Naruto: My way
Uzumaki
By Heliosion
Chapter One: The Boy That Came From The Sea
Disclaimer: In honour of the Uchiha clan I am issuing a new disclaimer which is this. If I owned Naruto I wouldn't have made it so Madara didn't take the piss with the super powers. Hey I'm bored I know I'll give myself the rinnegan! - Point taken no?
I have taken on the watchful eye of Maneyan whose fic 'Ouroboros' you should all check out right away as my beta or most accurately my stricter quality control expert! Thanks!
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She had seen every day of the Shinobi era, the five nations who employed the five great hidden shinobi villages and carried emotional scars from the torrid hell that came before it. She'd seen the founding of leafy Konoha, lived there surrounded by trees by the side of the mighty Shodaime Hokage whose power had made the forests that existed there to this day. She had married her soul mate there, watching his bright dream come alive by his own hands as they had children who in turn had children of their own. Konoha had grown up from a tiny outcrop of small clans banding together for safety after almost two centuries of fractured tiny states hiring these roaming clans to fight endless conflicts whose origins had been forgotten ages ago to seek shelter and pursue the dream of an endless peace in the mighty walled village. Those ancient protections had weathered two shinobi wars and the destruction of her homeland, their greatest ally Uzushiogakure no Sato, the land hidden in the ebbing tides.
She had done much and accomplished far more than was expected. From a mere simple only child of her island village's greatest fuin master whom fate had been spared from becoming a measly broodmare. Over a hundred valuable years she had gained much of wisdom, knowledge and talent that led her husband to seal the Kyubi no Kitsune inside her using her homeland's jutsu. He hadn't wanted to at first, how he had agonised about it for weeks until Madara forced his hand until the thought of ever letting any of the Biju roam free in the Shodaime's eyes was a disaster just waiting to happen. They were rightfully seen so as natural disasters since ancient time, cold unfeeling killing machines comprised of pure energy that laid waste to anything in their path without warning or reasoning. He had wanted to seal them all into objects and bury them deep into the earth forever denied their disastrous place in the world order. Monsters did not promote peace, monsters only created strife, turmoil and sadness; the best breeding ground for wars that Hashirama had grown tired of after honing his skills through them over a lifetime until his clan was on top.
Together with his greatest enemy once upon a time Uchiha Madara, Konoha had blossomed. Seeing two fire shadows take the seat of power after her beloved husband died from wounds sustained in a legendary battle. Said battle was still fresh as the day she was there at the Valley of the End with the beautiful Sharingan eyes beguiling the tailed nine tailed kitsune to do his bidding had forced her husband to break his vow and seal the beast within his beloved wife. The man had killed his old enemy in the end but after that Mito wasn't the same.
That ache grew with the loss of the Nidaime, her beloved brother in law who she drew much comfort from. He'd sacrificed himself in the name of his brother's 'will of fire' that everyone in the village drew amazing inner strength from. Much like Uzushiogakure no Sato that believed in family her husband had drawn inspiration and did the logical next step by extending it to all of his villagers. Now the Sandaime a mere child taking the big chair was getting old too but had done much to create the peace his two predecessors could only dream of.
Uzumaki Mito had done her duty as jailer to the fox and her mission had been completed two months ago by passing the fox to her great-great grandniece three years ago after hearing the destruction of her home. Soon it seemed war was coming again.
So Uzumaki Mito knowing she was going to die soon without the addictive qualities of the Kyubi no Kitsune's chakra had returned to the remnants of what used to be her first home. She was sitting on the lone mountaintop overlooking the entire island where a shrine sat behind her from ages past worshipping a god whose name had been lost to the seven winds. On the summit under the protective Shinto gates used as a barrier to keep out the elements to let an old woman rest in peace was her simple wooden abode. It had been built by the seven hidden ANBU agents keeping watch over her at all times. She tolerated the intrusion when all she desired was to die in peace but she could bare it.
There wasn't much time left for her but Mito had the scent of the salty sea, the fresh crisp air and the silence in which to embrace the whistling of the breeze. These had been among her most cherished memories, childhood recollections of a world where there hadn't been five great shinobi nations constantly feuding with each other in secrecy. It was a time of uncertainty, her homeland's only defence was its impassable moving whirlpools mapped out religiously by their self-sustaining community who did little to draw the attention of slavers and those who might take advantage of their isolation.
It was of little comfort to her aching bones that the fox used to soothe or corrected her weakening heart now kept at bay purely by the dwindling medication of her great granddaughter, the Densetsu no Sannin made for her last pilgrimage. The poor dear was now the last of what had been a mighty clan and many feared she would be it. Mito was not upset at this. If she had learned anything about life it was time played no favourites with anyone not even this old woman whose clan was known for its unusual longevity and whose fuinjutsu had started this new era by attracting her wonderful husband whom had been searching for his distant family.
That day had been the best day of her life. Here on Uzushio where the water lilies bloomed at night with the rays of this full moon, the time of year and the season when the love of her life came to her. It was tradition back then to walk up here and take in the scent which they had done once before they departed from here forever with her as a price of the alliance formed between the Senju and the Uzumaki clans. It was here her father had the stimulation to create the fuin that controlled the whirlpools that gave this lost village its namesake and what her mother, may the gods bless her soul had informed her father one cold winter night wrapped up in a blanket she was going to marry him or else.
Mito chuckled in the seiza position, her tired legs on a silk rug that sat on the smooth mountain floor. Behind her the wind carried from the carnivorous shrine cave singing a song that some thought was the nameless god's voice promising protection. A hot cup of tea was entertaining her withered fingers and helped the shakes her body went from craving the potent chakra of the absent fox. The empty seal was cracked now being filled in with her chakra gradually killing her with nothing to regulate it so it was a race. She had no clue of what her cause of death might be between her deteriorating body, addiction and the seal absorbing all her chakra faster than her beleaguered coils could make it to finish off what many considered the mother of the modern era.
In many ways it was hardly a warrior's death. Mito could live with that, symbolic as it was and wished her time might come to pass before her aged eyes could see another pointless war her entire family had fought to prevent happening ever again.
The porcelain moon shimmered off the gentle ocean floor. Right at the far end so far her gaze could only make out an indistinct blur sat an island wreathed in black from the shadow cast by the high outcropping rock close by when a crimson red light suddenly replaced it. Her breath hitched when she instantly associated it with blood before the familiar bloodlust crept on her like someone with cold feet was walking on top of her. A weight filled her chest, the battered well used heart trembled like a timorous mouse and her reminiscing turned to the darker part of her life. Her first kill and his eyes that stared forever into eternity, her husband's dead body being brought back in with an honour guard, Mito was taken back to that day, could feel the same texture of her hand remembering that same finite cold of his dead cooling fingers… The paralysing horrors only the life of a professional killer could brew had her clutching the rug so to control herself, anchoring her from the instinctive urge to pee herself from fear.
What that was should be impossible. It belonged in another land far from here. Why was the Kyubi no Kitsune's malevolent chakra here? Kushina… Oh god her anxiety ran wild of scenarios of another home destroyed. Her façade of controlled serenity crumbled then an iron steel trap mind wrestled control and her calculating kunoichi mind took over. Had the war started already? Was her stubborn body betraying her and her final wish? Her imagination depicted her burning village and poor, poor Kushina whom had found the love with Namikaze Minato, a good honest man to help her contain her new burden… Kushina's phantom bloody corpse appeared in front of her and was more painful than the presence of that foul fiend's chakra.
"Mito-sama, your orders?" The ANBU agent known as Eagle had snuck up behind her taking her unawares. Fumbling battle instincts ravaged by ill health were slow to pull a senbon from one of the buns on top of her head. She was halfway from pulling it out of her fading red locks standing up to engage when her aged mind and the shattering tea cup reminded her above the escalating feeling of impending violence this was a safe person. Her aborted movements made her wobble and the agent was forced to catch her before she fell.
Professional to the end she did not show embarrassment when action was needed. Age had ravaged her body but nothing could take away the fiery soul shared by all members of her lost clan.
"Summon everyone here. Send nobody to the scene and dispatch your fastest person post haste to Konoha," ordered Mito. She stood up on her own, shaking the aid of the ANBU agent in the sleeping kimono she'd worn her first night in that tent with her new husband deep in the woods. She drew strength from that first union interrupted by an ambush by the Uchiha clan. Much other sorts of virginity, a source of everlasting embarrassment to her grandchildren when she made note of them had been taken that night, some she'd never desired to lose.
The face of that young man she killed still haunted her today as did the blood spatter she carried on her clothes during the retreat for three days from his crushed trachea.
"Yes Mito-sama," the male ANBU assented, drawing a breath and whistling with a sharp pitch. While out of practice she was able to hear the other agents appearing in shunshin around her weapons armed and one of their numbers, missing presumably to inform Sarutobi…
Oh she hoped there was someone to inform of this incident, that she'd made a mistake somehow. Mito had seen up close several of the Biju given out as tokens of peace by her idealistic husband to other nations, enemies and allies alike after she herself was given one but none of them were the same. Mito swore she desired nothing else but it to be something other than Kyubi.
"All of us are heading to the island with the red light. We may have a Biju on our…"
That red power vanished as swiftly as it appeared. Black returned with the white splashes of white accentuating the sea's tranquil beauty. The men around her were more startled by the sudden shift in demeanour around them than the rapid coming of the Biju itself. Her chakra senses that were distorted by the overwhelming emotion of hatred of the red lingering like a torrid chemical gas could now feel a familiar special blue chakra that Mito had thought only belonged to her and her niece now. Her old heart raced again only for different reasons.
"Mito-sama?" Eagle asked warily though he hid it well. She wasn't surprised by the slip in professionalism. It was hard to say just how that will destroying force could simply up and vanish with no trace. Nothing remained of it which again was impossible. Much like radiation a Biju left traces that for months after a rampage left a tingling sensation in the vicinity of its rage easy enough to identify. The first encounter she had with the Ichibi controlled by Suna was proof of that. Trade didn't pick up in that village until the remnants had been cast aside like the wind from the sandy desert.
"We go to the island and investigate what occurred. We'll form a triangle formation with me in the lead."
"Mito-sama?" asked Eagle sceptically. Underneath that mask was a very handsome boy, a worrywart but a good boy with a big future in front of him. Fifty years ago the lack of formality would've had him flogged before her husband in the desire to create cohesion between the clans banned the practice.
God bless her husband for creating soldiers that cared about their superiors.
"You heard me Eagle," Mito said firmly, "I might be old but you can surely sense that…" That blue chakra signature spiked as a concussive wave of thick, less wielding energy poured across the land. She gasped at the potency never had she felt such turgid power which became loose and free like it had been bottled then went pop. What kind of phenomena did such a thing? Her closest reference was a storage fuin that malfunctioned and released all the constrained up energy in one spot. "With haste please everyone. I know a few shortcuts."
Then with sprightliness no woman of her advanced years should ever have the small weathered woman lifted up her kimono to above her wrinkled knees and ran down the side of the mountain. ANBU followed her, one again the worrisome Eagle ever hovering over her like she was decrepit and slightly out of formation braced to catch her. Oh she found it cute after all she'd been fighting when he was a twinkle in his great grandfather's eye and when she was prepared she would still give the team around her a run for their money in a sparring match… If it lasted no more than three minutes of course…
Mito did ignite the two fuin papers hanging from the buns on her head. They were ingenious; a legacy of eccentric fuin masters that when active created a chakra bubble that in turn pulled the pooling chakra in the empty Biju seal outwards a little into her withering tenketsu to provide her with the energy for her acrobatics. Later on she would ache something horrible and suffer more subdued mollycoddling from Eagle. From the stress this placed on her, the chakra field actually was illuminated by any contact with the moon she would be feeling something as if she had been using the Biju itself when her dwindling tenketsu and chakra pathways throbbed from overwork. Like her relaxed manner in which she accepted her retreat from the world of the living her powers were also getting slothful.
If this wasn't an emergency she would see this as good exercise and a rush to sweep away the boredom. She remembered so much fun when she learned to run on the azure ocean and climb the largest tree in the Senju compound Hashirama grew just for her children to practice on.
Her gaze never left the island if it was possible. It was dangerous to jump on the ruins themselves, the fragile husks of wooden buildings like bones left exposed and she had little desire to disturb them so ran through the narrow refuse strewn streets of the village. Every corner had a ghost, every building; shop and abandoned place of commerce had a vague impression for her of another life. Names that belonged to nothing people with smiling faces, street names that were now mere vapours in the annals of history only existing now in her heart. They all stirred something positively ancient it seemed at times in her long lived memory.
On that island, this mass grave defiled by cowardly Iwa whose leader Ōnoki the scoundrel and Kiri… Poor, poor Kirigakure shrouded in shadows and mist that island in the middle of the sea was where another of her brothers and sisters were waiting. An Uzumaki which she was more certain of the closer she got until she reached the beleaguered harbour where the boat they came on was moored.
She stopped suddenly making the men scatter automatically into a circle formation. She smiled ever so brightly when it was confirmed. That chakra signature belonged to her clan! That was another Uzumaki standing on that island waiting. He or she hadn't moved from the spot. Mito laughed gaily at the miracle! There was another whose chakra flowed like hers! Like Kushina! There were rumours of other Uzumaki in other lands but never had she felt another.
"Mito-sama?" Eagle asked carefully, "Why are you crying?"
Mito reached for her cheek and softly chortled when she wiped a tear from both eyes with her long sleeves.
"There is an Uzumaki on that island Eagle," Mito stated jovially.
"Are you sure Mito-sama?" Eagle said, "That felt like a Biju. I fought one during the tail end of the last war with my squad. A Jin…"
"A Jinchuuriki," Mito corrected automatically, the very meaning of that phrase made her frown no matter how many times she heard it. But he was correct. There was no explanation for the appearance then disappearance of that volume of hostile energy. It simply wasn't done like that. When you let out the beast you had to struggle to rein it back in fighting a constant war on who was the samurai and who were the daimyo until one remained in charge. She had seen intelligence reports of multiple Nanabi hosts failing because they couldn't regain control after activation and had to be killed. "But perhaps you're right; I will determine what is going on here."
The aged fuin master gestured for her team to fall back into the borders of the ruin village. They did so, in synch drawing their ninjato and slinking shuriken or kunai between the fingers of the other. Two turned their back on the woman to act as lookouts using their sensor talents and Mito with excitement…hope…faith in her heart removed several fuin paper strips from within her robes.
She bit her ravaged thumb strewing blood by manipulating the crimson fluid with agile movements of her fingers. Every finger apart from her thumb holding the paper were lightly dashed with crimson and painted with ease several fuin scripts. With those papers ready, screaming epithets of her talents she flung them high above her and formed a ram seal. The papers on contact with her flare of chakra turned stiff like a corpse in rigor mortis and landed vertically around the women. The seals burned blue and then linking in the centre before firing out like a laser beam over to the island the seals gathered energy and focused streams of light until it was a burning sphere of blue light in front of her. The blue beams of light shot over the top of the island where she hoped the Uzumaki lay (she was so sure but Eagle had thrown a figurative bucket of cold water on her exuberance) and then exploded like a shooting star. The shooting star turned into a chakra cage that if a Biju carrying shinobi or kunoichi was there would alert her by turning the barrier red.
She sighed with relief audibly when nothing came back. There wasn't a Jinchuuriki there and whatever demonic chakra had been there was long gone. But with a straight face she addressed her shinobi guards. Hope continued to flare as the Uzumaki did nothing, moved nowhere which in itself screamed of a trap. For his meddling Eagle was a wise man with a good head on his shoulders. Good enough to see why Sarutobi appointed him as her caretaker. It seemed years of retirement had worn out a few of her deductive processes that had killed better shinobi than she was.
"Spearhead formation, I will be in the rear this time Eagle." She hesitated for a moment, indecision on if she should come at this aggressively were quashed by the prompt obeying of her orders that she nearly was left behind. The entire squad plus the dying Shodaime Hokage's wife skipped across the water barely disturbing the surface and the inky depths were oddly welcoming to the woman. As a girl she nearly drowned exploring the ocean but it never deterred her from swimming. But those same feelings, helplessness, fear and that dash of excitement that made her mother pull her hair out hoping it might stop her tomboy child playing with the older boys were in vain were with her now. They reminded her again of her first child being born, the uncertainty of who would become the Nidaime when Sakumo Hatake was suggested and nearly won the position.
She was deep in memory lane tonight. It made her feel old but yet this person waiting for them on that lonely exposed island could be something new, a legacy to help her clan become alive once more. With the moon soaking it in milky light her poorer eyesight saw a figure looking out to the sea and with one hand outstretched as if trying to hold the moon. The closer she reached the more disturbing things seemed to be. This person did not move although her ANBU squad had deliberately made a sound to test his reactions. His chakras were active, a shinobi he or she had to be. Mito closed in forming the tail of the arrowhead directly parallel to Eagle.
The first thing that was out of place was the fact the person was naked. He was standing there looking at the moon unaffected by the cool night air or the sea water that splashed his bare body. He had no cover on the flat piece of rock once used as a lookout but abandoned long before she was born where time had swept away any trace. He was tanned, bronzed like he spent a lot of time in the sun all over and blonde. Instead of hair the colour of blood it was long flowing blonde locks down to his shoulders flowing freely to indicate the direction of the breeze.
But it was there. Blonde haired or not that Uzumaki chakra was present. At this range the poorest sensor in the ANBU squad could tell that. It had a unique wavelength that made it thicker, powerful without any need to mould it.
When Eagle landed with his team on the island that was when the stranger turned round. At this range her eyesight poor as it was winced at the numerous fine scars on his torso. He looked unabashed at his nakedness, so liberal he made no effort to hide his genitals. His piercing blue eyes reminding her so much of Kushina's lover but without the intensity gazed at them all. They were blank, curious when combined with the tilt of his head as if he didn't understand what was going on himself. On his front framing his eight pack was a seal, a spiral, the trademark of the Uzumaki fuin techniques meant for sealing something but what? It appeared to have burnt out or failed outright leaving a permanent scar no healer could repair without an extreme skin transplant.
"Identify yourself!" Eagle demanded. His team swiftly encircled the naked intruder who looked harmless enough.
"Naruto," he replied softly, tilting his head again inquisitively. Mito's head was reeling at that one. Somebody called their child 'fishcake' of all things?
"And what is your purpose here?"
"I don't know," Naruto answered bewildered, "Do you know?"
He looked lost and confused. Mito could sense his lack of negative intentions thanks to the leftovers of her time as prison guard to the Kyubi No Kitsune or Kurama (god that had been a hard one to coax out of the grumpy old bastard). She still at close range harnessed the power to read negative intentions. Hell she sensed nothing from him like a blank slate. Did he have amnesia? What was the seal on his stomach for? Why was the Kyubi or another Biju here then gone in an instant? Why was the boy naked of all things?
There were so many mysteries in one blonde boy that waited to be solved.
"You will tell us everything," Eagle demanded behind his mask, subtly signalling two of his subordinates to attack from his blind spots.
Mito realised his plan too late. It had been years since she was around ANBU on duty and the system of hand signs Tobirama-kun had created were obviously different. She called out to stop this foolishness seeing nothing dangerous about him but Mito was an old woman. Her words caught in her throat as the backlash of overusing the tags on her head lashed out from overuse. She caught her breath just as Cat and Lion attacked the boy.
Naruto was startled but then had blue eyes screaming of hard training. The teenager in classic Uzushio stance evaded the kick to his face by Cat by ducking, locking his lowered legs around Cat's solitary limb and knocked them over. He released Cat in time to allow the ninjato of Lion to blow his hair back with the displaced air from his skilled slash and fell into the path of Cat who recovered by grabbing the back of his neck and soaking him in lightning chakra.
Naruto fizzled from the discharge, his hair standing on end and went down hard. All of the ANBU sans Eagle surrounded and then weaved him head to toe in monofilament wire.
Mito with aid from Eagle carefully approached the teenager whom was struggling hard enough for the sharp wire to cut into his skin spilling rivets of crimson all over the stone. He looked blankly seemingly used to pain apart from a haggard shallow breath Mito identified as a meditative stance used to control pain by leaking minute amounts of chakra to the nerves. The ANBU prevented him from rolling around in case he fell into the ocean drowning so the old woman had the time to admire him.
Naruto up close was a very fit young man. His face, expressions and looks belonged to her family but the hair. Where had her clan member brother or sister found a blonde to mate with? Blonde hair belonged to Kumogakure, the northern countries it served and occasionally appeared in Konoha especially in the Yamanaka who migrated there after being betrayed by Kumogakure no Sato just prior to the formation of the village. Kumo was also a sworn enemy of Uzushio. What had influenced one of her people to seek shelter there?
That seal was also continuing to bug her. That was very out of place. It was in the wrong position for a storage seal for weapons or supplies and far too extravagant. She released a controlled pulse of chakra over the struggling boy and lit up the entire seal.
"Is that?" she gasped in surprise identifying it as the Shinigami's work. Parts of it were written in the divine script, one only a celestial of the ancient world could craft. Nobody knew what the symbols meant so creating divinity was impossible because well you had to know what they meant. In fuin theory meaning was derived by understanding. It was the main reason so few outside of her home village became interested in it. In the right hands devastating things could be done with fuinjutsu but it required years to master it, not so useful when somebody could whip up a few hand seals and spew fire balls of destruction or lightning bolts. But she could see the two four element seals wrapped around the Uzumaki spiral.
"What would you have us do with him Mito-sama?" Eagle asked. Cat had his ninjato around Naruto's jugular to still him from struggling. Naruto bore dark eyes at the ANBU and without warning smashed his forehead into Cat's mask, cracking it and dislodging a piece of the porcelain mask that cut through Naruto's scalp. With one leg he was back on both feet and in his palm a maelstrom of chakra came to life cutting through the wire holding him. It grew into the shape of a sphere as the teen pulled the wire off him and genuinely the entire ANBU retreated five feet in astonishment.
Mito was not very interested in that. Her amazement came from what she saw briefly on Naruto's lower back at the base of the spine. In the divine script a blackened mark, circular with a full translation in Kanji was a myth. It gave her the power to speak.
"Stop what you're doing now!" Mito barked dangerously. The ANBU stiffened at the request and surprisingly the blonde man seemed to listen and stopped his jutsu. He never left his stance.
"Mito-sama he's using Namikaze's rasengan!" Eagle declared. "He invented it just last year. Its impossible this man knows it."
The blonde hair did remind the woman of Minato. The blue eyes seemed to match and Mito had pondered the silly notion Minato could've been the child of a lost member because of his god like ability with fuin. The man had even consulted her once on the possibility of high speed rapid teleportation. She had offered a few hints until impatient Kushina dragged them on their night on the town. Was he a lost brother or cousin? Poor Minato had been found in the burned wreckage of a village raided by bandits. It'd been village policy to wipe young children's minds back then to spare them the trauma and a cynical attempt to gain soldiers that the Hokage's were overruled by until Sarutobi the old softy ran the law through threatening to take it to the daimyo.
But that seal brought up questions, stories of the Rikudō Sennin's origins once denounced as fairy tales by her began to make Mito uneasy. That mark was on a story book her grandmother had inherited from hers by oral tradition and so on since the beginning of the age of chakra. That was told to those that… It couldn't be! Mito tried to deny what was blatantly in front of her. The power requirements alone… But it fit. All of the evidence fitted the brief burst of Biju chakra, the fuin on his stomach she could piece together could be used as a vessel for a greater power. The blank confused stare like the boy had no clue where he was… Naruto… Uzumaki…
She stared again one more time at him with her chakra senses. It was verified by the density of his chakras. But just to see such an impossibility existing right in front of her? Karma or some other god looked to be rewarding her or was it a curse? Was it a sign of times to come? Was he going to play a part in the future with her disappearing with the old guard?
"All of you retreat to the town. I need to speak to him alone."
"But…"
"Now Eagle before I report you for your insubordination," Mito warned, rarely using that tone of voice had them retreating to the minimum point they were allowed to stare back at.
Mito approached him. She treated him like a spooked cat she was coaxing to come to her, Naruto the time traveller it seemed to indicate was wary now. The teenager looked positively exhausted but wouldn't let his guard down around the harmless old woman. In time Mito pulled out from under her sleeve her husband's forehead protector she kept under her wrist and showed it to him.
Naruto visibly softened at the symbol. Another clue revealed of her theory. The blonde child walked over to her unabashed at his nakedness and motioned to be given the headband. Mito complied and handed it to the teenager who treated it like a wonder of the world. He caressed the soft steel, tracing the symbol and rubbed the fabric. Mito looked on forensically analysing him, blatantly walking around him and the blonde man followed her turning in a counter-clockwise circle pivoting one foot until he was aware moving anymore meant turning his back on the ANBU, his onetime aggressors. Mito kept going however slowly, creating trust with each other until she stepped forward two steps and reached out to touch the marking.
"Naruto," Naruto said again.
"I'm Mito," Mito introduced, glaring at the shifting ANBU to stay where they were. "You're named Naruto?"
"I'm Naruto," Naruto agreed, treating it as the moment to open the floodgates after so much time being stoic, "But I don't know where I am. Where am I? Why did those people in the masks try to hurt me? I didn't do anything to them I promise Mito." Naruto held out the headband and asked a silent question with his eyes. Mito chuckled at what he wanted to do. He reminded her of Nawaki, Kami bless his soul.
"Let me Naruto," she offered and Naruto relented to her. The shorter woman on her tip toes wrapped her husband's headband, her keepsake nobody else had been allowed to touch not even her children since Hashirama had died around his forehead. It framed his face nicely and kept his long hair in line. "Now don't we look handsome?"
Naruto grinned brightly at Mito relaxing at her gentle voice. The teenager ran a finger across the metal and felt at ease. Mito indulgently grinned at him with her eyes closed, a very unsafe method of interaction around a strange trained killer or what he could've been.
More pieces of the legend were starting to fit. That seal was a contract between the Shinigami and a human who wished to defy time. The Rikudō Sennin was said to some to have come from a different time period far in the future. The age of chakra had been so fast, so sudden that some wondered how this mythical person could accomplish it and do so much with it within one lifetime. Then among the Uzumaki, an artisan from long ago perhaps a lover drew a famous naked drawing supposedly of said man that had been destroyed with the village. On it with his back exposed was the marking Naruto now had. Naruto, his name was the anchor to keep his existence in reality when crossing through the time period. Maybe the leaf symbol was also a trigger, a sign of who to trust left over or negotiated between the Shinigami and Naruto. In exchange the teenager or person was denied knowledge of anything pertaining to that future and the more they went back the less they kept.
This poor boy must've gone so far back into the past his entire self was gone. But the knowledge he had gained, jutsu, taijutsu whatever remained with that person. It was supposed to be why the Rinnegan wielding Rikudō Sennin could teach five elemental chakras, master them even if the average soul took a lifetime to learn two and why the infamous eyes hadn't been seen since. It promoted the idea some of the myths were fanciful but thinking on it maybe there was some truth to it. Sarutobi knew three elements (he'd tried to learn water and lightning with limited success suggesting the Rikudō Sennin's legend had been blown out of proportion) could but he was an anomaly and less said about Ōnoki the better. That man had survived a battle with Uchiha Madara in his prime.
"Does it look nice on me Mito?" Naruto asked innocently. "You're a nice lady," he added, running his hand through his fringe nervously. The blonde teenager looked adorably vulnerable.
"You're a very polite young man Naruto. I was hoping you might want to come with me to my home. I can get you some clothes and we can have a nice long chat about anything you want to know."
"Will the masked men follow us?" Naruto asked betraying his unease. His cuts were already scabbing over, more evidence of him being an Uzumaki. Heightened healing was a bonus required for anyone wanting to live a long time.
"No they won't Naruto-chan," she promised, watching him for his reaction to the honorific. To her pleasure Naruto hugged her and over his shoulder Mito glared so fiercely at her ANBU to back off. The trust had been formed. This poor soul was a time traveller and had no idea why he went back in the first place. She decided not to reveal to anyone of who he was or what he'd done. She wasn't going to take the risk someone trying to repeat the disaster and Kushina the other survivor was too young to remember such fanciful stories. This jutsu would disappear with Naruto Uzumaki. "Naruto?"
"Yes Mito?" Naruto asked, pulling away from the hug but eager to be nice to her. "Are we going to get some clothes for me? I'm feeling cold now."
"Of course Naruto-chan," Mito promised sincerely, "But I need to do something for you first. It's something that'll protect you from bad people."
"Like the masked men?"
"No they aren't bad people just very protective of me." She said that loudly to the ANBU who retreated again to where they were supposed to be. Mito compared them to impatient children on Christmas morning. "I'm very important and special just like you."
Naruto cocked his head and blushed slightly. Mito chuckled indulgently at his childish gesture.
"I need you to let me touch your back. There's something there that's bad for you. Can you do that for me Naruto-chan?"
"Okay," Naruto agreed without arguing. The blonde turned around and spread out his legs unfortunately allowing his dangly bits to wave in the air. The boy had no shame; Mito would need to fix that. Oh but so much for him to learn. It would be like raising a child again and that thought gave her back all her positivity. Motor skills such as holding chopsticks might be possibly still there but ethics, morals and standards of decency? Kushina would have one hell of a time reining in her little brother…
"This might sting a bit okay?" Mito was given an affirmative and she set to work. Drawing her chakra was painful without assistance but she managed with her exceptional control without Kyubi mucking it up to light up her fingertips and burn the mark completely off Naruto's back. He hissed but didn't move. Mito frowned at his familiarity with pain. Whoever conditioned him this well was lucky they were in the future or she would have punched them hard. "There all done."
"I'm better now?"
"Very much so Naruto-chan," Mito promised, sighing in relief that he couldn't be attacked by enemies anymore after his miracle. "But I need one more thing from you."
"Okay," Naruto agreed without finding out what it was. He was rubbing his sore back but kept that incorrigible smile.
"I need a sample of your blood."
"My blood?" Naruto said slowly.
"Yes to make sure there's nothing wrong with you Naruto-chan. You can keep my forehead protector if you do it."
"No problem," Naruto beamed, offering an arm. Mito smiled at how easy it was to bribe this gentle soul.
"You need to ask Crane over there. I promise she isn't a bad girl aren't you Crane?"
"No Mito-sama I'm… a good girl," Crane, a black haired Hyuga woman confirmed reluctantly.
"See Naruto-chan she's a good girl but of course we need to get home. I'm hungry. Are you?"
Naruto's stomach growled loudly and he patted it proudly as if the stomach telling her was something better than him saying anything.
"I'm hungry," Naruto beamed.
"Well I think growing boys should eat plenty. I think its ramen tonight."
"That sounds wonderful Mito," Naruto thanked profusely. He must've sensed her weakening (she was over 120 years old and ill) and plucked her up into his arms bridal style. His musculature in his chest area was very slight but firm like a swimmer or an athlete. Naruto was definitely shinobi trained.
But now she had to figure out when Uzumaki Naruto had become a Jinchuuriki. All evidence leaned to Kyubi being used as the power source for this miracle and figure out if she could who his parents were. She'd been putting two and two together now her brain was warmed up. Looking at the blonde hair, blue eyes and the tailed beast inside him at one time without suffering the side effects of said Biju taken away from him? She had to copy what she could of this seal and present it to Kushina to figure out without her catching on to what Naruto was?
Uzumaki Naruto was going to get a nice life starting anew from whatever horror drove him to do something so drastic. Amnesia or not he was going to be reborn just as she was about to depart this world forever to be reunited with her ancestors.
"Well then Naruto are you going to carry me or not?" Mito joked.
"Yeah Mito-chan!" Naruto said. Mito laughed so loudly even her ANBU winced at the random act of insanity. Hope blossomed in her withering body at this pure soul and a smile you couldn't nuke off her encouraged Naruto to return it.
"Well then let's get you home and everything you want to know answered Naruto-chan!"
It was the least Uzumaki Mito could do as her last good deed on this planet.
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A/N Next chapter her hunch is correct! But she's wrong too! Find out why on chapter 2!