A Brother

by The Right Stop

Many have heard the story of Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths, but barely any have heard the story of his brother Naruto Ōtsutsuki, the Elemental Sage. God-like Naruto.

10. Chapter 10

Title: The Brother

By: The Right Stop

"Humans Speaking"

'Human Thinking'

"Human Telepathy"

Jutsu in Use

"Bijū/Non-Human Talking"

'Bijū/Non-Human Thinking'

"Bijū/Non-Human Telepathy"

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Chapter Ten

Appearing back in the Forest of Death, Naruto took a second to breathe a sigh, feeling his shoulders sag as an invisible weight was lifted off them. He'd done it; he'd righted a wrong that had haunted him for a number of years. Kurama was finally free.

The white-haired man felt better than he had in a long time, his conscious felt clean.

The weight in his arms made Naruto shift his focus back to the person he was carrying, Mito Uzumaki, the former jinchūriki of the Kyūbi. She was incredibly still, like a corpse, except she was breathing and warm, the only sign that she was alive, otherwise, one might have mistaken her for being dead. However, she wasn't exactly living either, though if you wanted to get into it technically, she was alive, but specifically, she was in a coma. Something that could last for days, weeks, months or years, sometimes even decades.

If Naruto had been anyone else, he would have rushed her to the hospital to get them to try and wake her quickly. If Naruto had been a 'medic-nin' he would have cursed himself for putting her in this condition before trying to rouse her from her coma before making her rest as to not strain her body.

However, he was Naruto Ōtsutsuki, the brother of the legendary Sage of Six Paths, he had fought a primordial deity and won, he had survived the test of time and to an extent, defeated death itself.

Waking someone from a coma was only too easy for a man of his skills, though that didn't mean that he'd tell anyone that Mito had collapsed into a coma, that was something that Naruto would keep to himself.

Placing the red-haired woman on the ground, Naruto placed both hands over Mito's face, so that his palms were almost just touching skin. As he did, Naruto began to channel Kenton (Health Release) chakra directly into Mito's head and therefore, brain. Contrary to what one might think when they first hear about Kenton, the specific kekkei tōta doesn't only affect the more physical aspects of someone's health when applied; it also has the ability to heal the psychological damage that a person may gain. While a coma isn't a completely psychological affliction, it a partly psychological disorder, and since Kenton chakra has the ability to heal both physical and psychological illness, it makes it the perfect solution to heal Mito's condition.

However, unlike Naruto's own medical chakra, which only has the ability to heal physical wounds, the user of Kenton chakra has to know exactly what needs healing and where, it doesn't have the ability to seek out what pains the victim like Naruto's medical chakra, though when the two are combined, all problems are solved.

It took a few minutes for Mito to awaken from her coma, not that she was aware that she had been in a coma, for her, it would have been only seconds between when she was last awake and the present.

Mito's eyes fluttered open and she let out a groan, raising her hand to massage her head, though Naruto didn't particularly know why, his Kenton chakra should have healed any sort of headache that she might have been feeling. Perhaps it was an automatic reaction.

"Wha... What happened?" Mito groaned as she sat up, cradling her head in hands. Her head was swimming, her brain was processing things too fast for any of it to stick. Calculations, theories, all of it seemed to just race around her head, just out of reach for her comprehend what it was. It was like a constant headache that didn't feel like a headache.

"I knocked you out so that you wouldn't have to deal with the pain of the extraction, but you regained consciousness during the procedure and your brain made you lose consciousness again to escape the pain." Naruto's voice managed to find its way to her ears despite her brain still racing through calculations, though it was now beginning to rapidly decrease, like a sugar rush starting to wear off a child. "We are now back in the Forest of Death, I woke you up a few minutes ago." Turning to look at Naruto, Mito processed what he had just said.

"So...The Kyūbi is gone?" She asked faintly, whether she was still weak for some reason or simply having hard time believing that Kurama was no longer sealed inside her, Naruto didn't know, but he nodded anyway. Mito gave a small smile. "Thanks." She murmured before she fell back, asleep.

Naruto gave sigh, despite being able to heal her mental, Mito would still feel the mental exhaustion of what had transpired in the last few hours. Being a near-immortal as well as being incredibly isolated for so long with only himself or bijū for company, Naruto had grown used to those he was around to be a bit more...Durable? Resilient?

Either way, Mito fainting like she did seriously annoyed him to no end and Naruto didn't truly know why, sure he was annoyed at her fainting, but it was something that he expected, yet even as he rationalised that she wasn't as tough as him, Naruto still felt annoyance at how easily she fainted. Being alive as long as he had, Naruto has had more than enough time to be observe, experience and be exposed to some of the most painful things in the mortal world, some of them happened accidentally like when he let his guard down when he shouldn't have while other times it was more deliberate, like the period in his life when Naruto began to create, test and use poisons. The time only lasted for about a decade or so but it was enough for Naruto to become incredibly knowledgeable in the art.

During that time, Naruto made some of the most deadly poisons known to man, even to this day, shinobi use many of his poisons for assassinations or to wear their opponents down quickly in battle. This only a decade or two after Kazama and Mushia had both passed away, during one of the darkest times in Naruto's life, one that Naruto had locked the memories of it away into the darkest recesses of his mind. Brought on by his spiralling depression from the deaths of Kazama and Mushia, it was a period when Naruto revelled in the pain of others, a time when Naruto wanted others to feel the pain that he had felt through his life. That period of time was one that Naruto still had nightmares about, a time when his dark side had reared its ugly head and shown Naruto just how far he could fall and what damage that Naruto could cause.

Naruto eventually managed to pull himself from his obsession with poisons and became horrified at what he had created as well as what he had done, so much so that Naruto tried his best to destroy all evidence of what Naruto had created, not wanting to leave even an atom of what he had done left, but it had all been for naught. During the midst of the dark time, Naruto had begun to sell his poisons to the public, to soldiers, to anyone with coin, as well as the recipe that he had used to make them, he then sat back and watched as people put on another into agony, torturing each other. Naruto took advantage of the fighting that had once again begun to grip the land and used his poisons to add fuel to the fire. Naruto could have sworn that he could hear the screams of the tortured and the glee in the laughter of torturers echo throughout the world

In his darkened state, it was bliss to his ears.

Now, it made him want to be sick.

Within a year, Naruto's poison recipe had managed to spread all over the Elemental Nations, making it impossible to get rid of his poisons completely. Naruto thought that Kami must have intervened at one point because his most powerful and potent poisons had remained absent from the poisons that Naruto had sold to the rest of the world. Even so, Naruto had almost broken down completely from the realisation of what he had done, of all the pain and suffering that he had caused himself, for a period, Naruto had contemplated taking his own life.

Thankfully, Naruto had managed to put that period behind him and tired to set things right as well as he could. For the next decade, Naruto had dedicated himself to creating antidotes to all of his poisons, for both those that he had sold to the Elemental Nations and those that Naruto had kept to himself. That then incited another period that Naruto spent as a healer, travelling the Elemental Nations and healing people as went, one so renowned that he was still known today, albeit under a different name. The rest of the world called him the Wandering Angel, because of his white hair. quite ironic when he was the one who created the poisons that he purged from people's systems.

To this day, Naruto still had those same poisons that he had made, all those years ago, stored on his arm, a stasis seal preserving them. Since that time all those years ago, Naruto had never made another poison, only antidotes, but even so, Naruto kept those poisons that he made, as a reminder of a time passed. Naruto had used the poisons of course, otherwise he wouldn't have stasis seals on them, saving the deadly toxins for those that Naruto thought truly deserved a terrible death. It had only happened seven times, and all seven times, those men, and in one case, woman, had begged for death by the end.

Naruto shook his head to take himself out of those dark thoughts, now was not a time to get lost in memories, he could do that when he was dead. Naruto ignored the voice at the back of his head that had whispered, 'When will that be?'.

Naruto knelt down and scooped up Mito so that he was carrying the woman in both arms before he moved off towards the entrance of the disused training ground, flaring his chakra to scare of the forest's large inhabitants, he was not in any mood for them.

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Hashirama was nervous.

That much was obvious from his almost frantic pacing as he tried to pass the time until Mito and Naruto got back, which he knew they would. While Tobirama might still be slightly sceptical of the skills that Naruto possessed, being doubtful of anything that he believes is impossible unless he sees it with his own two eyes, Hashirama had seen Naruto in battle and knew that the man had the power of a god at his finger tips and knew that only the entire world going against him would be able to take him down.

Even so, it didn't help the nervousness that Hashirama still felt, what if something went wrong? What if Naruto calculated something wrong? What if the Kyūbi tricked Naruto and killed Mito? There were so many things that could go wrong.

Hashirama had first spent some time reading, trying to pass the time until his wife returned but quickly found that he couldn't, his mind constantly wandered back to whether Mito would be okay or not. Unlike Tobirama, Haru and Miki, Hashirama didn't have things to keep him busy, he couldn't bury himself in work like he was sure Tobirama was doing in order to hide his own feeling of nervousness, he couldn't be occupied by Tsunade like Miki and Haru were, or he could but he wanted to let the small family have their own moment.

So instead, he was pacing in the Hokage's office, formerly his own by now his brother's, waiting for news about Mito or Naruto. Tobirama had already informed all of duty chunin and jōnin that if they saw Mito or a man with white hair and a cloak that they were too inform either Tobirama or Hashirama at once. They had left the genin out of it, seeing as they would most likely be training or be on D-rank missions around the village.

Tobirama was sitting at his desk working on some kind of new unit that he was looking to create in Konoha, from what Hashirama had managed to squeeze out of his brother, it was supposed to be a position above jōnin, acting as a kind of unofficial task force for the village. The idea was still incredibly rough and defiantly needed to be cleaned up in several areas but it had promise.

But discussing Tobirama's idea for a new position to be added in the ranking of the village wasn't enough to completely distract Hashirama from his original troubles, thoughts about how Mito was still popped up in the former Hokage's head. Eventually, Hashirama had simply began to pace once more from one side of the office to the other.

Tobirama was beginning to get annoyed with his brother's pacing, his brother's constant movements kept catching the eye of the highly skilled shinobi and it distracting Tobirama from his musings about this new group that he was creating. He understood that his brother would be worried about his wife, Tobirama knew that he would be exactly the same if he had a wife, but right now, Hashirama was really getting on Tobirama's last nerves.

"Hashirama," Tobirama barked from his spot behind the Hokage's desk. "Stop pacing. I understand that you're worried for Mito's safety but pacing like that won't do anything." Hashirama stopped at his brother's words and let out a sigh.

"I understand that Tobirama but I can't stop worrying for Mito, I keep thinking that something is going to go wrong." Hashirama moved a hand through his hair while Tobirama raised an eyebrow as he looked at his brother.

"You're doubting Naruto's abilities or the sincerity of the man?" He asked a bit disbelievingly. "I thought that you were the one trying to get me to believe in Naruto? What happened?"

Hashirama simply waved off Tobirama's question. "I trust Naruto completely, what I'm worried about is something going wrong. The Kyūbi could attack Mito as soon as it is released, other shinobi could interfere, Naruto might make a mistake, it those sort of things that are starting to stress me out Tobirama." Hashirama let out another sigh before he continued in a quiet voice. "I just...I just wish that I could be next to her, Tobirama. I wish I could hold her hand. You remember what happened after Mito sealed the Kyūbi inside of her..." Tobirama didn't any reminding about what Hashirama was talking about. Around three years after Mito had sealed the Kyūbi inside of herself, both Mito and Hashirama tried for another baby, wanting to add another life to their family.

Everything up to the child birth went smoothly.

On the night when Mito's water broke, she said that she was experiencing incredible pains coming from her stomach, saying that it felt like a hot knife was digging into her stomach but it was simply passed off as stomach cramps or simply something Mito ate. During the birth, when she could, Mito commented that it was far more painful than when she gave birth to Haru, that should have been a sign for Hashirama that something was wrong, that something was wrong with the birth, but he pushed it all to the side as Mito began giving birth. It was then that Hashirama knew that something was defiantly wrong, when Mito had given birth to Haru there was barely any pain except near the very end, Mito's Uzumaki vitality keeping away most of the pain, but immediately, Mito began to scream in pain, something that haunted Hashirama's nightmares for almost a year afterwards.

Hashirama knew that something was wrong at that point, but there was nothing that he could other than hold Mito's hand as she went through birthing of what would be their second child, whispering soothing words into her ear as the medics did their job. Hashirama himself wasn't allowed to be involved because he didn't know what to do during child birth, despite his skill in iryō ninjutsu.

But it didn't get better, Mito's voice began to rise as more and more pain crept into her screams, the medic-nins began to panic as Mito lost more and more blood. It looked more and more likely that Mito, despite her Uzumaki heritage, wouldn't survive the child birth. Yet despite this, Hashirama kept encouraging his wife, giving her strength, telling her to push through the pain and simply keeping her going.

In the end, it seemed like Hashirama's words worked, Mito managed to give birth, albeit barely, having held on by the skin of her teeth, her Uzumaki heritage letting her hang on. Hashirama wanted to rejoice in his wife making it through what have must been a complicated pregnancy but as he looked towards the iryō-nin in charge of the operation, Hashirama felt his heart sink at the grim look on the man's face. His heart was then torn in two when the Shodai heard the news, the baby exhibited no signs of life, the doctors theorised that the baby died in the womb and that the sharp pains that Mito was feeling as her water broke being the death of the child. An autopsy later showed that it was an influx of demonic chakra caused the poor child's heart to give out, but regardless, Mito was shattered.

Hashirama at first felt anger, which quickly morphed into pure, raw hate for the Kyūbi for what it did, but a study of the seal by Mito proved that the Kyūbi was not at fault. As it turned out, when Mito changed the seal, she used the strongest seal she knew at the time, which, while having enough power to restrain the Kyūbi, couldn't keep it up under stress, so when Mito gave birth the seal began to weaken considerably, leaking demonic chakra into Mito's system. It wasn't much for Mito, being a full grown person, and an Uzumaki to boot, with strong chakra system, but it overwhelmed the body of the child, killing it as Mito began to give birth.

Her heart wrenching sobs echoed around the Senju compound for days, it was the bleakest time of Hashirama's life, more so than when his younger brothers died in his childhood but even then, Hashirama's own sadness couldn't have compared to Mito's own. Hashirama and Mito then both, without words, agreed not to have another child, despite how much they both wanted another child, so instead, they doted on their first child, trying to bury the pain they both felt with love for their son. Neither of them told Haru that he would have had brother, none of them wanted to bring up painful memories.

This was one of the major reasons for letting Naruto try to extract the Kyūbi, Hashirama knew that Mito wanted another child, one that she could hold in her arms and cuddle up to. Hashirama knew that he was most likely going to die long before Mito did, his shinobi lifestyle and Mito's Uzumaki heritage only made that more likely. He wanted to give Mito another child before he became too old, and Naruto provided that chance. Many would call him selfish, but Hashirama would do anything for his precious people, and Mito was at the top of that list.

"I have no idea what you're through Hashirama," Tobirama's voice broke Hashirama out of his thoughts. "But know Mito would not want you to worry. I'm sure that both of them are safe and are on their way." As if on cue, a chunin burst through the door.

"Shodai-sama! Nidaime-sama! The man you were asking for has returned to the village! He is carrying Mito-sama and is making his way to the hospital-" Hashirama didn't wait for the chunin to finish speaking, he had already pushed the man out of the door way and was sprinting out of the Hokage Tower towards the hospital. Tobirama was also on his way there but took his time to dismiss the chunin before rushing out, hot on Hashirama's heels.

Pelting through the village, Hashirama made it to the hospital to quickly that most that were already there simply thought he had appeared out of nowhere, but Hashirama paid them all no mind and quickly made his way inside the hospital and towards the reception. The woman at the front desk looked visibly startled as the world famous man made his way towards her with a purpose.

"Excuse me miss," Hashirama said as he neared the reception. "But I am looking for my wife, Mito Uzumaki, I believe that she was admitted her recently and I would like to know the room that she was admitted to." The First Hokage's voice meant business and the woman picked up on it quickly, flipping through the registry before she stopped on a page, her finger scrolled through the names.

"Hai, Shodai-sama, Uzumaki-sama was admitted to room twelve." The woman gave out the information quickly to the shinobi before the man made his way towards to room just as Tobirama made his way through the doors of the hospital. As he travelled through the hospital, Hashirama breathed a sigh of relief, room twelve was a recovery room, usually for those that had just come out of surgery or for those that had simply broken a bone and were waiting for it to heal. If Mito was in that room, it meant that she was most likely simply exhausted or was simply resting, there was a small part at the back of Hashirama's mind that whispered that it might be more serious than that, but Hashirama quickly and ruthlessly squashed that thought like a bug. Mito would be fine. If she wasn't then she wouldn't be in there.

The 'Shinobi no Kami' felt his brother pull up alongside him as he made his way towards Mito's room. Tobirama's presence helped quell Hashirama's nerves slightly but he knew that knowing the sate of his wife was the only that would completely get rid of them. Approaching the door to the room, Hashirama took a deep breath before knocking and opening the door, entering the room.

The first thing that caught Hashirama's gaze was Mito, laying on the bed directly in site of the door, unconscious, the man immediately rushed towards his wife's side, grabbing her hand. Tobirama entered a moment later but unlike his brother, who rushed to his wife's bedside, the Second Hokage eyed room before his eyes landed on Naruto, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

"What happened?" Tobirama questioned the ancient man, catching the attention of Hashirama who looked up directly at Naruto, the former Hokage's eyes telling Naruto that he wanted to know exactly the same thing. Naruto released a breath before he began explaining.

"I took Mito away to a secluded place in the Land of Rivers, once there, Mito expelled all of her chakra from her system at which point I then knocked her unconscious so that she wouldn't feel any pain during the unsealing." Naruto explained, though he didn't miss the darkening expressions on the face of Hashirama and Tobirama when he mentioned that he knocked Mito out, but the expressions lightened when he said that it was prevent most of the pain registering. "However, she regain consciousness halfway through the process, she promptly blacked out from the pain." Naruto noticed Hashirama wince at the mention of that and tighten his grip around Mito's hand. Most likely feeling bad that he couldn't comfort his wife during her moment of pain. "After she did, I proceeded to remove the Kyūbi from Mito at which point it left, I then took Mito back to the place that we left from originally and carried her to the hospital. That's it."

"So the Kyūbi is gone?" Hashirama questioned. "It won't try for revenge for sealing it away? It won't ever come back?"

Naruto turned to look at Hashirama with a piercing gaze. "As long as Konoha doesn't antagonise the Kyūbi then yes, the Nine-Tails will leave Konoha alone."

"I find that hard to believe," Injected Tobirama. "The Kyūbi is referred to as a 'walking natural disaster' for a reason. It won't just stop attacking places simply even if we leave it alone."

"It won't attack anywhere for at least awhile," Naruto insisted. "Trust me on this." Hashirama and Tobirama exchanged looks, seeming to have a conversation simply with their eyes before the elder of the two made a head gesture towards Naruto while the other let loose a sigh.

"Very well," Tobirama relented as he turned towards Naruto. "I'll trust your judgement for now."

"Thank you Tobirama." Naruto nodded his head towards the current Hokage as the man did the same and the room then descended into a comfortable silence for the first time.

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Mito had been unconscious for half an hour before Haru opened the door and stepped into the room, immediately taking in the appearance of the three people already in his mother's room.

"Anyone want to tell me why I wasn't told that my mother was in the hospital?" Haru's voice displayed his annoyance perfectly. Both Naruto and Tobirama turned to look at Hashirama, who just blinked at the two gazes turned his way before he connected the dots.

"Hey!" He said indignantly. "Why are both looking at me?"

"He's your son." Was Tobirama's answer, leaving out the fact that he was Haru's godfather as well as uncle.

"I known him for less than a week and I don't know where he spends his time." Naruto left out the fact that he could have easily located the man should he have actually tried to find him.

"Sure, dump the blame on me." Hashirama grumbled. Haru seemed to ignore the conversation around him and moved to the side of his mother that his father was occupying, taking his mother's other hand. "Where's Miki?" Hashirama questioned his son after a brief silence.

"At home." Haru answered, not taking his eyes of his mother's face, she seemed so peaceful. "Tsunade was kicking up a bit of a fuss and Miki didn't want to bring her along in case she began to cry." Hashirama nodded at the answer.

"I will let you all have your moment." Naruto said as he walked towards the door and left the room, but before he could fully, Tobirama called out to him.

"Naruto, go to the Hokage's tower in a few hours, I'll be there to talk over a few things with you." Naruto gave a curt nod in Tobirama direction before he exited the room and then the hospital. He felt like he should give the family some time to themselves, there was obviously some remaining tension between Hashirama and Haru which made Naruto feel slightly uncomfortable being in the same room as the two. It reminded Naruto of the situation between Hagoromo and his mother before they went to face the Jūbi. The uncomfortable silence, the shouting match the other day and the refusal for either side to apologise or to simply agree not to bring up the topic, all of that remind Naruto of the time between fighting the Jūbi and moving away from the monastery. Hell, if there were conflicting beliefs then Naruto could almost say that it was history repeating itself.

Either way, the situation between the Shodai and his son was not something that Naruto wanted to get involved in, family arguments, especially ones that could resemble his own with a few changes, were something that Naruto kept away from.

As he exited the hospital, Naruto decided to explore the other 'training grounds', if there was training ground forty-four then there must be at least forty-three other training grounds. So Naruto decided that he would visit the other training grounds today so he had something to keep him occupied for a time.

Naruto decided that he would simply wander around until he found one, without using his powers, sometimes it was more fun to simply stumble onto something that to search for it in the first place and besides, Konoha was an incredibly large place so it must have some kind of secrets waiting to be found. It had been a long time since Naruto had been able to explore anything properly, his long life gave him ample time to explore any nook or cranny that the world had, though Naruto would never say that he knew everything about the world. That was something that Naruto doubted he'd ever be able to say.

Wandering around the streets became quite enjoyable when Naruto didn't have anywhere to go, simply taking in the sights and sounds that Konohagakure had to offer. It was quite different from the many towns that inhabited the world with the sense of security making Konoha's citizens relax more than they would in the outside world.

Ninja prowled the roof tops, acting as a visible source of security for the civilians, using chakra enhanced leaps to skip the gaps between the roof tops as if they were nothing. If Naruto didn't know better, he would almost think that they were advertising the ninja lifestyle to civilians, trying the encourage them to become ninja by blatantly using their prowess with chakra in full view of the citizens as if to say, 'look how cool we are, being a ninja is awesome'. Naruto felt he was going to get sick when that thought entered his head and immediately banished it to the far corner of his mind, but, as he looked around, noticing the ninja abilities in full view of civilians, the shinobi stores that were opened to public and not shinobi only, Naruto could only wonder if he had unintentionally stumbled onto the truth. Naruto would bring it up with Tobirama later, he hoped that man said otherwise, or had some very good answers.

Focusing back on the village around him, Naruto had to wonder just how long something like Konoha would last, against the test of time, against the coming war and most likely other wars that would follow, Naruto didn't know any of this, but he could only pray that it would last for the citizens that inhabited Konoha and called the hidden village home. They all simply wanted a place that they could sleep in with both eyes closed instead of the one always opened when they were in the outside world.

After fifteen minutes of wandering, Naruto eventually began to hear the sound of metal clashing with metal, he saw the trees began to become more numerous and could only assume that he was nearing the training grounds, or at least one of the training grounds. Walking the direction of the clashing metal, Naruto could only hope that the shinobi currently occupying the training ground he was walking to were okay to share, if not, then simply stay anyway, it wasn't like they could make him leave.

When the training ground came into view, was met with a situation that he didn't know how to proceed into. Three figures were clashing in the middle of the training ground that he had arrived at, the sound of metal on metal was echoing around the clearing as three human-shaped blurs clashed again and again.

To a normal civilian, the three obvious shinobi would have looked like blurs but to Naruto, someone who could go faster than many could blink, it almost looked like they were moving in slow motion. Looking around the clearing, Naruto could see that numerous trees were marked with cuts from sharp weaponry, while others were burned, signalling the use of jutsu. Upturned earth, various patches of mud, scorch marks and several cut trees and branches said that the other four elements were also used in the clearing. Naruto didn't know what the various smashed trees were however, they looked like they were hit by human sized bodies.

As if on cue, a feminie grunt of pain was made from the three fighting shinobi, Naruto focused back on the fight just in time to spot one of the figures fly through the air and smash into one of trees at the edge of the clearing before landing on the ground. Now he knew what caused the other trees to get destroyed.

As the figure got back up, Naruto managed to get a good look at them. The first thing that was obvious was that the person was a female, her slender facial features and long hair did nothing to detract from that fact. Her hair was held up in a bun with a hair pin, though with ninja, Naruto was almost certainly sure that the hair pin could double up a senbon, a needle like weapon, if the situation called for it. Her body armour, which Naruto was sure was now standard around Konoha, consisted of a grey breastplate, arm guards and a forehead protector, though Naruto wasn't sure that the last one countered as armour. Underneath the armour, she wore a black outfit with fishnet tights under a skirt with plain black sandals that appeared to be modified specifically for shinobi. However, none of at apparel looked to be in the best condition, the armour having numerous cuts and nicks along with a visible dent on one side while her clothes had cuts littered along the arms, legs and what was visible of her collarbone, several of them looked like they had drawn blood. Her face had several scrapes and bruises, not surprising when one considers the rest of her clothing. The woman appeared to be about eighteen or so, this didn't surprise Naruto all that much, he knew that many shinobi clans started training their children early for combat, and though she wasn't that young, Naruto knew that she would have had to start young to be able to obtain the skill that she displayed when she was fighting the other two people in the training ground.

The woman tried to life herself off of the ground but only managed to get half way before she winced and held the side of body that had the dent in her armour.

"Damn it Hiruzen," She called out to the two other figures that hadn't stopped fighting. "That punch hurt, I think you cracked a rib." She winced again as she sat back down, slowly removing her breastplate to inspect the injury. The other two figures in the clearing, who Naruto could only guess were her team mates, stopped fighting, allowing Naruto to also get a good look at the two of them. Both of them jumped back, disengaging, before turning to their female companion.

The first person Naruto laid eyes on was male, as was the person that they were fighting. He had short, medium length brown hair that fell over his forehead protector, just touching his shoulders. Glasses covered his eyes, quite strange considering that he was a ninja, he could be severally weakened if his glasses were broken or his glasses were stolen from his face, though that was on the assumption that his vision was horrible. The man wore almost the same clothes and armour as his female team mate, consisting of a simple black outfit with grey armour protecting the chest, shoulders and outer thighs, arm guards. A dull green scarf was wrapped around his neck and a pouch strapped to his waist with bandages while a kunai holster was on his upper right leg. He wore the same type of sandals as the woman of the group, leading Naruto to believe that they were part of some sort of common uniform. He looked about the same age as his other two team mates making him around eighteen, the only other thing that Naruto could make out was that the man seemed to have a permanent frown on his face. A kunai was held in his hand, presumably, that was the weapon that the three of them had been using.

Naruto assumed that the second male of the group was 'Hiruzen' due to the sheepish look on his face as he gazed at the only woman in the area. Hiruzen wore a grey steel breastplate with shoulder guards, grey arm guards, faulds covering his upper legs, quite similar to what Hashirama and Madara used to wear in a way. A pouch was strapped to his lower back with bandages and a standard forehead protector located on his forehead along with a kunai holster on his upper right leg. He had short, spiky, brown hair that stood up in the air along with brown eyes that weren't behind glasses like his male team mate. Naruto could tell that this 'Hiruzen' was the leader of the three of them, his stance, even when he was apologising for his team mate, told Naruto that he had both confidence and power, something every leader needed in order to be affective. A kunai were held in his hands, either he was already using them or he managed to take the other one out of his injured team mate.

"Ah," Hiruzen managed sheepishly. "Sorry Koharu." He addressed the only female of the team. "I didn't mean to put that much force behind that punch. That was completely by accident."

"That's also what you said all the other times as well Hiruzen." The woman, Koharu, snapped. "Just give me a minute, I'm going to have to expend a bit of chakra to heal-" She was cut off by her other male team mate with the green scarf.

"Hiruzen. Koharu." He called out. When his two companions then turned to look at him, the unnamed male then gave a gestured with his head in Naruto's direction. "We have an audience."

'Finally,'Naruto mentally sighed. 'I didn't think that I had hidden my chakra that well.' The two other team mates then snapped their heads around to look at Naruto's direction before becoming visibly startled, apparently not expecting someone to be able to sneak up on them. It was the injured member of the trio that addressed him first.

"Oh, sorry Hyūga-san, we didn't know that you were there." While Naruto was startled at being called 'Hyūga-san' he didn't allow the surprise to be displayed on his features, though, as he got over the shock, he should have realised that someone would have addressed him as such. Without his blindfold, Naruto could be mislabelled as a Hyūga due to his white eyes, and while he did have the Byakugan, Naruto had no desire to be thrown in with the rest of Mushia's descendants. He was quite ashamed of them if anything, enslaving family was an incredible offense in Naruto's book, and until the clan changed or someone was born that was against the branding of 'branch' house members with the 'Caged Bird' seal, Naruto would never associate formally with that clan unless it was necessary.

"Don't worry," Naruto waved her off. "I'm not from the Hyūga clan."

"Huh." Was the general response for the three of them before the unnamed one spoke.

"But you have the Byakugan," He said with a little disbelief. "How can you not be in the Hyūga clan?" Naruto simply gave a small chuckle at man.

"Because I don't have the Byakugan." Naruto said, startling all of them. "I'm actually blind." Naruto went with the lie that he originally gave Hashirama and Madara, he didn't actually know if Hashirama still believed that he was blind and that he could see using chakra. All three of them were shocked at the answer.

"But then how do you see?" Hiruzen asked before his team mate beside him slapped the back of his head while the last, injured team mate simply face palmed at the bluntness of her team mate, wincing as she did so, the movement aggravating her injury.

"Hiruzen," She hissed, ignoring the sharp spike of pain that she just felt in favour of berating her team mate. "You don't ask something like that straight to their face."

"It's okay Koharu-san," Naruto said, remembering her name being spoken earlier. "I use chakra to see, Hiruzen-san." Naruto said, addressing the question asked by Hiruzen.

"See," Hiruzen said to Koharu. "You and Homura always say that my questions will get me in trouble and are annoying. But unlike you two, I see the value that asking questions has." He said triumphantly while his scarf wearing friend's, Homura's, frown seemed to deepen.

"It's not that we don't see the value in questions, Hiruzen," Homura explained to his shinobi friend. "It's just that we know which questions shouldn't be asked and which ones should. Your eventually going to offend someone with your questions, you're just lucky that our visitor was not offended. Speaking of visitors," Homura then turned to look Naruto's way before asking a question. "If it is not too much trouble, may we have your name?"

Naruto simply gave a small smile before replying. "Naruto, my name is Naruto." There was no harm in giving out his name, right?

"Why'd your parents name you after a ramen topping?" Hiruzen asked, making Naruto begin to wonder if he had any control over his mouth. Naruto didn't actually know if he was meant to take that as an insult or not, it sounded like Hiruzen was simply asking a question but Naruto could detect slight amusement in his voice.

"My name means maelstrom." Naruto responded, not showing just how annoyed he was at the question. He'd been born hundreds of years before the thought of ramen was born, let alone ramen toppings, people should be asking if they named a ramen topping after him. It was all because of that bastard, Kishimoto, ruining his name like he did. Why on Kami's green earth would you use the same word for whirlpool as a ramen topping? Naruto got that they might look similar if you looked at them both at the right angle, but other than that, they had nothing in common. Couldn't Kishimoto have ruined a different name, one that wasn't Naruto, he just had to choose the name of the only person who didn't age. It was like one big joke from Kami.

"I'm sorry for my team mate's rudeness." Koharu said apologetically, while shooting daggers at her obnoxious friend, though he'd simply say he was curious. Koharu then turned her gaze to her stomach before a look of concentration appeared on her face and her hands glowed green, she pressed her hands over the injured area and let the medical chakra flow into her body and begin to heal the bone of its fracture.

Naruto had to hide a small smile while he was looking over at what Koharu was doing, if he had to name a good thing that came out of Hagoromo giving chakra, more specifically his chakra, to the world, it had to be the medical techniques that had been invented. They helped people, something that Hagoromo had been trying to do when he had originally stolen Naruto's chakra, so, in a way, Hagoromo had succeeded in making the world a better place. People were now able to heal each other from various injuries, extract poisons, diagnose illnesses and more, it was something that Naruto knew that Hagoromo would be proud of if he could see it. Though he would have to overlook the fact that he also gave the world its most powerful weapon, which was something that Naruto knew that his brother wouldn't overlook.

Shaking himself out of those thoughts, Naruto watched as Koharu slowly stood up, making sure not to go to fast in case her injury hadn't healed completely. Eventually, she managed to get to her feet before turning to face Naruto.

"So what can we do for you, Naruto-san?" Koharu asked.

"Nothing," Naruto replied. "I simply decided to visit the ninja training grounds, this was the one I stumbled upon. I will most likely have a look around before leaving." Naruto gave a nod to the team of three before moving out to the edge of the clearing, however, before he could, Hiruzen called out to him.

"Hey Naruto-san." Hiruzen called out for his attention, turning around, Naruto replied to the leader of the three before he could ask his question.

"Call me Naruto, I never liked formalities." Naruto told the young adult.

"Only if you call me Hiruzen," The brown haired man replied before he got on with the reason why he called out Naruto. "Would you like to spar with me?"

Whatever Naruto had thought Hiruzen was going to ask, a request for a spar was certainly not it. The surprise showed on his face, Naruto had never had a true spar since Hagoromo and himself used to spar when his brother was alive. The last time that Naruto had actually had a spar was when he was training Hashirama and Madara years ago, and even then, Naruto had never actually had to work at all, it was mostly simply dodging their punches with minimal speed and redirecting their punches when they got anywhere near his body.

"I'm sorry Hiruzen, I'm a civilian. You wouldn't have much of a fight." Naruto lied convincingly, he had no particular wish to fight Hiruzen, even if it was a spar, it would be pointless, Naruto himself had no reason to participate. It wasn't that Naruto didn't want to spar, its just that he saw no reason to do so, no true benefit.

"But you carry weapons so you must have training, and you said that you used chakra to see so you must have come into contact with ninja at some point." Hiruzen continued while Naruto had to refrain from narrowing his eyes. How had Hiruzen known that Naruto carried weapons? "I saw the metal glint from inside your cloak. It's okay if you don't think that your good enough, I'll go easy on you." Hiruzen said the words with teasing but Naruto could easily sense the arrogance hidden underneath.

Naruto inwardly cursed his cloak as well as his sleeves not being long enough to hide the tip of his hidden blades that were concealed on top of his forearms. That was most likely the glint of metal that Hiruzen saw. Naruto could tell that the prospect of a fight had gotten Hiruzen excited and could see that the man wasn't going to let this go. Looking towards his team mates, Naruto could see that both of them were watching how he would react, obviously they had thought about why a 'civilian' would have a weapon in a place like Konoha. Naruto couldn't tell what the conclusion that they had come to was but since they hadn't displayed any weariness then Naruto could assume that it didn't portray him in a negative light.

Turning back to Hiruzen, Naruto let out a sigh before contemplating the reasons why he should take on Hiruzen in a spar. There was the fact that the kid, in Naruto's eyes at least, needed to be knocked down a few pegs, he'd need it in order to not underestimate any of his enemies in the coming war. Teaching the shinobi some humility was also a good reason but it didn't really have any weight behind it. There was the fact that he could save the young life in front of him if he showed him just how far he had to go before he could even consider being arrogant. Naruto had visited the other hidden villages, not in the conventionally way obviously, and the ninja there were quite skilled, at least for people with such little chakra pools to draw on. Naruto didn't know how they measured up to Konoha ninja, but this kid's arrogance would be the death of him, enemy ninjas wouldn't underestimate him like he would do to others. There was also the fact that Naruto had nothing against the kid other than him being a ninja, sure he had annoyed him, but that he would eventually forget about it. Hiruzen may have been a ninja, and therefore, someone who defiled his brother's teachings, but that didn't mean that Naruto would wish death upon him, especially one as young as the man before him.

The years had shown that ninjutsu could be used for both good and evil, and while Naruto would never like the perverted art, Naruto had to admit that ninjutsu could be used for good. It wasn't so much as the ninja that Naruto hated, so much as it was ninjutsu itself that he hated, it was the perversion of his brother's dream, what his brother sacrificed his family for.

In the end, it came down to would Naruto do nothing and let this child go out onto the battlefield to die or would he at least give this child a chance at surviving the incoming war. Naruto would never admit that there was a small part of him that wanted to spar with Hiruzen.

Naruto let out another sigh, Hashirama and Tobirama better thank him for making sure that this kid stayed alive. "Fine, I'll spar with you." Naruto said, with that, he simply walked closer to the centre of the clearing before he was facing Hiruzen with several ten metres or so in between them. "And for you information, just because I said that I could use chakra doesn't mean that I am a ninja."

"Aren't you going to take out a weapon?" Hiruzen asked with confusion at why his current opponent was just standing there with no weapon out.

"Don't worry about me, worry about yourself." Naruto replied, he really hoped that Hiruzen would look back at this moment one day and be thankful that he had saved him from walking onto a battlefield to die. Naruto gave a nod to both Koharu and Homura who were at the side of the clearing, Homura then stepped forward with an arm raised.

"Are you both ready?" He questioned, he received two affirmative nods from the two before he lowered his hand. "BEGIN!"

Neither fighter moved, both simply stood there on either side of the clearing. Naruto, who simply looked like he was standing there with nothing better to do, and Hiruzen, who looked like he was in his preferred taijutsu stance judging by how quickly he fell into it.

Hiruzen eventually became sick of staying still and charged at his opponent, rushing at him at a speed similar to most chunin. To Homura and Koharu, it looked like Hiruzen was jogging towards Naruto, to Naruto himself, it looked like Hiruzen was walking in slow motion.

As his opponent neared him, rearing a fist back to punch Naruto in the stomach, Naruto reacted. Faster than any of the ninja-trained three could react, Naruto had had a large blade underneath Hiruzen's chin that somehow appeared from the sleeve of the kimono that Naruto was wearing underneath his cloak. Hiruzen could only freeze as to prevent himself from running into the blade, eyes wide, trying to think about when Naruto had moved. The two team mates on the sideline could only look on with wide eyes as the most powerful member of their trio was demolished by someone who wasn't even a ninja.

"Your first mistake was that you underestimated me as soon as I said I was a civilian, even more when you realised that I was blind despite the fact that I told you that I could see using chakra. You should have immediately assumed that I knew other elements of the shinobi arts since I had knowledge of chakra, but you didn't because you underestimated me. Never underestimate anyone, always remain vigilant of any potential threats." Naruto stated as he kept the blade to Hiruzen's neck. "Your second was that you were impatient, always remain calm in the midst of battle, otherwise you might miss something that could save your life." With that, Naruto turned around and began walking back towards the tree line that led into a forest, one much smaller than the Forest of Death, leaving three shell-shocked shinobi in his wake.

Naruto could now leave the area knowing that he had done what he could to keep Hiruzen alive, whether Hiruzen took the lessons that Naruto gave him to heart was something else entirely. However, a new problem had presented itself to Naruto, how was he going to be able to maintain his anonymity if he looked like a Hyūga? The only reason that he hadn't run into a Hyūga yet was pure luck, all it would take would be for one of them to spot him and not recognise him and his cover would be blown. Naruto had no want for the entire village to know of his presence unless it was unavoidable. Naruto had keep out of the spotlight of the world after over three millennia of life and he had no want to break that streak now.

That only really left either changing his look to make him seem like a non-Hyūga, which would only really require changing his eyes, or stay in the Forest of Death for the entirety of his stay, and the latter really wasn't what Naruto had in mind. Staying in Konohagakure was bad enough, being confined to training ground forty-four was something that would drive Naruto stir-crazy. So Naruto would have to somehow change his eye colour, which would be incredibly hard considering that the Byakugan could see though the small amount of illusions that Naruto could cast, even if they would be harder to see through than the 'genjutsu' that shinobi used.

As Naruto travelled further into the forest surround the training ground that he just walked through, in search of more training grounds to explore, he realised with curse that being able to walk around without being noticed was going to be a lot harder than he first thought.

XxXxXxXxXxX

It was hours later when Naruto emerged from the forest, finally satisfied that he had found a way to circumnavigate the Byakugan, though it was nowhere near perfect. Naruto's plan involved layering multiple illusions over his eyes, making them seem a different colour then they actually were. This was by no means a perfect solution, all it would take was a Hyūga paying close attention to Naruto's eyes with their Byakugan active and his whole plan would come apart. The illusion would be noticed immediately and with concentration, a Hyūga should be able to see through the illusion. But as long as he had no reason to make anyone study his eyes closely then he should be fine, the illusions should stop the general populace paying attention to Naruto's eyes and one shouldn't be able to undo the multiple illusions without effort which Naruto would notice, hopefully giving Naruto enough time to either hide his eyes or take out the one trying to dispel the illusion without a fuss.

That wasn't all that Naruto had done with his time in the forest, he had searched for the other training grounds that should have been posted around the area. Naruto had actually found them quite easy, unlike with training ground forty-four, all the other training grounds were grouped together so it was easy to move from training ground to training ground. It appeared that only training ground forty-four was set apart from the others.

Something Naruto found strange was that there were several training grounds that were covered by illusions, some masked the location of the training ground, making appear as a group of tightly condensed trees while others simply made them look pristine or not in use. This was most likely because many ninja liked to keep their skills secret, quite strange since ninja have gone from a group that largely operated in the shadows of the world to glorified samurai, Naruto would have thought that shinobi had lost the ability to be sneaky, apparently not.

Walking out of the training ground, Naruto looked to the sky and saw that it was beginning to near the end of the day, deciding to see what Tobirama wanted before he began his trek back to the Forest of Death, Naruto headed towards the Hokage Tower.

Naruto quickly made his way through the village towards his destination, the illusions over his eyes may make Naruto feel safer, but Naruto wasn't taking any chances.

Walking up stairs of the Hokage Tower, Naruto found himself on the top level facing a secretary with multiple chairs around the room and a door to the left of the secretary's desk.

"Can I help you?" The woman called, she looked relatively average for a woman from Fire Country, brown hair and eyes making her one of those faces that people would lose in a crowd, but even so, Naruto could tell from the slight tensing of her muscles that the woman was a trained ninja. It was fitting, in a way, to have a secretary be a skilled ninja in disguise, not something that many would expect.

"I'm here for a meeting with the Hokage." Naruto said, feeling that the ninja would take offense to him calling her Hokage, 'Tobirama' when he wasn't specifically related to him.

"Name please?" The woman asked as she opened a small book that Naruto would assume had names in it or Tobirama's orders for who could be let in.

"Naruto." Said man replied. Scrolling through the names, the woman let out an 'ah', when she found his name.

"Hokage-sama has said for you to be let in when you arrived, so you can enter now." The woman said gesturing to the door.

Naruto gave the woman a small nod before opening the door to Tobirama's office and walking through. The room was circular, that was the first thing that Naruto noticed, windows were located at the back of the room, opposite the door, only reaching the height of one's waist. A desk located on the opposite side of the room for the door with two chairs located on the other side. Seated at the desk was something that confused Naruto, there were five copies of Tobirama, all doing paperwork, grumbling to each other. To say the least, Naruto was stumped, he'd seen illusionary clones that shinobi used in battle but from what Naruto was seeing, these clones were completely solid, being able to hold pencils.

Finally, Naruto managed to get over his surprise and slight shock, deciding that he'd waited long enough for the grumbling Hokage to sense his presence, Naruto cleared his throat, successfully bringing the Nidaime out of paperwork.

Tobirama looked at the person that had knocked him out of his paperwork with slight irritation on his face. Didn't people understand how important it was for him to get this paperwork finished? All it would do was continued to pile up until he was overwhelmed, and it was still hard to do even when Tobirama had four Kage Bunshins (Shadow Clones) to help him, their ability to be solid as well as their ability to transfer all information learned back to caster were invaluable to Tobirama when he was doing paperwork. It should be though, after all, paperwork was the reason that he had created the Kage Bunshin technique in the first place.

Getting a good look at the person who interrupted him, Tobirama realised that it was Naruto. Quickly getting up and creating another Shadow clone to substitute with him, Tobirama led Naruto over to where a couch and chairs were set up on one side of the room. Tobirama claimed one of the chairs while Naruto took the couch, sitting at the end of the furniture.

"What did you want to talk about Tobirama?" Naruto started off the conversation by getting straight to the point, there was no reason to dance around why he was here.

"I wanted to talk about who you would train, as well as specify what would happen should certain scenarios occur." Tobirama replied, meeting Naruto's gaze. "I want to iron out the details now so that my successor won't have to deal with them in the future."

"You seem awfully sure that you won't make it through this war by the way that you're talking. Are you really that sure about your death?" Naruto asked curiously. While Naruto knew that it was incredibly possible for Tobirama to fall during this war, there was also a large possibility that Tobirama would survive.

"No," The Senju admitted. "I'm not sure if I will survive the coming conflict, but it is better to be prepared for the worst and it not coming rather than not prepare for the worst and it does happen." They were wise words, Naruto could admit that much. "But I wish to get on with the reason why you are here, in the event of both myself and Hashirama dying during the war, what will you do?" Tobirama questioned.

"That depends," Naruto began. "Should the war end, and the person that I am to train be an unsuitable age to be trained, I will leave the village and come back when they are. Should that person be of age then I will train them for around a year before leaving, depending on if the war is over or not by that time. Either way, I would train the person for around a year, depending on how much natural talent they have in the field I teach them in, before leaving. You have nothing to worry about Tobirama, I do not go back on my promises if I can help it." Tobirama gave a nod, he couldn't tell if Naruto was telling the truth or not but Hashirama had told him to trust Naruto's word, and now, as he sat in front of the man, Tobirama's gut was telling him the same thing.

"Very well, I will trust your word Naruto, please don't make me regret it." Taking in a deep breath, Tobirama steered the conversation back to the person that Naruto would train. "Myself, Hashirama and Haru, have all decided for Tsunade to be the one you teach when she turns ten. What you teach her is entirely up to you, in case both myself and Hashirama die in the war, Haru, Mito or Miki will inform the current Hokage of the situation before you are allowed to take Tsunade from the village to train or do whatever you need to in order to maximise her training."

"That is acceptable." Naruto nodded.

"Good..." Tobirama looked like he was going to say something else but stopped himself from speaking. Naruto saw this and raised an eyebrow, from the small time he had known Tobirama, the man had never acted like this.

"Speak you mind Tobirama, what do you wish to say?" Naruto encouraged the man to talk.

Tobirama shifted in his chair before speaking. "How do you think Konoha will be affected by the coming war? How long do you think that we could last against the other Hidden Villages should they decided to form a temporary alliance against us?" That was one of Tobirama's biggest fears for the coming war, that Suna, Iwa and Kumo, three of the strongest hidden villages, would come together to eliminate Konoha. Kiri wasn't a problem, should worst come to worse, Uzushio should be able to deal with Kiri, they certainly had the strength to so. One should never underestimate a Seal Master, even the weakest of them had the potential to turn the tide of a battle. But even the combined might of Konoha and Uzu wouldn't be enough to hold off Suna, Iwa and Kumo should they decided to join forces and end Konoha. Naruto was truly Konoha's only hope should that happen.

"In all honesty," Naruto said, breaking Tobirama out of his inner thoughts. "Konoha would perhaps last a year or so should that happen, but that also depends on the reason why the other villages join together. If it's because they wish to eliminate a strong village at the beginning, perhaps a year, if Konoha is doing well in the war and the other three feel threatened, two years or so, but if it's because the other villages smell blood in the water, I would estimate less than a year. Thought from the little of Konoha's shinobi that I've seen, arrogance might be Konoha's downfall." The last part was murmured but Tobirama still caught the words.

"What do you mean 'arrogance might be Konoha's downfall'?" Tobirama questioned Naruto.

Naruto blinked. "After parting from the hospital I ran into three shinobi, one had incredible arrogance that he thought that because I was a civilian that I was harmless, despite the fact that he knew I had some skill with a weapon and knew how to use chakra. His arrogance astounded me." Naruto finished his little rant with a huff. Arrogance was the downfall of anyone with power that didn't know the limitations of it. "I soundly beat him in a spar, so I hope that my intended lesson gets through to him."

"Do you know what both the shinobi and his team mates looked like?" Tobirama inquired. Arrogant shinobi were something that Tobirama couldn't afford to have at this time, with war on the horizon, while Tobirama had not actively tried to get rid of arrogance inside his ranks, he usually tried to eliminate arrogance whenever he could. He couldn't help but wonder who it was though, Tobirama only knew one shinobi who was still arrogant after a meeting with him, but it could be any one in the village.

"A shinobi called Hiruzen and his team mates, Koharu and Homura." Naruto answered and Tobirama had to suppress a sigh, bringing a hand up to rub his head. "I take it that you know them." Naruto presumed.

"Yes," Tobirama admitted. "Hiruzen, Koharu and Homura are my genin team." Seeing the blank look on Naruto's face, Tobirama explained. "When a ninja reaches the rank of jōnin, they are required to take on a genin team, a team consisting of three new ninja that are selected from three different clans, they are taken from clans that allow their children to become genin. The jōnin is then expected to train that genin team until they can reach chunin through a field promotion or once I feel that they have the right skills, however, genin choose to remain as teams even after they have achieved the rank of chunin. Once the chunin then become jōnin they are then expected to take a genin team, like a cycle. However, no ninja is expected to pass on clan techniques, unless the clan head allows them to." Naruto nodded along as he listened to Tobirama's explanation of how the shinobi ranking system worked, but he frowned at the end, something which Tobirama noticed but continued anyway. "Both myself and Hashirama are grooming Hiruzen in a way for becoming Hokage should the both of us pass on, however, he has become arrogant in the process. Any attempt to beat the arrogance out of him by either myself or Hashirama by beating him in fights fails because Hiruzen holds us both in such high regard, insisting that no one can beat us." Tobirama gave a sigh of frustration. "Hiruzen was born two years after Konoha was first founded, so he has never known true conflict. As such, he underestimates the power that other people can wield, he believes that myself and Hashirama can are the most powerful shinobi in the world and underestimates the power of the other kages, believes that they can't hold a candle to us. Because both myself and Hashirama have been teaching him and he believes himself to be stronger than he actually is because of it, it doesn't help that no one has beaten him in a while. I must thank you for defeating him, hopefully that will knock him off his high horse, but even if it doesn't...war will." Tobirama said grimly. Silence reigned for the moment as both men sat, both lost in their own thoughts, Tobirama, about his student while Naruto was thinking about what Tobirama had said. Eventually, Naruto asked several questions that came to mind about what Tobirama had said about the ninja ranking system.

"If you don't mind, I have a few questions," Naruto asked, when Tobirama gave a nod, Naruto continued. "What if the genin don't have the same base training or start at different ages? What if some genin have more or less training than others? Also what if a civilian wants to become a ninja?" Naruto's frown then deepens and he gives Tobirama a piercing stare. "Actually, that reminds me, are you trying to advertise the ninja lifestyle to civilians by making your ninja act as if their occupation was some big game?" Tobirama took a moment to respond.

"In a way, yes." Seeing Naruto's narrowed eyes, Tobirama quickly explained what he meant. "Sometime within the year, I plan to open a shinobi training facility for the shinobi clans to send their children to, from as early as four, in order for them all to get the same education when it comes to the shinobi arts, apart from any clan techniques that the clans teach their children. Civilians may also send their children there, however, the instructors there will make sure that they civilian born children know exactly what they are getting into. It is designed to turn out genin level shinobi within three years at the most, two years if the children have enough talent, but all that is estimated." Naruto's face twisted into a frown, then a grimace before the man sighed.

"I won't tell you how to run the village because it's not my place, nor would I have any idea how to, but I will say this...I don't agree with sending children into battle." Naruto told Tobirama. Naruto had never lead a village, he's never been a shinobi, or been in a position of political or military power, so he couldn't condemn Tobirama without walking mile in the man's shoes, but what Naruto did know was that sending six year old children into war was something that went against his morals

"The children wouldn't see battle until they were at least chunin unless it was an emergency, and this is only a war time setting. When in peace, the children will learn at a much slower pace, in order for them to still remain children. I don't like the idea of sending children in any more than you do Naruto." Tobirama replied, making Naruto sigh.

"I still don't like this Tobirama, this goes against my morals. You might be okay with this, being forced into war at an early age but you must see that this is nothing like clan wars." Naruto tried to reason with Tobirama, to perhaps convince him to set back the graduation date for the training facility, but the Hokage held his ground.

"The children will be fine, Naruto. I have grown up in war-" Tobirama was cut off by Naruto slamming his fist down on the armrest of the couch and levelling the Second Hokage with a chilling stare.

"No you have not, Tobirama. You have not seen the true horror of war, all you have had is but a taste." Naruto hissed as his chakra flared in tandem with his anger. "The clan wars that you have experience are nothing compared to scale of the conflict that is coming. What you experienced will be made to look like an odd clash at borders in the face of what is coming. You grossly underestimate to difference between clan wars and world wars, so let me explain the difference. In a clan war, the largest scale battle that you will experience would be fifty people from two clans fighting each other. In a world war, a hundred people fighting each other is called a skirmish, in a world war, it is not called a battles unless there are at least a few hundred people on either side, in a world war, the fighting turns the battlefield red with the blood of soldiers. But that is only a war were there are two sides, in this war, there are five major sides. That means that you don't have to watch out for simply one enemy, but four. Do not presume to know war Tobirama, because you know nothing." With that, Naruto's chakra settled down, easing on the pressure that it was placing the room under, allowing Tobirama to breathe easier. Naruto said nothing as Tobirama caught his breath.

"If that's all Tobirama, I'm going to go sleep. I think I've done and experienced enough for today." Naruto said as he stood up from the couch. Barely giving Tobirama a glance, Naruto exited the office, leaving a Hokage that was shocked and slightly fearful. Had he really experienced war or were the clan wars merely a taste of what was to come? If so, was he prepared? Were any of them prepared for what was coming?

Tobirama could only hope and pray that they were. But he wouldn't get much time to do so though, for two days later, it would be found that Suna began to mobilise their forces on Konoha and the Land of Fire in retaliation for a sighting of the Kyūbi near the border of the Land of Wind and the Land of Rivers, believe that the Kyūbi was under Konoha control, they took it as an act of war.

This then caused Konoha to mobilise her forces against Suna, which caused the three other major hidden villages to do the same, sparking war amongst shinobi.

Within days, Konoha was getting information that Uzu had sent shinobi to keep Kiri away from the eastern shores of the Land of Fire, while Suna was nearing the border of Fire-Rivers border and that Iwa and Kumo had begun fighting each other while sending shinobi to attack Suna and Konoha while they were fighting each other.

The Shinobi World War had begun.

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Chapter End

AN: Done!

That was a pretty hard chapter to write, so go easy on it for those of you that find it lacking. It's not as long as my other chapters, under 13,000 words but it was all I felt I could put in this chapter without making the waiting time for the chapter extending.

I have some stuff to do for the next few weeks so if it takes longer than normal for another chapter, don't be surprised.

For those that wanted Naruto to train Jiraiya, don't worry, I've sorted that all out, I've got something special in mind that should satisfy everyone.

As always, thank you to those that have liked my story, followed it, reviewed it. It all makes me want to write more, so keep it up.

For those wondering what will happen next, I'm going to be skipping to the part of the war where Naruto will fight, for those that don't know, that will be the end of the war. I'll explain what happened during the war in the next chapter. A battle sequence will take up most of the chapter with maybe a small bit at the end of where Naruto comes back to Konoha to train Tsunade. I'll do it if I feel like it.

For those that think that I am Hiruzen-Bashing, don't. I simply believe that this is what Hiruzen would be like, pre-first shinobi war. He was after all, trained by both Tobirama and Hashirama, two of the greatest shinobi of their time so I think that he would get arrogant as well as highly underestimate the abilities of other people, simply because he hadn't seen any other truly powerful shinobi. I won't have him as I have portrayed him in this chapter for the rest of the story, this is was a one chapter thing.

I hope you guys liked my little reveal of a bit of Naruto's past, I'd figure that watching your family slowly die around you would send someone to a dark place for a while, that was Naruto's dark place. I know that he didn't go all evil and try to destroy the world or humanity, but I can't just see Naruto doing any of that, even in his darkened state.

As always, if you have any questions about the story, give me a PM.

Remember to favourite, follow and review.

The Right Stop