What's this? Yet another chapter of our glorious tale? How youthful of me!

Yeah I'm going to continue the youth stuff throughout this story and no one can stop me.

Anyway I become more excited every time I think about writing this. There are just so many possibilities. Seals alone amount to basically infinitesimal possibilities.

Moving right along thank you to all who voiced their opinions on the options I gave out I have made the final decision though, you may think of yourselves as advisers to my all encompassing monarchy!

Good for you!

Ahem… Well I decided on the following:

Minato is dead.

Kushina is dead.

Naruko (or whatever I call her) is a thing.

Yeah, yeah I know this is not what some of you wanted and I am kinda going with my original plan but I had a lot of things to go over with this and having some other people's opinions helped.

I really did want to have at least Kushina alive because well she would have been a lot of fun to write.

But alas it kinda ruins what I'm going for with this.

Also I don't want to call Naruko... well... Naruko because Naruto is in this and the name similarities could get a bit confusing. I'm thinking something like Natsumi or something.

Anyway we'll get to that next chapter but for this chapter we're actually going to Konoha in the first place. Oh and for those who think Naruto is going to be fine with the loss of his family and village guess again.


The road to Konoha was a long and trying one lit brightly by the fires of youth! Or at least that's what Gai would have his students and guest believe.

Honestly it was perhaps the worst trip Naruto had ever been on. There was a sense of finality of leaving his ruined home and everything he had ever known behind. True everyone was dead so there was no one to miss him, but that kind of just made the whole situation worse. He was potentially the last survivor of his entire village, more likely now considering it had been thirty years since its fall apparently.

That part was the hardest actually. Everyone had not just recently died, they had been dead and forgotten for the past thirty years. Even if there were other survivors of the invasion, they had moved on a long time ago and here he was with the fresh sting of lost family and friends. Naruto should be about forty years old at this point. Instead he was an eleven year old genin from a dead village. Not to mention how different the world probably was by this point. The Second War had apparently ended not long after the destruction of his home and then there had been a Third War that had been fought and won since then. And now he found himself in the company of perhaps the strangest jonin he had ever met along with his equally curious students, albeit for different reasons.

Stranger in a strange place indeed.

So here he was jogging down the path with literally his entire heritage on his back and beside a pair of green training monsters and a duo of out of breath genin.

"Is he always like this?" Naruto asked as he followed along at a steady pace feeling slightly winded but other than that just fine.

"No... he actually seems to be having a slow day." Neji commented notably more out of it than he was.

"Huh…" Naruto stared at the muscular man as he and Lee encouraged each other in a most youthful manner.

"How?!" Tenten managed to gasp out, "How the hell are you keeping up without collapsing? We've been at this for three months and we're just getting used to this kind of thing."

"Uzumaki are known for having large amounts of stamina." Naruto mentioned shrugging, he had never really paid that much attention to it, everyone in Uzushio was used to it, but he supposed it would be a bit odd to people who had likely never met an Uzumaki in their lives before.

"That must *huff* be nice." Tenten tried to growl, while Neji chose to remain silent.

About a half hour passed in silence for the most part, only broken by the occasional cheering of either Gai or Lee urging the youthful group on and the huffing and puffing of the rest of the crew, even Naruto was starting to feel tired.

When the silence began to become deafening naruto decided to try starting a conversation. "So what's Konoha like?"

"It is a most youthful village!" Lee announced proudly.

Naruto blinked blankly at him.

"He means it's nice." Neji translated neutrally.

"Five out of ten." Tenten commented earning her looks from everyone else. "What? It's still my home and I would defend it with my life, but I didn't have the best experience growing up and I know others had it worse."

"What do you mean Tenten? Our gang was most youthful!" Lee added his bit deepening everyone else's confusion.

"Lee I don't think three orphans scrounging for food count as a gang." Tenten voiced her thoughts on the matter before turning back to the others. "Sorry about that, but I guess Konoha would be like other Hidden Villages, but I'm not sure what they were like in your time."

"Nice on the surface but full of corruption?" Naruto offered thinking of what his father had taught him about "Political no Jutsu." Honestly being a ninja certainly had its perks but there was a lot of crap you had to put up with beyond learning how to fight and how to deal with the emotional stress the job put on you.

"That is surprisingly accurate." Neji noted.

"What do you mean surprisingly?" Naruto narrowed his eyes.

"Nothing."


Konoha's Gates...

"Why are there four giants head on the side of the mountain?" Naruto asked with a notable amount of confusion. Said heads also looked kind of dull and bland, maybe someone should try painting them…

The group had arrived at Konoha roughly five minutes earlier and Gai was currently dealing with the quote, "most unyouthful paperwork" end quote. Said paperwork had increased in size when one of the chunin on guard had noticed Naruto and after a bit of explaining had handed Gai a bunch of forms to fill out concerning bringing a potential new member of the ninja program to Konoha.

Why the heck was paperwork so important anyway? Naruto was sure there was a reason that probably had to do with legal practice but beyond that had no clue.

"That's the Hokage monument, every Hokage the village has had so far." Tenten explained.

"Wait, you make giant versions of your leaders faces? Why?!" Naruto asked stunned.

"Ya know I never really thought about it… It's just kind of always been there." Tenten admitted. "I guess it's a show of respect."

"Well it is pretty cool looking." Naruto conceded before taking a better look at the faces. "So the fourth one is the Hokage right now?"

"No, actually the Sandaime Hokage is currently in office." Neji entered into the discussion.

"What happened to the Yondaime?" Naruto asked.

"He died defeating the Kyuubi about eleven years ago when it attacked the village, the Sandaime was still alive so he just took back the position instead of finding a new Hokage." Neji elaborated

"Oh." Naruto said not exactly expecting a tailed beast to be involved, "So who's the poor kid he sealed it into?" Several feet away Gai stiffened in the midst of sorting through the paperwork, fortunately none of the genin noticed this action as Naruto was waiting for an answer and the Konoha born genin work looking at him with no small amount of confusion.

"What are you talking about? The Fourth killed it!"

"You can't kill a Bijuu and they get sealed into young kids to make jinchuuriki most of the time." Naruto explained. "It's easier than trying to stick it in an inanimate container because those don't have a chakra system for the beasts chakra to leak into so it doesn't just keep building up." He had learned about jinchuuriki when he first started looking into putting seals on humans, it kind of sucked but as long as the seal was done right the jinchuuriki shouldn't have too many problems with it. Right?

"Yosh my youthful students and companion!" Gai suddenly cut in before things could be discussed further. "Let us make our way to the Hokage so that we may complete our mission!"

As Gai ushered the group into the village he discreetly looked at the chunin guard who was holding up a stack of unfinished paperwork with a confused look, and mouthed later at him before grinning and following after the genin.


Hokage Tower, Hiruzen Sarutobi's POV...

"Yosh! Team nine reporting in!" Gai announced happily as they entered the Hokage's office.

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up from his (accursed) paperwork at the newcomers to his office. He had to suppress a wince at Gai's "youthful" attitude that had thankfully only managed to infect one of the man's students thus far. He truly did not dislike the man but his personality led to any relationships with the man to being strained. Of course Hiruzen had his own suspicions of just how much of Gai's personality was real and how much of it was a mask to hide his true intellect.

"Our youthful mission was a success Hokage-sama! However, on our return we encountered someone whose flames of youth burn brightly and would be a youthful addition to Konoha!" Gai announced.

Then again he knew what people said about assuming.

Sarutobi inspected the newcomer Gai had indicated and quickly took a few mental notes about his appearance. First off the red hair that would suggest Uzumaki heritage but on its own proved nothing. Further inspection however left no doubt to the boys parental origins. Most notably the Uzushiogakure hitai-ate and the Uzumaki clan symbol on his shirt. Of course just knowing he was an Uzumaki did not reveal his exact origins or why Gai had brought him along back to the village.

After taking in the boy's physical appearance the Professor took note of how the boy appeared to be emotionally. He was hiding it well, but there was a look in his eye the old man had seen time and again on the battlefield. One that was attributed with someone in mourning, which might explain why Gai decided to bring him along if he had no reason to stay wherever he had been living.

"I'll need a full report on what occurred during the escort of that Merchant Caravan." Hiruzen said pulling himself out of his thoughts. "But I will admit I am very curious where you found your companion and just what events led to him joining you on your return."

So Gai explained the story making it a tad more youthful than it probably was. Then again this was Gai, who had a student that had become a virtual clone of him, therefore doubling the amount of youth in any given situation involving the pair.

"So to sum it up." Sarutobi began, massaging his temples and already fighting off the oncoming migraine this whole situation was creating. "The mission went off without a hitch and you then decided to take your team on a detour to visit Uzushio's ruins and give a history lesson. Upon arriving in Uzushio you decided to make camp in the old Uzumaki Compound where you found Naruto here trapped inside a scroll of his own design, who had no idea what happened to his village until you told him. Then you decided to bring him along back to Konoha with you?"

"That is correct Hokage-sama!" Gai said with his Nice-Guy Pose™.

"Well then Gai thank you very much for your report. Now I believe I may have some matters to discuss with Uzumaki-san here, you make pick up your payment with my secretary." Hiruzen directed.

Team Nine soon left, two of the genin shooting quick looks back at Naruto before the door closed behind them.

"Now then," Hiruzen started already wondering what kind of political nightmare this was going to bring in the near future, "Shall we discuss your future in this village?"


Ooh! A kinda cliffhanger!

Yeah I wanted to get this out of Christmas. It is my first gift of many to you my readers! I should be able to get a few chapters out on most of my stories before break is over.

Well anyway I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'll get to reviews next time because there are quite a few right now which aren't exactly written for addressing.

Now the character of Naruko/Natsumi will be somewhat similar to canon Naruto but I plan on adding character traits that will firmly make her a clearly different person.

Anyway until next we meet! See ya!

~FriTik

R&R