Naruto 1. The Monstrous Revelation

**Disclaimer: Any material that could potentially be considered infringement of copyrights and trademarks should be considered the property of their respective creators and are reading this of your own freewill, so please refrain from reading if you don't like graphic violence, explicit sexuality, pop culture references, vulgar language, a female Nine-Tails, a Namikaze clan, polygamous relationships, random plot twists, character deaths, snakes, arranged marriages, or usage of drugs. Of course, some of those things may not even end up in the story, but I'd rather be better safe than , I tend to give cannon the proverbial finger.**

**Story Notes: This is a work-in-progress plot blurb without a definite direction for the plot as of now, so I'm perfectly open to suggestions. Reviews containing constructive criticism and praise will certainly speed up the updating process. Flattery will get you everywhere, contrary to popular make my ego and subsequently my muse spontaneously implode, so try and refrain from that if you can.I'm writing this to flex my creative side and refine my writing. Don't be surprised if entire chapters get completely changed after they're initially are many clichés and stereotypes in Naruto fanfiction because it's been around for so long; I try for originality in my way, and will likely give a shout-out to whatever other story gave me a basic idea or concept, though I've been reading for a long time and will likely forget where something came from.**

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The jounin commander of the Village Hidden in the Clouds was standing quietly on the balcony of his hotel, looking over the sprawling settlement of The Village Hidden in the Leaves. He was officially here to negotiate a truce between the two militant communities, because the ongoing war was starting to wear thin on the resources of both sides.

This meant that they would never be able to fight off outside forces if the need came about. Luckily The Village Hidden in the Mist was currently embroiled in a bloody civil war in the Land of Water, the Village Hidden in the Sand was altogether weak because The Leaf was taking their jobs, and the Village Hidden In the Stone was still recovering from their heavy losses in the Third Great War.

In all honesty, the Cloud was favored to win this particular collection of border skirmishes that had been dubbed a war, mostly because their demonic hosts dominated the battlefield. Yugito, the keeper of the Two-Tailed Monster Cat, and Kirabii, the container of the Eight-Tailed Giant Ox, were some of the most powerful fighters on their side. And the Third Raikage was damn near invulnerable through clever usage of lightning manipulation and sheer power.

Putting an end to the war between the Cloud and the Leaf was not the real goal of this ambassadorial mission. No, it was to acquire even more power in the name of his home village, and weaken their primary opponent in the process. The jounin commander, Kirito Yotsuki, had a secondary goal. The negotiations for peace were nothing more than a ruse to grant him diplomatic immunity, just on the off-chance that he got caught doing his true mission.

There was a list of targets that he was tasked with bringing back with him to The Cloud by any means necessary. All were high priority, and all were heavily secured. This is why he was chosen for this, because he was the most agile and stealthy shinobi in the ranks. He was the head of the Yotsuki clan, even being born with their incredibly rare bloodline limit: Swift Release. With this rare ability, he could perceive the world from a unique frame of reference for a short period. Everything around him seemed to be frozen, while he could move about freely.

It was an incredible ability, but it put a huge strain on his body, and he could only use it a few times before he would begin deteriorating from such high-speed movement. Plus it also always gave him a headache, but that was what happened when all the synapses in your brain begin overworking themselves. It was a tradeoff well worth the risk, since he was essentially capable of dodging any and all attacks that he was likely to come across. It also made him and his clan members that manifested the ability ideal for infiltration missions, which is what he was doing.

He closed his eyes, and willed his ability to activate. Kirito hopped gently off his balcony, before leisurely sprinting towards his first destination. From his point of view he was moving at an average speed for a shinobi, but from an outsider's point of view, he simply disappeared completely from his balcony; that was the awesome power that he and his clansmen wielded on battlefields. Within moments he was standing before the enormous gate that separated him from his target: Hinata Hyuuga.  
_

Kakashi Hatake crouched silently, keeping a watchful vigil over his erratic target. The veteran ANBU Captain may have been the most talented active operative for his age, but the prodigy didn't need his implanted Sharingan to know he was being given a break by the Third Hokage with this official ANBU assignment: babysitting the village's most hyperactive and unpredictable asset, Naruto Uzumaki.

The energetic blond child would pull off hilarious yet complicated pranks or just graffiti naughty words and graphic depictions of male genitalia in public place (it really just depended on the boy's finicky moods), while having multiple routes of escape to flee the resulting angry mobs of civilians and shinobi alike.

The child had ingenious trap designs and surreal escape strategies bouncing around in that tiny, shaggy head of his, but the child intentionally let it be known that he was the perpetrator of these masterworks was tactless. The child's invisible guardian shook his head as he watched the kid's sun-kissed golden hair swaying in the wind. The sneaky bastard just stole every pair of panties from the Hyuuga's Branch house and was pinning them against windows and light poles.

The boy looked like a signal flare to his Sharingan, the doujutsu forever crystallizing the mischievous grin of the orange garbed boy in Kakashi's memories. The child's chakra reserves were vast, one of the largest sources in the village, despite being barely five years old. If it weren't for the Hokage, Legendary Three, and Danzo, the demonic host would have the most raw energy out of everybody in the village. Naruto was a beacon of light, especially to the Byakugan, so it was a wonder how he was able to evade capture by the Branch Members for so long.

Kakashi's typically stoic face twitched in a rare facsimile of amusement before he regained composure. The Hyuuga were certainly giving chase, now that the little miscreant set off a stink bomb in the middle of their magnificent dining room. A veritable army of white eyed ninja were swarming Naruto's general direction, only to be caught in nets, pitfalls, and a catapult (a surprisingly high powered one judging from how far it flung Hoheto Hyuuga). All the while, the child was cackling maniacally.

But Kakashi's crimson eyes suddenly snapped towards the Hyuuga compound, the three tomoe spinning haphazardly. He watched a familiar figure enter from the outside at blinding speeds, an unnatural sort of agility that easily marked them as a ninja, and an amazingly agile one at that. The hidden ANBU Captain watched the diplomat from the Cloud actually trespass on sovereign Hyuuga property.

_'Would the Third Raikage actually think to break a truce just to gain another bloodline?'_ wondered Kakashi. And the Nine-Tail's host had inadvertently helped with this hastily put together black ops mission. Naruto Uzumaki was officially involved in the Hyuuga Affair now, and he dragged Kakashi Hatake along for the ride. He just hoped that nothing bad would come of this...  
_

The Hyuuga clan compound was constantly guarded by members of the Branch family, who were little more than slaves for the Main family to use as security guards and servants. As one of the four noble clans that helped to originally build the village, the Hyuuga had an expansive estate, an entire district dedicated solely to the white eyed member of the clan. Unlike their rivals, the Uchiha, they were not an autonomous district though; since the Uchiha were the police force, they were given special accolades to accommodate their responsibilities.

Jumping lazily over the gate, Kirito noticed that he appeared to be gate crashing a party of some kind. To his amusement, there was a toddler running towards the district's exit. The boy's golden hair and sapphire eyes pegged him as Naruto Uzumaki, the other target that Kirito was supposed to kidnap. While taking a walk earlier in the day, he'd bumped into the child and recognized him immediately. Thinking it would be better to follow the boy around for a while to get a grasp of the boy's personality, he did so in a transformation of somebody he saw in the market.

The child seemed so overjoyed at the prospect of having a friend, as if the thought was an alien concept to him, like forbidden fruit that he could look at but never dare to even touch. It made Kirito sick, to know that a village would treat one of their most valuable military assets with such scorn and disdain. In the Cloud, the keepers of tailed beasts were treated like royalty, given allowances due to the incredible burden they took on for the sake of the village. He couldn't see the boy wanting to stay in the Leaf when the Cloud would gladly offer him a home.

It might incite full-scale war between the two rival villages, but it was a price that he and his associates were willing to pay. Besides, it wasn't like the boy didn't have a legitimate claim to citizenship at the Cloud...

In the three-year old's arms were what appeared to be an entire pile of panties, and Kirito saw that there were some stuck to walls and ceilings in the boy's wake. And this amusing scene was now frozen in time to the Yotsuki.

So the boy was either a prankster or a pervert, both of which made Kirito grin. He knew that the host of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox would fit in rather well at the Village Hidden in the Clouds. Hell, since Kirabii and Yugito actually got some semblance of control over their powers and accompanying urges, the boy would likely have a better life away from his home village.

Hot on the child's trail was a veritable army of Hyuuga clansmen, some activating their doujutsu (Ocular Techniques) even as they gave chase. The Hyuuga clan's famed Byakugan (White Eyes) granted their owners incredible visual prowess: a nearly three hundred and sixty degree field of vision, the ability to see through solid objects and at incredible distances, and the ability to perceive chakra in such detail that their clan taijutsu (Body Techniques) could shut a person's body down with a tap. Any members of the Branch family have a cursed seal placed on them that destroys their eyes upon death so no outsiders can discover their secrets or try to replicate it. Fortunately, the young heiress of the clan is unmarked, and wouldn't even know how to fight yet.

Smirking, Kirito scooped up the blond, and continued merrily on his way toward his original target, Hinata. But there was a glint that caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a kunai knife trailing slowly through the air, which showed just how impressive the arm that threw it truly was. Following the path of the blade back to its origin, the Cloud shinobi saw a member of The Leaf's ANBU forces, a figure with a single bright red-eye and a mane of silver gravity defying hair.

He knew those eyes. They were the infamous Sharingan (Copy Wheel Eye) wielded by the legendary Uchiha clan. He watched in amazement as their pupils actually followed his movement, even at the speed he was moving. Those sort of reflexes were unreal, and nobody in the Land of Lightning short of the highest masters of Lightning Release would be able to match them.

The figure in the trees sprang forward in a straight line towards Kirito, moving at sluggish speeds. But that his movement was even perceivable to the the Cloud ninja was shocking in and of itself. Blinking in surprise, he jumped away and stared at his new enemy in confusion. There was only one way somebody could keep up with him at this speed, and it was a basic technique that required linear and predictable motion paths. Whoever this person was, they were quite adept in the usage of the Body-Flicker Technique, which allows one to propel forward at 'untraceable' speeds.

Normally the technique results in tunnel vision, but apparently this ANBU guardian of Naruto had no qualms with using it to attack a foe; the single Sharingan he had likely negated the tunnel vision. The person shot forward again, in the process withdrawing a tanto from its holster and slashing confidently at the jounin commander. Those eyes glinted in the moonlight, the tomoe orbiting the pupils of his Sharingan at dizzying speeds, even from the special vantage point that Kirito had.

The Uchiha clan's Sharingan also bequeathed unworldly powers on to their masters, but in a much more direct manner than the Hyuuga clan's Byakugan: they gave a clarity of visual perception so profound that their reflexes were borderline precognitive, on nearly the same level as a Yotsuki's movements using their Swift Release. The Uchiha could also memorize anything they laid their cursed eyes upon down to the most minute detail for the rest of their lives, and copy any action seen with pinpoint accuracy and breathtaking precision. Their eyes were also the focal point of powerful ocular based genjutsu (Illusion Techniques), allowing them to cast illusions with minimal effort.

There were also rumors that the Sharingan could evolve to a higher form, one that granted even more powerful abilities to their owners, though such claims were unsubstantiated and usually besmirched as nothing more than ghost stories from the ancient times of warring clans. How could something as powerful as the Sharingan even get any more powerful than it already was? There are accounts of one of the Leaf's founders, Madara Uchiha, being capable of reshaping the landscape with the powers of his eyes alone, but surely those must be tall tales that have grown exaggerated over the decades since the man's death?

Regardless of what Kirito knew on a theoretical level, he knew that he was fighting an incredibly powerful swordsman. The ANBU shot forward again, sliding through the fabric of reality in a straight line. The Body-Flicker Technique was an odd thing to see in slow motion, simply because it made the user look like they were slipping across the ground at breakneck speeds. To anyone else, the movement would seem instantaneous, but to him it was just plain odd.

While their movements were beyond fast, they were still noticeable. They Hyuuga clansmen previously chasing the blond toddler could see blurs of movement and flashes of light bouncing off blades, but their eyes couldn't keep up with the sheer speed that the two opponents used. They knew that there was an incredibly high-powered shinobi fight happening right before them, but they couldn't even tell who was involved. They did, however, go to sound the alarm.

Kirito frowned as he watched them release a powerful pulse of chakra that washed over the area, much like an enormous beacon. The Hyuuga were sounding the alarm by releasing waves of energy that corresponded with Morse code symbols. Any and every sensor type ninja in the village was picking up on the distress signal loud and clear, and reinforcements would be converging on this spot very soon.

The masked swordsman almost crashed into him, but he dodged to the side and watched the ANBU skid past. After missing his opponent, the ANBU held out his hand, bathing his arm in the ethereal glow of Lightning Release chakra. The sparks of electricity zipping up and down the ANBU's appendage immediately gave his identity away, because that technique was unique and infamous to anybody that listened to the rumor mill. A member of the Leaf's ANBU division, the man in front of him was renowned for being cold-blooded and having decisive kills with his Lightning Cutter technique, of which the Cloud really wanted to get their hands on.

Stopping and dropping out of his Swift Mode, Kirito tilted his head to the side, sighed and said, "I see. I know who you are, and that just speeding past you won't work. I know who you are. You've built up a reputation over the years, Copycat. I wasn't sure at first of your identity, but now there's no doubt about it. It is an honor to face you in battle, though I think you've finally met your match."

The Copycat shrugged and replied, "I guess if you do something long enough, people will eventually take notice. You obviously know who I am, but that really doesn't matter to me. As a foreign dignitary, you are exempt from outright assassination, so I'm just supposed to bring you in... But since you're attempting to kidnap that boy, the rules don't exactly apply to you anymore." The implication of this statement was that Kirito would soon be dead, but the mere notion was laughable to the Cloud's commander.

Knowing that he'd have to end this incredibly quickly, Kirito entered Swift Mode again, watching as the world around him slowed to a crawl yet again. That chat was the only break his body was going to be getting until he left the Leaf, now that he was caught. Gritting his teeth, Kirito unsheathed his own katana and let go of his package. The rucksack hung in midair beside him, dropping so slowly from his perspective that it seemed anchored to its current position. Breathing out, the head of the Yotsuki clan dashed forward, just as his opponent was sliding back toward him for another chance to strike...  
_

Naruto was incredibly confused. One moment he was running away from the usual mob that showered him with jeers and insults after one of his grand schemes coming to fruition, and the next he was floating in the air for a moment and hearing the striking of metal on metal and the cries of terrified villagers. For a moment he felt weightlessness, which was incredibly disorienting considering how rapidly everything around him changed. Then he crashed into some solid surface and came to rest against it, which he assumed was the ground.

He saw for the first time in his young life the true intensity of a ninja battle. He felt helpless in the face of such intense violence, but there was also a stirring deep in his stomach, something that told him that this was his calling. Two shadows were zipping about the Hyuuga clan's compound so fast that they appeared to be nothing more than glints of steel. Their movements were nearly undetectable to the boy, but he watched nonetheless with rapturous attention. Erupting before him was a conflict that could potentially be lethal to anybody in the vicinity, and yet he still lay rooted to the ground in a curious cocktail of fear and excitement.

Then suddenly, both parties stopped. On one side, there stood a member of the Leaf's ANBU. On the other, stood a man wearing the uniform of a foreign ninja village, though Naruto couldn't tell which faction it represented. In the outsider's arm was a small girl, about his age. She had short, dark blue hair and lavender eyes. Clearly she was a Hyuuga, as well as a hostage on top of that.

The infiltrator was surrounded on all sides by the Byakugan wielding clan members and was faced down with someone who was born without any bloodline limit yet possessing one of the most powerful abilities in the world, the Sharingan. It really showed the man's skill, that he stood confident before such opposition with a smirk on his sweat streaked face.

"Naruto Uzumaki, do you know why you are neglected and persecuted throughout this village?" asked Kirito. The ANBU made to step forward but Kirito remonstrated, "If any of you even think about intercepting my hand before it slits this girl's throat, by all means try. Just know that none of you have a snowflake's chance in hell of succeeding."

That halted everyone, and Kirito turned his attention back to Naruto. "The reason that you are hated... well, the Fourth Hokage couldn't actually kill the Nine-Tails, so he had to seal it away. But not just any everyday object would do. No, he had to use a person, preferably a young one that could adapt to the magnitude of power the creäture brought forth. And that child... was you. You are the-" but his words were halted when one of the Hyuuga clansmen decided to rush at the the Cloud shinobi.

But Naruto didn't care; he looked down at his own hands while things happened around him. That man was going to say that _he_ was the Nine-Tails. And that would make sense. From the moment he achieved self-awareness, and understood that he had an identity, he realized that everyone treated him differently. The constant negativity thrown his way was certainly noticeable, and he always thought it was because of his whiskers, or his unusual hair. But now he knew.

His hand clenched into a fist. He heard the rushing of his blood in his ears. His vision went blurry with tears. Then everyone around him moved at once, and he heard the anguished scream of someone whose loved one just died before their eyes.

The rush of movement was disorienting, but Naruto saw the result. Laying on the ground at the enemy ninja's feet was a man, a member of the Hyuuga clan. Blood was gushing out of his neck, pooling on the floor and reflecting the glare of a nearby lamp. A man, clearly the head of the clan, turned a murderous glare skyward as he roared, "Hizashi!"

But before the boss of the Hyuuga family could enact his vengeance, Kakashi Hatake whispered from behind Kirito, "I waited until the moment that your chakra calmed down, because I could tell that your incredible agility was a byproduct of it. Normally I would never be able to land a strike on someone as fast as you, but the element of surprise is such a funny thing. The moment you got leverage, you dropped your guard. It is this mistake that has ended this farce."

The shinobi from the Cloud pitched forward with a sickening crack, and the ANBU that held the brunt of his weight prior to this moment shot forward to catch the little girl before she hit the ground as well. "Your daughter, Lord Hyuuga," said the ANBU as he gently set the frail girl on the ground. She shyly looked at his face, but immediately looked back towards the ground when she saw his crimson eye.

Hinata had watched in fascination as a figure in the shadows struck out at her unaware captor, knocking the man unconscious with minimal effort. Her rescuer's eyes were mesmerizing: one glowing crimson in the pale moonlight with three spinning tomoe orbiting the tiny pupils while the other was obscured by shadow. Even though his face was hidden behind an ANBU regulated mask, she knew that he was an Uchiha, and a young one at that. She was almost three, not stupid, which meant that people often gossiped in front of her without realizing that she understood.

She'd heard the older members of her clan complaining about how the Uchiha were gaining more and more power with every passing year. But somehow, in the moments before she fainted from exhaustion and psychological trauma, she briefly questioned why her own clan was falling behind their rivals. As the darkness overcame her, Hinata realized that the Uchiha were stronger than the Hyuuga: because they were more powerful, more controlled. The presence of her savior felt both colder and sharper than her own father, the leader of the entire clan.

Her uncle had died right before her eyes, and she somehow immediately understood what it meant. It was strange, how the discovery of the existence of death was a revelation that knocked your breath away. Her uncle had died right before her eyes, and she knew that it was because he wasn't strong enough to survive against the bad man who took her. But the (supposed) Uchiha had survived relatively unscathed, and even emerged victorious from their bouts. Her head lulled backwards and she closed her eyes.

She now had a goal in mind, one that was practically blasphemous to her contemporaries.

And Naruto, who nobody was paying attention to, cried tears of blood as his eyes flashed violet for a few brief moments. And looking over all of this, from a moderate distance away from the ruckus, was an old man who had a cold gaze in his beady eyes. Rubbing his scraggly beard in thought, he smirked slightly and turned away, deciding that his plan to destroy The Leaf could happen a little earlier than he anticipated.  
_

A few hours later, the Third Hokage was sitting warily behind his desk, a letter with the insignia of the Raikage's office embossed on the gilded paper. He clenched his wrinkled fists as he continued reading. "As per the stipulations of the recently enacted Treaty of Peace between The Village Hidden in the Clouds and The Village Hidden in the Leaves, the Third Raikage decrees that the Kirito Yotsuki must be transferred back to his official village for disciplinary actions against his unsanctioned assault of a The Leaf civilian..." said Hiruzen aloud.

Hiashi Hyuga snarled, "I will not allow those traitors to have the bastard that tried to kidnap my daughter for their disgusting breeding programs under any circumstances. Hitomi would certainly never allow for this course of action!" The head of one of the most powerful clans in The Leaf spoke with the kind of raw emotion that could bring lesser men to tears of rage. He was even talking of his recently wife, who died in labor with his youngest daughter just a few months ago. "If it means we must continue this war-"

Hiruzen nipped that thought in the butt right then and there, "We cannot violate the terms of a treaty we signed into law less than twenty four hours ago. If the Yotsuki clan head was successful in his attempts, then maybe. But I don't see what other choice we have-"

In yet another surprising display of emotion, Hiashi questioned, "Why are we bending to the whims of the Cloud? They are the ones that attempted to kidnap the heiress of my family! They are the ones responsible for the death of my brother! I want blood, Hiruzen. Do you hear me!? If it wasn't for the timely arrival of Kakashi-san, the Byakugan would be in enemy hands. Do you have any idea-"

"I'm perfectly aware of the implications, Hiashi," said Hiruzen. "We absolutely won't tolerate this sort of behavior from any of our allies in the future. But we cannot destroy this peace that we've fought so hard to get. This is the first time the Leaf hasn't been at war since... since the death of the First Hokage." Even after all these years he still felt a small pang at the thought of one of his teachers. "I'm just tired of constantly fighting..."

The old man's Will of Fire was finally starting to wither after all these years. The wars, the betrayals... they were beginning to catch up to the old timer. To think, that he should be retired already by about five years... But his musing was torn asunder by the Hyuuga's clipped tones, "I will not sit idly by and watch as we do nothing to the man who just caused an international incident involving my daughter. An example must be made; otherwise others will think to try the same thing-"

"Hiashi," interrupted Hiruzen quietly, "I don't like this either, but it seems we have no other choice. I don't think we can afford to continue this war any longer, not after all these years..."

"He broke your law! Anybody who mentions that Naruto has the Nine-Tails sealed within him is to be executed! How can you just let something so important just slide!?" yelled Hiashi.

Hiruzen sighed and said, "I'm aware of that. Between all of the corroborated reports and an alert seal provided by Jiraiya on my request that lets me know if Naruto learning this before he's ready, how could I not? The seal alarms went off, and... I was planning on revealing this to Naruto when he graduated from the Academy, but his learning this earlier than anticipated has brought forth some unforeseen consequences. I doubt he trusts me anymore. Regardless, as a shinobi from a foreign village, our domestic policies don't apply to him. Though that such a person had such confidential information is... troublesome. We'll need to launch an investigation into that leak as soon as possible. I'm getting too old for this shit..."

**(Two Years Later)**

Anko Mitarashi was now back to watching the Nine-Tails demonic host, the rotation finally coming back around to her. Watching the boy was painful for her, because she too lost her parents, as well as a substitute father figure that stabbed her in the back, both literally and figuratively. Her biological parents died towards the beginning of the Third Shinobi War, leaving her to fend for herself. She didn't know whether it was better for the kid to have never remembered them, or worse.

They say that the saddest people have the brightest smiles, and she could honestly agree with that statement. She watched as he put on a fake smile in front of other people, but when he thought he was alone... he was blank. Not happy, not sad, not mad... and that worried her. While nobody outright abused him, he was emotionally neglected. Nobody talked to him if they could avoid it, and when they had to they'd be dismissive and condescending.

And the boy even knew the reason behind it, thanks to his involvement in the Hyuuga Affair two years earlier. He didn't blame anyone for projecting their hostility of the Nine-Tails onto him. In fact, he was using it to his advantage. Ever since then, he'd begun picking fights with other children, those that bullied on the playground. He was getting into scraps with bigger, older kids every time he did so, and when he lost, he learned from his mistakes.

The kid never fucked up twice the same way, that was for damned sure.

The purplette knew that something was wrong with the kid, yet she could do nothing for him without blowing her cover. In a strange way, his ostracization was similar to her own. The dango loving snake mistress was almost unanimously hated by women and lusted after by men (none of which wanted more than instant gratification from her), but she was a tough bitch just smiled through all their abuse.

The sad thing was that it wasn't Anko's fault that her jounin sensei turned out to be the greatest traitor to the Leaf since Madara Uchiha, just like it wasn't Naruto's fault that he had a living, breathing cataclysm sealed inside his stomach. It was just luck of the draw, forcing them both to be Fate's playthings.

Today was even worse than normal for the five-year old Naruto. Upon being formally accepted into the Ninja Academy's waitlist, he became recognized as an adult citizen of the Land of Fire on a probationary standing. Thus, it was no longer required for the orphanage to care for him and he was kicked out. While he had to do a few more chores than the other kids and wasn't doted on nearly enough by the supervisors, he was still capable of calling that place home.

And those people just kicked him out like it was nothing.

What pissed Anko off though was that they'd never kicked anybody else out of the orphanage simply because they were probationary adults before. The fact that they openly discriminated against such a sweet child was plain out evil in her mind, but what could she really do?

She watched silently as he wandered around the dark streets, looking for food. She wasn't allowed to even approach him to help, and she couldn't talk about her assignments to anybody outside of ANBU due to the confidentiality of her job. The only people who actually knew the kid's plight were incapable of helping either directly or indirectly, and everyone else neither knew or cared to know...

Naruto's stomach growled loudly as he looked through the trash bins just outside a popular restaurant, scavenging for anything he could eat. Unfortunately he had to be sneaky, because there were health codes imposed on the food service industry to prevent food poisoning and other medical issues. Even though it was trash, the establishment could still be fined for even allowing somebody to eat it at all, which thoroughly complicated the eating habits of homeless people in all of the Land of Fire.

This is why, when he heard the telltale gasp of somebody noticing him, his head snapped up with wide eyes. At the mouth of the alley was a beautiful girl maybe a few years older than him, with long brown hair, warm chocolate eyes, and a shocked expression adorning her face. She appeared to be a waitress at a food stand nearby, judging from her clothes.

Both were frozen in place as they eyed the other, wondering what to do next. After a small gust of wind, followed immediately by tiny specks of rain, the girl said, "Do you want some food?" He nodded uncertainly, wondering whether he should trust this new person. Nobody ever seemed to care about him in the past, so why would the present be any different? "Come with me then," she continued quickly, before turning and walking off.

He followed her slowly at first, before his stomach grumbled again and he sped up to reach her. "Thank you so much for offering me food," he said softly. "I haven't eaten anything all day."

The girl looked somehow even more concerned as he said this, leading him towards the 'Ichiraku Ramen' stand. She sat him down on a stool and said, "I'll have something out to you in a jiffy, free of charge."

Feeling uncomfortable, Naruto responded, "No, I can't do that. I'll... work for food, if you'll allow it."

The girl briefly paused before returning to her task, "You'd have to ask my father. He's the owner, I just work here to help him out a bit." He watched as she began boiling noodles in water, wondering how good this ramen would be. He had to eat a lot at the orphanage since the food budget was tight, so he'd learned to love it over the years. Hopefully this was as good as he was used to, but even if it wasn't he wouldn't complain.

"What's your name, by the way?" asked Naruto, thinking it would be awfully rude to just accept charity from someone without even learning their name.

"I'm Ayame, what's your name?" she answered. To him, even her name was beautiful. It seemed to capture her character perfectly, from what little innocence he'd been exposed to already. He felt himself blush slightly, not actually remembering the last time somebody inquired his name.

"I'm Naruto," he mumbled adorably. She smiled happily at him as she handed him a bowl of miso ramen.

"Nice name, Fish Cake," she said teasingly, a cute twinkle entering her deep brown eyes. Naruto's blush deepened only a little, to his credit, before he took a quick bite of the ramen. He completely stopped moving as soon as the food touched his mouth, and she looked on expectantly.

"THIS IS THE FOOD OF THE GODS 'DATTEBAYO!" he screamed in uncontrolled happiness. "The noodles, the broth, the-" but he cut himself off by shoveling more food into his face until he was stuffed like a chipmunk. Ayame giggled just a bit before raising an eyebrow, silently asking if he wanted more. He nodded even as he added more noodles to the amalgam of food his mouth.

"We're gonna have to work on your manners, Fish Cake," she said cheekily. Hopefully her father would be able to help her new friend out. And from the bruises that the boy sported, maybe her grandfather could teach the boy how to fight, at least to defend himself from those that pick on him.

Hidden in the shadows, a relieved smile touched Anko's luscious lips. It was a nice note to end her last mission protecting the boy on. Now that he was considered a probationary adult, the resources that the village had tied into watching over and protecting the child could be reallocated to something else. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be all that necessary for the child to have constant surveillance on him any longer, and only would while foreign shinobi were in the village.

And further away, an old man watched this series of events with a calculating glint in his beady eyes. "Soon he will be willing to help me..." said the man, who turned away and melted into the masses of the market's crowded streets. After all, the boy didn't seem to have any love lost for this village, did he?  
_

Within days Naruto was living in his own apartment, albeit a rather crappy one if he was to be honest. His life had gotten better since running into Ayame and on that fateful day. After she fed him, she told her father about him. Luckily Teuchi wasn't really prejudiced against Naruto because he was a very sharp man, able to discern that he was the Nine-Tails's prison, not the Nine-Tails itself. Though the man had immediately recognized him, and seemed surprised and incredibly angry at the boy's fate. The man acted as if Teuchi already knew Naruto somehow.

The ramen chef empathized with the child, who he knew to face insurmountable scorn and outright hatred due to ascribed characteristics. Teuchi filed a complaint to the Hokage, who found an apartment complex for the child to stay at. It was a pretty run down place in the Redlight District, but it was the only place Naruto could afford with his monthly allowance from the old man. The Third couldn't show too much favor towards the child because the Elder Council demanded such, though Naruto didn't really know that.

The Redlight District was a dangerous place, especially at night. After being mugged once, Naruto never came out of his apartment after the sun went down ever again, if he could avoid it. But tonight he was running late, and he really didn't want to run into any drug dealers on his way home, so he thought he'd take a more scenic route. Of course this really meant that he was taking the longest, most convoluted path that he could think of to delay the inevitable confrontations.

He wasn't frightened of getting into a fight with them, he just knew that it wouldn't be prudent in his current state. When he was older, he would end all crime in the Leaf, which was something the vaunted Uchiha Military Police was already supposed to be doing. Unfortunately they were corrupt, and accepted bribes of money, drugs, or women to turn their heads the other way.

It was one of the reasons that their standing in the village was deteriorating, on top of the fact that they didn't directly confront the Nine-Tails during its attack, Orochimaru during his flight, or the the Cloud shinobi during the Hyuuga Affair. It appeared that they couldn't do their jobs, and they were succumbing to police brutality more often than not.

As they boy moved, he heard the unmistakable sounds of a girl crying. And multiple male voices were heckling her. "Quit squirming, _princess_," said one of the voices. "You think you're better than us just because you're in a noble clan? Well then fight us to prove it!" Turning the corner, he saw a vaguely familiar girl around his age with dark blue hair and porcelain skin curled into a ball while protecting something from the kicks of several bullies.

"I-I don't... think that," she murmured as they rained down hits on her. Something about the girl resonated with Naruto, and then his brain clicked. He remembered that night again, despite trying to bury it over the course of a couple of years. She was there, and she was in trouble now like back then, only this time it wasn't so serious. Still, he needed to save her. Something told him that it needed to be done. He ran at the bullies, with his fist ready to beat the stuffing out of them.

"Why don't you pick on somebody your own size!" his voice brought all their attention on him, including the girl's. Her eyes widened in recognition, understanding that he was both there on the night of her uncle's death, and that he was the host of the Nine-Tails. Hope blossomed across her chest, because she knew that he was going to save her, though she didn't know why she was so convinced.

The golden-haired boy fought sloppily, like a brawler but with even less finesse. A wild haymaker caught him in the nose, but he followed the blow to cut the damage and pain. He kicked out the kid's ankles and performed what appeared to be a pile driver into the kid's abdomen, before performing a kip up to land back on his feet. The others were both impressed and wary of him after that feat.

As Hinata watched, the furry thing in her arms squirmed.

One of the remaining turned to their leader and said, "Hibachi, what do we-?" But Naruto kicked him right behind his knee, making the kid crumple with surprise, right into a well placed backhand. The boy fell into an unceremonious heap, and Hibachi stared with dismay. As the blond took another step, he realized that his feet were being held into place by the boy he just dropped, then he realized that the first he downed had placed him into a headlock. He was trapped.

Hibachi smirked and casually strolled up to the restrained, would-be hero. Then he punched Naruto's stomach as hard as he could, though the boy grit his teeth and refused to make a sound. There was a jab to the chest, a roundhouse kick to the hip, and an uppercut to the jaw. Naruto was gasping for air at this point, but there was nothing he could do.

"Give up, freak. And maybe we'll let your girlfriend go," said Hibachi. Naruto shook his head, but stars exploded across his vision as he took another vicious hit to the face. Sighing, Hibachi addressed his underling holding Naruto's feet, "Spread his legs. I'm gonna kick him in the worst possible place." Hesitating but following the order, the boy did as he was told.

One step back, two steps back, three, then five. "I'm gonna get a running start for this," said Hibachi sadistically. He sprinted forward at impressive speed for a six-year-old, pulled his leg back, and brought it up so hard that he actually left the ground for a split second. But a furry object blurred in front of him and bit on to his hand, making him lose balance and accidentally kick his friend. "GAH, GET IT OFF!" he yelled frantically.

Naruto stared in bewilderment, then he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The girl shot forward faster than Hibachi did earlier, and tapped a finger lightly against the boy holding him into a neckhold. He promptly fell over, unconscious. Blinking at her, the blond said, "Thanks for the assist."

A small, unsure smile touched her lips and she replied, "That's m-my line." Her face was so red that it would make a ripe red tomato look... unripe and green? I'm sure you understand what I meant to say there, but I can't think of the word at the moment, so just pretend the narrator of this story is a bit drunk. Because that's how professionals keep their jobs.

Anyway, they both then proceeded to turn their attention over to the freaking out Hibachi, who was waving his arm so fast that Naruto still couldn't tell what kind of animal was attacking him. "Yumi," called the girl in a delicate voice. Immediately the creäture let go of the poor boy's hand and tumbled through the air, tucking and rolling upon impact with the ground and coming to a stop sitting before them with a bored air about it.

"Is that a fox?" asked Naruto, though he already knew the answer. The small canine walked over to him and began rubbing against his legs, purring as it did so. For some reason, he thought foxes weren't supposed to even be able to purr. And yet this one did.

"It sure is," said the girl, her pale eyes twinkling with happiness. "I-I found her, um, digging t-through a trash can, and I k-knew that if anybody found it there, they would k-k-kill it." Foxes didn't exactly have the best reputation around the Leaf recently, what with the tiny cataclysm shaped like a fox that brought a shitstorm of hellfire and brimstone on to the village about half a decade ago.

He nodded his understanding and said, "By the way, what's your name?" He'd been wondering that for years, but their paths hadn't crossed once since that fateful night, at least not until just now. He remembered every detail about that night, and along with it, her.

"I... am H-Hinata Hyuuga, though you... can just call me Hinata-chan... I already know your name too, N-Naruto-kun," she answered, her face beginning to turn slightly red again as she was confronted with his presence. Normally she was much more calm and collected, though she was still shy on occasion. That was one of the things she was trying to improve about herself in the face of that night.

"Hinata-chan, huh. You've got a pretty name. And I assume this little gal," he said gesturing towards the fox, "is Yumi?" The fox yipped her approval at him and he smiled affectionately at her. Hinata nodded, and he suddenly felt all the pain in his body. He groaned and said, "That's gonna hurt in the morning. I think I'm gonna go soak in a hot spring for a while..."

Hinata's face went blank for a moment, before some steam shot out of her ears and a tiny trickle of blood ran out of her nose. He looked at her funnily before beginning to limp off in whatever direction he thought the closest spring was. She shook her head and said, "Hey, wait." He stopped and turned, allowing his hair to briefly hide his eyes from view. "Can you take Yumi with you? I would, but my family aren't exactly-"

"I gotcha, no worries. Yo, Yumi!" he called back. The tiny fox yipped again and ran off after the blond, slowing to a trot and following behind him with her tail wagging. Hinata watched the boy leave, and a strange warmth ran across her body, sending shivers down her spine.

Watching over all this was the old man, who smirked at the boy's theatrics. "Drama queen," he muttered under his breath, before silently following the boy who seemed to attract trouble everywhere he went. And, while keeping out of sight of the boy he smiled happily; it was finally time to introduce himself to the boy, especially now that his ANBU bodyguards were being reassigned.  
_

Naruto sat happily in the natural hot spring, and Yumi yawned quietly from her perch on top of his spiky blond hair. His eyes were closed, and he was leaning comfortably back against the edge of the steaming pool. A nearby cherry blossom tree was dropping leaves, which covered the ground and surface of the relaxing reservoir with their pink petals. The smells of jasmine and lilac ruled the air, and he sighed in bliss.

Hearing a small commotion, he turned his curious gaze towards the source of splashing, only to discover a family of foxes playing about in the water. They didn't seem skittish around him, which was unusual since wild animals typically ran away from his enormous chakra source. Maybe, since he was at peace, the creatures weren't bothered by it.

But then the foxes suddenly left, fleeing as if from a natural predator of theirs. Turning curiously to watch them scurry away, he noticed a person joining him in the hot springs. It was an old man with a scraggly beard and beady eyes, who was wearing a bathrobe. The wizened old guy stepped gingerly into the warm water, allowing its soothing presence to saturate his body. He groaned in satisfaction and sat in the water in a dignified manner.

Watching the man carefully, Naruto said, "Hello. I didn't realize other people knew about this place." He himself had only stumbled upon the secluded oasis because he was exploring the woods out of boredom one day, and had gotten a little off the beaten path. Ever since his serendipitous discovery, he'd gone there everyday to serenade his soul and reduce the chance of being sore from his street brawls the next day.

The man looked over to him and said, "I only come here on occasion. It's a beautiful little place, isn't it? I discovered this place long ago, back when I was still in my youth. Oh, my name is Genno by the way. What's yours?" He of course already knew who the child was, but Naruto didn't know that. Smiling softly, Genno watched the boy scrutinize him for a moment before nodding. The boy seemed a little paranoid of talking to people he thought were from the village. That was a good thing, in the man's eyes.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I really like this place. Tell me something; have I met you before? Because you seem awfully familiar to me," he answered, getting the strangest feeling that he had, in all actuality, already seen this man several times over the course of his life, especially since the horrible events of the Hyuuga Affair that he bore witness to.

The man shrugged and said, "Maybe. Tell me, why are you so untrusting of those around you? Surely you feel safe and secure when within your own village, or at least close enough to the gate that you could easily run to that safety? I wonder about the kind of life someone must've had to live through to become so defensive at such an early age."

Naruto bristled and retorted, "Nobody ever acknowledges me in a positive way. I'm an orphan, and am forced to watch as more privileged kids get sent to school with lunches packed by their parents. I have no friends, yet have to watch as all the others on the playground or at the Academy laugh and joke around with each other. Nobody is ever nice to me, unless they want something in return. So tell me, what do you want?"

The man looked at the five-year old child who he was sharing his hot spring with, and shrugged noncommittally. This was the most important part of his persuasion, so he had to do this just right or this unnecessary risk would blow up in his face. "I'm just looking for somebody to pass my teachings down to, and you're a prime candidate."

"Teachings? What do you mean?" asked Naruto curiously.

"I am a Trap-Master, and I've been looking for an apprentice with an affinity for trap making. You and your pranks have caught my attention over the past few years, and I think you would be perfect to learn my arts from. Just think about how much more effective your pranks will be with my knowledge and expertise at your disposal," said Genno.

Naruto's face scrunched up as he replied, "So you knew who I was before you even met me face to face to inform me of this offer, yet your goal is nothing shady at all. All you want to do is to teach someone your trade, and you think I'm the guy for the job. Tell me, why would I even want to learn how to make traps from you? Sure pranks are funny, but they're just a means to an end..."

Smiling in an elderly fashion that made it seem like he knew better, Genno replied, "Ah yes, you're only an annoyance to the people around you because you think that bad attention is better than no attention. Well guess what: you're wrong. What you need is for the people to respect you, maybe even fear your retribution. Besides, with my training you won't have to get your hands dirty to beat up delinquents. Trust me, it's more entertaining and satisfying to outsmart somebody than to pummel them with your fists. It allows you to assert your dominance over others..."

That admittedly did sound intriguing to the blond boy, but there had to be a catch. "What do you get out of this, aside from the satisfaction of teaching? What do you want in return? I assure you I have no money to pay you, and nothing valuable enough to trade you for," remarked the blue-eyed wonder.

Genno grinned and answered, "I do have a request, but I won't ask anything of you until you're complete with your training," _and I've filled your head subliminally with anti-Leaf sentiments_. "It might take years before we're at that point, so the earlier we start, the better," continued the master of trap making and deceptive tactics. If he played his cards right, he could instill hatred into the Nine-Tails's demonic host, which would aid him in his effort to level the village. "I won't rush you though. Take all the time you need for consideration. When you've decided to become my pupil, carve an X into that tree over there."

And with that, the old Trap-Master got out of the pool of water and left instantaneously, leaving a gust of wind containing swirling leaves in his wake. Naruto grinned and said, "Well, that old guy sure can make an exit, I'll give him that," before leaning back into the water and closing his eyes to continue relaxing in peace.

About half an hour later he heard splashing, opened his eyes, and noticed that the family of foxes was back. He smiled as he watched them splash and play, before closing his eyes contentedly. Then he bolted ramrod straight up with widened eyes as he continued watching the vulpine creatures play: the foxes were running across the surface of water like it was solid ground, only it clearly wasn't. The five-year old watched uncomprehendingly as they frolicked about, splashing water at each other in a classic game.

He smiled when one of the younger foxes splashed at him, and returned the favor by flicking the surface of the water. Yumi barked happily as a splash war began between the young human and posse of foxes. Their battle lasted for the better part of an hour, long enough for the soreness in his body to disappear thanks to the rejuvenating bath and his naturally occurring advanced healing rate.

When the family of red carnivorous animals began to leave, Yumi jumped after them, walking along the surface of the water like it was nothing. Staring in wonder at the not completely unexpected phenomenon, Naruto followed the vixen and wondered aloud, "How are you doing that, Yumi?" The fox just yipped at him again, though this time the others joined in.

They all dashed away towards the forest simultaneously, and Naruto ran after them. The small creatures were running up trees like squirrels, jumping from branch to branch like monkeys with their tails, and adding unnecessary flips to their acrobatic feats for no clear reason. It was an awesome sight, and Naruto could barely keep up with the creatures while running as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.

He followed them for almost half an hour, something he was only capable of thanks to his unusually high stamina. The foxes finally reached a den, which they entered and allowed him to follow. He laid down on the ground, exhausted, noticing that the leafy floor was actually much softer than he expected it to be. He closed his eyes for a moment and yawned...

And the next thing he realized was waking up quite suddenly, and seeing that the light outside was completely different. He slept there from evening until dawn, out in the middle of the woods. To his dismay, all the cuddly foxes were sleeping on top of him or pressed up against him in some way, and they were all snoozing gently.

"I guess this isn't so bad..." he murmured quietly to himself. It was the best sleep he'd gotten in years. He'd have to come out to the woods more often, if they were this relaxing. Hell, the animals were even nicer to him than any of the people back in the village were. Plus the foxes were much cooler than any shinobi he'd come across.

He promptly fell back to sleep.

* * *

**A/N: If you would kindly****review, favorite, follow, and share the story with communities, I would greatly appreciate it. As a perfectionist, I take great pride in my work and even more so in the fact that I don't have a BETA Reader going over every single detail. If you notice something grammatically or mechanically incorrect, please let me know. If there is a difference in lore, that is either on purpose or because the series hasn't ended yet and Kishimoto has thrown one huge curve ball at his fans. On a completely unrelated note, those of you who have read my past Naruto stories will recognize segments of this story because I'm reusing them (even those that have been deleted) out of laziness and because some of them are quite good.**

**What would you rate each of the below categories?**

**1. Environmental Imagery**  
**2. Emotive Descriptions**  
**3. Action Sequences**  
**4. Verisimilitude**  
**5. Characterization**


	2. Ascension From Ashes and Blood

"External Dialogue,"  
_"Internal Dialogue/Monologue,"  
__'Quote/Flashback,'  
_**"Nonhuman Dialogue,"****  
**(Translations)  
**(Transitions)**

* * *

**(Two Years Later)**

Naruto was running late for his lesson with Genno. And if he didn't get back to the village in time, he would be violating curfew as well.

He'd spent too much time outside the Hidden Leaf in the woods playing with the creatures. Time flew by when having fun, of this he could attest to quite vehemently. Over the past few years he'd learned how to track and hunt wild animals, fish with his bare hands or wooden spears, swim in the powerful currents of various rivers and in the deep pressures of nearby lakes, pick out which berries and herbs were edible or medicinal, and talk to animals. He was even growing vegetables and fruits in a random field that was well off the beaten path, growing his dietary pallet even further, and by extension, helping him to grow as well.

He was often covered in dirt and grass stains, and his skin was beginning to look golden brown from being out in the sun for so long. He was a bit more feral than he'd like to admit, but he still pulled hilarious pranks on the residents of the village with the instruction of his mentor. Super-gluing all the furniture in the Hokage Tower to the ceiling was a magnificent endeavor, as was removing every single screw that held up the Ninja Academy, and replacing almost every bottle of laundry detergent in the village with various food coloring dyes.

The harried populace never looked more colorful.

His hair was longer than it used to be, and even more spiky than before. It was matted with the natural filth of surviving in the woods and fighting delinquents almost nonstop, even though Genno always protested him being so direct with his opponents. Though, the man did grudgingly admit that Naruto would need skills beyond tactical analysis and trap setting to fall back on should either fail.

He'd gone from beating up playground and schoolyard bullies to taking on actual teenaged street punks and wannabe thugs that hung out in the rougher parts of town. He admitted wholeheartedly that he was, in fact, a delinquent as well, but there was a key difference between Naruto and his opponents: he wasn't unnecessarily cruel to other people.

He'd built up a strange reputation for himself. He was the demon brat, the wild child, the hyperactive knucklehead, the sneaky thief, and the shiny vigilante. His form of vigilantism was beating up ruffians to protect the weak, but it was such a minor misdemeanor that nobody really did anything to punish him for it. His heroics had caught the attention of the older generation, even if they were the unwilling victims of many of his ridiculously complicated practical jokes, and had begun to have an impact on them slowly over time.

Fewer people talked about his unique status in hurried whispers, and he even got nods of respect from his peers at the Ninja Academy. Many were still wary of him, though that had more to do with his constant companion than anything else.

Yumi, the tiny red fox, sat quietly on his head as he made his way. The small creäture was his greatest friend, hardly ever leaving his side. He'd gotten many negative looks over the past two years, everything from cringes and grimaces to frowns and snarls. He looked at the owners of such expressions with a predatory gleam in his eyes, and those people often found themselves getting pranked far worse than anyone else, often having embarrassing pictures taken of them and posted in public places or having their property viciously vandalized.

Foxes certainly weren't very popular around the village, but he really didn't care much about the villagers' opinions any more. This showed in his general attitude and appearance a lot.

Through all of this, things at the village had gotten a somewhat tense atmosphere. The Military Police was even more corrupt, even more vicious, and gaining more power daily. A curfew was in effect because of a combination of things: several kunoichi from the Hidden Grass Village had infiltrated the Hidden Leaf and made off with information on guard rotations, and a jounin instructor named Aoi Rokushi stole the Sword of the Thunder God as well as some advanced Water Release technique scrolls.

Naruto couldn't believe that anybody would be so stupid as to not suspect that their sensei was so despicable.

Curfew would soon be at hand, and he needed to get home fast, otherwise he'd be arrested. They wouldn't be able to do anything to him thanks to his status as the Nine-Tails's demonic host, but it would still be a major inconvenience. The only way to get to the village on time would be to cut through the autonomous Uchiha District that was just beyond the village's walls.

Exactly why a single clan needed an entire district to themselves was beyond Naruto, who didn't even know what to do with the single bedroom apartment that he had. They were so wealthy, so powerful... But they treated him strangely, not that he actually minded.

In fact, it was a pleasant change of pace.

Their strangeness, at least from the perspective of Naruto, stemmed from the fact none of them stared at him the way most of the rest of the villagers did. This was a direct result of many of the battle-driven warriors tending to avoid looking at him or even in his general direction as much as they possibly could. Their red eyes immediately went unfocused around him, or swept right past him as if he weren't even there. Many blinked in discomfort or even pain when he was around, almost as if he was the sun or something absurd like that.

He paused at the threshold of the district, a distinct chill running up his spine. It was the same feeling he got before watching Hizashi Hyuuga get cut down by The Kirito Yotsuki over four years earlier; a bad premonition of something about to happen. But he was too curious to just run away at the drop of a hat. Plus, he might have just imagined that cold chill, right?

The lamps were flickering, and strange lumps littered the streets. Liquid was pooling around the lumps even as Naruto watched, and a terrible feeling settled in his stomach as he concluded that they were corpses surrounded by blood. Seven year olds shouldn't even understand the concept of death, but he was living in a shinobi village, even hoping to be a shinobi. This was his second experience with death in so many years.

Occasionally he had nightmares about destruction hitting the village like a tropical storm of epic proportions, spreading fires and quaking the Earth like no other. He once thought it was memories of the Nine-Tails attack resurfacing, but he was too young to remember something like that anyway. Plus the dreams were so disjointed and eclectic that he really wasn't sure what was happening.

But this quiet, empty street filled with blood and bodies was worse. Far, far, far worse than the single dead man he'd seen. He'd seen the person responsible for that act while they were committing it. Somehow stumbling on to the aftermath of violence was infinitely more traumatic than witnessing it first hand. Another shiver ran up his spine, followed by another, and another. A childish sense of adventure started him on this path, but a morbid sense of curiosity pushed him further and further down it. Something deep inside him knew that it was wrong, knew that he should be running away... But he couldn't... he wouldn't.

He was compelled to stay, drifting from one body to another as a strange fog settled over his mind. Compelled to disobey the fight or flight instincts taking over his system and telling him to run. He couldn't leave. He just couldn't.

A fire began burning all around him, far too sudden and far too powerful to be anything short of ninjutsu. Yet still he didn't run. He stared with dull eyes into the pooling blood of a girl, the bright flames reflected grimly in the crimson liquid.  
_

Tears of blood were leaking out of Itachi's Mangekyou Sharingan, mixing with real tears on his nearly stone visage. He just massacred everyone in his clan, sparing only his younger brother Sasuke and his mother Mikoto. Luckily Shisui was already long gone, only having left his eyes behind. He wasn't sure if he was capable of killing even one more person at the moment.

He'd just placed his brother inside Tsukuyomi, the most powerful genjutsu in the world. And he tortured his seven-year old brother for three days straight with images of their clan being slaughtered. The result was Sasuke unveiling his Sharingan and blacking out.

All he wanted was to make his brother stronger and cleanse the clan of the curse of hatred. Tobi, the man who helped him, the one that taught him how to activate the higher level of his Sharingan, the one that happily killed off members of their clan like it was nothing... Itachi would need to keep on eye on him, for the sake of the Hidden Leaf if nothing else. There was no turning back at this point; he'd just finished his most important and heart wrenching mission by far.

And as he lit the district on fire with a powerful, wide area Fire Release technique, he spotted something that shouldn't be: a tiny figure moving among the bodies and flames: a blond figure wearing a bright orange, though dingy and ripped up jacket. He was a beacon of light in the darkness that Itachi just dug himself into. It was even a child that he recognized.

That was the same child he'd periodically watched over while in ANBU, ever since joining Team Ro with Captain Kakashi and Lieutenant Tenzo. The boy who was denied his parents at birth by the very thing hidden within his gut, the boy who witnessed the treachery of the Hidden Cloud with his sapphire eyes, whose face would turn into a blank mask when he thought nobody was looking. Naruto, had stumbled on to the Uchiha Massacre.

Itachi blinked.

He didn't have to kill that kid. That was not a part of his mission, and even if it was he'd refuse to do so outright. That boy was a powerful asset to the Hidden Leaf's military, and the son of his beloved sensei. The boy's parents wouldn't allow the boy to die meaninglessly, having entrusted the boy with everything that they believed in. He owed his genin team leader, whose dramatic death at the claws of her prisoner was the inspiration for him to compete in the Chuunin Exams and win the entire tournament.

Naruto Uzumaki would live, and he could even grow strong enough to replace Itachi as the Hidden Leaf's protector. But while the Uchiha would have to fight from the shadows, the Uzumaki would be able to do it from the light. This serendipitous idea, inexplicably popped into the prodigies head as he advanced toward the child who had a blank, lost look on his face. "Naruto Uzumaki," he murmured, instantly catching the boy's attention.

"You," said Naruto, emptiness pervading his voice when he realized that the man was covered in blood and holding a blade that was also coated in blood. His brain instantly made the connection between this stranger's appearance and all the mutilated corpses surrounding him, and he started backing away slowly from the mysterious killer. "What-"

"Tsukuyomi," said Itachi, plunging them both within the strange amalgamation of his greatest genjutsu and Naruto's mindscape.  
_

They reappeared in what seemed to be an overflowing boiler room. The far end of the room had a giant cage with a piece of paper holding the enormous doors shut. Naruto looked around and was about to ask where they were, but Itachi, being the genius that he is, correctly guessed what he was about to ask, and said, "We are in the dimensional pocket anchored to your psyche through the usage of complex seals. This place houses your... tenant."

The younger boy just stared uncomprehendingly, his eyes still glazed over from the shock of seeing so many dead bodies at once. Something incredibly important, some crucial fact of discovery was looming over him, but his brain felt fuzzy for a few moments, until he completely forgot what it was. A basic concept eluded his notice, almost like having the name for something on the tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't remember.

"I apologize for the life you led to have such a dreary place as a reflection of your inner sanctuary, but I couldn't make contact with you because my identity and occupation are classified. I was one of your ANBU bodyguards before I got promoted to Captain, and I know the kind of life you've led but it will get better once you become a full-fledged shinobi, I promise. By the way, my name is Itachi Uchiha," announced said ninja. The announcement destroyed Naruto's concentration, and the build-up to an epiphany quickly died down.

Naruto just stared at the other boy, wondering how a kid so young could be a member of the élite task force. Then he realized, "Wait a minute, the ANBU have been watching me all this time?" He'd just assumed that the silver-haired ANBU who saved him all those years ago was following around the foreign shinobi to make sure he didn't do anything bad, but now he realized they were only following _him_. "...And it's because I'm the Nine-Tails's demonic host?" his teeth were grit as he said this.

They knew how horrible his life was, being socially isolated from everyone else. And they felt bad about it. This meant that they might have willed to talk to him, to play with him, to even interact with him in any shape or form. But they weren't allowed to, because their jobs required the to keep a distance from their charge. And that's what he was to them, nothing more than a mission. Because otherwise they would do all those things with him, wouldn't they?

A rivulet of water fell from the ceiling and splashed harmlessly off his nose.

He'd acted the fool because he thought it was better to be thought badly of, as opposed to not at all. He'd held up a happy façade because he thought it would invite people to be closer to him, because he was imitating the people who did have friends. He'd thought it selfish of him to crave human contact, when he knew for a fact that there were less fortunate children in the world that didn't even get food, water, clothes, or shelter.

Another miniscule drop of water descended, this time striking the flooded ground.

But those children didn't have the misplaced hatred of an entire population thrust upon their shoulders. Those children were not blamed for the ultimate sacrifices of the nation's protectors in the face of a living natural disaster. They were not neglected for something so thoroughly out of their control; they were not verbally abused for a responsibility beyond their comprehension; and they were not persecuted against for the simple burden of housing a demon.

Ripples spread out from the drop's impact, their pulsing waves gently passing through the bars of the cage.

He would never have friends, and nobody would ever love him. With this realization, his mask crumpled, and silent tears of melancholic rage ran hot and fast down his face. It felt like streams of acid were running down his fleshy mask, burning troughs down their meandering paths, and the pain of finally unleashing his emotions hurt almost as much as the emotions themselves.

A rustling sound came from the shadows of the cage, and much more chaotic ripples exited it.

Itachi kept one wary eye on the cage as he looked at the small child with pity and said, "I know what it's like, to feel as if the weight of the entire world was resting upon your shoulders; I cannot, however, even begin to fathom baring that weight at your age, or even surviving the warping pressure that the village has heaped upon your shoulders. I might've held a grudge if I were in your place, but vengeance consumes everything in its quest for self-actualization."

As his tears left his face, creating even more tiny waves that traveled along the giant puddle they were standing in to clash with others, Naruto whispered, "Why have you brought me here, Itachi Uchiha?" His words shook with barely suppressed emotion, his tone gravelly as he restrained the storm he felt building inside his stomach.

Itachi sighed and said, "There are things I must do, and things you must know. I brought you here so that I could talk to you without being overheard by certain people." He paused to think about how this conversation was supposed to go, wondering if he was making the right choice. Finally, upon realizing that there was no other way, he asked "Tell me, what do you know about the tailed beasts and demonic host?"

Naruto blinked at the non-sequitur, not expecting such an odd question. "Other than that I'm the Nine-Tails's demonic host? Not much..." which made him stop and think. Really, why hadn't he at least thought about looking them up ever since he learned the truth? Was his judgement so clouded that he hadn't even tried to think about what it truly meant? Surely there had been some in the past other than him, and accounts of their lives could help him find out how to improve his own.

Sighing, Itachi said, "The tailed beasts are nine large demonic constructs of chakra. A demonic host is a person with one of the tailed beasts sealed inside them to control their destructive power. As you already are aware, you're the demonic host of the Nine-Tails. Your father sealed it in you to protect the villagers from its devastation and simply asked for them to treat you like a hero."

Overlooking that the villagers had essentially spat on the last dying wish of a man who had rescued them from their reckoning, the boy latched on to the other information that Itachi had so tactfully added to his phrasing. "M-My father? But that would mean..." began Naruto.

"Yes, it would. You, Naruto, are the orphaned son of the Fourth Hokage and the last princess of the Hidden Whirlpool Village," said Itachi. It was another classified secret that revolved around Naruto, though this one was much better kept than the other. His old team leader Kakashi had mentioned that the boy meant a lot to his sensei, whom Itachi later discovered was none other than Minato Namikaze. Then there was the fact his own sensei, Kushina Uzumaki, shared a surname with the boy, and the two were supposedly dating for a while. And on top of _all_ that, the deceased leader of their village and the boy in front of him shared much more than a passing resemblance. It was odd that nobody else had put together the dots, really.

"If that's true, then why would people be so mean to me? Shouldn't I be treated like royalty? Or better yet, like the motherfuckin' Uchiha?" asked Naruto. This should quite easily counteract all the hatred he got for being the demonic host of the Nine-Tails, which meant that he would be able to have friends as soon as he began telling people. Though maybe the people already knew and just didn't care.

The former ANBU began walking away from the younger boy, in the completely opposite direction of the giant cage. He continued, "That would normally be the case, but your parents were married in secret. As a result, the consequences of the consummation of their love, namely you, were kept out of the public eye for security reasons." Naruto just looked at the man before him with a raised eyebrow since that didn't answer any of his questions whatsoever. He didn't know where the Uchiha was going with this.

"Why would my parents hide their marriage?" questioned Naruto, whose tears were slowing down. He was following the clan prodigy as fast as he could, trying to figure out what the older boy was going over there for. They stopped in front of a giant sealing array that was inscribed on the wall, though the ink seemed slightly faded and worn.

"Your father made many enemies during the Third Great War, and they would do anything to end his line. He destroyed entire battalions of the Hidden Stone shinobi in the blink of an eye, which is why he got a 'Flee-On-Sight' warning added to his entry in the Bingo Book back when he was alive, as well as the title, 'The Yellow Flash of the Hidden Leaf'. Your mother, who I'm certain was Kushina Uzumaki, was one of the strongest kunoichi to ever grace the Hidden Leaf with her presence, right up there with Tsunade Senju and Mito Uzumaki. She was so incredibly talented at kenjutsu (Sword Techniques) that her primary opponents, the Hidden Cloud, made it a mandatory art that their shinobi must learn," explained Itachi as he stared at the array.

"My parents were awesome," said Naruto, whose tears had stopped completely. "By the way, what's that thing?" he asked, wondering what was so important that Itachi would ignore the place that the Nine-Tails of all things was obviously being held and turn his back on the cataclysmic being. Itachi just tilted his head to the side and continued staring at it, seeming as if to read it though it looked like indecipherable scribbles to Naruto.

"The Uzumaki clan in general were so feared that the Hidden Stone, the Hidden Cloud, and the Hidden Mist all joined together to kill your people off," said Itachi, who was obviously combing for something to talk about while he continued examining the seal. Naruto gave a blank look at that, so Itachi continued, "Your birth was kept a secret because combining their bloodlines would be a terrifying prospect for other countries, and your life would be in constant jeopardy while you were little for that exact reason. When they died, it was decided that your heredity should be hidden from the world, and you, to protect you from those same enemies until you were strong enough to protect yourself."

Naruto seemed to understand. "I guess, to the village, I'm just a nameless orphan then." Itachi nodded his agreement, before something incredibly odd happened. Naruto watched wordlessly as the telltale tomoe of a Sharingan that were orbiting around Itachi's pupil combined and expanded into a new design that dominated his eyes, resembling a triple-pronged shuriken. Black flames erupted from Itachi's eyes, covering the entire sealing array in the indistinguishable and unquenchable unholy fire.

Within moments it disappeared, devoured entirely by the incandescent immolation, which coalesced into a vaguely avian shape before condensing down into the jet black form of a raven, one which housed an evolved Sharingan much like Itachi's, only the design resembled a quadruple-pronged shuriken. Tears of blood leaked out of the corners of Itachi's eyes and ran down his face silently. The raven, upon having it's form and substance filled, flattened against the ground like a shadow, spreading out and slowly phasing out of existence the farther its dark tendrils stretched until its presence was gone.

Naruto decided to worry about the mechanics of how such a thing was possible later, so he focused on something much more pertinent to his current situation, "What'd you just... why'd you just... huh?"

"That seal was holding back your bloodline limit, though I don't even know what it is. I know the Uzumaki had one that gave them incredible prowess on the battlefield, so much so that both the Senju and Uchiha decided that it would be better to have your ancestors with them and not against them. And what you just saw was a representation of my clan's power, a sliver that will aid you in your coming conflicts... good luck." Itachi nodded to Naruto and said, "I have to be going now, so... I'll leave you to it," he said nodding toward the cage, before disappearing from Naruto's mind-dimension-thingy.

A gigantic fox loomed over him with a grimace on its furry face, "**So… you're my newest jailor**."

Naruto frowned and said, "Apparently so." They quietly looked at each other in awkward silence. After a few minutes, Naruto said, "So what exactly am I doing in here?" as he gestured to the grimy boiler room where they found themselves. Whether by chance or design, the poor lighting of the room made the fox's presence feel even more sinister. Even though he could only clearly see its enormous crimson eye and a mouth with spires for fangs, the beast before him was clearly a gargantuan being.

"**This is your inner world, your mindscape if you will… and it's a bit depressing if I do say so myself**," said the demonic fox. As this was said, a nearby dripping of water on to something metallic could be heard, which was horribly against the desert theme of the place. Its arrhythmic beat gave Naruto a strange sense of dissonance. His current circumstances were unnerving, and that was putting it incredibly mildly to say the least. Though honestly, this wasn't the strangest thing to happen to him lately.

Said blond sighed and replied, "Well I'm not sure how to go about fixing that so… is there any specific reason that I need to talk to you?" Another source of dripping started up nearby as the Nine-Tails's laughter shook the chamber they were in. The deep, guttural howls of amusement boomed so loudly that the sheer force of the fox's mighty vocal chords blew Naruto away. The shockwave from the beast 's amusement was that powerful.

"**I like how direct you are, mortal.****Think of this as us getting to know each other. First impressions are very important, and so far you don't come off as stupid as the average human**." The beast's voice held some amusement at its thinly veiled insult within a compliment. On the inside, the boy bristled in annoyance at the implication of his species lacking intelligence, but then he realized that the thing he was facing was correct. Excluding himself and a select few, the majority of humans he knew were quite stupid. Or maybe it was just an incredibly vocal minority that he just happened to keep bumping into.

Naruto's face remained blank as he said, "Well… that's nice of you to say." Because seriously, how else could one as exiguous as he, at least in the presence of such an ostentatiously enormous aberration (whose obvious antipathy begets chicanery in the face of even the most benign of audiences, namely the child facing it), possibly reply to such a callously misanthropic statement. But such a blithe notion appeared to be lost on the dauntless fox, whose noxious and malignant chakra silently encroached upon the boy's domain.

The fox flashed a brilliant smile at its new host, saying, "**I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I will grant you access to a small amount of my chakra, but be warned: it will harm you since we aren't fully in sync yet..."****  
****_**

The council room was alive with chatter. There hadn't been a priority meeting since the Hyuuga Affair four years earlier, when a powerful the Hidden Cloud jounin attempted to kidnap the heiress of the Hyuuga clan, Hinata Hyuuga, to steal the bloodline limit Byakugan from the Hidden Leaf. Fortunately, the Copycat Ninja fought off her kidnapper to rescue her from a terrible fate in the Hidden Cloud's breeding programs.

The heads of the ten present shinobi clans weren't partaking in gossip as much as the eleven civilian clan heads were, but they weren't above speculating about what this meeting could be about. They were curious where Fugaku Uchiha was, but decided it didn't really matter. Nobody could stand his arrogance.

Many thought it could be about the revolution in the Hidden Mist Village or the recent formation of Hidden Sound Village. The Hokage's three advisors, Koharu, Homura, and Danzo, were all seated near the elevated chair of the village's leader, despite its vacancy.

Suddenly barging through the doors was the old man himself, Hiruzen Sarutobi. He had a troubled look on his face as he took his seat. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Alright. Now I know you're all wondering why I brought you all here," this was met with nods by everyone except the Nara clan head, who was lightly snoring.

Frowning slightly at their strategic mastermind's laid back attitude, Hiruzen continued, "Itachi Uchiha has been declared an S-Class rouge ninja for the slaughter of most of his clansmen." He would've continued but the civilian half of the room started speaking up a frenzy about something undoubtedly stupid. Hiruzen really didn't pay that much attention to them anymore.

He sighed and continued, "Apparently, while in the process of killing off his clan, he came across an outsider, somebody that didn't belong. He ran into Naruto Uzumaki, but decided to spare the boy's life, much like he did for Mikoto and Sasuke Uchiha. Since all three are currently in the hospital and unconscious, we cannot currently question them on the motives of the renegade ANBU Captain..." Sarutobi had a small feeling that Itachi might have known who Naruto's parents were. And if he knew, which he likely did because he was hailed as a genius for good reason, he likely told Naruto, or at least hinted towards it.

_"His father was Minato Namikaze and his mother was Kushina Uzumaki. This not only makes Naruto the son of two Kage level shinobi, but also the sole beneficiary of the Uzumaki clan's sizeable estate, along with the Fourth's technique collection. He is the heir to the Hidden_ _Whirlpool __Village__'s fallen throne, and the honorable son of the Fourth..."_

The Third Hokage continued, "I have taken the initiative to notify the child's godparents, and my greatest students, that they should now take custody of him. They would have done sooner, but their responsibilities to the village forced them to stay away from him. However, it is difficult to find one of them since she is constantly on the move. My student, Jiraiya, will arrive in the Hidden Leaf soon to aid in Naruto's development and track down Tsunade. That is all we have to talk about in regards to him."

Soon the child would be outside of the Hidden Leaf, and even further away from Danzo's schemes.  
_

"Okay, foxy, what exactly are you going to be training me in?" asked Naruto skeptically. The enormous fox had mentioned that it wasn't going to have an unfit jailor just so it could die along with him, which showed that it wasn't helping him out of the goodness of its intangible heart. No, it's motivation was entirely selfish, the preservation of its own life being said driving force behind its actions. That being said, he wasn't going to complain if it made him stronger.

The giant fox smirked and said, "**As a reward for giving me such an interesting prison, I'm going to teach you about the fundamentals of chakra. Chakra is the basic energy that shinobi, monks, priests, and samurai use to fuel their techniques and fortify their bodies**." That was one of the most fundamental concepts that everyone, whether shinobi or civilian, was aware of. In fact, they'd just gone over the concept in class just a few days ago.

"I already knew that, you condescending fox. I also know that you know everything that I know, which means that you knew that I knew," said Naruto, whose convoluted statement made perfect sense to him but left his conversational partner a little confused. Though Naruto would never admit to being unaware of any groups of people other than shinobi using the form of energy.

"**That's quite a mouthful, and I'm not even really sure what you just said**," said Nine-Tails with rolled eyes. "**Anyway, chakra is made up equally of physical and spiritual energy, known as ki (Physical Energy) and r****eiryoku** (Spiritual Energy) respectively. Now, the Uzumaki bloodline limit provides you with an obscene amount of ki, but it doesn't affect reiryoku."

"What exactly makes up an 'obscene amount of ki'? Could you maybe put it into terms that I could actually understand?" questioned Naruto. He'd started to suspect, at least on some level, that he was generating far more energy than everyone else around him. However, he never really thought that it was his physical aura that was behind it. The Aburame clan's beetles, the Inuzuka clan's dogs, the Uchiha clan's Sharingan, and the Hyuuga clan's Byakugan all avoided him as much as possible, and he knew they were all sensitive to chakra to some extent from his classes.

Originally he thought it was because his chakra was wild and dangerous because of the beast within him, but over time he began to remove that possibility from his list. The clansmen didn't treat him negatively just because he was the Nine-Tails's demonic host; in fact, most of the shinobi didn't even acknowledge him beyond cursing him for his pranks or respecting him for cleaning up the streets. So it must have been that he just had a bunch chakra, otherwise they'd probably show their recognition of him far more often.

"**... I'm just going to use a simile. If your ki was likened to an ocean of energy, reiryoku would practically be a glass of water in comparison. This imbalance makes your chakra relatively unstable and difficult to control, but chakra control is important. There are two ways for you to overcome this obstacle: you can either gain better control over your ki, or try to increase your reiryoku. I'd prefer you doing both, but those are the only two options for you at the moment**," replied Kurama.

"So how would I go about doing that?" asked Naruto with a slight tilt to his head. With ki being physical energy and reiryoku being spiritual energy, both of which combined together to create chakra, how would he be able to use ninja techniques if they weren't balanced? Maybe he could create entirely new abilities through the use of raw ki or unfettered reiryoku? It was worth a thought, but he didn't want to ask a question that might be considered stupid.

"**You, little mortal, will begin learning how to meditate,**" spoke the monolithic fox. Meditation was an incredibly enlightening form of relaxation, granting a unique epistemological perspective of life that allows anyone proficient in the sacred art to remain calm, cool, and collected at all times. It allows somebody to hone their mind, allowing them to sort through their memories, control their emotions and psychological health, extend their waking periods exponentially, and even increase the passage of time around them.

Naruto blinked owlishly, "Meditate? Really? That doesn't sound-"

Nine-Tails growled and said, "**You impertinent human! I'm helping you tap into the hidden potential that you were born with, yet you keep belittling me! Do you realize that I could be sabotaging your growth physically and mentally? I could be ruining your chakra network or filling you with suicidal thoughts, trying to take over your body for my own uses, or even escape altogether? But no, you have to keep questioning me!**" Panting for a few moments, the great beast continued, "**When you gain control over your reiryoku, you can begin manipulating your resulting reiatsu (Spiritual Pressure), which is the pressure that your reiryoku exudes..."**

Blinking, Naruto replied, "You know, you're nothing like I expected you to be. I've heard stories of you slaughtering innocents, causing earthquakes and tsunamis with a single flick of your tail... and yet, you're just a big fluffy furball. I expected you to be a psychopathic monster, but you're trying to help me out. In fact, I'd _almost _suspect you of foul play. What are you hiding, fuzzybutt?"

With a twitching eye, Kurama exploded, "**I was held against my will under a powerful genjutsu, on **_**that night **_**that I supposedly attacked your cesspool of a village. I was forced to do horrible things... mind you, I don't care about the acts themselves, just that I wasn't in control. I'd rather be inside this damned seal than out there to be used as a toy by one of those damned Uchiha. Yet you could also be ensnared in a genjutsu, or even killed. And then where would I be? I'd die with you! Of course I'd simply reincarnate later, but death, no matter how temporary, is still an unpleasant prospect even for me!**"

Naruto coughed and said, "Sorry. I didn't know." The giant incarcerated fox snarled but nodded her head in acceptance. "Anyways, is there anything I can do on top of meditation, you adorable fuzzball?"

**"Not much for now. You are an unpredictable brawler with razor-sharp reflexes and an acute sense of timing honed by your time on the streets and in the woods. You have gained a high pain tolerance and have an advanced healing rate, on top of determination to never give up and almost unlimited stamina. You're learning well from that old man, but something tells me that won't last long,"** said the giant fox. **"You've got a great foundation laid out, but now it's time to begin learning more important parts of being a shinobi."**

"Like what?" wondered Naruto.

"**You need to learn the arts of deception and seduction, since those are important components of the world of espionage which you are now a part of. I'd also recommend you begin paying more attention in class about world history, foreign cultures, and chakra theory. Then you need to learn how to actually fight using a taijutsu style and proper ninja tools before anybody would be willing to teach you how to use ninjutsu or genjutsu, though you're doing well at the rate you're going. You're lousy at theory, but prodigious in application; most humans don't have the level of control over their body that you've displayed, at least not at your age..."** said the trapped tailed beasts.

The boiler room was beginning to waver out of existence, and the shinobi-in-training knew that his time in his mind-dimension-world-thingy was coming to an end, so he nodded respectfully at the anthropomorphized cataclysm and said, "I'm going to wake up now, so I guess I'll be seeing you around..." And then he disappeared altogether, though to him it seemed like the room fell away to warm, comfortable darkness.  
_

Naruto woke up lying in a comfy bed, snuggled into warm white sheets. "Where?" he asked groggily, stretching out like a cat upon waking up from its nap. He felt a tiny weight shift in his lap, and he knew it was Yumi. After the first few moments of disorientation were over, the wannabe ninja scratched his pet's head even as he understood where he was. "I hate hospitals," he muttered quietly to himself, but it seemed he was overheard because he heard some light chuckling. Turning, the boy saw his grandfather-figure of sorts, the Third Hokage.

"I'm afraid you may have to get used to them if you want to be a shinobi," said the old man, an amused overtone coloring his gravelly old voice. Yumi yipped affectionately in the affirmative, bringing a smile to both humans' faces. Then the Hokage got serious, "However, I'd like to ask you a few questions before I get sidetracked, if that's okay with you?" It wasn't an overt command, but Naruto could tell what answer the powerful geezer wanted to hear.

"Uh, sure," he said meekly. "Ask away." Yumi rolled over, and he began scratching her belly. Sometimes she acted like a newborn puppy dog, and other times she acted like an independent kitty cat. Foxes were odd creatures.

"You... you do remember why you're in the hospital, don't you?" asked Hiruzen. The medic-nin assigned to working on Naruto had said that there might be severe psychological trauma from witnessing the Uchiha Massacre and running into Itachi himself. The Hokage was just glad Itachi had the sense to pull out of his robotic-killing-frenzy mode enough to spare the life of the kid before him. If anything ever happened to Naruto, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.

At the elderly pervert's question, Naruto frowned in concentration. He slightly remembered something about Itachi Uchiha pulling into his own mind, or something strange like that, but the memory was mostly blurry before their conversation. "I think... there was an attack... bodies, dozens of them... a raging fire reflected in the blood... a small child... red eyes with spinning thingies... nothing else. I don't honestly remember why I ended up here. And I don't feel too bad..." Yumi snuggled closer to him, her soft fur making the action all the more comforting to him.

Hiruzen sighed. This would take some explaining. "It seems that you stumbled upon the scene of a terrible crime, while it was still being committed. Nine days ago, the last time you were conscious, almost the entire Uchiha clan was massacred," explained the Hokage. "The one who did it was a traitor, a member of the Uchiha himself. He came across you... and we don't know what happened after that. We can speculate, however, that something very strange happened at that moment, something revolving around you."

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto, even as he continued rubbing Yumi. For some reason running his hands through the fox's soft war was cathartic, making his stress and discomfort ebb away with the slightest of effort. It was a strange phenomenon, but he was sure that petting a dog would have a similar effect.

"When we found you unconscious in the center of that slaughter, we thought the worst had come to. And... you were completely fine," said Hiruzen, indulging himself with a slight prevarication. The boy had been found alright, and he wasn't even wounded. But he was laying in a pool of blood, a concoction of dozens of other people's life essence, and a single kunai was stabbed into the ground inches from the boy's head. "Naruto... did Itachi say anything to you before knocking you out? Do you know why he didn't kill you too?"

Naruto looked away in thought. "Itachi..." he mumbled, his voice sounding uncertain. Then he turned his head back to Hiruzen and said, "He told me who my parents are, and said something about a bloodline limit. I don't remember much about the last part, but I remember with clarity the names of my parents." The statement stopped Hiruzen's heart for a moment, but he sighed and bowed his head in defeat. "He also told me why this knowledge was kept a secret, and I fully agree with him. A while ago, I would've told everyone I could see who my father was just for attention. But now..."

His tendency towards grandstanding had been viciously curbed by the Trap-Master, who was _the_ master of backhanded compliments and verbal tomfoolery.

The boy had matured. The horrors that he'd faced were so profound that they forced him to grow up even more. This was both incredibly saddening and appropriate. At least the Hokage knew that the boy wouldn't break from the mental anguish accompanying the darker aspects of being a shinobi anytime soon, what with having the firm and loyal support of his vulpine companion. Sighing, the elder got up to leave.

As soon as the old man closed the door behind him, he turned to his side, scrutinizing the man that had unashamedly eavesdropped on their entire conversation, though Hiruzen only allowed such an event to occur because of this man's relation to the boy. "Since you're now Naruto's legal guardian, Jiraiya, does that mean you're going to be taking Naruto now, or do you plan to wait a bit?" asked the Third Hokage, his face carefully blank. They were walking down the hospital hallway, away from the room that the older man just vacated.

The Toad Sage sighed and replied, "You know I would've gone to him much earlier if that council hadn't thrown a bitch fit. But now that I can see him... I'm almost scared to. I mean, I haven't been able to play an active role in his life other than occasionally chipping in some extra cash with his monthly allowance that he wasn't even aware of. And now I'm supposed to just show up out of nowhere and be like, 'Hey, I'm your godfather. Sorry for not being in your life, but I was wallowing in the sadness of losing my apprentice who was like a son to me, after he sealed a giant evil demon into your gut. I was also tracking down my traitorous former teammate, who performs inhuman experiments in the name of learning every technique in existence. By the time I got my head out of my ass, the council forbade me from meeting with you because apparently my spy network was more important to them than your well being.' Yeah, that'd go real well."

Hiruzen Sarutobi coughed and said, "The sole reason for you returning to the village was to become Naruto's guardian, yet you aren't capable of even introducing yourself to him? Look, I can't tell you what to do but the boy is now your responsibility. He is no longer able to receive monthly payments from the Orphan Fund because he now technically has guardians. You have to at least give him enough money for groceries and utilities."

Though in all honesty, if the rumors about the boy's extracurricular activities were anything close to the truth, which he knew them to be, the boy was doing just fine on his own out in the woods food-wise.

Jiraiya nodded and replied, "I certainly plan on doing that, but before I meet him, I'd like to find out what he's like first. I'm gonna watch over him for a week or so to get a read on him, then I'll introduce myself to him and take him with me. Though, I'm not sure how Tsunade will react to getting babysitting duty..." Though really, the old crone should have at least sent some money the kid's way, even if she had to do so anonymously like Jiraiya himself had to do.

He understood that she was still grieving over the deaths of her younger brother and the love of her life, but those events had happened several decades ago. If she wasn't capable of getting over something like that in such an extended amount of time, he wasn't sure if she would ever be able to do so.

The Third Hokage frowned sadly and said, "If you can't convince her, tell her that taking care of Naruto is a direct order from me. Should she choose not to comply, she'll be charged with treason and treated as a missing-nin in our bingo books. That should get her to come to her senses. How long do you think it'll be before you two can find her?"

"It may take a while to find her, and I'll give her at least a week to think it over before I threaten her with direct orders. I want her to come of her own free will..."  
_

"I see, so that's why you were late to our meeting," said Genno, who was looking down at his protegé with a blank expression on his face. "I think I should've seen something like this coming, but the exact circumstances are a bit outside the realm of practical possibilities. Who would've thought that Itachi Uchiha would snap under the pressure of being a genius and kill his own clan?" Yumi yipped her agreement.

"I don't think he snapped," said Naruto. "He seemed far too calm and collected to be mentally unstable. He was crying tears of blood in the few brief moments that I saw him before he performed a powerful genjutsu on me, but I think that's just an after effect of using the power of his special eyes for too long," queried Naruto as he continued rubbing his companion's soft fur.

Genno nodded and said, "Luckily he spared your life, and I think this counts as a teachable moment. For now, you have no defense against the mental onslaught of illusions that a genjutsu user will be capable of projecting at you. And if they can control your attitude, senses, emotions, and even thoughts just by using a technique, your tactical analysis is flawed from the start because the objective facts are obfuscated in a false reality. I suggest we begin working on dispelling genjutsu."

"And how are we going to go about doing that?" asked Naruto. His vulpine partner rolled over in his lap, and he began scratching her belly absent-mindedly as he continued the conversation.

"Well, there are ways to defend yourself against illusory perceptions. Intense external pain can relieve you of your enemies's machinations, but going so far as to inflict self-mutilation upon any part of your body is extreme to say the least. You could simply dispel the genjutsu by disrupting the flow of energy in your chakra network, but that requires a level of chakra control that you don't yet have," said Genno.

"So I've gotta work on my chakra control, that's nothing new to me. Do you know of any control exercises that I can use to help with this?" asked Naruto. He knew that the man did know of at least a few things he could do, but the man required prompting to eschew information on subjects other than trap making and its underlying components.

"I'll tell you about those in a minute, but there are two more ways to combat genjutsu that we must discuss first. The third kind of defense is using the mental restrictions of the illusion against itself, allowing you to reflect the genjutsu upon the caster. This is incredibly hard to do since it uses sheer unpredictability and fortitude to work, but I think it'll work well for you. And the last way to end a genjutsu is simply to shatter it by overloading the illusion itself with chakra, which requires an abundant source of energy to pull off," said Genno.

"The last one sounds perfect for me, but you're going to make me learn how to use all four kinds of defenses anyway, aren't you?" said Naruto, consigned to his fate. "After this, I would like to begin on chakra control exercises though. It's an area that I'm always going to need some work on." Plus, now that his tenant was starting to teach him, he'd be getting stronger a lot faster.

"Of course. But for now... Demon Illusion: Tree Binding Death!" and a tree grew out of the hospital floor, enveloping the Trap-Master of Kagero Village.

**(Several Days Later)**

Naruto quickly got ready for the day; showering, brushing his teeth, eating breakfast, and running out of the apartment for the city. He needed to go to the Ninja Academy to become a shinobi. Not to protect anybody in the village, or out of any sense of nationalistic loyalty; no, he needed to become a shinobi because nobody would ever hire him at any civilian jobs. He was feared and hated because of what he contained, though his recent actions seemed to be having a somewhat positive effect on his reputation. Would he even be able to get an interview?

"No, definitely not," he said to himself quietly. Yumi innocently tilted her head to the side, be he avoided answering her silent inquiry by finishing getting ready for the day and walked out the door of his apartment. The fox happily jumped up on to his head, laying down quietly after securing a comfortable position in his long, spiky hair. He'd actually taken a shower today, so his lustrous golden hair seemed to practically sparkle in the sunlight of the early morning. He didn't really like it.

On the subject of potential professions aside from becoming a child soldier and mercenary assassin, he could ask the Ichiraku family for a place at their ramen stand but his prolonged presence would likely be detrimental to their business. He didn't want to hurt the livelihood of the only people in the entire village that seemed to actually enjoy his presence.

Then there was the fact that having Yumi with him at all times would likely make interviews pointless and violate dozens of health codes in regards to the food service industry. Plus he had a major crush on Ayame, which would make sharing a workplace with her incredibly awkward, something he didn't want to happen.

And Teuchi had a strange tendency to treat him like his own son, which was incredibly nice and generous on the man's part, but Naruto wasn't sure if he was comfortable with that sort of relationship forming between the two of them. Besides, Genno was starting to become more of a father-figure as time went on.

He sighed as he ran through the crowded early morning streets, glancing around for anybody following him. Luckily, nobody seemed to care enough to do so, though he was falling victim to an increasing number of angry glares. This village, while aesthetically appealing, was not his cup of tea. Yes, it was actually a rather breathtaking place; sweeping gabled roofs, round columns, curtain walls and door panels, random lily ponds, circular doorways, and towers that looked like multiple colorful huts stacked on top of each other dotted the village.

He saw several shinobi flit across the rooftops, their forms blurs to his untrained eye. Yumi followed them with her adorable brown eyes, her triangular ears twitching infrequently at sounds that only she could pick up. With a bit of work, she would be an excellent way to detect enemies in the future. The fact that either he or his companion could even see the fast paced shinobi at all was fairly impressive, and the fact that both could do so was even more so.

Few civilians even noticed when the ninja hopped effortlessly around the village above their heads. It would almost be funny, but the throngs of hostile villagers really ruined the view.

He could hear people whispering to each other about his whiskers, reputation, and companion, mentioning how he must be a demon because of them. Several seemed terrified that he was slowly becoming the demon, and his feral appearance hadn't really helped out with that though their opinions were worthless in his eyes. Luckily they couldn't actually mention that he was a demonic host in public; the decree laid down by the Third Hokage made such an act punishable by death in the hopes of letting the younger generation get to know him.

Before long, he was in the Academy and walking to his assigned room. He was the first to enter, and made his way to the center of the back so he could have a clear vantage point of the room and not get sneaked up on. As he watched, other students began trickling into the room. Nobody spared him a second glance, though no one seemed to be glaring at him either. That seemed to be a good start. There were nearly thirty kids in the room, but there were six clan heirs in that stood out. They were who caught Naruto's attention the most. They were the most likely to pass given their pedigrees and inevitable outside training.

And they were all in a small pack together, shutting off all the civilian-bred children. It wasn't intentional, just that these six all grew up together.

Shikamaru Nara had promptly placed his head gently on his desk and began snoozing, Choji Akimichi was eating out of what appeared to be a bottomless bag of chips, Kiba Inuzuka was whining about wanting to get his ninja dog pairing (Which was interesting to Naruto because the same concept might be applicable to himself and Yumi), and Shino Aburame was _buzzing_.

Looking past them, he saw Ino Yamanaka talking gossip about every single person in the room, despite having only been a class for about two months; she must've had a spy network or something to come up with such information. Hinata Hyuuga was quietly listening to the insane ranting of the blonde heiress with a dazed expression on her face.

When Hinata saw him sitting off on his own with Yumi on his head, she nodded toward him, though her face had taken on a slightly pink tinge. He idly wondered if she was starting to come down with a fever, but dismissed such a thought with the simple rebuttal that her clan wouldn't allow her to go to school if she weren't feeling well. Despite his somewhat invasive thought processes, he smiled and nodded back at her. Yumi, recognizing the heiress to the noble clan, wagged her tail and started sniffing in the girl's general direction.

Many would probably think it cute if they hadn't been conditioned with an irrational fear or hatred for foxes as a result of the Nine-Tails's Attack, even if Naruto now knew that the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox wasn't entirely to blame for that fiasco.

At that moment, a civilian girl entered the room, and his heart practically stopped. One of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen was nervously looking for a place to sit. Naruto admired her shoulder length pink hair and sparkling green eyes from the other side of the room, and was about to invite her to sit with him when Ino called out, "Oh, Sakura! I see that red ribbon suits you after all." The pinkette smiled and sat next to the Yamanaka, causing annoyed mutterings to come up from the remaining ostracized civilian kids.

That was a new development to Naruto. He specifically remembered Sakura staring longingly at the tight circle of friends that were the clan heirs, as if she wanted to be included with them but never believed that they would accept her. It seemed that now her dream was realized, and he felt happy for her. But he also felt somewhat hollow, knowing that he would never be assimilated into any group.

The blond demonic host continued to watch Sakura out of the corners of his eyes, feeling a strange warmth spreading through his chest just at the sight of her. His thoughts ended when the very last student walked in quietly, and almost everybody shut up immediately. The dark-haired, dark-eyed boy didn't seem to notice as he sat down alone in the front row. Some murmuring started up, and Naruto could hear some of it clearly. His furry companion's ears twitched as she too listened in.

"Hey, that's Sasuke Uchiha."  
"I hear he's the _Last of the Uchiha_ now."  
"What happened to the rest of his clan?"  
"Some _nut job_ massacred them all a week or two ago."  
"My dad said they deserved what they got for being corrupt."  
"Oh, that's why Sasuke's been gone for a while."  
"I heard it was his _older brother_."  
"What? That's _insane_!?"  
"What was his name? Itachi or something like that?"  
"I heard Itachi Uchiha was a _prodigy_ even among the rest of the Uchiha."  
"I bet Sasuke _doesn't even come close to him_."

Sakura and Ino started swooning over the boy as soon as they saw him, which was also new to Naruto. At first he was jealous of the Last Uchiha, but as Naruto watched, the two girls began arguing over who should ask him out first, which evolved into who was better, which devolved into offensive comments on each other's appearances. All in the space of about a minute. In tears, Sakura ripped the ribbon off her head and threw it at Ino and the two refused to talk to each other again.

The red fox tilted its head in curiosity, even as Naruto shook his head in disappointment.

He felt disappointment towards Sakura, because she showed real promise when he first met her on the playground. In fact, his attention was brought to the one girl in the class that seemed unaffected by the Uchiha's presence: Hinata Hyuuga. She was adorable, and was more assertive than she used to be, which was good in his book. He liked to think that he helped her out with that, but he knew that she probably just got over it or something. He waved and she smiled back.

At that moment, the teacher entered the room. "Hello, class. We shall begin our first lecture after the long break on the biography of the Fourth Hokage. Raised as an orphan, he was immediately hailed as a genius by his peers and instructors, quickly going on to..." As the man's lecture stretched on, Naruto couldn't help but notice all the striking similarities between him and the subject of the class's lecture. Hell, they'd even lived in the same orphanage for a while. Really, how could he not see it? Hindsight bias truly was twenty-twenty.

"Troublesome," muttered someone. Iruka looked annoyed. Shenanigans ensued.  
_

When Naruto got out of school, he went straight for the woods outside the Hidden Leaf to meet Genno and his woodland friends. On the way, he saw the burnt wreck of the Uchiha autonomous district. He almost stumbled, but managed to catch himself before he fell. He continued running past civilization, knowing that being with his animal friends in the woods would act like a balm to his soul. They never rejected him, and he even learned more skills with them than he had in a few months of being enrolled at the Ninja Academy.

This would be the first time that his friends saw him after the Uchiha Massacre, and he couldn't wait to see them. But on his way, he saw something peculiar high up in a tree. "Is that a kunai?" he wondered quietly. The fox on his head yipped, and he decided to climb up and retrieve the blade from its perch high up in the canopy of the woods. Within moments he'd reached the top, his ability to climb trees gained from playing around with some monkeys over the years.

After pulling it out, he noticed a piece of paper written on it, one that had classified information about guard rotations. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the paper, his imagination going into overdrive as he tried to figure out why this was so. He'd heard that several kunoichi from the Hidden Grass Village had supposedly made off with similar information; could this be it? But as he began making his way back to the village to report this to somebody, his sixth sense flared and he ducked to the ground, watching with narrowed eyes as a kunai went through the space his head was occupying moments earlier.

He turned to see where it came from, and immediately saw three stunningly attractive kunoichi in black tactical suits with gray flak jackets. Their hitai denoted them as members of the Hidden Waterfall Village, and something told him they were stronger than the mere civilians he was used to fighting. Hell, if they were genin they'd be able to take on his entire class by themselves. But from the way they looked at him, dismissing him entirely as a threat out of hand, he had a sinking feeling that they were chuunin. This wasn't going to go well for him.

"If thou wants to live, little boy, thou must hand us thy blade," said the one in the center, a beautiful woman with brilliant blonde hair cascading down her body and framing her elfin face. She had a tiny smirk on her face, with one hand resting on her hip and the other outstretched towards him, palm upwards. Apparently this woman, whose enormous breasts were distracting the preadolescent shinobi-in-training, thought that he wouldn't be able to say no to her. The fox atop his head growled threateningly, though nobody took notice of her.

He pulled the paper off the kunai, wondering if the the Hidden Waterfall Village kunoichi were in cahoots with the the Hidden Grass Village shinobi, and stuffed it in his pocket before chucking the knife at her as hard as he could. She lazily side stepped the offending projectile, a frown marring her beautiful face even as she did so. Naruto grinned back at her and proclaimed, "Like hell I'm gonna give something like this to you! Sexy Technique!" before disappearing, along with Yumi, into a puff of steam.

And thus the scrappy blond boy turned into a sexy blonde woman, whose nubile body only had its privacy through the use of steam as her only form of modesty. The incredibly sexy woman then groped her own massive breasts, moaning in a feral manner as she did so. Atop her head was a fox, though where it;s fur was previously red, it was now hot pink.

Had this technique been used against males like every such time in the past, Naruto would've instantly knocked them out and been on his merry way with a story to tell his classmates, though none of them would believe him. Instead, the three women just blinked at his technique, before all hell broke loose.

While the blonde kunoichi gawked and the opposing nude woman and pink fox with rapidly growing anger, the orange-haired woman to her right just started laughing uproariously at the prankster's 'technique'. On the other hand, the woman on her left, a purple-haired woman with mammary glands just as impressive as her cohort, grinned lecherously and said, "Tsukiumi, why don't we show this boy how to properly arouse the opposite sex." Even as she said this, she began slowly removing her flak jacket, stripping in a most seductive fashion.

Tsukiumi's eyes bulged out of her head as she screeched, "Kazehana! Dost thou think such actions necessary?" But both women stopped their bickering and smirked victoriously. While they were taking the brunt of the child's attention, their remaining member, the orangette with a bust just as impressive as her teammates, caught the child in a headlock. Her natural cushioning was resting against the back of the boy's head, and he had half a mind to just lay there and let this treatment continue.

Kazehana extended her hand, shooting a blast of compressed air out of her palm that struck the pink fox before it could bit Rangiku and knocked her dozens of feet away. She'd just used a technique without hand seals or words. That meant that she was a master of futon (Wind) manipulation. Naruto screamed out, "Yumi!" in concerned protest for his beloved friend, and another gust of wind emanated from the kunoichi only to crash into his stomach and steal his breath away.

"Good work Rangiku," said the violet haired Kazehana. "Now get the paper from the brat, and we should be on our way..." she trailed off as she saw something that immediately caught her attention. The boy's shirt was hitched up just enough from his position to show his belly button, as well as the edge of a seal array. "Rangiku, lift his shirt up some more," she commanded sharply, her hair swaying gently in the wind as she said so. If her suspicions turned out to be true...

But Naruto's attention was on the fox, who'd lost her transformation from the vicious hit.

The orangette did as she was instructed, and revealed a sealing array that covered the boy's stomach. "Heavens above," intoned Tsukiumi, whose previous exasperation with Kazehana quickly disappeared as soon as she realized what her fellow kunoichi had discovered. "That's the Hidden Leaf's demonic host, the bearer of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. And his stomach has the Eight Trigram Seal inscribed all over it!"

They were all so excited because, "That's a precious kinjutsu (Forbidden Technique) of the Hidden Leaf derived from Uzumaki fuuinjutsu (Sealing Techniques) methods, which we could reverse engineer if we can successfully take this little runt back home with us," explained the purplette Kazehana. Naruto jerked at hearing his surname used in such a fashion, suddenly knowing that he'd have to get away from these bodacious ninja as fast as he could.

Across the clearing, he saw Yumi blink slowly, and relief flooded through his body. He saw a swallow nearby, one of the most agile birds in all of the Land of Fire, and he whistled innocuously to it. The bird stiffened and turned to him, tilting its head to the side. He nodded, and the bird flew away, chirping up a storm.

"So not only would the Hidden Waterfall gain the Nine-Tails as a weapon, but also a chance to crack the fabled Eight Trigrams Seal? And that's on top of our original mission, which increases the Hidden Waterfall's prominence in the Alliance. This could set our military presence forward by decades!" exclaimed Rangiku, whose lips actually turned upwards at the corner. Normally her face was set into an almost permanent scowl, but this news was just so good that she couldn't help herself. But then all three kunoichi felt a presence nearby and turned defensively.

Naruto's eyes narrowed. He didn't know what Alliance they were referring to, but he wasn't going to speak up now and let them know that he was gathering information from them.

A scraggly old man with beady eyes stepping out from the shadows of a nearby tree. The man had a blank expression on his face as he began approaching the ladies. This was the moment that he'd been waiting for after all these years. "It seems that you often get yourself into the most unusual of situations, Naruto," called Genno, who had watched the entire confrontation from afar, hoping that he wouldn't have to step in but knowing that he'd have to anyway. Besides, this would be a good time to score some more points with the kid, who was an important component to his plan.

"Who're you?" asked Rangiku, whose arms tightened around her captive's neck even tighter in preparation for any move that the old man would take. Age was a deceptive thing in the ninja world. While they couldn't know whether the old man was a shinobi or a civilian, they had to be prepared for the former just in case. And typically, if a shinobi lived to old age, they had some X-Factor that allowed them to live so long with such a dangerous profession.

"Genno-sensei, please-" began Naruto, but his sentence was brutally interrupted with a backhand to his cheek. His head hung limp after that, but Genno could tell that the boy was still conscious. Though from how hard he tilted his head, he'd likely have a concussion. Nearby, Yumi gingerly got to her feet and turned to face the enemy kunoichi.

The man smiled, his eyes calculating as he looked at the gorgeous women. He'd heard rumors that the Hidden Waterfall Village was in the process of following the Hidden Hot-Spring Village's footsteps in becoming a resort village and not a ninja fortress because of their lack of military might, but capturing Naruto could tip the scales the other direction. Hell, the fact that most of the women from the Hidden Waterfall Village looked like super models certainly would help with the transition, but they didn't seem to want to let the shinobi system spit them out.

His reputation as the Trap-Master of Kagero Village was known far and wide over thirty years ago, so much so that the Hidden Leaf went out of its way to kill him, and subsequently destroyed his home village. The story was renowned because it showed that nobody trifled with the Hidden Leaf and got away with it, which made him think that these young ladies might even know his tale. If so, his fearsome name and accompanying legend could get them to think twice about their current course of action.

"My name... is Genno of Kagero Village, but you may know me by the title of Trap-Master," he exclaimed. Their eyes widened, and he knew instantly that they understood just who they were messing with. "So you know of me?" he asked rhetorically. "Good. Then you'll know that I won't hesitate to kill all of you, and have the capability to do so quite easily." As he said this, he pulled a kunai out of his pouch and held it loosely in his dominant hand.

The Trap-Master noticed that the red fox that was almost always by Naruto's side was stalking quietly toward the three kunoichi, whose attention was being held by him.

"If what you say is true, why would you help this boy? He's a military asset to the Hidden Leaf, who destroyed your home village and killed everyone you knew and loved. I've even heard that all the females were raped repeatedly just to get their point across. Surely you can't be allied with the murderers of your children and the rapists of your wife?" said Kazehana.

Naruto twitched as those words penetrated his thoughts of escape. A look of horror came over his face as he turned to Genno, who sighed and nodded grimly. "When I first discovered what had been done, I decided to take vengeance upon the destroyers of my home. I infiltrated the Hidden Leaf and planned to destroy it within by spreading civil unrest and using copious amounts of exploding tags. But then I met Naruto, and I realized that there were more people than just me that'd been wronged by the village. I wanted to give him the chance to take vengeance against everyone that persecuted him..." But the boy wasn't mentally in the right place for him to be okay with it yet.

"So you want us to leave this gold mine of power and knowledge in the Hidden Leaf, your enemy, because there's a chance that he could turn against them?" asked Rangiku, who sounded disbelieving. All three turned to stare at Genno, who nodded slowly and deliberately. Yumi was now inches away from attacking the ankles of the orangette, who still held the nude blonde woman firmly in her grasp.

"The boy deserves as much for what he's been through, and I thought it'd be the perfect form of irony for him to do it with my guidance; poetic justice, if you will," replied Genno. He was watching the boy to gauge his reaction, though the boy seemed unresponsive. The three kunoichi exchanged a look, before nodding as one and turning their attention toward the Trap-Master.

"This child is too valuable to let thy petty revenge ruin our chances. By spiriting him away from the Hidden Leaf, we'll be weakening thy enemies anyway. Just destroy the village by thyself. Thou art qualified to do so, aren't thou?" replied Tsukiumi challengingly. "Or dost thou need the help of a budding child?"

And then Yumi struck, sinking her needle-like teeth into Rangiku's ankle, twisting her head viciously and severing the fantastically beautiful woman's Achilles Tendon. The orangette collapsed with a surprised expression on her face, loosening her grip enough for Naruto to escape her grasp and end his transformation with an explosion of smoke. At the same time, Genno moved forward to strike at Tsukiumi, who appeared to be the most level headed of the kunoichi.

The slash of a blade, the swirling of water, a gust of wind, a dashing shadow, a puff of smoke, and a flash of fangs. When the smoke cleared, and the entire situation was revealed, everyone had a bead of sweat running down their forehead from the sheer tension in the air.

Rangiku was holding Yumi hostage by her ears with a single hand, and had a straight-bladed katana jammed against the little fox's throat. Naruto took note that the tsuba of the katana was in the shape of a cat's head, and it had a dark red handle. She'd had it hidden behind her the entire time, clipped onto her waist. She smirked; clearly the boy cared about his little pet, otherwise he wouldn't have called out for her when she was struck by wind.

Naruto had his own kunai drawn, though it was about half a millimeter away from slicing into his own throat, because if he died the Nine-Tails would die as well and the Eight Trigrams Seal would disappear from his own body as a result, thus rendering the entire conflict pointless. And everyone knew that.

Meanwhile Genno had a bunch of ninja wire wrapped around Tsukiumi's slender throat, and binding Kazehana's arms in a cross against her enormous chest.

Everyone was standing perfectly still, and Rangiku smirked. "You don't have the balls to kill yourself, kid," she said triumphantly, knowing that no seven-year old child in their right mind would ever be capable of ending their own existence so callously, and over such a trifling matter. But then his blade dipped slightly into his skin, the tip of the kunai gently puncturing his neck and allowing rivulets of blood to run down his chest.

Naruto's face was in a frown, and for the first time the woman realized just how feral the boy looked. His spiky, golden hair was matted with mud and dirt, and his skin seemed dingy even. His clothes were torn, their dyes were worn, and the wild look in his eyes made the orangette hesitate. Then she heard growling, all around her. Turning around, she saw that dozens of the forest's denizens were forming a circle around her. There were monkeys, lemurs, and a single swallow in the trees. There were foxes, wolves, and cougars on the forest floor, and she saw the outline of an enormous creäture in the background that looked suspiciously ursine.

She gulped, but tightened her grip on the fox even further, her frantic eyes darting all over the place looking for some way to escape her current situation. "You lose," intoned Naruto. "Genno has your teammates bound, you're surrounded by my reinforcements, and we're just a stone's throw away from the most powerful ninja village on the continent." As he said this, he removed the blade from his neck slowly, and pointed it threateningly at her. "Surrender, and I'll take you directly to the Torture and Interrogation Department. Refuse, and I'll kill you myself.

Rangiku closed her eyes for a moment to think. Since she'd already gotten the paper with the classified information from him, she was technically still close to successfully completing her mission. Unfortunately the loss of Kazehana and Tsukiumi would be devastating to her village...

When she was finished strategizing, she opened her brown eyes with a mischievous glint in them. "I'll surrender if your... teacher lets my accomplices go from his ninja wire. I don't want him killing them as soon as I've lost what little leverage I've got," she bargained. Naruto turned to Genno, and they had a silent conversation with their eyes alone before Genno sighed.

"This is a bad idea, Naruto. I hope you know what you're doing," said the Trap-Master. The Nine-Tails's demonic host nodded and Genno sighed again. "Fine, but if this goes pear shaped I'm going to tell you that I told you so," he mentioned with a token attempt at injecting at least some modicum of brevity into the tense atmosphere. The attempt fell short.

Naruto growled, "My opinion of your opinion is quite low at the moment because of the whole 'manipulating-me-into-hating-my-home-village' thing, but we can discuss that later. For now, just do it." Genno sighed again, wondering if Naruto was going to turn him in after this fiasco was all done and over. He unraveled the ninja wire by channeling his chakra into it and controlling its shape, allowing the two cute ladies to escape from his clutches.

They gingerly walked over to Rangiku, facing the growing horde of animals that were staring her down. "Leave now," whispered Rangiku to Kazehana and Tsukiumi, and they obliged, disappearing in a Body-Flicker technique. Naruto seemed neither surprised by this, nor particularly worried about not being able to see the two kunoichi, knowing that they were truly retreating to some pre-existing rendezvous point. He whistled, and several animals broke off from the throng and chased after them.

"Now let Yumi go," commanded Naruto, his voice gaining a slightly demonic edge as he stared at her.

She nodded, and said, "I think it's great to care about something so much that you are willing to die to protect it. That being said, your compassion will be your downfall." And with that, she slit the fox's throat and punted the dying fox into a nearby tree where the tiny animal's spine snapped upon impact.

Naruto's eyes widened, and he watched in seemingly slow motion as her lifeless carcass fell. When it struck the ground, he was so far beyond angry that he directly bypassed seeing red. He saw violet, and his eyes flashed such for their last time, finally staying purple. He wildly raised his arm and screamed, "SHINRA TENSEI," as loud as he could.

And then there was no forest any longer.

* * *

**A/N: Naruto's Harem is undecided at this point. If you have requests, let me know. Inspiration for this story has come from every Naruto story in my favorites page, though the key players are Drifting, Unsealed Kunai, Hope of the Senju, Nightfall, and Monster. There are others, but they are the only ones I can think of at the moment. Remember to review, follow, favorite, share via communities, post on twitter, link to facebook, and tell your buddies about my stories's awesomeness.**

**What would you rate each of the below categories?**

**1. Environmental Imagery****  
****2. Emotive Descriptions**  
**3. Action Sequences**  
**4. Verisimilitude**  
**5. Characterization**


	3. The Birth of a Dream

**A/N: This chapter is essentially filler, but it's all important. Every scene has been carefully constructed; if something doesn't make sense immediately, it likely will later. A lot of you are wondering what this Naruto is going to be like. This chapter should give you some idea...**

* * *

"External Dialogue,"  
_"Internal Dialogue/Monologue,"  
'Quote/Flashback,'  
_**"Nonhuman Dialogue,"  
**(Translations)  
**(Transitions)**

* * *

The sky was on fire, with streaks of crimson and gold saturating the air as the sun was nearing an end to its descent toward the distant horizon. But Jiraiya wasn't concerned with the setting orb of luminescence. No, he was busy studying other, much more important things. Right before his eyes, water was cascading down into a shallow pool of crystal clear bliss, trickling gently down the rocky outcropping of a nearby waterfall. Standing right next to the falling liquid were a third of a dozen women bathing in the heavenly water, all of whom were completely nude and glistening in the iridescent light of the waning day.

All of the women were kunoichi, and especially capable kunoichi at that. Hana Inuzuka, Anko Mitarashi, Kurenai Yuhi, and Yugao Uzuki were all laughing happily as they playfully splashed water on to each other. Jiraiya was suppressing his presence to a certain extent, but he didn't want to completely hide from the women. He wanted there to be a chance of getting caught, because the risk made the moment that much more succulent. Plus, he wanted to claim it was a training exercise if ever anyone questioned him about it; he was just trying to teach the kunoichi constant vigilance. That was an innocent intention, right?

And, if he happened to come up with any material for his top selling book franchise while he was researching the women, that was just icing on the cake. In all actuality, he made enough money from book royalties to have retired decades ago and lived like a king, but he donated almost all of his earnings to the Hidden Leaf. Plus, his abilities in stealth and his outright fighting ability were head and shoulders above anyone else's, save the Hokage, Tsunade, and Danzo. There was a reason that they were considered the top ninja of the shinobi village.

Even as his musings justifying him peeping on women ran off on to a wild tangent, a memory appeared in his head with an urgent message from his Shadow Clone. He studied it for maybe half a second before he blanched.

Apparently Naruto had gotten himself into a strange situation with three enemy kunoichi from the Hidden Waterfall and the Trap-Master of Kagero Village over information left behind by the the Hidden Grass kunoichi that infiltrated the village barely a week earlier. So apparently they hid the information they'd gathered rather well, and alerted the Hidden Waterfall to their mission status for some reason.

There was information buzzing about in the rumor mill, something about an Alliance of smaller hidden villages, but he hadn't taken the rumors seriously because nothing of the sort had ever occurred in the history of, well, ever. The possibility was simply alarming, and the implications of what such an Alliance could do with whatever information was on that slip of paper were forbidding to say the least. And this event was evidence that just such a coalition of smaller states actually existed.

Needless to say, Jiraiya immediately turned in the direction he knew his godson to be and sprinted as fast as he could, even knowing that it would take him another minute to arrive at the scene. The fact that the four kunoichi below would undoubtedly realize what he was doing didn't concern him in the slightest. If they got in a tizzy over him peeping on them, he'd just remind them that they let their guards down in the first place, which could've gotten them killed if he were an assassin.

As his blurred form moved through the village so fast that none but the most agile of jounin would even be able to perceive him, he felt it. Being someone with positively enormous chakra reserves, his chakra control wasn't up to par and his skills as a sensor were not as legendary as some of his other more touted abilities, but the fact that even his limited skill with the art was enough to pick up that surge of chakra... it meant that whatever was generating that power was unreal. And he knew, from the general direction that it came from, that it likely originated from Naruto.

The fact that the chakra had no hint of demonic energy in it whatsoever was both calming and frightening. That was all Naruto's natural power, which meant that most of it was likely spent in one gigantic surge for some reason. He didn't know what he was going to find at the source of the anomaly, but he knew that he was about to walk into a disaster zone, just from common sense and the boatload of experience he had with these kinds of situations.

Almost instantaneously, he had blazed a trail out of the Hidden Leaf, leaving behind a veritable dust storm in the wake of his rapid movement. As he was moving, he noticed that natural energy was practically fleeing from where the chakra explosion originally came from, and his frown deepened grimly as he continued pounding his feet over cobblestone road, grassy fields, and tree branches to reach his godson in time to save him from whatever he was facing.

Within moments, he arrived at a scene of devastation right out of a documentary on natural disasters. All around him trees were uprooted, boulders and gouged out huge trenches from the crust of the Earth, and there was an inordinate amount of dead animals littered within the debris. He could see the body of one of the Hidden Waterfall kunoichi that he remembered from his Shadow Clone; she was almost certainly not dead, what with her body still being relatively intact, albeit bruised horribly and covered in cuts.

The only reason he recognized the orangette, Rangiku, was the fiery color of her hair capturing his attention. He saw her breathing faintly, so he knew she was still alive but just only. Next to her was the old man Genno, who appeared to be nothing more than a bloody smear on the ground in the aftermath of whatever Naruto did.

And speaking of Naruto, he saw the boy lying unconscious in the epicenter of the devastation, with a tiny crater expanding forth from his supine body and swallowing up the ground for a few feet in all directions. Jiraiya created two Shadow Clone and they already knew what their jobs were so he didn't even have to explain to them what he wanted them to do.

One scooped up Rangiku and Genno into his arms and began running back towards the Hidden Leaf. They would both be spending an undetermined, and possibly indefinite, amount of time in the Torture and Interrogation Department. the Hidden Leaf needed to know what these two knew, so that it could be decided whether they should be sent to Land of Fire's prison or just assassinated. Normally people as dangerous as them were sent to Demon Lantern Castle in the Hidden Grass, but if there was any credence to the rumors about an Alliance of small villages...

Regardless, his other copy went off to search for the purplette Kazehana and the blonde Tsukiumi. Those two knew what the Nine-Tails Host looked like, as well as the fact that he bore the Eight Trigrams Seal to hold the enormous fox back. If they released that information to any of the Hidden Leaf's enemies, Naruto's life would be in serious danger, especially if he was ever allowed to leave the village on any missions. Thus, it was important that he captured those two and brought them in for internment and interrogation as well.

With that taken care of, he gently picked the boy up, holding him carefully bridal style. As he began to turn away from the carnage that the child wrought, he couldn't help but take one closer look at the destruction that the boy was somehow capable of. As he studied it further, he tried to figure out some way for this kind of attack to even be viable, and he couldn't think of anything.

Well, nothing within the realms of possibility.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind kept whispering uncomfortably that _maybe_... but he shut it down as hard as he could, willing his iron-like hold over his mind to nip the budding thought all the way down to the stem. He had, in fact, seen such an odd occurrence before, but this couldn't possibly be...

The thought was beginning to take hold in his mind even though he tried desperately to keep himself from thinking it. If he was wrong, nothing in the world would change. But if he was right, if this was his second chance at guiding a child of prophesy, what would he do? There wasn't much he could do other than teach the boy as much as he could and hope for the best, but what if that wasn't good enough this time either?

But he was getting way ahead of himself. He needed to check whether his baseless speculation was correct, otherwise his panicky thoughts would be completely redundant anyway. Nodding to himself, he reached over and tenderly opened Naruto's eyelids to get a better look. When he saw the tell-tale violet of the one thing that he was both hoping for and fearing against, he allowed the child's eye to close without another comment.

Turning his head to the side, he saw a beam of highly concentrated water perfectly bisect his Shadow Clone, causing it to pop out of existence. Seeing where the laser-like projectile came from, he saw the beautiful blonde Tsukiumi. Standing next to her was the bodacious purplette Kazehana, who had a smirk of superiority on her face. They were some of the strongest ninjutsu users in the whole Hidden Waterfall Village. The only reason they lost to Naruto was, well, there were many reasons, though it mostly came down to being surprised one too many times by the young boy, especially with his last attack.

Jiraiya sighed. Today was much more troublesome than he expected it to be.  
_

Mizuki was walking along silently towards the Torture and Interrogation Department, minding his own business as usual. He was here on the orders of his newly acquired master, a man whose power and cruelty were known throughout the Shinobi Nations, Orochimaru. The fact that the man didn't have a clan name was entirely beside the point, because the man was so powerful it just wasn't even an issue at this point.

He'd been assigned with several tasks, one of which he was currently doing. He was supposed to be checking up on Anko Mitarashi on occasion, just to provide some feedback on Orochimaru's juinjutsu (Cursed Seal Techniques) several years after being implemented on someone. So far the woman didn't appear to have any directly negative feedback to give, though phishing for the information was quite difficult to do for the newly minted chunin.

Luckily, the woman appeared to have something of a soft spot for Iruka Umino, who had just been transferred over to the position of Academy Teacher. And his very first class had the Nine-Tails's host in it, as well as nine heirs or heiresses for the major clans of the village. The man had a lot of pressure, which made getting him to come out on social callings much easier. Thus, he could get Iruka and Anko together.

Everyone always confided in their significant others, which is why he wanted them to get together. She would tell him all about her juinjutsu issues, and he would likely relay them to his best friend to relieve some of the pent up stress of holding onto that kind of information. Luckily, Mizuki actually had been friends with Iruka growing up, which meant that, with a little effort, he could easily get the Academy instructor to confide in him as well.

Which is why he was also joining the educational department, though that was only one reason. Among the many important tasks bequeathed unto him by his new and powerful master was the crucial job of keeping an eye out on the next generation of shinobi, flagging who would be a threat and either eliminating them or turning them over to Orochimaru's side. And being the contact for defection from a major hidden village was no laughing matter, which showed just how much trust the ophidian man had in him.

Anyway, as he was approaching the T&I Headquarters, he bumped into a man who was just as famous and skilled as Orochimaru. Jiraiya of the Legendary Three was carrying two people in each of his arms like rucksacks, totaling in four people altogether. Three of them were beautiful kunoichi, and one was a scraggly old man. Deciding that this could be of interest to his master, he jovially followed the member of the Legendary Three, whistling cheerfully as he did so.

When they both walked into the door around the same time, Mizuki got the scoop on the story.

Ibiki, the Head of the Department, questioned, "Jiraiya, was that enormous pulse of chakra from you?" The scarred man seemed genuinely impressed with the sheer magnitude of the Toad Sage's power, but the silver haired just smiled wistfully and shook his head in the negative.

"That powerful chakra anomaly actually came from Naruto. He was fighting these four, and ended up going a little overboard. He'd now suffering from chakra exhaustion, and I've placed him in the hospital. I'm not sure what he did, but a massive portion of the forest outside our quaint little village has been completely leveled. Honestly, the kid's got more power than almost anybody else I know," answered Jiraiya proudly, though both Mizuki and Ibiki got the feeling that he wasn't telling the whole truth.

"On that note, hey Ibiki, have you seen Anko around?" asked Mizuki nonchalantly. On the inside though, he was seething. So the blond brat who was starting to make a name for himself fighting bullies and taking pranks had the power to just destroy forests? No, it had to be the fox inside him. No ordinary seven-year old child would have the strength to commit such a feat, even if they did go into a coma just to recover from the ordeal. And if the fox could channel that much power into the boy, that meant that the seal was weakening or the fox was taking over the boy's body or something.

And Jiraiya had the gall to act proud of the little freak, as if this accomplishment, using the powers of a demon to be successful in a fight, was a great achievement. Luckily Mizuki was good at acting, otherwise his disgust would likely have given him away to the member of the Legendary Three and jounin respectively, which was tantamount to forfeiting his life out of hand.

Surprisingly the silver haired ninja beat the scarred interrogator to the punch and answered, "She was bathing with Hana, Kurenai, and Yugao about five minutes ago near a waterfall in one of the fancier commercial districts. I assume she's still in that general area, since there was no orders from her commanding officer to survey the area in response to the chakra anomaly. Go check there for her."

Sighing, Ibiki questioned, "And how exactly do you know that she and three other highly trained and incredibly lethal women were bathing together?" He already knew the answer, in fact it was a rhetorical question, but it was always funny to point out one of the Gallant Jiraiya's many faults to people who'd never actually met him before, in this case Mizuki.

"... That's not important right now. What is important, is that these four need to be restrained and interrogated immediately. I'll debrief you on the matter at hand soon, because the subject is classified, and there is a fresh chuunin just kinda standing there. On a related note, the blonde is an accomplished Water Release user, the purplette is a master of Wind Release, the orangette is an accomplished user of kenjutsu, and the old man is the Trap-Master of Kagero Village."

Mizuki's eyes widened at the last man's identity. It was a testament to Jiraiya's raw power and ability that he was capable of taking out a man of that calibre, especially if the man was reinforced with three kunoichi as capable as he made them out to be. But knowing that staying any longer than he already was would quickly wear out his welcome and start looking suspicious, Mizuki turned and happily said, "Well, I've gotta find Anko. I'll see you guys around, yeah?"

And as soon as he was out of that room, his eyes narrowed in concentration. This was a windfall for him, because he didn't expect anything this fortuitous to happen to him. A scheme started forming in his head, one that was both dastardly and daring. As he moved down the hall, he chuckled slightly. It seemed that he would have some extra firepower in the future after all.  
_

Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was sitting contentedly in its cage, an eyebrow raised as it scrutinized its jailor. **"You do realize what you just did, right?"** asked the behemoth fox, whose tails were splayed out behind it and wagging lazily through the air. Honestly, he could tell deep down that the boy had lots of potential that could be unlocked through proper guidance, but this was a little unreal.

The pipes of the boiler room looked shinier than they used to.

Staring back at him was the golden-haired, formerly blue-eyed boy, who seemed more dazed than anything else. "Yumi... is dead," he muttered, seemingly not even noticing whether the giant fox was even talking to him. The effects of this incident would probably have some profound impacts on the boy's psyche, especially when compounded with witnessing both the Uchiha Massacre and Hyuuga Affair. But the fox's psychoanalysis would have to wait, because there was an important matter at hand.

**"That's true. I doubt you'll ever trust foreign shinobi again, huh?"** responded the monolithic chakra construct acerbically. Between Genno's subterfuge, the Hidden Waterfall kunoichi's treachery, and the actions of the the Hidden Cloud jounin commander... well, people tended to be much less gullible when confronted with the fact that they were deceived and manipulated, and Naruto was no exception. That didn't mean that the fox was actually going to develop any form of sympathy or empathy with the boy, however. And it was high time he reminded the kid that he was an unfeeling monster.

"How can you be so flippant about this?" said Naruto through gritted teeth. "I just saw the death of one of the only constant influences in his life, at the hands of a foreign kunoichi no less, _and you think it's appropriate to crack jokes_?" said Naruto, his anger becoming more and more palpable with ever second that it was allowed to fester just beneath the surface. He felt like he was going to explode soon. And, even if it were a literal explosion, he wasn't sure if he would really care all that much.

He just felt so empty inside. Idly noting that the fox was glowing with brilliant red light for some reason, he shook his head and tried to start calming down. That kind of emotional outburst was exactly the reason that he was in this situation in the first place.

**"Let it all out, kid. Life sucks and people die; you just have to move on afterward,"** answered the callous fox. **"Did you think I would be your psychiatrist? I've killed more things with the flick of my tail than you could even begin to fathom, but I feel no guilt or remorse for my actions because that's the kind of world we live in. If you want to prevent unnecessary death in the future, I suggest you grow a spine and get stronger. Otherwise, you'll lead a sad and pathetic life,"** intoned the fox. Like that was going to help the boy's issues any time soon.

"Then that is what I'll do," exclaimed Naruto. He'd heard in the past that people could get much stronger if they fought for some ideal that they believed in, but had never really thought about it beyond noting it. But that insight was starting to make sense to him. "But I would really only be treating the symptoms of the issue if I just did that, wouldn't I?" he asked, thinking aloud. "You said that's the kind of world we live in, but what if we didn't? What if..." but he trailed off as his eyes looked dazed.

The boy was thinking about something very important.

**"And now you've piqued my interest. How so?"** questioned the fox, intrigued at the prospect of meeting a human that actually thought about the bigger picture. Very few did, often quarreling with their enemies so thoroughly that they forgot the factors that lead to these kinds of the situations. Even less could follow those tensions back to the source of the matter, and find a solution to the underlying problems.

"It's because I don't even blame the kunoichi themselves for their actions, not really. Because can I say, honestly, that I don't understand their motivations? They fit in with their villages, and the populace accepted them. They were fighting for their home, to better the lives of the people they cared about, even if the means to do so were a bit questionable," said Naruto. "I blame the shinobi system itself, because it is what breeds the violence that encroaches on any attempts at peace, cutting them off at the head."

The gargantuan mass of glowing fur, claws, and fangs nodded to for the boy to continue talking, and Naruto did with much gusto.

"I was never afforded the luxury of acceptance, which was something that I've yearned for throughout almost the entirety of my life. But there was a short beacon of hope sticking out of the darkness for me, a nice and bashful girl named Hinata Hyuuga that didn't reject me. In fact, she was truly nice to me without any hidden agenda behind her actions, more so than anybody else in all of the Hidden Leaf, though Ayame, Teuchi, and Hiruzen were close. And a memento of her compassionate personality was Yumi, who was his constant companion and a reminder of the rewards for doing good deeds," exclaimed the blond.

But she was taken away from him, killed mercilessly right before his eyes by a woman that was heartless and cruel. And in his brief lapse into the temptations of wrathful retribution, he had obliterated her with a sense of purposeful vindication. He felt no guilt over harming Rangiku, because even though he didn't blame her specifically for her actions, he also didn't blame himself for harming her.

No, it was the collateral damage that hurt him the most; he felt soul crushing sorrow and remorse for the callous disregard he had for the lives of all the animals, who he'd considered to be his friends, that were in the vicinity of his last attack.

**"What do you mean?"** asked the vulpine monstrosity. The powerful being had a general idea of the direction that his container's thoughts were going, but the only conclusion that the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox could come up with, at least if his assumptions about the paradigm shift that was starting to take place in Naruto's mind were correct anyway, was simply inconceivable. The end goal was a worthy pursuit, but the means to accomplish such a feat would be staggering, and he doubted the child had the stomach for the kinds of sacrifices that such an endeavor would surely require.

"Even if I had the strength to stop all the fighting between villages, the violence would still fester. It would likely start back up as soon as my attention was elsewhere, and it would immediately come back as soon as I die. You see, I shouldn't have to be strong to stop unnecessary bloodshed. Why does the world have to be like this? Why can't I just make it so that people don't end up in these kinds of situations? Why do I need to be a protector when there's clearly nobody else willing to put aside their differences?" said Naruto

**"So you want to change the world?"** mused the fox. **"You can't do that as a scrawny weakling. You need power to end the current system, power that you don't yet have. Don't get me wrong, you've laid down a great foundation to build from, but it'll take years for you to get to that point. And by that point, you'll be so corrupted by the power you wield that you won't care anymore,"** he exclaimed, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. He'd seen many mortals walk down a similar path with similar goals in mind, and none had ever been successful. Not even his creator, though his legacy was long lasting.

"That would never happen," said Naruto, his violet eyes blazing with fury. "I will never get to that point. I've already lost control once. It won't be happening again, I can assure you." He remembered the feeling of releasing his anger in one powerful pulse. His rational mind had been eroded away by the corrosive influence of hatred towards Rangiku, and his succumbing to it showed a lack of maturity that he would stamp out of himself through any means necessary.

He would never lose control of his emotions, thoughts, or actions ever again. That was the single deliberation that he could come to in regards to the consequences of his actions. He'd slaughtered dozens of his animal friends in the pursuit of petty vengeance, and his drive for the instant gratification of wiping that Hidden Waterfall kunoichi off the face of the Earth was responsible for it. Never again.

He clenched his fists, feeling a sense of self-loathing for killing so many living things so intense that bile coated the inside of his throat, burning his airways and bringing stinging tears to his eyes. But there was no use in crying, because there was no way that he could ever take back what he did. The closest thing he could do to sooth his fractured conscience would be to never do anything so reckless without forethought. He would gain control over his emotions, and his newfound power, whatever it may be.

"Nine-Tails... I need your help," he said softly. "Teach me everything I need to know to gain discipline over myself. What happened just now, the atrocity I just committed, should never happen again. And after what I just did... speaking of which, what did I just do? I've never even heard of someone doing anything like that before. And the words Shinra Tensei just kinda fell out of my mouth on instinct. I have a feeling that you know," he accused with a pointed finger, as if the fox wouldn't know who the blond was talking to.

**"You just used one of the signature techniques of the Rinnegan,"** proclaimed the Nine-Tails, **"-and I'm only telling you this because I've deemed your goal worthy of pursuing. What you just did, was activate your doujutsu for the first time."**

"I didn't know that I had a doujutsu," said Naruto in disbelief, and then slight doubt. After all, he didn't really have a lot of trust to give out at the moment, and the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was renowned for being a skilled deceiver and liar. "And I'd like to think that I'd notice something like that at some point over the course of my life," he said pointedly. Why in the world would he, Naruto, have a doujutsu? And what would his eyes have to do with shooting some unknown concussive force out of his hands anyway?

**"Look in a mirror,"** said the enormous demon, who seemed bored even in its attempts to ease the suspicion that Naruto was regarding its words with. If it wanted to lie to Naruto, it would use a much less subtle prompt than that he'd awakened a fabled bloodline limit. Anything else in the entire world of possibilities was much more plausible than that. It seemed that the old adage about the truth being much less believable than fiction was a fairly accurate observation by whoever said it.

Since there was no mirror down in the dank sewer that they were currently residing, Naruto looked at his reflection in the water for the first time since arriving there, finally noticing that his eyes were an intense shade of violet, extending past the point were his pupils normally ended and continuing all the way to the end of his sclera. "Well that's freaky. Is there any way to get the eyes I was born with back?" he commented with some disconcerting undertones. That would be a difficult thing to hide, which would make him that much more likely to be attacked by enemy shinobi.

**"Technically you were born with the Rinnegan, but it just didn't manifest until just now,"** replied the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. **"I've never heard of anyone being unable to deactivate their doujutsu, so you should be capable of doing so. I assume that all you have to do is stop letting chakra saturate your eyeballs and the optic nerves that they're connected to."**

In response to the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's statement, Naruto did as was suggested with a look of concentration scrunching up his face. His eyes were screwed shut as he did this, and when he opened them, they were the same brilliant cerulean that he was actually used to seeing. Grinning, Naruto did a tiny victory dance before remembering that he was still in the middle of an important conversation.

Plus, he looked a little ridiculous while he was doing that dance, but that wasn't the deciding factor at all, and neither was embarrassment at being caught doing something so immature for that matter.

"Why did it wait seven years before showing up? Is there some trigger...? Wait a minute, I bet that was the bloodline limit that was being restrained by the sealing array that Itachi destroyed," exclaimed Naruto, only just now remembering the ninja he spoke of shooting black flames out of his eyeballs, and briefly wondering if he would be able to do something similar with his own doujutsu. Sighing, he commented, "So I guess that means that I owe Itachi, though I wonder why he didn't just kill me too. I heard he also spared his mother Mikoto and brother Sasuke."

**"That was my guess too. The Rinnegan has been trying to come through for a while, but this was the first chance it's gotten. Normally it requires some form of trauma to awaken, though I guess your life was just so depressing that it tried to awaken over the start,"** spoke the titanic monster, whose voice was laced with an odd combination of amusement and, though this second sentiment was much harder to notice because it was unintentionally slipped in, a mild amount of guilt.

"Thanks for that commentary on my life story," said Naruto dryly, deciding to overlook the tiny slip in tone that the demonic being had accidentally allowed to enter his voice. After all, the being had made a great point earlier that it could be actively harming him with its chakra, and it was best not to step on the pride of an almost omnipotent being as egotistical as the giant fox. "On a related note, you seem to have some experience with Rinnegan. Care to explain what you know?" asked Naruto, knowing that it wasn't related at all.

Rolling his enormous eye at the failed attempt to overlook his momentary slip, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox decided to spare the miserable human's life, which he contemplated ending as soon as his own mistake was acknowledged. Also, there was a chance that this boy was the person that the Nine-Tails's father spoke of...

**"There have been a few bearer of the Rinnegan over the centuries, but the most important person to do so was a man you know as the Sage of Six Paths, someone that was so powerful that his legend and legacy are still spoken of with wonder and awe in contemporary society..."** and thus began the gargantuan construct of chakra's lesson on the history of the revered doujutsu.  
_

Kabuto Yakushi stood silently at the foot of Naruto Uzumaki's hospital bed. This was his chance to swipe some of the brat's blood, and the silver-haired henchman knew just how valuable an opportunity like this was. The Uzumaki clan was renowned worldwide for their impressive vitality, and their combat prowess and talents with the sealing arts were well documented. In fact, they were so respected and feared that it took a combined assault from the Hidden Stone, the Hidden Cloud, and the Hidden Mist to finish the Hidden Whirlpool during the Second Great War. As Kabuto prepped a syringe to take some of the boy's blood, he couldn't help but think about how much this would advance his plans.

The Uzumaki bloodline limit gave them amazing longevity; Mito Uzumaki was noted for being born long before the ninja village system even came into being, yet living all the way until the Third Hokage's rein. There were stories about members of the clan having the ability to survive mortal injuries through sheer willpower, only to heal from them later with their rapid healing rate. Their powerful bodies never allowed their muscles to succumb to atrophy, and they were immune to any lethal poisons and toxins that got into their bloodstream. They almost never got sick, and had nearly unlimited stamina, capable of going days without sleep as long as they had a sustainable source of food.

And if the Nine-Tailed Demon fox had somehow tainted this precious blood with its noxious chakra, he could always experiment on that as well. The way the tailed beast's chakra was capable of being both corrosive and incendiary was intriguing to the bespectacled shinobi, so much so that he was willing to see just what effects it would have in conjunction with the Cursed Seal or Black Blood.

If he could replicate any of the Uzumaki bloodline abilities or find some way to actually utilize the fox's chakra in the shinobi of the Sound Village, their chances of success would grow exponentially. He could imagine gene therapy curing Kimimaro Kaguya of his terminal illness, granting Juugo a measure of control over his blood lust, or even curing Kurona of his own unique brand of insanity. What if he could combine the Cursed Seal and Black Blood with this information? The thought sent a shiver down the subordinate's spine.

Licking his lips as the only outward sign of his greed, he began drawing blood from the boy's arm. Luckily this blood would be replaced very quickly by the boy's natural healing factor. He was glad that he was getting this chance now, before the boy matured. There likely wouldn't ever be a similar moment of vulnerability in this child in the future, because members of the Uzumaki clan tended to become incredibly powerful after they turned thirteen or so. Between their instinctual grasp of fuuinjutsu, their fabled nintaijutsu and kenjutsu styles, and their exalted chakra chains, it was a wonder how they lost to the armies of the Hidden Cloud, the Hidden Stone, and the Hidden Mist.

When the needle was filled to the top with the precious life essence of the blond child, Kabuto grinned and stowed it away. As he turned to leave the room, he couldn't help but at least say something to the shinobi-in-training. "I can't wait to see how powerful you'll be in a few years. By that point, you should've progressed to a point where you'll be a worthy foe for Orochimaru and I. I wonder how that confrontation will go?" he said, his self satisfied smirk easily visible from his position.

Deciding to leave quickly before anyone walked in on him, he swept out the door and into the hall. He could tell that this blood was going to be the key to their future success.  
_

"The Sage of Six Paths sounds familiar, but I've only ever heard it used with vague terms in regards to any one person. Who was he?" asked Naruto. It sounded like something that was only vaguely covered in the history class at the Ninja Academy, and the fact that Iruka just kept droning on and on in his boringly monotonous voice didn't help matters at all.

**"His true name was Hagoromo Outsutsuki, was born as one of two children to Kaguya Outsutsuki , a princess who ate the forbidden fruit of the God-Tree that appeared once a millennium in an effort to gain god-like abilities, which she used to put an end to the constant wars during that era. As a result, Hagoromo was born with the ability to manipulate the same type of powerful chakra as his mother,"** began the Nine-Tails.

"So he was the first human ever actually born with the power to manipulate chakra?" asked Naruto, to clarify. If that was the case, then that man was the forefather of every single shinobi alive, along with his brother. From their loins sprouted clans, which became tribes, which combined into nations. And those nations formed countries and empires that spanned the continent. It was unbelievable if you stopped to think about it.

**"Yes, now shut up. The God-Tree, furious with Kaguya's actions, was determined to get its chakra back, which caused the tree to assume a monstrous form that would come to be known as the Ten-Tails. The Ten-Tails rampaged throughout the lands until Hagoromo, with help from his brother, managed to defeat the beast by becoming its host, causing him to be revered as a god for the virtue of his victory,"** continued the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

"Well I don't really wanna be renowned as a god for helping people, but I'd like to stop the senseless violence of our world too..." said Naruto breathlessly. But with that kind of reputation backing his ideology, surely even somebody as lonely as himself would be capable of forming some form of peaceful accord between the shinobi villages.

**"Your paltry power is like a grain of sand, compared to his being an entire planet. Don't compare yourself to him. Anyway, with his knowledge of the concept of chakra, Hagoromo travelled across the land, giving chakra to others as well as spreading his ideals and religion, shinobi sect, which eventually became the ability known as ninjutsu, and his great deeds and wish to bring peace to the war-torn world made him widely known as the Savior of this World,"** said the gigantic pointy-eared demon.

This man was clearly after Naruto's own heart, though it seemed that he wasn't quite effective in having permanence to his accomplishments. It seemed like Naruto would need to study the man and learn from his mistakes, if there were any, for his dream to actually come to fruition. And then beyond all that, he would also maybe be able to find out how the man became so powerful, and hopefully emulate the practice so that he too could become strong. Strength gained to protect the weak. It was a noble goal, and one that he would have succeed.

**"His final wish was to set up peace across the world, but it was a goal that would never be achieved in a single lifetime. Knowing this, he chose to entrust his dream and legacy to his two sons, and began to teach them the shinobi sect. The older son, Indra, was acknowledged by Hagoromo as a true prodigy, who quickly began to revel in his natural prowess and became very solitary,"** said the tailed beast.

Naruto felt some instinctual dislike toward Indra. Maybe that the long-dead man was hailed as a prodigy garnered some form of animosity towards him from Naruto, but he had the oddest, sinking suspicion that Indra was going to be a bad dude in this story. The fact that he was far from being a prodigy, and had to work incredibly hard just to survive made it difficult to relate to Indra. He was too much like that boy Sasuke Uchiha, too proud of his own innate talent that he wasn't willing to work that hard. Though, that attitude had changed somewhat in Sasuke recently. The need for vengeance could do wonders for someone's work ethic apparently.

**"The younger son, Asura, proved to be the exact opposite, having shown no special abilities or natural talent, but he pushed on through his limitations, growing stronger and more mature because of his struggles and making friends along the way. Hagoromo acknowledged Asura's chosen path, agreeing that love and coöperation were the true key to peace,"** continued the demon.

Blinking, the newest barer of the Rinnegan began contemplating that last sentence. Love and coöperation, along with the inherent power that Asura gained through hard work and determination were the way to go it seemed. So, he'd have to be willing to trust other people so that he could allow his dream to become reality? It couldn't be that simple, could it? Naruto frowned in thought as he continued to think about the implications of this revelation, though he continued paying attention to the fox's story.

**"Inspired by his younger son, the Sage of Six Paths separated the Ten-Tails's chakra within his body and used his Banbutsu Sozo (Creation of All Things) ability to divide it into nine separated bodies, creating the tailed beasts and giving each a name. As a result of extracting them all at once, Hagoromo was left weakened and incapacitated for several months, though the powerful life force of the Ten-Tails's husk kept him alive,"** continued the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

So the tailed beasts were all derived from the Ten-Tails's chakra, which was originally a God-Tree... So did that mean that the fox before him was part tree? And apparently the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox had a name. How interesting. Something told him that the fox wouldn't tell him its name anytime soon, so he refrained from asking at the moment, but he made a note to keep this point of curiosity in mind for the future.

**"Soon after our creation, the young tailed beasts were told that they were all still linked to one another despite being separate entities. Our father eventually used Chibaku Tensei (Devastating Planetary Construction) to seal the husk of the Ten-Tails in what would become the moon. On his deathbed, he chose Asura to be his successor, but Indra, overcome by bitterness and envy, fought against his brother, beginning a war between them that would continue through their descendants, the Senju and Uchiha clans respectively,"** finished the monolithic demon fox.

"That story is so unbelievable that it's surreal, but I have a feeling that you're actually telling the truth," said Naruto, amazed at what he'd just heard. The story was certainly difficult to believe, what with the amount of power that the two brothers facing the Ten-Tails must have had, especially if it had the power of the One-Tailed Monster Racoon, Two-Tailed Monster Cat, Three-Tailed Giant Turtle, Four-Tailed Monkey King, Five-Tailed Horned Horse, Six-Tailed Giant Slug, Seven-Tailed Rhinoceros Beetle, Eight-Tailed Giant Fox, and Nine-Tailed Demon Fox combined. And then he _absorbed its power_, which meant that this Hagoromo guy was probably the strongest shinobi to ever live, and even he failed to create lasting peace.

**"The Rinnegan grants so many abilities that it would take forever to list them all off, but I can at least try. The Rinnegan has different ability paths, and there are seven paths altogether, though one of them is quirky to say the least. They are Human Path, Animal Path, Asura Path, Preta Path, Naraka Path, Deva Path, and Outer Path,"** said the fox.

"What do each do?" wondered Naruto. If he was getting seven new abilities opened up to him, he was going to experiment with them as much as he could so that he could surprise almost anybody that he came across in a fight. Though, in opposition to his newfound bloodline ability, he didn't want his ocular based powers to become a crutch of sorts for him, like he knew the Sharingan had become for the Uchiha and the Byakugan had for the Hyuuga. His eyes wouldn't be his only tools, though they'd be incredibly helpful.

**"That's for you to find out,"** replied the fox, causing Naruto to deflate slightly at the anticlimactic statement.**"You must unlock each path before you can use them, and this requires you to complete their individual trials. Because you just unlocked your Rinnegan, I assume you were cut some slack since you were in the middle of a harrowing ordeal and were allowed to use a single technique from the Deva Path's arsenal. Each path is powerful, just in their own ways. Keep that in mind, Naruto,"** explained the great tailed beast.

Naruto entered a thinking pose for a moment, allowing his mind to sift through all the information that he'd learned over the course of their short conversation. It seemed that his new goal to change the world had one primary objective so far: get stronger. And to do that, he'd have to be willing to use his eyes, which would require at least some rudimentary amount of control over the seven paths. That would take some hard work, but he wouldn't complain about that. "Alright, so how do I find out what their trials are?" he asked.

**"You must make contact with them first,"** answered the monolithic fuzzball, who had expected the question Naruto asked and had come up with the most circuitous answer that he could think of, because verbal jousting annoyed his container enormously, and the fox found that to be more amusing than he probably should. Besides, the boy needed some more training in the art of being verbose, which had been improved upon by Genno, but still needed lots of work.

"Well that kinda goes without saying. And how would I go about making contact with them?" said Naruto with slight annoyance. It seemed that the tailed beasts was quite good at getting under his skin, though he was quite literally already under it and sealed away for being a demon capable of destroying mountains and raising tsunamis with a casual flick of any one of its nine massive tails, so it shouldn't be all that surprising.

**"Through meditation, which is also how you'll commune with me. Once you're capable of reaching each realm that houses a path, then you will be able to communicate with them. To do that, you'll have to be able to create astral projections and inject them into the various realms, which will require you to achieve some form of enlightenment,"** explained the orange-furred fox.

"Do you have any suggestions for reaching enlightenment?" Naruto wondered. He didn't have a lot of hope for getting any good information about enlightenment from a demon, but it couldn't hurt all that much to at least ask, could it? After all, if the fox was as old as he was led to believe that it was, surely it had at least some amount of experience with the concept.

**"I'd recommend asking another human for help in that department. I'm really not all that helpful with human souls, unless you want suggestions about how to go about devouring them,"** said the Nine-Tails. And then Naruto groaned. **"Though, it might be easier to attain if you just reorganize your mindscape..."**said the gargantuan fox whose nine tails swirled about playfully. Naruto had a bad feeling about this...  
_

Jiraiya and Hiruzen were standing in the Hokage's office, the latter staring out a window with his back to the former, a sign of the deep level of trust between the two. Normally shinobi would never dare to turn their back on anyone, even if they were from the same village. Anybody could go rogue at any time, and that meant that trust only went as deep as the bonds forged on the field of battle. But these two were master and student, with their relationship almost like a father and his son.

"This is monumental," muttered Hiruzen, looking at the caricature of his own face etched into the stone edifice that loomed over the village. He supposed the carved heads of the previous Hokage were supposed to symbolize that they'd always be watching vigilantly over the village, but it just seemed like a way to inflate the imaginations of lesser men with bigger egos. The job wasn't about fame or fortune, it was about what you were willing to sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Chiefly, the Hokage needed to lay down their lives on the field of battle, or they would be dishonored.

Honor among shinobi, the stealthy assassins whose greatest tools were deception and cruelty. Hiruzen's mouth twitched in wry amusement at the very thought of such an ironic notion. That was just the way their world worked.

"Indeed. I can't believe that I've stumbled upon a second child who's awakened the Rinnegan. Coincidentally, both are descendants of the Uzumaki clan. It makes me think that they're direct descendants of the Sage of Six Paths," said the resident spymaster of the Leaf. He knew all sorts of antiquated historical accounts, trivial rumors currently circulating, and obscure mythological references. It was in his job description to absorb every scrap of information that he could get his hands on.

"We cannot let news of this get outside our village. Hell, we can't even let certain elements of our own village know," commented Hiruzen, stating the obvious. If Danzo caught wind of this through any of his numerous supporters throughout the shinobi forces and civilian sector, or even if the turncoats working for Orochimaru as spies learned of this, it would spend the end of Naruto's life as he knew it. The boy would be requisitioned by the Root whether officially or not, or the child's eyes would mysteriously disappear. Neither potential course of action was agreeable to either of the old men, so they had to come up with a solution quickly.

"I can bring him with me while I travel around looking for Tsunade and Orochimaru," said Jiraiya, unsurely. "Though I think it might be better if I hold off on following that Snake around while Naruto is still learning. I could always drop him off with someone I trust to act as his teacher for a short while whenever I continue tracking the Traitor..." he added warily. There was less than a handful of people in the entire world that he trusted with Naruto's safety at the moment. The only reason he left the boy alone in the hospital is because there wasn't any chance of anybody harming him yet, since news hadn't gotten out yet.

"Between his parentage, his burden, and now his newly opened eyes... I guess Fate decided that Naruto couldn't be afforded to have a normal life. I think you and Tsunade protecting and training him for the next few years would be the best course of action, at least for now. But are you truly willing to take on another pupil?" asked the Third Hokage as a puff of smoke left his pipe. "I trust you to do the job well, but if your responsibilities with your information network are too demanding..." he said, allowing his student one chance to back out.

His spiky white hair shook back and forth as he answered, "Naruto is my responsibility now. I owe this much to Minato and Kushina, and I've got the key to the Eight Trigrams Seal. With both me and Tsunade training him personally from a young age, he should be quite powerful for his age group. How long do you think I should keep him away? It wouldn't do for him to miss out on forming bonds with people his age too much, otherwise he won't fit in very well with the next generation of the Leaf's shinobi."

Hiruzen nodded as he struck a concentrating pose, inspecting the dilemma from every angle that he could think of. "It seems like it'd be best to bring him back for the graduation ceremony of the class he's currently in, even if he's only been in it for a few weeks. I know he's already missed a lot of days, but even the tiniest amount of familiarity with his future comrades should be enough for now. As soon as he is able to, you're taking him out of the village. Make sure to notify the Academy that he will be temporarily withdrawing, though he will eventually return..."  
_

Naruto opened his eyes blearily, blinking and stretching in a feline manner. He was surrounded by sterile white walls, a white ceiling, a white floor, and wrapped in white blankets. He must've had a pretty bad headache, because the whole world seemed to be dully glowing. He groaned, "I really hate hospitals." And this time, far different from last time, there was no grandfatherly chuckle to his proclamation. Instead, there was a gruff throat clearing, and he turned toward the source to see a man that he wasn't familiar with.

The unusual guy had long, spiky silver hair. His face seemed timeless, and Naruto couldn't tell if the guy was in his mid thirties or mid fifties. He also noticed that the man seemed to be made of white light, and it hurt a little to look at him. "Hello, my name is Jiraiya," he introduced himself, leaning comfortably back in his chair. "And you must be Naruto," said the man with the strange hair style. The ninja-to-be nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he warily scrutinized the man.

"Do I know you?" he asked uncomfortably, and he was eerily reminded of how Genno had introduced himself. Why was it that old men kept trying to befriend him? It was more than a little creepy, and he had a feeling that the other man knew exactly what he was thinking. The child sniffed again and asked, "How could I trust you, old man? The last time I opened up to somebody like that, they used it to their own advantage. And I refuse to become somebody's plaything ever again." His voice, starting out tremulous, had gained power and determination the further into that statement that Naruto got, until eventually the words rang out in the relative silence of the hospital.

Shaking his head, Jiraiya said, ""You can trust me because I was the teacher of the Fourth Hokage, young one. I doubt your father would appreciate you yelling at the man who taught him everything he knew," responded Jiraiya coolly. He noticed that the boy didn't even react to the knowledge of his parentage, which meant that the kid already knew the truth. Did Hiruzen just forget to mention it to him?

"Ah, so you knew my father? Well, that makes one of us doesn't it?" said Naruto harshly, allowing some of his bitterness to seep into his voice.

Feeling a little unbalanced by the child's wrathful tone, Jiraiya decided to elaborate, "You might know me by my title, 'Jiraiya of the Legendary Three.' I'm a powerful shinobi, and a pretty good author if I do say so myself." Naruto tilted his head to the side in thought, a pattern of behavior that he'd subconsciously picked up from Yumi over the course of two years of constant companionship. The thought of his old friend made him miss her comforting warmth and the catharsis he gained from petting her, and a single tear ran down his face.

Naruto was familiar with the name. It'd come up several times during their summary of the Second Great War, and he knew that the man was a prized student of his grandfather-figure, the Third Hokage. He decided to believe the man about his identity. "Jiraiya, what have I done?" asked Naruto, a tiny sniffle making it out of his iron will. "I-I can't believe... what did I do?" he continued quietly, briefly forgetting that the man was still sitting there.

"Just tell me what happened, and I can help you work through it," said Jiraiya, his voice soothing. While he had a general idea of the course of events that led to his deceased student's son awakening the Rinnegan, he wanted to be sure. Making an incorrect inference at this stage could mean a world of difference, and he couldn't afford for this conversation to go wrong.

The boy didn't look convinced that he cared.

"I'm here because I'm worried about you. I found you half dead from chakra exhaustion in the center of a disaster zone, surrounded by four enemy ninja, one of whom was famous a few decades ago for being a Trap-Master in a league of his own. And, when I checked your eyes, I saw that you'd activated your true bloodline ability, the Rinnegan," explained Jiraiya.

Naruto could understand an ageless beast like the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox knowing what his new eyes were. Hell, he even bought the insane story that it told him about its own creation. But he couldn't believe that some random guy that he'd never met before knew what the Rinnegan was. Narrowing his violet eyes even further, Naruto questioned, "How do you know what my eyes are?"

Noting the defensiveness of the boy's tone, Jiraiya took care to answer. "I once met another boy much like you long ago in a distant place called the Village Hidden in the Rain, during the Second Great War. He was an orphan, along with two others. This boy, Nagato, also bore those eyes and he used them to gain vengeance on those that murdered his parents. I taught him and his friends ninjutsu so they could protect themselves in the war torn country, and I watched as he developed the power of his eyes," he said decisively. _"I can help you use those eyes__,"_ was the message hidden in that statement.

Looking at the man quizzically, Naruto sighed in acquiescence and spoke, "I was going to meet Genno for a lesson; he's taught me lots of stuff since I met him a few years ago. On my way, I found a kunai imbedded in a tree. It had classified information about the guard rotation on it, which I assume was from the captured the Hidden Grass kunoichi a few weeks ago. A group of Hidden Waterfall kunoichi appeared and wanted the kunai, but I refused to give it to them. We fought, and Genno saved me. They began talking, and I realized that he was just using me to destroy the Leaf. Then one of them killed my best friend, Yumi, and I... lost it..."

So that's what happened. Jiraiya nodded in understanding and said, "And now you have a pair of eyes that could change the world. You aren't safe here in the village, which means that you must leave." Naruto looked at the man in confusion, thinking that the man would want him to stay in the village more now that he had the doujutsu. "There are people that will want to take those for themselves," said Jiraiya vaguely, and the blond got a sense of deja vu from the whole ordeal.

_'There are things I must do, and things you must know. I brought you here so that I could talk to you without being overheard by certain people,'_ is what Itachi had said that night. Were Itachi and Jiraiya referring to the same people? If so, did that mean that he could trust the man before him as much as the guy who killed off almost his entire clan overnight? Who were they referring to, and were they really so powerful that people as strong as these two were afraid to speak their names in even a private setting?

After several seconds of silence, the boy nodded and said, "Alright, I believe you. What now though? Are we just going to leave the village and never return? Since you seem to have all the answers, could you just lay your plan out for me?" If he didn't like the plan, he would just say as such and disappear from the village in the middle of the night. They might go searching for him, but he could escape highly trained chuunin while wearing a bright orange jacket. He would never get caught if he didn't want to be.

"The plan is for you to come with my while I travel around the continent. I'll be doing research for my novels and actually writing them, and at the same time I'll be able to train you and protect you until you're strong enough to fend for yourself," said Jiraiya. He wasn't going to mention his more espionage-oriented activities to the boy yet, though it would undoubtedly come up at some point in the foreseeable future. "By that point, we'll come back and you'll join your current class at the graduation exams. Don't worry, you should be able to pass without any problems," said Jiraiya.

Nodding, Naruto intoned, "I accept."

"Great. But first, you're going to need to rest. The severity of your chakra exhaustion is not to be underestimated. You will be placed under constant ANBU guard for the next week or so, but after that, we'll be free to go. If there's anyone you'll want to say goodbye to, I'll let them know for you," said the white-haired man, though he didn't expect for the list to be any longer than the Third Hokage and the proprietor of the ramen stand that Naruto frequented. So, it was not without some amount of surprise that he was told Hinata Hyuuga before any of the others.

_"When have those two ever interacted?"_ wondered Jiraiya  
_

Hinata's heart jumped into her throat. The man that had come to their house, the one that several of the older branch members had immediately stood aside for, had requested an audience with her father. Hiashi Hyuuga, the leader of the clan, had played the gracious host beyond closed doors, not even allowing her or Hanabi to join them. And when she'd been called into the study, she felt very self-conscious. She knew that she wasn't in trouble for anything, because she hadn't done anything wrong as far as she knew.

Still, a shiver of child-like fear swept through her, as if she knew even then that the subject of this meeting would knock the wind out of her.

"Hello. Hinata, I presume," the white-haired man had said. She felt the urge to be shy and duck her head, but she wouldn't do that while her father was watching. Instead, she slowly nodded her head and watched him grin. "I'm Jiraiya of the Legendary Three, and I came here specifically to talk with you..." the man had said.

Over the course of the following conversation, she learned that Naruto was leaving the village to go on a training trip with Jiraiya of the Legendary Three, which meant that he wasn't going to be in her class anymore. He wasn't going to be there when she was sad, to be the beacon of light that he'd always been for her. She wouldn't be able to watch him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eyes as he cracked a joke or unleashed some hellish prank on somebody that insulted him, Yumi, or Hinata.

The fact that he'd always been somewhat protective of her ever since that day when she saved Yumi from those bullies, and then Naruto in turn saved her from the bullies, and Yumi had saved him from the last one standing... it was odd. They were amicable towards each other, but the events of that day had never been discussed aloud by either party. She would pet Yumi occasionally during break, but she was always pulled away be the gregarious blonde Ino.

She'd never gotten a chance to _really_ talk to him, other than exchanging small chat with him once every blue moon. And now he was leaving for several years. The mere thought of not seeing the boy for that long almost brought her to tears, but she held it in behind the cold façade that her father expected her to wear at all times. Because displaying emotions of any sort was beneath the highborn clan of doujutsu wielders.

And now the chance would be gone for however many years the sun-kissed blond wonder would be outside the walls of the Leaf. "He left a final message for you, if you'd like to hear it," said the man named Jiraiya as he wound down. At her nod, he continued, "Naruto says that he'll be back before you know it, and that he hopes you'll be really strong when he does. He hopes that you two are placed on a genin team together, because that would be 'totally awesome'." The man noticed how late it was getting and said, "Well, I've gotta be going soon. Take care you too." And then he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

**(Several Days Later)**

Naruto and Jiraiya were walking towards the front gate of the village just as the sun was beginning to rise. The two perpetual gate guards, Kotetsu and Izumo, waved sleepily at the two as they made their way past. The blond had discreetly checked with the Hokage that he actually wanted him to leave the village, not willing to take just Jiraiya's unsubstantiated word on the matter. The old man had seemed more amused by the inquiry than anything else during his short visit, and had assuaged the child's fears quite easily.

As soon as they passed over the threshold, Naruto turned back for just one quick look, and he couldn't help but feel a slight pang of discomfort at leaving the place. Sure the local populace hadn't been the most understanding or accommodating of people, but he could understand why they projected their pain on to him. He'd accepted it all as a part of his life, and he'd just moved on. Their opinions weren't that big of a deal to him, so it was perfectly fine with him. They didn't matter.

A gust of wind ruffled his spikes of golden hair, and he turned back away from the village, continuing on his quest. This journey that they were going on was a stepping stone for him, a way to gain power much faster. He'd be learning under one of the strongest shinobi in the world, and getting a chance to study what life was like outside the village. He was one step closer to his goal, of gaining power so that he could end the shinobi system and all the violence and hatred that it brought with it.

After about five minutes of walking in companionable silence at their leisurely pace, they came upon the scene of devastation. He forced himself to look at what he'd done, memorizing every detail of the destruction he was capable of if he ever lost control of his powers again to the best of his ability. The dead animals that were once his friends twisted his insides, and all the felled trees told of the sheer magnitude of force that he was capable of producing now. But he refused to tear his gaze away. It was the only way his conscience would be able to rest.

Jiraiya sighed and said, "This is but one of the powers of the Rinnegan. I recognize the technique that you used just from the pattern of the damage. This is the destructive capacity of Shinra Tensei, and it's just one of the things that the Deva Path can do. We'll delve into that later, but for now I think we need to go over what ya already know so I can teach ya properly. You mentioned that Genno had taught ya some things prior to the... incident. What'd he teach ya?"

This place had a hold over Naruto's heart, a grasp that he doubted would ever truly leave. This is the place that he lost Yumi because he wasn't strong enough to save her.

"He taught me basic tactical analysis, how to implement poisons and toxins, how to create exploding tags, how to manipulate ninja wire, how to resist genjutsu, and how to be a good liar. He had me starting on gaining resistance to killing intent, as well as synchronization methods. I was going to be able to pull off techniques in tandem with Yumi, but..." said Naruto shakily, choking on his own guilt at the end. "And I was going to start meditating and learning chakra theory soon," he added quietly, though that last part was at the behest of the demonic being that lived in his stomach and not his teacher.

Something told him that Jiraiya wouldn't be too pleased with him taking the advice of the Nine-Tails.

"That's actually a pretty great start," said Jiraiya, hoping to remove some of the negativity in his new protegé. "So we just need to get you up to speed with shurikenjutsu (Ninja Tool Techniques) and get you in touch with your chakra. I've got a feeling that, with your newfound ocular abilities, those should be easy for you to get. Once you can successfully direct your chakra through your body, we'll begin minor chakra control exercises, and work our way up to chakra flow and the three basic techniques of the Academy. Does that sound good for now?" asked the older man.

Naruto nodded, and said, "By the way, what's our first stop?" This had been bugging him for a while, but every time he asked, the guy had just given him a cheeky grin and a playful pat on his head. It had not helped his opinion of the man-child, but the guy was starting to grow on him anyway.

Jiraiya turned to his newest apprentice and said, "We're going to an island nation that's pretty far away from here. It's called the Land of the Moon. I have unconfirmed reports that our target, my teammate Tsunade, is at one of their casino hotels and working for the royal family to pay off her gambling debts as the world class physician that she is. Apparently their King, Kakeru Tsuki, is deathly ill and she's the only one that can save him. Since this country is quite wealthy, she might even dig herself out of her debt with this gig." _"For a short while, anyway."_

"Alright, let's go to the Land of the Moon!" said Naruto. And then they went on their way.

* * *

**A/N: Naruto's Harem is undecided at this point. If you have requests, let me know. Yes, Tsukiumi and Kazehana are from Sekirei; Rangiku is from Bleach. I will mention when I've added a character or concept from another anime, though usually in the next chapter because I like people guessing what they're from. Remember to review, follow, favorite, share via communities, post on twitter, link to facebook, and tell your buddies about my stories's awesomeness.**

**What would you rate each of the below categories?**

**1. Story Progression****  
****2. Emotive Descriptions**  
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