Sarutobi Hiruzen's doors were shoved open. "Sensei, we need to talk," Jiraiya proclaimed. "Privately."

"Hm? What's going on, Jiraiya?" Hiruzen inquired, setting down the most recent scout reports from the Hot Springs border.

His student didn't reply immediately, instead making a tour of the room to activate the various privacy seals scattered around. He then turned to the ANBU standing unobtrusively in the corner. "Out! Tango-delta-Charlie-Romeo-47." The young woman nodded and scampered away immediately.

"Jiraiya, what in the world is going on?" Hiruzen asked again, much more seriously.

"I'm getting married, sensei."

It was all Hiruzen could do to snap his jaw shut rather than letting it hang open. Even having heard Jiraiya give his security code not ten seconds ago, Hiruzen seriously considered attacking the man in front of him as an impostor, and a poor one at that. Of course, an impostor skilled enough to get that code would have been skilled enough to say something more believable, unless they were deliberately saying something as shocking as possible to throw him off-balance, etc, etc, etc....

Hiruzen considered all of this in a fraction of a second, which culminated in a short and deeply skeptical "Oh?"

Jiraiya nodded resolutely. "To Inoue Mari."

Hiruzen reflexively dispelled, and then blinked several times as the world around him completely failed to dissolve. "...come again?" he said eventually.

"Team Mari reported in. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, which included my marriage to their jounin-sensei for the purpose of founding a new clan."

"...you're going to need to give me a little more explanation than that," Hiruzen said carefully. "Substantially more, in fact. What could they have possibly offered you that would be worth giving up the independence you've sought to maintain for so long? Not to mention having to deal with all the political squabbling needed to keep the clans from heavily resisting, or even openly rebelling when they hear you're planning on forming a clan with a bunch of missing nin--"

"One, once they're in a clan, they won't be missing nin anymore," Jiraiya cut in. "They'd be Leaf. They'd be ours. Two, she cares about as much about the whole monogamy thing as I do. Three, remember that this is the group who came up with the skytowers. The seal they're offering this time is an order of magnitude more important."

Hiruzen sighed. "Jiraiya, I worry you may be letting your enthusiasm for fuinjutsu cloud your judgement somewhat."

"They call them 'skywalkers’. Seals that let you run on thin air."

*Blink. Blink.* "...come again?" Hiruzen said, again, caught completely off-guard for the second time in as many minutes.

"They ran from Snow to the island west of Sea without ever touching the ground or being spotted by anyone, including our airborne scouts. Think about it, sensei. Avoid any and all patrols, no dealing with chakra beasts, staying out of unfavorable combat, flexible high-altitude bombing, keeping skytowers perpetually supplied with no way for enemies to reach them. This changes everything."

"You've seen these for yourself?"

Jiraiy nodded decisively. "And had Agent Black verify that the operational specs they gave me were honest."

"That's... certainly impressive," Hiruzen admitted, his head spinning. With a tool like that, the war on the horizon looked... significantly less frightening, to put it mildly. "I can't say that I see why this means you need to found a clan with a missing nin woman, though."

"It was one of their conditions. That, and adopting all the genin into it. I don't think they actually said anything about letting Kagome in, but hell with it, he should probably get at least honorary membership. He did all the real work, it sounds like. Hazou - the Kurosawa kid - just came up with the idea."

"It may have been one of their conditions, but surely you didn't have to accept their very first offer? Has the great diplomat forgotten how to negotiate?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Jiraiya asked. "They need a clan to keep their bloodline secrets and seal research safe. I need a clan to pass on knowledge and training to, to protect any heirs from interference by other clans, and to stop the endless lectures about how I don't understand the importance of family," he said, finishing with more than a twinge of bitterness. "None of us can join established clans. Inoue Mari is hot and compatible in terms of personality. Mori is the Pangolin summoner, so Leaf gets that extra firepower. Kurosawa is apparently some kind of Sealing prodigy who could both benefit from and contribute to my own work. Kagome is an accomplished sealmaster, and Leaf could always use more of those. Wakahisa is a budding medic. Realistically, I'm not going to get a better opportunity to found my own clan and shake up the conservative bloc. And to top it all off, I get to tell all the pricks on Councils who gave me shit for being soft on Team Mari to suck it."

Hiruzen was silent for a long minute, lighting his pipe and taking occasional contemplative puffs. "Fine," he said eventually. "If this is what you feel is best for Leaf and for your own happiness, then I am inclined to at least hear you out. After all, having a more progressive voice on the Clan Council can only be helpful, and frankly I can't wait to see Hiashi's face when he finds out. Now, obviously this can't become public until after the war has started. Or ended, as the case may be, thanks to these 'skywalkers'. Tell Kiyoshi to cancel my appointments for the rest of the day -- we will need to hash out a strategy for getting as many clans to go along with this without a fuss as we can manage.

"Tangentially, the Kurosawa boy seems... interesting. Once might be chance. Twice is, at the very least, a coincidence worth looking into."

"According to Agent Black, it's sounding like a lot more than twice, but I'd like to see a couple of the other ideas in action before I bank on them."

"As I said, interesting," Hiruzen replied, chewing his pipe contemplatively. "Very interesting. In any case, let's get to work. The place to start, I think, would be the Nara...."