NARUTO:The sealed shinobi.

Jiraiya pulled out a map and pointed, "To probably the only place with a jinchuuriki that is on good terms with you besides Suna. We're heading up to Kumo to start. At least we know that they'll listen to what we have to say before they kick us out of the country."

Naruto nodded but had his mind elsewhere, "What do I do from here Ero-kyofu? I think I've hit the wall. I don't think I'm going to get much better than I am now, I can't seem to use anymore of the Kyuubi's chakra, and from the way I was rag-dolled in Suna that won't be enough for a guy like Kakuzu, and he's not even the leader."

A questioning look came from the old sage, "What about the other one?" Naruto waved him off, "I already know how I'm going to beat that teme. But between Hidan, Kakuzu, Itachi, and Kisame this is looking like one steep mountain to climb. Then there's that Deidara that got away. He knows how I fight so he'll be more dangerous if we meet again." Naruto sighed to himself, he had never asked this before, "I... need your help."

"You what now?" Jiraiya asked, genuinely surprised. Naruto had never asked for his help, not once. Not to learn the Rasengan, not for training to improve his atrophied attributes, not to find out his lineage, not even on how to get a better rapport with his summons, not anything. To be honest he had been wondering when this would come up if it ever would. The kid seemed like a problem solver, "You need my help? For what?"

Naruto looked at his hands and balled his fists, "I'm supposed to be Konoha's ace in the hole, the village's ultimate tool to protect it. Well what good is a tool if it gets stolen by someone else? Gaara's stronger than me now. He's a kage, and I'm just a chunin. I was losing that fight against those two in the desert, it wasn't even a matter of being powerful. I was pumping out three tails worth of the Kyuubi's chakra and they kept coming. Kakuzu just seemed to step his game up that much better to compete and Hidan just would not stay down."

Naruto shut his eyes and walked ahead, "People like to refer to jinchuuriki like me as monsters, as inhuman. Well then what do you call guys like that? Definitely not normal. They're all freaks, and they just get freakier as you run down the list of them... they're all prepared on how to fight me, they can find me anywhere in the entire world, and they can attack anytime they want to." He stopped and looked back at Jiraiya, "How am I supposed to win when fighting at my best wasn't good enough?"

Jiraiya stayed silent until Naruto was finished before walking up to Naruto and punching him square in the jaw. The shot sent Naruto flying off of the path down a hill into a field on the side of the road. Naruto pulled himself to his feet, wiping the blood from his lip and planning to retaliate when Jiraiya spoke, "That's how."

Jiraiya stood at the top of the hill looking down at Naruto who finally stood up, "You want me to magically show you what you need to do? Or do you want me to give you some miracle move that will kill all of your enemies in a split-second, find the answer to world peace, and make it shower down gold coins all across the landscape? I can't give you the answer of how to stop these people, of what you need to do to beat them. If I had that don't you think I would have told you, or better yet used it myself so that you don't have to put your neck on the line?"

He pointed down the steep slope at Naruto, "You walk up here right now. I don't want to see you jump, and I don't want to even sense you channel any chakra or you're going back down there." Naruto did as told and walked up the slope he was knocked down, climb was more of an accurate description as by the time he reached Jiraiya at the top he had to use his hands to keep from falling back down. Jiraiya jerked Naruto by his collar and set him back on the road, "This isn't supposed to be easy Naruto. If it was then someone else would have already solved the problem for you, if it was easy then there would be a bigger problem out there that you would have to face. The only way to do this is to claw your way to an answer. You need to lower your head, grit your teeth, and plow right on through. You move along. Stop worrying about what will happen if such and such shows up whenever and you're doing who knows what and you aren't good enough. You get good enough, you find your own way to handle things and I promise you, you can do this. I believe in you kid."

Jiraiya patted Naruto on the head and walked on down the road, "You take it one step at a time. Just keep climbing, do not stumble, and you're going to make it. That's how you're going to win. I'll be here to help you as much as I can, but if you ever give up like you were just about to again I'll beat you back into your old brain-dead self, because at least he was stubborn enough to never quit. He had guts."

Naruto followed Jiraiya in silence like a zombie from that point forward.