She's a gambling addict," he said. "Has been for years. Goes from town to town, hits every casino and gambling hall she can find, loses catastrophically, moves on." He shook his head. "There's a reason people call her the Legendary Sucker."
Naruto blinked. "The greatest medical ninja alive is called the Legendary Sucker."
"She has the worst luck at gambling of anyone I've ever met," Jiraiya said. "She will bet everything on the worst possible hand and lose it with complete conviction. There are gambling hall owners across three nations who light incense in her honor because she's funded their retirements."
"And this is the person who's supposed to become Hokage."
"She's brilliant, gifted, and one of the most powerful shinobi alive," Jiraiya said. "She's also going to make every gambling hall between here and wherever she currently is significantly poorer before we find her." He paused. "That's actually how we track her. Follow the trail of emptied wallets and devastated card tables."
Naruto stared at him. "That's your tracking strategy."
"It's a remarkably effective tracking strategy," Jiraiya said with dignity. "She's very consistent."
Naruto looked at the road ahead. "She's going to be difficult."
"Very. She doesn't want to be found. Doesn't want the title. Will say no to almost everything on instinct." He glanced at Naruto. "Which is part of why I wanted you along."
"Because I'm stubborn."
"Because you're something she won't expect," Jiraiya said. He didn't elaborate.
Naruto turned the rubber ball in his palm, keeping the rotation going. The Fourth Hokage's technique, turning in his hand on a road heading toward a gambling addict who didn't want to be found.
He kept walking.
The guard at the eastern gate had fifteen years of post duty behind him. He'd seen most things.
He noticed the two hooded figures immediately. Cloaks despite the warm weather. Hoods pulled forward despite clear skies. Something about them prickled at his instincts — the way they moved, the deliberate quality of it, like people who had decided exactly how much attention to draw and were drawing precisely that much.
He raised his hand. "Identification—"
The world went soft and dark before he finished the sentence. He was asleep before he hit the ground, settled against the gate post like a man taking a nap, completely undisturbed.
The two figures walked through the gate without breaking stride and disappeared into the streets of Konoha.
It was Asuma who noticed them first.
He was crossing the market district with Kurenai when something registered at the edge of his awareness — a chakra signature that was wrong. Not weak, not hostile in the obvious way. Just wrong. The specific wrongness of something enormous trying very hard to be invisible and not quite managing it.
He slowed his pace almost imperceptibly. Didn't look directly. Let his peripheral vision do the work.
Two hooded figures. Moving through the crowd with the practiced ease of people who had done this in hostile territory before. Their chakra suppressed to almost nothing — almost. The key word being almost.
He tilted his head slightly toward Kurenai. She gave the smallest possible nod. She'd already felt it.
They followed at a careful distance — unhurried, two jonin out for a walk, nothing to see here — until the figures turned into a quieter side street and the crowd thinned enough that the pretense became unnecessary.
Asuma stepped forward. "Stop."
The figures stopped.
"Hoods down," Asuma said.
The nearer figure reached up and pushed its hood back.
The professional discipline required to keep his expression neutral was significant. Beside him Kurenai went very still.
Itachi Uchiha looked at them with the flat unhurried calm of someone who had expected this and was simply waiting for what came next. His Sharingan was already active — the three tomoe spinning slowly in each eye, reading everything simultaneously. Beside him Kisame Hoshigaki lowered his own hood — seven feet of barely restrained violence, Samehada wrapped on his back, its scales shifting with quiet appetite.
For a moment nobody moved.
Then Kisame smiled. "Well," he said pleasantly. "Two jonin. That's more than the gate guard managed."
Asuma's chakra blades ignited. Kurenai's hands moved into the opening seal of her genjutsu specialty simultaneously. No signal between them — years of partnership making the coordination automatic.
Kisame pulled Samehada free in one motion and swung it in a wide horizontal arc that turned the side street into a very small space. Asuma ducked under it — the displaced air hitting him like a physical blow even without contact — and drove both chakra blades upward at Kisame's midsection. The wind-natured chakra crackled along their edges.
Kisame redirected the strike with Samehada's flat, the sword absorbing the chakra on contact, scales drinking it down. "Oh that's good," he said. "Wind nature. I like that."
He drove a straight kick at Asuma's chest that sent him sliding back across the cobblestones.
Asuma dug in, skidded to a stop, and came right back. He wasn't the flashiest jonin in Konoha but he was relentless — the kind of fighter who made you earn every inch. He drove forward again, blades working in tight controlled combinations, forcing Kisame to keep Samehada moving defensively.
Across the street Kurenai's genjutsu unfolded around Itachi — a layered construction, carefully built, her best work. The side street dissolved into darkness. Shapes moved in it. The particular kind of illusion designed to trap a target inside their own perception and hold them there while the body stood still and helpless.
Itachi stood inside it for exactly two seconds.
Then the Sharingan spun — three tomoe accelerating, reading the structure of the illusion the way you read a map, finding the seams, the anchor points, the fundamental architecture of it.
He stepped out of it like stepping through a doorway.
Kurenai blinked. The genjutsu was intact — she could feel it still running. He'd simply walked through it. Not dispelled it. Walked through it as if it were a curtain.
Itachi looked at her. His voice was quiet and entirely without cruelty. "This level of genjutsu doesn't work on me."
Kurenai's jaw was set. She was already cycling through alternatives — if the layered illusion couldn't hold him then she needed something more direct, something that targeted the nervous system rather than the perception—
She didn't get the chance.
Because Kakashi arrived.
He dropped from the rooftop above the side street and landed between Itachi and Kurenai without a word, Sharingan already uncovered, both eyes reading the full picture in one sweep.
He took in Asuma pressing Kisame back along the far wall. Took in Kurenai standing her ground with the expression of someone recalibrating fast. Took in Itachi, who had turned to face him with the particular stillness of someone encountering a problem they'd already solved once before and were prepared to solve again.
"Kakashi Hatake," Itachi said.
"Itachi Uchiha," Kakashi said. His voice was light. Completely at odds with the Sharingan blazing in his left eye. "You've come a long way."
"We're looking for the Uzumaki boy," Itachi said.
"I know," Kakashi said. "He's not here."
The Sharingan read his face. Systematic. Thorough.
"But you know where he is," Itachi said.
Kakashi said nothing.
They moved simultaneously — the way two Sharingan users move when both of them know that the advantage belongs to whoever acts first and neither of them intends to let the other have it.
Kakashi drove forward with a kunai — fast, precise, aimed to force a response rather than land. He needed Itachi reacting, not initiating. The Sharingan on both sides meant every offensive technique was already being read before it arrived — the advantage went to whoever could create a situation the other couldn't predict fast enough.
Itachi deflected the kunai with his forearm, caught Kakashi's wrist on the follow through, and redirected him — not into the wall but sideways, breaking his momentum and creating distance simultaneously. Clean. Economic. The minimum necessary motion and no more.
Kakashi recovered fast, spinning on his heel, Sharingan tracking Itachi's chakra flow for the telltale signs of a jutsu being formed.
He saw it half a second too late.
The Sharingan spun — three tomoe accelerating into something else, the pattern shifting in a way Kakashi had only seen once before and had spent a long time trying not to think about.
Tsukuyomi.
The side street was gone.
A gray world with a red moon and no horizon. Seventy-two hours measured in three seconds. Images Kakashi would not describe to anyone afterward. The particular precision of a technique designed not to destroy but to dismantle — taking everything held together by will and focus and pulling it carefully apart.
Then the side street was back.
Kakashi was on his knees.
His vision fractured at the edges — the Tsukuyomi damage spreading across his perception in geometric patterns. He could feel his chakra network in disarray, the feedback loops disrupted, his body receiving signals it didn't know how to process. He stayed on his knees by choice, using the ground as a reference point.
Across the street he heard the fight between Asuma and Kisame escalating — the crack of wind chakra against Samehada's scales, Asuma's controlled breathing audible even through the noise.
Then Kisame disengaged.
Not because Asuma had pushed him back. Because Kisame had decided to.
The massive shinobi turned away from Asuma with the unhurried ease of someone choosing to stop rather than being forced to, stepped across the street, and raised Samehada above Kakashi's kneeling form.
"Nothing personal," Kisame said cheerfully.
The sword came down.
Something hit Kisame from the side with enough force to send him sliding fifteen feet across the cobblestones, Samehada spinning out of his grip and clattering against the far wall.
Might Guy landed in a crouch between Kisame and Kakashi, one leg still extended from the kick. He straightened slowly. His green jumpsuit was slightly rumpled. His expression was serious in a way that was entirely different from his usual theatrical intensity — the serious face of someone who had assessed a situation in the time it took to arrive and had no interest in anything except what needed doing.
"Kakashi," Guy said, without turning around. "You alright?"
"Define alright," Kakashi said. His voice was hoarse.
Kisame recovered from the slide and looked at his empty hands. Then at Samehada against the wall. Then at Guy with an expression of genuine reassessment. "So you're Might Guy."
"I am," Guy said simply.
Kisame retrieved Samehada. "Itachi said you were dangerous."
"Itachi is perceptive," Guy said.
Across the street Itachi had not moved. His Sharingan had been reading the new variable — Guy's chakra signature, his stance, the particular quality of how he held himself. Reading and calculating and arriving at a conclusion.
"Kisame," Itachi said.
Kisame looked at him.
"We have what we came for," Itachi said.
Kisame looked at Guy. Then at Samehada. Then back at Guy with the expression of someone genuinely disappointed about a missed opportunity. "Shame," he said. And meant it.
Itachi's Sharingan moved one last time — across the street, past Guy, past the kneeling Kakashi, past Kurenai and Asuma. Reading. Confirming. The Uzumaki boy was not here. He had been here. And now he was not.
Jiraiya had him.
Which meant he was unreachable — for now.
"We're leaving," Itachi said.
He turned. Kisame fell into step beside him. They walked to the end of the side street and turned the corner and were gone — absorbed into the streets of Konoha the way they'd arrived, like smoke finding the wind.
The side street was very quiet for a moment.
Then Asuma was beside Kakashi, one hand on his shoulder. "Can you stand?"
"Give me a moment," Kakashi said.
Guy turned from the corner where Itachi and Kisame had disappeared. His expression had settled back into something more recognizable — still serious, but the particular sharpness of the assessment was receding. He looked at Kakashi. Then at Kurenai. "Hospital," he said. "Now. No arguments."
They carried Kakashi between them — Asuma on one side, Guy on the other, Kurenai clearing the way through the streets. Kakashi was conscious but the Tsukuyomi damage was severe enough that walking unaided wasn't something he was going to do tonight.
The hospital received them without ceremony — this was Konoha, and jonin arriving from combat situations was not unusual enough to cause disruption. The duty medic took one look at Kakashi's eyes and the fractured quality of his gaze and had him in a room within three minutes.
Asuma, Guy, and Kurenai stood in the corridor outside.
"We need to make sure Sasuke doesn't find out," Kurenai said. Her voice was low. "If he hears that Itachi was here—"
"He'll go after him," Guy said.
"Or after Naruto," Asuma said. "Itachi was here for Naruto. If Sasuke connects that—"
"He'll want to find Naruto before Itachi does," Kurenai finished. "And Naruto is out there with Jiraiya on an open road."
"We keep this contained," Asuma said. "Sasuke hears nothing. As far as he's concerned Kakashi had a training accident."
Guy looked uncomfortable with this — the expression of someone asked to be dishonest about something that felt like it mattered. But he nodded.
"Contained," he agreed. "For now."
Sasuke heard about Kakashi from a mission desk clerk who mentioned it the way people mention things they assume everyone already knows.
He was at the administrative building collecting a solo training permit when she said — while stamping the form, not even looking up — "Terrible about Hatake-san, isn't it? Heard he was brought in about an hour ago. Third floor."
Sasuke took the stamped permit. Walked out. Went directly to the hospital.
He climbed to the third floor and found the corridor without difficulty. He could hear voices from behind a closed door at the far end — recognizable voices. Asuma. Kurenai. Guy.
He stopped outside it.
He didn't knock. He stood against the wall beside the door frame, in the gap where the hinge-side of the door would block him from view if it opened, and listened.
He heard Kurenai say: "— Itachi came specifically for Naruto. As long as Naruto is out there—"
He heard Asuma say: "Jiraiya will keep him safe. And Naruto is not—"
He heard Guy say: "The problem is Sasuke. If he finds out Itachi was after—"
Sasuke pushed off the wall.
He walked back down the corridor at a controlled pace. Down the stairs. Through the hospital entrance.
Naruto dispersed the last training clone and sat back looking at his palm.
The second stage had taken most of the afternoon and evening — adding raw chakra output to the stable rotation without destroying the rotation in the process. Three clones had achieved it cleanly by late evening. By morning he could hold both rotation and power simultaneously for thirty seconds before the form collapsed.
Not complete. But close.
Jiraiya sat across the small breakfast table in the inn watching him with his tea halfway to his mouth.
"You're at stage two," he said.
"Almost solid," Naruto said.
"That took me a week."
Jiraiya put his tea down. "The third stage is the hardest," he said. "Containment. Holding the rotation and the power together in a stable sphere without an external container. No balloon. No ball. Just chakra holding chakra in a perfect form." He paused. "That's where most people fail. The first two stages are learnable through repetition. The third requires complete mastery of both simultaneously under pressure."
"How long did it take the Fourth?" Naruto said.
"Three years," Jiraiya said. "But he was developing the concept from scratch. You're learning a finished technique." He stood. "We'll work stage three on the road today. How close are we to the next town?"
Naruto checked the map. "Half a day. Place called Tanzaku Town."
Jiraiya's expression shifted into something trying very hard to look casual. "Tanzaku Town. Good inns there. We should make that our next stop."
Naruto looked at him. "You think Tsunade is there."
"I think Tsunade's trail leads there," Jiraiya said. "Word from the last town was that a woman matching her description cleaned out a card table three days ago. Then lost it all and more before morning." He paused. "The Legendary Sucker leaves a very distinct trail."
Naruto stood, pocketed the rubber ball, and picked up his pack.
"Jiraiya," he said.
"Mm."
"When we find her. What's the actual plan?"
Jiraiya was quiet for a moment. "I ask her to come home," he said. "She says no. Then something happens that changes her mind." He paused. "That's historically how it works with Tsunade."
"What usually changes her mind?"
"Something unexpected," Jiraiya said. He opened the door and stepped into the morning. "That's where you come in."
Naruto followed him out into the road. The sun was low and the air was cool and the third stage of the Rasengan was waiting to be learned.
He started working the rotation in his palm as they walked.
The road continued ahead of them — and somewhere down it, in a gambling hall that was probably already several thousand ryo lighter than it had been yesterday, the Fifth Hokage was losing spectacularly and didn't know they were coming.