THIS CHAPTER IS UNNECESSARY TO READ! This chapter is Sarutobi's POV. It dosen't really add anything important. But I don't want to delete the entire chapter. If you don't want to read Sarutobi's Pov you can skip the chapter. You won't be missing anything important.
OoOoO- Sarutobi -OoOoO
The third smiled as he grabbed the gift he had prepared for Naruto. He leisurely walked towards the blondes apartment, his real self was spending the day with his family, his sons Mirai and Asuma, Mirai's wife Hikari, and his grandson Konohamaru. He was going to visit Naruto and another of his clones was going to be hokage.
The streets were quiet as people stayed in home celebrating the day with their families. He arrived at Naruto's apartment and knocked. The door was quickly thrown open and the excited blonde smiled at him for a moment, then his eyes flickered to the side and he seemed to tense up. He entered and shut the door behind himself.
He inwardly frowned, "Hello Naruto-kun, how are you today?" He asked the young boy.
The boy grinned at him again, "I'm doing fine!" The blonde quickly answered though his eyes kept flickering to the side as if trying to watch something.
He frowned at the boy worried a bit, "Is everything alright?" He asked.
Naruto bit his lip for a moment before his head lifted up a bit and he glanced to the side. Sarutobi watched as Naruto seemed distracted his eyes shifting between two places. He looked to where Naruto seemed to be paying attention but didn't see anything.
"Naruto-kun?" he said gently trying to get the boys attention.
"Sorry!" Naruto apologize quickly.
He gave the boy a smile, "Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"
The boy seemed hesitant as he bit his lip, slowly the boy nodded, "Alright," he agreed his voice more quiet and subdued than usual.
The third hokage waited patiently, he hoped that it was just something childish bothering the child, and not something like the kyuubi, if the beast had decided to talk to Naruto it might be trying to influence the boy.
"This is gonna make me seem crazy," Naruto started slowly his eyes flickering all over the room.
He gave the boy another smile as he said, "It's okay Naruto-kun, I'll believe you."
The boy slowly nodded as he paced a bit before he stopped, "I can see dead people, spirits I guess, though I tend to call them shimmers." The boy stated.
He blinked the only physical sign of the shock he was feeling, how could Naruto see people? Was it some kind of bloodline? Or maybe he just pretended he saw dead people, but they were just imaginary? Or could it be the kyuubi doing something? He had to know more information before he could make any decisions, "Oh?" He asked, before he asked anything specific he should see what Naruto was willing to say.
"Yeah, I can now see them pretty clearly, I can't really hear them perfectly yet, I can hear Guardian-shimmer about fifty percent of the time now, and others about half that." The boy said grinning and as he said Guardian-shimmer he looked over his shoulder at something and smiled.
"Guardian-shimmer?" he repeated worried about who, or what that could be.
"Uh Huh! He's the shimmer that I used to call stalker shimmer, until he protected me from some mean shimmers, though at that time I couldn't hear shimmers at all but they had the same mean look as the villagers do." Naruto said rapidly he seemed to be relieved telling him about this, though Sarutobi doubted the boy realized this.
"Why have you not mentioned this before?" he asked curious.
"Well it never really was an issue, and I try to ignore the shimmers cause I don't want them knowing I can see them, and since Nidaime-shimmer is always in your office when your there…" Naruto said shrugging as if that explained things, but it just brought up more questions.
"Nidaime-shimmer?" he echoed surprised about the mention of his sensei. Naruto looked to the side and stuck his tongue out at someone, or something. Could it be possible that Naruto was sticking his tongue out at Tobirama, the very thought of anyone doing that to his sensei was amusing, no one had ever dared to do anything like that to his face when he was alive.
"Yeah, from what I have gathered from guardian-shimmer after you die if you had chakra you become a spirit to help protect the living from the undead and demons and such. Of course you can always pass on completely if you wish, or if your seriously 'wounded' in a fight with another shimmer or one of the creatures of the in between then you can be forced to pass on completely." Naruto said, not answering the particular question he wanted answer, but the boy probably thought he was asking for more info. Still it was useful to know.
He looked at Naruto and carefully asked "Who is this guardian shimmer of yours?"
"I don't know his name, I haven't bothered to really try and find out, though I could if I wanted to." Naruto replied with a shrug.
"What does this guardian of yours look like?" He asked worried about just who it was. Naruto smiled and went to his other room after a moment he came back a piece of paper in his hands.
He looked at the drawing, as Naruto handed it to him, as he observed the rather colorful drawing the boy blushed and rubbed the back of his head, "Whoops" The boy said and went to go grab another drawing. The first drawing was of a man with long spiky dark purple hair, a bright pink high collar shirt and lime green pants.
"Sorry jiji! This is the correct one." Naruto said as he came back with a drawing that was near identical, except the colors were different, the hair was black with black eyes, the high collar guard shirt was a dark blue and the pants were a dark grey. He looked kinda familiar, though as the drawing was only a stick figure he supposed it was cause of the black hair and eyes that made him think the stick figure was a Uchiha.
He raised an eyebrow at Naruto wondering how the boy could make such a mistake between the two different drawings. The boy sighed and looked down at the ground as he muttered, "I'm colorblind."
At receiving yet another shock from Naruto his eyes widened. When his original got his memories… he might just get a heart attack. Yikes.
Your colorblind, I guess that does explain those drawings." The third mused, he had seen these drawings before and never thought much of them other than the fact that most were colored weirdly, like the one that had a faint resemblance to him, only his hat had pink trimmings and his pipe was blue. He had just thought the boy was using random colors for fun.
The drawings were mostly just stick people with items drawn on top of them, but they still had a faint resemblance to the people they were supposed to portray. "You mentioned you could see Tobirama-sensei?" he asked after a moment of looking at the drawing of Naruto's guardian, the figure seemed like it should be familiar, but it was hard to tell. It did kinda look like a Uchiha with the black hair and eyes, but that was probably because whenever konoha people saw pale skin people with black hair and black eyes it was automatically thought that they were Uchiha.
"Yeah he typically is always in your office, though he followed you here today," then the boy turned to a blank space and asked,"Why did you come out of the office Nidaime-shimmer?"
The hokage watched silent as Naruto seemed to be listening to something before he nodded and said, "Ah."
He was shocked, could Naruto really be talking to Tobirama? "Sensei's here?" he asked cautiously raising his hope that this was real.
"Yes he is, he was always standing behind you in your office." Naruto said cheerfully.
"Where is he standing now?" he asked Naruto who then pointed to empty air. He looked in that direction and then asked Naruto,, "Would you mind if I conversed with him and have you tell me what he says."
"I don't mind, but I might not hear the response always." the golden haired boy said with a kind smile.
"How are you doing sensei?" Sarutobi asked not really knowing what else to say.
Naruto tilted his head a bit before saying, "That is the first question you ask after all these years Saru-kun?" the boy seemed to be trying to copy how Tobirama spoke as well, though the effect was slightly ruined by his young voice, it was still rather impressive.
He chuckled, "Yes this is quite unexpected afterall."
"You've become quite old Sarutobi." Naruto spoke for Tobirama once more said after a pause.
He chuckled again then curious he asked, "Indeed I have, what do you think of Konoha sensei?"
The boy watched the air for a moment before shaking his head "Sorry jiji I couldn't hear what he said."
Naruto then nodded to the air and turned to him again, "He said that Konoha while having come along further in some ways has gone backwards in others."
"The village has gone backwards?" he repeated with a frown not sure what his sensei meant by that.
Naruto looked at the air and after a moment his eyes widened, he then grabbed a pen and pencil and started writing, asking for a repeat several times. Then he finished and using his imation of tobirama's voice and a more straight back posture he said, "Most of it is because your teammate keeps going behind your back and the council undermines you. You are old Sarutobi, perhaps you have forgotten that you are the Hokage of Konohagakure. Your word is the law. It is because you either do not see what they are doing or overlook what they are doing in order to keep the peace. But the council of yours have dropped the academy standard to nothing, the village is weakening in its strength. Do you remember when you were an academy student what was needed to pass? Now it is just written tests and three near useless jutsus. With the standards set as they are you are setting children up to die. Then there is the fact there is a civilian council at all. They have no business in shinobi matters. And your teammate, he still runs his little group despite you having disbanded it."
After Naruto finished Tobirama's message he looked embarrassed at having basically scolded him, well rather it was his sensei using Naruto as a median to scold him. Sarutobi's eyes widened as he thought over everything his sensei had mentioned.
He was shocked at the news of the standards of the Academy, how had they dropped so low? And Danzo, he had expected something like that from him if he was honest. He heard Naruto say, "It's fine! Besides I want to be Hokage in the future!" He was proud of the young blonde hair boy for his dream.
A couple minutes passed before Naruto developed stars in his eyes and he shouted "Really! So cool!"
Another moment passed before Naruto nodded rapidly, then Naruto turned to look over his shoulder again. Sarutobi watched amused as Naruto shouted "Thank you!" and then he leapt into one of his tackling hugs at the thin air and face plant into the ground. The boy sat up and rubbed his nose, "Oww." Sarutobi smiled as he watch Naruto smile at the thin air again. He watched as the boy glanced up, and then he stuck his tongue out at the place he had mentioned Tobirama was at.
He finally shook his head, what an amazing ability… but, "Have I really been that negligent?" He asked looking at the blank space where he assumed Tobirama was.
The blonde boy tilted his head and repeated, "Negligent?"
"It means to be neglectful," Seeing that Naruto didn't know what neglectful meant he elaborated, "Neglectful means that I have been failing in doing what my duties require."
Naruto nodded in his understanding then the blonde leaned close to him and whispered mischievously "Nidaime-shimmer and Guardian-shimmer are bickering like an old married couple."
He spluttered shocked at the image of tobirama and the unknown guardian being compared to an old married couple and then chuckled in amusement. "Oh I almost forgot, I brought you a gift Naruto-kun."
"Oh?" Naruto asked excited.
Sarutobi handed him the small package he had been holding earlier. "These books are gifts, one is to help you with the academy, though I will be taking a careful look into the academy standards now that Tobirama-sensei mentions that they are so low."
Naruto opened the package and inside was a couple books. The gift had five books, one was a book on the history of Konoha it was an older edition, but it actually had more information about the founding of Konoha than the more modern books, another he had give was a book on traps it was one of the few books written by Madara Uchiha and the book he had given Naruto was a copy the contained only the trap designs and how to make them and some of the more innocent ideas for their uses. If Naruto was as good at using the traps as he was pranking he might become a trap specialist in the future, and if he did become good with what he had given the boy he might give the boy a full copy of the book. The third was a book about basic sealing and was made to be a companion gift to the fourth book which was a diary written by Minato on his journey though sealing. The last book was very small and was just a booklet on chakra.
Holding the diary Naruto asked, "What is this?"
Sarutobi gave a gentle smile, "It is a journal from a seal master as they learned to create seals. He would have wanted you to have it." He didn't mention that it was by his father, as Minato had written on the inside that it was his property. He had leafed through it and the thing had given him a headache trying to understand the man's though process, hopefully Naruto could make head or tails of it.
The boy smiled, "Thanks jiji! I'll be sure to learn from these!" Suddenly the boy dropped to the floor for seemingly no reason. Getting back up he glared at two spots, "Oi! No fighting in my apartment please!"
He blinked wondering why Tobirama and Naruto's guardian were fighting. Naruto was staring at the air before he questioned confused "Ignoramus?"
Sarutobi raised an eyebrow as he explained, "It means ignorant or stupid."
"Ah. The shimmers left to go fight I think." Naruto said with a frown.
He gave a slow nod, he had a lot to think about. "This has been a lot more eventful than I thought it would be."
"No kidding, Guardian-shimmer always avoids going into the tower, I guess I now know why. I figured he was avoiding the nidaime…"
"Interesting I wonder just who your guardian is…" He mused glancing once more at the picture of Naruto's guardian, he just knew he should recognize who it was.
"I don't know."
"Why don't we go get some ramen?" The third offered after a moment after this he could use it himself even though he was just a shadow clone.
Naruto beamed and nodded happily and Sarutobi walked with Naruto through the near empty streets of Konoha to Ichiraku, which was still open mostly because it was just the two members and they knew that Naruto would come. Sarutobi was glad to see the two shop owners treat Naruto like a normal person despite the burden he carried.
A/n Sarutobi's point of view for the conversation! If you notice a msitake please let me know!