Do Your Best, Jiraiya

The Hokage's office window was half open, and the night breeze poured in from outside, making the edges of several documents on the desk rustle.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his desk. A small pile of ash had accumulated in his pipe, and a cup of tea that had long since gone cold sat at the corner of the desk.

Jiraiya pushed open the door, walked over to the desk, pulled out a chair, and sat down, propping both legs on the edge of the desk.

"Old man, your tea's gone cold." Jiraiya pointed at the cup.

"Jiraiya." Hiruzen Sarutobi took the pipe from his mouth and looked up from the pile of documents. "Couldn't you knock first?"

"I was in a hurry to get back and report, old man."

"Report what? Sasuke?" Hiruzen tapped the pipe against the edge of the ashtray twice, knocking off the ash that had built up over the afternoon.

"I'll get straight to the point." Jiraiya braced a hand against the back of the chair and shifted into a more comfortable position.

"I have no problem keeping an eye on Sasuke. If you want me to take him away to train, I can do it anytime. The kid really is a genius, strong in a way that doesn't fit his age."

He rubbed his chin. "Though his personality's a little twisted... No, I mean, it's twisted way too much! He's not cute at all."

"But I want to take Naruto along too."

"The Nine-Tails' seal?" Hiruzen asked.

"I noticed it." Jiraiya lowered his legs, leaned forward, and rested his hands on his knees.

"There's some loosening along the edge of the seal. It's not too serious, but compared to how it was two years ago, the signs of wear are already visible to the naked eye."

Hiruzen set his pipe on the desk and folded his hands beneath his chin.

Jiraiya watched Hiruzen's expression and continued.

"You've seen those summoning beasts belonging to that kid from the Uchiha Clan, right?"

Hiruzen nodded.

"Two dogs, one black and one white, a rabbit, and a huge deer."

"There's a deer too?" Jiraiya paused, then scratched his head.

"Fine, I'm late to the party. I only saw two dogs and a rabbit at the training ground. But those dogs were already enough to open my eyes."

"What happened?"

"They weren't just extracting chakra." Jiraiya's voice suddenly dropped, and the casual air fell away.

"I sensed it carefully. The stuff those two dogs were absorbing included the Nine-Tails' Chakra."

Hiruzen fell silent.

His fingers tapped the desk twice without him noticing as he weighed a situation with no clear pros or cons.

When Hiruzen didn't speak for a while, Jiraiya decided to spell it out.

"Old man, this isn't necessarily a bad thing."

"Naruto's seal will loosen sooner or later. Without the Black Dog, the Nine-Tails' Chakra would directly assault his chakra network."

"At this stage, having the Black Dog absorb it from the outside is actually like adding an external buffer to the seal."

Hiruzen picked up his pipe again, put it between his teeth, and took a deep drag.

Smoke billowed in front of him, obscuring most of the wrinkles on his face.

"He's become a kind of water valve for Naruto."

Jiraiya nodded.

"You could put it that way. But Sasuke's the only one who can control this valve. That's why I said those two are both a handful. It'd be best if I took them both away."

Hiruzen smoked the last of the tobacco in his pipe and exhaled a long stream of smoke.

"Can you handle them?"

"Either way, I have to take them." Jiraiya stood and paced back and forth in front of the desk.

"There are no more than three sealing ninjas in all of Konoha who can work on the Eight Trigrams Seal."

"And I'm the only one in the village now who can fully understand Minato's thinking."

Hiruzen's hand, still holding the pipe, stopped in midair.

"Is it serious?"

"It's not a bad thing for now." Jiraiya shook his head.

"The seal wasn't completely airtight to begin with. Minato left a small gap when he designed it."

"It allowed the Nine-Tails' Chakra to seep out slowly and merge with Naruto's own chakra. The process was supposed to take a long time—probably more than ten years."

"But it's speeding up now?" Hiruzen asked.

"Right." Jiraiya bent down and sketched a simple Sealing Jutsu diagram in the air with his finger.

"The Jade Dog is helping relieve the pressure on the seal. But because it's drawing chakra from the outside, the chakra pressure difference between the two sides of the gap has increased, speeding up the seal's wear."

Jiraiya withdrew his finger and leaned back in the chair again.

"But the benefits are obvious too. As the Nine-Tails' Chakra is drawn out, the low concentration of it merges quite well with Naruto's own chakra."

"He gets the benefits of chakra fusion from the gap in the seal, without having to suffer the direct erosion of the Nine-Tails' Chakra on his body."

Hiruzen was silent for a while.

"You just said you didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing." Hiruzen picked up his pipe again and took a hard drag.

"Right." Jiraiya's expression grew serious.

"Because we don't know where the Nine-Tails' Chakra absorbed by that dog is going."

"If it's simply being used up, that's good for Naruto. But if it's going somewhere else..."

Jiraiya left the thought unfinished.

Hiruzen finished the tobacco in his pipe. The ash glimmered briefly in the bowl, then went completely dark.

Then Hiruzen spoke. "He didn't sign a contract with an ordinary summoning beast. I've lived a long time, and I've never seen anyone contract with so many different summoning beasts."

"The kid himself said these Ninja Beasts are bound to his own state. The Jade Dog absorbing the Nine-Tails' Chakra should be something Sasuke intended."

"Either way, I'm taking Naruto with me." Jiraiya stood up and stretched. His bones cracked twice.

"I'll keep an eye on the seal and teach him a few things. You said he wasn't very likable, but I thought he was all right today. He's just a little loud."

"Then I'll leave it to you." Hiruzen set his pipe on the edge of the ashtray and looked up at Jiraiya. "By the way, there's one more thing."

Jiraiya turned around.

"If you get the chance while you're out of the village, find out where Tsunade is." Hiruzen looked Jiraiya in the eye.

"Last time Orochimaru sneaked in, he bit a Cursed Seal onto Sasuke's dog. Sasuke raised a deer that used some kind of positive energy to counteract the Cursed Seal's effects. The Cursed Seal on Anko's neck was also mostly healed."

Jiraiya fell silent for a moment after hearing this, then his expression turned strange.

"Orochimaru bit a dog, and the dog healed the Cursed Seal Orochimaru left behind..." Jiraiya rubbed his forehead, then burst into extremely loud laughter.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! If that bastard Orochimaru found out, wouldn't he be so mad he'd crawl out of his hole and bite it again?"

Hiruzen didn't respond to the joke.

Jiraiya stopped laughing and scratched the back of his head.

"As for Tsunade, I can only say I'll do my best. You know what she's like. Just mention Konoha and she flies off the handle."

"For Sasuke's sake, when it comes to a special ability that can heal Cursed Seals, there's no one in the Shinobi World besides Tsunade who can give us an expert opinion." Hiruzen smiled.

"Do your best, Jiraiya."

"You old men sure love ordering people around. Fine, I'll remember." Jiraiya waved and pushed open the office door.

His wooden sandals clacked against the wooden floor, the sound echoing down the hallway before gradually fading away.