Reaching For A Dream by Noodlehammer

Chapter 26

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"Whaddya mean Naruto isn't a Konoha shinobi anymore?!" Fukasaku demanded of Jiraiya. They were currently in Myobokuzan and having a rather important discussion.

Jiraiya did tell them most of the important things that went on in the world, but they didn't have any scheduled times for when he did this, he just told them when he came around to Myobokuzan. He hadn't considered Naruto's status as a missing-nin important enough to go to the toad mountain because of it.

"He just isn't...some stuff happened that forced him to become a missing-nin." Jiraiya explained awkwardly.

"What kind of stuff?" Fukasaku asked with some incredulity in his tone. People didn't just become missing-nin for any old reason. He was afraid that it had to do with the reason for his visit.

The following explanation of his then lover and now wife being the Kyuubi actually made him feel better rather than worry him more. Though it did bring other disturbing questions to light.

"I see...and how long has he been in contact with the Kyuubi?" Fukasaku asked.

Jiraiya frowned, starting to become irritated with this one sided exchange of information.

"I don't know, but I think it's time you told me what this is all about."

Fukasaku sighed, seeing that he would need to explain himself if he wanted his student's help on this, though he really didn't want to.

"We didn't remove Naruto as the toad summoner because he'd taken to using such an aggressive Senjutsu style, the real reason that we did it is because of how he did it and what it might mean."

"Maybe you should explain that in a bit more detail Pa." Jiraiya said with a frown.

"He adapted the natural energy that he'd taken from Myobokuzan into something that suited his personality better, that isn't somethin' that should've been possible. By doin' that he opened up a door to possibilities that we thought were long gone, that's what made us so scared and angry."

"Who's 'we'?" Jiraiya interrupted.

"The summon clans, all of them."

That brought Jiraiya up short. For all of the summon clans to agree on something was ridiculously rare. Most of them were at best neutral with each other, for them to even bother interacting with each other was highly unusual.

As far as he knew none of the summon clans were actually enemies, but they didn't exactly get along. Well...Manda and Gamabunta were enemies, but both of them were rather cranky. Not that anyone got along too well with Manda, other snakes included.

"What kind of possibilities could be so bad that all of the summon clans would agree on something?" Jiraiya asked.

Fukasaku sighed again, highly reluctant to talk about it. There was a reason that there was so little information on Senjutsu available to humans and he wasn't eager to reveal it. He really hoped that his student would see reason on this... They wouldn't even be having this conversation if there had been any other choice.

"To explain that, I'm gonna need to give ya a bit of a history lesson. What I'm about to tell ya happened a long time ago, I was just barely out of my tadpole days at the time."

"Wow, when you said a long time ago, you meant a really long time ago." Jiraiya interrupted with a snicker, causing Fukasaku to glare at him until he shut up and looked sheepish.

"The world wasn't really all that different than it is now, except for the fact that there were no hidden villages, people were still usin' chakra to kill each other. The Senju and Uchiha were the largest and most well known shinobi clans at the time and were predictably at each other's throats all the time."