Blood dripped off of a young boy's chest as he struggled to escape the nearby calls of villagers. Moving one hand away from his wounds, he leans against one of the first trees of the thickening forest to hold his weakening strength, willing himself from fear, he made his way deeper through the trees. Quickly getting lost between the entwining woods, the boy felt a faint pulse enter his body, energizing every cell that it went through, calling him towards it origin. Flinching at the sudden feeling, the boy looks in the direction it came from, fear being washed away from the pulse. Curiosity washing into his young mind as he changes course to the origin. Another pulse washes through him, this time stronger, it feels like a voice that calls for him while it goes through his body. Picking up his pace, he makes his wave to whatever is causing this feeling. Pushing some small branches to the side, the boy enters a small clearing, the pulse that he was feeling slowly shifted into the feeling of a heartbeat the resonates inside of his body. Looking around the clearing the boy final focus on a large tree in the center, the tree is large even for Hi no Kuni standards. Slowly making his way over to the tree, he feels the heartbeat grow stronger, almost if it's the heartbeat of the tree. Placing a bloodied hand on the tree, nothing could have prepared him for what happened next. The heartbeat fade from his body as symbols began to grow over the entire length of the tree. Within a few seconds the blinding light of the symbols changed to a soft blue that seemed almost welcoming. loud creaks and groans were heard as the tree suddenly began shifting, to the right of the boy a doorway started to appear from within the tree. Walking over the the doorway he watched in awe as it slowly started come out of the tree. With no handles to open it he places his hand to push it open only for the bright scripts to appear again, the bright light slowly faded once more to the soft blue like before, but it was also followed by a click coming from inside the door. With a tilt of his head and a slight push on the door, it opened to reveal a staircase descending below the earth, turning back to look back into the woods, he remembered why he ran into them, to hide. Descending down in the steps the doors behind him closed with a subtle click of the lock going back into place, with a sigh of relief, the boy continues down the steps to adventure through what he found. Reaching the bottom of the steps, lights along the wall flickered into existence, giving a faint orange glow down the hallway he just reached. Looking down it he noticed another double door at the end of the hallway, walking over to it, he pushes it open, his nose was immediately assaulted by the smell of old wood, paper, and ink. Opening his eyes after flinching from the light, the boy gazed down into the room he was now in. Eyes widened at the sight before him, the room was larger than the hokage monument and looked to be two stories tall, he was on a balcony with stairs to his left, but it wasn't the size that was breathtaking, it was the fact that the whole room was one of the largest libraries in existence. For one, the boy loves books, but due to the fact that he could never get any, he never read any, but now he had his a lot of them, so it was like a dream came true. Quickly walking down the steps he first set his plan to explore the room. Following the wall around he found a few rooms that were off to the side, a kitchen, dining, and living area; one large master bedroom; and lastly, a very welcoming study. He didn't know what could be so familiar about the study but he looked around through it. His first impression of the room was that it was very messy compared to the rest of the building, there were scrolls upon scrolls that were thrown haphazardly around, covered with a thin layer of dust. However, something that was open on the desk caught his attention, it was a bloodied note, curiously walking over to it he picked it off the desk. The blood already dried within the paper, he ignored it and looked at the one line in the center 'Dear our loving son: Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki' "What? who is this person? their name is basicly mine!" questioned Naruto out loud, "Well, since it looks like they haven't found the letter yet, I guess that means they won't mind if I read it."
'Dear Naruto,
By now you should already be a Jounin or eighteen years old -' "Ooops" '- Sarutobi must have told you of your heritage and you found the directions to here from the house. This is the Namikaze library and everything in it is now yours, the safe that holds our families - the Namikaze's and the Uzumaki's - clan scrolls are held in the safe in the study, behind our family photo, open it with your blood when you get a chance. I wish there could be more for me to say but my time is running short, Kushina's life is fading and I need to seal the fox, I'm sorry for putting such a burden on you and all I ask is you save this world from the man in the mask, he will come again
-With love,
Your father: Namikaze Minato, The Yondaime Hokage
"Huh, this Naruto person must be really cool!" he turned to look around the office to notice a large photo on the wall, in it were two people: One was a man who had spiky blonde hair with two bangs going down the side of his face, he had a white haori with orange flames at the bottom, underneath it he wore a Konoha flack jacket underneath that was zipped up. Next to him was a woman with fiery red hair and wore a simple green maternity dress, with her stomach bulging out. Below it was a simple engraving, 'The Namikaze-Uzumaki family' "Her hair looks so pretty!" they boy shouted out loud, completely oblivious to the facts he should be noticing. With a few more seconds of admiration he pulled away the photo to show a large safe with no handles, looking down at his still bloodied hand he place it upon the safe and watched as the safe opened revealing five large scrolls and a few other smaller ones, "huh, thats silly, why did he make it so you just needed blood to open it? thats like, no security at all!" after questioning the Yondaime's sanity he digged through the scrolls, picking up the first one he examined the scroll's title "Jinton - Swift release, I wonder what that is." he shrugged as he put the scroll off to the side for another time, picking up the next one it looked priceless, along the sides it had golden foxes engraved along the sides and the main colour was a deep blood red with occasional white mixed in, it also had another smaller scroll attached to it with a small title that read "Blood binding ritual of the fox: notes? why is there notes about this scroll?" his mind racing with curiosity the boy opened up the smaller scroll "the ritual enhances the body with... blah blah blah boring boring ... becomes extraordinarily strong due to this, Cool!" he read out loud skimming over most of the details, without looking further more into the scroll besides how to activate it, he tossed the notes off to the side, ignoring the large warning side at the bottom that read 'this ritual can only affect those younger than six years of age and for an unknown reason changes the gender of the individual, this ritual has only been performed successfully once.' walking out into the hallway with the scroll he rolled it out in its entirety and walked into the center, two circles lay outside the larger center circle and as he sat in the large one seals along the entire length of the paper started to glow with a faint purple. With an eager grin across his face he rubbed his still bloodied hands together placed them into the two smaller circles outside the center one, the effect was instantaneous as the seals started to slowly glow brighter as the shifted off the paper onto his body, covering him from the neck down in seals, after setting in place the glow lessened and faded until the black marks covered across his entire body, "well that was easy." he started simply but as soon as that left his mouth the seals started to glow once more and the boy felt like hot magma was coursing through his veins. After a few moments of endurance, the boy passed out on the floor.
Waking up once more in the hallway he looked down at the now blank paper scroll below him, with as shrug he got up to roll it back up. Placing the scroll back in the safe he reached into the safe to look at the next of the five large scrolls only to be interrupted by a low rumble in his stomach, "I need food!" he shouted, too hungry to notice the slight pitch change in his voice he ran off to where he remembered the kitchen was, only hoping there was at least something that was there that he knew how to make. He opened the cupboard to a mouthwatering sight, the entire pantry was filled with ramen, every single one! "Wow, some of these are the super deluxe kind too!" quickly picking his selection he boiled some water and waited impatiently for three minutes before wolfing down the entire bowl in a matter of seconds. With a satisfying sigh, he leaned back against the chair in bliss, patting his now full stomach only for it to be interrupted once more with another bodily urge. Rushing out of the kitchen in an attempt to find a bathroom he made his way down the halls. Upon finding his destination in a matter of seconds, running at speeds an ANBU would have trouble with he made his way to the toilet to relieve himself... "ITS GONE!" he- She shouted at the top of her lungs noticing finally one of the aftereffects of 'his' own ignorance "But? where did it go?" not in the mood for questions she finished up her business and left back for the study, intent on finding answers. Looking back at the scrolls again she quickly forgot her previous question upon seeing her reflection in the steel of the safe, her hair was now straighter, longer, and red like the woman in the picture only with a few short spikes that came out around the tops, in addition, every single strand of hair seemed to be met with blonde at the end, with a gasp she ran her hand through her hair but stopped when she felt something in her hair, looking closely she grabbed whatever it was only to finally recognise the two fox ears hidden in her hair, with a laugh she played with them for a bit before looking back down at her skin, noticing that all of the seals that were once across her entire body, starting back at her own face she gasped at the last changes she noticed, her whisker marks were gone and her eyes changed slightly, they resembled the man in the picture more. With a smile she turned back to the three scrolls left in the safe, picking through them he read the titles: "Namikaze Fuinjutsu, Uzumaki Fuinjutsu, and Uzumaki bloodlines?" Pondering over the new discoveries she left the scrolls in the study and moved back to the library, attempting to find out what she could learn on Fuinjutsu.
Meanwhile in the Hokage's office...
"What do you mean the trail stopped?" the Sandaime asked of Tsume Inuzuka, "Like I said, I followed the scent of the boy through the woods, but it stops at this one tree, However Kuromaru also picked up another scent, one thats been gone for a couple of years: Minato Namikaze's." Hiruzen's attention was completely on the clan head after she made that statement, his worry grew and so did some of his fear, "Are you sure of this?" She nodded, "Positive, its old, but the area has his name written all over it." the Hokage accepted this answer, 'What is this place Minato?' "Take me there at once." With a nod, the group left towards the clearing.
Five minutes later...
"This is where the trail goes cold Hokage-sama..." Tsume announced to the man, "There is some blood on the tree but other than that - nothing." the woman shamefully lowered her head, the best tracker in the city lost a trail of a five year old. The Hokage let out a long sigh. "I want one ANBU stationed here every day, Understood?" With an agreement from them he turned back to look at the tree, 'I hope you are safe Naruto, wherever you are'
Three months later, inside the library...
"THIS IS THE BEST!" shouted the young girl - although, 'he' has yet to realize the change yet - as she was reading through a scroll of beginner fuinjutsu, the art may be boring for some, but the young girl was absolutely fascinated by the subject. She never put away the book she was working on, the only putting it down every once in a while to go back and read up on subject that were needed, from chakra to jutsu, although there was no room to try the jutsu, and the front gate was mysteriously locked, so she just ended up mostly practicing her fuinjutsu. Although, at the moment she just took of her resistance seal for the first time, to get use to the speed and strength without it on. Running through the halls she ran in through a taijutsu section, pausing for a moment to look over some, she pulled out a book on Goken only for a scroll that was lying on the top of the books to fall to the floor. Curiously picking it up to look at the title only for her eyes widen as if she struck gold - 'Beginner Uzumaki Kenjutsu'. Squealing in delight she brought the scroll with her over to the reading area - a large section of the the southwest corner of the library - and jumped on top of the nearest open couch, as many of the others were covered in books, and opened up the scroll to begin her second best studies yet. It was as she opened the scroll that a note fell out of the scroll,
"Naru-chan, Mina-kun recommended I put away my sword while you were still an infant just in case you decided to explore the house. Since you might have wanted to start training kenjutsu while I wasn't around I left this note with the scroll so you can find my, well now yours 'ttebane, sword on your own. Its in the Uzumaki vault near the reading area in the library.
Love, Mom.
Grinning like a madman the girl ran towards the large Uzumaki emblem on the wall, "I'm an Uzumaki so my blood should work too right?" she asked out loud. Not waiting for the answer that wouldn't come, she bit down on her thumb and wiped her palm across it before placing it down upon the spiral. With a satisfying 'click' the spiral began to open to reveal a nearly empty room, all that was in the room was a table, a small piece of paper, and a long object wrapped in a beautiful crimson silk. Picking up the paper first, she read the small note, "Her name is Benihime, take care of her. - Mom" looking up the the wrapped object she picked it up with ease, and unwrapped the silk. One look upon the blade was all she needed, "I think I'm in love..." she announced with... lust? One could give countless reasons as to why a young girl of five had such a tone in her voice, but all was forgotten as the girl spent the next few hours hugging the beautiful blade before actually learning how to use it. Taking another look at the blade, it was a rather short blade, perfect for her size, the end of the hilt bent off to the side at a small angle and had a red tail on the end, the grip was woven with black cloth, the same durable texture as the cloth that was attached to the black and crimson engraved sheath. The guard had another tail of red thread woven around below it, the guard itself was a dull gold that melded in with the straight blade. The blade itself was also another work of art, it gave of a graceful aura of power and when held up to the light it gave off a slight red-ish reflection, and to end it off the very point of the two-foot blade was a flat angle in parallel with the end of the hilt. All in all, the young girl couldn't help herself to go back to hugging the sword with renewed passion. Finally deciding to learn how to use it she picked up the sword and tied the crimson sash that was connected to the sheath around her waist so it rested on the small of her back with the hilt pointing out to the left side, for easy access for her right. Finally satisfied with it she left the vault and closed it behind her and made her way over to the reading area to begin her new studies, if only she could find out a way to practice the sword in a set area.
As if it was fate, destiny, or the sheer improbability of rolling a hundred sided die while jumping off the side of the - well you get the idea, that the sword caught onto a certain scroll and pulled it out onto the floor. Hearing the tatter of the scroll behind her she turned around she picked up to put it back into place, but it just oh so happen to be that the name caught her eye as she put it back into place 'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu' and it wasn't until she was another five steps further to her destination when the thought finally hit her, "wait... Bunshin?" she wondered out loud as the rusty - somehow, still rusty - clogs of her brain started slowly grinding together. Retracing her five steps she arrived at where she was five steps ago, and took out the scroll. Quickly opening the scroll and reading it out loud, "The Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is a B-Ranked Kinjutsu that derive into various other jutsus such as the Bunshin Daibakuha and has many various uses for Kenjutsu users since the physical copies also form with the weapon(s) in hand. It is also useful for scouting and recon uses as whens the clones dispel - via death of release the memories of the clone return to the user. - however it recommended to avo-" Naruto stopped reading as she read through the benefits. Only moments later did the implications come to her... "This is like [A/N if this was subbed, that 'is like' and any other from here on out should be thought of her saying 'ttebane], the best jutsu in existance of existence-ness!" the girl shouted in pure joy. "Lets see... handsigns... only one? LIKE, CAN THIS GET ANY BETTER!" she squealed again before quickly going to work in learning her new and alltime favorite jutsu...
Two years, two months, and Twenty Two days later...
"Benihime-chan, I'm trying to sleep, we'll play more in a bit." the eight year old naruto talked out loud from her dream, "We'll become the best Ninja ever!" at that note she fell off the bed and into the towers of books that were lying around near the couch. She gave up sleeping in the bedroom since the couches were almost as comfortable. Groggily rubbing her eyes she noted the mess of the study area with a quick one-handed hand sign she sighed as and fell back into the couch as the ten clones began cleaning up the newly formed mess. Opening her eyes to look up at the ceiling of the building when another thought came back to her, "I havn't been outside in three years..." with a small chuckle, she pulled herself off the couch and made her way up the stairs, 'I'm an idiot...' she groaned to herself as she looked upon the simplest locking seal for the gate that locked her in for last three years, "I can become a ninja if I never leave this place. I should probably tell Ji-chan where I've been." she mumbled to herself as she finally opened the first door and looked upon the dusty stairs that was lit by the morning sun leaking through the cracks of the tree's outer layer. Its was then another thought hit her as she grabbed onto her long red hair, which now reaching below her rear, "I should use a genjutsu-fuin to cover up what I look like. With a simple plan of action she swiftly went back inside to round up most of her materials and packed up and dressed. With the genjutsu-fuin fully drawn out and in place next to her resistance seal on her chest she activated it and skipped up to the door. Lock in place, Identity hidden, and supplies on her back, she made her way up the steps opened the outer shell of the tree.
The clearing was exactly the same as it was exactly the same as she remembered it from three years prior. The only one difference was the sleeping ANBU that was lying against the tree taking a nap, 'Thats weird, I never thought I'd see an on duty ANBU sleeping...' "Hey mister." Naruto called out as she walked over to the masked person. "Neko-san? What are you doing sleeping out her?" Naruto asked poking between words. The ANBU was quickly startled by the presence of the 'blond boy' 'This kid has absolutely no presence I can detect.' Naruto, with the genjutsu assuming a short haired blond boy with three whisker marks on either cheek, was still poking the ANBU when she reached for the tanto on her back, "Who are you, state your business!" with a large grin, Naruto assumed the 'Nice Gai Pose' and introduced himself, "I'm Naruto Uzumaki! I'm going to be the best ninja ever 'ttebane!" he shouted at the 'what a weird ki- wait? wait wait wait, Naruto Uzumaki? the Kyubi kid that went missing here three years ago?' "Are you actually Naruto Uzumaki?" the ANBU asked.
"Well, yeah, I just said so didn't I?" she responded rubbing the back of her head in confusion, "Your presence is requested immediately with the Hokage." the ANBU assumed full business mode when she said this. Placing a hand on the young one's shoulder they quickly disappeared via shushin.
Meanwhile in the Hokage's office...
Hiruzen was currently lying back in his comfortable chair smoking on his pipe, although his mind was never the same these days, the disappearance of the young Uzumaki put a damper on the old man's life. He was glad that the amount of paperwork he was getting was enough to at least bring his mind away from the boy. Feeling the oncoming presence of an ANBU he turned his gaze out to the city and stood up, with a light 'poof' of the shushin arrival, Naruto and the Cat-ANBU entered the room, "Hokage-sama, I found this one while I was on duty at the last known spot of the the Uzumaki child." The Hokage took in another breath as he nodded, but the words hit him full force, 'this one?' he questioned in his mind, only sensing a single presence behind him. He slowly turned around to question the ANBU but his mind stopped when his eyes fell upon the eight year old blond whiskered figure before him, "Ji-chan!" the 'boy' yelled take a step with open arms towards the elder hokage, but what was not expected from everyone in the room was the boy to vanish as his foot hit the ground only reappearing a microsecond later with her arms around her grandfather figure. "Guess what! I learned so much stuff in there is was awesome! There was some really cool stuff in there too!" as the mind of the elder man caught back up to him, "Hold on a minute Naruto, tell me, where have you been?" he asked, the younger child laughed and rubbed the back of her, "I was in the library!" Silence. The room was so quiet that a senbon would be loud enough to wake up even a drunk Jiraiya. "...what?" the Hokage asked simply dumbfounded by the blonde's answer, "Oh! No, no, not the one in town, it was some guy named 'Minato Namikaze'." Naruto stated simply, compleatly forgetting everything she learned about the Yondaime. "Oh yeah! That reminds me do you know someone named Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki?" I have a lot of his stuff and he seems like he would be a pretty cool guy!" by now the three ANBU in the room were simply dumbfounded, luckily by this time the hidden ROOT member left to tell his master that their weapon was found again, so they did not hear that groundbreaking revelation. "WHAT?!" the three ANBU yelled simultaneously. But quickly returning to their duties they made their presence known as they began sealed off the room from any outside source. As the seals started to glow Naruto looked around and memorised every single one, but something caught her eye. "Ji-chan." Naruto announce, gaining the elder's attention, "What is it?"
"That privacy seal was tampered with..." pointing to the one corner that she noticed the error. By this point the four others in the room were beyond dumbfounded, this recently returned from three years of missing child with undetectable presence, newly revealed as the Yondaime's heir, noticed an error in a vastly complex seal, they wouldn't be surprised if she began using the Hiraishin. "Oh shoot! I left the Ink on the counter!, I'll be right back in a minute." as if on queue, the child disappeared in a yellow flash, only to reappear five seconds later in surprisingly, not a yellow flash. "Naruto, what was that?" The newly returned girl, still cloaked in her illusion, turned to look at the hokage's questioning gaze before putting a finger over her mouth in a 'shh' motion before pointing to the problem she was going to fix.
A minute later, the three ANBU and Hokage sat in a couch across from the eight year old who began to answer a few of their questions, "That yellow flash thingy was a really cool thing I learned how to do from a scroll down there. But the only way I can use it is returning to the Library onto a big seal, apparently there are some smaller ones but I won't be able to use those for a long time." with a nod in acceptance from the answer the Hokage, "So why can we detect your presence?" asked the Hokage, he was genuinely curious about that, 'Minato or Kushina never had anything like that' "Hmm, I think it has to do with this big seal I have on my body, but I don't really know that much about it, Its a really really old and complex style of fuinjutsu." 'The Kyuubi seal?' the Sandaime questioned. "Would you show us it?" he asked but Naruto looked up with a hesitant gaze upon the four in the room, "Umm... Promise you won't tell anyone?" with an inquisitive glance at the young child he nodded, and turned to the other ANBU to give them a hard glance, which they nodded in return. "Alright..." Naruto said as she brought a hand over the genjutsu seal, "Fuin-kai" Naruto muttered under her breath as the genjutsu was released and her long red-blonde hair came into view, the spiky top similar to before, although she seemed an inch or so shorter. The one thing that caught everyone's eye was the beautiful sword on the girl's back. With a happy sigh as she ran her hand through her long hair. "Much better." but as she opened her eyes to the sight of three people staring and one purple haired ANBU drooling at the sight of her most precious item, she quickly brought it into her chest in a defensive hug, "Stop staring at Benihime." she shouted, which brought everyone to notice the changes in her face, a face the looked much more similar to the late Yondaime, aside from the fact that they were looking into a pair of mesmerising, glowing, feral, violet eyes. Only a short cough from the Hokage brought the three ANBU out of their gaze.
"I believe you were going to show us a seal?" The Man asked the girl she she promptly nodded before standing up. With a quick reposition of her sword she brought her hands into the tiger seal and channeled her chakra, it was then only the Hokage felt the smallest amount of chakra from the child before him, like a drop of mist otherwise dry room, but he had little time to reflect as seals started appearing all across the child that even he could make no sense of. "I see..." he reached forward to pull up the shirt the child revealing the still glowing seals stretching across her body, but what fascinated him was the entire seal structure that was also merged with the eight trigram seal of the kyuubi on her stomach. Seeing no changed he had a satisfied nod he released his grip and sat back down, "So Naruto, why did you come out now? Seeing as how you've been down there for quite some time I assume you could probably have lasted down there quite a while longer." the Sandaime asked as he watched the girl reapply the genjutsu seal. "Oh yeah! I need to join the Ninja academy so I can become a Ninja!" with obvious surprise on his face the elder Hokage nodded in agreement, "Very thoughtful of you Naruto, already planning ahead. Well, I can do that for you, It starts in a week so you came at just the right time." Naruto chuckled and rubbed the back of her head embarrassed, "Well It'll be fine! I'll graduate dead last just you wait!" Naruto announced, to the small group made way to the door, "Dead last?" the Hokage asked, and the girl turned with a grin, "Then everyone will underestimate me! See you in a week Ji-chan!" The girl said with a wave before running out the door.
A/N:
Fun, anyways, the sword Benihime is exactly like that of Urahara's Shikai, except for the sheath and for the fact that it has absolutely no abilities, its just a well crafted, very beautiful. As for a few other notes, Naruto doesn't know she's a girl simply because she is really really dense, in addition, no one else knows yet. Uhh, and yeah. I think thats it. Oh yeah, there are two pairings that I was thinking of: either _-_ or _-_ (^_^) oh yeah, my other stories will be updated probably this week, cheers!