Well in this chapter you are going to get some info on what happened to Naruto

"Normal speech"

'Normal thoughts'

"Demon/Summon speech"

'Demon/Summon thoughts'

flashback/memory

~locations~

Disclaimer I don't own Naruto

Chapter 3: Friendly discussion

Everyone in the Hokage office were both tense and befuddled. Here was the Kyuubi (in their eyes) on the Hokage's desk tapping on the Hokage's hat that Hiruzen put down, with its paw like it was trying to figure it out. Around the room were an Anbu squad all with either kunai in their hands or ready to pull out their tantos and katanas.

Hiashi, who was called to pick up Hinata stood in front of her in a protective manner unsure of what to do, until he decided that it was time to leave before something happened "Hokage-sama, if you would permit, I believe it's time for me and my daughter to be on our way". Hiruzen taking his eyes of the fox looked towards Haishi "very well Hiashi-san you may go about your business...BUT!" turning serious, the Hokage stood from his chair and looked the Head of the Hyuga clan "You are to remain absolutely silent about this situation, should the people find out about this, there would be mass panic throughout the village...do you understand me?" Hiashi in understanding bowed to the village leader "understood Hokage-Sama and I will make sure that Hinata understands as well" with that Hinata bowed as well and they both left the office.

Sitting back don in his chair he looked at the fox once more couldn't help but chucke as the fox was able to get underneath the hat and looked at the old man, and for a second he saw it again. A little blonde boy, wearing the hat looking at him with the same colored eyes saying "I'm going to be a best Hokage ever DATTEBAYO!" with the thought in his head he decided to take a leap of faith "Naruto is it still you?" the fox just tilted its head not understanding what the human said but wagged its tail a bit. Depressed in realizing that the fox didn't know what he said another thought came to mind when he saw the slightly wagging tail. Pressing the button on an the intercom on his desk he called his secretary "yes hokage-sama how may I help you?" a female voice was heard over the intercom "Yes, please send for Inoichi Yamanaka for me please and tell him to come to my office and that it is urgent" "yes sir!". One of the Anbu not getting what the Hokage was planning decided to ask "sir, why do you want Yamanaka-sama to come here?". Pulling out his pipe and lighting it with a small bit of fire jutsu he turned his chair sideways and turned his to look out onto the village "I'm taking a major leap of faith in possibly getting Naruto back"

~30 minutes later~

Inoichi walked into the Hokage office "Hokage-Sama what can I d….." he halted in his greeting when his eyes landed on the fox sleeping on the desk and its 2 tails twitching as it sleeps "ah Inoichi-san, I'm glad that you got here so soon, I have a task that only you would be able to accomplish"

Knocked out of his stupor Inoichi asks "what would that task be Hokage-sama?" while still eyeing the fox a bit "I would like you to dive into the mind of this little fox you see before you"

Thinking this to be a joke Inoichi couldn't help but chuckle a bit "Sir you must be joking, to ask me to use my clans jutsu to enter the mind of this….2…...tailed fox" pausing for a second and a thought finally clicking in his head, he looks at the Hokage "Sir is that the Kyuubi?" Hiruzen hearing this gets up and does a few hand signs and places his hand on the wall, sealing the room in a privacy seal. "What I am asking you to do is see if you can find Naruto in there and if possible bring him out" "but Hokage-sama it's much too dangerous to do something like that! You don't even know if he is in there! His mind could have been taken over by the kyuubi". Inoichi told the old man thinking this was a horrible idea. "I understand your fears but I believe he is still in there, maybe suppressed, but still in there"

About to protest but seeing the serious look on the Hokage's face he relented, he chose to obey his leader but he would pull out if anything goes wrong. Grabbing a chair in front of the desk he put his hands in the jutsu hand sign. "Before you go in, if you see any sign of the Kyuubi or if the boy is truly lost to it you are to leave his mind immediately". Now he was really nervous if he had the Hokage confirming his escape plan. Steeling his nerves he decided to get this over with, so he started "Ok here we go, Mind transfer jutsu!". After the jutsu's success his body slumped and everyone kept an eye on the 2 to make sure nothing bad happens

Taking a puff from his pipe Hiruzen couldn't help but pray "I really hope you succeed Inoichi"

~inside the fox's mind~

Inoichi found himself surrounded by nothing but darkness "This can't be right. Any mind whether animal, human or summon should have some sort of build to it but this mind seems like it has nothing in it at all, no memories, no personality….nothing"

He began to walk in a random direction to see if he can find anything in this mind. For 8 minutes he walked until he found himself falling. He didn't worry so much since he is skilled in mind walking but it was a bit shocking to find himself falling in utter darkness.

When he finally hit the ground, he was now surrounded by a sewer like area, dark dirty yellow walls that had big cracks in them and debris all over the ground. With a loud groan he picked himself up and found that he was slightly wet, looking down he saw that the floor had some small puddles and wet concrete (1). Dusting himself he heard some noises coming from deeper within the tunnels and began walking towards it.

He began to get a clearer sound of what it was "that sounds like….canine yipping…?" he came upon a massive room and spotted the tiny fox playing with its tails close to a unlit area "is that him?". Walking closer to the fox who stopped playing when he noticed the human and began backing away.

The fox took a step back as Inoichi took a step forward slowly, on the 3rd step the fox turned around and ran into the darkness "wait!". Inoichi ran after the fox until he was a few steps in the darkness and he froze in fear when a pair of massive red eyes opened from within said darkness and stared at the shinobi. He was so lost in fear that he didn't have time to react to a massive clawed hand snatched him up and lifted him off the ground. "What do you think you're doing here ningen!? Have you come here to hurt my kit even more than those insects you call "villagers"?!". Inoichi couldn't speak, he had seen the kyuubi from a distance during the attack but he never thought he would ever be this close to it. For an extremely tense 10 seconds neither said anything until a whine was heard and Inoichi looked to the top of the Kyuubi's head and saw the little fox and then something clicked in his mind. He originally thought the the little fox WAS the Kyuubi but if the one squeezing the life out of him was the Kyuubi then the little one must be "Naruto?".

Hearing the ningen, Kurama began to squeeze harder thinking he should destroy the ningen's mind as a message to any who did harm to his kit but paused his action when he heard the ningen wheeze out a question "What did you do to him!?". Looking at the man Kurama paused his angry action enough to sense if there was any malicious intent coming from him, detecting none he decided to answer "it was an unexpected side effect in pouring too much of my chakra into his body to save his life from the kunai in his stomach". Feeling a bit of his breath returning and shocked at the new piece of information Inoichi decided to get as much information about the situation as possible "What do you mean by kunai in his stomach, did he try to end his own life or was it an accident?...GAH". Kurama feeling his anger rise from this assumption squeezed much harder then before "IT WAS NO ACCIDENT! ONE OF YOUR CHUNIN PLUNGED HIS KUNAI INTO MY KITS STOMACH AND IF I WERE ABLE TO I WOULD FIND THE MAGGOT AND TEAR HIM APART BUT KEEP HIM ALIVE SO HE COULD FEEL EVERY BIT OF MY ANGER!". Kurama screamed, releasing a good amount of KI but stopped when he heard a small whine on the top of his head. Calming himself down, he released a calming breath and put the ningen down and using his tail he picked Naruto up from his head and moved his tail the be directly in front of him on the ground so the kit could sleep on his tail. After the kit snuggled a bit in the Kurama's tail he was fast asleep.

Inoichi still wary of the Kyuubi but a little more calm finally noticed something about the fox. The kyuubi looked like it had been starved and dehydrated for a long period of time, having its bone structure somewhat visible (think of when Naruto pulled out the kyuubi's chakra in shippuden). Another thing that shocked the him was the fact that the fox only had 1 tail "What happened to you?" he involuntarily asked.

Still not feeling any ill intent,looking down at his sleeping kit, Kurama decided to answer his question "I used almost all of my power to save him, leaving me with an extremely small amount left for myself but I shall regain my power over time" he said with a sigh "but I worry about the kit, this whole thing never should have happened to him and I'm afraid of what will happen now that he is like this"

Inoichi could understood what the fox was going through as the look that it was giving was the look of a very worried father and he knew it because he gave it several times with his daughter Ino. Deciding to continue and have a bit of trust in the demon fox he began "May I ask you a few questions Kyuubi?".

Tearing his sight from the sleeping kit Kurama looked at the ninja and nodded for him to continue

"What happened to Naruto?….as in….he seemed to not recognize anyone or anything, not even the Hokage who we all know he views as a grandfather?"

"I have sealed away all his memories so he wouldn't deal with the incident that caused this" he said as he gently nuzzled the kit.

That really got the ninja's attention 'impossible! The only way that he could do that is if he had full access to to Naruto's mind but he shouldn't have that since he is sealed!'. He then looked around and noticed the cage doors off their hinges, broken laying against the walls, with the seal tag underneath one of them. "How did you break out of the seal? The Yondaime's seal seemed impossible to break"

Looking at the ningen he spoke "I was released from the seal just as his mind was falling apart" feeling tired from all the talking he decided that the conversation must end soon "I will be going into a pseudo hibernation soon so to help you understand what happened I will be giving you the memory of what happened to my kit and how I was released". Lifting a claw and moving it to Inoichi, slowly as to not startle him, he used his claw to remove the headband and placed the tip of the claw on the ningens forehead and a flash of memories flowed into the ningen's head.

To a normal person, even a ninja, having memories placed into your head would disorient them or knock them out but the Yamanaka are ninja's of the mind so Inoichi handled it pretty well. What he couldn't handle was the action done against the once boy now fox kit by one of people entrusted to protect the villages citizens. The boy was the same age as his daughter and no child should go through any of that. To say that he was furious was an understatement, he made sure to memorize all the faces that Naruto got a look at and the chunin that killed the boy. Yes "killed", Naruto had died that night and was brought back thanks to the Kyuubi.

Now with almost everything resolved Inoichi was preparing to leave but had one final thing that needed to be resolved "will you return Naruto's memories to him? As that was what I originally came here to do".

Thinking about it for a moment Kurama decided he would "I will return most of his memories but I shall seal away a few of his more traumatic memories and the memory of the incident, for his own benefit. My kit does not deserve to be hindered by them anymore, he might have a slight change in his personality such as being a bit more mischievous but other then that he should be the same Naruto we all know. Also do not tell your Hokage about me, and don't tell Naruto that I am real yet"

Now Inoichi was confused by that statement since it seemed that they already met but before he could ask, Kurama answered "The old monkey doesn't and will not ever trust me so its best to say that you got these memories from the kits mind and tell him an altered version of how this happened for if he knew he would do everything in his power to keep me from my kit and as for Naruto; for the many years that he has known me, his child like mind has come up with the idea that I am a figment of his imagination brought up in his dreams since he has only ever interacted with me as he sleeps and I don't want to burden him with the truth just yet. I will wait until he is a little older. I just hope that when he learns the whole truth he will forgive me" he said as he gave a small little lick at the still sleeping kit and chuckled as the kit just snuggled deeper into his tail. "I am asking you this as a father who wants what's best for their child and I believe this way of doing things would be best"

Inoichi didn't like the idea of keeping secrets from the Hokage but reluctantly agreed to this and chose now to leave the boys mind. After giving another secret request only meant for Inoichi he watched the ningen leave. Sighing Kurama leaned his head down closing his eyes and went to sleep with one final thought entering his 'I'm sorry Naruto I hope to see you soon when I wake up and that you will forgive me'

~Back in the Hokage's office~

40 minutes have passed since Inoichi jumped into the fox kits mind and the only reaction that he gave were a few grunts of pain and an angry scowl that appear on his face. "Hokage-Sama should it normally take this long for Inoichi-san to retrieve memories" asked Inu. Hiruzen already finished with his first set of tobacco simply sighed "No Inu. normally he is able to retrieve the memory he is looking for within a few minutes if he knows what he's looking for, if not than 10 to 15 but with the amount of time he has been in there I worry he might have come across a problem"

At that moment Inoichi bolted awake shocking everyone in the room and took several breaths of air and regained his bearings. After a minute he looked at Hiruzen and decide to give his report on the memory retrieval "Hokage-Sama, Mission accomplished with a bit more than I thought I would get"

Hiruzen looked at Inoichi with a serious look and began "Very well Inoichi-san, begin your report about what happened in there"

And there is chapter 3 of Fox in the Leaf. Hiruzen will learn some of what happened to Naruto and I might put the punishment in the next few chapters so look forward to it. Also just to clarify something I feel needs to be brought up. For Kurama's shows of affection to Naruto, I wanted it to have a more animalistic aspect to it which is why he does the gestures he does towards Naruto. It was slightly weird to write but I think it works

Hint: Also keep in mind the secret request bit as Inoichi leaves cause that will come back soon

1) I know that in canon his mindscape has ankle deep water but after what happened I feel like the water would have disappeared a bit since his mind is at the moment in shambles

Please Read & review