Seeing Red [Naruto]

Contact 8.1

"And how have my cute subordinates found their enforced break from missions?" Kakashi asked. Team Seven had assembled in their usual training ground for the first time in a while - the first time all of them had been in the village at the same time in quite a while.

Hisana, of course, was no longer a genin - so Team Seven couldn't be Kakashi's 'cute little genin'.

"Boooring. Kakashi-sensei, you better have a really cool mission for us!" Naruto said.

"I'm afraid I'm only back in the village temporarily. But, you know, I found this super cool ninja who wants you three to help him with a really important mission..." Kakashi said. Naruto leaned forward and Sasuke tried to disguise his eagerness. He didn't do a particularly good job. Hisana tried to rack her brain for which anime filler this could be, certain that it would be one.

There was no reason it had to be, of course - the butterfly effect meant that Team Seven was unlikely to be assigned to the missions Naruto had gone on post Sasuke-Retrieval Arc in the anime. The problem was that Hisana's memory of the anime filler was not great. She remember bits and pieces, and the movies were more solid - she was certainly keeping her eye out for any signs of the second movie's events - but she had only seen the fillers once, the first time she'd watched the show. She'd been eleven at the time, and that meant it had been nearly a decade ago in linear time from her perspective.

"Ooh, what is it? Are we gonna rescue a princess? I can't believe Hisana got to go on a mission with the real Princess Gale and we didn-" Naruto began to babble, but Kakashi cut him off.

"No princesses. But it's a super important A-Rank mission..." Kakashi said, and Hisana's eyes narrowed. Kakashi only did this whole extended introduction if he thought he could get an amusing reaction out of Naruto, which meant that there was a twist. Some element of the mission would cause Hisana's teammate to come crashing down to Earth.

"Who are we helping out? Gai-sensei?" Sasuke asked. It was a reasonable guess. Gai was a very strong ninja, Hisana, Sasuke, and Naruto would give him a huge amount of additional firepower and manpower that his own genin team couldn't match.

"Even cooler than Gai. Jiraiya of the Sanin," Kakashi said, and Hisana tried not to laugh.

"Ehhh! I can't believe you're making us work for that old pervert! We'll just end up waiting around while he chats up ladies..." Naruto said.

Hisana was eager to go on the mission, now - she had never really had the chance to have an extended conversation with Jiraiya. He was a Sage and the undisputed greatest living sealmaster. The other two Sanin might have styles closer to Hisana's esoteric focus on personal seals, but she had a half dozen projects she wanted Jiraiya's input on. Plus, she thought, if they were on a mission together - she'd be able to badger him with questions and he couldn't run away.

"He's one of the legendary Sanin! He trained the Fourth Hokage! How are you not excited?" Sasuke asked, loudly.

"Just wait until you meet him," Naruto said.

"I guess familiarity really does breed contempt," Hisana said. She didn't want to look too excited, so she figured the saying might come off as reserved enough.

"Now, now - remember while I'm gone, Hisana is in charge of Team Seven. You don't leave until tomorrow, though, so I guess we can do some training. If you haven't grown beyond your beloved teacher, that is," Kakashi said.

"Teach us a cool new jutsu!" Naruto said, all disappointment forgotten.

Kakashi didn't teach Team Seven a new technique, but he did help them all with techniques they'd been working on. Hisana got some advice on her Wind Shroud, and a chance to test her speed against Kakashi's. Sasuke got some advice on sealless Sharingan genjutsu - an area he was significantly better than Hisana in. Naruto had been attempting to master the Shuriken Shadow Clone jutsu for the past two weeks, and Kakashi guided him through a few less obvious aspects of the technique.

"This is so cool, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said, throwing one shuriken that became a hundred. At first, there'd been puffs of chakra smoke, but after Kakashi had given Naruto some advice, he had been able to perform it as efficiently as his normal shadow clones. The technique wasn't limited to just shuriken, either - it worked with any weapon, though it couldn't duplicate exploding tags and chakra costs started to rise exponentially with size.

Whilst it was derived from the shadow clone technique, it had been pared down massively to create something practical for people with ordinary levels of chakra. Still, shape manipulation and construct generation were Naruto's strengths when it came to chakra - Hisana was eager to see what he'd do with it.


Team Seven, minus Kakashi, assembled at the main gate bright and early. Hisana had gone over her teammate's mission packs the night before, but they had enough experience now that she didn't really expect to find anything wrong with them. Not after she'd made Naruto a number of sealing scrolls full of instant ramen. That had previously been a problem.

Sometimes she forgot how young Naruto and Sasuke were. Not that Hisana was all that much older than them - the oldest she'd ever been was fourteen, though she wasn't really sure how to count her 'real' age. If she went for linear time experienced, she was twenty. Twenty! She certainly didn't feel twenty, and she was all too aware that she was currently experiencing puberty for the second time.

"Please tell me Jiraiya isn't as late as Sensei..." Sasuke said as all three of them looked around for any sign of Jiraiya. Hisana extended her chakra sense and relaxed as she felt a very large signature incoming over the rooftops.

"Not usually, I guess." naruto said, his hands in his pockets.

"He's on his way," Hisana said, suddenly finding herself rather nervous. She had so much that she wanted to ask Jiraiya, but she didn't want to come off as annoying.

Her first impression of the Toad Sage was that he was big. Jiraiya was tall, and more visibly muscled than most ninja. His chakra was tightly contained, like most experienced ninja, but she could still sense that he had incredible reserves. Any sage had to, of course, but it was impressive to actually sense it in person. Hisana was used to large chakra reserves, of course - Naruto had far more than Jiraiya, and she'd seen him almost every day for years.

"So you're my student's teammates... interesting. You, the girl one - what's that crap on your forehead?" Jiraiya asked, and Hisana blinked.

"It's a chakra storage seal," Hisana said.

"It's a chakra storage seal she says. Kid, if you think painting a diamond on your forehead will impress -" Jiraiya began, but Hisana opened the first segment of her Final Hurricane Seal. Lines of crimson ink spread down her face as her seal formed pseudo-coils, chakra roaring down them and into her natural system.

Jiraiya's expression changed. His dismissive, slightly annoyed expression disappeared, and what replaced it was far more controlled - but Hisana thought she could see the slightest raise of one eyebrow.

"Damn, kid, you really did make a chakra storage seal at what, thirteen?" he asked.

"Twelve. I made the first version just before graduating from the Academy," Hisana said.

"So she wasn't exaggerating. Hisana, was it? I think you and I will have a lot to talk about on the road. Speaking off, if we're not out of the village before eight, Tsunade will be mad at me and then I'll be mad at you. So, best get a move on," he said.

Jiraiya and Team Seven left through the main gate after Hisana had carefully refilled and deactivated her seal. It was a complex process, and she lost some chakra doing it, but it would take far less to refill it than just letting the segment run dry would have.

The four of them leapt through the trees surrounding Konoha at a comfortable pace, which for ninja of Team Seven's level meant 'fast enough to break the highway speed limit'. Tree jumping was a special skill that all Leaf ninja learnt from a young age, and wasn't universal - there was a reason fighting a Leaf ninja in the forest was seen as almost as foolhardy as fighting a Sand ninja in the desert.

"So you've gone for a segmented storage array, rather than a more efficient all-or-nothing approach. It's interesting, and I can see the benefits, but how are you getting around the interference problem when you activate all the segments at once? If you can," Jiraiya asked Hisana as they leapt from tree branch to tree branch.

"It's a complicated harmonic, but technically I bring them up in sequence - uh, in a specific sequence. The pseudo-coils are large enough to handle the entire capacity," Hisana replied.

"Arranged in a spiral, are they?" Jiraiya asked, and Hisana felt surprised. That wasn't visible when the central diamond of her seal was compressed, and she only uncompressed it to adjust it - the pseudo-coils were the only element of her seal that she expanded during use.

"They are, yeah,"

"Figures. That's how Lady Mito did it, as far as I know. Dealing with chakra harmonics with a spiral is classic Uzumaki sealing. Not that no one else has ever had the idea, but... you ever take a look at the brat's seal?"

Naruto looked up at the mention of the word 'Uzumaki'.

"I had suspicions about it, and it was the only non-standard seal I really sensed or looked at with my Sharingan, while I was first learning," Hisana said.

"There's often an explanation like that, somewhere, if a person's sealing style has an odd aspect. Now, tell me about whatever foolishness is on your neck..."


By the time the sun had dipped below the horizon, they had made it out of the forest a good way down the main road between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rice Fields. They'd found a decent inn to stop at - a traditional wooden building, the smell of curry and roast meat already alluring from the road. There was a stable to the side, with several horses visible, and an elaborate carriage. The entire compound - the inn itself, several outbuildings and the stable - was surrounded by a stone wall.

"Take some free advice, kids. Always spring for the inn over camping if it smells that good from out here," Jiraiya said, laughing to himself.

The inn itself was bustling with people, mostly travelling merchants. One noble lady was surrounded by a retinue of servants and samurai, who tensed up when they saw Hisana enter the inn. She was wearing her sword, the Sword of Spring, in its combat scabbard, but her flak jacket and forehead protector marked her as a Leaf ninja. When Jiraiya and her teammates followed her in, the samurai bodyguards seemed to relax just a little.

A waitress - the innkeeper's daughter, Hisana assumed - brought them some food. The curry was indeed very good, rich and savoury and just sweet enough. Hisana especially appreciated the potatoes, which had absorbed all the rich flavour of the curry and were very tender.

"This stuff's pretty good. Not as good as Icihiraku's, or Hisana's cooking, but pretty good," Naruto said, and Hisana felt immensely honoured to be included in that comparison.

"Heh, the beer's better than the swill they serve in the capital too," Jiraiya said, and Naruto made a face.

"I don't understand why adults like that stuff. It tastes awful," Naruto said. Konoha's drinking age was the same as the rest of the Land of Fire - 20 - but it wasn't enforced all that much. Genin drinking a little beer was the sort of thing that got a blind eye turned to it, though Hisana had heard it varied from commander to commander.

"So, what exactly is our mission?" Sasuke asked as Hisana felt his chakra extend outwards - an anti-eavesdropping genjutsu, she thought.

"One of my, heh, pen-pals told me a funny story about the Fuma clan - not the one related to the Uchiha, the other one. I think it smells like Orochimaru, and Intelligence thinks it smells like Orochimaru. So we're going to check it out," Jiraiya said.

Hisana frowned, just a little. It sounded plausible, but bringing Sasuke along on a mission like that seemed... irresponsible. Unless, of course, you meant to dangle him like bait for Orochimaru. Hisana hoped Tsunade and Jiraiya knew what they were doing.

During her journey to the Land of Rice Fields, Hisana will achieve A-Rank in Storage Seals. Choose one trait from the following, in addition to an upgrade to Hisana's Final Hurricane Seal:

[x] Sealing Art: Spiral Consuming Seal. This method of sealing creates a scroll capable of sealing away a technique, though it is costly to use and equally costly to unseal the technique - this is a defensive seal, not a fully functioning 'jutsu scroll'. It is, however, more general than Jiraiya's Fire Sealing Method.

[x] Sealing Art: Elemental Formula. This allows the user to inscribe powerful elemental jutsu into stable jutsu formula for later use. At this level of proficiency, up to B-Rank jutsu formula may be created. Unlocks the 'Elemental Seals' skill.

[x] Sealing Art: Chakra Burst Network. This network of extremely thin seals, corresponding to Hisana's muscles, allows the use of explosive bursts of chakra for physical enhancement and reinforces the body to withstand them. Each precisely controlled burst of chakra gives the user a burst of strength, acting like an early version of Tsunade's Chakra Enhanced Strength. Though inferior to beginning-of-part-two Sakura's usage of the technique, it can be improved.