Fiat justitia, ruatcaelum

{{A/N; Thanks all for your support. And truthfully, I had not considered using Gaara’s sand to remove the seal. Though you must admit, it is much more fun they way it happened, ehehe. As for the Ita/Saku thing… The foundation is set, I’m just getting there. And as forewarning, Gaa/Naru as well. Just trust me, guys.
This down here is an intermission of sorts. Inspired by my good friends Tommy Jo, she wanted something a little different to shake things up. More character warp (good thing I don’t own ‘em, eh?) and a peek of things to come later. And I know Gamabunta is supposed to be a lot bigger than I tell him to be, but if he was that big, he wouldn’t have fit into the city. Thanks also to everyone who reviews. You are solely to blame for the continued progress of this fic. You are my motivation. C.D.
BTW, this chapter is pretty adult. Please avoid reading this in a place where prying eyes may get you into trouble. CD}}

Enter Sannin

Two leaf nin reclined in the shade of the large tree. Of note only because they were the only ninja in the courtyard. The bench they sat upon was little more than a conveniently shaped root that had broken up from the ground.
While they both appeared to be in their sixties, similarity had decided to trail away, it’s mission forgotten.
The man lay back, nursing a bottle wrapped in dampened twine. His gaze was aimed at the sky somewhere and somewhat vacant.
The woman, however was scribbling manically in a small notepad as she more than avidly observed a group of young men loading wagons with building supplies. As a side effect of the warm summer afternoon, most of them had opted to leave their tunics on the side of the wagon apparently reserved for last.
The summoned a trickle of water from the grass nearby, snaking the water over the bottle, letting it soak into the twine. “How much longer are you going to be leering at those boys?”
“I’m not leering, Jiriaya.” The woman flipped the page, “I’m studying them. Researching them…”
“Whatever, Tsun. You’re still drooling.”
Tsunade wiped at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, I was not!”
Jiriaya chuckled to himself, raising the bottle, “You still checked, perv. Hehehe.”
Tsunade turned from her observation, “I write to an underrepresented and unrespected, and consequently largely untapped, clientele.”
“Yeah.” Jiriaya took a hit from the bottle, “Perverts.” He laughter rang out as Tsunade glared at him over her dark glasses.
“Like you have room to talk! I haven’t seen you without a bottle in decades.”
“Since I was old enough to steal!” He lifted the bottle toward her, “Cheers!” His lips touched the bottle as Tsunade leapt up. Jiriaya’s eyes flashed wide in shock as she straddled him, her tunic wide open, inches from his face.
The toad sannin choked, turning his head to cough out to mouthful of deep cobalt wine.
“You can’t tell me that was for one of those dirty books!” He wiped his chin as Tsunade sat back down.
“Adult novels.” She stuck out her tongue, retying the tunic, “And no, I just like watching you blush.”
“How can you tell when his face is always flush with drink?”
Jiriaya saluted with the bottle, “Well, well. If it isn’t little Hitake Kakashi! The anbu Captain his very own self! Have a seat, get a drink.”
Tsunade smirked, rubbing the bench as she scooted closer to the center, “You can sit next to me…” Her tongue flicking out over her lips.
“This is for the book.” She whispered loudly to Jiriaya.
Kakashi glared down at them, “I don’t spend my time with harlots and alcoholics.”
Jiriaya hugged the bottle, stealing a sip, “That’s drunks and perverts to you, whippersnapper! Just you mind we’re still your elders!”
“Drink has muddled your already feeble mind!” Kakashi’s hand strayed toward the tanto at his back, “You forget your tongue.”
“Them’s fightin’ words, greenhorn.” Jiriaya reclined against the tree, “Now how about you just mosey on away real peaceable-like, and we’ll forget this difference of opinion had to happen.”
Tsunade quietly closed her notepad, tucking it and the pen into her vest. Kakashi’s hand closed around the tanto, the catch snicking as he pulled it clear and loose.
Pulling thick leather gloves from her pockets, Tsunade slipped them on, the battered steel knuckles in plain view. “Don’t force this.” she pulled on one glove, then the other. She pushed up her glasses, looking at Kakashi, “I wasn’t looking forward to it this afternoon and I just had my nails done.”
The anbu sneered, one lips curling in wicked grin, “I’ll try not to muss your hair when I break your nose.”
“Tsun…” Jiriaya grabbed the hem of her shirt as she stood. She swatted his hand away.
“We’re leaving Jiriaya.” Tsunade flexed her fists, the leather creaking and knuckles cracking. “It’s too hot out now and we have places to be.”
“Spoken like a true spinster.” Kakashi held his superior sneer as angry eyes turned to him.
“Tsun, no…” Jiriaya had her by the arm, trying to pull her away, “Come on, leave it be…”
Jiriaya withdrew his hand, hissing through his teeth. A bright wisp of chakra seeping back into her skin from where the other sannin had held her. “He doesn’t just get away with that.” Her hands came up into stance. “Call out the amateurs in their black masks. You punks are gonna need an army.”
“Strong words…” Kakashi drew his tanto, “From an old maid who was going to walk away.”
“Aww, shit…” Jiriaya hit the bottle deeply, “…had to say it, didn’t he…”
Tsunade spoke through gritted teeth, “I’ve been called worse than harlot, and I might even be a spinster…” One fist shot out, her long finger stabbed at Kakashi, “But no two-bit punk is gonna call me old!”
Jiriaya stepped back, trying to get some distance from the fight her saw coming on.
He heard the three land behind him. Three blades sang in unison as they were drawn.
Jiriaya turned around, offering the bottle forward, “Hey, guys. I can share. We don’t really have to…”
The center anbu lunged forward, burying the tip of his blade into the glass. He twisted the blade, green glass, shredded twine and dark azure wine spraying outward.
Jiriaya lifted the neck, looking through where the chilled beverage should have been.
“That’s alcohol abuse.” And the sannin vanished, a fluff of dust on the ground where he had been standing.
The anbu fell back to back, blades facing out defensively.
Tsunade and Kakashi glared back and forth.
“The Sharingan eye…” She spat a thick wad of phlegm at Kakashi’s feet, “A cheap edge.” And she launched. The bomber haymaker swept past the anbu as he stepped to the left, ducking under the rising roundhouse. Tsunade planted her fist on the ground, sweeping her legs around. One toe caught Kakashi in the leg, dispelling the doppelganger in a blast of smoke.
Tsunade spring from her hands, a blazing white tanto slicing the air where she had been.
She landed, ducking under the first swipe, leaned around the second.
Kakashi lunged, driving up the center. The woman grabbed his arm pulling him forward with the momentum of his lunge, her other fist buried in his gut. Three long tines of prismatic chakra jutted from Kakashi’s back.
Tsunade ripped her claws upward, out of him and came back across, slicing him at the shoulder as the water clone fell apart.
“Your defense is fast,” Tsunade leaned forward, her foot rising to kick Kakashi as his blade swept at her back. The foot connected with his jaw and the anbu’s head exploded into toothpicks and sawdust, the bottom half of the log tumbling away, “But your offense is both slow and weak.”
Three more stood before her, blades tucked away, fists filled with shuriken.
The hail was released and Tsunade smirked, hands flying as she danced back.
Kakashi growled as she stopped, her face turning back toward him. Her hands were filled and her smile held two of the steel stars.
The air shrieked as Tsunade fired the shuriken back in a wide spray.
“Your aim is…aarrhh!” The doppelgangers to his sides fell away, stars in their backs, stars clattering to the ground.
Kakashi reached over his shoulder, drawing a bloody piece of steel from the back of his own shoulder.
The woman sannin smirked, the two stars in her teeth falling into her hands, “Three point deflection. Easy to counter, unexpected.”
“Just tell you aren’t really trying.” Tsunade’s chakra claws caressed his neck from behind.
Three masked anbu looked about nervously.
“The woman has Lord Hitake… Where did the man go?”
Jiriaya was grinning grotesquely, his face contorted to stifle his laughter as he stood in the center of their defensive ring. He moved one hand back slowly, the broken bottle neck in his hand.
His other hand glowed across his thumb, middle, and ring fingers. He grabbed the shoulder of one anbu gently, right at the nape of his neck, the seal causing his to pass out and collapse. Into a second, he drove the broken bottle into the man’s rump.
A the girlish scream of pain and fright paired with Jiriaya’s laughter drew the eyes of the men loading wagons.
The last anbu turned around, Jiriaya’s fist turning his head back the way it had come.
“Glass jaw… tch, tch, tch.” Jiriaya nudged the unconscious man with his foot.
He laid the bottle neck back against his shoulder, stopping the katana of the wounded anbu with a ring.
Jiriaya looked over his shoulder at the anbu, the man freezing in his gaze. “It’s your move.”
Neither moved.
“Nothing?” The toad sannin looked down into his vest as he dug out a flask. He unscrewed the lid with the one hand, quietly raising a pillar of earth behind the anbu.
Flexing his features, Jiriaya turned suddenly, “BOOGA!!” His ogre’s face startling the anbu into stepping back. He bumped into the pillar, turning to see what had appeared behind him.
Jiriaya grabbed his collar and crashed his toad horned headband into the anbu’s mask, chuckling as he fell limply to the ground. “Novices.” Then he looked at his flask, frowning, one brow arcing slightly. He shook it gently. He peered into the spout and finally upended the tin over his extended tongue.
“Aww… Somebody drank it all…” He put the useless flask away and began to check pockets at random. Twenty seven pockets, behind his headband and two boots later he sagged in defeat. “I don’t believe it…” He looked over at Tsunade, “Tsun, I am completely out of hooch!” He pointed at Kakashi, “This is all your fault!”
Tsunade yawned, covering her mouth, not moving as Kakashi teleported away from her. He reappeared several yards away, a scroll in his hand and signs flashing.
“Doppelgangers and substitutions are great and all,” Tsunade sighed, stretching, “But this is kind of boring. Do you have anything else?”
Kakashi’s hand drew a ling of blood down the scroll and thrust it into the ground as the page snarled shut.
The ground rippled at his impact and a cone of loose rock and cobbles ruptured outward in a cone toward Tsunade.
Beasts of earth burst out of the small fissure, serpents and lizards with claws, wings and fangs that rushed the sannin.
Everything that came within range of fist or foot burst into smoke, obscuring Tsunade in a thick cloud quickly. Kakashi twisted the scroll and the ground exploded, a flood of the creatures rushing Tsunade.
“Wow,” One iron knuckled fist lifted Kakashi at the kidney, chasing him as he came over and powering him into the ground. Tsun knelt on his back, her knee between his shoulders and a kunai spearing each hand to the ground. “That was impressive for a no-talent hack like yourself. Now apologize for being rude.”
“Go to…Gyarrhhh!!” The sound of bones crunching was something like someone chewing gristle.
“That certainly sounded painful.” A new voice called across the courtyard.
Tsunade scoffed at Kakashi, pulling her kunai from his hands and wiping them clean on his haite-ate band. She stood with one last twist, a pop like a sail snapping in a stiff breeze her parting gift.
“I doubt you’re here to apologize for the behavior of your pathetic anbu.” Jiriaya crossed his arms as Orochimaru approached, lounging on the head of a great snake in mottled green and ruddy purple. “Or to bring me some booze. ‘Cause I’m out you know. They broke my last bottle.”
“Kyu kuku. Ever the wise guy.” Orochimaru slid down the neck of his mount, “But no. I have come to ask, actually, why you insist upon belittling the guardians of my fair city and disrupting the flow of business traffic.” The great serpent cast it’s shadow over the pale snake sannin, bright yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly on Tsunade. The head alone was the size of two wagons side by each.
“I don’t like your snake, Orochimaru.” She clenched her fists, the trio of claws on each glove growing longer. “It’s staring down my shirt.”
“Then tie your tunic higher to better hide your ample bosom.” Orochimaru crossed his arms, “Though I think you’re biased. You never did like my snake.”
“Because it was lazy and pathetic. Just like the rest of you.”
“My snake and I are quite athletic these days. Perhaps it was simply the company we kept.”
“Ha! Looks like you’re over-compensating to me.” Tsunade looked pointedly at the beast that hovered over its master.
“Excuse me!” Jiriaya put himself between them, “What about the part where this was official business?”
“Let business wait a moment.” Orochimaru stepped to one side, looking around Jiriaya, “What is your real problem? Let’s talk about this like rational adults.”
“Your coming on around sixty years old and just now starting to think like this?” Tsunade shook her head, “I thought Jiriaya was the immature one.”
Orochimaru shrugged, “Very well, I’ll go first; You and Jiriaya have been a constant thorn in my side for many years now. Digging into my affairs and unseating most of my grander designs and disrupting my research.” He took a new breath, “You also rival me in skill and ability and pose a very significant threat to my city and my minions.”
Tsunade rubbed her temples, “You want to talk now? Fine, since you went first. I have always hated your penchant for giant reptiles, snakes just creep me out, you usurped power from a kind and noble man, made countless attempts on my life, and you were a lousy lay.”
Orochimaru glared at her, “And great toads are so much better?”
“At least they have legs.”
“Fair enough.” The snake sannin jabbed a finger at Tsunade, “But every young man needs time and experience before he can become a competent lover.”
“Speak for yourself.” Jiriaya muttered.
Tsunade readied herself, “There, happy now? We talked.”
“Satisfied at any rate.” Orochimaru growled.”
“Good.” Jiriaya clapped his hands and rubbed them together, “Now we can resume with the verbal hostilities that foreshad…YO!!” The toad sannin dove to one side as the massive snake struck down at him, its jaws snapping like a steel trap on the air.
“Hey limp scales!!” Tsunade stood solid as the snake looked down at her, one fist pulled down low, chakra manifesting visibly as it leaked from her supercharged hand.
The creature tipped its head slightly and struck, mouth opening wide. Tsunade flipped back as the jaw shut, coiled her body with the glowing fist back and lunged, one foot still planted to the ground as her fist impacted.
Light flashed from the strike and the crack echoed around the courtyard, birds taking flight in panic.
The snakes eyes lost focus and the sannin took her opportunity.
She climbed up the fractured snout and reformed the chakra claws of her gloves into wide spades. The first blows sent bits of scale flying as the serpent howled in a high pitched squeal.
It thrashed, trying to unseat the ninja, though she remained as fixed as if she had grown there.
The serpent bashed it’s head against the ground in desperation, Tsunade still maiming deeper into it’s head with each blow.
The panicked reptile targeted a building, bashing the top of it’s tormented skull into the wall.
She leaped up, her claws catching the serpent’s neck as it hit the hall and circling around, spilling opening arteries into fountains of blood as she came back around the bottom.
She fell away to the ground, summoning a doppelganger on the snake’s head. Her clone hit it once before the snake slammed it’s head into the wall again and Tsunade leapt, rebounding from the wall as the exploding tag went off.
The dazed look in its eyes didn’t track the kunoichi as she drifted over the brow ridge and the snake hesitated an instant after her claws dig deep into the skull.
Tsunade circled one blade around herself in a wide arc and chased it with the other in a tight loop, drawing a fat crescent atop the head.
She roared with the full fury of a woman’s wrath as she ripped the slice of bone free and poured chakra into her fist again. Gripping the lip of the open brainpan as the snake reared, Tsunade -plunged her fist deep into the squidgey pink. The concussion of sheer force echoed within the serpent’s head, venting brain matter back out like a whale’s blowhole.
The body hit the ground without seizure, the flow of blood abating as the heart stilled.
Tsunade wiped the gore from her glasses and face. “Your serpent has gone flaccid on us again, Orochimaru-kun. Maybe next time.” She blew the pallid Hokage a kiss and turned on her heel, slapping her bottom and walked away, indifferent to the pool of blood she strode through.
She stopped as a wet twitch and a splash broke the silence. She turned.
A second jet of blood spouted from the neck wound, the flesh knitting, though the scales still bore the mark of her claws.
“Kyu kuku kuku. Don’t be so hasty to judge, my lover.” Orochimaru held out his arms, as if expecting a hug, “My serpent and I have found new stamina over these last many years.
The body convulsed once, the head rolling over, brain fluids spilling, then slowing to a trickle as the hole sealed.
“Aww, hell no…” Tsunade readied her hands, short claws growing outward.
“I need a drink.” Jiriaya watched, horrified and fascinated as the serpent righted itself, eyes focusing on Tsunade and picking itself up.
“Behold!” Orochimaru cried, “The phoenix of the serpents! The creature of foreign lore, the Hydra!!”
“That is really over-compensating, you freak!”
“Step back, Tsun.” Jiriaya pushed up his sleeves, “It’s my turn!” He flashed rapid signs and cut his thumb. He smeared blood across his fingers and planted them on the ground.
The blast of chakra and the cloud of smoke were both massive, the gray-blue plume as large as a manor house.
Serpentine eyes as large as fuma shuriken gazed into the smoke.
“Konoha again…?” The voice rumbled like thunder, as loud as an avalanche. “The rebuilding looks like it’s going well…” A deep gust of wind came in, a thick jet of sweet green pipe smoke blowing out, “Since my last visit…”
The breeze carried away the jutsu smoke revealing a the chief of toads. Gamabunta. His pipe took a wagon to fill and his waist knife spanned as wide as a man and was three times as tall.
“We can take the twenty five cent tour later, Gama!” Jiriaya shouted at the toad from atop his head, “Right now we have a not-so-little problem!”
“You run out of firewater again…?”
Jiriaya leaned over the toad horn into Gamabunta’s eye, “That too! But this is bigger than liquor! And money! And most chicks!!”
“Hmm…” The toad closed his eyes, “Sounds heavy…”
“Enough!” Orochimaru shouted. He thrust one hand out toward Gamabunta, “Destroy him, Hydra!”
“Hmm…?” He opened his eyes as the serpent came closer, hissing loudly.
“This thing…?” The toad looked up at the sannin on his head, “Jiriaya…, this thing down here is a joke…” The hydra coiled, rearing up.
“Why are you cowering on my head… like some little girl hiding from a mouse on a stool…?”
The snake struck. The slap of flesh on flesh and the crash as the hydra’s face slammed into the cobbles happened in an instant.
“Even you could beat this pitiful thing…” Gamabunta sighed, “And never even spill a drop…”
“Grrr!” Jiriaya waved his arm that wasn’t hanging on, “We did! It got back up!!”
Steel rang and the spray of water from the fountains fluttered as a sharp wind blew over them. Gamabunta slipped the half-drawn blade back into the sheath with a click like machinery settling. “We get so excitable… when you’re sober…” The giant toad looked the hydra over , watching it carefully. It had stopped hissing, watching the toad motionlessly.
“So what do we do about that… thing?” Tsunade stood beside Gamabunta’s hand.
“Hmm… Interesting question…” The toad drew on his pipe and blew a cloud into the hydra’s face.
The snake reared up higher, gagging on the cloud.
It’s eyes lost focus and the snout dipped slightly.
“Ffft-dyyzzz!!” The serpent sneezed. And its head fell to the ground. The body still held up, though the jaws worked and the eyes flicked back and forth, slowly loosing color.
Orochimaru watched as the corpse fell over, a jet of crimson coating him in color.
Gamabunta leaned down, looking at the snake sannin with an eye larger than his head. “Now…what about you…?” tendrils of green smoke drifted past the pale man.
“I have no idea what you mean. I came down here when I heard that my old teammates were terrorizing my anbu.” He pointed to Kakashi, the captain still lay on the ground.
“We were defending ourselves!” Tsunade shouted.
“Ah, see?” Orochimaru pointed, “They admit they were fighting before I got here! I am absolved.”
“Put away those fancy words…, Hokage…” Gamabunta stood back up, resuming his distance. “You don’t fool this old toad…”
Orochimaru folded his arms, “Say what you like. You’re all against me anyway. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Recently.” Jiriaya called down from his perch.
“That we can prove.” Tsunade kicked at the pool of blood as it approached her, splashing it weakly in the Hokage’s direction.
“Such distrust.” Orochimaru smiled widely, “Aren’t we all sannin here?”
Tsunade raised one fist in promise, “Put away the alligator grin, Hokage.”
A weak jet of blood issued from the corpse of the oversized snake, the tail curling.
“Takes the big one’s a while to die…, eh…?” The toad reached down, his slippery hand resting on the deeply textured hilt.
Then a second jet, the exposed flesh began to darken quickly. The third jet was slender and a scab layer had formed.
“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise…” Orochimaru laid one hand on the body as it writhed slowly.
“You cut off its freakin’ head!! Everything dies if you cut off its head!!” Tsunade shouted in futile protest.
The scab began to bulge, a thick bubble of skin, like a blister, had begun swelling.
The Hokage had a boys’ gleam in his eye, “It seems one or more of the experiments were successful. He gazed at the serpent as the torso righted itself, something pressing at the bubble of flesh from within.
“Do you see it now, fellow sannin? Do you see my power?”
“I see you dancing in the street next to some disgusting pile of flesh laying in a puddle of it’s own filth…” Jiriaya lifted one hand to his nose, “Man, that reeks!”
Gamabunta drew deeply on his pipe, a thick cloud of smoke shooting out the other side of his wide mouth, “I see it, Orochimaru… I can see your profane necromancy…”
“Profane words are used all the time, great toad!” Orochimaru shouted through a wide grin, “Why not profane arts once in a while?”
The sack of flesh bulged, growing clearer as it grew larger. A small tear formed, visceral fluids pouring from the leak. A stench like gangrenous flesh filled the air and a forked tongue whipped out through the hole. It was followed by a wide snout, a pair of eyes, a long neck and buckets of the stinking fluid and blood.
The sack of spare flesh hung at the creature’s side as the head peered around, brilliant yellow eyes glaring at Gamabunta.
“I’m gonna be sick…” Tsunade lifted the back of one hand to her nose, clutching her stomach with the other.
And something in the bubble of skin moved. The head looked down. Then struck, ripping at the left-over skin. Reeling about, tearing it away.
Still more of the putrid fluid poured from the creature and a loud hiss filled the air.
And a second head on a long neck lifted upward. The two identical heads looked at one and other.
“That was quite unexpected…” Orochimaru leapt, landing on one glistening head. His hand reached out to the other as it came close, running his had along the slimy jaw line.
“And… beautiful…” His voice broke, a tear coming down his pasty cheek.
Gamabunta scooped Tsunade up in one amphibian fist, never taking his eyes off of the abomination of it’s master. The air reflexed as smoke tried in vain to fill the space left vacant by the teleportation.
“Let them run, my pet…” Orochimaru caressed his creature, “We can kill them all later…”