chapter 9

the return

Early morning guard duty was something Izumo hated. It was boring; no one was even up this early, let alone going into or out of the village. Still, it was his job for now, and he was prepared to spend the first several hours of daylight in boredom, staring at the road leading out of Konoha.

That is, until a figure appeared on said road. Judging by the height, it was a child, probably around ten or eleven years old. As the figure approached, Izumo made it out to be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy wearing a bright orange jumpsuit with blue shoulders. But what caught his attention were the three whisker marks on each cheek. It seemed the rumors were false, and the brat wasn't dead after all. But no way was he allowing that thing into the village. When he approached, the chunin moved to block his path.

The demon child just looked at him with those stunningly blue eyes. "Either you move out of the way and let me through, or I'll sneak in and tell the Hokage that you're trying to prevent a citizen of Konoha from entering the village." That's when he remembered Hokage-sama, for whatever reason, actually liked this monster; he quickly moved aside to ket the abomination in, but not without one last glare, which was completely ignored.

And so, two years to the day after he left, Uzumaki Naruto had come back to Konoha.


The energetic blonde was now walking down the village's main road, ignoring as best he could the glares mixed with surprise at his return. He was trying to decide what to do next. He had to go see Ojiisan, both to let the old man know he was back and to inform him of everything he had learned about the Kyuubi and the Yondaime. There was a ramen banquet he needed to eat before the day was out; he still remembered his promise to Ichiraku-ojiisan. And of course, telling Iruka-oniisan that he was back would be necessary. They had become so close that, even though he was nowhere near the man, he could, thanks to his bloodline, sense his big brother's ever-present worry at his continued absence. Naruto made up his mind on his course of action.

"Oi! Ichiraku-ojiisan! Ayame-neesan!" the orange-clad loudmouth shouted, walking into the ramen stall, "I'm back!"

The ramen chef and his daughter looked up at the blonde's shout. "Naruto?" asked the old man, "My, how you've grown." He was right. The boy was now about 4' 7", slightly over half a foot taller than he had been when he had left, and, despite not even being eleven years old yet, his powerful, toned muscles were visible through his clothes when he moved.

"Glad to see you're back, Naruto," said Ayame, looking fondly at the boy she counted as a younger brother.

"I'm glad to be back. Anyway, I need to go let Ojiisan know I'm here. I'll be back at noon for lunch," the blonde grinned widely at the prospect of his favorite food. "You should probably start cooking." And with that, he walked out and headed for the Hokage tower.


Konoha's third Hokage was enjoying the quiet of early morning. Though, come to think of it, the entire village had been relatively quiet for the past two years with the absence of a certain blonde-haired ball of energy. He was using this time before the arrival of paperwork to read his favorite book, a small orange novel written by one of his former students.

At that moment, the door to his office slammed open. "OJIISAN! I'M BACK!" The deafening shout came from an orange-and-blonde blur that was hurtling across the room towards him. The old man smiled as Naruto enveloped him in a tight hug.

"Naruto!" exclaimed the aged Hokage, disentangling himself from the boy and quickly shoving the book he had been reading into a desk drawer, "It's so good to see you again. Let me get a good look at you." He held the ninja-in-training at eye distance, taking in the physical changes he had gone through since he had last seen him.

The blue eyes suddenly became serious. "Ojiisan, there's some things I have to tell you; things I found out while I was gone. Most of them are good things, but I also have to let you know something you won't want to believe, but you have to know it, because it concerns the safety of the village. And I need to tell you all these things in private." Hearing this, the Sandaime gestured, and the concealed ANBU left the room. A few handseals, and the room was safe from any prying ears.

"All right, Naruto. We're alone, so tell me these important things," said the old man. And the blonde began to talk, starting with letting him know about his mother's letter and his new clothes. Then, he went on to talk about his meeting with the fox and the shinkagan. To say that the aged leader was impressed with the bloodline limit would be like saying the general populace of Konoha wasn't nice to Naruto. His shrewd mind ran through the capabilities of those blue eyes and just what they would mean. The possibilities were endless: even the best of spies would be instantly revealed, due to the ability to detect lies; a few seconds of direct eye contact, and he could extract any information from anyone; the ability to read opponents would give him a huge advantage in any fight; and the connection he formed with others would let him know instantly if his allies were ever in trouble.

When Naruto told him that the Kyuubi was female, the Sandaime just stared at him in shock, both at the revelation itself and at how a little boy had calmly walked up to the greatest demon ever known and asked its gender. The Hokage was finding it quite odd, however, how the blonde was avoiding any mention of his father. The Naruto he remembered would have been jumping for joy at being the son of the man he had always considered his hero. "Naruto, surely you read your father's letter as well?"

The change in the boy's eyes was instantaneous. They went from a serious, soft blue to ice-cold, with a powerful hatred and anger burning behind them. Both stayed silent for nearly a minute, the Sandaime wondering as to the reason behind this drastic reaction, while Naruto was reining in his raging emotions. "Ojiisan," and his voice was the most serious the old man had ever heard from the boy, "There's something I have to explain to you, and the easiest way to do that would be to show you a memory of mine."

"Showing me a memory? What do you mean?" asked the Sandaime.

"I mean I'm going to use my shinkagan to take you into my mind and show you one of my memories." the boy said simply. The old man gave a nod of approval, and blue eyes stared into brown. After a few seconds, he felt something strange. Something in his mind that should not have been there. Then, there was a pulling sensation, and everything around him changed.

Despite having an idea of what to expect from Naruto's description, the surprise of suddenly finding himself in a sewer hit the aged Hokage, and perceptive blue eyes noticed it, even through a lifetime of emotional training. "It surprised me a bit the first time, too. This way, Ojiisan," said the boy, "unless you want to visit the fox first?"

"No," replied the Sandaime, "I should probably see whatever it is you wanted me to see first." And so Naruto led the old man down a long hallway, all the way to the end, where he turned down a smaller passage leading to a deep pool of water.

"This is the day of my birth, from my point of view. Step in," the future Hokage commanded to the present one. What he saw in that pool would forever change his views on someone he had, until that very moment, considered the greatest man to have ever lived.

Upon leaving the pool, the old man was stunned by the rush of powerful emotions: confusion, anger, sadness, worry. Seeing that he was in no fit state to meet the kitsune, Naruto stared into his eyes again and returned the Hokage to his body.

There was no sound in he Hokage's office for almost half an hour. The Sandaime was first to break the silence. "What did you do with his letter?" he asked curiously.

"Tore it to shreds and burned the thing. It was a quickly-scribbled message about how the Kyuubi was coming and he was going to die and how he was proud of me." The disgust was evident in the blonde's voice as he spoke. There was silence again, but only for a couple minutes this time.

"I'm assuming, knowing you, that you kept up with your training while away?" asked the aged leader, wanting to change to a less painful topic.

It worked. In an instant, the serious Naruto vanished to be replaced by the smiling bundle of excitement one couldn't help but love. "Yeah! I improved a lot! I'm much stronger and faster now, and my chakra control has gotten way better. And I can do the kawarimi jutsu no problem now. See?" said the ninja-in-training, trading positions with a pillow on the sofa without even using a handseal.

"Excellent, Naruto," the old man praised, smiling slightly, "I seem to remember that you were also having trouble with the henge. How is that going?"

The blonde's face fell slightly. "Not so good. My chakra is a bit different from most people's, probably because of that stupid fox, so any genjutsu needs several times more control for me than for anyone else. But," here his eyes lit up, and a huge grin spread across his face, "I experimented around and made a better version of the henge." And with those words, he started showing off his improvement to the jutsu, turning himself into kunai, a pen, Iruka-oniisan, a bowl of ramen...

Seeing this new jutsu, the veteran shinobi was amazed. He watched as its creator turned himself into a bird and started flying around the room. And all this could be done with just three handseals, some chakra manipulation, and a healthy dose of imagination. Calling for the boy to stop, he decided that every ninja in Konoha should learn this jutsu, and it would be added into the curriculum at the Academy. That Naruto was the first in hundreds of years of ninja history to invent such a simple yet, at the same time, superbly effective jutsu was mind-boggling.

At this point, the blonde noted the position of the sun, shouted something about being late for lunch, and rushed out the door.


Naruto was seated comfortably in his favorite ramen stall, alternating between wolfing down bowls of his favorite food and telling the other two occupants of the restaurant about his time away in a loud, happy voice. Ayame and Teuchi were greatly enjoying the talkative boy's presence, and not just because they were about to get enough money to last them a month.

When the blonde was on his eighty-sixth bowl, another customer entered the stall. As soon as he saw who the new arrival was, the ramen-eating machine stopped what he was doing and leapt at his big brother. "IRUKA-ONIISAN!" he yelled, hugging the man so tightly that his face began to turn blue. When he noticed this, Naruto loosened his grip.

Iruka's face was one of shock. He had just came to have lunch, only to find himself practically attacked by a very familiar blonde. And only one person called him "oniisan." "Naruto!" the man exclaimed, surprise and happiness evident on his face, "When did you get back?"

"Just this morning," was the reply, "I went to see Ojiisan to talk to him about some stuff, and I've been here since noon eating lunch and talking to Ayame-neesan and Ichiraku-ojiisan." After speaking, he returned to his ramen and finished the bowl in five seconds flat. Ayame immediately put an eighty-seventh bowl in front of the boy.

"Well," said Iruka, "I was just coming here to have lunch myself. Why don't you tell me how you've been the last two years while we eat?"

And so they started talking together over ramen. Naruto told Iruka about his training and about Akkio and Toshiro and his time with them, leaving out their deaths and everything that had happened afterwards. And the chunin told his little brother about how he and his childhood friend Mizuki had become instructors at the Academy and about his time teaching. When they finished, it was late afternoon, and Iruka had had five bowls of ramen, while the blonde-haired bottomless pit had devoured one hundred sixty-three. It took every yen the man had on him to pay the bill.


Naruto was back in his apartment for the first time in two years, and he began unpacking his things. "Don't worry, Iruka-oniisan. I'll pay you back once I become a ninja." His big brother had just spent his last two months' paycheck on the boy's ramen splurge. The kind chunin looked down at him fondly.

"You, know, Naruto, when Academy classes start up again in a couple weeks, I could make sure you're in my class." Seeing the boy's scowl at this, he added, "Don't worry, I won't give you any special treatment because you're my little brother." The scowl changed to a grin.

"Thank you, Iruka-oniisan!" the blue-eyed boy shouted. Then he became serious. "Oniisan, there's some stuff I have to tell you." And so he went through the same process with his big brother as he had with the Hokage, telling him about his mother, his bloodline, Kyubi, and the Yondaime. Iruka's reactions were almost exactly the same as the old man's had been.

It was now late at night, and the chunin had calmed down from finding out the truth about the night he lost his parents. "Naruto, there's still something you're not telling me." The boy looked up at Iruka curiously. "What happened to that nice couple you had been living with? I've been around you long enough to read your emotions somewhat, even when you're trying to hide them, and the whole time you were talking about Toshiro and Akkio, you were sad and nervous, as if something bad had happened that you were afraid to talk about. So what aren't you telling me?"

The blonde hesitated for a moment before speaking in a quiet, emotionless voice, as if he needed to completely suppress his feelings to talk about it without breaking into tears. "They were killed. By bandits. I buried them, and then I followed the bandits' trail back to their camp. And then I trapped the bandits in their camp and killed them. All one hundred forty two of them. And I enjoyed the killing, and the fear." He couldn't hold back anymore and burst into tears.

The chunin bent down to hug him comfortingly. "Shh, shh. It's okay. You feel bad about it now, right?" At the small nod, he continued, "Then there's nothing to worry about. Remember what I said to you all those years ago about being a ninja? How you would have to kill at some point? Well, now you've proved you can when it comes down to it. And don't worry about how you felt while it happened. As long as you don't feel like that all the time, you'll be fine; and I know you don't, remember that story you told me about the time when you kept one of the bigger boys at the orphanage from stealing your food because you'd seen the server put something in it and it smelled funny? You have a good heart. You don't like it when people around you are hurt or killed. And I know it may sound a bit cruel, but that side of you that enjoys killing will be useful in your career as a ninja."

The crying had settled down. "Y-yeah. You're right Oniisan. I'm sorry," Naruto apologized.

"There's nothing to apologize about. You're young. People your age shouldn't have to go through even a hundredth of the things you've gone through. No one should have to go through the things you've gone through. But you have, and you've come out far better than anyone else ever could," Iruka was quite proud about his little brother's strength of mind. "Come on. Let's get to bed."