Unfortunately, she had the feeling that these plans had just gone "off the rails" - a phrase her grandfather had apparently used to indicate that the plans and strategies were now completely invalidated.
Yeah, she'd been on a few missions like that.
Unfortunately, Kakashi was already here.
"Naruto's training journey got 'complicated'?" asked Tsunade. "So he's older than he's supposed to be and you're younger than you should be, but it's just 'complicated'?"
"The report would be best done with drinks available, and it will take a very long time - even if I just go over highlights," said Jiraiya.
"Very well then, AFTER this test," said Tsunade. "After all, what could go wrong?"
Jiraiya winced, wondering how bad it was actually going to get with this.
Naruto had seen one episode of the TV show, and it had quickly become his favorite. Ranma had seen Naruto watching the show, saw a scene himself, gotten very thoughtful, and watched it every week as well. Jiraiya had watched the show after hearing Naruto enthusing about it, then began working out various jutsu from elements in the series alongside Ranma. Then had begun working out OTHER jutsu from other TV series. Kamesennin, aka Muten/Master Roshi, had protested that was all impossible until Jiraiya had gotten one working.
At that point, the Pervy Sage Duo (and Ranma though he was more likely to work it out on his own) began working out new martial arts and techniques. Instead of being the old man relegated to the sidelines, Roshi had slowly come to fill his own niche as he developed techniques and counters. He still felt that he was old and had left his own adventuring years far behind - but he no longer thought of himself as useless in a fight or in his declining years to the same extent.
Jiraiya had gone from aged sensei to frontline combatant, going up against minions in the Red Ribbon Army at first. Then picking up steam in later years. He still left the center of the fight to the younger set, but he had absolutely no qualm against taking out the snipers from the shadows or joining in against some of the nastier menaces.
He hadn't expected to die. He hadn't really thought too much about the afterlife, merely hoped that he'd been splendid enough that the scales were balanced when you considered some of the less than exemplary things he'd done.
He hadn't expected to have a ringside seat in the afterlife of Naruto beating the spit out of his evil doppelganger and then going on to beat the Kyubi.
No, he hadn't expected to see the Kyubi in all its terrifying glory, nor to see Naruto (admittedly with the help of that Ranma kid and that Goku child) beat the freaking KYUBI to an unconscious heap.
Eventually they'd gotten returned to life. And Jiraiya had found himself ten years younger and Naruto was once again the same age he'd come into this world. So was that kid Ranma, so they figured it was something to do with being non-natives.
Eventually Naruto had managed to befriend and get the respect of the Kyubi, who was apparently named Kurama.
Who really expects anything like that?
flashback:
"None of you could stop me," said Frieza after having gone to Third Stage in order to defeat the annoying pest.
"Don't count me out yet," said Ranma, slowly and shakily moving to get up.
"Oh come on," exclaimed Frieza. "You should be dead by now. Any reasonable being would give up and die by now."
"Heh," said Ranma, focusing his now-feeble amount of chi to heal himself.
"Give up on making any of us give up," said Jiraiya, suddenly appearing and hovering in mid-air.
"To go beyond the impossible," said Naruto, appearing in a blur of motion.
"To kick reason to the curb," said Ranma, catching a senzu bean that Naruto had thrown him and quickly swallowing it.
Another blur appeared and resolved itself into Son Goku. "That's our way."
"That's right," said Krillin, floating into place alongside the others.
"Hmph," said Piccolo as his battered form reappeared and snatched his own senzu bean from Naruto.
Hands snapped out, flipping dark objects open, and then settling the resulting Cool Sunglasses into place.
"Impossible," said Frieza as power levels and confidence began ratcheting up all around him.
"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!"
"So... we both have to pass this test?" asked Sakura, wondering why she had to take a test. Didn't Tsunade know her capabilities completely?
"So what's it going to be?" asked Naruto.
Kakashi held up two bells. "You simply have to grab these bells-"
whish
"-from my hand," continued Kakashi before stopping and staring at his empty hand. "What?"
Naruto tried to look innocent. He failed spectacularly.
"You have to wait till I say start, Naruto," said Kakashi, holding out his hand until someone grumbled and returned the bells to him. Looking at them, Kakashi added a grudging indication that just maybe he was going to have trouble with this. "Okay."
whish
Kakashi glanced at his empty hand, then over at Naruto who seemed to be examining the treeline. "'Okay' is not 'start', Naruto."
"How fast is Naruto now? I didn't even see him move." Shizune tried to ignore that Naruto now looked more mature and powerful and was doing things that reminded her of how freaking long it had been.
"Not nearly as fast as Ranma, not even as fast as Goku, but faster than Yamcha or Krillin," said Jiraiya, not paying attention to the looks of incomprehension that his comment resulted in. "Not that I could see much more than blurs when Goku and Ranma decided to move quickly."
"And that's how fast?" pressed Shizune.
"Ranma wanted him as a sparring partner because of Naruto's shadow clones, but found Naruto's natural speed way too slow for any decent challenge even with the numbers Naruto can put out," said Jiraiya. "So Ranma came up with this training exercise to build Naruto's speed. He called it 'Roasting Chestnuts On An Open Fire' training. He would throw a bag of chestnuts onto a roaring fire, and Naruto had to pluck the nuts from the fire so quickly that he didn't get burned from the fire."
"Okay, that sounds relatively normal," admitted Tsunade. "Maybe I should try that with Sakura."
Sakura, quite understandably, winced at overhearing this comment.
"From there he ramped up the training," said Jiraiya. "Naturally, I couldn't simply sit there on the beach all day sampling the Turtle Sage's pornography collection, so I duplicated some of this training myself so as better to be able to teach Naruto refinements of his skills."
"Why not, that sounds like what you'd do all day given the chance," said Tsunade with a glare and somewhat angry tone.
"Well, not all day," said Jiraiya, letting the directed anger slide off his back. "Besides, we had to fight some rather impressive foes on a semi-regular basis."
"Okay," said Kakashi, moving his headband up to reveal his Sharingan eye. "Now you may - start."
whish! went Naruto, leaving after-images behind.
Zoom! went Kakashi, using his Sharingan to predict where Naruto was and trying to force his body to speeds it really wasn't designed to handle.
Sakura frowned and looked around where there was currently no Kakashi nor was there a Naruto present.
"Okay, as soon as the test is over - physical exams. Both of you," said Tsunade.
BOOM!
A tree, a magnificent one easily big enough that ninja could alight in its topmost branches without so much as a creak, spun crazily overhead in a long arc.
"So you're younger and Naruto is stronger," said Tsunade. "And faster."
A beam of white light shot off into the sky, shredding a cloud and causing it to dissipate.
"Why? Do you prefer younger men?" asked Jiraiya, waggling his eyebrows.
CRASH!
"Don't flatter yourself," said Tsunade, not looking in the direction of the tree's landing.
Jiraiya just shrugged and looked enormously smug.
Naruto reappeared, holding the bells. Also holding Kakashi under one arm. "He ran out of chakra."
"You shouldn't have played with him so long," commented Jiraiya.
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(Posted Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:26)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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