Chibi-Kari: I know it's been so long! I had a lot of people that were angry I didn't tell you who had come in the last chapter. I really had thought I made it obvious, but this chapter lays almost everything out. There is more to come and it will get more complex, but this is the big reveal you guys wanted. I don't own and chapters will be coming and hopefully faster now that I have published my academic papers for the year!

Genjutsu

Chapter 10

Naruto gritted his teeth as he stared down at the book. He hadn't decided if he wanted to open the offensive object again. What was so wrong with wanting this life? The security this family offered. They didn't really feel like his family yet, but he liked them enough and he had always wanted parents. Plus, Konoha was his home. He could leave everything behind—the genjutsu—but if what he was told was true…

He jumped as he heard his father speaking softly with his mother in the hallway. Naruto didn't have to strain his ears even though he knew they were trying to be discreet. His parents had yet to fully understand how the fox had sharped his senses; something he thought was strange since his mother was a jinchuriki as well. It was easy for Naruto to hear that Fugaku was calling Minato to his house. Naruto shook his head. Itachi had seen the paper; that was clear now. If he wanted to know the truth then he needed to look now. This was his last chance. He had to decide if he should just blindly trust this life or not. Naruto closed his eyes tightly. Trust wasn't something that came to him naturally.

Stealing himself, he opened the book just as he heard his father shut the front door. It was risky to try and look at the book now that his father was gone; luckily his father hadn't known what Fugaku wanted to talk about so his mother was unlikely to come in. He flipped the pages quickly just in case. He knew what he was looking for and luckily the book was in chronological order. Skimming a page, he recognized as the beginning of the Second Shinobi War. "Just a little farther back." Naruto mumbled to himself, flipping back a few pages at a time so he didn't miss it.

Fugaku looked at the men in front of him. The little group had grown more and more uncomfortable as Mikoto poured the last of the tea. It was best to keep everything from as many people as possible until they needed to take action, so as much as it pained Fugaku he couldn't tell his wife.

"Can you please tell Itachi to come in here, Mikoto?" Fugaku called as she left. She nodded before sliding the shoji behind her.

"Why call us so late, Fugaku?" Shikaku yawned.

"Itachi thinks they made contact." Fugaku said simply.

Minato's eyes narrowed. "How? When?"

The shoji slid open and closed softly as Itachi entered the room. "Today. Sometime before I went to pick Naruto and Sasuke up."

Minato leaned forward, rubbing his forehead harshly. "I thought they stayed at the house all day." This was his worst nightmare. Why couldn't they have just stayed home like they were told? He and Kushina hadn't really broken through to Naruto yet. They just needed more time. The boy was just so shut off to them and while he was more comfortable, he still didn't trust them.

Itachi nodded. "They did. It happened at your residence, Hokage-sama."

Minato shook his head quickly as he sat back heavily in his chair. "That's impossible, Itachi. Kushina used her family's seals in addition to my own. No one can get in, not even if Naruto had let them in. You have to be specially tagged by us to get on the premises and I can count on one had who has those seals besides Kushina and Naruto."

"Why do you think they made contact?" Shikaku asked. He was no longer lounging in the chair but sitting with his full attention on the young man in front of him. Itachi wasn't stupid and if he thought these people had made contact, then they probably had.

Itachi paused, collecting his thoughts. "It isn't just one thing. When I found Naruto sitting outside, he was more hostile and on edge than he had been the last few weeks. He studied me as a shinobi would, not as a family acquaintance. Not only that, he was burning a letter of some sort. Why would he be burning a letter if it wasn't from them?"

"Why would he even accept a letter from them? They tortured him. And it's not like he knew them and bonded with them enough for it to be some strange sort of Stockholm syndrome." Inochi interjected.

"They didn't really torture him." Shikaku reminded his old teammate. "They just showed him a different version of Konoha."

Inochi nodded acquiescing. "But he didn't really bond with anyone in that Konoha so I'm not sure how he would have trusted anyone enough to take a letter. The fox broke him out before he could even make genin let alone bond with a team."

Minato sighed. "There were a few people that came into contact with Naruto that aren't in Konoha."

Shikaku's eyes narrowed as he turned to the Hokage. "You didn't tell me that."

"I told you there were inconsistencies in the Konohas and differences in the villagers." Inochi retorted.

"Not completely different people." Shikaku gripped his knees tightly. If only he had known this information before he could have figured out how to find these people before this happened. The puzzle pieces were slamming into place and the picture was darker than he had even thought before. Attempting to handle it just between them had let information just fall through the cracks. "Damn it. They just walked someone right by all of you."

"We still don't know that for sure. The anbu should have been there. The seals were still intact when Itachi had arrived and the police have been on high alert." Fugaku said curtly. They couldn't have failed. He would not lose the Hokage's son again.

"The military police that doesn't know exactly why they are patrolling around the Hokage's house or what they should be looking for?" Shikaku raised his hand sharply to silence everyone. "Was he close with any of these mystery villagers?"

"No one particularly. There were fifteen people that don't exist in the genjutsu." Inochi supplied.

"That's not possible. There must be one." Shikaku answered.

Minato felt his stomach sinking as he remembered one of their earlier conversations with Naruto. "There is one. When Kushina and I asked Naruto who he was close with he had only two answers. The Third and then his academy teacher, a man named Iruka. The problem is there aren't any villagers with the name Iruka, let alone an academy teacher."

"A teacher?" Shikaku shook his head slightly. "Anyone else? It's natural to say the hokage and a teacher cares about you as a child so we can't be certain that means anything. It may be a red herring."

"Not that he told us." Minato shook his head. It was like grasping for straws in the dark.

Inochi was silent for a moment. "The character of Iruka Umino saved Naruto once when he was younger. In the genjutsu, Takigakura spies attacked him and Iruka saved him and then reprimanded Naruto. He was the first villager to show he cared about Naruto and gave him his aspiration to be hokage. He was also the reason the fox was able to break out at the end." Inochi held himself perfectly still as his words settled in. He felt so stupid. How could he have missed this? It was so obvious. He closed his eyes tightly trying to bring the image of the fake ninja to his mind.

"What do you mean the reason the fox was able to break out? You told me it was hazy, Inochi." Shikaku asked hoarsely. This was bad. Inspiring someone. Changing their life. That's a bond that's near impossible to break. Naruto had a strong bond with this mystery person who it seemed was very likely to be one of Naruto's captors.

The man shifted awkwardly, "It was hazy, but the Iruka character was there when Naruto was being attacked which allowed the fox to spike his chakra. It was hazy, but it was when the genjutsu version of Mizuki was going to finish off Iruka that Naruto's determination and chakra spiked. The fox came out when Naruto went to protect the man. I couldn't really see the face of Iruka, I never saw the man at all before, and Mizuki was hazy at this time as well so I didn't realize." Inochi shook his head. "I thought it was the influence of the fox."

Minato shook his head to stop Inochi. As much as he wanted to be angry with the other man, he should have realized it as well. Nothing would help this now except to gather as much information as they could. "Now we know who it will be. We need you to write down everything you know about him Inochi. Everything."

"Did you see any of the letter, Itachi?" Shikaku shifted the focus back to the younger man.

"Only the word: genocide." Itachi answered quickly.

"We believe it may be the Senju genocide." Fugaku supplied. "Naruto also took a history book that spanned the few years before the second war to the peace before the third war. I didn't know they had contacted him when I gave him permission to take the book."

"Then it can't be the Senju genocide. That was long before the second war." Shikaku shook his head.

"I startled him when he had first taken the book. I think he probably didn't realize it was not covered in the book."

"We have to find out for sure and we need to make sure they can't contact the boy again." Shikaku drummed his fingers on his leg. "Hokage-sama, you need to watch him closely and get as close to him as you can. I'm going to be blunt here, you need to bond with him sir and you haven't done it yet."

Naruto drummed his fingers on the page. It was all there. How had he not known about this? And who was lying? Was Iruka-sensei—or the man that played him lying? Was the book lying? How was he supposed to know? But what he was told made more sense then what was in the history books in front of him. And politics were a lot more complicated and dirty than he realized before. Underneath the underneath. He'd heard his father—the Forth Hokage—discuss some things with his mother about the other countries' politics that really surprised him, but could Konoha be that bad? Was it really rotten?

A knock on his door startled him.

"Hi Naruto, can I come in?" His mother's voice drifted through the door moments before the door. It was a habit that his mother had and he was still trying to get used to. He really didn't need to respond because she would come in anyway.

"Yeah." His voice squeaked embarrassingly.

Kushina swept into the room before he could hide the book. "What are you looking at?" The red head snatched the book from the bed, looking at the section he was reading. The wild energy that seemed to always flow through her evaporated. "Oh." She shut the book and took a seat next to her son. She wasn't sure what to say for a moment. This wasn't how she watched to discuss this with her son. "Who told you?"

"Told me?" Naruto asked slowly. Was she going to tell him the truth? Did she know? Why would she stay here if she had known?

"That I'm from the Land of Whirlpools. I wanted to wait until you were more settled in before introducing you to the clan history and techniques. I guess I knew I would have to start here sometime." Kushina felt herself beginning to babble.

Naruto was dumbfounded for a moment. She was from Whirlpool? That meant he was as much a part of Whirlpool as he was Fire. "I didn't know. I was just reading. So I could have been born in Uzushiogakure?"

Kushina laughed. "Well I wouldn't have met your father if I didn't come to Konoha, so probably not." She sobered quickly. She could still remember that time. And then getting the news that everyone was gone, they were gone and Uzumaki's destroyed. "I probably would have come even if Amegakure hadn't attacked. Mito-sama needed the next jailer for the fox. But if it hadn't happened, you would have spent some time studying in Uzushiogakure as an Uzumaki it's a right of passage to do your sealing studies at the ancestral home."

Naruto nodded. His mother had brought up Mito-sama before. "Why did Amegakure destroy Uzushiogakure?"

Kushina sighed, looking up at the ceiling. That was a complicated question and she wasn't sure there was anything she could explain to him easily. "Amegakure was angry at the influx of refugees and the damage done after the First Shinobi War."

Naruto cocked his head to the side. That's what the book had said as well, but it didn't make sense. The excuse in the book was weak. "But why attack Whirlpool?"

Kushina shrugged uncomfortably. It was something she had thought about before, but people weren't always reasonable in times of war. "To hurt Konoha I assume. The Uzumaki's were strong and feared because of their superior sealing techniques so a surprise attack of one of Konoha's major allies would cripple them in the following war."

Naruto sighed. "But I don't understand. How could they even get in? If the Uzumaki were so feared for their seals how did they get in to destroy them? And why not just attack Konoha? Why wipe out Whirlpool? Why specifically attack the Uzumakis?"

Kushina shook her head. It was late and she hadn't expected to walk into this. She wasn't prepared for this conversation. And it was still raw. Decades had past and she still felt the pain strongly. The pain of knowing she would never see her parents or brother again was crippling. "Those are good questions, Naruto. All I can tell you is that anger isn't always rational." She sighed. "It's late. We can talk more about it tomorrow." She stood quickly, running a hand absently over her son's hair before leaving the room. Tomorrow she would explain it better. She couldn't answer all his questions but she could help him try to understand and help teach him the culture that had been so brutally ripped from them.