It was kind of annoying that the only review I got for the first chapter was about how Naruto got his whisker marks (I wonder if I have to put in minor plot changes as well as major plot changes in the summary…) but I must admit I didn't know he didn't get it from them from the sealing, this does mean he already had Kyuubi chakra in him before the sealing however. As I'm making this up as I go along I have altered what I was going to put to include the whisker marks hahaha…
Sanity is in perspective
I apologise in advance for not creating many names for passive characters, I'm crap at making names (although looking at the number of reviews I got I think I've got more than names to worry about…)
Meeting Mothers
It had not been a good night for the re-instated Hokage, he had passed Naruto onto one of his servants who he trusted to look after him for the night but he (and everyone else in the house) had been woken up several times by the wails of the young babe. Of course this didn't make finding Naruto a new home any more important as long as he was gone by the end of the day sure babies are cute as long as you can give them back.
One of the first things Sarutobi noticed upon retrieving Naruto was the diamond seal above his navel and although he didn't know much more than the basics of sealing he had picked up a few things over the years, in retrospect he thought he should have had the seal checked first thing last night but it had been a stressful day what with the death of Biwako and Naruto looked fine so the thought hadn't crossed his mind. He headed towards the Hokage's tower with his servant following a few steps behind pulling funny faces and making stupid noises to entertain the baby in her arms.
They made their past the two ANBU guards waiting outside the tower both bowing the Sandaime into the building and made their way up the stairs till they came to some double doors with two more ANBU guarding them, one of the ANBU opened the door and both bowed as their re-instated leader passed inside, once inside Sarutobi made his way behind the desk again and took his seat whilst his servant moved to the side of the room taking a seat on the couch placed against the wall. Sarutobi called out "Fetch me Jiraiya and a Medic Nin, hold everyone else outside until I call for them." There was a slight shift in the shadows before the Third Hokage started on his paperwork what little there was as most paperwork is done by administrators; looking through losses from the Kyuubi attack both financial and shinobi, as well as security measures that need to be taken like repairs and feelers as to any action taken by other countries whilst they are weakened.
It was ten minutes later before a knock at the door and the Medic Nin was introduced; Saiyuri became a full time medic after she was diagnosed Diabetic and couldn't continue her shinobi career as other people's lives would have depended on her and many missions take unexpected turns. When she was diagnosed she was well on her way to becoming a genjutsu specialist, it was devastating to her to find out all her hard work turned out to be useless to her, but her drive kept her going till she became one of the best medics in Konoha and her pleasant disposition and experience made her popular with the shinobi.
"Ah Saiyuri-Chan how nice to see you again" the re-instated Hokage said from behind his desk presenting a grandfatherly smile to the medic, she bowed in response "Hokage-sama" she replied. Sarutobi chatted with the young medic asking seemingly pointless questions which gave him an outline of her personality and inquiring about her friends and family to find out what her most likely response would be to the young Jinchuuriki.
By the time they had finished talking Jiraiya had appeared through the window as was his custom, although hard to tell Sarutobi noticed that his student was distressed, his usually buoyant attitude absent, let alone he hadn't made any comments about the young medic yet. The grandfatherly face disappeared from the Third Hokage's face indicating the start of the reason were both called, Saiyuri stood to attention out of force of habit.
"As I'm sure you've both noticed the baby," neither of the two subordinates even bothered turning "This child's name is Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto." At this Jiraiya whole attention focused on his teacher "Jiraiya as you have no doubt worked out this child is the Jinchuuriki for the nine tailed fox." A short gasp followed this announcement from Saiyuri before the Sandaime continued "I need you to check the seal to see if everything is functioning fine, Saiyuri I want you to do a medical scan to see if Naruto is healthy, I'll need to know if the fox has had any effect on him, also due to problems it will cause if anyone finds out about Naruto this case will be classified top secret and all future medical needs will be supervised by you unless you have a problem with the baby?" Sarutobi looked at the medic with questioning glance for which was obviously not a question.
At this Naruto was brought over by the servant and laid on the desk before she bowed and left the room heading returning to her other duties back at the Sarutobi estate. Saiyuri moved forward when indicated by the Hokage and started going through various medical scans on the young child stopping every now and then to make a note on the sheets she took out of her pouch. Upon completion of the exam a look of disbelief was shown on the young medic and subsequently the Sandaime and Jiraiya when they heard the result "Sir according to the scans he is physically healthy, there are small traces of Kyuubi chakra localised around his stomach but there is another chakra source there that seems to be trying to withhold the chakra and for the most part succeeding. The child has enormous chakra reserves for his age as expected, at the moment they are around what's expected for a chunin ninjutsu specialist but there is a problem with his chakra… it seems to be somewhat chaotic and it doesn't look like it is because of the Kyuubi but I've never examined anyone like him before. Because of the chaotic nature of the chakra I'd guess that controlling it will be probably be difficult but as I've never seen this before I can't be certain, on the plus side because there is so much of it in the small body and it's in constant motion it seems to be compressing his muscles and bones this will likely permanently increase his strength and if he works towards it he might approach Tsunade's strength naturally. There might be other effects due to the density and nature of the chakra but they will probably only show as he ages."
Recovering from this new information and altering his plans the Sandaime dismissed Saiyuri asking her to inform him if anything regarding Naruto comes up leaving just one more thing to check before he meets people to take the place of a mother for Naruto, It was Jiraiya's turn to move close to the baby his eyes taking in everything about the child before moving over to where the seal is located.
He placed his hand on either side of the babe's stomach before channelling chakra only to find out that nothing happened, now somewhat panicked Jiraiya focused on the diamond prodding it a few times whilst whispering to himself, standing up he strokes his chin in thought before going through several hand signs and placing his hands once upon the diamond. For a few brief seconds the diamond glowed before spreading across Naruto's stomach in a spiral pattern, suddenly Naruto was bawling as the whisker marks grew thicker on his cheeks before Jiraiya stopped and both the Diamond and whisker marks returned to the way they were.
Looking at his teacher "Sensei… the seal on Naruto stomach is not holding the Kyuubi… it's hard to explain heck I'm not even sure I understand it myself but the seal on his stomach is like Tsunade's creation rebirth seal only it seems to be stopping the Kyuubi from taking over Naruto's body, as for the Kyuubi itself, I suppose the only way to explain it is it's a part of Naruto now sort of, I believe if this seal wasn't in place there would be a contest of wills between Naruto and the Kyuubi to see who gains control of the body, when Naruto is older it should be possible for us to release the seal and let them face each other… if Naruto won he might gain full control of the Kyuubi's power of course if he lost we would probably have a nigh immortal being that would probably like to kill us all. As for why this happened I can only assume that it is a new advanced bloodline, although I have no idea what it could be used for, even though neither Minato nor Kushina showed any signs of the possibility but then again we don't know how advanced bloodlines start."
Sarutobi was lost in thought for a few minutes before responding to what he had just learnt "What is your opinion Jiraiya is he dangerous to Konoha? Do I have to take appropriate measures?" The response he received was adamant "He is harmless at the moment, unless someone decides to remove the seal on his stomach then it will be fine, you do know that the seal on his stomach most likely contains Kushina's chakra?" Sarutobi hummed in response, Jiraiya seeing it as a dismissal went to leave before he was stopped by Sarutobi "oh Jiraiya by the way I will be looking for guardians for Naruto in a few minutes do you want to stay and help?" the toad sage looked uncertain so Sarutobi continued with something he knew would convince the super pervert "you should know that there will be lots of young attractive Kunoichi to be interviewed, and I would love your input." Oh how easy it is to control the pervert.
In the end they found their candidate, her name is Inugami Saki (see Shadow Hearts Covenant), she had a still birth and due to complications was unable to conceive again her partner left her when he found out and due to their separation she ended up in a not so nice part of the village so was deemed unsuitable for adoption. Saki is well rounded as a ninja but focuses mostly on taijutsu, unusual for a Kunoichi due to them being inherently weaker than their male counterpart. She was once beautiful but because of recent events had become somewhat gaunt in appearance, nothing that a bit of healthy living couldn't fix.
After all the interviews had finished Jiraiya left to take care of his spy network whilst Sarutobi called Saki back to see if she would accept the 'missions' he had planned. During the interviews Naruto had been kept in a separate room under ANBU watch but now he was again in the arms of the village leader, squirming as much as a one day old baby can.
Saki again entered the Hokage's office, curios about what was going on as it wasn't every day the village leader called you in to talk about how your life was going. Upon entering she noticed that Sarutobi was facing the window looking out over the village, Saki moved to stand in front of the desk before bowing and announcing her presence. Still looking out of the window the old leader started talking with a solemn voice "I have a small problem which I believe you can help me with Saki, I had talked to many women this morning and found you to be the best candidate for a few missions I have that need to be taken care of," with that Sarutobi turned slowly in his chair to once again face his desk.
Keeping his eyes fixed on Saki's face "This child was used to defeat the Kyuubi (a surprised look crossed her face but there was no hostility), because of the number of people who lost their lives in the attack yesterday there will no doubt be many people who would take their misguided anger out on the baby (here he was happy to note a disgusted look flash across her face). From the talk we had this morning and looking into your past" Sarutobi indicated a folder sitting on his desk. Saki somehow seemed to fidget without actually moving waiting for the verdict.
"I have noted that you had applied to adopt but were refused," Saki started to offer her defence before Sarutobi held his hand up and continued with what he was saying "I have looked at your psych report as well as your background and it appears that the only reason you can't adopt is because it is thought that you would be unable to support a child financially and because you don't have a partner to look after the child while you are away on missions."
Saki looked down obviously upset with how this conversation was going "Therefore I have a few long term missions which I would like you to take (indicating to the baby in his arms), I would like for you to raise Naruto as if he was your own child (Saki's face split into a grin, her face seemed to regain a lot of its vitality) this will be classed as an on-going C class mission, I also need a teacher for a recently orphaned child this too will be an on-going C class mission and finally I will need a bodyguard for a figure which will play a big part in Konohagakure's future of course this will be a C class mission. So do you think you are up to taking on three simultaneous?"
The young lady was almost bouncing on the spot she could barely contain herself before accepting the missions, after which she held her arms out towards the Hokage who carefully deposited the young blond into the excited woman's arms (grateful that he wouldn't have to spend another night being woken up by a screaming baby), it was hard to draw the happy mother's attention away from the bundle in her arms, which brought a smile to the old man's face.
When he did eventually get her settled down enough he started to inform her of important things she would need or want to know "Due to what Naruto is everything I am about to say is strictly classified and can only be spoken to with either myself or Jiraiya. Naruto's parents were Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki Namikaze, because of the conflict it would cause with factions inside and outside of Konoha Naruto will be using his mother's maiden name until such a time where it is decided it will be beneficial or he can be trusted to know, if he shows proficiency it would be useful if he learnt Fuuinjutsu. I had a medic check him out this morning and for all future check-ups or problems you should go see her, you've probably met her before, her name is Saiyuri. The medical scan showed that Naruto has a lot of chakra but it is chaotic at the moment, he will be physically stronger than normal but will probably have trouble controlling his chakra… focus on his taijutsu and set him tasks to do to control his chakra whilst he is practising his kata."
The Sandaime paused for a minute trying to remember what he had forgotten before bringing out a scroll from his pocket "this scroll contains all of Naruto's parent's possessions, it will be held here until Naruto can be trusted with their identities, I have also taken the liberty of purchasing a place of residence for yourself and Naruto near one of the ANBU bases towards the outskirts of the village, there is a security seal inside that will bring aid in less than a minute in an emergency, the house is remote and it should give you plenty of privacy. Now I think it's time to show you your new house and then you can go and collect anything you want from your old house before you move in." With a nod one of the ANBU around the room stepped out from the shadows and led the ecstatic mother home.
Life passed peacefully for the mother and child for the first few years, as most people didn't know where or who they were and Naruto for the most part never left the boundaries of the property. At first Naruto was just like any other baby eating, pooping and sleeping then he learnt how to crawl and crawl he did with his never ending energy it was almost as if he teleported to the top of the stairs. Luckily Naruto seemed to heal extraordinarily quickly from any injury he received so he was ready in no time to go exploring again.
Saki spent most of her time looking after Naruto, teaching him like the dedicated mother she was started with simple things like walking, talking then moving on to more advanced like reading, writing and swimming. As there was no one except the Hokage Saki could trust Naruto with she rarely got a break from looking after him but she wouldn't trade it for anything in the world Naruto had become her life.
The only thing about Naruto that upset Saki was that he had no choice on what he would be in the future, she knew he would be a shinobi and would likely face more dangers than most other ninja of the leaf and although it upset her she had started Naruto's training before he could walk starting with giving him weighted clothes to move in, showing how to move silently and gracefully. As he grew Saki started playing games with him like hide and seek to teach him tracking and stealth, blind man's bluff to teach him situational awareness and juggling between the two of them to increase hand eye co-ordination. These 'games' progressed in difficulty like making Naruto stand on a pole whilst juggling to increase balance, this lead to gymnastics (luckily there was no-one there to tell him it was a girls sport*) and eventually martial arts.
At first it Saki found it difficult to teach Naruto anything academic because he had so much energy he found it difficult sitting down for more than a few minutes and trying to wear him out more often than not wore her out first (she quite often wondered how he kept still enough to sleep), She eventually found a solution to this problem when they first tried a chakra control exercise. Naruto's chakra was so chaotic he wouldn't be able to do any ninjutsu for quite a while yet (and she doubted he'd ever be able to do genjutsu, on the flip side because of his chakra most genjutsu wouldn't affect him as genjutsu needs to be anchored to your opponents chakra) but he could expel chakra through his tenketsu; the benefits of making Naruto expel most of his chakra was that he became tired enough to concentrate on academic work, it helped slightly with his chakra control and it strengthened his tenketsu meaning he could expel more at once of course this left most of his body feeling like he'd been struck by lightning (smoke effect included) but his mother told him to do it so he did.
By the time Naruto was eight he had the taijutsu skills (Saki taught him a style that relies on speed and strength to quickly disable or kill an opponent as opposed to her own style which focuses on flexibility) matching that of most chunin and the speed and strength to match any jounin (except Gai), he had a descent understanding of Fuuinjutsu with only Jiraiya and Saki (she had to learn to teach him) in Konoha knowing more. Naruto still couldn't use much in the way on ninjutsu, when he used Henge there was a noticeable glow around him/her (there weren't many people that he knew so he henged into Saki) and when he used Kawarimi whatever he was replaced with had a tendency to be crushed, he had tried to learn bunshin but they gave it up after a week as impossible. Naruto's genjutsu was non-existent period and his chakra control left a lot to be desired, he could walk on water but it was more of a brute force approach and he could walk up most walls and trees but he quite often left indents in them.
It was on Naruto's ninth birthday and he was home with his mother and the Hokage, Naruto received a book his father wrote on advanced sealing from the old man. His mother Saki gave Naruto three things which meant more to him than any of his other possession, these were a set of gauntlets called Dragonfangs (they are blue with two blades on each one and two pearls in each hand guard that made them look alive**) which used chakra to repair themselves, a photo of the two of them together with a message on the back 'Know that I will always love you my son' and finally the truth about who he was and what he contained, he carried all three with him everywhere.
Naruto was somewhat of a recluse as the only people he ever talked to was his mother and the Hokage and although he was happy both adults in his life though it would cause problems later on when he would have to work with others.
Under the recommendation of the Third Hokage Naruto started to explore beyond the grounds of the house accompanied by Saki at first and a couple of hidden ANBU, they went to a couple of restaurants and the park. The Hokage then decided it would be a good idea to have a gathering of important figures in Konoha including Naruto of course this is where their problems really started.
"Naruto-Kun how nice to see you again" all heads turned towards the young blond as the leader of their village shouted out across the room in greeting as said blond stood rooted to the spot wishing he was younger so he could hide behind his mother, quickly putting his embarrassment behind him as he'd been taught Naruto stood straight and bowed gracefully, his mother joining him. Saki put her hand between Naruto's shoulders and led him over to where everyone else his age was before leaving him with a quick hug. He stood embarrassed in front of all the other children scratching the back of his head "Nice to meet you, I'm Naruto" he was soon introduced to many of the clan heirs from the Aburame to the Yamanaka as well as quite a few civilian children from wealthy families. After the introductions Naruto stayed in the background listening to the various conversations around him and inputting little as he had no idea why Sasuke is soo cool.
What he did notice was that a lot of the non-ninja parents seemed to be collecting their children a few minutes after he arrived although he didn't think much on it since this was the first time he'd been to such an event. What he didn't know was that after the meeting when he was born word had spread in certain circles that a boy his age with whisker marks on his cheeks was the container for the nine tailed fox and as information is power almost all of the adults in the room thought they knew what he was and even if some of them didn't hold it against him they were a bit wary about leaving their children with him.
It was a couple of weeks after the gathering when Saki and Naruto were taking a break from their training to go shopping when they noticed something was wrong, everyone was avoiding them and they were receiving cold looks from most everyone. Somewhat puzzled and worried they never the less carried on at a somewhat quicker pace keeping close to each other out of comfort, they were somewhat relieved when they reached home and could relax.
Naruto headed off to the kitchen to put the shopping away whilst Saki went to contact Sarutobi via letter to inform him of the odd behaviour of the village. They were sitting around the table eating tea playing a word game Saki thought up teach Naruto ways to gather information when they started to fall asleep at the table their heads falling into the remains of their tea.
It was about half an hour later when Naruto woke up to find himself tied naked to a metal stake which had been drilled into the kitchen floor. He could see his mother across the room; she had been strapped to one of the kitchen chars which had been nailed down, she was thankfully still clothed. On the kitchen table all of the things Naruto had been wearing were piled and he could see people around the edge of the room.
Naruto groaned as pain shot through his head "Oh your awake I see and half an hour early too, although I suppose we should have suspected that from demon scum!" there were jeers around the room as the instigator of all this swung in front of Naruto a sadistic grin on his face "You thought you could take everything away from us and get away with it? Now we're going to show you what it's like to lose everything." As Naruto started to struggle with his bindings bringing all of his considerable (if somewhat weakened due to the drugging) strength to bear against his bindings but it was no use as with a small signal from the man in front of Naruto the stuff on the table was set on fire including the birthday presents from his mother.
Whilst he watched his stuff burn one of the surrounding villagers went to wake his mother up using smelling salts completely ignoring Naruto's shouts to leave her alone. Over the next few hours Naruto was forced to watch as the villagers tortured his mother quite a few of the villagers would leave as they couldn't stomach watching Saki's bones being broken or her flesh tenderised, one of the civilians took the Dragonfangs with her as they were the only things on the table to survive the fire. Naruto could see the life leaving his mother's eyes and then she spoke her final word with barely any indication of the agony she was going through "Live on Naruto and show these bastards what my son can do…". "!" Naruto screamed in absolute anguish as his world went dark.
Everyone else in the room looked towards the now unconscious blond as he let out an unearthly scream, what they saw terrified them as his unconscious body was twitching the whisker marks on his face expanded as a red glow emitted from the diamond tattoo on his stomach his eyes opened again except they were not the same ones that had closed they were black within black. His mouth opened but the sound that came out was more like a bird than a human and sent a chill down the back of anyone who heard it. The whisker marks on his face glowed red once more before disappearing off his cheeks, a bright light encompassed the child shattering the pole he was attached to, when the villagers could see again they felt that maybe this excursion to punish the demon wasn't a good idea because in front of them stood a demon, this demon was almost completely black with an exoskeleton it had a pair of wings coming out of its back the feet had two toes to the front and one to the back on each foot each tipped with blade like claws and an almost sword like blade growing out of one of its arms. It looked around the room with its inhuman head and then the screaming started…***
Meanwhile Naruto found himself in what appeared a stone passage with eight different coloured pipes running along the roof, the pipes from left to right were; green, blue, red, colourless, yellow, white and black. The black pipe was emitting what can only be called a black light and the colourless one seemed to be interconnected to all the others and had some of the black light flowing through it. Naruto followed the pipes till he came what looked like a central chamber, three of the pipes went off to either side where a there were more passages the colourless one went to the centre of the room where it split in two one going through the roof the other through the floor. The yellow pipe carried on across the room and through a gate, a gate that was chained shut by chains that seemed to originate and end from a woman hanging halfway up the gate.
Naruto quickly made his way over to the woman and examined her but he couldn't make out much with her head bowed against her chest he started to reach forward "Hey are you okay?" but quickly fell back when her head shot up and her green eyes opened "Naruto!"
*I in no way think that gymnastics is a girl only sport
**See Dragonfangs on Shadow Hearts Wiki
*** See Somnion on Shadow Hearts Wiki
I will be using the third level fusions from Shadow Hearts Covenant and the Kyuubi will replace Amon/Seraphic Radiance