Naruto and Iruka were on their way to their favourite ramen restaurant to celebrate the blonde's graduation, as well as take their minds off of the night's events. As they were walking an ANBU stepped out of the shadows. Naruto was immediately on edge, but relaxed when he saw the porcelain mask in the form of a tiger that the shinobi was wearing. All members of ANBU were at least civil to him, something he was very grateful for. Iruka was merely confused, as it was not very often that someone from ANBU showed him- or herself to normal ninja without a very good reason. As it turned out, this particular ANBU had such a reason.
"Uzumaki Naruto, Umino Iruka. I have been instructed to escort you to the Hokage's office. Please follow me." the voice was a bit cold, but not unkind, and the blond soon-to-be Genin figured that this particular member of ANBU always spoke like that.
He glanced at his sensei, who nodded, then turned to the ANBU with a nod of his own. The masked nin returned the gesture and led them toward the Hokage tower.
Sarutobi smiled when he heard the knock on the door that signalled the arrival of the boy that was like a grandson to him. His smile faltered a bit however, when he saw the look on said boy's face. Naruto's next words caused the smile to die completely and the elderly Hokage let out yet another sigh, it would seem like his premonition would turn out to be true.
"I take it that you want some answers, Hokage-sama?"
The boy never called him that unless he was completely serious, and considering the look on said blonde's face when he looked at the crystal orb that was still on the desk in front of Sarutobi, this would be such a time.
"However, before I even think about answering any of your questions I want an answer to one of my own." the twelve-year old said in a cold tone.
The Hokage's eyes immediately turned sad at that sentence, he knew what that question would be before the boy in front of him even voiced it. He looked over at the other occupant of the room. Iruka merely looked flustered and confused at his blond student's actions. The old man sighed yet again and returned his attention to the blue-eyed boy in front of him.
"Very well. State your question." he said in a tired voice. Naruto felt a bit of guilt when he looked at his grandfather figure. The sad eyes and wrinkled face made the boy realise just how old the Hokage actually was. He forced down the guilt however, he needed answers and he needed them now.
"Why?" was all he said. That was all he needed to say, and he knew it. Both the Hokage and Iruka knew perfectly well what he meant.
"First of all," the Hokage started, "I would like to apologise, both for me and for the Fourth. Even if we don't deserve it."
"So it's true then. And to think that I actually looked up to that bastard. But it seems like he was just a coward after all. Using an orphan to save this ungrateful excuse for a village. And he probably died so that he wouldn't have to see what happened to me."
The hate and pain in the twelve-year olds words caused the guilt that already wrecked Sarutobi to increase ten-fold.
'So young, and yet he's endured so much pain. And to think that this has lead to him of all people hating you. I'm really sorry that I haven't been able to keep the promise Minato-kun. You would have been ashamed of what your village has done to him.' he thought as he turned his gaze from Naruto to the picture of the Yondaime as if hoping that the picture could respond to his thoughts. Obviously, no answer came, and with another sigh, the Sandaime Hokage turned his look back to the blue eyed boy in front of him. He cleared his throat.
"Now," he began, sadness and regret present in his voice, "to answer your question. He did it not because you were the only one available, but because you were the only one who could possibly keep the most powerful Bijuu sealed inside your body without dying or it taking over. It is a bit too complicated for me to understand the details fully, but your body is special. It is more resistant, and your soul is securely chained to it, making it impossible for anything to take possession of you. As such, you were the only one who could hope to survive the power surge that would come with the sealing, as well as the force released when the Kyuubi's chakra was transformed into yours. You, and you alone could keep the Kyuubi locked away forever." as he finished, he saw that shock had spread over the boy's features. However, instead of continuing to study the blonde's facial expression, Sarutobi continued with the explanation.
"As for my part in this. The Yondaime wanted you to be seen as a hero, as the person who saved the village every day by keeping the Kyuubi from it. However, the villagers never accepted you as that, instead seeing you as the demon itself, and I was forced to create a law to prevent anyone to tell this generation what was sealed within you. This was meant to give you a normal life, but the villagers found loopholes in my law, and told their children to keep away from you. I also suspect that some of them even tried to physically hurt you, am I right?"
At this the boy nodded stiffly and opened his mouth to speak, however it took a while before he found his voice.
"Y-yeah. They used to punish me every day at the orphanage." he said, but after seeing the Hokage's facial expression he quickly added "But the bruises would be gone by the next morning, so it didn't matter too much." at this, the Hokage's face turned even darker, while Iruka, who had remained silent all this time, started to stutter.
"Y-you m-mean that they actually beat you every day!? A-and that it didn't matter?"
"Yeah, why?" Naruto responded, while he mentally prayed that they wouldn't ask about things that happened outside of the orphanage.
The Chuunin couldn't comprehend what he was hearing. Not only had his student been beaten almost every day in his first six years of life, but he had gotten so used to it that it didn't matter to him anymore. Iruka felt sick. How could someone do that to a young child, and why hadn't he noticed that something was wrong with his student? Then he remembered, he had been one of those hurting the blonde, not physically, but he had given the boy impossible questions or assignments during class and had punished him when he didn't manage to answer the questions or finish the assignments. It was only in the last few years that he had started to see that Naruto was a person and not a monster. If possible, he felt even worse.
As if reading his sensei's thoughts, Naruto turned toward the Chuunin.
"Don't worry Iruka-sensei. I don't blame you." he said this with a small but sincere smile on his lips.
"As for you Hokage-sama. I can't be angry at you. You have always been there for me, and you did all this to try and make things better. I can't really forgive you just yet for not telling me this earlier though…" he trailed off at this, but the look on his face told the elderly Hokage that the boy meant what he said. It was more than Sarutobi thought he deserved, but he nonetheless felt flattered that the boy thought so highly of him. He smiled slightly and nodded his head in recognition of what the blonde had said.
"Thank you for answering my question Hokage-sama." Naruto continued with a small bow. The old man felt slightly saddened when he heard the blonde still calling him by his title, but decided that it was probably because of the seriousness of the situation. He sighed, took another puff from his pipe and leaned back in his chair.
"Now, mind telling us exactly what you did tonight Naruto-kun?" Sarutobi asked after a short but comfortable silence.
Naruto sighed softly in response as he thought about what he should do.
'Ah well… I guess there's no avoiding it now. Besides, it would be nice to tell someone the whole truth. I'm sick of having to lie all the time.'
"I did precisely what I said I'd do," he began, "I manipulated the flow of time in and around the traitor's body, ageing it until it was biologically 80 years old. Much more fitting than death if you ask me."
"We knew that much." the Hokage interjected, "What I'd like to know is how you can do it and why you never told anyone."
"What I'd like to know is what that green chakra was, and how you used it." Iruka piped in before Naruto had a chance of starting to answer the Hokage's questions.
"Alright," Naruto started while he turned his attention to Iruka, "that green chakra is my own chakra-" before he could continue however, Iruka interrupted him.
"How is that possible?! I have seen you use your chakra, and it is blue as everyone else's is."
"As I was saying," the blonde answered with a slight hint of irritation in his voice, "the green chakra is my own chakra. When I first saw that my chakra was green when everyone else had blue I thought that that was why everyone hated me, so I found a way to cast a genjutsu on it to make it look like it was blue like everyone else's was. After a while it was natural for me to do it, even if people still hated me."
The two other occupants in the room were shocked speechless at this revelation. It was the Hokage who found his voice first.
"You mean that you were able to cast a genjutsu that even fooled me over your chakra of all things? And you did it when you were just seven?"
"Five actually. You had to be able to mould chakra in order to enter the academy remember? And yes, all I had to do was to make the chakra move in certain patterns so that it would bend light around it, only releasing the blue light-waves and absorbing the others while at the same time hindering it from releasing its own light, as it normally does. At first I had to make a few additional seals before every jutsu I used in order for the genjutsu to take effect, but after a while I could do it without even thinking about it."
Even for Sarutobi, this was unheard of. To come up with such an idea and be able to move chakra in such an ingenious way. And at five no less. How could the village have overlooked such a genius? Then it hit him. All this time, Naruto had behaved like an idiot, and the village had bought it without a question. Even he, the Sandaime Hokage, nicknamed the 'professor' because of his vast intellect and cunning, had been fooled by the young blonde's act. He wondered if he should slap himself, congratulate his 'grandson' for the ingenious charade or do both. He decided on simply asking why the boy had acted like an idiot. Said blonde's eyes widened slightly in surprise of being found out, then lowered in sadness.
"When I started the academy," Naruto began, and Iruka immediately felt the guilt return. He knew exactly where this would be going, "all the teachers would give me questions impossible for a normal academy student to answer. If I would get the answer right they would ask me where the scroll I'd supposedly stolen to get the information from was hidden, and if I didn't get it right they would ridicule me in front of the whole class. On every written test they would sabotage my score or grade me unfairly, and if I complained they would accuse me of cheating and would remove all the points I actually got on the test. After a while I got sick of it all and started to act like the idiot they wanted me to be, all the while memorising everything they said on the lessons." by the time he had finished the Hokage was shaking in barely controlled rage while Iruka had his head down in shame.
Sarutobi could not believe what he had just heard. This went against the very principles of the academy. For not one, but all of the academy teachers to consciously sabotage a student's education, simply because they were biased against him. Before he could continue on with this train of thought though, Naruto spoke up once again.
"The second reason for it was that whenever I would show that I knew something tied to the ninja arts to the villagers they looked at me in fear instead of hate, something that felt far worse. So I started to act like an idiot in general so that people wouldn't be afraid of me. Seems like it was for nought though, though it did reduce the amount of looks of fear around me. I hate the feeling of being feared just for walking down the street."
"A good shinobi will be feared in much the same way that you just explained Naruto-kun." was Sarutobi's response.
"I know, but not like this… No one should be feared by their neighbours simply for living in the apartment under them. It just feels wrong."
"As much as I would like to continue our talk about this it would seem as if we have gotten off topic." Sarutobi interjected, though he really wanted to know how his 'grandson' had been treated.
"Right. You wanted to know about how I did what I did, correct?" Naruto asked, and at the Hokage's nod, continued.
"Up until now I've believed that it was a bloodline, but it seems more likely that it's the fox's doing." the blonde started, the word fox practically spat out. "I really don't want to talk about how I got it though." upon seeing the Hokage's frown after that comment he realised his bad wording and tried to amend it.
"No one got hurt or anything if that's what you're thinking." he said quickly, then continued in a more subdued tone.
"It just… brings back some bad memories, ok."
Not wanting to further press the matter the Hokage asked him to explain what it did instead.
"Well, as you have probably guessed by now, it involves time. Basically, I can manipulate the flow of time around me to do my bidding." Naruto began.
"You mean as in controlling time?" Iruka asked, a slight hint of shock on his face.
"No, manipulate. Not control. Nothing can control the forces of time." Naruto answered, not at all bothered with the interruption this time as it was a sound question that wouldn't have been answered during his explanation.
"Anyway. You probably saw that my eyes looked strange when I was using my powers, right Iruka-sensei?" at the Chuunin's nod he continued.
"Well the first thing I would like to say about that is that this is not a doujutsu. It is simply a way for my body to express how attuned I am to the time-stream. It used to show every time I used chakra, but I managed to make it so that it only shows when I use these 'time powers'. And before you ask, that is not due to a genjutsu, my eyes simply don't change normally anymore." the blonde let his words sink in a bit before continuing.
"Well, back to the subject at hand. As I said my body shows my alignment with the time-stream through my eyes, or namely the triangles in my eyes. From what I've been able to deduce the triangles come in two sizes due to what they represent. The smaller ones simply strengthens my bonds with the time-stream, granting me better control over my powers, while the larger ones, of which I have two by the way, seems to grant me more specialised powers. The first one I got made me able to slow down time in a field around me, something I found to be very useful while running from victims of my pranks." the last part made Sarutobi's mouth twitch into something in-between a smile and a scowl.
'Trust Naruto-kun to turn anything into pranking material.' he thought, but he acknowledged the usefulness of that kind of power when it came to that subject.
"Please tell me that that was not the only thing you found it useful for." Iruka said with an exasperated sigh.
"Of course not. And even during my pranks it was a great way for me to learn how to use it in mission-like situations." the twelve-year old calmly responded.
Had it not been unbecoming of his position Sarutobi would've gaped. He had not really expected Naruto to actually use his pranking as a way to train. Then again, he had not really expected said boy to do anything like what he had done tonight.
"Well, as I was saying, the first one gave me the ability to slow time. But the second one actually allowed me to bend time in an entirely different way. I could use my chakra as a conduct for my powers, thus allowing me to create time-based jutsu like the one I used earlier." he was smiling at this point, and the two other occupants of the room could practically feel the pride in the boy's words.
"It took a lot of hard work and thinking to come up with anything, but I think that I've created some really useful techniques with it. As for the other two large triangles, I have no idea what they do yet."
"How do you know that there are more, and that there are two more at that Naruto-kun?" the Sandaime asked in confusion.
"The triangles I currently have are put in an odd way, and judging from that I think that I have four triangles in total left before I'm fully attuned to the time-stream. But since I haven't had a single one of them activate in a little under two years I think it'll be a long time before I manage to do that."
"I see. That would make sense I guess. Is there anything else to that you would like to say about this then, or should I allow you to leave? Those wounds on Umino-san looks quite severe after all."
Iruka had the decency to blush. He had been so caught up in the night's events that he had completely forgotten his injuries. Naruto simply laughed sheepishly while scratching the back of his head, a gesture that reminded Sarutobi that the boy in front of him was just that; a young boy. Someone who shouldn't have had to endure so much and be forced to grow up so fast. He was brought out of his silent and somewhat morose musing when Naruto spoke up once again.
"There are a few more things that I'd like to talk about, but could we take those tomorrow morning instead? I don't want Iruka-sensei to die of blood loss after all the trouble I went through to save him. And besides, my ramen is waiting!"
As if to further reinforce his statement, Naruto's stomach chose that moment to grumble. Loudly. The young blonde blushed out of embarrassment of his rebellious stomach, while the elderly Hokage simply chuckled at the boy's antics. Iruka simply shook his head once, bowed to the Hokage and left the room with Naruto following behind. Just as the blue-eyed boy reached the door Sarutobi remembered something.
"Oh, Naruto-kun. You never told me what your bloodline was called."
Said blonde froze, chuckled sheepishly and turned slightly to face his amused 'grandfather' before answering.
"Oh, sorry Ojii-san. I simply call it Kouinsoujuu." and with that he left the room.
Happy that he was once again called by his nickname the Sandaime mused on the name Naruto had given the new bloodline.
'Kouinsoujuu hmm? Straight to the point and still it sounds good. That boy is simply full of surprises. Though I don't really understand why I should be surprised at that. You were the same after all weren't you, Minato-kun?'
He glanced up at the portrait of the Yondaime once again, smiled, and returned to what he had been dealing with before the interruption of his surrogate grandson. Paperwork. He sighed deeply yet again. Yes, his premonition had definitely come true.
Words:
Kouinsoujuu: The name Naruto has given his bloodline. It simply means Time Manipulation. Not so original, but it gets the point across.
Ok, I forgot to put this in the last time, so I'll do that now.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything concerning Naruto.
And once again I'm sorry for the vagueness of the last chapter. I hope that this has cleared a few things up, and I'm currently working on chapter three, which I hope will be longer.
All I can say about the bloodline right now is that the origin for it will be something very original and that the Kyuubi will have nothing to do with it. As for the whole part with the soul and Naruto's body being more resilient, you'll just have to wait and see. I'd also like to repeat that the bloodline is not a Doujutsu, but I couldn't figure out a better way to show how far it has progressed (tattoos all over Naruto's body simply didn't feel quite right).
As for the whole part about the things he did when he was five, he did not really know exactly what it was he was doing, he's simply good at thinking logically (at least when he's not in emotional distress) and did what he thought would lessen the hate thrown at him.
I'd be very grateful if you told me what you think, and also if you find anything that could need improvement. And please do not ask for any pairings, as I do not have any romance intended (apart from the obvious Sasuke fangirls and Jiraiya's lecherous ways). This might change some time in the future, but for now, there are no intended pairings.
Thanks for reading!
/Andrin