Iruka Umino was not a man that was surprised by a whole lot. As a shinobi he had been exposed to some of the best and worst that the business had to offer- men and women, comrades in arms, that were experts in their individual specialties that would scare civilians. Torturers, weapons experts, classical assassin types- he'd seen and knows more than his fair share of them all. Yet for the love of all that he knew and had ever seen he was confused why a rabbit was sitting on his desk. It had followed a student in and immediately sat on his desk observing the class with utter silence and stillness. It was unnatural to say the least and that made wonder who it belonged to. It certainly was not the pet or animal partner of the person it followed in, no one ever heard of there being ninja rabbits so they couldn't be a thing, yet it was seemingly comfortable being surrounded by humans. His attention was stolen from the rabbit on his desk when the room suddenly went dead silent. There was never this level of silence like this and that made his eyes turn.
Perched within the frame of the classroom was a shadow of the past. Looking the very picture of pristine health were three figures thought to be dead. First of the group was a man who looked to be the spitting image of the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze. His height was slightly off but that spiky sunshine blonde hair and sky-blue eyes were exactly the shade as the former Kages. Beyond the odd greys beginning to show the chunin would have sworn the man was the Yondaime in the flesh. At the man's side was another person to look like another of Konohas past, another legend that was supposed to be dead who had been integral to the last war. Dressed in a rather flattering dress was a woman who looked exactly like Kushina Uzumaki, the Leafs own Red Death, the last time he had seen her before the Kyuubi attack. Long crimson red hair, same mischievous violet eyes and a rather long sword strapped across her back.
The rabbit on the desk turned its head slowly as the third of the group cleared her throat. With hair like red amber and eyes that were like blue steel the girl didn't impress the animal at first glance. Dressed in combat fatigues, a three-quarter sleeve shirt, combat boots that had a steel toe and what looked like long daggers strapped across the small of her back she looked better equipped than most of the kids in the room. Making a squeaking sound it interrupted the chunin who was tripping over himself as he was presented with a letter from the Sandaime that proclaimed despite his strongest reluctant and rage on the subject the people were indeed the Yondaime & his wife. That sputtering made a malicious gleam enter the rabbit's eyes as the pair left the girl behind.
"Alright class, despite this rather… unique hiccup the test shall go on as planned after Ms. Namikaze introduces herself" Iruka said rubbing at his temples as whispers broke out. This was going to make things a lot more headache worthy than he ever wanted them to be. Just out of the edge of his eye he saw the two disappear in a red and gold blur, he was going to need a strong drink after this day was done.
"Yo, names Natsumi Namikaze. Pleased to meet ya" the girl said with a half-hearted lazy wave. Her eyes roved the room and calling herself disappointed, though she didn't show it, was an understatement. Those who were obviously civilian born looked to be massively underprepared, particularly the girls who seemed to care more about their looks, while the clan born children looked suitably on edge. Hers and her parents' appearance was enough to raise suspicion to super high levels but with the Sandaime's reluctantly forced verification by the Fire Daimyou should smooth it out with all the clans. They wouldn't be happy about being deceived over her parents 'death' in the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack but that was for them to smooth out. "Anyone seen my older brother Naruto? I heard he was supposed to be in this- "
"Who?"
"Naruto Uzumaki. Blonde guy, blue eyes, whiskers like me" Natsumi said pointing at her face.
"There has never been a record of a Naruto Uzumaki ever enrolling in this academy. Civilians with the aptitude to be ninja and the usual clans but no Uzumaki. The last Uzumaki to pass through these halls was your mother Kushina after she was accepted in the village as a refugee after Kumo, Kiri and Iwa laid waste to the lands of Whirlpool. Now take a seat Ms. Namikaze so we can get on with the test" Iruka said regaining a measure of control back.
Clapping filled the air making heads turn trying to find the source. 'It's the rabbit!' one of the civilian born girls exclaimed making heads snap to the midnight black furred rabbit. True to the girls observations the rabbits paws were clapping together but the sound was amplified to levels like it was human hands clapping. Before everyone's eyes the rabbit began to bulge grotesquely. The sound of bones breaking and reforming, muscles tearing and reforming as the form grew made more than a few kids sick. For what felt like an eternity of the torturously sick sounds the form grew and changed until in the rabbits place a young man was crouched on the desk. Slit eyes like amethyst glared at Natsumi through long snow-white hair, the back braided and tied back between his shoulder blades with a red silk hair tie. Standing up slowly revealed his clothes were almost monk like in some regards. The top most layer resembled some sort of armored robe, carefully laid metal plates were stacked around the collar and joints for maximum vitals protection, while the underneath was more conventional combat armor of fatigues paired with a skin-tight shirt that seemed to be etched with seals of unknown purposes. "You return at last Namikaze. It was a matter of time until the cowards returned with the False Prophet and the Hemophiliac" he said slowly leveling a clawed finger at the girl. Instead of a normal nail he possessed curved claws like they were meant to dig through the earth and yet the points were wickedly sharp like they were made to rend flesh and bone.
Natsumi turned sharply took in the boys appearance with a narrowed glare. "My parents are not cowards! You take it back you freak!" she growled drawing a dagger threateningly. She wouldn't be able to fight the boy-rabbit whatever he was since too many people would get hurt but he didn't look like he could do much damage. She could bluff him into an apology and if he refused to... well, she wasn't opposed to literally beating it out of him.
The boy smirked a cold feral smile at the demand. "Is that any sort of way to talk to the brother you've spent who knows how long looking for? Seems none of the children masquerading as adult ninja taught you manners."
*ACROSS TOWN INSIDE THE UZUMAKI-NAMIKAZE COMPOUND*
Within the conference room inside the Uzumaki-Namikaze compound four figures were neck deep in serious conversation. On one side you had the combination of Minato and Kushina looking over some documents from the Daimyou. Despite the situation being what it was, them being alive and faking their deaths after the Kyuubi attack, it was nothing short of a miracle the man didn't slate the former Kage for immediate execution.
"Minato I'm telling you that you're living on borrowed time" the blonde woman on the other side of the table argued. With a figure most women would kill for and a rather generous chest it was hard for her not to deck the white-haired guy beside her. His lecherous nature was well known across the Elemental Nations yet the serious look adorning his expression shocked her a little though she didn't show it.
"Calm down hime, it's all good. The Daimyou was less than pleased with the stunt, a lot less pleased than Sarutobi-sensei was, but all the good he's done for the Leaf and Hi no Kuni leveraged the staying of his hand. Albeit it cost him being reinstated as Kage because of something about 'putting traitors in positions of power' or something like that" the white-haired man said.
"Jiraiya, don't be so lax about this. Tsunade is right that we're on borrowed time and little more than pardoned criminals. Because of you and the toads" Kushina said with a harsh look.
"Woah woah. slow yourself down there Red. How is it the fault of me and the toads?" Jiraiya asked with a scowl.
"From the moment you heard about the stupid prophecy from your senile toad elder you spouted off about Natsumi being the child of prophecy before her and Naruto were even born. You said it had to be her. That a great power to change the world could only be in the hands of a girl because women think and act more rationally than most men do so the prophecy must be about Natsumi. The Kyuubi gets released and these idiots fake their own deaths taking their daughter with them leaving their son to be left at the mercy of this village that hates everything that is not their definition of normal." Tsunade leaned back in her chair.
Whatever Jiraiya was seconds away from saying was cut off as Minato and Kushina stood up in alarm. Two seals, one on each of their inside wrists, were glowing a dark golden color. If the seal was reacting and glowing it only meant one thing, Natsumi was in trouble. Before the man could speak they, all four of them, were gone and papers were scattering across the table.
*BACK AT THE ACADEMY*
Natsumi was unnerved by the declaration the boy-rabbit made. "You're lying!" she growled.
"Oh you naïve little puppet." Naruto chuckled as he cracked his knuckles. "This village doesn't know who I am because I haven't lived with them for twelve years! I was saved from being made a scapegoat for the villages rage and anguish when my infant body was the corpse look-a-like of your father after sealing the Kyuubi. Brava by the way, tell me how he survived when the technique he used is an Uzumaki sealing technique that summons the Shinigami herself and is meant to kill the summoner after the object they want to seal is sealed" he said with a thin malicious smile.
Whispers broke out amongst the kids in the room as Natsumi's hand trembled.
"You don't know what you're tal-"
"The Shiki Fuin, a right nasty technique. Originally crafted by the First Uzukage to seal the Kyuubi into being a clan guardian of the Uzumaki. Of course this was long before the alliance of Uzu and Konoha" Naruto continued despite the interruption. "The Shinigami should have taken his soul, an action that would kill him. How is he still ali-"?
"Natsumi!"
Naruto rolled his eyes and looked to the door where it was blasted of the hinges revealing Minato, Kushina, Jiraiya and Tsunade. "You have impeccable timing you know that? I was just asking your spawn about you ya blonde bastard" he said with a smirk revealing a fang like canine.
Minato growled as Kushina put herself between Natsumi and the boy. "Who are you and what do you want with my family?" he asked holding a hirashin kunai at the ready to attack the white-haired boy.
Naruto put on a mock hurt expression. "Is that anyway to address your son you left behind on a near identical corpse body after using the Shiki Fuin to put the two halves of the Kyuubi at bay? Oh wait, let me do something to jog your memory." He made a gesture of his hand in in less than a blink his appearance was altered by the use of transformation justu. His white hair was blonde, eyes a crystalline blue and six whisker marks adorned his cheeks. "This is what I should look like because of your and redhead bimbos genetics" he said callously while ignoring Kushina's growl. "But you see, I was saved by a rather benevolent force before the Sandaime found my infant wailing form and your spot-on corpse replacement body. You might even call her a… higher power."
Minato's eyes were narrow as he clenched his hands. No one knew that he used the Shiki Fuin besides the Sandaime and that had been deliberate.
"Oh, the False Prophet and the Hemophiliac are with you this time as well. Good. I have one thing to ask of you Jiraiya" Naruto said with a wide unnerving smile.
The white-haired Sanin tensed at the direct addressing and the gaze settled on him. "What is that?" he asked warily.
Naruto jumped off the desk as shadows danced across the walls and windows shaking the panes just shy of breaking the actual glass. "How does it feel to know that the Child of Prophecy has turned his back own back on humanity because of his failure human parents all because of prophecy given by a senile toad? A prophecy that since its very utterance you have been obsessed with and proclaimed her" he pointed a claw finger at Natsumi hiding behind Kushina, hand still trembling "to be the Child of Prophecy inside the womb with no evidence? How does it feel to, with that declaration, deem her life important and in the same breath label mine as expendable?" he asked.
More whispers broke out in confusion wondering what the hell was going on. A late forced person in the form of the Yondaime's daughter, they could deal with that. This though, a rabbit changing into a boy that had the Yondaime's daughter shaking calling himself her older brother with knowledge scaring her and the Yondaime himself and one of the Sanin? That was something else entirely different and worrying.
"What do you mean you turned your back on your humanity?" Jiraiya asked with his body visibly taut with tension.
"You think I would remain human when I was abandoned by tweedled dee and his bimbo wife to a village that hates anything that is not normal? Puh-lease, I might have been raised by a summon animal clan but I wasn't raised in a barn. You see Jiraiya, Minato, Kushina, fake Child of Prophecy… It's a bad idea to anger a fox or a rabbit when they have kits. You endanger them in anyway and you invite nothing but hell upon yourself" Naruto said with a gleam in his eyes.
Jiraiya and Minato blanched as in the blink of an eye Naruto, or the boy claiming to be him, was gone.
