Chapter Two – 'True Lies'

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I'm working with a bit of a new format here that I might stick with. Responses to some of the reviews to the previous chapter will be put at the end of the chapter, after the author notes.

UPDATE: Whoops, I was making a couple of changes to this chapter and accidentally uploaded it as a new chapter instead of replacing the document. Sorry to any who were hoping for a new chapter.

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As grey clouds made themselves known over the village of Konoha, one blonde-haired boy sat in his room, thinking over the last few years.

According to the laws that were established during Konoha's founding, any shinobi or kunoichi who became Hokage that did not already come from a clan would automatically gain clan status for his or her family. For the Shodai and Nidaime Hokages, this did not apply to them, as they already came from the Senju Clan, and Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime, came from the Sarutobi Clan. However, when Namikaze Minato, an orphan, happened to ascend to the top position of Konoha's military forces, becoming the Yondaime, this obscure law was finally enforced for the first time. As a result, in addition to clan status and all the privileges and duties that went along with it, the Yondaime was gifted with a small tract of land on the outskirts of Konoha, which he used to have a complex built. Minato, his wife Kushina, and his son Naruto had all moved in once it was completed, and he had used his vaunted sealing knowledge to make it one of the most protected places in Konoha.

Following the news of Kushina's second pregnancy, her son, the yellow-haired Namikaze Naruto, had expected to have the number of household members jump from three to four. In a violent twist of fate, however, that number had dropped to one in a single day of disaster: himself. It still pained him to think about that day, when his life had shattered, and the months of depression that followed after it. He had thrown himself into his career as a newly-graduated genin alongside fellow prodigal clan heir Uchiha Itachi and clan heiress Yamanaka Inoka, under Nara Shikake.

Naruto let out a small smile as he thought about his years on his genin team. Shikake, who was the cousin of clan head Nara Shikaku, was one of the few Nara who had made it to jonin status that did not stay in Konoha for intelligence or administrative positions, preferring instead to fight on the battlefield and do regular field missions. The man was still lazy as all Nara were wont to do, but he had been a genius as a teacher, and had pushed all three of his genin students past their limits.

After only a few years, the three were unofficially promoted to chunins. Unofficially, because while the Sandaime and Shikake felt all three were ready to take on chunin duties and responsibilities as well as gaining their respective privileges, Konoha still relied on missions to bolster their economy, and they would rather have the trio show off at a chunin exam in a friendly nation (in their particular case, in Kusagakure) rather than let them go unnoticed. All three of them had done astoundingly well in the tournament portion, though Inoka had fallen after the first match and Naruto and Itachi both in the semi-finals to far older opponents.

The three were easily the best of friends. Uchiha Fugaku and his own father Namikaze Minato, although not the best of friends, were close accomplices, and so Naruto and Itachi had had several playdates when they were younger. Somehow, out of the several clan children that were born around the same time, Yamanaka Inoka had also gotten in on it.

When the Kyuubi had attacked, he had stayed with the Yamanakas, as their clan compound was relatively undamaged, and they had sustained only a single casualty against the demon fox. In comparison, the Uchihas had lost several dozen members, leaving Fugaku in a panic to get the affairs of the clan back in order. Mikoto had just had a second son as well; while the matriarch of the Yamanaka clan had a second daughter around the same time, it was just that extra little push with all the other things going on that prevented her from being able to take care of a child.

Not that he did not enjoy living with the Yamanakas, though. He suspected that Inoichi and his wife might have been trying to set him up with Inoka for the future, but Kami, that would never happen. He could never see Inoka as anything but a sister.

That last thought knocked him out of his current line of thinking, and he looked around his room from his chair. After he had become an official chunin, however, he left the Yamanakas. In the two years since, while slowly working his way up to special jonin status, he had holed himself up in what was now his own complex after the death of his parents, and his unborn sibling. Kachu or Taifu. That was what his imouto or itouto's name was supposed to be. His parents lacked originality in naming, but they were nice names nonetheless. He had been hoping for a younger sister; had imagined her as ending up taking after their mother, with long, fiery-red hair, with girlishly cute feminine features adorned by innocent emerald green eyes. He had always imagined himself fulfilling his capacity as a big brother.

And now it would never be, because his younger sibling was dead, torn away from the world in stillbirth.

These were the thoughts that the now ten-year-old Naruto kept cycling through in his head, as he gazed out his bedroom window at the rainy skies. He realized he was bitter, but it was something he felt he had the right to be. Many of his hopes and dreams were crushed the same night the rest of his family died. The grandfather figure of the family, Sarutobi, had had to take over as Hokage for a second time. Jiraiya and Tsunade had drifted away from Konoha, while Orochimaru had turned traitor. Kakashi had gone into ANBU, while Rin returned to her family shrine. His biological family had died, while his adoptive family had for the most part left him to the wayside.

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Naruto had many hobbies. He had been inspired by Orochimaru in his thirst for knowledge, but where Orochimaru wished to see immortality so that he could understand, dissect and learn every jutsu in the world in the ultimate hopes of uncovering the secrets behind chakra, Naruto wanted to know everything. What made things tick, the cosmic forces that governed the entirety of existence. If the Snake Sannin had stayed loyal to Konoha, he would have found a successor in Naruto.

Currently, he was looking through the notes that his father had left behind before he went to seal the Kyuubi away into the Shinigami's stomach, hoping to decipher what was there already. Few knew it, but Namikaze Minato had had such ambitions for his progeny that he had taught Naruto sealing basics since he was four, even before he began to teach him chakra basics or how to move and fight as a ninja. However, Naruto had held off from looking at his father's final works, not being able to look at Minato's self-sacrificial sealing jutsu before this. Holding off a sneeze from the dust that had settled over the scroll he was currently holding, Naruto continued to look at the papers. Curious. There were a number of obscure characters in what appeared to be a rudimentary form of a spiral-shaped seal. Although he knew this was only the most basic prototype for the Shiki Fuin, the final version undoubtedly being held under lock and key by the Sandaime, he would have expected the kanji for 'shi' to have already made several appearances on here, as what else could be used to summon the Shinigami but the character for death?

In fact, the more Naruto studied it, the odder the seal began to appear. This read far more like a container seal than a summoning seal. He had seen the summoning scrolls that all three Sannin had held, and theirs were more of straight lines of sealing characters. Even with the hundreds of complications there would be in calling down the Death God that he knew he knew nothing of, he still could not think of something that would require the shape of the contract to be in a spiral. And why would the Death God need more than to be summoned? Surely the summoner could make a verbal contract for his soul? Why would there be a need to manually seal the Kyuubi's yokai when the Death God would already be taking both his father and the Kyuubi no Kitsune's soul at the same time, which included the spiritual energy that made up parts of both human chakra and demonic yokai?

It unnerved him, and in his seat, he was beginning to feel unsteady. He brought his palm up to his forehead, and was surprised to find sweat. Something wasn't right here. Here, there was a string of characters that he identified as a filtering seal. Why was there a filtering seal for chakra in something meant to call down the Shinigami? It was a truly strong one, by the looks of it; half the characters were foreign to him, something which he naturally assumed to mean it was beyond his expertise.

A horrifying thought struck him. When he had visited the funeral of his mother and father, the Namikaze matriarch's stomach had been smaller than it had during the last few months of her pregnancy. He had never questioned it, but that wasn't right. Wasn't his sister still in the womb? What if she had already been born? He had seen the reports, that his mother had died in labour, but they had never mentioned anything about the newborn being born successfully, stillborn or not. If his sibling had been born, then he or she should have gotten records, a death certificate, and a grave.

That line of thought chilled him as his mind quickly glossed over a possibility. It was one that he wasn't emotionally ready to deal with. But if it was true...He stood up. "Sarutobi-jiji had better give me some answers." He didn't bother to grab an umbrella on the way out. He had already gotten his hopes up. If they were to be deflated, sulking in the rain sounded like a good idea to him. First he would check something out at the hospital, then he would go see the Hokage.

---

Hiruzen had so far had a good day. In the five years since the Kyuubi had attacked, he had worked hard on the recovery of Konohagakure no Sato. The main tenet of his rebuilding philosophy was to get the economical situation under control; large amounts of genin were graduated early, many of who were pushed to work on some of the more physical D-Rank missions. Thankfully, the genin-sensei special jonins (those who had specialized their career in teaching genin squads until it was felt they would be able to sustain their own training and eventually make it to at least chunin status) had mostly survived the Kyuubi attack, with only a few actually being deployed to the front lines to fight. The first batch of new chunins had helped to relieve the beleaguered shinobi who had been overworked in the chaos after Kyuubi.

Although they lacked the talent they had before, Konoha had mostly refilled her military ranks. With the capability to take on more serious missions, the Sandaime had cut lots of the red tape surrounding official missions, and handed some of his paperwork over to Homura and Koharu. Once the money had begun to come back in, Sarutobi took it to continue to rebuild in addition to repaying the loans that had been obtained from the daimyo of Hi no Kuni.

Konoha was once again in the black. Although the events of two years ago with the Kumo delegation kidnapping the Hyuuga heiress had nearly caused a hot war again between the two villages, a last-minute brokered deal had averted the possible start of the Fourth Great Shinobi War. With Kumogakure bound to back off for at least another few years yet, Kirigakure plunged into the midst of a civil war, and Sunagakure tentatively an ally of the Leaf, Sarutobi needed only to worry about Iwagakure. Thankfully, Earth Country as a whole had went through a minor recession a few years back, which would affect Iwa's bottom line, forcing them to bide their time.

With no problems that threatened to once again derail Konoha in the foreseeable future, Sarutobi would admit that he had gotten lax recently in his administration duties. He wasn't quite willing to let go of his career before he had become Hokage, however, and had as such had gotten back into active duty on the occasion. Rokusho Aoi had basically pissed his pants when he realised that the four-man hunter nin squad that had come to eliminate him included the Hokage himself. That had been an important mission for the Sandaime; while he occasionally tried to get his lost student Tsunade to come back to Konoha, he wouldn't make a plea so long as Konoha had allowed one of its own nuke-nins to make off with her great-uncle's, his sensei the Nidaime's prized sword, and hold onto it. It was the principle of the matter, and now that he had the Raijin again he would not be battling his own conscience if he again sent her a request to come back.

He had also gone to the Academy to teach classes a few times, as well, impressing the children with his own in-depth knowledge on the true field of shinobihood. Most of the students there incorrectly assumed there were only three divisions of ninja arts, when there were in fact twenty, one of his most excellent skills being in the field of Bojutsu. Particularly confusing for them was the unfamiliar usage of the term 'ninjutsu' to refer to the traditional eighteen fields of ninjutsu that had been used before the Rikudou Sennin had brought forth the usage of chakra.

It had also helped to take his mind off the constant self-despair that he had over his fallen student. Contrary to what might be popular thought, Sarutobi didn't hate Orochimaru, nor was he unaware, for the most part, of his student's lust for knowledge. Orochimaru wanted to understand everything he could about chakra, that entity and life-force which fuelled all organic substances, his desire to learn every jutsu being an off-shoot of that. Somewhere along the way, however, the snake summoner had trailed off the path, as he became obsessed with immortality.

Even then, Hiruzen wouldn't have minded too much about Orochimaru's experimentations; all the other hidden villages also did some twisted things, and he was no fool to believe that Konoha could hold the moral high ground in that respect. It was when Orochimaru had used orphans left over from the Third Great Shinobi War, looking to understand chakra by trying to implant the Shodai's Mokuton bloodline into sixty infants, that the Sandaime felt his student had crossed the line and virtually exiled him from Konoha.

Though Sarutobi had been unwilling to kill him, yet had marked him as an S-Class nuke nin after breaking into his secret laboratories, he felt there was a sort of unspoken agreement with the snake summoner; if Orochimaru didn't interfere with Konoha's business, then Konoha would only passively hunt him down as a nuke-nin. Hiruzen most definitely was unsure whether the unofficial pact would last, and if not for how long it would stay until it was broken, but so long as the snake didn't harbour malevolent intentions against Konoha, then the Leaf Village would be able to coast along with little trouble. After all, it's not like a major clan would try to pull a coup against him in a few years or anything, right?

---

It was while in the middle of his daydreaming that Sarutobi heard a knock on his office door. Frowning, he wondered who it was, as it was past his normal hours, and his secretary was gone. Although he wasn't any good at chakra sensing, he could tell whoever was behind the door was at least of chunin strength, if not stronger. Discreetly putting away his copy of Icha Icha Paradise, he called out to the mysterious knocker, "Come in."

He most definitely wasn't expecting the son of his successor-turned-predecessor, Namikaze Naruto. The boy looked drenched in his white-with-black-stripes sweater and the rest of his attire, his hair in that messy state where it was soggy but not really wet. He had one arm against his sweater, cradling what appeared to be a scroll. "Hokage-sama," the boy intoned quietly, as he bowed forward to the man he had sworn loyalty to as a part of his allegiance to Konoha.

"Ah, Naruto-kun," the elder man said, standing up. "This is a surprise, seeing you here today. What can I help you with?" Idly, he wondered just why Naruto had indeed come by. He had made more stops at the Namikaze compound despite being busy than Naruto had made stops to the Hokage tower for things outside of official business. Judging by his respectful bow already, it was more than likely official business.

Naruto bandied the scroll he had cupped in his arm around a few times, before beginning to unfurl it. While he was doing that, he began to speak, "I looked in my father's study for the first time since...that day." Seeing the wizened elder's interested look, he began to roll out the scroll on the Hokage's work desk. "This was his last project, purportedly the prototype for the Shiki Fūin seal that he used to summon the Shinigami to seal away the Kyuubi in the Death God's stomach."

Something clicked in the Sandaime's mind at the sentence. Naruto had said 'purportedly'. Oh god no, he didn't, did he? Keeping his game face on, he motioned for Naruto to continue, which the flaxen-haired Namikaze heir did. "However, summoning the Death God should require several instances of the sealing character 'Shi', for Death, none of which are on here. I'm curious about why this is, and so I would like to see the final version my father created."

It was only his control over his body that kept his heart from pumping or his forehead from sweating as he continued to play poker. "Ah, Naruto-kun, I'm afraid that unfortunately, the seal your father drew up is a dangerous one, one I wouldn't even put up on the Forbidden Scroll of Seals, I'm afraid that-"

Naruto cut him off this time, "He drew it up as Namikaze Minato, and not the Yondaime, however, and as such the seal's physical drawing belongs to me. I may not yet be allowed to inherit my financial properties yet, but as a chunin, I am allowed to use any of the more dangerous scrolls my father may have owned or donated to your library."

Sarutobi blinked, and quickly tried to find a way out of the situation, but Naruto pounced on his lack of control over the situation. "Additionally, the seal my father has created is truly odd. I've seen the summoning scrolls for all three of the Sannin, as well as Kakashi-aniki, and they were all several straight lines of seals stacked on top of each other. Surely even with the extra complications that are bound to pop up, the Shiki Fūin would still be written from right to left, correct? This looks more like the standard storage seal than it would a summoning seal." He then pointed his finger to a small node of the seal. "And this connects to the overall seal in an odd way. This node reads like it filters out chakra, of all things. Why would calling down the Death God require chakra to be filtered?"

The Sandaime froze at the line of questioning, well and truly caught. Unfortunately for him, it was easily noticeable, something which Naruto seized the opportunity of. "I know my chakra anatomy. For the first few weeks after an infant is born, their chakra coils are soft and malleable, but after that they begin to harden, meaning they are virtually invulnerable against chakra poisoning during that time. Conversely, if one was to seal a foreign chakra presence inside the infant during that time, their coils would adjust to it, as opposed to automatically killing them via chakra shock.

Sarutobi nodded dumbly, impressed at how Naruto had investigated, but frustrated that his lies were falling to pieces. Naruto continued on. "Before coming here, I also checked the hospital records for births around that time." His eyes narrowed. "My unborn sibling was not due to be born until late October, but one of the elder nurses there told me that the stressful feeling of the Kyuubi yokai forced many of the women in their late gestation periods into an early pregnancy."

The Sandaime gulped at what he knew was coming, as Naruto erupted into a rage. "WHERE IS MY SIBLING, SARUTOBI! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM OR HER?! I KNOW MY MOTHER GAVE BIRTH, BUT THERE ARE NO RECORDS OF IT!" Silently, Naruto choked, and Hiruzen could see a steady flow of tears dripping down his adoptive grandson's cheeks. "Is it...my otouto Taifu or my imouto Kachu?"

"Sit down, boy!" The Sandaime quickly barked. Naruto complied, settling himself into one of the Sandaime's guest chairs, but his gaze still burning hot. "Calm down, and I will explain it to you." After a couple of minutes, the Sarutobi clan head sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "First off, your baby sister was born at 1805. Her name is Namikaze Kachu."

"Where is she now?" Naruto immediately asked, desperate to latch onto any knowledge of his newfound sibling.

"Calm, Naruto." Sarutobi said, not bothering with the diminutive honourific this time. "As you know, after the Kyuubi was attacked, Konoha was in chaos. We had lost nearly a thousand ninja, and a thousand more were in the hospital, many of which were crippled and ending their career. You were already well-known as Minato's son, so there was no point in trying to hide you, as our anti-infiltration was pathetic. Instead, we put you with the Yamanakas, who at least have a decent guard against possible assassins."

Swivelling about in his office chair, he looked out the window at the rainy outside. "Your sister was in a far more precarious situation, as she was just born. Conversely, however, only a handful of people knew she even existed, so it was far easier to hide her." Turning back around, he faced Naruto again. "You remember your father's genin student, Nakamura Rin?"

"Rin-Chan? Oh sure, she returned to the Shrine of Fire." Quickly, realisation dawned on his face. "You sent my imouto with Rin?" By now, Naruto had begun to well and truly calm down.

"Yes," Sarutobi admitted. "I felt it best if nobody could make the connection between Kachu and her real parents, as Kachu looks just like Kushina. As much as you are a dead ringer for Minato, blonde hair is merely uncommon in Konoha, while red hair is much rarer. Your sister knows herself only as Nakamura Kachu."

"Then..." Naruto began slowly, as if unsure as to what to say, then quickly restarted his line. "Then when is she coming back?"

Sarutobi sighed again, and rubbed his forehead for the second time in the conversation. "Originally, I had planned to call Rin back five years from now." Seeing Naruto's betrayed look, he quickly moved to clarify his new plans. "However, since you now know of your sister's existence, I will have to move that back."

"So..." Naruto began to speak up hopefully, only to be quickly shot down.

"I will not have your sister come back for another two years still, as Rin insisted on teaching her the ways of the priest in addition to the many disciplines of the kunoichi. However," he cut in, interrupting Naruto's look of despair, "I can clear you for a month-long vacation to, say, the famous Kasuga onsens." Of course, the fact that the community of Kasuga surrounded the high hills that the Shrine of Fire was located upon was left unsaid.

Naruto quickly caught onto the plan, but was still stubborn. "There's one thing I still don't get, though. You didn't want me living in my compound for awhile because you were worried about me becoming too introverted, but it still has the best security of just about any compound in Konoha because of the seals. Why didn't you just have Rin and Kachu stay there?"

Sarutobi smiled a wry smile at that. "Ah, Naruto-kun, do you remember what you were like after the immediate Kyuubi attack?" After a wary nod, he continued, "If I had told you about your sister at that point in time, you would have latched onto her and become obsessed with her. She might very well have been the only thing that kept you going. No child can grow in a healthy manner in an environment like that."

"But...still..." Naruto protested vehemently, before the protests died on his lips. Folding his arms together, he finally said, "Fine. I'll take the vacation, but I want my imouto back here in two years, you got that jiji?"

Sarutobi finally sighed a breath of relief, glad that the conversation had turned out as well as it did. "Barring drastic circumstances, I promise that." Realising that they were both emotionally tired, he decided to put things off until tomorrow. "Come back in the morning, Naruto, and I'll give you your vacation pass. I'll tell my secretary to let you in."

"Alright," Naruto said, getting up from his chair. As he made to move to the door, however, he was stopped by a stray thought, and turned around to look at the scroll he had unfurled. "There's one thing I still don't get, though. I'm sure that my father was working on that only a few days until he died. I'm sure that's not the prototype for the Shiki Fūin, so what is it?"

That brought a frown from Hiruzen. He was fairly sure Naruto had already puzzled it out, but was preventing himself from truly figuring it out. "You should already know, Naruto-kun, but I can understand why you would not. It is, after all, what could be one of Konoha's darkest secrets."

"Sealed within your sister is the Kyuubi no Kitsune."

---

The redheaded male stood at the edge of a forest line, watching a small glade with frolicking animals. Hearing the rustle of the bushes and crunches of branches and leaves from behind him, his heart rate sped up. He sighed, taking one last glance at the peaceful meadow, before turning around to face the girl who, over the last few weeks, had become an awkward twist of friend, confidante and jailer, even if she was unaware of the last status. It was nice, Kaen thought to himself, hearing her natter on about her daily life, her worries, her relationship with her 'kaa-san' Rin, and the strange mix of her lessons covering both the priesthood and kunoichi life.

"You again," Kachu was the first to speak, her long red hair waving about, glowing a bright red in the trickles of light that made it through the treescape. "This is the fourth time we've spoken. You're not just something from my imagy-nation, are you?"

"Oh?" Kaen intoned, moving in closer to his vessel. "What makes you say that?" This was said in a mischievous tone to indicate that Kachu was right, but he just wanted to hear her reasoning.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Kachu asked, hands at her hips. "The priests and priestesses here wouldn't stay here if they never had any messages from a kami or from the spirits." Narrowing her eyes, she asked a question that would serve to frame their relationship somewhat better. "You're one of the spirits that live here, aren't you?"

"In a manner," Kaen admitted. "But yes, I'm one of the spirits who usually reside at the temple here."

"Hmmm," Kachu let out a hum, looking in close at Kaen's facial features, making the boy slightly uncomfortable as he began to fidget under Kachu's analytical gaze. "How old are you exactly?"

Kaen let out a slight urk, and quickly thought a way out of the question he had been posed with. "To be honest," he admitted, "I'm not entirely sure myself." Not wishing to damage the relationship between the two, he quickly moved to explain himself further. "Although I have the memories of many years, I'm, uh, like you in many ways. In a sense, I'm sort of a guardian spirit, but by the process in which I was made your guardian spirit, it de-aged me." Not quite wishing to babble on, he paused for a moment, and took a deep breath. "Adults have different priorities than kids. They think in different ways. I had one of the most human ways of thinking amongst all of us, but my way of thinking was reduced to a child not much older than you."

Kachu just blinked for a few seconds, before comprehension dawned on her face. "Oh....I think that I understand." She did understand, and for that, she was glad; she didn't want somebody who had already become her closest friend turn out to be an adult. Kaen, by his own admission, was far older than her, but he had a child's way of thinking. Something he had said though was a little off to her. "Why would I need a guardian spirit, though?"

That was something the kitsune spirit had no problems with answering. "You have a great destiny ahead of you, but great can also mean terrible." Taking one of her hands in between both of his, he gave it a tight squeeze. "If you ever need somebody to talk to, I'll be there for you."

Kachu nodded again, slowly. "What sort of destiny? Kaa-san told me yesterday she used to be a kunoichi, a ninja. Does that relate to this?"

"In a manner," Kaen drawled out, hesitantly. Still holding onto her hand, he slowly sat down, beckoning her to sit down with him on the grass, which she followed. "I'm afraid I don't really know much, however. I doubt you will be a simple priestess, or else someone else would've been sent. Priestesses only leave the central shrine here to help out at smaller temples."

Kachu was silent for a few minutes. During this period of time, she had leaned her body against Kaen again, a habit that had gotten stuck since their awkward first meeting. The third time around, somehow Kaen had gotten to brushing her hair. Now that she was aware of who and what he was, it felt a bit more awkward to have him brushing her hair, but after the first stroke her worries were washed away.

Finally, she spoke up, "Should...I tell my kaa-san about you?"

If she had been looking right at Kaen, she would have seen the kitsune male's eyes glaze over with panic. As it was, he momentarily stopped, before resuming his actions. "No, I would recommend you not tell her about me for now. Doing so would only send her into a panic. Having a guardian spirit is very rare, and would only create tension right now." He paused, and then resumed his chat. "However, you should ask her about her past as a ninja."

"Oh." Was all Kachu had to say. A short while later, she came up with another question. "Will I see you every night now, or less often than that?"

"I will be here whenever you wish to see me," her redheaded counterpart responded.

After that, the conversation drifted off into silence, this time permanently. Kaen let out an internal sigh at his relief over the encounter, before taking in a short whiff of the scent of the girl in front of him. Pleased at the natural smell she exuded, he began to think while his hands continued to work the brush he held. He was beginning to understand just why what had happened had happened, even if he did not like that Inari-sama and the Shinigami had conspired behind his back.

Looking at the girl who was his charge again, he let out a brief smile. Who knew, he reflected, he might be amicable to what he thought their goal was.

---

Otouto – little brother, Naruto uses this because he's not sure of the gender of his sibling

Imouto – little sister

Jiji – affectionate honorific for grandfather figures

---

First off, I apologise to anyone who is religious who may have been offended at Kachu's line about the priests and priestesses being likely to abandon the shrine if they never got any message from a spirit or kami. I didn't even realise until after I had written it that it could be interpreted as a jab. That said, I originally had the dialogue written so it was less overbearing, but I had to modify it since I was trying to keep the vocabulary of Kachu age-appropriate.

That said, Flame and Vortex isn't quite as well planned out in my head as A Midsummer Night's Dream is. This means that while Orochimaru having been a part of Naruto's early years and vice versa will have an impact, I'm not totally sure how much it'll affect the storyline's deviance from cannon. I said this in the author notes for the last chapter, but Sarutobi and Jiraiya aren't the same characters as they are in AMND; this will roughly apply to a lot of other people, and will continue to apply to all other stories I write, so while Oro might end up a psychopathic traitor in Rise of a Kitsune, here I've written him with more of a human bent.

I originally thought I was going to have troubles with writing the Kachu and Kaen scene in this chapter, but once I started writing it, the scene actually turned out to be fairly good overall, and not too much sap.

There's a line in here somewhere about specialized jonin-senseis. Basically, these are the guys who will take on a genin team, teach them for a year or two, then graduate them to chunins via field promotions and then move onto teaching another team. Logistically, I doubt that at least one out of every three shinobi will make it to at jonin, and not all of them will take on genin teams, so it's either the less-important genin squads get chunin senseis or there are specialized team instructors (like Ebisu, but for an entire squad, and they teach five or six or seven squads). Ebisu is a 'Special Jonin' or Tokubetsu Jonin, which is below a regular Jonin, and he teaches the Konohamaru-Udon-Moegi squad after the time skip in the manga, so I'll go with special jonins being skilled enough to teach along with regular jonins.

For any who wonder about when Sarutobi in his inner monologue mentions there being twenty different disciplines of the shinobi, I'm referring to the actual historical ninja. They had eighteen different fields of ninjutsu, where ninjutsu refers to overall compilation of skills – bojutsu is stick and staff fighting, sojutsu is fighting with a spear, Chōhō is espionage, etc. Chapter 4 of adrien skywalker's 'Sarutobi Naruto' also explains that somewhat. In Sarutobi's mind, these are the classic eighteen skills, some of them being expanded on by the advent of chakra, while the modern-day inverse usage of the term 'ninjutsu' refers to the manipulation of chakra to do elemental or shape manipulation of any sorts, which is an extra nineteenth field, and genjutsu, manipulation of chakra to create illusions, a twentieth field.

Miscellaneous Notes: I know I said I would note why Kaen seems to be particularly mature but also childlishly playful at times (he isn't pretending to be younger than he is or anything) in this chapter but that fell by the wayside with only a minor explanation that's only a part of a greater truth. I'm thinking the big explanation _may_ be in the next chapter, but likely in Chapter 4. Once the next two chapters are out and I can tie a bunch of stuff together nice and tight, you should notice that he never actually lies in this chapter or the previous one, just says part-truths, or twists his words so that a false implication is had.

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Review Responses;

savvy: true enough, but if I had gone and named the Naruto of this story something like Tai or Taki or whatever and renamed Kachu to Naruko would you consider her to be a femNaruto in that case? There are many many different reinterpretations of the Naruto character; for the most part it's usually the character who has the Kyuubi sealed in him or her. In the rare case that Kyuubi isn't sealed in the Naruto character, then he's usually the son of Minato. If the Naruto character isn't a Kyuubi vessel or Minato's son, then he's usually a blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy with a cheerful personality and undying determination, in which case you may as well just call him an OC with the name Naruto and his characteristics added on (this latter case see 'The One that Wasn't Extraordinary' by 'The Other Side of Darkness' or 'New Wind Nation Waking' by Kyogre). In this case, even though Naruto actually exists, I still consider Kachu a femNaruto since she's still a daughter of the Yondaime and Kushina, still has the Kyuubi sealed in her, and will still be fairly easygoing and energetic all the same.

GameDemonKing: I'm pretty sure I sent you a PM about this already but for convenience's sake for the rest of the readers. Naruto's pairing will probably not mean much for the story as a whole, and it's entirely possible it wouldn't even be revealed until the story's ending. It'll also be an OC (no, not Inoka, and no Konoha citizen either), so no Anko or Kurenai (besides for older girls I prefer Anko, Hana and Yugito :P).