Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Darkness or any crossover elements that may be added into this story.
Italics for thoughts
Bold for Jutsu, Sealed and Non Human characters
XChapter StartX
Team 7 and Shibuki had been travelling for four days and Naruto had been asking Shibuki various questions about what it was like to be the leader of an entire village of shinobi and if Takigakure had any shinobi that were as strong as the Hokage of Konohagakure, but the response that Naruto got was something that shocked and intrigued all of team 7.
"Hey Shibuki!" Naruto Suddenly asked, a little loud, gaining said man's attention and the rest of his team's.
"Yes Naruto-san, what is it?"
"Does Takigakure have any Shinobi that are as strong as the Hokage of Konohagakure?" Naruto asked surprising Shibuki a little making him raise a brow wondering exactly this boy's academy education was like if he asked a question like that.
"Well Naruto-san, Takigakure is like every small shinobi village, we rarely produce strong shinobi and even my village has only produced two shinobi's that have every reached the level of power that's comparable to the Hokage." Shibuki said surprising the three genin.
"Wait if that's true then how would shinobi from your village protect themselves from someone that's as strong as Hokage?" Naruto asked causing Shibuki's eyes to widen a little as Naruto had asked the one question that could potentially do the most damage to his village and now he had to think of a way to answer his question without truly answering it.
"Well Naruto-san, all of the hidden villages have there own unique Jutsu's to them and Takigakure is no different but even with our unique Jutsu's Takigakure has a special item that allows the leader of the village to gain the strength to protect the village in times of danger." Shibuki said trying to avoid any direct answer only for Naruto to stare back at him with narrowed eyes.
"Well, that's nice to know but you still didn't answer my question?" Naruto said to Shibuki, who now had a nervous expression on his face, but a small intake of breath from one of his teammates was caught by Naruto's sensitive hearing causing his eyes to narrow and an irritated look forms on his face confusing Shibuki before he glanced at his teammates and saw that Sakura and Sasuke had wide eyes with both of them having a shocked expression, Sakura's was obvious with Sasuke's being subtle, Shibuki glanced at Kakashi and saw that he was staring at Naruto intrigue and curiosity evident in his single visible eye.
That had been a two days ago and Shibuki was still trying to understand it, ever since he had first been introduced to Naruto incident after incident had happened that continued to leave a bad taste in his mouth. The young man had been nothing but kind, friendly, when he wasn't interacting with the rest of his team, excitable, and down right likeable.
That's why Shibuki couldn't stop thinking about the interactions Naruto had with his team and himself, nor could he help but see a mint green haired girl in place of Naruto as to how his teammates treated him and it was then that his memory was jogged 'Konohagakure was attack by the Kyūbi over ten years ago, and Naruto-san is around that age. Could it be that he's the Kyūbi-jinchūriki' Shibuki thought as every village had heard about how the Kyūbi had suddenly attack Konohagakure and that it was stopped by the Yondaime Hokage and it was easy to figure out how he defeated it, he sealed it into someone creating a jinchūriki where every village tried to find out who it was only to be unsuccessful in discovering the jinchūriki's identity, but now that Shibuki had his suspicions he was certain the Naruto was the Kyūbi-jinchūriki, his whisker marks only helped to reinforce that fact.
If Naruto truly was the Kyūbi-Jinchūriki then that would at least explain his teammates reaction but not the team's Sensei, while Kakashi hadn't been violently to Naruto that could simply be due to the fact that Kakashi was famous through-out the Elemental Nations and was being respectful while he was present or was actually one of the rare few that truly cared about Jinchūriki hosts, it was hard to tell when dealing with intelligent Shinobi.
If Shibuki's suspicion was correct and Naruto was the a Jinchūriki then he wouldn't hold it against him, after all the Kyūbi only attacked Konohagakure it never touched Taki, and when they reached his village he would be able to get Naruto to do more than his assigned mission.
For now Shibuki had to wait and extra day or two before they reached his village and he would be forced to witness any unsavory actions against Naruto, if there were any and by a pink haired hot tempered genin, but hopefully he was be able to prevent anything from happening to him.
"Hey, Shibuki are you alright?" the sudden question causes Shibuki to jump a little and look to his left at Naruto, who was looking at him with his head cocked to the side.
"I'm fine Naruto-san, I was just thinking about a person that I was thinking about introducing you to, if it's alright with you that is?" Shibuki said hoping that he would agree as this would at least this would give Naruto the chance to make friends with someone that desperately needed one.
"I'm alright with it but why are you asking at least this way I might actually get a real friend?" Naruto said while thinking the last part.
"Well, I'm asking because I thought you'd be interested in meeting her not to mention that the color of your clothes reminded me of the her eyes?"
"Wait, are you telling me the person you want me to meet is a girl and she has ORANGE eyes." Naruto said while emphasizing the color as he still needed his so called teammates to think he was still the same Naruto that they thought was real.
Shibuki chuckled at Naruto's reaction "Yes Naruto-san the person I want you to meet is a girl and does have orange eyes, I actually think you would get along very well with her."
"What can you tell me about her?"
"Well, unfortunately I don't know a lot about her as being the leader of a village take up quiet a lot of time and I've not been able to spend a lot of time with her so I do not know her well but she showed a cheerful happy-go-lucky attitude so don't be surprised the first time you meet her." Shibuki said with a small smile on his face as Naruto looked at him closely trying to see if he was lying, at least that what Shibuki thought.
Naruto looked at Shibuki trying to see if he was trying to deceive him with the promise of meeting someone and found that would actually treat him like an actual person instead of the Kyūbi taken form and was glad that he couldn't detect any lie or deception from Shibuki, after all the years of Konohagakure's treatment of Naruto he had become extremely adept at discerning when a person was lying or trying to deceive him happen to work in his favor as it save him from revealing his true self multiple times.
Naruto's screening was cut short when he suddenly heard, from behind him, Kakashi say "Alright let's land and make camp, we'll reach Taki tomorrow." Naruto looked up through the leafs of the trees to see that the sky was starting to take on red-orangish hue signaling the approach of night and made the five shinobi drop down to the ground where he heard muffled breathing and looked to see that Sakura was the only one that was breathing deeply which made him inwardly scoff at her wondering if she did any of her own training and why was she a shinobi in the first place.
Naruto had created twelve Kage Bushin to help with the basic's of readying a camp, something that he had been doing since the second night of traveling to Taki, as the Kage Bushin's moved around the real Naruto had removed his pack and set it on the ground and was about to remove his sleeping bag when he heard a soft 'thump' next to him and look to see Shibuki had put his pack down and was fishing out his own sleeping bag when he looked to Naruto and raised a brow before returning his attention to removing his sleeping bag from his pack and placed it on the ground.
After the Kage Bushin, that Naruto created, had finished with their assigned tasks they dispelled themselves and the sun had just finished setting making the area that the four shinobi were in started to grow dark that was held back by the small fire that they had made manly for lighting and cooking and what was currently being stared at by Shibuki as it was his turn to be awake and watch out for bandits, which was something that he inwardly chuckled at the thought of bandits attacking trained shinobi, when he heard the sounds of someone moving in their sleeping bag and looked over to see that Kakashi was sitting up and looking at him.
"Shibuki-san may I ask you a question?"
Shibuki looked at Kakashi and saw that his lone visible eye was full of suspicion and a little bit of honest curiosity "Only if you answer one of mine." was the only thing that Shibuki said as Kakashi only blinked once before he nodded.
"What are your intention with introducing Naruto to this person you want him to meet?" when Shibuki heard this his eyes narrowed slightly at the question 'I should be asking you what your intentions for Naruto are' Shibuki thought as he stared at Kakashi before sighing.
"I just want Naruto-san to meet a great person that I personally know and possibly make a great friend that would treat him humanly" Shibuki deadpanned the last part while looking at Sakura's sleeping form causing Kakashi to follow his gaze only to wince and rub the back of his head sheepishly when it landed on Sakura.
"Why did you allow it to happen?" the sudden question caught Kakashi by surprise and caused him to look at Shibuki who was now looking at directly at into his lone eye "why did you allow Sakura to hit Naruto in your presence?"
"I knew that it was a Kage Bushin and despite how much chakra that it possessed the real Naruto has magnitudes more, and to be frank if he could achieve the chakra control that's necessary to do a simple Genjutsu there's no doubt in my mind that he would attain the moniker Kami no Shinobi (God of Shinobi) when he's older, who knows that might happen sooner then we think." Kakashi's statement caused Shibuki to widen his eyes and looking at the young blonde genin that had the potential to be that powerful.
"But the fact that it was just a Kage Bushin wasn't the only reason why I didn't stop Sakura from hitting it, to be honest I'm confused as to who Naruto really is." Kakashi said as he looked at the fire replaying everything in his mind from the time he found Naruto in the training field and told him of their current mission until now.
"What do you mean by that Kakashi-san?"
"A few hours before you first meet Naruto I found him in a training field where he had finished just finished training with his Kage Bushin, though I suspect that Naruto trained with a few hundred of them" this bit of information caused Shibuki's eyes to widened "I asked him why he sent a Kage Bushin to the mission assignment and his response was something that just doesn't match up with what I know of Naruto."
"What do you mean, what is the Naruto that you know like?"
"Goofy, fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, absent minded on occasions, insightful on rare occasions, doesn't know how to give up, I can keep going but I think you get the idea and the worst part of it is that he basically raised himself, he's an orphan so his apparent lack of intelligence is due more to the fact that he's ignorant instead of stupid." Kakashi said as a sad look appeared in his lone eye while he was staring at the fire.
'So Naruto-san lost his parents, while knowing when they died won't prove that he's the Kyūbi-jinchūriki it will strengthen my certainty on the matter' Shibuki thought be for waiting a couple of seconds "Kakashi-san if it isn't to much trouble when did Naruto-san lose his parents?"
Kakashi looked at Shibuki for a second seeing if he had any ulterior motives from such a question "They died during the Kyūbi attack and since then Naruto's been on his own."
'Naruto's parents died on the of day the Kyūbi attack and yet once again that particular day seems to be connected to Naruto and all of it is too much to simply be one big coincidence and just seems to scream out that he's Konohagakure's Jinchūriki' Shibuki thought before he back at Kakashi and decided to take one hell of a leap "Naruto's the Kyūbi-jinchūriki isn't he."
That single statement from Shibuki caused Kakashi's eyes to widen the slightest bit but the distance between the two of them and the light from the fire was all that Shibuki needed to see Kakashi's reaction "So my suspicions were right after all, Naruto-san is the Kyūbi-jinchūriki."
Kakashi was about to start questioning Shibuki about how he knew when he suddenly remembered that all three of his genin were within ear shot and was about to quickly looked around but was stopped when he suddenly heard "It's alright none of them were awake to hear our conversation." Kakashi looked back over at Shibuki, who couldn't help but chuckle at the alarmed expression he was making.
"I'm a sensor, for our entire conversation I've been keeping an eye, so to speak, on their chakra and it's been the same steady gentle flow that I've come to associate when a person is asleep but I believe that you wish to ask me how I found out what Naruto is." Shibuki said making Kakashi's alarmed expression shift to a neutral expression before he nodded.
"It wasn't all that hard really, even though all of the genin on your team are around the right age only Naruto stood out due to his whisker marks, and then there was the way that Sakura acts towards him" that statement caused Kakashi to wince slightly "but the thing that start my suspicion was when I first meet Naruto four days ago there was a moment where I was looking at Naruto when he was suddenly replace with someone else."
Kakashi looked at Shibuki for a second and a thought popped into his head "It's the girl you want Naruto to meet isn't it, she's the one that you saw replace Naruto." Shibuki didn't say anything, he just nodded.
"The girl's name is Fū, and she's my villages Jinchūriki" Kakashi's eye widened at that bit of information "the reason I want Naruto to meet her is because I want them to have at least a friend that understands their problem."
Kakashi didn't say anything at first as his mind went through the information that he just heard and couldn't help but agree with Shibuki, only a jinchūriki could understand another jinchūriki "Why did you share this information with me, village leaders, regardless of whether their village is small like yours or one like Konohagakure, protect the identity of their jinchūriki so tell me why?"
"Both you and the current Hokage are famous throughout the Elemental Nations, known for your many attributes but in this situation only one of them concerns me, your ability to understand a situation. You and the Hokage both share this trait and I know that you will report this back to your Hokage and I think you'd agree with me that both of them need this." After Shibuki finished talking Kakashi thought over everything that Shibuki had said and knew that he was right, about everything, Kakashi would report to the Hokage that Shibuki had figured out that Naruto was the Kyūbi jinchūriki and was going to introduce him to Taki's own Jinchūriki in order for them to become friends and Kakashi wouldn't stop him cause he knew that Naruto needed not only a friend but someone that understood what it was like to host a bijū (Tailed Beast) inside of them.
Kakashi looked at Shibuki after he had finished thinking "You should get some sleep Shibuki-san, I'll take over for you." Kakashi said where Shibuki looked at him for a second before he layed back down on his sleeping bag and turned over leaving Kakashi alone with his thoughts.
When morning came they broke came and continued on their way to Taki when they came across one of it's patrols that after Shibuki talking with them had one of the patrol accompany with them until they reached a large cliff that had a water fall and a vast forest sitting on top of it and it was there that Shibuki told them that they would need to be blindfolded in order to gain entrance to the village.
As the blindfolded team 7 was lead into Takigakure a pair of malevolent eyes watched them from afar.
X-Chapter End-X
The length of this chapter surprise me to be honest and I don't want any complaining about how Shibuki figured out Naruto's the Kyūbi jinchūriki but apparently in the manga and anime the intelligence of shinobi is, in a word, lacking I mean for god sakes NARUTO HAS WHISKER MARKS and I would think that the Kyūbi's attack on Konoha was widely known something like that doesn't happen without people noticing