"But how...?" Naruto asked, shocked by what all this could mean.
The third looked pensive a moment stroking his beard in thought "Honestly I don't know" he said at length "I have a theory as to how that could happen but it's a bit out there."
"What do you mean?" Anko looked curiously at the third.
"Well, if my guess is correct, Naruto may have had, or may still have a Kekkei Genkai, one of the lost bloodlines of the land of mist, the land near whirlpool. The home country of the Uzumaki clan, which Naruto is descended from. As you know, wind and water are the affinities of Hyōton, or Ice release. What most people don't know is that the Tailed beasts all have chakra affinities as well, for instance, Kyuubi's affinity is fire, an extremely strong fire affinity, what I'm guessing here, and this is strictly guessing, is that when you subconsciously used the Hyōton bloodline, it mixed in all the wrong ways with the fire alined foxes chakra, causing a massive feedback into your chakra system, namely, the mixing of the fire and water affinities caused a imbalance and the wind chakra tossed fuel onto the flames so to speak, creating even more havoc in the boy's systems, but what I don't understand is why he now has 5 elemental affinities but I'm guessing it has something to do with the feedback...
The rest of the thirds words were cut off as Naruto felt himself being pulled inside himself, it was an odd feeling that left him in that familiar sewer that was apparently his mindscape.
Naruto sweatdropped "I seriously need to figure out a way to clear out my head, honestly if this is how a normal persons mind looks like I'd hate to see the inside of a pervs head"
"That's not how a mindscape work's monkey..." the very irritated voice of the fox echoed around him. "A mindscape is based on a persons personality and experiences through life, seeing how bad you've been abused, your life has pretty much been in the shitter, your mind apparently took that literally..."
"...I really didn't want to hear that coming from you..." the two flaming orbs of the fox stared blankly at him as his eye brow twitched in irritation.
The fox leaned back a little, relaxing as much as it seemed possible in that relatively small cage, "Deal with it human, we have more serious things to discuss, I know you're talking about how you apparently obtained an affinity to all 5 elements, and I personally want to put my two cents into this conversation."
Sarcasm filled the blondes voice "And how exactly are you going to do that fuzz ball? If you haven't noticed you're locked up in here and there's no way in hell I'm releasing the seal." he puffed up in front of the great demon, pointing an accusing finger at the beast.
the Kyuubi sweatdropped "Well as much as I loath to admit it, you are right for once... However... I have an idea, it's not the preferred one seeing as I'd rather be released to cause mayhem and torment as is my namesake but you continue to be difficult..."
"Well sorry if I actually care for things other than myself" He glared at the fox not budging an inch despite the fact the creature was a 100 times his size...
"*Sigh*, I remember now why I don't try to reason and just eat you monkeys, you always give me a migraine." the fox rubbed the bridge of its nose with its claws, which to Naruto looked rather hilarious and he tried hard not to laugh...and was failing miserably. "Shut it human, I'm willing to help you here to further my goals, be glad I'm even lending you my aid, if events had been any different, I'd have left you to squirm without knowing anything, but seeing as you now have something this troublesome running through you, you need to be informed in case you accidentally kill yourself and me along with you." The fox grumbled a few times angrily.
"W-What do you mean?" Naruto stuttered a little, his eyes shifted to concern in anticipation of what the fox would say.
"You can preform handsign's, correct? Naruto nodded, "Good, I'm going to teach you a jutsu known as shadow clones, this is one part of what you need for me to help, and don't worry about the outside world, time flows differently here, minutes outside can last hours in here so you should have plenty of time to learn" Naruto nodded again, looking at the Kyuubi's hands...claws and noticed they were in a seal "See this seal here?" Naruto nodded again. "Now this isn't a very difficult jutsu, the only reason I know this particular jutsu is because it only requires one handsign and those bastard leaf shinobi used the thing countless times on me when I was destroying your villages...hehehe good times." The fox chuckled darkly and Naruto turned a beet red at the beasts nonchalant attitude at murdering the people who would one day be his subjects...if he had a way to get the Kage hat "Well boy, start practicing, contrary to popular belief I don't have an eternity to wait" the fox broke him out of his thoughts and showed the boy the seal again, "Put as much chakra into the Jutsu as you can, we're going for replication, not fine tuning. So anything above 5 clones should be sufficient control for what I'm planning. Once you have that down I'll show you the next step..."
-ooo-
Naruto blinked once coming back to reality to find the Third still talking. "Yo Old Man?" the third stopped for a moment to look at Naruto curiously. "Um I don't really know how to say this but...well...Kyuubi want's to talk to you."
...The third stared blankly at Naruto for a moment before shouting. "WHAT!" the Thirds eyes widened considerably, his mouth hanging open a little in disbelief.
"Um...yeah one second." the blonde sweatdropped and put his hand into a familiar seal with a slight twist as his hands flipped through 3 more seals after that "Hidden art: Kyuubi Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" with a small flash of red chakra the room was filled with a puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared the three looked around the room expectantly, the two adults in a bit of fear at what the fox might have made Naruto do... a slight cough brought them out of their searching, the three looked down only to sweatdrop, a little fox sat on the floor between Naruto's legs with a pissed off expression. (A/N imagine a Fennec Fox, if you don't know what those are, look them up, they're cute, furry little fuckers)
"All my hate...all of it..." the fox twitched in anger. "You could at least learn better chakra control, that was pathetic" it was odd looking to say the least that such a deep voice was coming out of something that small...
Naruto, the Third and Anko looked at each other for a moment, then immediately fell to the floor laughing.
"I. Hate. All of you."
The third was the first to come out of the laughing fit "Kyuubi is that really you? You're a bit smaller than I remember..." the third eyed the fox who now had a feral look to its face.
"I'm not even going to answer that remark monkey, I came here to discuss the circumstances of the containers' chakra system." The third immediately sobered up.
"What do you mean? What has happened that I should be aware of?" the third's hands clenched in concern, if the fox was willing to speak to him in person...er... animal... then something terrible must have happened.
"As you probably know the boy now has all the elemental affinities..." The third nodded "Well then this shall be easy, what you don't know is that when my chakra mixed with the boy's Kekkei Genkai, it caused a chain reaction in his chakra network, causing a feedback that all but completely destroyed his chakra network, every one of his Tenketsu were vaporized." At this all the human mouths in the room dropped "Yes, I see you understand that little bit of information at least. Well moving on, I worked furiously on the boy, sending around 3 tails worth of chakra through his system all at once to repair what I could, now this is where it gets strange... you know basic chakra theory right mortal?" It looked pointedly at the Third who nodded in response. "Good, then you know how a beings elemental affinity is decided in the womb, where the parents DNA is used to determine the affinity. What happened here is extremely rare but with my tinkering in the boys chakra systems I came across the symptoms of 'Elemental Convergence', this is unheard of in humans, mainly because humans can rarely survive their Chakra system being vaporized. We Demons and those of the summon realm can survive to an extent, but this boy surviving is not only statistically impossible, but should be naturally impossible, no natural being should be able to channel all 5 elements effortlessly. The only reason the Rikkudou Sennin was able to do so was because of the Rinnegan, the eyes themselves were an unnatural occurrence that allowed the man to do so."
"So what does this mean for Naruto here?" the third asked, genuinely curious now.
"Heh, what it means, is that when I repaired the boy's chakra network, the other elemental affinities leeched into his system, as I said before a child's elemental affinity is decided in the womb, but unlike other sources of DNA, like the facial features of the parents and body types, the chakra network isn't set in stone, you can naturally change your elements to an extent with training, you can't effectively use all elements, but you could easily learn a few jutsu from affinities that you aren't alined to, but when you completely destroy a portion of the chakra network and it is repaired the elemental affinity that is present isn't there anymore, in effect you have an elemental neutrality, this draws in any elements around it, and unfortunately for the boy he landed in the Forest of death, where the elements have gone haywire for generations."
"Wait what do you mean by that?" Anko interrupted. "I've lived there all my life, nothing really seems out of the ordinary there."
The fox sweatdropped "Do you honestly think the flora and fauna there are natural? Everything in that place is either highly toxic or abnormally large, even in the ninja world that place isn't normal. Anko made a slight 'o' face "To be precise it is a 'Chaotic Zone', there are several of these places in the world that cause things like that to happen, sometimes whole nations are subject to a chaotic zone, such as demon country, or small pockets like the Forest of Death. the fox took a moment to collect itself "In short a chaotic zone is where the natural energies of the world are twisted and concentrated, that means all five elements highly concentrated in one place and that's what leads us to the boy here, after I repaired his chakra network his elementally neutral system drew in everything around it like a magnet, hell even I don't know to what extent the boy absorbed, he could have a hundred bloodlines for all I know now with how much chaotic energy is in that forest, I'm surprised he hasn't sprouted any fox features since my chakra was laced through his system when the absorption sta...actually, you might want to keep an eye on that, I'm willing to bet he'll start growing fox attributes soon, there's just no way he wouldn't, I was too close to his chakra system not to."
"Great, the villagers hate me now without the fox features, how much more will they attack me when I'll look like you?" Naruto said bitterly
"Don't blame me human, I'm not the one who cornered you in that alley, if you want to blame anyone, blame those fools that you turned to dust."
"As much as I enjoy this conversation" the Third started dryly "What does this mean for Naruto in the long run and how will it affect him?"
The fox thought for a moment before replying "Honestly? I have no idea, like I said before this is unheard of in humans, the only thing that I can think of that would hamper him is the piss poor control he has so far, I mean, I was supposed to be around the size of a large ninja dog, but no, I'm a Chihuahua..." the three humans in the room chuckled at that. "...If anything you should consider this a blessing, this boy has more going for him now than most prodigy of prodigy's. All five elemental affinities means he has access to all spheres of elemental jutsu, and since four of the five are fairly equal with wind being the exception due to the boy's originally high wind affinity you can probably use many elemental bloodline abilities naturally now on top of the ice bloodline you already had, not to mention abilities you gained from absorbing any energies from me or the plants and animals around you, hell for all I know you could have the Sharingan by now, and if not now maybe develop it further on, you don't realize the scope of whats happened to you yet, if I wasn't so bitter towards your old man I'd actually complement you on the improvement."
Naruto had something of a bitter smirk on his face when the explanation started, as the conversation went on it turned into a smile and just grew wider from there, "So you're saying I now have a better chance at being Hokage than ever before?"
"Pfft Hokage?" The fox chuckled "If you aren't careful you could be the next Rikkudo Sennin for all I know."
Naruto's grin took up his whole face. "HELL YEAH!" he hopped out of the chair he was sitting in and did a little happy dance, pumping his fists in the air.
Sarutobi took out his pipe and lit it, "I find it hard to believe that there are no side effects to this happening to the boy, are you sure that there isn't any adverse side affects other than the fox parts and possible new bloodlines? Something that might hurt the boy at any point?"
The fox glared at the old man with an irritated look on its face "Human, I've said this before already, I DON'T KNOW, this rarely happens even for demons and it has never happened for humans as far back as I can remember, and I've lived longer than a hundred of your lifetimes, hell the odds of this happening ever is statistically zero, or at least it should be, I mean the things that would have to happen to even survive something like this are insane, first, a person would have to have a healing factor, with my chakra that's a given , but most humans in the world don't have that. Second, said human would have to have a bloodline, an elemental bloodline in particular, in this case, the boy's Hyōton bloodline. Third, you would need a foreign chakra that is the direct positive and negative reacting element to the two elements in the bloodline, in my case fire opposing the water and wind element, And Finally you would need a Chaotic zone close by when the feedback happened. All of this together is possible to do but even then the odds of the person actually surviving the event are again near zero, so you see I have no clue what will happen to the boy, Hell he could turn into a demon and sprout random animal parts and elements out of his body for all I know" Naruto looked about ready to pass out at this information but before the sweet embrace of unconsciousness could take him the fox interrupted his freak out "BUT in this case I CAN say that this is unlikely, for the most part the only time anything of that nature happens is due to the fact that demons and summons are physically, mentally and in some cases spiritually different from humans, and that's only in the worst cases that that has happened to someone, in your case human your body is much different than a demon or summons, your body is more rigid in its physical nature unlike us, on top of that, you have my demonic chakra on damage control. I can, to an extent, control what happens in your body through my chakra and considering both those things I can safely say you wont turn into a monster or anything of that nature."
Naruto sighed in relief at this "So I just wait and see what happens then?"
"Basically yes, other than that maybe try and work on all your elemental affinities and see what you can do with them all now, if you have the capability of multiple elemental bloodlines then its possible to unlock a few of these and other more physical bloodlines you may have obsorbed early to help you later in life"
The Third listened to all of this quietly weighing his options in the matter, on the one hand the boys life was turned on its head, the civilians would soon be out for blood, if he was to have any sense of normality he needed an out, Anko was a good start, the woman shared the boy's lot in life, unable to do anything about their situation and ostracized for things outside of their control but the third knew that wouldn't stop the majority of the civilian council from calling for his blood and since the boy wasn't a ninja he couldn't protect the boy from them either, the only thing that could really save the boy is if he could somehow spin this new information about bloodlines to convince the council that the boy was worth the lives lost. Lord knows the civilians are bloodline hungry as it is, but that would just turn the boy into breeding stock, he'd need something more to keep that from happening... but what? The Third looked at Naruto silently watching him talk with Anko, the Kyuubi was sitting in the corner seemingly ignoring everyone when suddenly an idea came to him, it was a cruel idea, but it could prove to be beneficial to all parties involved.
"Naruto, Anko." the third spoke up gruffly, the two in question snapped to attention looking at the third expectantly. "I've thought over this matter and I have a few things I need to get out of the way. First off If you are going to stay with Anko there needs to be a legitimate reason, the civilian council will jump all over that and I wouldn't be able to do much about it." The room grew quiet, Naruto sat down a little somber at the thought of being back on the streets again.
"Couldn't I just adopt him?" Anko asked curiously "He'd be like a little brother" she shot the boy a grin.
"I...I've already tried that..." Sarutobi replied sadly "I'd have adopted the boy myself if that were the case" Naruto was shocked by the mans words, he never knew that the old man cared that much about him, but those words only cemented his respect for him even more. "Also, that's not the only problem related to the Civilian council." The third took a long drag on his pipe. "I know this might come as a shock but I don't think that that the civilian council will let the deaths of so many civilians just be ignored, they most likely will try to ask for your life Naruto" the grimness in the thirds tone sent chills up the blondes spine as he turned a pale shade of white. "However" He looked up quietly "I have an idea that might help." The Third sent a meaningful look at Anko, who like the blonde next to her paled drastically. "Naruto, Anko," The third sighed "My idea is for the two of you to be married..."
You could hear the pair of jaws hitting the floor at this point, while the Kyuubi was laughing its ass off in the corner.
"WHAT!" the blonde and the babe replied together.
"It's exactly as I said, now listen to my reasons before you say anything else" the third growled out, the two wisely shut their mouths before nodding "Naruto, the only thing that I can think of to get you out of this situation is to reveal what has happened to you to the council, if I can convince the council that you are much more valuable alive then dead then it just may be enough to save you, but to do that you'd need to provide something of value to the village, and in your case that is where your bloodline and or bloodlines will come into play." The Third turned to the fox in the corner "Kyuubi, what has happened to the boy can be inherited by his children correct?" the fox nodded. "Well, that is the basis for my idea, as long as you are alive your bloodline/s will keep the council off of you , as for you two being wed, there are several reasons for that. First" he held up a finger "It's to keep the council from whoring the boy off to half the women in the village when he comes of age, having a bride to be will keep most of them happy as long as you are married and have at least one child by the time you are sixteen, of course they may push for you to have multiple wives according to the Clan Restoration Act, Since you are technically the head of your clan, but that is entirely your decision as long as you have at least one wife and child." The third held up another finger "Second, this will also allow you and Anko to remain close to one another, allowing Anko to take care of you Naruto, this also means that you will always be under watch by an experienced ninja which will make your case alot easier when they demand someone keep an eye on you." Another finger went up "And finally Third, this applies to you Anko, it is to allow you to redeem yourself in eyes of the council, both ninja and civilian. Being married means that you are tied in a way to this village now, so the odds of you defecting are slightly lower in the eyes of your peers, you would be able to gain a certain amount of respect from both sides of the council not only for going through with this in the first place but if everything goes as planned then possibly redeeming yourself completely by following through with it as well." he let his words sink in for a moment before continuing "This whole idea is underhanded I know, it's also unfair to both of you in a way, but given what has happened and what will most likely happen this is the best course of action. Do you both understand?"
Anko was silent for a while as she mulled over the thirds plan. She could definitely benefit from this in a major way, ever since that snake bastard Orochimaru had abandoned her she had been the black sheep, a stain on the supposedly proud village of Konoha, hell her life sucked, everyone looked down on her and no one would give her the time of day. Hell this really was the ONLY option open to her at the moment that at least had some guarantee of redemption with a minimal amount of effort...and whose to say, they really weren't that far apart age wise, 9 years isn't THAT much, and that gap would mean less and less the older they got so age didn't really bother her, she had also seen the fourth Hokage in his prime, if this boy looked anything like him when he got older he'd be quite the looker, personality wise she could tell at least mentally the boy was older than he appeared, that came with the whole 'I have no family and I grew up on my own' mentality but if all else failed she'd have the rest of his young life to groom the boy in anything he currently lacked. So to cap off her mental checklist he had the looks, mentality, prestige, most likely ability given this new development in his powers and with that he'd also have the finances down after he grew up a bit and could take on missions, so really what problem did she have? ...Well, she could think of one...as she stole a glance at the boy's pants... 'No, Bad Anko' She mentally berated herself 'Orochimaru is the pedophile, not you.' Though...that...didn't stop her from glancing at the boy's crotch again...if the gaki was packing heat when the time came for them to truly tie the knot she could say with certainty that he'd be one hell of a hubby.
Naruto on the other hand was completely blank, as soon as the third had finished speaking the hamster wheel stopped spinning and the gears locked up. 'I'm going to be married?' he thought stupidly 'Is that what I want? Really?' The boy was stumped, he had never thought about the future, the only real goal he had set for himself was getting the hat from the old man. Becoming Hokage really was his only dream, but what about a family? A wife? Those thoughts running through the boys head were confusing him to no end, hell a 7 year old wasn't meant to think about his future in that way, give him another eight to ten years and maybe he'd be ready for that responsibility, but no, he had to make the choice now. He knew that the third wouldn't force this on him, it was HIS choice after all but given the way things were it really was the only choice.
The third watched the two mentally go through all of what he had said and weigh their options, it was kind of cute how Naruto had such a serious expression on his face, given his age he couldn't hold a serious face without looking completely ridiculous and adorable at the same time but the third knew the boy was genuinely thinking things through...Just like his father, so considerate of others. It made the old man proud that Naruto had turned out so much like his father...though he did have a bit too much of his mother in him for his own good...and the safety and sanity of the village for that matter... He turned to Anko who had a more interesting expression, somewhere between apprehension and resigned acceptance. 'Well, at least she's considering it.' he thought. After a few moments he noticed both of them were staring right at him with resolve in both of their eyes. "Have you decided?" he asked at length.
Naruto was the first to speak "Yeah gramps" he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly "I'll go with it but only if An-chan want's to as well"
Anko's eyebrow and mouth twitched at the pet name as she dropped her head "Yeah" she sighed "I gotta say that this is one of the better things that's happened to me in my life, if what you say is true and I can actually get some recognition in my own damn village then yeah I'll go along with this"
"Good, that makes things infinitely easier..." the third sighed, rummaging through his desk the third pulled out several papers and placed them on the desk, "These papers here need to be signed to recognize that you both are indeed married, once signed you will need a ring made to seal the deal...actually, hold on a moment" the third dug deeper through his desk and pulled out a small shiny metal band with a little diamond in the center.
Anko frowned at the ring "Why the hell do you have one of those in your desk?"
The third sweatdropped "Well, I'm one of the few people in the village who does marriage services, aside from the fire monks and a few others in the village...though people tend to come to me when they need to keep an engagement or marriage secret, also the amount of people who elope in this village is just silly, I get a couple in here once ever other month or so, so I tend to keep at least a few of these things lying around just in case."
The couple to be stared blankly as the old man as he placed the band on the table next to the papers.
"Well Naruto will you do the honors?" The Third nodded towards the ring and gave the boy a pointed look.
Naruto nodded dumbly as he grabbed the ring, gulping hard the boy climbed up into the chair to be level with Anko, the boy gulped once before kneeling on one knee, Anko raised an eyebrow at this, if it wasn't for the fact that the person kneeling in front of her was a 7 year old, she'd have been flattered. As it stood though she was trying hard not to giggle at the ridiculous sight.
Naruto Gulped hard and tried asking the question "A...Anko-ch..chan" the boy stuttered "W...Will you m-m-marry me?" the boy had seen people do this before but doing it himself was an entirely different story, he felt weird doing it, uncomfortable even, like people were staring, though it was probably just Anko who looked to be on the verge of falling on her ass from laughter.
Anko looked at her future husband and chuckled mentally, 'The brats got guts I'll give him that' she reached out her left hand "Sure brat, I'll marry you, but when the time comes I hope you can handle me" She winked at him with a devious little smirk.
Naruto nodded solemnly "I will Anko-chan, I'll take responsibility and take care of you when we get married." The boy didn't realize exactly what he had just said...or maybe he did and the adults in the room just took it the wrong way...yeah, that.
Anko couldn't take it anymore and fell to the floor laughing. The third had a perverted grin and a small trail of blood coming from his nose. Kyuubi...well he was asleep, but the wide grin on his face showed he was well aware of what his idiot container had just said.
"It wasn't that funny" he huffed
"Yeah it was gaki." Anko cackled from the floor, still laughing hard.
Naruto frowned, he didn't like being laughed at like that 'I'll show her' he thought mischievously, a small devious grin spread across his face as the prankster in him welled up. Walking over to anko, he slipped the ring on her finger and in a bold move that shocked even Kyuubi of all things he leaned down and kissed Anko on the lips.
The third choked on his pipe, Kyuubi's ears shot up and his eyes flew open, Anko...well she was frozen 'That cheeky bastard' she thought in shock.
With that devious smirk still on his lips he chuckled "Thank you Anko-chan I'll take goood care of you when we're married" ...apparently Naruto wasn't as dumb as he looked...
Anko and the third both turned bright red at the way the boy said 'good' and Kyuubi burst out laughing in the corner "Hahahahah, If it's one thing I like about you boy, it's that devious nature of yours, got the blood of the kitsune in you no doubt about it"
Naruto walked smugly back to his chair as he waited for the other humans in the room to compose themselves after that little stunt of his.
"Oi, you little brat!" the snake mistress fumed as she got up off the floor and approached the boy with a menacing gleam in her eyes, cracking her knuckles loudly.
The third turned away from the beating that was about to ensue and judging from the sounds coming from behind him he was wise to do so... The third turned back to see Naruto with a large anime style whelp on his head with a black eye to match. "Ahem... now that you've both kissed and made up" He chuckled when the two yelled at him for that cheeky remark "It's down to business, sign the forms here and make this marriage official" the third handed them a pen. Anko signed it first, she gave the pen to Naruto who looked at the paper warily "Is there something wrong Naruto?" the third asked, concerned at what was stopping the boy.
"Um...well"
"Yes?"
"I can't write..." the adults and fox in the room facevaulted.
The third picked himself up off the floor, "What do you mean you can't write? Didn't the caretakers in the orphanage teach you?" he raised one eyebrow when the boy looked down, ashamed.
"No...they didn't, they really didn't teach me anything, I had to teach myself..." at this both eyebrows rose, the boy had taught himself everything he knew, that alone filled the old man with anger, he would have a long talk with the orphanage staff after this was all over and done with...and by talk he meant torture and interrogation.
"Naruto, Just sign with an X and stamp your thumb print in blood that will be more than enough written proof. Naruto nodded, used the pen to cross an X next to Anko's name, then used a Kunai letter opener to slice his thumb open, he dipped the other thumb in the small pool of blood just enough to coat and pushed it onto the paper, leaving a thumbprint slightly smudged but clear enough to show a majority of the boys fingerprint. The third looked over the paper for a moment before signing it himself as a witness "Well then, by the power vested in me by the fire daimyō, the head monk of the fire temple and the good people of Konoha, I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride." he motioned his hand suggestively with a grin on his face.
Anko looked at Naruto who looked back at her 'Well he's already kissed me once' she rolled her eyes and leaned towards him. Naruto pulled himself together and leaned in as well, for a moment their lips met, surprisingly it was a rather long kiss. Naruto broke the kiss, pulling back you could see he had a slight blush on his face, Anko was in a similar state 'He's actually a good kisser' she giggled to herself 'I can't wait to see what he's like when he's older.'
"Well then" the third coughed a similar blush on his face and a tissue in his nose, "I think it's time we break the news to the council, I'll call an emergency meeting now, you two wait here and get to know each other while I take care of things." The third stood up before walking out to his secretary, 'Tonights going to be a long night.'