I woke up to the sound of a quiet voice and what felt like something touching my forehead. I opened my eyes to find Fu sitting on the floor beside my bed, face perhaps an inch away, staring at me with her finger held out in front of her.

“That is the creepiest thing I have ever woken up to in my entire life.” I murmured.

Fu pouted.

“I suggested we beat the shit out of you,” Karenbana said seriously, “After suddenly disappearing for two months without even telling us you were leaving, well that deserves at least some kind of response.”

I’ll admit, she sounded a bit angrier than I had first imagined; this had been a lot funnier in my head as well.

“Yeah!” Fu said, upset, “Why did you ditch us?”

Hmm.

“I went to go get you both some presents,” I said easily, “Since you are both such terrible excuses for ninjas.”

Karenbana didn’t seem to appreciate how thoughtful I was; Fu did, though.

“What did you get us?!” Fu said excitedly.

“Some stupid present isn’t going to make us any less angry,” Karenbana said intently. “Right, Fu?”

“Sorry, Karenbana-chan,” Fu said sheepishly. “I forgot!”

Fu retreated to sit next to Karenbana, and they stared at me. Karenbana seems to have unionized the minions somehow; I was going to have to put a stop to that.

“What is this mutiny?” I cried, pushing myself into a sitting position. “No teaming up allowed!”

“No,” Karenbana said seriously, “You can’t just leave us behind like that.”

“Yeah,” Fu said quietly. “That was mean.”

The guilt trip, huh? It’s not like I wanted to go on my own; it was just more efficient that way; I wanted the swords, and they needed the time to train. That’s why I had pushed so hard for an escort to the Land of Rivers, I didn’t want to be on my own the entire time, but I didn’t want these two to waste time that could be used to get stronger.

“Look, it was the best option,” I tried, “You guys needed training, and I needed to go get some things; it all worked out.”

“You didn’t tell us you were leaving, though,” Fu said sadly, “You just abandoned us here, without saying goodbye.”

I glanced away at the tone, stupid feelings.

“Look, despite what you may think,” I said resignedly, “I’m not made of money, at best I have enough to keep paying you for two more months, and that’s it.”

I shrugged.

“I went to get you something to pay for a couple more months,” I said honestly, “Fu, if you are going to stick with me, then I’ll start paying you now as well, the same rate as Karenbana.”

“Karenbana-chan buys me food, so I don’t need any money!” Fu said immediately.

Ouch.

“You are such an idiot,” Karenbana said quietly.

“Fuck off,” I said immediately. “Apologize this instant, you shitty bodyguard.”

“No, stop trying to derail the conversation,” Karenbana said evenly, “I don’t want your money either.”

So this was it, huh?

I’d pushed her a little bit too far and seemingly destroyed our dynamic. I couldn’t remember the names anymore, but the situation certainly wasn’t unfamiliar to me; I had a bad habit of self-destructing like this.

“Okay,” I said cheerfully, “What are you two going to do then? Konoha would probably let you join, I think.”

Karenbana frowned.

“I want to stay with you two,” Fu said, confused.

Now I was confused.

“You are such an idiot,” Karenbana sighed, “You should have stopped paying me over a year ago; I considered us friends then too.”

“Me too!” Fu said immediately, “You’re both my friends!”

“Oh,” I said quietly.

I felt a flash of something behind my eyes, and I blinked it away furiously.

“How dare you make me feel emotionally vulnerable,” I pouted, “You’re both fired.”

“I was never hired!” Fu cried at the same time that Karenbana murmured, “I already quit.”

“I suppose neither of you wants your super cool gifts then,” I said sadly, “That’s a real shame; they were so cool too, really, really cool.”

“I want it!” Fu cried, “What did you get me?”

Karenbana sighed as I easily won Fu back over, and the evil union was destroyed, for now.

“I even traveled all the way to Wave country for Fu’s present,” I said sorrowfully, “It was really heavy too; I’m so disappointed, should I take it back?”

“Sora-kun!” Fu cried, “I want it!”

I pretended not to hear her.

“I went all the way to the Land of Rivers just to get something for Karenbana as well,” I sniffled, “I had to swim in this really scary river and everything; I could have drowned even!”

“Fine,” Karenbana sighed, giving in at last. “What did you get me?”

I grinned and stood up before gesturing for some space, and both of them backed up to the other side of the room. I brought out Kubikiribōchō first, and carefully placed it down on the bed on the right, and then brought out the two Kiba to place on the left bed.

“One Kubikiribōchō for Fu,” I said cheerfully, “Two Kiba for Karenbana.”

They both stared at the weapons in disbelief; I was right; it was just as funny as I had imagined.

“It's so cool!” Fu cheered and leaned over the bed to inspect her sword.

I watched as she struggled to pick it up for a moment before channeling chakra to accomplish the feat.

“How on earth did you get these?” Karenbana said, bewildered.

I leaned against the wall as she picked the two Kiba up and studied the blades.

“Kubikiribōchō was at Zabuza’s grave, Kakashi’s squad put it there years ago, I totally yoinked it, sorry not sorry.” I said breezily, “Kiba was at the bottom of a river after Raiga got evaporated during his fight against Team Nine.”

“Gai-sensei’s team!” Fu cheered.

“I was wondering who they found to train you both,” I said, amused. “Who’s training you, Karenbana? Kakashi?”

Karenbana placed the two swords back on the bed and turned around.

“Yuhei Kurenai is teaching me more genjutsu, but I’ve been working alongside Fu with Team Nine as well,” Karenbana said slowly.

I nodded in understanding; Kakashi was totally a lazy bastard; of course, he didn’t help.

“Sora,” Karenbana said quietly, “Are you really just giving these to us? Do you have any idea what they are worth?”

I looked at her strangely.

“Of course I do; I was going to use them as payment, remember? But there’s no point after you both confessed your undying love for me, though,” I said breezily. “Totally cringe, how embarrassing.”

Karenbana’s cheeks went red, and Fu yelped.

“Anyway, you two better start training with those,” I said easily, “We are going to fight Deidara and Sasori in, uh, three months?”

Something steely flashed through Fu’s eyes at the names, identifying them immediately as the members of Akatsuki I had told her about; I should probably try and distract her before she got stuck in a mood.

“Hey,” I said cheekily, “Did I tell you guys that I banged the Hokage?”

“What?!” Fu cried.

Karenbana turned to stare at me, eyes narrowed to slits; somebody was jealous.

I needed to start preparing for the next fight, and I had three things I needed to cover.

Unlike Kakuzu and Hidan, who I built against with mobility and piercing damage, this was going to be an entirely different fight. Deidara was all about mass numbers of explosions and singularly overwhelmingly powerful ones. He was also incredibly mobile while in the air, which was going to be a problem for half of our team.

Fu could fly with her wings, which was convenient, but I didn’t know if she was on the same level of speed as Deidara’s bird. The best bet here was to either make Fu faster somehow or create a way for me to maneuver in the air; I suppose the best option would be to kill him before he ever got into the air.

Obviously, I was going to attempt all three.

I already had a decent assassination attack in Line Spear, and it would be much more devasting to Deidara then it had been to Kakuzu or Hidan. As far as I knew, Deidara was relatively normal durability wise, although he had lost several limbs and continued fighting until he could get them sowed back on-that pointed to an incredible pain tolerance of some sort.

I was going to attempt to create a ‘Haste’ styled buff, something that would increase the speed of my teammates overall, which should include her flying speed; if it didn’t, I would have to go back to the drawing board.

We absolutely couldn’t let him ramp up in explosion power with a long drawn out fight; we needed to take him down before he had a chance to use anything massive, or even that suicide technique of his.

Sasuke had his elemental counter when they had fought, and he had still almost died, only sacrificing his most powerful summon had gotten him out of there alive. I should be able to keep track of any clones or subterfuge like hiding within the bird.

Sasori was an entirely different animal.

He had been the one I was incredibly worried about back when I first figured out what I was going to do. His lethal poison, the absolute overwhelming number of opponents he could bring to bear at a moment's notice, all of the kunai, shuriken, jutsu, and everything else he had packed into those puppets was dangerous. He also had that Iron Sand puppet, which I wanted absolutely no part of.

The advantage we had over him was that I knew exactly where his weak point was; a single hit to his heart would probably be enough to take him down, I hoped. The problem was if we failed to take down either of them, it was going to be a clusterfuck of a fight again, just like the last one had been.

I also couldn’t remember if his poisons were contact-based or if he needed to actually get it inside you somehow, through a cut or something. I was reasonably sure I could Status Removal it away or even out heal its Duration, but the better method was to not get hit at all. Some kind of protective shield like Iron Hide, except I wanted to be able to cast it on others as well.

There was a series of protective buffs that I could remember, but the standout ones were Protect for physical damage and Shell for magic damage. I was going for Protect in this instance, increasing their physical defense enough, hopefully, to at least stop a glancing hit from a Kunai.

The last thing was some kind of stationary platform I could stand on in the air, like that Renga guy and his Ice disc things. I didn’t need them to be elemental because that was silly, but I did need them to be strong enough to stand on so I could use meditate while in an aerial battle; otherwise, there was a chance I would run out of Mana and have a very terrible fall awaiting me-like I had back in the Land of the Mountain.

I glanced over at where Fu was hacking away at the air with Kubikiribōchō, and it honestly scared the hell out of me. Fu was a strange combination of having absolutely no prior training with a sword and a terrifying amount of enthusiasm. I watched her smack it into a tree several times earlier, and it had bounced off at an angle past her own head.

Karenbana was also messing around with her own weapons, although with seemingly more restraint then Fu. I turned away after she caught me looking at her; I was apparently still on active ass-kicking notice.

I dropped into Meditate and centered myself. I needed overall speed of movement, I needed it to have a long duration, I needed it to be able to cast it on others.

I pushed Mana into my palm and started condensing it while focusing on the mantra. Overall Speed, Long Duration, Cast on Others. Speed, Duration, Other. I fed more Mana into it, and after almost an hour of single-minded focus, I found the mindset for it to take, as it suddenly twisted into itself like a spiral before rushing out of my hand is a burst of pale red light.

You have unlocked a new skill, Tempo.

I didn’t bother reading it yet and instead set about creating my other two skills while I had my focus honed to that razor-sharp level. It still took me almost another hour to figure out how to create the next two.

You have unlocked a new skill, Aegis.

You have unlocked a new skill, Mana Layer.

I pulled up the descriptions of each skill and read through them quickly.

Tempo (Level 1) – A buff that enhances an ally’s speed rating.

Type – Instant

Cast Time – 0(60)

Target – Other

Cost – 88.25(200)

Duration – 61(60) seconds.

Each level increases the speed rating by 0.25 (0.25 per level.) Each level increases the Duration by 1 (1 per level) second.

Sixty seconds? Ugh, and the increase was practically worthless. I frowned at the description for a moment; something was wrong with it. The target? Other. No self. I immediately tried to cast it on myself, and the spell failed to take hold.

You’ve got to be shitting me; I can’t even use it on myself? How was I going to train it?

I’d have to find someone willing to sit still for a stupid amount of time and let me cast spells on them.

Fuck.

Aegis (Level 1) – A buff that reduces incoming kinetic damage.

Type – Instant

Cast Time – 0(60)

Target – Other

Cost – 88.25(200)

Duration – 61(60) seconds.

Each level increases the damage mitigated by 0.25 (0.25 per level.) Each level increases the Duration by 1 (1 per level) second.

Another one, weak, sixty-second duration and I couldn’t cast it on myself, wonderful.

Mana Layer (Level 1) – A layer of Mana that can be directed by the user.

Type – Instant

Cast Time – 0(25)

Target – Other

Cost – 1(10)

Each level increases the durability of the layer by 1 (1 per level.) Each level increases the maximum size of the layer by 0.25m (0.25 per level.) Each level increases the control over shaping the layer. Each level increases the range at which you can create the layer.

Mana Layer seemed to be the only real success of the bunch, and I could immediately see a way to exploit it. If one durability of the mana layer was equal to one of my durability, then I could dump all my Mana into over six thousand of the layers to try and block something. I mean, it would be an obscene waste of Mana, and I would get much more benefit out of dumping Mana into Iron Hide, but now I could potentially defend an area, somewhat.

“Mana Layer,” I said quietly.

The translucent pane of barely their Mana flashed into existence exactly where I wanted it to, I stepped onto it, and my foot immediately shattered it before smacking into the ground. I would definitely be needing to level this up; it couldn’t even do what I actually wanted it for yet.

Was nothing ever easy with this damn ability?

The next two months went by rather quickly; Karenbana and Fu both disappeared from the mornings to the afternoons to work whichever of the Jonin were free that day. I went and found an empty field to train in. It was incredibly boring, but there were the days where Karenbana and Fu would train with their swords, and I had somebody to banter with; they were definitely the best days.

Once the other two finished for the day, we would meet up, and I would alternate between bullying Karenbana and Fu into sitting still while I cast buffs on them for hours on end. I even started waiting until they were asleep and Stealth casting it on them both, which seemed to not quite be enough to wake them up.

I had several more talks with Tsunade and Kakashi together, and even a few with both of them on their own. Tsunade informed me that Naruto would be returning with Jiraiya soon, less than a month, most likely.

Which meant that Akatsuki would be moving soon, very soon. In the next month or so.

I still did physical training, but I spent almost all of it running laps around one of the many fields in Konoha. My biggest problem had always been the inability to keep up with the ninja’s chakra enhanced speed, and I had been hoping that my speed buff would help in that regard.

Since it didn’t work on me, I was instead going to have to raise my speed to a level where I could at least track the motherfuckers. The Jaunt skill was pretty much cheating, but against people who had insane reflexes and speed, like Obito, Madara, Pain, Itachi, and whoever the hell else could keep up with that level of movement would probably destroy me.

I needed to be able to think, fight, and react on that level, and then spam Jaunt on top of it; that would make me strong. Right now, it was a crutch that would let me hang with the big boys, but I wanted it to be more than that, which meant I had to be fast.

This meant sprinting around a field for hours on end, and if you hadn’t guessed it by now, it fucking sucked.

I didn’t know that Naruto had returned until I suddenly felt his massive chakra signature appear on the edge of my range. A few moments later, I felt Sakura join him, apparently alerted to his presence, and a few moments after that, I felt what had to be Jiraiya’s massive signature arrive at the Hokage’s tower.

“Naruto has just returned to the village,” I said cheerfully, “and you both know what that means!”

“Nope!” Fu cheered.

“You haven’t told us anything other than who we are fighting.” Karenbana said, annoyed, “Are we still going to Sunagakure, or are we trying to find them before they get there?”

I coughed awkwardly.

“We still need to go to Suna because I have absolutely no idea when they will actually attack!” I said cheerfully, “and running around the country looking for them would definitely fail, what a terrible idea.”

“When are we leaving then?” Karenbana huffed.

“In about twenty minutes,” I said easily, “We need to go say hello first.”

I stepped outside of the hotel and started to head towards where I could feel Naruto standing; unfortunately, he immediately started moving, so we had to change direction a few times until we finally turned a corner and spotted him.

He was taller now and wearing what I immediately recognized from the source.

“Naruto!” I called, and he immediately turned around.

“Huh?!” Naruto cried, “When did you get here?!”

I grinned.

“Months ago,” I said easily, “We are actually leaving right now, so I thought I would come to talk to you first.”

Naruto gaped at me.

“I only just got back, and you’re already leaving!?” Naruto shouted.

I nodded, amused.

“Naruto, this is Fu, the seven tails Jinchuriki,” I said casually.

“Hi, Naruto!” Fu cried, “You’re a Jinchuriki too, right? Let’s be friends!”

Naruto kind of stilled for a moment, and I could almost see the blood drain from his face before he turned to stare at the older girl with wide eyes. It was both funny and sad that he would react like that.

“Y-yeah!” Naruto said off-beat, “T-that sounds great.”

“Karenbana is still following me around as well; as you can see, it’s pretty sad.” I said cheekily, “I think she’s got the hots for me.”

“Fuck off,” Karenbana said immediately, before turning to Naruto. “Hey.”

"Hey." Naruto managed, looking pretty overwhelmed at everything.

“Anyway, you should definitely go talk to Tsunade,” I said more seriously, “Tell her that Sasori and Deidara will be moving soon and that we went on ahead to get ready.”

Naruto apparently wasn’t yet aware of the two names because he didn’t react in the way I thought he would, but Tsunade would fill him in, I supposed. He looked like he was almost recovering, so I tossed in something else to keep him on his toes.

“Did you know that you have a couple of distant relatives running around?” I asked curiously.

“I do?” Naruto said, astonished.

“Two that I can think of right now, although you are distantly related to Tsunade, you know,” I said thoughtfully, “Karin Uzumaki is a medic-nin that worlds under Orochimaru, she’s the warden of one of the prisons? I think she would be pretty easy for Konoha to recruit if you could talk to her.”

That’s right, I was weaponizing his Talk-no-Jutsu into recruiting more people onto our side, sue me. Naruto was staring at me with his mouth open, so I kept on going.

“There’s also a guy called Nagato Uzumaki; he’s the leader of Akatsuki, S-rank and strong enough to fight entire Ninja villages by himself and win-but if we can beat him down first, we might be able to recruit him as well.” I shrugged, “Anyway, I told Tsunade a bunch of other stuff that you should definitely go ask her about, like who your parents are; you should also go tell Jiraiya to teach you Sage Mode as soon as possible-you'll need it against Nagato.”

Naruto had been rendered pretty much stunned at this point.

“If she doesn’t tell you, I’ll tell you when I see you in Sunagakure,” I said easily, “It was nice seeing you again, man, don’t get complacent with your training, or I’ll end up doing all the work for you.”

I gave him a wave and then walked off without another word.

“Bye, Naruto-kun!” Fu said cheerfully, while Karenbana just waved.

“B-bye, Fu-chan!” Naruto said weakly.

We stepped around the corner and headed for the west-gates, and the others caught up to me after a moment.

“Being on the other side of that for once is actually pretty funny,” Karenbana said wryly. “You are such an asshole.”

I just laughed.

Naruto had returned to Konoha, Akatsuki would be setting out to capture Gaara, and Shippuden had begun.