Lightning Sage

saThe Kazekage looked towards Jiraiya "I will give you sometime before we talk politics since your disciple is injured, but we'll still have to announce the result of the Chuunin exams."

Jiraiya nodded at that "I agree, I think it's pretty obvious what the results are"

"Yes" The Kazekage said before standing up and raising his hand to calm the crowd. The crowd that was going crazy, looked at Rasa and started calming down.

"I will now announce the results of this round of Chuunin exams. Normally, we would judge the examinees on their strength, intelligence and ability to adapt and lead, with the last two being checked in the second stage. From the participants of this exam that reached the final stage, only Uchiha Raiden and Uchiha Itachi have fulfilled all conditions to be promoted to Chuunin.

Everybody else, good luck next time." Said Rasa before turning around and giving Jiraiya a glance before leaving.

~~~

A couple of hours after the finals, in the Suna hospital, Raiden and Itachi were both in the same room and they both woke up with half an hour in-between them.

Raiden woke up to loud snoring. He looked around the room and found Jiraiya in the corner sleeping while snoring loudly. He grabbed his pillow and threw it at him.

Jiraiya caught the pillow before opening his eyes.

"I survived Two wars, you thought this would hit me?" Asked Jiraiya and gave a laugh at the end.

"No, I just wanted to wake you up because your snoring woke me up." Raiden looked around again and noticed Itachi who was sitting down on his bed.

"Who won?" Asked Itachi with an emotionless voice.

"Officially, Raiden. realistically, no one, as you both were either passed out or on the verge. You exhausted your chakra while you hit a wall, literally." He explained while looking from one side to the other and laughing while looking at Raiden.

"Sigh, then what are the results?" Asked Raiden this time with a little anticipation in his voice.

"You were both promoted to Chuunin obviously. Now, since I am already up and you both are okay, I'll be taking my leave, I have some business to attend to." Jiraiya said that and flickered out the room to meet up with the Kazekage.

Raiden turned his head from Jiraiya's chair to Itachi and entered deep thought about that final move.

~~~

In the Kazekage's office, a knock was heard on the door and Rasa told whoever was at the door to enter. Jiraiya entered and sat down on a couch near the disk. Rasa, who was doing paperwork, put down his pen and looked at Jiraiya.

"I see you've made yourself comfortable."

"Of course, I can't get through one of these talks if I am not comfortable, especially if it's an old rival."

"Hehe, the great Jiraiya the sage, can rival Kages, but can't handle a little politics, no wonder you didn't want to be Hokage."

"Oh I can handle politics, but I can't handle spending my entire time on paperwork." Rasa shuddered at a Kage's eternal enemy, paperwork.

"Anyway, let's get down to business. I will be straight forward, I want Konoha to stop taking commissions from the land of wind."

"Oh, please continue."

"As you already know, we are a village surrounded by the desert, we don't have many resources and need trade to function. After our loss in the last war, the Daiymo has cut down on our financial support and started outsourcing his high-rank missions to Konoha.

We relied on missions to recoup our losses after the war, but this cut down made our economy struggle as you must already know by staying here for the past month." Jiraiya nodded his head to the explanation.

"I went out of my way and organised this Chuunin exam in cooperation with Konoha to show you my goodwill. As allies, you should help us."

Jiraiya entered deep thought for a while before answering him "As you should know, a decision like this has to go by the Hokage first, so I'll send him a message right now." Jiraiya summoned a toad and wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to the toad.

The toad disappeared and ten minutes later, it reappeared. Jiraiya took the paper from it and started reading it. He looked up at Rasa.

"He has given me the authority to do as I please." Jiraiya said while grinning.

"Then what is your decision?" Rasa looked at Jiraiya firmly, the next words from his mouth could save his village.

"I'll agree with you, with conditions of course."

"State your conditions."

"First, you will extend your treaty with Konoha for 10 years. The second is more of a personal request, I heard that your Jinchuriki passed away a couple of years ago and you made your son the new Jinchuriki. I want to take a look at his seal."

"The first one is easily done, but the second might be more difficult."

"Oh, why is that?"

"Since you know about him being the Jinchuriki, you should know that he can't control it's powers and rages often."

"All the more reason to take a look. Tell you what, since we're allies if I find an issue with his seal I'll fix it for you, not for free of course."

Rasa looked conflicted for a bit before sighing and agreeing "I will do what is best for the village." Jiraiya nodded at him with a smile. Rasa signalled an Anbu that flickered next to him.

"Tell Yashamaru that I'll be visiting him and Gaara now." The Anbu flickered again and disappeared.

"Follow me." Said Rasa as he looked at Jiraiya before they left the room. A few minutes later, they entered a room that had two people inside it.

The first person was a man that had sandy-blond hair, fair skin, and violet eyes, which made him look somewhat feminine. He is wearing a simple, dark blue, kimono-style shirt with white trim that was held closed by a white sash along with grey pants. He also wore a pair of black shinobi sandals and a beige apron with the Sunagakure village symbol at the top.

The other person was a child, he has fair skin, green eyes, and short auburn hair that was spiky. What was distinctive about him was that he had no eyebrows and had tanuki-like black rings around his eyes, which should be from insomnia. He was wearing a blouse and pants with a scarf around his neck.

Jiraiya frowned at the black circles and tried to approach, but when he was a meter away, a wall of sand suddenly formed blocking him from advancing.

"This is?" Jiraiya said while looking back at Rasa.

"This is his power." He said with his still solemn face.

Jiraiya turned around and looked at Gaara through the sand. The child looked scared, he looked lonely. Jiraiya remembered how he saw Naruto when he came back to the village and sighed. 'This child, you've suffered a lot, haven't you?'

"Don't worry boy, I'm not here to hurt you, I just want to check on your seal."

Gaara was still not taking down his wall of sand, he looked towards Yashamaru.

"He's saying the truth Gaara-sama. You can trust him." Gaara nodded his head and slowly lowered the sand wall. Jiraiya looked around the room and found a couch.

"You can lie down on that couch there." Gaara looked at Yashamaru, who nodded at him, before lying down on the couch.

Jiraiya approached him and raised his shirt a bit to uncover a seal that was circular and had a tail coming out of it towards his belly button. Jiraiya observed the seal for a bit before turning around and looking at Rasa.

"This should be the Sand Sealing Method. which would normally be fine for a Jinchuriki, but this is a child that hasn't developed yet."

"What does that mean?" Asked Rasa.

"Sigh, you really have very little knowledge about sealing. I don't know how you captured the one-tails in the first place. I'll tell you. when you use a method called Sand Sealing Method to seal a tailed beast that uses sand for its attacks, it should be obvious.

Normally, you seal it in a.d.u.l.ts as they have the fortitude and strength to keep it in check even if it tried to manipulate the seal, but this child has not developed his chakra by a lot, so the one-tails is able to manipulate the seal to leak his chakra.

And as you should know, tailed beasts can talk with their hosts, but that's when their host accesses the mental link between them. The one-tails should be able to manipulate that as well and is probably saying all kinds of things to make this boy lose control.

If he is given a small push, he could explode and let it out of the seal."

Yashamaru looked at Rasa and Rasa did the same. They remembered the little tests they keep giving him to see if he could control Shukaku, not to mention everybody being scared of him.

"What can be done?" Rasa asked.

"You have two options, you wait until he's strong enough to suppress the one-tails in the seal or you change the seal. The first option would mean constant rampages if he gets emotionally triggered."

Rasa started thinking about his options for a while before looking at Jiraiya.

"What will it cost for you to change the seal?"