"He's checking to make sure the seal's not going to explode.  Sorry, I meant to ask before he started, but things just sort of kept happening.  In more hopefully positive news, since I'm here anyway and it's not secret or anything - Sarutobi-sama told me that Konoha is not supposed to have a eugenics program of any sort; that neither Senju Hashirama nor Uchiha Madara felt that they needed one, and that Senju Tobirama stuck by that position, and, quote, 'if we didn't have those advantages I might have had some concern that my successor's successor might stray from the Will of Fire and try something'.  So he's looking into some of the things you mentioned, Kyūbi-san, 'cause of that, and 'cause I asked nicely.

"...while we're on the subject of people, though -

"...I just now realized...you must have known a lot about my mom?  And uh...I don't know anyone else I could ask to tell me about her.  Even if Sarutobi-sensei thinks you just wanna destroy everything."

"There are few things I would like less than to talk about your mother with you. She averaged easily thrice as annoying as you are at your worst; if you really insist on learning more about her, bug the toad you brought with you. He actually liked your parents."

"That's toad sage to you, furball," Jiraiya replies distractedly.

"The day I call you a sage is the day Naraka freezes over. Forget escaping samsara, as a ninja you were doomed there from the start, but you can't even balance natural energy properly without assistance because you're too busy running from your problems to master yourself."

"What- hey! I'm not here to take criticism from someone who spent the time to learn ninshu just so they could tell everyone how much they hate them."

"...Thank you anyway; you didn't have to tell me that."

"What's ninshu?"

"It's an ancient method of chakra manipulation that responds directly to the user's will. You'd think that would be an advantage, but it's actually an enormous pain in the ass; giving ninjutsu specific hand seals and training to standardize their output so you can perform on command is way more important than you'd think. The stuff takes forever to learn and is an enormous pain to use in a fight, so mostly only monks bother to learn anything beyond the basics, but apparently it's worth the time to spend however many years figuring it out just so you can more efficiently tell everyone in a 5 mile radius how much you despise them if you're the Kyubi no Kitsune."

She slow-blinks at him.

"It sounds like the flexibility could be worth it, once you actually know how to do things with chakra at all, just from your description alone.  Bending a technique a little to the left, and suchlike.

"...Not to mention whatever I'm sure Kyūbi-san is about to tell you you're an idiot for not noticing."

"...If you can use it to tell everyone in a five-mile radius how much you despise them, though, why do we always literally run messages?  I mean, I guess there's interception concerns...Or is that distance because of Kyūbi-san's sheer strength?  Er.  My apologies, Kyūbi-san, it was rude of me to talk about you like you're not here, but I am really curious."

"...Also, Jiraiya-san, if Kyūbi-san spent however long mastering a rather obscure technique, doesn't that mean he's more likely to know whatever it is you may or may not be messing up with whatever 'natural energy' is?  He's clearly been around for a while, to know all this stuff."

"If you want to learn how to edit your techniques on the fly, it's almost always going to be a better idea to practice that than learn some other more complicated skill that might make it easier to then pick up adjusting it. And as for messages, the way it was explained to me is that distance takes time, being discriminate in who you send to takes time, sending complicated ideas takes time, and by the point where you're looking at something that can fake telepathy you're looking at decades of investment. Much easier, more convenient, and more secure to use ninja runners and just borrow a loudspeaker for announcements. Far be it from me to dissuade you from picking up some trick nobody else knows to even expect you're capable of, but there are a dozen things I'd recommend before ninshu.

"And yeah, of course I'd be a better sage if I took a decade off to master myself, not like ma and pa don't say as much every time I summon them. It's just that Konoha can't afford for me to be out of the field that long."

"...I don't think Kyūbi-san said anything that meant you'd need to be out of the field, though, Jiraiya-san?  I think Kyūbi-san implied that this was a problem with the way you reacted to stuff?  Not about some sort of actual technique problem.  Not that I know much about whatever natural energy is, beyond 'it's probably not chakra' and maybe 'it's related to sage-ness' - but still.  You can think anywhere."

"Spycraft is one of the worst places in the world to have a split focus, kid, right up there with sealing research and active combat. Taking a couple days off once in a while to run errands for sensei is one thing, especially when I can work it around my schedule, but with the kind of time and focus I'd need to get anywhere I doubt I could be even half as effective even with the commute to Myōboku as easy as it is.

"..."

She fixes him with a Look.  It is a Look that says 'I expected better from you (even if I don't know why.)'.

"You can think anywhere, Jiraiya-san.  And if you're so busy you don't have time to think, that's...not good.  Split focus is better than not being able to focus, ne?  But if you were that busy - why does Sarutobi-sama believe you have enough free time and effort to run errands for him?"

Jiraiya winces. "Thought I'd escaped those eyes when the brat got too old for them to work," he mutters, barely audible to Naruto's ears. Then he shakes himself, making a valiant attempt at rallying.

"I'm busy, but anything involving the fox is something else entirely. Last time he got loose, we lost a third of the village and the hokage died, and nobody else really has the expertise to check over Minato's work."

...She's gonna give him a hug.

"'m sorry.  Should've - I don't know what."

It was her fault that that happened, after all.  (As far as she knows.)

...She doesn't know what she'd do if a third of the village and Hokage-sama died overnight, now that she can experience things.  She's...trying to comprehend death.  But it's hard.  The idea that there is a time when people stop existing...  It's kind of terrifying.  Most of her life is a lot more constant.

Jiraiya will gingerly return the hug. It's no that he doesn't know full well how they're supposed to work so much as the person he's hugging that makes it awkward, but it's hardly Naruto's fault that he has issues and he's not the kind of person to take his problems out on a kid. What would he do if it was Minato- no, that thought still hurts too much. What would sensei do here?

"There, there. That's what I'm here to make sure doesn't happen. And I still need to check the last bits, but I'm pretty sure that this is intended behavior, for whatever reason, not a sign that the whole thing is coming down."

She nods.  "I thought so too."

"If you want to be obnoxious, you can do it somewhere I don't have to see and hear you. The one virtue of this prison is that I don't have to listen to you mortals yammering all the time, and right now I don't even get that."

"Yeah, yeah, big scary fox demon wants to take a nap."

He'll absentmindedly scoop up Naruto with one arm as he stands up to finish his examination, which takes him a few more minutes to accomplish.

"There's no flaws that I can see with it, which is about as good as I'm going to get. I'll have to make time to give it another look some time later to make sure it's staying that way, but there's nothing for it now."

Then he does something and suddenly Naruto is back in their body on the rock, with Jiraiya standing over them.

"...I suspect you might have seen something like what I think I saw about them, as well, if you are willing to treat them like a cranky toddler."

(She tries to send 'apology (for all of that)' to the Kyūbi.  ...Like, seriously, though, would you not feel like shit if your birth was somehow related to half your friends' friends having died and the death of your parents?)

If that actually works/gets a response, though, she really must ask if the Kyūbi...has... any parents.  The ninja books on that subject are clearly lost in their own genjutsu, after all.

(If the Kyuubi notices her message, he doesn't deign to respond in any way she can hear.)

"I can't say refusing to take enemies seriously has never backfired on me, but what's the point of being strong if you don't have more fun that way? Getting to be one of the strongest ninjas in the world has its perks. If he was free it'd be a different story, but he's not, so."

Jiraiya shrugs.

"Any questions come to mind, or should I go reassure sensei and get him to stop wearing a hole in the hokage tower carpets?"

"...What sort of questions would you ask you, if you were me?"

"If this happened to me at your age, I'd have wasted no time running off to do something that involved less sitting still, and let the questions hang. If you need to do that I won't be offended, I asked you to sit still for a while and you did a great job at it, but if you take more after my old teammate Oro you'd have a dozen questions you're just dying to ask. I don't think there's anything you need to know that you don't, since sensei says you're a sensible kid who's not going to go poking at the seal to see what'll happen, but curiosity and need aren't always the same thing."

That gets him a giggle, though it's a bit...hollow.

"Actually, I do have a couple of questions.  Kyūbi-san offered that he would - let me use his chakra to heal?  He said heal me with his chakra, I'm not really sure how that would work in practice but it's what he said - if I let him share one of my senses.  Is that something that can actually happen, first off, and second off, I'm thinking about how I'd wanna do that and I have a couple ideas for - fairness' sake - and a desire to make sure I can make sure he won't be looking while I'm in the bathroom, and I'm not sure I would be able to figure out how to do that all on my own?  ...Not that I think he'd care about that last bit but it's the principle of the thing to not let anyone peek!"

"It should definitely be possible; you're the one holding him there, which includes the ability to control how much access he has. Be very sure about making those kind of deals though; the seal will adapt to different amounts of energy flow, but if you free him enough he'll just be able to break it the rest of the way himself. Regeneration like that is very useful for ninjas but as an Uzumaki you should already heal better than average. As for hedging him out, your best bet is to make it part of the agreement. Deals are important when it comes to spiritual contracts, and while the seal isn't exactly that there's similarities; if you're not holding up your end of a deal with him preventing him from exercising it becomes way harder."