Going after the slug for real

Itachi looked around him. He was sure he will die right there, but it didn't really matter. The explosion came out of nowhere, as the fact of the flames being unstable was shielded by the thick ice that was formed around them like a small egg that's about to hatch something terrifying.

He was told his services were not required anymore. He was a ninja, what is he supposed to do apart from doing his missions? Is it possible to have any other life with these eyes and strength? Obviously, as he had seen, his power isn't too much, its actually laughable compared to the entity standing besides him.

Suddenly Dix moved his body to approach the site of explosion. He walked closer to see the extreme destruction present at ground zero of the ice-egg. The crater it made was huge, all around it the ground was full of holes that were made by the shards of ice. There was also a more notable object there. Dix frowned when he saw the mangled body of Kisame. He was most likely dead, considering the numerous holes on his body and the heavily charred skin he had. He wasn't bleeding, maybe because the explosion vaporized all of his bodily fluids.

Dix walked over to check on him. He already made sure with his sensor powers that it was the real one and is not just a clone to bait him. He checked the pulse, which obviously wasn't there. There was something strange about the body though.

Samehada flew far away, probably because Kisame let go of it right before dying to try and shield himself with a jutsu. Without someone to hold onto it, the huge sword was launched far away. It was quite roasted too, almost all of it, but it was still slowly wriggling, clinging to its 'life'. Dix moved in to check it out directly, he already seen Kisame hide inside the weapon to infiltrate the allied shinobi at the fourth war in the anime. Even though his senses were really good, there were still limits to its ability.

He didn't have any use for Samehada and didn't have much of a way to make sure Kisame is inside, so he decided to use Antimaterasu and 'burn' it. His eyes moved again, signalling the release of a dojutsu, as the shark-skin sword caught blue fire. It started shrieking and writhing in 'pain'. It was supposed to be a lifeless weapon, but it had some sort of 'life' itself.

After a few moments of painful cries Samehada started gagging on something... Or more like someone. In a minute of burning, or more like freezing, Kisame's burnt head popped out of Samehada's large mouth, but was unable to get out, as his body was heavily damaged. He used the last of his chakra to hide. When his head appeared out of the monster's belly some muted cries were heard, but Kisame still withstood another wave of pain, then with an angry face he turned to Dix to say whatever he could with his last remaining breath.

"How did you know?! Curse you, kid...! You have no real power in this world, you will die, along with your loved ones and everyone! You hear me.... you will... fucking die... brat..." he said, his voice getting weaker and slowly trailing off as the last of his energies left his body.

Instead of letting the fire blow up he simply doused the flames and beheaded Kisame, whose head was sticking out of Samehada. With that this cockroach is crossed off the list too.

He was about to turn away, but his eyes caught some slight shivering movement of Samehada, which seemed to be still 'alive'. These swords are real legendary masterpieces of this era.

Instead of completely destroying it, Dix would obviously try and save an artifact with such strength, so he picked the weapon up and started infusing Kurama's chakra into it. Its regenerative power transcended every other known method to heal, maybe except Tsunade's original mitotic regeneration technique.

All damage were visibly being restored on the sword. It even tried to grow thorny vines on Dix's hand that held it, in a way to forcibly extract even more power out of him. Dix used a bit of his strength to discipline the naughty weapon, then put it away into the seal containing the other sword.

"Well that's that." Dix said, then turned around to look into Itachi's eyes. Dix left him alone, he didn't fear him getting away, as he was already marked. He just stood there, partially mourning the loss of his newest partner, whom he had barely been together with. But mostly he was contemplating on Dix's offer. It could be said as enticing, but actually the only choice he had was to comply or die. Suddenly he looked up to meet Dix's eyes again and asked:

"So you are willing to take care of my brother?"

At this moment Dix remember he actually had a way to see if Kisame was in Samehada. In the anime Naruto was able to find Kisame's hideout with the help of the Nine Tailed Chakra. He kinda forgot though...

He understood its been a really long time and he didn't write down his exact knowledge of this world, so he started to lose some details. He didn't care too much, but deep in his mind it still bothered him. But anyway, he just shook his head and focused back onto the conversation.

"Well, I mostly do, but to be honest, I will be kinda occupied by hunting the Akatsuki. He has a good place in Konoha, but the hatred you planted into him will make him want to move. I don't know how to stop him." came the answer. Dix was a bit ashamed of his inability to influence people, but he knew he wasn't really good at changing one without harmful methods, purely by social exchanges.

"In that case I rather hide away. I just wish to ask you that when the time comes you let my brother end me as it was always supposed to happen. Only he can deliver the judgement I deserve."

"I see. Well, that's good enough I suppose. As long as I don't see you run around interfering with the events unfolding you can do whatever you want."

"Thank you. I shall travel back on foot to somewhere in the Land of Fire so I can fulfill my destiny at any time if need be."

"Oh, so you want to go by yourself. Okay, then I'll leave you be. Try not to use your sharingan, you won't have any chances to restore it if you go blind." Dix finished the conversation, then teleported away. He arrived back to Konoha. It wasn't long since he left, as he took care of the pair of Akatsuki fairly quickly.

*Ow shit, I forgot to tell him where he is, well whatever, he is a 'prodigy' after all...*

*Eh kid, you should pay more attention. You are supposed to save the world, so give it a bit more though, will you?* Kurama answered with a snort.

Still, the Sun was already going down, meaning he didn't have anything notable to do anymore, he just had to go back home and sleep. Obviously he used FTGT to go home, then went to bed. The next morning he went to look for Jiraiya who he was supposed to meet up with to go after Tsunade, but was unable to find him. He sent out a few clones, and they obviously found him at the female baths, which was a huge bummer. Dix simply sighed, then teleported both of them to the front gates of the village.

Jiraiya was so absorbed in trying to take a peek into the bath trough the creaks, that the sudden change of environment scared him quite a bit, so much so he fell back on his ass. He was a bit dazed at what happened, but noticed Dix, then sighed a bit and stood up.

"Ah kid, can't you leave some privacy and quality free time to this dashing young man? Tsunade can wait a few hours, I have to find some quality inspiration for the next book! Just look at you, you obviously don't understand how important this is! Eh... Kids these days. Okay, you win, lets get going. I even know where we should head first."

Jiraiya was always a traveling shinobi, roaming the lands to seek out better and better inspiration for his books. He was also gathering intel on many things, like the Akatsuki. Because of this he didn't even have to pack anything together, he was almost always ready to go.

Soon the pair hit the road, sometimes chatting on the road, talking about the weather, life outside of Konoha and rumors, among other things. Sometimes Jiraiya tried to ask Dix of his abnormal, or more like, extreme strength, but that one always evaded the question or answered nonsensical things Jiraiya wasn't able to understand. He thought it has some sort of meaning, but it was just a fluke, so Dix can get him off his back.

Soon they reached a small town, stopped at an inn to spend the night, then hit the road the next day again. They were travelling from village to village, frequently stopping for long periods of times so Jiraiya can sniff around for the track of Tsunade. Even though he had her tracked, it was just a far approximation. He had to look out for rumors about specific traits of people.

Tsunade was known for in public circles because of her gambling addiction, and even more because of her extremely bad luck and/or gambling techniques. She lost mountains of money wherever she went, but it never stopped her. She usually kept taking loans from different smaller-bigger families. It was quite troublesome.

Because Jiraiya was the one to gather knowledge, Dix had nothing else to do but train. He had loads of clones at HQ to do that, but he still wanted to improve even more, or at least try the limits of his capabilities. He tried to combine elements to form their higher grade variants, but those were all the exclusive benefit of different families, given down in their blood itself. And it was obvious that without a specific bloodline combining elements was impossible. But Dix already achieved the impossible many times over. He felt like if he practiced enough he could go somewhere with it. He had no idea where to, yet.