The Leaf's fire gem

/|~{ (- Author's Note -) }~|\

Official Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any referenced or related works in that may appear in this story. If there ever is an OC inclusion in this the resemblance of a name and/or physical appearance to anyone living or deceased is completely coincidental. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the sole property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

This, along with getting on playing twinsaga online, are the main reason to why I been slow to update my Harry Potter stories. Got this in my head one day and refused leave until I got it out.

As this is my first try in doing writing a story in Naruto fandom, if there any inconsistencies or if see anything wrong please tell me. Or if you liked you could also tell me, since that is always nice to hear. So after you have you finished reading it, I would like it if you left a review with thoughts about it.

Warning: Gender-Bending: This fic will have a male being turned into a female. If such things are not what you prefer to read, go away now. It may also contain a female Haku, haven't decided yet.

I will warn you now, this story will be AU, and it will contain a female Naruto, but no Naruko.

I have yet decided on any pairing, or if I should have any at all yet.

The story will start a bit before Naruto cannon. With main differences that Orochimaru has yet to abandoned the village, but is still very discontent with it, he has just not been caught doing something bad enough to run yet.

If any of the above displeases you, then don't read it. That was all, now onto the story.

Update 20016-08-22: Fixed some mistakes and errors I saw I missed.

Update 20016-09-15: Just made minor changes, here and there, nothing major or important.

/|~{ (- Author's Note -) }~|\

Chapter 1 - Beginnings

A three-year old blond boy runs into an ally, followed closely by an angry mob of villagers. Soon the boy runs into a dead-end, and desperately turns around only to come face to face with the feet and fists of the mob.

'Why me?' cried the boy in his mind, kick and blows rains on him.

He doesn't know what he did wrong to make the villagers hate him so much, all he did was walk around the town. After an hour of beating the boy to a bloody pulp the mob dispersed, their anger finally spent, leaving the boy broken in a very large pool of his own blood.

However, he was still somewhat conscious and slowly he began to crawl away. Already most of the cuts and bruises had healed, and the broken bones were starting to mend, when suddenly he notice a man standing above him, before blacking out before when the man knocked him out.

'Amazing regeneration powers… he could be useful in perfecting some of my techniques without having to use so up so many test subjects,' the man thought. 'I could perfect the processes on him and then try it out on the others to test its effects on a normal human.'

With that the man bent down and grabbed the boy and flung his now unconscious body over his shoulder. 'Kukuku, I can barely to see wait see what his body can handle.'

/|~{ (-I-) }~|\

It was dark. Only a small yellow dim light shone reflecting against the glass of a large experimental tube, that contained a small girl was floating painfully in the bluish-green coloured liquid that filled the tube. She had a mask on that seemingly gave her oxygen, and numerous amounts of electrodes were attached to gain data from every part of her body, all which were hooked up to the several machines that was analysing the information.

She was only robed in her dark amber birthday suit, with her silvery-blond hair floating around her head like a halo, contrasting greatly against her skin and partially hiding a blue-green diamond-shaped crystal that was in the middle of her forehead. What looked like small, black, metallic plates of vertebrae-like design, could be seen covering her spine, overlapping each other, from the the top of her neck all the way down to her tailbone, ending in a black scorpion-like tail that barley reached her ankles, and appeared to be mechanical, with the same vertebrae-like design as the plates.

Beside the tank one man was patiently waiting for his work to be done. He stroked his long black hair and grinned from ear to ear when he saw the vials of different glowing liquids empty into surgical hoses inserted here and there in girl body. They flowed downward, and entered into the girl's body and then were no more, now he had to to was wait. Even though she sedated heavily into unconsciousness, after a short while the girl's breathing were becoming heavy, erratic, and laboured.

It's been a year since the man had managed to get this child and had subjected her to many tests, experiments and alterations. For example, the man had tried infuse the child with DNA stolen from the First Hokage, in attempt to see if had he could recreate the Mokuton (Wood Release), that the First had become famous for, using gene-splicing techniques.

But the child body, like all other test subject he had tried it on, had rejected the DNA, and after several repeated attempts he abandoned that project. He suspected the child would have died if it wasn't for the high regeneration abilities she possessed from being a jinchūriki. He then tried to do something similar with cells had obtained from someone having the Kōton (Steel Release), but got same results there.

The man had also implanted bone marrow from a member of the Kaguya clan, in an attempt to if child would obtain their kekkei genkai, the Shikotsumyaku (Dead Bone Pulse), which gives its wielder the ability to manipulate their own skeletal structure. The main capabilities of Shikotsumyaku was allowing the user to manipulate the speed of their bones' growth as well as the location of calcium deposits allowing for great versatility.

Which allowed the user to create weapons of their bones that can either protrude from any part of their body, or pulled out and used like handheld weapons. They could also use this to create armour of dense bone underneath their skin. Users could increase the density of the created bones, making them stronger than steel. But even that had ended in miserable failure, with child only because of fast healing.

Although, one that the man was still a little miffed about that the cursed seals he had created, constantly kept being rejected. They just kept dissolving and burning away. He had no doubt the bijuu that was sealed in child was the one responsible for this. Then a few months ago, the man had decided to test the child's resistance to various poison, toxins, drugs, and serums, and various other chemicals both natural and synthetic. To say that the end results had been quite fascinating and totally unexpected, were an understatement, at least in the man's opinion.

As the girl floating in the tube, had actually been a boy originally. But after an experiment involving the man injecting the child with a powerful and fasting serum, that the man himself had created. It was designed to kill people painfully at a genetic level. It had been a test on the child's resilience and healing ability against unknown and unorthodox substances. A short while after the man had injected the serum into the child, the child began to writhe spasm, and twitch. After a minute of this, red malevolent chakra began to bubble out of child's body, completely covering the small child.

After a several hours the red malevolent chakra had began to recede, and the man noticed that the child had went through several changes. The first and most obvious change was that the child's peach pink skin now were of dark amber skin tone. While the child's once sun-kissed blond hair had become silvery white, while and time time double in length. There had also been modifications to the face as well; the nose was smaller, more delicate, and the cheekbones had been reshaped, becoming higher and more streamlined, while the child ears had become longer, sharper, pointer, and more elfin in nature.

The child's sky blue eyes become larger, wider, and more round in shape, along with having a circular pattern in them. Their colours had also changed, while iris now were deep orange, and they always seemed glow with a inner light of their own, but the most fascinating part were the pupils. Which now were clear bright white, they even whiter then the sclera, and made man suspect that maybe the child's eye may contain some kind of doujutsu, but he had yet find any proof of this.

The child body had also become a bit shorter, looking delicate and frail the before. But after some further inspections the man had found out that all bones, nerves, sinews, and muscle fibres in the child's body had become much denser, making the body much stronger and sturdier then it looked, along with giving the child immense strength that belied her small childish frame.

But the most remarkable change were the black tail and plates, now adorned the little girl's back. After having studied this phenomenon thoroughly, the man had found out the traces from his previous attempts to implant a kekkei genkai in child, and the with bijuu chakra with in her, had combined while the the bijuu had tried to heal and purge its host from the serum he had injected.

While the serum had worked, it had only managed to destroy about half of child's DNA. With half that had belonged to the child's father side almost obliterated. While the DNA from the mother seemed to have copped better. He theorized it was due to the fact she had been a Uzumaki, which seemed to be the reason why the child was now a girl.

While he still hadn't find any traces of effects of First Hokage's from cells, the other two were completely different story. From what the man could tell they had somehow mutated had merged, resulting in the black bones covering the child's spine, along with the new tail appendage she now got. The bones were harder then steel, but didn't impede her movement or flexibility in anyway. Although the man had become a little disappointed in find out that the child was unable manipulate the bones in anyway, expect for freely moving the tail around.

"If this works, then I might be able to do this to myself," the man said to no one in particular.

He was currently trying to see if he could forcibly create a strong chakra affinity for fire nature in the child. To do this he used bit gene-splicing, along with drugs. The crystal that he had embedded in the child forehead was for this purpose only. It was made from a very rare and special type of gem named Kesshōseki. It said to have the ability to augment the natural abilities of ones chakra.

But the only sample of Kesshōseki the man had ever seen, was on a necklace originally belonging to the Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage, and was said to have augmented his abilities to capture and control tailed beasts. And if it was to be sold, it was said that three mountains containing gold mines could be bought with the profits from it. It had taken him a lot of time, a quite bit of ryo and a bit of subterfuge before had managed to track down and liberate another piece of Kesshōseki. As the man had no wish to tussle with the current owner of the First Hokage's necklace, Senju Tsunade a.k.a. the Slug Princess. This current sample, after much experimentations and tests, had been altered to bring forth, augment and amplify, fire natured chakra in the child.

Suddenly the unconscious girl threw her head back and thrashed about in the tube, arching her back, whilst letting out a loud ear-piercing and heart rendering scream. Her legs stiffened and her toes curled as pain tore through her small body, and her tiny frame contracted and twitched in anguish. Then just as quick as it came, it ended, and the girl slumped together, out cold once more. The man ran over to check the readings and meters, and the graphs the machines printed out.

He frowned.

"Failed," was the only word he could utter.

'The subject is still rejecting the procedure,' the man thought. 'The subject is the Nine Tails jinchūriki with a link to the Uzumaki clan, so increasing the dosage wouldn't kill her.'

The man proceeded to produce a large syringe and went to one of the tubes connected to girl. As he was about to inject the liquid into the tube, a hand stopped him. He turned his head slightly, and smiled at the newcomer.

"Sarutobi-sensei," the man said.

"Orochimaru," the newly revealed Hokage revealed. "It seems you have not changed one bit."

The man, now revealed as the most powerful of the legendary Sannin, just laughed. "I am sorry, sensei, but it seems that I must take my leave."

Then he disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving the unconscious white-haired girl floating in tube and the old man alone. He sighed, and released the long black staff he was holding. It poofed out of existence and changed into large ape with white fur and a Konoha headband around its forehead.

"Sarutobi, this is the second time you have released him," Enma, the white ape commented.

"I know old friend, I just could not do it," the Third replied. He sighed sadly and began to extract the the girl from her watery prison, as well as unplug the various devices plugged into her tiny frame, along with shattering the chains that kept her bound. He stroked her long white hair and proceeded to carry her out of the dim room.

"Let's go, Enma," he said, hands covered around the small child protectively. "I have to make sure Orochimaru did nothing dangerous to her."

The ape nodded and poofed out of existence. The old man sighed and made his way to the hospital.

/|~{ (-I-) }~|\

'I broke the promise I made to Minato and Kushina', a tall man with waist-length, spiky white hair was tied back into a pony tail thought, as he stood beside the Hokage looking down on the small child in hospital bed. She was short. Really short. Not even needing half of the bed. He could just barely make out a pair of pointy ears hidden beneath the silvery tresses of hair, and reminded him of the elves for the fairy tales of his childhood. 'I failed them, as well as their child, as I couldn't protect him from harm.'

It wasn't the first time he had thought like this. He had just recently returned to the village, when saw his sensei carrying a small frail-looking girl in his arms. When later had heard what happened, he become enraged at his former team-mate had done, which then quickly turned to regret.

Regret that he had been unable to see what kind of monster Orochimaru now had become.

Regret that he hadn't done more to protect his godson, who had now turned into his god-daughter.

That had been a week ago, her skin and hair now seemed to gain some life to it and her breathing became deeper, more steady and even. He drawn out of his musing when a doctor and a nurse entered the room. After the customary greetings and pleasantries, the doctor started to read from the files he had brought with him, in a monotone voice.

"The preliminary findings have confirmed that this girl is indeed Uzumaki Naruto, the results were a match with his hospital files, and he is now 100% female," the doctor stated as he started to read from his clipboard. "And due to the many experiments done him, this is a permanent change."

"We have also found that the crystal found on his forehead is actually made of Kesshōseki," the doctor then continued flipping a page. "Kesshōseki that somehow have been altered. But to do what, we do not know yet."

"The tail and plates on his back are actually modified and really dense bones," the doctor then continued to report as he flipping yet another page. "If is work some kind implanted kekkei genkai, or something else, we do not know that either yet."

"Except for that Uzumaki in fine health, a bit under nourished but nothing serious," he doctor concluded as he put down the clipboard. "That was all we found out during the preliminary test, further will be done later, but that's all we now for now. Is there any questions?"

Silence settled over the room as the occupants processed what they had just been told. It was only broken when Naruto began to stir, signalling to the rest that he was about wake up. A few moments later Naruto then let out a soft groan and he slowly opened his eyes to see to he was in a hospital bed, with a small group of people surrounding him.

As Naruto slowly blinked awake the first thing he took in was the pale sterilized light of a hospital room. Naruto turned his head to the left to see the Hokage in front of him. Revealing to everyone present, a pair of large glowing orange irises, with circle pattern in them and small white pupils in the middle. While Naruto fought to keep his eyes open in sharp light of the room, two feelings overcame him at the same time, the first being a steady ache all throughout his body, while the second being the rough scratchiness of his own throat.

He tried to speak, but all that came out was a weak croak. The nurse moved forward and took a glass of water to Naruto's mouth and tipped the glass of refreshing liquid so that his was able to drink it. Naruto greedily drank the water and let out a soft sigh and turned to face Hokage and squinted his eyes.

"J-Jiji?" Naruto managed to whisper with a hoarse throat.

"Hello Naruto, how are you feeling?" the Hokage asked.

"Tired, really tired," the former boy answered mumbling.

Naruto then noticed to the other people in the room, and started to panic slightly.

"Naruto!" the Hokage cried as soon he what happening, wrapping him up in a tight hug.

"It's ok Naruto, we're here for you." the Hokage says gently as he rubbed Naruto's back calmingly.

"Jiji, a-are these mean p-p-people?" Naruto asked stuttering as he nervously looked around, after the light that had surrounded had faded and his shivers finally died down.

"Shhh, these are GOOD people," the Hokage said in as soothing tone as possible. "And this man right here is your godfather actually."

After Naruto had calmed down he just looked warily at the white-haired man with a questioning stare, to which Jiraya just nodded and ruffled his hair. But he started he panicking again when the doctor tried to do some medical checks on him. He calmed down again when the Hokage assured him that he was not in any type of danger, and that he would beside him the whole time.

/|~{ (-I-) }~|\

A week had passed since Naruto woke up, he had spent the week getting probed and examined to determine what results Orochimaru's experiments had on the child. They had found that Naruto's body now was naturally very flexible, he was able to bend at inhuman angles that even seasoned ninjas could not match without some extreme training. Not only that, but he also denser bones, denser and stronger muscle fibres, stronger and tougher tendons and organs, then most ninjas had.

This, along with the enhanced healing factor from the Kyuubi, made his body REALLY durable, able take more punishment than most ninjas. It also made naturally strong, being somewhere around mid chunin in terms of raw physical strength, all the while looking as frail and delicate as a flower. They had also Naruto also had found out that he had immense chakra reserves, but that was probably just because he was a Uzumaki, along with being the jinchūriki of Kyuubi, instead anything Orochimaru may have done.

"Hello to you, Naruto. How was your morning?" the Hokage asked, as he entered the room. Jiraya was already there, sitting in a chair beside the bed.

"Great, and I have brilliant idea to a prank, that I would your help with," Naruto said proudly.

"Oh, is that so. Let hear me it, and I will what I can do," the Hokage said.

"All right, but first could either of seal this room off," Naruto asked warily. "It's top-secret, so don't anything or anyone to ruin it."

Jiraya clearly intrigued did as his godson requested and sealed the room off.

"I have been thinking that I would be better off with a new identity and won't have to deal with the hatred of this village towards me, any more," Naruto said, after Jiraya had given him the all clear sign. "But I the problem with how I would do that, and as few know the truth, I need your help with both of that. And if blood clone was added to the mix, it make a really good prank."

The Hokage thought through for some time before assenting. "I agree that is a valid idea, that would increase the security and secrecy around you, so why not. But, Naruto did figure this all by yourself, and how did you know about a kinjutsu like blood clones?"

The blood clone jutsu, was a kinjutsu that took some of the users blood and creates a clone from it. The only thing that's different is that it's like creating a true clone, one that needs to eat, drink, sleep, and other things that we need to do. They also work like Kage Bunshin with the memory transfer portion, but only if the user absorbs the clone back into their body. Another difference was that a blood clone could be 'killed', and could stay 'dead' for about a month before it dispels. After that, then it turns back into blood and the blood forms the kanji.

"Not entirely, I had some help from the Kyuubi. It also she who came up with idea of using blood clones," Naruto said, blushing while rubbing the back head sheepishly.

It was some time during his gender transformation that Naruto discovered that he was the container for the Kyuubi. Surprisingly he taken the news well, it had helped that the intense had pain numbed his mind somewhat and the Kyuubi was tired from keeping Naruto's body from falling apart. Both the Hokage and Jiraya were fully aware of this, but they had been quiet shocked when they had first found out.

"Have you thought of name for this identity of yours?"

"Yeah, I think will myself Enju. Only Enju, no surname."

"Fire gem, a fitting name indeed. As soon I get back, fill the necessary paperwork."

"But why stop there, we could expand this idea even more," Jiraya suddenly said, his gleaming with mischief. "If I took Naru... sorry, I mean Enju with me to train for couple of years, and leaving the blood clone behind... It might help even help throw someone of their lead for a while... Especially considering there are rumours of that group a I talked about with you before. It might buy us some time with them, if they are true. This is indeed a great prank, but we must careful how to handle it."

The rest of the visit, consisted of scheming and planning, along with creating a background story for Enju. Enju would be a clan-less orphan that was saved during a raid against on Orochimaru's secret labs. Which was was the truth, when she thought about it, but all of it. She would be travelling around with her godfather until she would normally would have graduated from the academy.

And while Enju was out of the village, blood clone looking like Naruto, would be staying in the village. The clone would have a small amount of the Kyuubi's chakra sealed in it, just add to the realism of it, just in case if anyone would try to check for it. The amount would be really tiny, not enough to cause any massive havoc or destruction, but to fool anyone checking to closely, at least that was what they hoped.

/|~{ (-I-) }~|\

Two month later at Konohagakure no Sato, it was a peaceful evening in the village hidden in leaves, a peaceful place one can say, probably the safest of the great five hidden villages.

People were enjoying their free time, some were shopping, some just walking, some were eating ramen and exchanging stories, a woman could be seen yelling at some poor bloke for running at her and accidentally knocking her dango down, all in all, a normal evening… but if you looked closer, you would see that things aren't always what they seem…

A child, blond with goggles on his head, in a black t-shirt and a pair of shorts, was currently running as fast as his little legs could carry him to escape a mob of people trying to beat the crap out of him. He eventually run to into an alley, not far away from the Hokage's office, to hide.

"There he is! He is went in to that alley!" a voice yells and the mob charges into the alley with weapons and blunt objects. Before the mob reached the alley, the boy had disappeared. As everyone ran around looking for him, no one noticed the kanji that said 'blood', written in blood on the ground, behind a large crate in the alley.

At the Hokage's office the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, sat behind his desk, viewing the whole advent through an old crystal ball. He sighed in sadness and disappointment at the villagers actions. But at the same time, he was somewhat relived. Their subterfuge was working so far, and with all information about Enju and Uzumaki Naruto being classified as a S-class secrets, he hoped it would keep doing that.

He then turned around and glared at the feared enemy of every Kage. Even though fears of war, death, insanity and most possibly the destruction of everything you know and love, are pretty important - they have nothing over the fear of paperwork.

As he glared at numerous piles of paperwork littering the room, and could've sworn that he saw them grin maliciously at him. He sighed and got back to work at demolishing the numerous piles of paperwork. Hoping against hope that his efforts to stop the paperwork invasion wouldn't be in vain.

It was an hour later that the secretary, came in bearing arm loads of paperwork. The Sandaime, who had just finished the last round of torture looked up before promptly slamming his head into the desk. The secretary deposited the paperwork and quickly left the room, she left a dust trail she was going so fast. Nobody wanted to be around the Hokage when there was so much paperwork.

/|~{ (-I-) }~|\

To Be Continued...

/|~{ (- Author's Note -) }~|\

So what did think good, bad, bland or just god awful? Leave a review and tell your thoughts.

And for those of you wondering about my other stories they may take awhile as I'm quite stuck where they are concerned, but hopefully that will pass soon.

That was form me for now, hope you had good time and hope to see you again.

/ Ryuuohjin

/|~{ (- Author's Note -) }~|\