A Twist of Chance

by MockV

AU: Honestly, what were the odds of Uzumaki Naruto running into his only surviving relatives in the middle of the marketplace? Slim to none, right? Too bad the odds never mattered to the luckiest and most unfortunate genin in Konoha. [Not 367 Compliant]

10. Many Meetings with the Lotus

Chapter 10

"Naruto, what have you done?"

Nothing existed in the world except for the anger present in Kakashi's eye. Slowly, the world unfolded around it, revealing the slant of Kakashi's eyebrow, the tense tremble of the man's chin under the mask, the twisted, looming posture of the jonin, and finally, the sharp, pressure of Kakashi's hand on Naruto's shoulder, grasping so tightly that it would leave bruises.

"Sensei!" Sakura's voice split the universe in two, and suddenly, Naruto realized that he had to breathe, something that was happening more frequently as of late than if ever truly should have. She stood a few feet away firmly planted between them. She was deliberately loud in her footsteps as she came forward, her hands extended to her sides and in front of her, a joint gesture of peace and a show that she had no weapons ready.

"Sensei," she continued, and her tone made Kakashi's fingers loosen the minuscule fraction Naruto needed to shake them away, "I don't understand. I thought Naruto is...was...an orphan?" She glanced to Naruto, and the blond could only open his mouth before Kakashi's gaze was focused on him again.

"'Orphan'", Sasuke interjected smoothly, coming to the other side of Naruto and Kakashi in much the same manner of Sakura, "only means that one has no parents. It doesn't mean that they have no relatives." He stopped, and his tone was level, his volume normal, and his voice dead as he finished. "There has never been a word for one without any family at all."

"Kakashi-sensei, look, I can totally and completely explain everything!" Naruto began, and he opened his mouth to continue, realizing halfway through a breath that his tongue seemed too big for his mouth, and his teeth kept getting in the way. He balled his hands at his sides, forcing the deep anger had had at Sasuke just seconds before into small, red-hot balls at the ends of his fingertips. He forced himself to stare his teacher in the eye, and all he could think about was how, exactly, he was going to salvage this situation.

The silver-haired man saved him from having to muddle through the complicated sentences racing through his mind by speaking first. "You are a fool." the man stated, slowly turning his gaze to Sakura, then Sasuke, and then Naruto. He paused, and seemed to watch the blond as Naruto placed one foot behind him, and then another, until he was out of arms reach of the older shinobi. "You," the man repeated, "could have, perhaps you have already, put all of Konohagakure in danger."

Naruto saw Sasuke raise an eyebrow, and saw Sakura's mouth pucker to one side as if she was trying to figure out just how Naruto could be a danger to anyone. Kakashi fixed him with a stare, and the stare slowly sank lower and lower on the blonde's body, completely different from the way the teacher examined his clothes just hours earlier. Kakashi's eye, possibly even his eyes were glued to the pocket of Naruto's sweatshirt. More precisely, the point just behind it.

The seal.

Naruto jumped. His eyebrows rose to his hairline, and he shook his head mutely. "No! Hey, I wouldn't ever do to that to Konoha! It's," and he rolled his hands for a moment, pausing as he searched his memory for a word, "home. Yeah, it's my home, and I'd rather slit my stomach than do something to hurt it." He glanced at Kakashi, who almost looked like he'd gone pale (or, at least, slightly paler than he was before). He inhaled sharply, standing upright to his full height, which still only reached the middle part of Kakashi's chest. He felt like a child. "Seriously."

There was silence, and Naruto couldn't hear his own breathing, but Sakura's was as loud as wind buffeting a metal building in a storm. The red hot rage still balled in his fingertips migrated up, tracing the veins in his body until they swirled in his chest again. He frowned, fangs bared over his lips as he glared upwards defiantly. "Why the hell are you so angry about it? I'd never betray Konoha. If that's what you think...". Naruto stopped, and tried to decide whether he wanted to keep watching Kakashi, or whether he wanted to continue his speech at all.

It struck him suddenly that perhaps Kakashi knew that Naruto wouldn't hurt Konoha. The concept of Konoha, where people with bloodlines, civilians, and "normal" shinobi could co-exist peacefully, was too precious to let die, and Naruto had decided what seemed like ages ago, long before he'd gotten his headband, that he'd die for Konoha first. After that came his precious people, and because all of his precious people were from Konoha, there hadn't ever been a conflict of interest. But, maybe Kakashi was angry because Naruto did now have people who were not from Konoha - obviously, someone claiming to be a relative of Naruto's couldn't have been there very long.

Naruto tasted that explanation, and found it satisfying. He forcibly halted his train of thought there, because only inches down the track was the idea that, if Kakashi knew Naruto wouldn't betray Konoha, even for his relatives, his sensei might have believed the Kyuubi inside of Naruto would, and that was something that the vessel couldn't think about, for fear of the fact that it could be true.

"I love Konoha." He lifted his head high, resisting the urge to spit into Kakashi's face, because at the moment, Kakashi wasn't even himself, wasn't the sensei who forced vegetables down his throat on a rather regular basis, and was instead a symbol of Naruto's own doubt. "You are the fool if you believe otherwise. The huge mobs? The evil shinobi when I was a kid? Hell, they're bastards, but I've forgiven them, you know? I've figured out why they've done what they've done. I've forgiven the housewives, and the nurses, and all the other children and their parents. I've forgiven the countless, faceless shinobi, and even the creepy ones with masks. I've forgiven the Sandaime and the Yondaime."

Sakura was watching him with undisguised confusion on her face, and Sasuke's expression was only guarded by a thin, half-hearted mask of indifference. For a moment, Naruto couldn't help but glance at them, and his tongue licked the back of his teeth as he stopped the word "Kyuubi" from even forming on his lips.

"Listen. Sure, the people of Konoha have done crappy stuff. Hell, most of them are probably dicks. I'm on a team with their Prince." Naruto jerked his head to Sasuke, who growled. "Anyway, that doesn't change the fact that the Village of Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, is ...well, a "precious person" to me. So," he concluded, "Don't think for a single instant that Makoto isn't precious to me. She is. Don't think for a single instant that Sakura-chan isn't precious to me, because you know damn well better than that. Hell, I'd probably rescue Sasuke if he was drowning or something, even though I wouldn't give him mouth to mouth, because well, that's really, really gross, and I don't wanna go through that again."

Kakashi blinked, Sakura snorted, and Sasuke shuddered. Naruto took these all to be good signs because, while they were doing that, their hands weren't going for their weapons, which was always a very good thing.

"What that means is that you're all precious people to me, even when you are dicks. Which, I mean, is most of the time for you." He didn't even need to glance at Sasuke to catch the dark-haired boy's snarl. "But, well, I'm not gonna go and rob a bank just because Sakura asks me to," he paused, "well, unless there's a date involved. And, I'm not gonna go and kick a box of kittens or nothing just because Sasuke really hates them." He glanced up. "I bet you do, you weird kitten-hating monster."

There was more silence, but from Sakura, it looked like the "Oh God, I can't breathe" sort of silence. Sasuke was actually pouting, and Naruto almost thought that he was going to protest the "Kitten-hater" remark. Naruto breathed again, and the fact that he remembered to do so gave him a sort of strength.

"You probably don't know this..." Naruto began, and he lowered his tone and leaned closer into Kakashi. He was sure that Sakura and Sasuke - well, probably only Sasuke - would still hear them, but it was the principle of the act that meant more. "Anyway, when I was a kid, there were a lot of...", he paused, biting his lip for a moment, "well, "assassination attempts"." The blond glanced back at Sasuke. "I'm not gonna tell you why. Anyway, there were assassination plots, and people who tried to poison me, and all that sort of stuff. I had-"and he paused again, realizing that he couldn't say "ANBU" because there weren't very many good reasons why ANBU would be guarding a small child that he could think of at the moment which didn't involve either the truth about the Kyuubi, or the idea that he was long-lost royalty hidden in Konoha, which actually wasn't far from it's own truth.

"I had people," he decided finally, "who were looking out for me. I'd probably be dead without 'em. Anyway, I had to be careful about who to trust, because I never knew whose batch of cookies were poisonous, or which grocery story would switch expiration labels on food to make me sick, or even who not to follow down dark alleys." He stopped. "You know, it turned out the answer to every one of those is "all of them", now that I think about it." He shook his head. "But, I mean, I know that I only caught the tip of the ice burg. The creepy people who looked out for me, well, I'm sure they caught most of 'em. Despite that, I caught the rest, and I had to learn from that about who I could trust, and what I could eat without throwing up all over the place, and which areas to avoid completely.

"See, what I'm getting at is that I gained something - maybe it's not "instinct", because I'm pretty sure you have to be born with that - but it's because of whatever it was that I gained that I'm still alive. See, when I trust people," he emphasized with his hands, feeling free enough to gesticulate his point, "I really trust people." He pivoted on his heel and turned to Sasuke. "Except you."

"So far," he continued, "I have to say that whatever it was that I learned from time and experience hasn't failed me yet, because despite the odds, I'm not dead. Anyway, this "instinct", this "skill", this "gut feeling" or whatever the hell it really is - it's telling me that I can trust Makoto. Hell, it practically glued me to her when I first met her." He smiled despite himself, and one hand drew close to his stomach. "It feels like a fishhook, right here. But," and he glanced at Sakura, "I don't know if that's normal or nothing because frankly, how could I? I've never had parents or nothing like this before. I've never had a family."

His eyes met Kakashi's, and there was another silence. The blond frowned. "Why aren't you saying anything? Geez, I don't think I've ever talked this much in my entire life."

There was a single, perfect moment as three voices synchronized. "Yes, you have."

Naruto sweat dropped. "Er, well...whatever. What I've been trying, and well, failing to explain is the fact that I'm not gonna do anything stupid. Even I know better than to say "Hey, look! Konohagakure's weak points!" to the first person who makes me pancakes that aren't poisoned. I'm not gonna introduce the Hokage to "Mr. Stabby McStabstab" even if he does invite me to the movies, you know?" The blond ran one hand through his spiky hair, and he was momentarily distracted by the revelation that, despite all the things that had happened through the day, it still was pointy almost to the point of damage. He sighed. "Look, just trust me, okay? She's a danger to no one in Konoha." He stopped. "Well, she's a danger to no one who doesn't really irk her, but frankly, I think all women are that way."

Sakura glared at him, and he winced. "What?" he protested, frowning at the kunoichi, "it's not like it's a lie or anything!"

"All that I'm asking, Kakashi-sensei," he started, making sure to emphasis the title for once, "is that you give Chicken Ramen a chance."

There was a pause.

"Excuse me?" Kakashi's eyebrow had arched, and Naruto sighed in relief that, at the very least, Kakashi still hadn't brought out weapons or dashed off to the Hokage's Tower.

"It's like you've spent your entire life eating Shrimp Ramen, right? Like, the only stand in your entire city served just that, and after a while, you just expect every stand to have nothing but Shrimp. But, you go to another city, and bam," he shouted, punching his open palm with a fist, "a stand with Chicken. You don't want to give it a try because it's not Shrimp, and you think it's not gonna be as good as what you had at home, but, well, if you don't try it, you'll never know whether it was a good thing or not."

"Goddamn pauses," he muttered under his breath. Another moment passed.

"Hm. Let's pretend that, for the first time in recorded shinobi history, a twelve year old knows better than their teacher. Let's say that, despite the incredible odds against it, you managed to meet your grandmother. Let's even say that she really is your grandmother, and not a murderous shinobi with a grudge from a far off nation, intent on attacking you, the first dupe she found, and creating an international war. If, Naruto, all of this is true," Kakashi said with a weighty hesitation, "what exactly are you going to do about it?"

Naruto shrugged, closing his eyes as a sign of trust. He cracked his knuckles and crossed his arms above his head. "Listen, this whole family thing is new to me. But, Makoto and I talked this morning, well, we kinda actually argued, but it ended up that we agreed that we're just gonna ...well, wing it."

Sasuke snorted. "Typical." The dark haired boy shared a glance with Sakura, who shook her head with what could have been a smile. "She already seems just like you."

Naruto grinned. "She is! And Haruka is exactly-"

"Haruka?" Kakashi prodded, and Naruto winced.

He exhaled deeply. "Well, she's my Aunt. You know, Makoto's daughter?" Kakashi eyed him speculatively. "I was gonna mention her! It just seemed like a bit much for you guys to take in at once, y'know?"

Sasuke snorted. "You didn't plan on telling us about them at all, did you?" The Uchiha rubbed his cheek, which had gradually darkened to a dark brown bruise that looked perfectly out of place on the pale skin around it.

Despite himself, Naruto felt a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. "Well, eventually. You know, I just wanted to give them a couple of months to settle in, and I could drop some subtle hints about them here and there..."

"'Subtle hints"?" Sakura questioned. She looked at Sasuke, and the Uchiha looked back at her, and then both genin glanced at Kakashi.

"Hey! Seriously." Sakura snorted, and that led into giggles, which was followed shortly after by Sasuke snorting. Kakashi laughed behind him, and Naruto turned and gave the man a dirty look. "I really would've learned to be subtle!"

"Right." Kakashi intoned, and Naruto nearly had a heart attack out of relief because some of Kakashi's normal humor was back in his voice. There was some semblance of normality back in Team 7, and no one had to nearly die for it to happen.

It was a miracle.

"So, Kakashi-sensei, can you promise me that you won't drag them before the Hokage or ANBU? Or, you know, threaten them with weapons or blackmail or anything? I mean, you have to be nice to them! Makoto's pretty old, you know." Naruto wniced despite himself, and Kakashi gave him a look. "Yeah, I'll explain later." The blonde glanced at his two team mates, and saw that Sakura looked like she was bursting with questions, and Sasuke was bursting with something that was either equal curiosity or the urge to main and destroy Naruto. "Really, I'll explain everything that I know about. I just met them yesterday, you know, so you'd really have to ask them about most of it..."

"I will." Naruto froze, tongue curled in the middle of a word while his fingers were half-curled in a gesture. Kakashi smirked at Naruto, and turned to glance at Sakura, a lazy smile in his eye. "I've already met with Sakura's family. Very nice people." He stopped. "Has your Aunt Keiko stopped going to counseling for that night yet?"

Sakura growled. "Not yet. She still has that restraining order against you, you know, and my Uncle's training to learn to write explosive notes."

"Oh?", Kakashi asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "How far along is he?"

"Well, about three thousand slips of paper and fourteen ink pots." Sakura stated, and Kakashi nodded.

"Aah. Well, Sakura can attest to how much I just adore meeting the kin of my cute little students. Finally, I can give one of my boys the same attention!"

Naruto turned to Sasuke, who seemed to lurk in the growing shadows of the forest. "I have never envied you for having no family before, you poor, lucky bastard."

Sasuke seemed torn between a frown and a smirk, and finally settled on a shrug of one shoulder that could be interpreted as "I don't care", "Shut up", and "I absolutely agree with you."

Sakura cleared her throat. "So, I have a question about Makoto. How on earth could she have convinced you that she was your grandmother so quickly?" She stopped. "Well, I mean, aside from the fact that you're incredibly guliable. Does she have proof?"

Naruto scowled for a second, then recalled the occasions in the academy where he'd learned that strange cans labeled "Party Nuts" usually didn't contain nuts at all, borrowing a pair of binoculars from Kiba usually ended in black eyes for both parties, and Shikamaru used any and all methods to cheat, including double-sided coins, when it came to betting on chores.

The blond nodded, granting Sakura her point. "Well, she has pictures, stories about her past, my grandfather, and my own father which really match stuff I've done, and my personality and stuff, she and Haruka both really look like me, and ...well, the whole "fishhook" thing."

"Oh?" Kakashi interupted, "It's your father she claims relations to? Interesting." He rubbed his chin, and Naruto had to scowl at him. "So, who was your father, according to "Makoto"?"

Naruto felt a sudden surge of panic. He could tell the truth, that his father was Kazama Arashi. There was a chance that Kakashi might not know the fact that it was the Yondaime's original name. To his knowledge, the Sandaime was the only Kage who's name was publisized, mainly because of the fact that he had family still living. Naruto wasn't sure if the Shodaime or Nidaime had any family, but if they had, they'd be older than dirt by now, or already dead. Naruto had the option of either telling the truth, or badly lying to the very experienced jonin trained specifically to pick up fear and hesitation, which eventually cycled back to being forced to tell the truth anyway.

Naruto sighed. "Alright. See, when I met her yesterday, she was looking for her son-" he was interupted.

"Uzumaki Naruto?"

The figure leaped from the treetop, granting Naruto a moment of pause because the small park they were in was located on a high, grassy hill with no other trees in sight. The kyuubi-vessel decided that the ANBU - for Naruto recognized the skin tight jumpsuit at first glance - just did it for dramatic effect.

This ANBU was male, a fact deduced as much from the broad shoulders and the placement of the hips, as from the fact that the ANBU was wearing a skin tight bodysuit.

Behind the blond, Sakura cringed, and Sasuke turned away. Naruto had to valiently resist the urge to cover his eyes.

The ANBU, masked with something that could be mistaken as an ox on a very foggy road during a New Moon, glanced at Kakashi, whose eye was actually belaying his irritation. "I have orders to escort Uzumaki Naruto to the Hokage's Tower for an audience with the Honorable Sandaime. He is your genin?" The ANBU had a deep, echoing voice that made it seem like he was speaking from the middle of a very large cave.

Kakashi nodded, and Naruto could swear he saw something else pass through Kakashi's eye - a sort of silent communication that Naruto couldn't even begin to understand - to the ANBU. "Naruto is my genin." He scratched the back of his neck. "What has he done now?"

Naruto felt a thick, heavy dread settle onto his skin, and it clung to him like a thousand tiny droplets of lead. There was the chance that the crowd that had gathered when he'd first run into Makoto had started rumors about her that navigated their way to the Hokage. There was the chance that the shinobi there, or the ANBU, if they were still watching him, had caught the scene, or the scene outside the BIRCH office, or the scene in the fountain (which, to Naruto, suddenly seemed like a lot of scenes), and had reported those in much the same way. There was no doubt that the Hokage's office would hold any of Naruto's "relatives" in the same regard as Kakashi. At least Kakashi-sensei was willing to let the possibility exist, but it was quite unlikely that anyone else would do the same.

"I am not allowed to divulge that information", the ANBU reported roboticaly, and Kakashi seemed to nod.

"Well, he's right here," Kakashi stated, pulling out his porn book for the first time in the conversation. Naruto realized with nothing short of awe that this argument had to be the longest time Kakashi had gone without reading his book in front of them since the battle on the bridge with Zabuza. Kakashi was suddenly behind Naruto, and the taller, stronger, older man kicked the back of his shin, making him stumble forward.

The ANBU stared at him, and Naruto could swear that he was starting to "sense" it when jaws were dropping, because despite the years of training, despite the experience the ANBU had to have had to make it to his rank, and despite the fact that he was wearing a fully covering face mask, Naruto could taste the man's utter and complete shock.

"...You're sure?" Ox took a few steps forward, and Naruto felt the urge to sweat drop as the shinobi took long glances at Naruto's hair, courier's bag, and the goggles that he'd actually forgotten he'd been wearing. With a nervous laugh, Naruto peeled them off, pulling his hitai-ite back on as a sign that he really was a ninja. If he was going to the Hokage's Tower, it probably was protocol. He frowned, and pulled a few of his extremely pointy bangs out from behind his headband, where they'd been stabbing him with the intent to annoy. He didn't have a mirror, but thought that they probably covered some of Konohagakure's symbol. He shrugged, because there was very little he could do about that right now without a very sharp kunai and something reflective.

Ox seemed to blink, seemed to shake his head, and seemed to sigh, but all of these could've just been figments of Naruto's imagination, because it would take a very poor ANBU to be that obvious about it all. He did visibly straighten, and he inclined his head to Kakashi. "Your genin will be detained for no longer than one hour," he started, and Naruto felt his shoulders sag in relief.

There were many ways that a meeting at the Hokage's Tower could go. If Naruto had had a written summons from the Hokage's Tower, it be the worst of all the possible meetings, which normally included an audience, fifty minutes of stony glares and complete silence, and a very stiff, straight-backed chair in the center of the room. When he was younger, some of the "good" summons were usually after particularly bad days in class, usually including fights of some kind and the usual stint in the infirmary afterwards. Those had only ten minutes of pointed silence, which was usually broken by some sort of story from Sarutobi's past that had a thinly veiled wise meaning, ending with either ice cream or a trip to Ichiraku's. Those were the sort of summons and meetings that only lasted an hour, as the Sandaime was a very busy man - something that his foul-faced aides never ceased to remind him about.

The other sort of meetings with the Sandaime lasted all day, or all night, or however long he could stay without being kicked out. Those were the days when he'd been without heat, without electricity, without shelter, or without food. Those were the days where he'd fall asleep in the chairs in the lobby, and would wake up covered in thick, mission-grade blankets. There were still some precious documents curled and sealed in the Sandaime's desk, covered in the collected artistic masterpieces of one Naruto Uzumaki, age six, and there had been a time where the Sandaime himself taught Naruto the best way to hold the calligraphy pen and not get splatters of ink on the surrounding four rows. (Naruto actually applied the exact reverse of that lesson the next day, and got one of the hour-long lectures in return).

Naruto turned back to his team mates. "Hey, I'll be fine. I guess we can do the whole, um, "meet and greet" thing later." He glanced up at Ox, who stared back, reminding Naruto of those days in the orphanage, where ANBU would watch through the windows and give other children nightmares.

"No, we can't." Kakashi added. The genin turned to glance at him, and he peeked one eye over the edge of his book. "I have a hair appointment tomorrow, and the reservations just took months to obtain. There's no way that I could possibly skip out. I mean, the other day while I was looking in the mirror, I saw a grey hair." Sakura opened her mouth to protest, and it looked for a few moments like she choked on her own tongue. Kakashi ignored her, and continued on. "I suppose we will have to have that little "get together" tonight."

Sakura scowled. "Just when is this appointment, sensei?"

"Hm. When I did I say we were meeting tomorrow?"

Naruto felt a grin pull the edge of his cheek. "I believe it was around Noon, right Sasuke?"

The dark haired boy shrugged a shoulder and grunted, which Naruto took to mean "Indubitably, good sir."

"Aaah. Well, I believe the appointment was for 11:45, then, but goodness, just what are the odds that it will last until," and Kakashi put his finger on his chin thoughtfully, "Oh, about three or so?"

Naruto had to hide his grin by turning towards Ox. If a mask could raise an eyebrow, the ANBU's did. "Well," he called over his shoulder to his team, "I guess if you're looking forward to it that much, I'll take you to the super-secret-special-hiding spot and, uh, we can have tea or something." Naruto shrugged at the end of it. "Should I meet you at the bridge?".

"Oh, we'll be waiting for you outside the Hokage's tower," Sakura said seriously, and behind her, Sasuke actually nodded. "This isn't a matter of life and death. This is a matter of curiosity now, and you should know that shinobi are better than cats when it comes to that."

Naruto puzzled that out. "What, you mean we're more curious than cats? I guess that's true..." he trailed off. Kakashi turned a page in his book with deliberate loudness.

"No, she means that, while curiosity may kill the cat, it's slightly more difficult to kill a shinobi the same way." He peered over the edge of his page at the kunoichi. "Interesting phrase, but a bit too vague for our Naruto-kun. Perhaps something simpler next time, like "Curiosity killed the cat, but if we don't satisfy ours, we'll kill you?". I know, it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but on occassion, you have to write for the audience..."

Sakura reddened and turned away, while Naruto tried to figure out just how exactly that phrase seemed to fit Sakura perfectly well. Ox, behind them, stood silent and still, which made him stand out in much the same way that a skirt and camisole combination would. 'Right!" Naruto exclaimed, glancing at his team. "I'm leaving. Hokage's Tower, right?" Ox almost looked like he startled, but nodded.

Naruto was off before anyone could say another word.

---

There were dozens of hidden tunnels that ran under the Hokage's Tower, and almost that number of nearby rooftops that led into balconies just in reach. All of these, of course, were incredibly monitored through all hours of the day, and a large portion of the security staff in the building were dedicated to watching highly trafficked windows and tunnels. One thing Naruto had never understood was why exactly the Hokage's Tower needed security staff, as there was not a single civilian working in the entire complex, and the Hokage was suposed to be the most powerful ninja in Konoha, anyway. Added to that was the fact that ANBU headquarters was (supposedly) located in the center of the building, and Naruto had actually spent sleepless nights trying to figure out how anyone in the world could be both arrogant enough and stupid enough to even think that they could attack the building and live to get something out of it.

When Naruto was barely tall enough to see over the Sandaime's crooked knee, the old man had shown him the easiest entrance to gain access into. It, unlike the other doors, tunnels, and windows, required no security clearance, no secret knocks, signals, or keys, and could actually be reached easily by a four year old. The lowest number of security staff watched it, and it was always lighted, always just the right temperature, and always had a fresh supply of piping hot coffee, twenty four hours a day.

Naruto used the front door.

The sliding glass doors beeped briefly as he came in, making sure to carefully wipe his feet on the bright red mat that exclaimed "Welcome!" in bold letters before approaching the front desk. A large, pig-nosed shinobi snoozed, legs propped up on the desk as one hand brushed the stray candy wrappers strewn on the floor.

Naruto leaned closely to the desk, inching closer until he finally used his hands to pull himself up. He crouched on the far edge, glancing at the security monitors of empty windows, dark sewers, the women's section of the Tower's gym, and the most recent episode of Icha Icha Daily, a serialization of the same porn Kakashi read. Naruto heard it had slightly less graphic porn than the novels, but more complex relationships, and plots that didn't even try to make sense.

The Kyuubi-vessel waved his hand in front of the guard's face twice, seeing no visible reaction except for another round of window-shaking snores. Naruto knew from experience that he had the option of waking the guard, waiting for confirmation of his identity through the system, and eventually being personally escorted through four different clearances of security before finally seeing the Hokage. That, of course, was the option he never chose. With a quick, apologetic shrug in the guard's direction, Naruto turned his attention to the small console of blinking lights, switches, and buttons that was covered in a thin layer of dust, a few cobwebs sticking to the upper switches. He deftly toggled a complicated sequence of switches, watching a few lights flicker on and off before finally nodding to himself and grabbing a small, white card that hung from the guard's belt and sliding it under the machine. There was a metallic "ding!", which was entirely ignored by all parties.

Naruto picked up an empty mug from the floor, (it had "Employee of the Month" written on the side), and filled it, putting in three sugars and four creams. He took a few complimentary cookies before using his newly acquired keycard to scan himself through a maze of identical white doors. He calmly sipped his coffee - which didn't taste quite as good as Makoto's, but came close - zigzaging through unmarked hallways. Eventually, he came to the hallway with two fire extinguishers facing each other, found the old-looking door with "NITOR" half-covered in dust, and opened it.

The Hokage's waiting room was immaculate. On either side of him, there were two steel-plated, foot-thick doors that Naruto knew were guarded on the other side by high ranking shinobi and video cameras. There was a thick carpet on the floor with a complicated, ugly design on it (as well as several melted crayons, which were covered by a particularly ugly potted tree), a bright, dangling chandellier that was raised when Naruto reached the age of seven in a grand, highly-attended ceremony, and a large, cluttered desk made of a dark wood just beside two intimidating looking doors that were double barred, triple-locked, and attended on the side by two special ANBU guards.

The two guards glanced his way, their eyes boring holes into him through their masks. He calmly sipped his coffee, and one of the ANBU backed sharply against the wall, hitting his head on the door with a loud thump. He passed out on the floor in what was quite possibly the least dignified pose possible for a shinobi. The other ANBU twitched. "U-Uzumaki Naruto?".

"Yup." There was a startled, high pitched gasp, and Naruto desperately wished that he had his orange jumpsuit with him. Despite the fact that no one recognized him, (something that was a definite plus when it came to buying quality items at a reasonable price and not being accousted in alleyways), the fact that when he was recognized, it caused massive panic was growing old quick. He saw the Hokage's pretty, new secretary bolt out of her chair, standing ramrod straight for a moment before she grabbed the edge of her desk and leaned forward.

"You mean," she whispered, and Naruto began to feel something that felt like paranoia creep across his skin, because she almost sounded reverant, "that you're him? "The" Uzumaki Naruto?" She paused, and she seemed to be waiting for something. Dumbly, Naruto nodded.

He almost dropped his drink when she shrieked, rushing out from behind her desk and bumping two of the lop-sided towers of paper off her desk in her haste. She skidded to a halt just feet from him, and her hands kept reaching towards him and then darting back. "C-can I touch you?"

Naruto carefully looked for the exits, because there could be no other possible explanation than the fact that this woman was clearly completely insane. "Uh," he grunted, stalling for time as he backed towards the "NITOR" exit, "Sure, I guess."

She squealed again, and Naruto felt his jaw drop as he remembered just where he'd heard that exact squeal before. Ino. Sakura. All the girls in the classes at his academy.

All of them fangirls.

Naruto Uzumaki had a fangirl.

He was so completely frozen that he didn't feel her first poke at all, though his eyes couldn't help but be glued to the spot on his arm where she touched him. She reached out breathless, and as her finger touched the flesh of his arm, she glanced up, her wide eyes full of wonder. "You're real." She whispered. "I didn't think anyone could really do what you've done. I thought you were a legend. But," she murmered, and backed a step away, much to Naruto's great, indescribable relief, "you really are real."

She glanced at the ANBU guard who was presently kicking his companion onto his back, and Naruto took that instant to take a fortifying gulp of sweet, scalding courage.. "Oh! ANBU-san! Could you tell the Hokage-sama that Uzumaki-sama-"

Naruto spewed his coffee across four square feet of expensive imported carpet, and spent the next three minutes trying not to choke to death.

By the time that his body began warming up to the stunning idea that breathing was actually something that needed to be done on a regular basis, both ANBU had straightened into something resembling attentiveness, and the mousy secretary was staring at him with worry in her eyes. "Uzumaki-sama, are you alright?"

Naruto couldn't do anything but twitch. He felt the corner of his eye tic.

"The Hokage-sama is waiting for you." She glanced around at the stains on the carpet, and at the piles of paper on the floor, and blushed. "Oh! I'll get right on cleaning this for you, sir!"

Naruto began backing toward's the Hokage's door, making sure that his back was never turned on the obviously unstable girl.

As the two ANBU signaled the Hokage's doors open, Naruto could hear the secretary mutter, "Oh, just wait until I tell the others!".

Naruto stepped into the Hokage's office, carefully glancing over his shoulder. One ANBU glanced back at him, and when their eyes met, the guard quickly shocked back into his ready position as if he'd never moved. He heard stray words from the large room that faded as he stepped further into the Hokage's sound-proof den. He caught "handsome", "blond", and something that sounded like "work", and then a series of squeals.

He shook his head, his eyes latching onto the familiar, comforting surroundings in search of an anchor from the storm of their insanity. The Hokage's office was almost the exact opposite of his reception area. It was wide and open where the previous room was designed to be cramped and nerve-wrecking, it's barren walls and metallic floors in place of tapestries and carpeting making the area seem three times larger than it actually ways. The panoramic view of the Hokage's memorial was impressive, forboding, and not just a small amount vain. Naruto had always wondered who exactly designed that, and had the feeling that it had to Old Man Sarutobi himself.

.The Yondaime had begun the tradition of spending the excess of his decorating budget on refurbishing the orphanage, something that gained him a huge number of fans among the civilian population, and no small amount of disdain from his advisors. The Sandaime had carried the act on, with only a few concessions from his previous era of reign. There was a large bookshelf on one wall that covered the entire side of the room, packed with books, small potted plants, and the odd, half-unfurled scroll. The bookshelf had the excellent second function of hiding the secret door to the Hokage's small meditation area, where he practiced the sacred art of divination, an art he had refined over many decades by using it to spy on pretty girls. There were also a few scroll-paintnigs in the wall, some drawn with such tiny threads of ink that it looked like the artist used hair to do it, and others of gigantic panoramas with rock faces so huge and tangible that it looked like you could reach through the paper and fall out on the other side.

Naruto knew this office as an old friend. He was one of the few who knew that between "Meta-Phsyics of Para-Chakra Anatomical Anomalies" and "Insubstantial Quantum Bonds" were the first two Icha Icha books, first edition and signed by the author. There was a small collection of coloring books beside incomprehensible seal blueprints, a small scattering of incomplete homework assignments mixed with forgotten, unsigned paperwork, and the odd take out menu stuck in spare cracks between books, used as page markers, or folded neatly as origami swans.

Naruto had spent many peaceful nights here, a few stressful days, and the odd marathon of weeks where, by the end of it, he had been taking showers in the ANBU locker room and having three meals a day that consisted solely of expresso and muffins. Some workers in the office still shuddered when those days were mentioned, but Naruto couldn't quite understand why, as those walls had all been replaced by now, the ceilings had been painted, and the mail sorter in the lowest level of the building could now say his name without bursting into tears. The genin figured that if that guy could laugh about those days now, no one else had the right to be upset about it. When he was a child, he had considered the Hokage's Tower a second home, but he could see now that it had never been because of the heat, electricity, free food, or working showers. Instead, it had been about the days he'd spent coloring, hidden by the Hokage's desk as he spoke with his advisors, the steady, nose-burning smell of pipe-smoke forever engraining itself his memory.

The Hokage sat in the center of the room at a large, familiar wooden desk that was said to have been carved by the Shodaime himself from the largest tree in Konoha. Frankly, Naruto didn't see the point in cutting down the largest tree anywhere, especially when it was just to make a desk. Part of him understood the fact that legends like that tend to intimidate other people, and it was probably to enhance the Hokage's mystique around visitors. The other part of Naruto mourned the loss of a fantastic hiding spot and potential aerial bombardment center for water balloons. The desk was full of hidden compartments, secret buttons that activated everything from full-blown red alert for the tower to the small black and white TV hidden in the bottom of the third drawer (Naruto had been given access to the second of these, but never the first, under the threat of a complete and thourough ban of the color orange), compartments for pens, small alcoves for kunai, and the occasional locked box that Naruto actually hadn't been able to open.

Sarutobi chewed on the edge of his pen, his knobby fingers carefully leafing through a hulking binder of paper. He was frowning, and Naruto suddenly didn't like his odds of this being a "fun" lecture. There wasn't a chair placed ominously in the center of the room, which was a sort of a relief, but there wasn't another chair in the office at all, which meant that the Hokage wanted his visitors - namely, him - to feel intimidated and nervous, not to mention uncomfortable. He didn't react to Naruto at all, and the blond frowned.

"Hey, Old Man!". Naruto crossed his arms in front of him and tapped his foot against the floor. Sarutobi looked up.

He stopped.

Naruto never realized before what exactly a person looked like when their brain completely and utterly shut down. The pen dropped from old, tobacco-stained lips, falling to the paperwork the other hand completely dropped. The old man's eyes went wide, almost as if he was glancing at a very bright light, and his lips began to move - first, in a subtle tremble that made Naruto revisit his planned paths to the hospital from yesterday, then in a silent litany of words that Naruto completely missed out on. The Sandaime jerked in his chair, first as if he was trying to lean forward, and then sharply backwards as if he couldn't get free of his desk. More paperwork scattered to the floor as the chair scraped on the floor, and Naruto wondered just how many forgotten, lost forms were stuck under the carpet in the reception area, or caught behind cracks in the Hokage's desk.

The Sandaime Hokage came within feet of him before stopping. His eyes were still wide, his wrinkled, spotted face slack in his surprise. Naruto probably would've savored the man's behavior if it weren't for the fact that it seemed that a dozen other people had done the exact same thing since noon.

"Geez. Are you going to have a heart attack, you old coot, or are we gonna have a conversation? Why the hell did you summon me, anyway? Man, "summon" sounds like I'm a servent of yours or something. You know, I was in the middle of training when that huge ANBU interupted me, so you owe me for my time. I'll take cash, checks, or trips to Ichiraku's."

"Naruto," Sarutobi began, his voice as faint as if he were coming from three floors below instead of three feet away, "You've...you're..."

"Damn. Looks like you are having a heart attack. Could you at least wait until you sign a paper saying that you name me your successor before you croak? "Godaime Hokage Uzumaki Naruto" sounds awesome, and hell, I'll get the title early, so I can be Hokage for like, fifty years longer than you."

"Hm," the Sandaime wondered, and Naruto felt complete relief that the old man's voice had gone back to normal. The scene was familiar, comforting, and proof that Naruto wasn't going to have to explain exactly why the Sandaime was dead to his two protective ANBU guards. "No one in Konoha would ever speak to me like that except for you." The Sandaime's deep eyes gazed not just into Naruto's own, but into his soul. "You've changed," the old man said finally, and paced back to his desk. He glanced at the piles of paper on the floor with an upraised brow. "There's a seat on the desk. Sit." He stopped and glanced back. "We have much to discuss."

Naruto used one hand to loosen his collar, the oversized sweatshirt suddenly seeming five sizes too tight. He hopped up quickly onto the desk, forcing the Hokage to roll his chair back a few inches as he hung his legs over the side. He kicked them back and forth idly as the Hokage paused dramatically, sucking on his pipe and blowing smoke rings out through his nose.

"I have reports," the legendary shinobi started, and Naruto knew that "reports" couldn't ever be good because if it was documented, it was only done so to be used against you at a later date (case in point, taxes, school grades, and the disciplinary folders with his name on them still at the Academy, waiting), "that yesterday, you infiltrated a government office, destroyed property of Konoha, and willfully incapacitated a member of said office." The Sandaime looked down at his paper while Naruto's jaw dropped. "One Amano Ryuuzuki."

"What the hell?" Naruto protested, his body stiffening to much that he almost fell off the desk before he adjusted. "Where the heck did you get that crappy information? First off, I didn't "infiltrate" anything. The door was open. I didn't destroy any property of Konoha - I might've just moved crap around a bit, and maybe cut a few boxes up, but I've done worse in the break room here. Finally? Who the hell is this Amano guy? The only person I met yesterday was that stuffy narcoleptic pencil pusher." Naruto paused. "Wait, is that who you mean? Sure, he passed out when I got there, and yeah, he was still out cold when I left, but I had nothing to do with him falling over."

"So, you admit that you were in the BIRCH office yesterday?" Sarutobi pressed.

Naruto nodded. "Nothing secret there. I think those two old guys who were sitting in the lobby saw me. They could probably tell you about me. Well," he paused, "if they're not dead yet, I mean."

"And," the Sandaime continued as if he hadn't heard Naruto speak, "you admit that you did, in your own words, "move crap around", thus organizing the office?"

Naruto's shinobi instincts were telling him that he was in no danger, but the small bones in the knuckles of his hands that twitched whenever hard, heavy work was on the way started to throb. "Well, yeah. I guess I did organize a bit." He stopped. "Oh!" Naruto shouted, smacking his fist on the desk. "I had a note! Kakashi-sensei loaded me up with crap, like his taxes and mission reports and junk, called it training, then slapped that note on the attendant's desk. Well, okay, so he kinda threw it there, but it's the same principle."

The Hokage nodded sagely. "I see. Do you recall what this note said?"

Naruto had to think for a moment. "Well, something about how he, y'know, Kakashi-sensei, authorized me to do paperwork. If you're pissy about the fact that I touched paperwork from, well, a couple decades past, I use the excuse that he didn't say which era's paperwork I had to do, and that I decided to do them all just to be safe. Can't get me on a technicality there, right?" The blond was still proud of his excuse, and the Hokage inhaled deeply, and pressed a small button on his desk.

The pretty young secretary bounced in, almost certainly caught with her ear against the door. She smiled sheepishly at the Sandaime, but her gaze was firmly locked on Naruto. "You wanted something, sir?"

"Bring in Amano Ryuuzuki. There is something I would ask of him." The Sandaime said, dismissing the girl with a wave his his hand. Naruto knew better than to think that the old man's gaze was far off and wistful, when said gaze could also be looking at his secretary's short skirt as she bounced out. Naruto glared.

Amano Ryuuzuki was exactly the same as he had been yesterday, as far as Naruto could remember. Granted, not much of the vast reserves of memory he'd collected yesterday were dedicated to him (the proportion was something along the lines of a speck of rice in an Akimichi banquet), but the slicked hair was the same, and so was the haughty lift of his chin.

"Honorable Sandaime-sama," he began, bowing so deeply that clumps of his hair fell forward, "I am honored that you would summon me before you, and would welcome any service that I could possibly grant one of your-"

"Oh man,", Naruto moaned, sliding back on the desk just a few more inches and folding his hands behind his head, "A suck up. I just knew you were - I mean, it takes a special sort of man to slick back his hair like that. By "special", I mean "girly"."

"Hokage-sama!" The man, who suddenly seeemd half his age and eager to tattle to the teacher, practically jumped up, one hand pointing at Naruto. "It's him! He's the one who assaulted me while I valiently attempted to defend the-"

"Assaulted you? Like hell! I didn't ever touch you!." Naruto stopped. "Well, I might've kicked you in the ribs a couple of times after you fainted like a ten-year old civilian girl. But, well, that was just to see if you were sleeping or dead."

The clerk glared. "I distinctly remember your presence before I," and he paused for only the briefest of moments, "sacrificed my conciousness for what was surely for the greater good. As you were the only one present, it must stand that you-"

"What about the two old guys?" Naruto protested, his eyebrows furrowing as he glared at the glowering clerk. "And man, that's a crappy reason to accuse somebody. Plus, you got the facts wrong! Nobody assaulted you. You fainted like a wussy, pimply-faced, scared little-"

"Enough." The Hokage's voice cut through Naruto's rapidly rising argument, slicing the air with much more ease and control than Naruto had ever seen when the Sandaime weilded an actual sword. "Now, Amano-san," the Hokage began, and Naruto couldn't decide whether to laugh or scowl some more at the way the clerk almost squealed when Sarutobi called him by name, "it has come to my attention that a detail was left out of your statement. Is it true that there was a note granting Uzumaki-san permission to enter the office and manipulate paperwork?"

Amano's eyebrows furrowed, and he halted whatever words were prepped to fall from his tongue. "I-I'm not sure." He began, and shuffled his feet. "I vaguely remember a shuriken on the desk, and there was something written on the back of a bookstore receipt..." He trailed off.

"Naruto," the Hokage ordered, and the genin stiffened out of reflex, "Please recite what you recall from the letter yesterday. The summary you gave me will do." If Naruto didn't know better, he would've sworn he'd seen a calculating glint in the old man's eye. Because he'd spent the majority of his life around that same man, he actually did know better, and turned back towards the clerk uneasily.

"Well, it was something along the lines of "I, Hatake Kakashi-" He was cut off by a squeal, and watched in nothing short of awe as Amano placed his hand against his forehead, moaned, and collapsed on the floor with a loud "thump". There was no way it could possibly be called anything but "swooning".

Naruto twitched. "What the hell?" He shook his head briskly. "Well, at least you know that I didn't do nothing to him." He turned back towards Sarutobi, who was massaging his forehead with one hand while the other tapped out the used contents of his pipe.

"I should've known it was that Amano." Naruto glared at him, and the old man finally sighed. "You know, of course, that the current Team Seven is the first group of genin that has ever passed Kakashi's rigorous standards?" He continued without seeing Naruto's nod. "Your sensei has "elected" to be eligible as an instructor for genin for the last seven years. This means that, given the fact that the Academy has promotion exams at the end of the Fall and Springs semesters, Kakashi Hatake has failed thirteen teams." He glanced up into Naruto's eyes. "Amano Ryuuzuki has been on ten of these."

Sarutobi calmly refilled his pipe with pungent green weed while Naruto twitched, his mouth trying to find words that didn't exist. Finally, Naruto spoke. "Wow. That has to be the single worst luck I've ever heard of. I mean, I thought I was bad for failing the Academy's test three times, but-"

"No, Amano passed the Academy test each and every time he took it with outstanding grades. Granted, his taijutsu scores were below average, but these were supplemented by his extraordinary grasp of genjutsu. It was the team selection exam which he failed. I believe you called it the "Bell Test"."

Naruto stopped. "You mean that, after ten tries, he still didn't get the whole "teamwork" thing that Kakashi preaches?" Naruto leaned back. "Wow. I mean, even I would've gotten it eventually. 'Course, if Sakura-chan had been tied up, I would've gotten it straight out."

"And if it had been Uchiha Sasuke?" the Sandaime asked.

Naruto scowled. "That bastard? I probably would've failed a couple more times. But, I mean, probably not ten. Eventually, I'd just have to be paired up with people I could stand, though. But, hey, what's with this guy fainting? What's his bad record got to do with anything?"

"After the tenth attempt, Amano went into ...well, I will spare you the details, but he spent the next few months recooperating in the Mental Health ward of the Hospital. There, he was classified with what equates to a pathelogical fear of Hatake Kakashi."

Naruto blinked. "Y-you're not kidding me?" The Sandaime shook his head. "Whoa. So, when he hears Kakashi's name, he always faints?"

Sarutobi grunted. "In the past few years of intensive couselling, progress has been made. While you might see fainting as a weakness, Amano has greatly improved from his previous behavior, which was primarily spent curling into a ball and weeping hysterically whenever Kakashi was mentioned."

"...Hey, Old Man," Naruto began, leaning towards the Sandaime while resting one arm across his lap, "Are you sure that guy's still a guy? Doesn't that pretty much invalidate the "M" symbol on his shinobi license?" He paused. "Wait, I didn't think genin could work around classified documents without permission. If he never passed the tests, you know, because of Kakashi and then because of the whole "crazy" thing, how was he working in BIRCH, anyway?"

Naruto immediately knew that he was on the right track because Sarutobi looked uncomfortable, and tapped his pipe against the desk loudly.

"Because of his ...condition, certain allowances were made. None of them," he emphasized as he saw Naruto's mouth wide with silent screams of indignation, "were in any way privledges or favors. His is marked as Chuunin because he met a rigerous series of ...tests that proved his ability to function as a ninja."

Naruto sagged, and nodded. The blond had decided long ago that Sarutobi had a special, secret bloodline limit that gave him the incredible power of knowing exactly what to say in every circumstance imaginable. Somehow, he always knew exactly how to explain things so that it didn't end in bloodshed, knew how to negotiate with his advisors and with foreign shinobi, and knew just the right way to put things in writing so that thinly veiled insults didn't end in war. Despite all this, he still couldn't talk to women. Of the two special abilities, Naruto was positive about which one he'd choose.

For once, Naruto didn't mind the silence. Sarutobi loved to bask in the complete quiet, especially when that "complete quiet" meant that he had to do no paperwork. Instead, the two ninja sat calmly, Naruto only kicking the Sandaime's chair, fiddling with papers with one hand as he whistled a tune idly.

"You seem content today, my boy." The Sandaime remarked. The old man had the occasional habit of glancing at the ceiling when he was talking to Naruto, and the genin had the occasional habit of climbing up to the ceiling and staring down at him in return. Today, however, Naruto shrugged.

"It was a good day. I had tons of food, and Sakura-chan told me that she knew I would totally win in this contest I had with the Bastard, and I actually did win, old man! It was completely awesome, and you really should've been there. And I-" Naruto stopped, slack jawed in the middle of a sentence. The Sandaime quickly glanced at him, and Naruto reeled in his jaw, turning his head away in an instant. "And I had a good cup of coffee on the way here." He finished, wincing as soon as he said it. It sounded completely unbelievable even to his own ears, but it was better than the truth by a thousand miles.

The notebook at his side weighed three thousand pounds, and it was bursting with questions that Naruto really wanted to know and couldn't ask. He knew he couldn't talk about Makoto and Haruka at all. Yet. Kakashi had been proof that every shinobi with a shred of sense would suspect new family members showing up. Makoto had been right when she'd said that he was an extraordinary person to not do so the day before (Sakura would call him "extraordinarily stupid").

The two topics which fought for the inside of his mind were the Kyuubi and his father, and Naruto knew that few people existed who could know more about either than the Sandaime. Sarutobi would be able to tell him about his father's genin days - who his teacher was, if he ever managed to do badly at a test, what he was like as a child - far better than Makoto could, as she said that he'd only started appearing once he was around chuunin level or higher. The Sandaime would also know about the battle with the fox, and was possibly the only person in Konoha that could tell him about it and not get capital punishment for it.

"The Kyuubi", Naruto muttered, and he hadn't known he'd said it outloud until he felt the old man's gaze firmly locked on him. "Oh, hell. I said that outloud, didn't I? Dammit."

Sarutobi's eyes bore straight through Naruto, burning small smoking holes into the wall behind him. "Naruto, explain." The blonde never wanted to know about Sarutobi's special vocal intimidation jutsu more than he had at that moment, mainly because of the fact that if he knew about it, he could actually formulate something to counter-act it. As it was, however, the Sandaime's tone alone was a command, and Naruto was following through on it before he knew what he was saying.

"Well, I mean, I just wanted to know about ...you know, the night the Kyuubi attacked." The answering silence in the room was thicker than pipe smoke and smelled foul, and Naruto forced his mouth to continue on because even blurting out his secret, forbidden questions was better than being surrounded by the Sandaime's own brand of discomfort. "You don't have to look at me like that, you know." Naruto glared, but broke off after a minute. Sarutobi always won staring contests. "Alright, I'll spill. See, yesterday, when I was doing paperwork, I found this scroll."

Sarutobi shifted, and Naruto knew that was the shinobi equivelent of bolting upright and gasping in awe. "Oh, a scroll? What did it look like?"

Naruto squrimed. Shinobi were supposed to hide their emotions and involuntary reflexes to lie and decieve better, but frankly, he never held with such nonsense. It had nothing to do with the fact that Sarutobi had, from day one, always known when he was lying, as if Naruto glowed bright pink whenever a fib left his tongue. "Well, okay. It was a map of Konoha. Really cool, actually, and it was done by the Yondaime."

"Oh?" Sandaime pressed, one hand moving up to cover his face, hiding what Naruto could just feel was a satisfied grin, "How did you know that it was written by the Yondaime, Naruto?"

"Er, well, I was going through paperwork before, and there was this paper written by a "Kazama Arashi". This guy had some of the crappiest handwriting ever - even worse than Kurenai on Team 8, and you have to know how bad that is - and I had to take some time to read it to figure out where exactly to stick the paper." He paused. It was a half-truth, and it convieniently left out the fact that it was the sort of paperwork he'd been looking for in the first place. "Anyway, I was looking through another shelf, and there was this scroll, sealed in a leather case."

"If it was sealed," the Sandaime asked innocently, "How did you open it? What did this seal look like, exactly?"

"Well, it was a red, waxy seal, with designs in it." He stopped. If he said that he knowingly opened a sealed document from one of the Hokage's, he would probably get into real trouble, usually defined as "jail time" but possibly branching off into "spending a week in the Interrogation Unit". "I don't remember opening it," he said cautiously, and as soon as it fell off his tongue, he realized that he really didn't remember opening it, "So, it probably was already opened before I got there." He smirked, satisfied at the answer.

The Sandaime nodded. "Hm. And you said a map was in there?" Before Naruto could answer, the Sandaime pressed a button on his desk. His secretary came rushing in, and he beckoned for one of the ANBU guards who peeked through the enterance after her. "In the BIRCH office, there will be a leather scroll case with a red seal. Bring it to me with as much haste as possible." The ANBU nodded quickly, and was gone before Naruto could close his mouth. The first man who ever acknowledged him glanced at him, beckoning with one hand. "Continue."

"Eh, well. First off, I knew that Kazama Arashi wrote it, because the handwriting was just as illegible. He had a great sense of humor, by the way.On the map, it showed all of Konoha, except that it was Konoha from, you know, twelve years ago. Just a couple of days from before I was born, and before ...the Kyuubi. Anyway," he continued, bringing one hand up sharply to scratch the back of his head, "there were entire complexes of familes I've never heard of, huge compounds like the Hyuugas have, except I've never even seen one of 'em. It got me to thinking that the Kyuubi, well, he did all of that. And, for the first time, I kinda understood all the hatred, you know? I mean, I'm just surprised that I wasn't...". He trailed off. The Sandaime probably didn't want to hear all the details about his past, especially because he probably knew them all already, and understood. "It's just that, looking at that map put it all into-" he stopped, glancing at the ceiling and biting his lip subconciously, "'perspective'. Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. I just, well, understood most of what they did, and well, this is gonna sound really corny, but I forgave them."

Naruto sighed heavily, dropping both hands onto the desk with a weighty knock. "But, someone important told me recently that you can't really forgive anyone until you know everything about a situation." He couldn't help but recall the way Haruka looked as she told him that, a strange mixture of determination and saddness in her eyes. Somehow, she knew exactly what he was going through, down to the smallest detail without even knowing about what she meant. "It's just like if somone does something to do you, you're just stupid to hate them until you know exactly why they did exactly what they did. I realized that the villagers were doing that, because they hated me, and they thought their children to do the same. That makes all the village children stupid - including Sasuke, which I knew all along- and I didn't want to be like them. I wanted to learn more about why things are the way they are for me. I wanted to know more about the Kyuubi," he began, and waited a telling moment before exhaling, "and the Yondaime."

His hands were everywhere while the Sandaime enjoyed smoking his pipe and stretching out the moment as long as he could. Naruto scowled while his hands bunched in fists on his knees, scratched at his eyebrow, and tugged at the strap of his courier's bag. There was a poorly muffled sound of surprise, and Naruto jerked his head up to find the Sandaime wearing the same frozen expression of awe he'd had on what seemed like hours before. Naruto had to follow the Sandaime's eyes to his hands, where a silver ring caught the electric lights of the Hokage's office.

"Oh, hell! I forgot I put this on yesterday." Naruto frowned. "Wait, I took a shower and everything! How the hell did I miss that? How did everyone else miss it-" He halted, because the Sandaime was forcing his hands to unfurl.

Sarutobi had crooked fingers covered in calluses and innumberable papercut scars. Liver spots and moles seeded his skin, and Naruto had, on a few memorable occassions, connected the dots to play a few games of tic-tac-toe with himself. The fact that he'd done so with permenant marker earned him the punishment of cutting all the hedges on the Hokage's property. Naruto, at the time, hadn't known that the Hokage's property included the only hedge-maze in Konoha, and had spent three weeks in the middle of summer roasting in his skin in the outdoors. The old man's skin was dry, covered in wrinkles, and had always radiated heat like a second sun. In some winters, Naruto had warmed his hands by rubbing them on the Sandaime's balding head, an act which also gave him his choice of punishment, usually involving a chore around the Sandaime's house that needed to be done, like Asuma's laundry or the reorganization of Sarutobi's dirty magazines..

For a moment, all that either ninja could look at was the signet ring on Naruto's finger. The blond felt a new awe for it because not only had the Yondaime, his old idol, worn it, but his father had worn it. The Sandaime turned his hand this way and that, raising it up to see the intricate spiral design.

"Let me guess," the Sandaime muttered with a small smile tugging at his lips, "the Seal looked exactly like this?"

Naruto stopped. "I can't incriminate myself, right? I can pretend not to know?"

The old man sighed heavily and shook his head slowly. "It doesn't work when you ask that before you lie, Naruto. Just tell me the truth - it will never leave this office."

"Right. Well, okay, I did recognize the seal on the scroll as being from the Hokage's office. Hell, I tried to snatch yours enough that I knew what it looked like, if not this design. I figured that if it were from the Shodaime or Nidaime's reign, it'd be written on clay tablets or something, and I knew it wasn't your design. So, process of elimination proved it was the Yondaime's. Now, his handwriting really is identical to Kazama Arashi's, which I said before. So, it kinda stands to reason that they're the same person." He glanced at Sarutobi, who was nodding. There wasn't anger on his face, which gave Naruto enough cause to finally exhale. "Anyway, I guess I tried on this ring and forgot about it." He paused. "I really can't say why."

A slow smile tugged at Sarutobi's thin, dry lips, and Naruto watched as enlightenment revealed itself to the Old Man. Naruto tried to follow the man's train of thought. He was shocked when Naruto showed up in new clothes, shocked when Naruto had the ring, and shocked when he mentioned the Kyuubi, and about wanting to know about the Yondaime. Sarutobi would've known the Yondaime, and was probably old enough to have seen him when he was a genin. From all of Makoto's pictures and stories, he highly resembled his father. If he was right about all of this, Naruto concluded with a weight in his belly, the Sandaime had just figured out that he was the Yondaime's son.

"It fits," Sarutobi stated after fifteen eternities passed, "like it was meant to be there." He released his grip on Naruto's hand and drew back in his chair.

Naruto couldn't squash his feeling of dissapointment. Sarutobi knew that Naruto was the Yondaime's son. He knew that Naruto knew about the Yondaime's previous name, and most likely knew that he was too damn stubborn not to pursue the matter further, now that he had a foot in the door. This was the perfect opportunity for the old man to work it into conversation, the best segue that could ever exist for something this big. If Naruto hadn't already known from Makoto, he would've been incredibly confused, but instead, the dissapointment swirling in his belly surged into anger.

Sarutobi had no right to keep knowledge like this from him - keep facts about his family away from him. As far as Sarutobi knew, Naruto didn't, and still, he wasn't saying anything.

Naruto couldn't say that he lost trust in Sarutobi, because the trust between them had been forged over the span of Naruto's entire life, day after day, and act after act of kindness, honesty, and respect from both sides. It had been tested by arguments, fueds, pranks, punishments, and stern lectures to the point where Naruto thought nothing could destroy it. But, the idea that there could be other things that Sarutobi knew and didn't share, things that could change Naruto's life, felt like it was acid eating away on the very chain between them.

"Knowledge," Sarutobi began, blowing out a cloud of smoke as he exhaled, "is the single most dangerous tool of a shinobi. You've heard the old adege "Knowledge is Power"? In my experience, there has never been a truth so aptly seized by Man. I have seen the best of men lust for knowledge, grab at it with mortal hands. and fall beneath the title of "human" because of acts of cruelty I only wish I could bleach from my memory. I have seen the wisest shinobi, ones with greater potential than can be put into words, fall from grace because you see, Naruto, power destroys. In it's rawest form, it yearns to consume and destroy like a sentinent being. Ask yourself this again. What exactly will you do with this knowledge you seek - this knowledge about the Kyuubi ...and other matters."

Naruto scrunched his eyebrows, his hands halting while his mind struggled with the concept. He wanted to know more about the night of his birth, and the final night of the Kyuubi's attack. He wanted to know about why his father died, and what other options were there, if any. He needed to know what his father knew, and if he ever thought he'd be pushing Naruto into the figural den of lions.

What he couldn't see was how the answers to any of these could corrupt or destroy him. He already knew that Arashi - his father - had been a good man, so he knew half the answers to his questions already. The Yondaime wouldn't just throw the first baby he found at the Kyuubi and hope for the best. He would have researched the Kyuubi, the seal, and what it would do to the child - him - before. Well, Naruto conceeded, that was in the ideal circumstance. Naruto knew that whenever he was in battle, he tended to wing it in lieu of a plan. Even outside of battle, as proven by that morning's conversation with Makoto, he tended to go with whatever worked at the time, hoping that he'd be lucky enough that things would work out.

Perhaps the Yondaime's luck had just run out.

"I'm not sure what you expect me to do with what I learn. I mean, I can't change how the Yondaime died, I can't change how the Kyuubi destroyed the town, and I can't change how I got to be the way I am now." He glanced at Sarutobi, whose face was perfectly neutral, as if it were carved from the same stone as the Monument. "I just want to learn about it. I mean, knowledge is just knowledge. I kinda figure that if a person wants power through the whole "knowledge" path, they really have to be evil before they search for it. It's not like knowledge can be evil - it's just a thing. But, hell, don't you think it's kinda weird that for the first time, I actually do want to learn something about history, and you're asking me if I really want to go through with it? You should be ...I don't know, having a heart attack or throwing a party or something."

The Sandaime's lips quirked, and then he turned, and then the old man was cackling off to the side in exactly the same manner of Makoto the day before. He turned back to Naruto, a familiar, almost doting grin on his face. "Good answer. That'll work for now. Alright, Naruto!" He crowed, leaning forward on his elbows as he grinned at Naruto, "I have a proposition for you."

"Eh?" Naruto leaned back in his chair. Whenever the Sandaime smiled like that, evil, horrible, manipulative things waited in dark corners of his future to rob him of his free time and energy.

"I have a very special mission here. No one in Konoha even dares to attempt it any more, but I believe that you are capable of succeeding where others have failed. It is a long-term mission usually assigned to C-rank shinobi, but because of certain aspects of the job, the classification and payment of it are B-ranked. It is a solo mission, and no other members of your team need be involved in it. While the mission itself is not a secret, I would request that you keep any and all information you may gain through your efforts to yourself as much as possible. This is the only time I will offer this to you, Naruto. Will you accept this mission?"

Naruto's teeth felt like they would break in half because he was smiling so hard. He bolted out of his chair, leaning over the Hokage's desk, propping himself up with his arms to face the old man. "Is it very dangerous? Aw, hell, I don't need to know. You had me as soon as you said that Sasuke's not invited to do it. Count me in!"

"Excellent! Report to this address at seven tomorrow." The Hokage scribbled a collection of numbers and letters that might've been words onto a scrap of paper with a pleased "I have you now!" smirk creeping across his face and into Naruto's gut, where the feeling just creeped. "It is dangerous, depending on how well you do at the job." Before Naruto could question, the Hokage raised one wizzened hand and continued. "You'll find out tomorrow. But, you're doing a great service for your fellow shinobi, your team, and your village."

The bones in his knuckles were throbbing against his hand now in a mockery of a heartbeat. From the small bones in his foot to the very roof his mouth, Naruto felt a chorus within his own body. He'd just signed up for hard, heavy work, and nothing in his body was pleased about it.

The Sandaime was humming as he filled out a few more sheets of paper that to anyone else (and, quite possibly Sarutobi as well) would've seemed completely random. He glanced up through the edge of his hat at Naruto. "Shouldn't you be getting some rest for your big day tomorrow? Why, very few shinobi at your age get solo missions. Perhaps you should call on Ichiraku's to celebrate..."

"Mmm, Ramen." Despite himself, Naruto found one hand moving towards his stomach. The fact that it was still (moderately) full jolted him out of his reverie. "Hey! You can't just dismiss me like that!"

"Oh, you're still here? I hadn't noticed..." Sarutobi glanced up with a patient, doting, utterly sacrine smile.

Naruto frowned. "Bastard. I don't know what you're plotting, but I'm not leaving here until I get an answer."

The old man actually looked confused. "About the Kyuubi?"

Naruto shook his head violently, and he stuck one pointed finger within inches of Sarutobi's face. "Nope! I know I'll learn about the Kyuubi soon enough, even if I have to ask the bastard himself." Sarutobi went pale. "Hey, I didn't mean it like that. Anyway, you have to answer this one, alright?"

Sarutobi sighed and smiled, color drifting it's way back into his cheeks again. He nodded. "Go ahead."

"Why the hell are you hiring crazy people to do your office work?"

Sarutobi seemed to choke, and his eyes went wide. "What?"

"That new chick - your secretary - is insane." Naruto leaned forward over the desk, knocking over the small tilting-bird apparatus that had fascinated him until he turned eleven. "On the way in here, she squealed when she saw me. Hell, she called me "Uzumaki-sama" and "Sir"! Something is wrong with that woman."

"Naruto," he laughed, "you have a fangirl."

"Exactly! She's insane! You need to seriously review your hiring process here, because it's not enough that you made Maito Gai a teacher, you had to have a crazy person as a secretary, too."

"It's never a dull moment with you around, boy. I guarantee that you will learn exactly why you have a fangirl tomorrow. But, I'll give you this: Finally, you're getting proper recognition for one of your acts."

Naruto scowled. "That doesn't help at all! I'm staying here until I get so- Did you just fall asleep?"

Sarutobi rolled his head back in his chair, snoring loudly enough that Naruto's cries of indignation couldn't be heard. Naruto knew, Sarutobi knew, and the four ANBU watching the Hokage's office from the next rooftop over knew that the Sandaime was faking it.

"Bastard." Naruto resisted the urge to spit on the Hokage's floor, as the last time he'd done so, the Hokage had invited all of ANBU to do the same, then left Naruto to clean up the mess. He'd rather get the crap kicked out of him by Sasuke than go through that again. As it was, Naruto scowled even more at Sarutobi, crammed the slip of paper with the mission's location into his courier's bag, and stomped over to the door.

Sarutobi stopped snoring and started shifting papers before Naruto could even open the door.

"Oh, I'm still asleep," he called, "It's just a form of sleep-walking I developed in my tenth year of my first reign..."

Naruto walked out, not caring that the way he slammed the door startled the ANBU into jumping three feet, and almost missing the fact that the secretary leaned close to him as he passed through the "NITOR" door and shoved a piece of paper into his hand with a wink.

He was so intent on storming out of the building, leaping to the rooftop across from the Hokage's office, and making faces at Sarutobi behind his back that Naruto didn't realize he was being followed until the secretary's note was plucked from his hand.

Kakashi read over it once, his eye suddenly widening, "In a couple of years, call me - I'll be looking forward to it. Love, your biggest fan."

Naruto glanced up to find Kakashi staring at him, one eye wide, Sakura gaping, and Sasuke brooding in a dramatic pose.

"Oh, hell," he managed. "I forgot about you guys."

---

The trip back to Naruto's apartment was brief, as the whole of Team Seven was large enough that they were permitted to use the express, group-lane of the Shinobi Highway and Transit System. The trip was quick, but every step that brought Naruto closer to his own house compounded his misery until he had to drag himself to the front of his door.

There was the chance that Kakashi would see something he didn't like about Makoto and Haruka and take them hostage or worse, the chance that Makoto and Haruka would be so mortified by Sasuke's horrible manners that they'd disown Naruto to get away from all brooding ninja, and the chance that Makoto would leave after seeing Sakura swoon into Naruto's arms, confident that he would have the love of a woman for the rest of his life.

It was with dread that Naruto found himself knocking on his own front door for the first time in his life. He gestured for Kakashi-sensei and his team mates to stand out of sight, and watched as the door flew open.

"Naruto-kun!" Haruka slammed into him like an Akimichi, and, even loaded down with fifteen extra pounds of weapons and armor, he still lost balance. He managed to straighten before he completely embarrassed himself, a valient effort that was soon completely invalidated as Haruka kissed his cheeks. "I got a job! It's nearby, pays well, and I can start tomorrow!" She kissed him a few more times, and Naruto was almost positive that she giggled. "Welcome home."

"It's good to be home." He couldn't help but smile, because for once, the truth didn't hurt at all. The dread inside of him lifted as he watched Haruka's smile and the dimples in her cheeks. "Aunt Haruka," he hesitated, adding the title for effect as he glanced at his side, "could you tell Grandma that I have a couple of guests?"

Haruka straightened at once, her mouth forming a perfect "o" for a moment. "Oh! Oh, goodness." She glanced around quickly, and Naruto didn't have a clue what she was looking for. She blushed beet red, and bowed deeply towards where Kakashi-sensei and his team were lurking (Naruto was pretty sure he saw incredulous expresions on every one of their faces) before darting back inside. She shut the door behind her.

There was a complete moments pause, interupted periodically by crashing sounds from inside his apartment, thinly muffled curses, and the occasional thump of loud footsteps on the floor.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke began, "I believe that we must be in the presence of a spy."

Sakura snorted off to his side, and when Kakashi and Naruto both turned to watch her, she blushed and straightened out her skirt. "She seems very ...nice, Naruto." She seemed as if she had been searching for a proper word for much longer than the brief hesitation, but Naruto took the compliment as it was.

"Yep! She has this great sense of humor, too, but I guess she gets kinda weird around strangers." Absently, he rubbed his cheek where she had kissed him, and drew back his hand. He didn't notice the grin, but his team mates glanced among themselves. He paused. "Don't you dare scare her, Kakashi-sensei. Don't hit on her, or make fun of her, or ...you know it might just be easier if you pretend to be someone else."

Kakashi actually looked hurt, ridiculous puppy eye glistening with fake tears as his jaw seemed to tremble, one hand pointing to his face as if asking "who, me?". "You don't want me to act like myself?"

There was a concensus of "No!", "It's for the best, really," and "Hn." from his crowd. Kakashi sniffed loudly.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to act like someone else. Hmmm, who to choose... I know - how about Maito Gai?"

Sakura paled, Sasuke's eyes widened in horror, and Kakashi didn't have time to blink before Naruto was glaring up at him. "If you do, I'll rip out all the smut scenes from your books and replace them with pictures of Sarutobi's trip to the beach."

Kakashi stopped. "You wouldn't dare."

"Are you sure you want to risk it?" Naruto wasn't tall enough to reach Kakashi's ear, but the older man still caught the genin's whisper. "Sarutobi wore a speedo."

Kakashi's eye widened and twitched, jaw trembling as the image sifted through his eyes and sank into his brain. "You...you monster."

Off to the side, Sasuke and Sakura sweat dropped. Naruto glared at their teacher while Kakashi stood as still as a corpse, the occassional tic of his eye a sign that he hadn't gone into a coma. Sakura finally stepped forward. "I'm sure that what Naruto means is that we all should be on our best behavior." For some reason, she glared at Naruto.

The door flew open, startling all three genin and waking the jonin from his living death. Haruka panted at the edge of it, and Naruto actually wasn't sure how long he'd been waiting, but it absolutely couldn't be enough time for Haruka to change out of the wrinkled, washed out shirt and pants she had been wearing into a smooth, boldly colored skirt, with a wide-sleeved blouse similiar to what she'd worn the night before. Her hair had been brushed so that it seemed like it haloed her head, and she'd managed to put on a light layer of make up that brought out the color of her eyes.

Naruto grinned. "You look beautiful, but you really didn't need to change to manage that. You could be wearing a burlap sack and still manage to look gorgeous."

Haruka blinked, and Naruto was almost certain he saw Sakura's head slowly rotate in his direction. "Thank you for the compliment, Naruto-kun. Ah!" Her gasp startled Naruto, and the younger blonde glanced around for the inevitable ninja attack. "I haven't introduced myself. I am Haruka, Naruto's aunt." She bowed deeply again, and before Naruto could tell her that bowing really wasn't necessary, she ushered him inside.

There was immediately a three-ninja pile-up in the doorway.

What Naruto saw was the same spotless, glistening floor as when he left, the same tidy bed as when he woke up, and the same clean, sparkling table. The tea set on it looked new, though Naruto vaguely remembered using his kettle as a ramen bowl once. Steam piped out of six already poured cups, a small plate of delicious looking pastries sat in the center of the table. Makoto sat at one corner of the table, looking for all the world like the most beautiful woman in history.

What his team mates saw had to be completely different, because Kakashi's eye began twitching, Sakura's jaw dropped, and Sasuke's head was actually swivelling in all directions, as if he was trying to find somewhere to pose dramatically, and found every spot warmed by a friendly, hospitable atmosphere that completely ruined his mood. Sakura was the first one to squirm out of the doorway, with Sasuke popping out through her efforts, while Kakashi forgot to duck and slammed his forehead against the doorway.

"Heh, that's what you get for being so freakishly tall." Naruto grinned, but whipped his head around when he heard a disaproving noise from Makoto.

"Your grandfather was tall, Naruto, and your father was even more so. I have a feeling that you'll be just as tall as your sensei here, if not more. Well," she finished, sipping some of her tea, "as long as you keep eating your vegetables. Now, come here and kiss me?"

The request on the end of it completely shot down any and all protests Naruto could have made. He couldn't help but walk over, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a failed hug that somehow still seemed to work. Her hair smelled like vanilla, and he kissed her cheek, getting his bony nose everywhere. "Hi, Grandma." The name still tasted foreign in his mouth, but he couldn't keep anything but good thoughts in his head while he said it, as if every bad memory he'd ever had never existed in the first place, or happened to some poor sap named "Naruko", and not to him.

He glanced up, and he realized that his team was staring at him. "Oh, hell! This is my Grandma, Makoto. She's the most awesome woman ever, and she's really young, so don't screw up there like I did. Insult her and die, Sasuke."

The Uchiha glared at Naruto, who promptly glared back, but before the situation could escalate any further, Makoto slowly eased out of her sitting position, as graceful as if she spent fifteen years in finishing school, majoring soley in chairs. She stepped towards the dark haired boy, and Naruto snickered as Sasuke took an involuntary step backwards. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sasuke. Uchiha, correct? Naruto's spoken of you a great deal." She paused. "I'm sure that most of it had to be exaggeration. Such a sweet looking boy couldn't deserve your reputation."

Sakura beside him snickered, but she straightened up as stiffly as if she were in front of the Hokage as Makoto approached her. She bowed awkwardly, and Naruto wondered if the whole bowing thing was a thing from where Makoto and Haruka were from, and how Sakura knew about it. "Ah! It's an honor to actually meet some of Naruto's family. I wasn't actually aware that he had any until today."

Makoto smirked. "Naruto only beat you out by a day. It's no wonder Naruto had such a way around girls, when he's around one as lovely as you."

There was massive silence from all parties who actually knew better.

Kakashi kept glancing from Naruto to Makoto, and then back again. His eyes darted to the white, stainless ceiling now free of stray, stuck-on ramen noodles and the odd over-achieving fork, then to the closet that shut for the first time, and then to the kitchen that, for the first time, didn't smell as if it belonged in the Nara's slaughterhouse. If Naruto didn't know better, he would've said that the jonin was completely and utterly dumbstruck.

Makoto glided over to him, and it didn't matter that she was wearing a familiar pair of plain white pants - she seemed to be wearing an evening gown, or the most beautiful kimono in the world. "You must be Naruto's teacher. I must thank you for taking such good care of him. He's already so grown up." Her voice might've cracked at the end of the sentence, but she had a smile on her face, so Naruto was thoroughly confused as to what to do. Kakashi looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead silently inclined his head. For some reason, Makoto beamed as if he'd presented her with a bouquet of flowers with chocolates on the side.

His grandmother craned her head towards him, and Naruto saw the smile on her face falter. "I'm afraid I have some bad news to temper these joyful introductions."

Naruto had to wonder at the use of "joyful", because there wasn't much joy involved, though there was a great and huge abundance of silence, awkward silence, and the odd and rare "companiable" silence that passed between Makoto and Haruka quite often. More than that, he wondered at what could actually be "bad news". Makoto and Haruka were both alive, not bleeding, and were happy. He had nearly hit his record number for fewest wounds recieved in a day, had eaten, and had actually managed not to insult the Hokage more than usual. There was electricity in the apartment, everyone was clothed, and no one was killing each other yet. Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"You'd better sit down for this, dear." Makoto rushed him to a chair at the end of the table, and before he knew it - or, any of the others - Makoto had seated them all around the table, somehow navigating it so that Kakashi and Sasuke, the most paranoid of the group, had full view of the door with one eye and full view of the windows with the other (in Sasuke's case), while Sakura was just inches away from the cookie plate. She hurried off to the bathroom, where there was the faint smell of smoke that utterly confused Naruto, while Haruka busied herself running between the kitchen and the living room, fetching what Naruto realized with detached horror were coasters.

Kakashi hadn't touched his tea, but somehow, the water level in the cup was slowly lowering, and Kakashi actually asked for a refill when Haruka passed by again. She hesitated. "You don't have family around the Land of Rock, do you?"

Somehow, Kakashi's eye turned hard. "No."

Haruka turned around, meekly answering. "I see. I just thought you looked familiar."

Naruto had never wanted to kick his sensei in the teeth before. Well, quite as badly as he did at that time.

Makoto finally returned, and Naruto's curiosity was officially peaked because she was carrying a medium sized box that was apparently heavy, by the way she had positioned it in her arms. Before Naruto could get out of his seat to help her with it, Kakashi had already made the trip, and the kyuubi-vessel officially removed one teeth-kick from his "Things I'm Going to Do to Kakashi" list.

The box sat in the middle of the table, smelling strongly of smoke. Makoto turned to him and nodded. "I'm sorry, Naruto."

Sakura had pressed against Sasuke in what was surely only an attempt to see what was going on. Judging by the way the dark haird boy's eyes were darting towards the windows, the doors, and the kitchen, the Uchiha was trying desperately to think of a reason to leave Naruto's apartment right away, most likely to get away from a group of people that numbered more than four, especially as said group had a balanced number of females. Kakashi-sensei's hands were fidgeting in front of his face, adjusting his mask, his headband, and pockets of his vest, which he kept unbuttoning and refastening. Naruto realized that his teacher was desperately trying to resist the urge to read Icha Icha in front of his grandmother, and Naruto felt a deep sense of overwhelming pride, which almost masked the sense of fear the box instilled.

Slowly, he pressed his hand against the lid of the box, which was strangely warm. He carefully lifted up the lid, turning his head and wrinkling his nose as the smell of smoke, ash, and burning leather itched at his eyes and nose.

It had been his orange jumpsuit. Now, it was charred black and brown, with only scraps of his favorite color still showing. The small leather details were chared, eaten away like acid had gone through them. The dangling hooks and hidden pockets were rendered useless, and, as Naruto lifted his outfit out of it's grave with nothing less than horror, even the back, swirling crest he'd taken as his own looked beyond repair.

"W-who would do such a thing?" Naruto felt tears glisten in his eyes. Despite the fact that Sakura was here, despite the fact that Sasuke was here, he couldn't help but feel the urge to either punch a hole through the wall of cry on someone's shoulder. "What sort of monster would do this?"

"I'm not sure, Naruto. I had hung it out with the rest of your clothes to dry, and all I saw was a dark blur, and then I heard the sound of explosions, and some sort of metallic swooshing noise. I had to pull a few dozen throwing stars out of this, but I managed to put out the flames quickly enough to save what's left."

As he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his unfamiliar, alien, sweatshirt, he saw Kakashi sweat drop, Sakura blink rapidly, and Sasuke snort and look away.

"It's not like it's that bad, right Naruto?" Sakura asked. "It was just an outfit, and it was incredibly ugly, anyway. You're better off without it." There was a small smile on her face and a gentle look in her eyes. If she had been trying to cheer him up, she apparently had no grasp of how to actually console people. He feared for any small children she ever spoke to, any elderly she ever passed near, and any person who ever tried to make contact with her, because she was either an evil, souless demon who prayed on peoples sorrow, or more socially awkward than Sasuke, who hadn't said a word about the jumpsuit yet. Naruto fiercely resisted the urge to bare his fangs and snarl at her. Instead, he fisted handfuls of what fabric remained of the back crest.

"This was made for me - for me - by a man named Shigure. He was an old tailor with one arm and one eye. This was the first gift anyone ever gave me. It was not ugly." Naruto had managed to keep his tone level through the whole explanation, even though "level" included taking deep breaths after every sentence.

There was a pause, and Sakura looked towards Kakashi, as if for guidance. The silver-haired man looked away briefly. "Well," he started, "you could have the same guy fix it, or make you another one." He paused. "One in another color, like dark blue, or a green that would actually camoflague, or a traditional, sound black..."

"He died before I became a Genin."

There was silence.

"Oh."

"I think," Makoto stated firmly, suddenly standing behind Naruto, easily navigating the jumpsuit out of his hands, "that I can salvage this back part, with the cute Fishcake spiral? My, that was clever of him. Yes, and if I can't I can certainly try my hand at making a new one." She realized that all eyes were on her, and smiled demurely. "It's been years since I've done it as a profession, but in my village, I was occasionally called upon to make repairs to clothing, or to darn the occasional sock, or to fix the occasional tear in a battle suit." Sasuke and Kakashi both glanced at her, but Sakura's gaze was firmly fastened to the table. "My husband, Toppu, was a mercenary for quite some time, and in those decades, he made an awful mess of his clothes."

Haruka snorted. "It probably would've been worse if he wore more than just pants when he went into battle, Mother."

Makoto cradled the side of her head with one hand, an expression of surprise passing her lips before it morphed into something dreamy. "Oh yes, I had forgotten about how many shirts he went through before he gave up on them entirely. That was a good day."

Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto's eyes met for the briefest moment. In that moment, they shared the communal thought of "I don't want to know".

Makoto straightened. "Oh! Forgive the musings of this old woman." She ignored Naruto's protests of "I know better than to ever call you old again!", and continued on. She held Naruto's suit over her head, turning it in the light. She shook it once briskly, forcing motes of ash into the air. While everyone was coughing, Naruto caught the fall of a small slip of paper.

Kakashi's hand darted out for it, but Makoto was apparently quicker than both of them, as she caught it with one hand before it even hit the ground. "Hm," she wondered, her tone mystified as she read," "1 Icha Icha Vol. 2, 19.95"." She turned the slip of paper around. "Oh, there are funny little doodles on this side. How strange. Doesn't that one look like a little rabbit, Naruto?"

The silver-haired jonin was completely non-chalant as Makoto handed the slip to Naruto, his hands occupying themselves with turning his tea cup. Suspision burst into the blond's mind like a sledgehammer through a brick wall, and Naruto glanced at the reciept, ignoring the time and date printed on the front for the "doodles" on the back.

Naruto knew little to nothing about seals, aside from the fact that he had one, he used hand seals on a daily basis, and they lived in snowy regions and did tricks in the circus. The ink and paper seals were almost a complete mystery to him, though he heard that some of the Hokage had been very good at them. (He wondered if he counted as an "ink and paper" seal, given that there was no paper involved). It didn't, however, take a genius to recognize that this was an explosive note. Naruto used enough of them on a regular basis to get the gist of what they did and what they were supposed to look like, and the fact that it was found in his chared, burnt, and smoking suit was the final straw. With surprisingly steady hands, Naruto turned the receipt, noticing the small tear through one brush stroke that apparently made the strip a dud.

"Did I see you reading a new volume of Icha Icha today, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi, of course, was a trained ninja. He was a jonin, and was good enough at it that he was featured in Bingo books, his name known to enemy ninja through out the world. He was a master of observation, and knew the cues that belaid emotion, not to mention all the ways to avoid them. It went without saying that he showed no emotion.

Sakura, however, was a completely different matter.

If Naruto ever wanted to play poker with his team, he now knew who to watch to win big. Sasuke had the habit of turning away every time something happened, so he was at least predictable. Reading Kakashi was an exercise in futility, much like trying to get a Nara to run a marathon or a Uchiha to smile in a school photo. Sakura, however, could not bluff. It was as if there was a devil on her shoulder that was telling her the exact wrong ways to hide something and then laughing at Sakura's embarrassment as she was quickly, inevitably discovered.

For one, her hands had clenched so tightly around her tea cup that it exploded, showering her in a brief geyser of warm liquid. Haruka rushed off to get a dish towel while Sakura unfurled her fist with a small, weak smile to reveal that she had no wounds. Her eyes kept darting around the room, first to the broken, burnt corpse of Naruto's favorite suit, then to Naruto himself, and then finally to Kakashi, in a never ending cycle. Her breathing quickened, and with nothing else to do, she smiled weakly at Makoto. "The weather's been lovely lately."

Kakashi coughed. "Sakura, I believe that this calls for a few surprise, midnight training sessions in deception." Sakura lowered her head in shame as Kakashi set his mug back on the table. "Yep. I threw roughly a half dozen explosive notes, about a dozen shuriken, and a smattering of kunai at your jumpsuit." He raised one hand in the air. "Nothing against you, Naruto, but your outfit today was so much more useful in your occupation, and as you finally had a replacement for your jumpsuit, I decided to take care of it."

Naruto didn't twitch, but there was the slightest bit of hesitation in Kakashi's voice as he continued.

"It was a liability on missions. You were visible during the day, in forests, at night, in the water, at the bottom of mine shafts, and even when in henge as someone else. Naruto, I've seen that outfit glow in the dark. As your teacher, it's my duty to help you as much as I can. I've done your career as a ninja a huge favor. Why, if I were you, I'd-"

The kyuubi-vessel sliced off the end of Kakashi's sentence with a muted whisper that could only spit out every syllable. "If you say that I should thank you for this, I will cause you greater suffering than you have ever known." There was something dark, something near feral in Naruto's seemingly angular eyes for the briefest of moments.

Kakashi glanced back with one hollow eye. "I doubt that." After a pause, Naruto nodded.

"You're probably right." He glanced up, actual awe morphing his features. He glanced at each member of his team, and he felt a supreme sense of enlightenment fall over him as he realized he had a plan."You owe me."

Kakashi seemed to wince, but the nod of his head showed that he acquiesed. Sakura sighed and bowed her head low enough that it looked like she was going to smack the table, and Sasuke snorted, which made Naruto pause. "Sasuke, what exactly did you have to do with this?"

"Hn. I was the distraction." Sasuke spat the last word, shooting a killing glare at Kakashi, who shrugged it off.

The timeline presented itself to Naruto. "You mean, today in the park...the contest was bait?"

The Uchiha briskly nodded. "Aside from the fact that I hate doing it, I believed the paperwork would occupy you for more than the time needed to destroy that ..."uniform" of yours."

"So," Naruto summed up, "you all owe me."

There were reluctant sighs from the collected shinobi, and all three bowed their heads. Sakura's hit the table with a thump, and Naruto picked up something that sounded like "Ino will never let me live a date with him down.", almost muffled by the thick wood.

"Time to pay up."

Even Sasuke looked nervous, while Kakashi managed to feign disinterest. "Oh? Will we be forced to dance naked through the town square? I've done that a few times. It's actually quite liberating." If possible, Sasuke looked even paler. "Will you paint us orange and make us prance through town, then, or just make us dress in drag and-"

"Don't", Sakura ground out, sounding for all the gnashing of her teeth that she was trying to eat through the table, "give him any more ideas."

Naruto watched, and it felt like only a small sliver of himself was actually there. The rest of him was watching the plan unfold, ideas and possibilities pulling away like lotus petals. The plan would require nothing that he didn't have already, and the possiblity of the plan actually coming to fruition seemed to be worth more than the small concession of knowledge he'd have to give. He smiled.

Makoto looked shocked, and Haruka looked worried, while all three of his fellow shinobi tried with varying degrees of success to disguise their fear.

"Knowledge." Naruto shrugged, turning his head to the side almost as if he were carefree. He forced his voice light, and wondered if he'd ever manage to forget the smell of burning leather. "That's all I ask. A simple thing, really."

Of the ninja, only Kakashi's eyes widened, and Naruto decided that only Kakashi had listened to Sarutobi's "Knowledge is Power" speech, or something similiar to it. Naruto was willing to bet that Kakashi would rather walk down the streets of Konoha naked (except, most likely, for his mask, which nothing but death could pry off his face) than spill the many secrets he had in his lifetime.

"Sakura," he smiled, and the kunoichi looked downright worried. "You're really smart, and can probably do this much better than I ever could. I want you to look for all information you can get on a girl named Suzuko Rin. She was a kunoichi about, eh, fifteen or twenty years ago. I know she at least hit Chuunin, and was from a non-bloodline clan, starting out through the civilian primary school system." She glanced up, clearly confused at the fact that Naruto's question had absolutely nothing to do with her bra size or her street address.

Kakashi was as silent as the dead.

"Bastard," Naruto said almost warmly, and the dark-haired boy scowled even more than usual in reply. "There's information I need from you. See, there was this boy named Obito - he was an Uchiha. He was Rin's team mate, and he made Chuunin too. Actually, I'm pretty sure he's adopted, because he was actually smiling in the photo I saw of him."

Sasuke snarled. "I already know something about him. He's dead."

Naruto shrugged. "Well, duh. I kinda figured that. But, I'm looking for info about his team mates, his teacher, and anything he might've achieved while he was alive."

Sasuke turned his head, but Naruto translated the small snort the Uchiha breathed as meaning "Fine, but this is beneath me."

Kakashi was still, frozen in mid-motion as one hand was clasped around a tea mug, the other mid-fumble with a snap on his vest. The man's silver eyebrow was twitching, just as his eye was focused on something through eight feet of brick wall, three houses away,

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto started, and almost felt a sense of apprehension as the jonin didn't move. It didn't even look like he was breathing, and for a moment, Naruto thought he had gone into a coma, but continued on doggedly anyway. "As a jonin, you have way more security clearance than I do. I mean, in a couple of years, I'll totally out rank you, but for now, I need you to look someone up for me."

Makoto let out a small gasp of surprise, and Haruka nodded knowingly. He met their eyes, and Makoto smiled.

"His name is Kazama Arashi." Sakura and Sasuke glanced at each other, the silent communication of "Who?" hanging in the air. "He was the jonin sensei of Rin and Obito, had some minor testing through the civilian school system, and," Naruto smirked, suddenly savoring every second of silence that stretched before him in a way that he'd never dreamed of before, "he was the Yondaime."

The sudden shift of Naruto's posture caught all eyes because he leaned forward with a small, friendly smile on his face. One hand carelessly supported his chin while the other adjusted his hitai-ite. He felt the weight of his father's ring for the first time, and he saw Kakashi's pupils contract in the strangest way as the silver of the band caught the overhead light.

The blonde finally concluded as the moment reached it's breaking point, "He was the son of a man named Toppu. The son of a woman named Makoto. The brother of a girl named Haruka."

Makoto arched an eyebrow at the way Sasuke and Sakura's eyes met, mouths working in silent tandem as they slowly pieced together the facts.

"Kazama Arashi was my father. The Yondaime Hokage was my father."

Hatake Kakashi went very, very still.

---

So, many people asked me about the awkward ending to the previous chapter. I can admit now that it was training for the ending of this one. How'd I fare?

I have news! I'm looking for a beta-reader! I need someone experienced, as I'm obviously not, someone patient with grammar errors, as I only have WordPad on both computers I use which means no Spellcheck, and someone who can help me revise my absurdly long paragraphs. I'm also looking to rewrite or revamp Chapter One, as it seems to be turning away an awful lot of people.

Anyway! This chapter is longer than my first four, possibly my first five comined. I've had this ending swishing around in my brain for weeks, and it's completely different actually having it out in the real world. Tell me if you liked it, because I know that I really, really enjoyed writing most of it for once.

But, comments are more than welcome! Criticism is needed and appreciated. I still love it when you guys quote your favorite lines, especially as it shows me what tones and tenses work better than others.

So, enjoy this incredibly insanely long update. This fic is now the longest thing I have ever written, beating out both my NaNoWriMo fics by a long shot. I can't decide whether I'm proud or saddened that my Psychic-Vampires-from-Atlantis battling Space-Pirate-Robot-Police plot isn't the longest story anymore.

Actually, it probably is for the best.

But, yeah! Hope you enjoyed reading this!