Pre-Story Notes

SO I've been having to deal with a failing keyboard and extra work days eating into my available time. Terribly sorry for that, but not a lot I can do.

A co-worker recently left and we've been shorthanded. Can't do anything about that, but I'm doing my best to keep up with my writing regardless of the much less time to do so.

I've had this laptop for about two years now, I'm a pretty avid gamer. As such, the 'w' key is getting to be worn out, and now the 'e' key is failing too. I was able to work around W, but not E. Luckily, I still have a warranty for this PC and I'm having a replacement keyboard brought out and installed for me.

I intended for this chapter to be out a week and a half ago, but work and my general paranoia regarding whether or not my readers will enjoy the content ended up delaying me.

I won't take up any more of your time with my IRL problems.

Here's some general questions:

UndyingRevenge: will we get to see rai experiment with giving naruto energy?

Yes, that's definitely something that's going to come up in the near future.

Bmidd111: Is the Kyuubi going to eventually remember his real name?

Oh absolutely! Rai originally started as just a placeholder name so the kyuubi could have a name to associate with it. It eventually stuck, and I was pleasantly surprised with its deeper meaning. The kyuubi will remember his real name at some point in the future, that's for certain. I'm undecided if Naruto will continue calling him Rai or start using his real name, most likely going with the latter.

IN other news, I'm going to be taking a biref break at some point to revise the earlier chapters and change their formatting to better reflect these more current chapters. I'm also going to add a little bit to them to merit the changes, nothing big, but a little something extra for my readers. Also, I'm going to be gutting the glorified word vomit that is my author's notes and making them less...word vomity? I'll keep the gneral ideas, but have them be less...you get the idea. Less blabbering, more story.

Be sure to review and PM me with any questions or suggestions. I rely on reader input to gauge how I'm doing with the story, so don't leave me in the dark!

Also, quick note, the fanfictionNet document editor is at it's usual antics again and changing words on me...so...that's nice.


Naruto flicked on the flashlight and shone it forward into the room. The walls were lined with cubbies and wooden scroll holders, several desks for personal studying… but none of that was even remotely important to him compared to the giant scroll sitting behind a locked case at the end of the room.

"Well now, what have we here? This one certainly looks important." Rai mused aloud. No doubt, judging by the ornate design and size of the scroll, accompanied by its additional security even in this locked room within a locked room… this scroll had to be important.

Naruto wordlessly walked forward, his free hand slowly outstretched toward the massive scroll's case. This one had to have jutsu in it, it just had to.

Naruto gingerly placed his hands upon the locked case that held the oversized and ornate looking scroll within it. He thought about it for a moment. Did he really want to take this scroll? Well, obviously, he did, but that wasn't the important question.

Could he take this scroll? That was a better question, and one that he was smart enough to know the answer to. He could easily manage to slip out of here with a few jutsu scrolls like the one he nabbed earlier, but this? There was no way he was walking out of this library with that thing slung over his shoulders. Heck, it was almost bigger than he was!

Still, finding out what was contained within was too great an opportunity to pass up. Sure, he couldn't just walk out of here with the thing, but he didn't have to leave the library to get a peek inside the scroll, now, did he?

Rai didn't have to explain that to him, though, he did, anyway, even as Naruto was getting his lockpicks in hand again to start working on opening that fortified display case.

It took some doing, but Naruto managed to get the lock open. Curiously enough, this lock wasn't nearly as complicated to crack as the previous locks. Maybe it was because this was a display case and not a door, or, maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was in a locked room within a locked room?

Naruto couldn't help but to chuckle outloud at that thought; it really was funny that they'd do that.

He shook his head and refocused on the gigantic scroll that he now had access to. The boy carefully reached into the case and grabbed hold of it, trying to hoist it out of the case.

He strained and tugged, but the scroll didn't budge on account of the fact that, despite being made out of paper, it was actually pretty heavy.

'What gives? How the heck is a giant paper roll this heavy? Stupid, oversized, fat, dumb scroll!' He said in his head and grabbing hold of the bindings wrapped around it to make another attempt at hoisting it from its display case.

Naruto shut off his flashlight and set it down on the desk nearby, then came back to use both hands in his attempt to lift the scroll. This time, he managed to get it off the base of the display, but wasn't able to fully lift it enough to remove it.

"Stop trying to lift it from the center, use leverage to your advantage. Grab one end of it and drag it out." Rai offered as a suggestion, and for once, Naruto followed the suggestion without adding his own two cents to it.

Taking hold of one end, he lifted and pulled, managing to get the scroll free of the case. Though , he took a wrong step and wound up falling back from the weight.

His heart sunk as he fell, fearing that this would definitely alert the ninja outside the room that he was in here. In yet another stroke of luck for the night, Naruto's fall was at least partially muffled by a stack of papers and scrolls that had been laying off to the side of the display case. He'd fallen at just the right angle that his right side caught the stack and mitigated the impact when he hit the floor.

The scroll, however, fell atop of Naruto. The giant paper roll knocking the wind out of him and causing him to let out a pained grunt. He just barely managed to get his arms around the scroll and prevent it from falling the rest of the way and causing whatever noise it might have upon hitting the floor. Naruto would have breathed a sigh of relief, but truth be told, the scroll was making breathing a little difficult to do.

Rai let out a hefty exhale, having held his breath from the sudden threat of Naruto once again, nearly blowing everything up. He made an effort to keep himself from getting angry over it as it wasn't necessarily the kid's fault.

This time.

"You alright, Naruto?" He asked after a few moments of the boy not moving from his current position.

The blonde slowly raised a hand and gave a halfhearted thumbs up. 'Yeah, I'm fine, I just have this giant scroll crushing me… no big deal.' He said sarcastically in his head.

"I'll take that as a yes. Alright, now carefully slide the scroll off and onto the floor next to you and don't let it fall."

Quietly grunting, Naruto struggled to lift the heavy scroll enough to slide it to his left. He positioned his foot to guide the scroll's other end to the floor, and to tell where the floor was in the dark.

With some solid effort, he managed to get the one end onto the floor, and then slowly slid the rest of the scroll off of himself. He took a moment to breathe and get himself up from the stack of scrolls and papers before addressing the big scroll any further, tenderly pressing a hand to his ribs.

Rai hesitated at first, but asked nevertheless. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Naruto forced a grin and responded in a whisper. "So long as that scroll has jutsu in it, I'm fine as can be!"

"Good, good. Now, I don't think you can take this scroll with you. Let's just open it u-" The kitsune stopped mid-sentence, feeling the meddlesome observer from earlier having finally entered the library, and was rapidly approaching Naruto's current location. The kitsune started to feel himself grow angry at the thought of having all of this being a wasted endeavor.

However, he also found himself worrying at the thought of what might happen if Naruto was caught with this scroll. He didn't want for this to have been for naught, but he also had no desire for consequences levied against the boy that might hamper their plans. In his moment of indecision, he opted for simply stating. "Someone's coming, we're out of time!"

Naruto was already kneeling and unwinding the binds holding the scroll together, far too focused on the potential for what the scroll held within to hear the kitsune's warning. He grasped the fold of the scroll and pulled it open, shining his light upon the unfurled document. Naruto looked over the open scroll, and his heart sank down to his feet and all the wind fell out of his sails in one swift motion.

Within the scroll… was more of the symbols that he couldn't read.

Just as the boy was about to voice his immeasurable disappointment and outrage at this tremendous letdown, he heard the door behind him unlock. He didn't have the time to turn his head in shock, before feeling his body being grabbed and thrown to the ground. The twisting of his arm caused him to instinctively yelp, though that wound up being stifled by the knee that found itself dug into his back.

Cat had her knee pressed into Naruto, holding him in an armlock against the floor. She wasn't necessarily trying to hurt the kid, but she was also a bit irked that he'd went straight for that scroll and had gotten ahold of it before she could stop him. She'd have been considerably more irked with him, had it not been that she knew Naruto had no idea what that scroll actually was.

"So… does this mean I failed the mission? Do I still get paid?" Was the meekly voiced question from the Genin standing in the doorway.

Cat slowly turned her head and shot a glare from behind her mask at the teenage shinobi. "What do you think?"


(Hokage's office—Morning)

Hiruzen was staring at Naruto with one of the most serious expressions he'd ever been able to muster towards the boy. He didn't take his eyes off of him for so much as a second, and Naruto's eyes never left the floor. The boy clearly knew he was in deep trouble, though Hiruzen guessed that he had no idea of the magnitude of the situation, or the real reason why the situation was so serious in the first place.

The two of them had been like this for a good thirty minutes now. Cat stood next to Hiruzen a few steps to the side, and Fox stood next to Naruto in a similar fashion. On Hiruzen's desk sat the Scroll of Seals that Naruto had unwittingly gotten ahold of the previous night, re-bound and wrapped with additional binds. Next to the giant scroll sat Naruto's pouches, with all of their contents turned out upon the desk and organized neatly in a row.

After a few more agonizing minutes of staring, the Sandaime pulled his pipe from his desk and began the process of lighting a fresh batch of tobacco, still keeping his eyes locked on the boy. Once the pipe was lit, he casually took a smoke from it. At this time, Naruto opened his mouth to speak, but Hiruzen quickly raised his hand and shushed the boy before he had the chance to say anything.

The Hokage took a deep breath and carefully considered what he would say, what he should say. He slowly brought his hand to rest upon the Forbidden Scroll and found himself very grateful that it was Cat that had caught the boy with it in his possession and not some other shinobi, or worse.

"Naruto Uzumaki…" He finally started, causing Naruto to sit upright and at attention. "Do you know what this is?" The old man proceeded to ask, lightly patting his hand upon the giant scroll's surface in a manner of punctuation.

Naruto slowly shook his head, then softly spoke. "I don't… I thought it had a jutsu in it."

Hiruzen hummed in acknowledgement, then said. "This, is the Scroll of Seals; commonly referred to as the forbidden scroll."

The boy gulped, shifting uneasily in his seat. In the brief pause that followed, the Sandaime took a light puff from his pipe.

For Naruto, under any other circumstances, the thought of how awesome that scroll had to be for it to be named the forbidden scroll would have been at the forefront of his mind. Under the current circumstances, well, he was still thinking about how awesome that scroll had to be, but he was also preoccupied by the possible extent to how angry the Hokage probably was with him.

Within the confines of the kitsune's prison, Rai was grumbling all manner of obscenities as he had been for the past hour. Most of which were aimed exclusively at the "Meddlesome Cat masked woman", and "That bothersome shinobi brat". He also had a slew of choice words reserved for that old fool too! And whatever idiot that decided to restrict access to jutsu! And… well, if the kitsune was being honest, Naruto was really the only individual in this tiresome village that he wasn't presently angry with.

He had no reason to be angry with Naruto anyway, at least, concerning the failure of this restricted section endeavor. The boy had performed adequately enough, and it wasn't his fault that he'd been caught. Naruto had been this close to succeeding… It was that cat masked woman that had followed them, she ruined everything!

The fox closed his eyes and huffed angrily at the conclusion of his thoughts. "Stupid, meddlesome shinobi…"

Back in the Hokage's office, Hiruzen was struggling to find the right words to express his concern over this incident. He was more fearful for the boy's safety than he was angry over what Naruto had done, truth be told. Given the fact that Naruto couldn't read Kanji, there wasn't the threat of the boy learning something from the scroll that would have been dangerous to himself or anyone around him.

No, Hiruzen was more fearful over what would have happened had Naruto tried to leave that room with the scroll in hand… how the envoy of shinobi tasked with automatically responding to, and handling, such an event would have reacted to the Kyuubi's container trying to make off with the scroll of seals.

Needless to say, it would not have ended well...

The old man sighed, raising his free hand and lightly rubbing between his eyebrows before continuing. "What exactly were you thinking, breaking into the secluded portion of the library's restricted section? Let alone breaking into the restricted section in the first place?" He set both hands upon the scroll, as if punctuating his next point. "And why you deemed it necessary to try and take this, of all things you could have taken?"

"I wasn't going to steal anything! All I wanted was to try and get a scroll that had jutsu I could learn, -ttebayo." Naruto adamantly protested. "I was gonna return whatever I got from the shelves, honest!"

"And the scroll of seals?"

Naruto looked down and kicked his feet in exasperation, "I didn't know what it was when I tried to take it…"

Hiruzen had half a mind to believe him; Naruto rarely ever took things that didn't belong to him… junk and refuse being the obvious exception. He drew another smoke from his pipe, then began contemplating where to go from here. The old man mulled over the facts, lightly tapping a finger against his desk as he thought.

Naruto hadn't technically stolen anything. Sure, he had every intention of walking out of that library with this jutsu scroll of agility, but it was a public library. The boy had several articles of reading material at his apartment already. True, he broke into the library; something he'd done previously on several occasions. That wasn't such a big deal in the grand scheme of things: after all, people could still visit Konoha library after dark, if they had proper permission; though Naruto certainly didn't.

The boy had intended to take a jutsu scroll, a scroll of acrobatic and agility techniques; nothing serious in context, but still something he wasn't allowed to have. There was the possibility that he would have taken other jutsu scrolls, but he didn't. It appeared that he may have intended to take the scroll of seals. That was deeply troubling; and it dwarfed any other offense the boy committed.

Hiruzen believed Naruto's claim of not knowing what the oversized scroll was, but that didn't change the fact that the boy clearly knew he was someplace he shouldn't have been, and that didn't exactly help mitigate the seriousness of this.

There was a thought that flashed into his mind, and it made him extremely uneasy. Thinking it over and contemplating the deeper implications made the sensation worse. While it was true that Naruto couldn't read Kanji, the same couldn't be said about his friend. "Naruto… did Rai tell you to take scrolls from the restricted section?" The Sandaime asked cautiously.

"Huh? No, it was all my idea… why?" Naruto replied, with a tone of voice indicating he was still mindful of how much trouble he might be in for the library stunt. The boy was unaware of any deeper implications this situation held.

Hiruzen felt the tension ebb, at least somewhat, with that thought partially addressed. Still, he reiterated the question. "Did Rai ask you to do any of this?"

Naruto shifted in his seat and answered in the same tone as before. "No."

The Sandaime persisted, "You're absolutely sure?"

"Nice to see that the old fool still doesn't trust me." Rai idly commented with no small amount of sarcasm.

"Well… Rai suggested going to the library to see if we could find out why the ninjutsu books didn't have any jutsu in 'em… But I was the one that wanted to sneak into the restricted section." Naruto nervously admitted, still completely oblivious to the deeper implications at stake.

The Sandaime's nerves calmed considerably after hearing that, though he still didn't like any of this. 'If the Kyuubi had any inclination of what sorts of secrets the scroll held, he'd have made that a priority. Come to think of it, given the Kyuubi's amnesia, when would the Kyuubi have learned of the scroll's existence in the first place without Naruto knowing about it too?' Hiruzen rationalized in his mind.

The demon fox supposedly had little, if anything, to do with Naruto's decision to sneak into the restricted section. Even if the Kyuubi did at one point know about the scroll, it was ultimately made redundant due to the simple fact of him having amnesia. Hiruzen reminded himself that this Kyuubi, Rai, was not necessarily the beast from the one that the village faced years ago.

Well, not literally, but that was beside the point. Naturally, he didn't approve of the thing going off and discovering secrets like what was hidden within the forbidden scroll, but he had to admit that he may have been overreacting about this. The Kyuubi hadn't sought out the scroll, Naruto did, and he did so unknowingly.

Back to the matter at hand, Hiruzen would need to take precautions in order to prevent the possibility of Naruto obtaining the Scroll of Seals again. He didn't need Shukaku's intellect to know that the simplest solution was likely the easiest.

Once he was done here with the boy, he would instruct Fox and Cat to immediately intervene if Naruto attempted to enter the secluded room of the restricted section. A simple and effective solution, and it would be far easier than trying to relocate the scroll or applying additional security to it.

'Actually, it might be best if I have additional security applied to it, just to be safe. As unprecedented as it is to have someone actually try and steal the scroll of seals; if a bored seven-year-old was able to sneak in and obtain it… well, that speaks for itself.'

Hiruzen kept in mind that, if it came down to it, he could always relocate the scroll and have it hidden within his own estate. ''I'll reserve that for plan C…'

Naruto's voice interrupted the Sandaime's train of thought. "So… uh… how much trouble am I in?"

The question was innocent enough, but the situation was far from simple. "It's difficult to say..." Hiruzen stated in a neutral tone, pausing to clear his throat before continuing. "This is a very serious matter, Naruto-kun… you're very lucky that there wasn't a more experienced shinobi guarding the restricted section. You are even more lucky that you were caught before you left the secluded room with that scroll."

"I don't see what the big deal is; all that glorified scratch paper had in it was useless jutsu that had more potential to hurt its user than do anything else." Was Rai's commentary, reflecting on what little of the so-called forbidden scroll he was able to read in the time Naruto had to examine it.

Hiruzen continued. "As it stands, I'm confiscating your tool pouch and all its contents, and you're hereby banned from the Library until further notice."

Naruto had a look of outrage as he stood up from his seat and objected. "That's not fair!" The boy then proceeded to list a plethora of reasons why he should be able to keep his ninja tool pouch, all of which being unimaginative and childish. None of which came anywhere near convincing Hiruzen to change his mind.

Unsurprisingly, the boy offered little protest at being banned from the library.

Given the overall circumstances, Naruto was barely facing any repercussions for his actions at all. Hiruzen knew that the boy would likely have a new tool pouch and a replacement set of tools by the end of the week; he also knew that telling Naruto he wasn't allowed to do something and actually enforcing that rule were two completely different things. It wasn't going to curb his antics either, but at least this gesture would make him think twice before he pulled another stunt like this again. That was the hope, at least.

Hiruzen considered something along the lines of community service, but given Naruto's reputation and how the villagers tended to act when around the boy for an extended period of time, it would have likely done more harm than good.

Confiscating the boy's tools pouch and banning him from the library would be more likely to get the message across. That, and it would ensure that it would be some time before he could get into trouble again. Informing the boy of the penalty associated with stealing the forbidden scroll would also help matters.

There wasn't much else the Hokage could do, aside from a few more stern words regarding the significance of what Naruto had done. Well, technically there was, but it would either have to come later, or wouldn't achieve the desired results.


(Naruto's apartment—Noon)

Naruto was slumped down at his table, making his displeasure with the situation very well known in the vocal sense. Not only had he failed to get any jutsu, but he lost all of his ninja tools, and got banned from the library! Could this day get any worse?

Rai was lazily picking at his nails, cheek resting in his free hand. There wasn't much for the kitsune to do in this situation but wait for the brat to calm down. As it was, he hadn't gained any insight whatsoever into his sensing ability, so he wasn't exactly un-empathetic to Naruto's disappointment over the end result of their excursion into the restricted section.

"All that work for nothing… and even if I did manage to get jutsu scrolls, they've got those funky symbols on em and stuff that I can't read!" Naruto ranted on, throwing a few frustrated jabs into his punching bag as he did so.

"You do realize I can read those symbols, right? I can't remember the name of them at the moment, but I can read what's on the scrolls at the very least." The kitsune commented, growing tired of the brat's seemingly endless complaining.

Naruto dropped in on the kitsune's cage before pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You can actually read that junk? Why didn't you say so before?!"

Rai snorted and raised a hand in indignation as he retorted. "I DID say so before!"

"…Oh." Was all Naruto said as his hand slowly returned to his side. He vaguely recalled that, yes, the big fox did tell him that before… or maybe he read some of the symbols before? Naruto couldn't remember, but he believed the big fox anyway.

Naruto raised his hand in pointing at the fox again before saying. "Hey, that means you could read what that big scroll had on it, right? Do you remember what it said?"

Disregarding the semantics of books and scrolls not being able to say things, Rai shrugged and said. "Yes, but it's nothing you could find use for practicing with. They're all either too advanced or too complicated, or they'd kill you if you tried to use them at your current skill level."

"Oh…" The boy said, disappointed, but not dissuaded. Whatever was in that big scroll was probably cool, probably, but he needed something he could practice with! He didn't have time for anything that big scroll would have, he had to come up with another plan to get a jutsu!

Actually, speaking of which, there was still one thing he needed to gripe at the fox for.

"Hey, wry-fox, how the heck did you know there was a person standing guard in the restricted section anyway?"

The kitsune was caught off guard by the question almost completely, opting to attempt to deflect the question rather than answering it. He still hadn't intended for Naruto to learn about his ability just yet. "I don't know what you're talking about. I noticed him out of the corner of my eyes, that's all."

Naruto wasn't buying it. "But you knew he was there, and where he was, even when I didn't… even when he was behind the book cases and stuff! I mean, I know you can see in the dark and all, being a fox, but since when could you see through walls?"

Rai was moderately impressed by the kid's sudden attentiveness, more so by the fact that he'd caught that detail at all given the situation at the time. The kitsune mulled it over for a moment, and ultimately decided that he may as well come clean. He intended to inform Naruto of the ability of his at some point anyway, and it'd be more effort than it was worth to try and come up with some fabricated explanation. What was the harm in letting the boy know about the sensory ability sooner rather than later?

The kitsune rubbed his temples and lightly exhaled. "Alright, fine. I suppose I could tell you, considering I was going to reveal this to you eventually. So, I seem have this ability where I'm able to sense people's negative emotions, the stronger they feel, the more defined they appear. Not only can I tell whether they're angry, fearful, sad, or otherwise upset, but I'm able to detect where they are, more or less. I haven't figured out all of the nuances of the ability just yet, but… that's how I was able to know where the guard was. I felt their emotional output and could tell where they were relative to where you were." Rai hoped this barebones explanation would sate the boy's curiosity, or at least be an adequate explanation.

As luck would have it, that indeed was the case, though perhaps not in the manner Rai intended. "That's so COOL! Holy crap, you're like a sensor ninja! This is awesome, Dattebayo!" Naruto excitedly exclaimed with any semblance of reserve thrown out the window. Just as suddenly as he had begun excitedly yammering on, he came to a screeching halt and went deep into thought, becoming motionless as he stood there.

Rai gave pause to the near-instantaneous shifts in the kid's demeanor, wondering for a brief moment if he had inadvertently done damage to Naruto's psyche somehow. "Umm… kid?"

"I know how we can still get a jutsu!" Naruto shouted while shooting a hand into the air; then exited the fox's prison, leaving a baffled and concerned Rai behind.

"I-err… what?" Was all that Rai was able to stammer out before Naruto left his sight. After a short time, the kitsune mused quietly to himself. "That damn kid's brain is so scattered...it's a wonder how he can study at all." He sighed and laid his head upon his paws, shutting his eyes and letting his mind rest for a bit.


(Naruto's apartment—Half an hour later)

Shikaku knocked on Naruto's apartment door for a third time, checking his pocket watch to make sure he had the right time. It wasn't unusual for the kid to be breaking from routine and being where he wasn't expected to be. "Troublesome…" The man muttered under his breath before turning to leave.

It wasn't like Naruto ventured far from his usual list of places to be, and even when he did, all one had to do was listen for the inevitable cries of outrage that surely followed in those instances. Shikaku decided to make things easier for himself and simply check the usual locations, then just come back here at a later time if that didn't pan out.

On the rooftops, Cat and Fox were finally able to return to their usual perch, having been held back by a disciplinary meeting with the hokage.

"I can't believe that brat got me cited! Cited! Between that and being chewed out by Hiruzen-sama… That was so humiliating!" Cat complained, struggling to keep it in a whisper low enough that only Fox could hear.

Her partner was sympathetic, but also knew that in Cat's case it was more than likely no fault but her own. "It could have been worse…" He tried to say.

"Fox, don't." Was the venom coated retort shot back by Cat.

The fox masked ANBU was silent for a time, but eventually spoke up again. "Why didn't you wake me up? I had have helped."

"On the one night I manage to get your stubborn ass to sleep?"

"…You would have gone in after him sooner if I had been there."

Cat turned her head away with a huff before stating. "You're an ass."

"So she can dish it out but can't take it?" Fox was about to continue, but he realized something was wrong. Two things really. For one, there were two fresh scent trails from the kid entering and leaving his apartment. The other thing was Shikaku leaving earlier than he usually did. "Eyes up?" he signed to his partner.

Cat simply huffed and flipped him the bird, but still activated her Byakugan. "Target missing." She signed back.

Without missing a beat, Fox took off across the rooftops, following the scent trail. Cat quickly followed behind, keeping her Dojutsu up and sweeping for any sign of the kid.


(Konoha Library)

"OK, so, enlighten me; what exactly is this plan of yours? I can't possibly fathom how you intend to obtain a jutsu scroll from the restricted section, in broad daylight, while everyone is out and about." The kitsune asked with no effort to hide the sarcasm.

"Easy! You're gonna tell me when anyone's nearby using that sensor map and help me sneak past any shinobi in the restricted section. You can see where they are, and I can keep hidden! I'll walk right in and out when they're behind other bookshelves and can't see me." Came the boy's cheerful response.

Sensor map. Rai had to admit that the name was acceptable, though he hated the notion of going with yet another name given to him by Naruto. He still wasn't fully over the revelation of what his name meant, though he conceded that such a thing didn't matter in this scenario.

More importantly, the kid's plan was… risky, but plausible. Assuming the individuals inside and around the restricted section were giving off enough negative emotion for him to sense, Rai would be able to know where they were. If Naruto was quick, he could avoid them and sneak in and out of the restricted section without much effort; in theory.

Rai wasn't entirely confident in the plan, or at all for that matter, but it was no use trying to argue.

"This seems unnecessarily risky… but, aright, if you're sure about this, I'll signal you when you've got an opening."

Naruto was honestly feeling a bit uneasy about trying this stunt again, especially in broad daylight, especially considering that the Hokage banned him from the library, but his impatience and stubbornness won out in that regard. He was doing this, and he was going to get a jutsu scroll today, no more waiting for him.

So there he stood, looking as inconspicuous as he could near the restricted section, eyeing the wide open doors out of the corner of his vision.

Rai focused his ability, peering about his sensor map to see if he could pick up on anything. Sure enough, he did. The pings were faint, but visible enough that he could tell there were at least five individuals within the restricted section at that moment. Well, technically there were only four, the fifth was in the secluded portion where they kept the forbidden scroll.

The critical flaw in the plan reared its ugly head: Rai could tell where people were and what they felt, but what he didn't have was the direction they were facing. Rai had no means of knowing what direction these shinobi were facing, sort of Naruto looking at them, which, defeated the purpose.

He supposed that it wasn't a completely terrible flaw in this specific scenario. So long as the individuals were behind book cases and shelving, it wouldn't necessarily matter where they were looking if they couldn't have line of sight. If the two of them kept that detail in mind, it might just work out. Maybe. If not, Naruto would be visiting the asinine old fool again.

Rai sighed and reassigned his thoughts to the task at hand, peering over his sensor map and taking note of where these shinobi were. He watched and waited, seeing them go about their business.

A few minutes passed before Naruto heard the big fox call out. "OK, go."

Naruto swiftly strode past the double doors of the restricted section, initially going straight for the place he remembered getting that one jutsu scroll from. He kept himself as quiet as he could; he had to, considering how silent the library was.

A quick alert from Rai and he ducked behind a bookshelf, changing course and detouring around one of the shinobi that had moved near the boy's intended route.

"Two of them are moving; one is moving away, the other is moving left. Third guy is on your left."

Naruto heard one of the shinobi mutter something nearby, so he deftly crawled under a study table, nearly missing being spotted. He then quickly moved to behind a bookshelf to his left, on suggestion from the big fox. The boy stayed put until Rai gave him the signal that he was free to continue.

"You're almost there, watch out for the one coming up on your right; the shelf should be just up ahead."

After another close call, Naruto arrived at that particular bookshelf. He didn't miss a beat, and swiftly grabbed what he deemed to be the same scroll from last time. The title seemed the same at least. Naruto quickly stuffed the scroll into his inner coat pocket and moved to the double doors again, though he was forced to take yet another detour, and then another before he could get there.

He ducked behind a shelf, right as one chunin turned in his direction.

"I suggest picking up the pace and getting out of there."

Naruto peeked round the shelf to make sure he had a straight shot to the exit. He would have asked the fox if the coast was clear, but he needed to be silent. Luckily, Rai was ahead of him.

"You should be clear for now, go!"

He didn't hesitate, Naruto darted for the exit at a speed that kept him speedy but didn't cause any additional noise like running would have. Just past the double doors and he was in the clear.

The boy managed to get out of the restricted section without being spotted, or so he'd thought. Had Rai not sensed the obvious presence trailing after Naruto from the restricted section, all that effort would have once again been for nothing.

"Dammit, one of them spotted you; he's coming this way. I told you this was a bad idea." Rai stated, having expected this to happen from the start.

If Naruto's heart wasn't racing before, it sure was now. Well, his heart was racing before that, but now it was even more-so.

Naruto shifted his coat, sliding a hand into the inside pocket. From there, he reached out with it and smacked it to one of the nearby shelves with scrolls stacked neatly on it. He then slid the hand back to his inner coat pocket just as quickly, before making a break for it and running towards the exit at full speed.

Rai would have asked what the boy hoped to accomplish in doing such a thing, but he never got the chance.

The shout heard from behind him verified to Naruto that, yes, he had definitely been spotted. That, and he was now being chased. A chase that didn't last for more than a few seconds as he was easily caught up to and grabbed roughly by the back of his coat. Naruto hadn't even gotten halfway to the library's main exit.

"And where do you think you're running off to in such a hurry?" came the sternly toned question of the Chunin that currently had firm hold of the boy.

Naruto chuckled nervously and tried to get free, to no avail. "Just, checking out some cool scrolls and stuff, you know?" He offered as a particularly lame excuse.

The Chunin clearly wasn't buying it. He must have seen Naruto take the scroll, because the first thing he did was reach into the boy's inner coat and pull out the scroll that lay within. "And what might this be?" He said as he waggled the scroll about in the air, punctuating his point.

"A cool scroll I wanted to check out!" Naruto replied with a particularly cheeky grin.

The deadpan look given by the Chunin clearly showed weren't in the mood for games. The man sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, just above a large horizontal scar. "Look, kid, did you really think you could just walk into a room full of Chunin level shinobi and walk out without anyone noticing?"

Naruto didn't really have any witty comeback planned for that.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Alrighty, let's take a look at what you-", Upon closer inspection, the scroll that the Chunin currently had in his hand was just a journal of sorts. It was one of those biographies typically written by shinobi and adventurers and the like over the years… certainly nothing that would have been obtained in the restricted section. "Ok, what the hell? I could have sworn I saw you take something from one of the shelves in the restricted section!" The baffled Chunin asserted.

Naruto kept the same grin from before as he said, "I didn't take anything from that place, honest!"

"This isn't a joke, kid! What'd you take from the restricted section? You know you can get into some serious trouble for that, right?"

It then dawned on the man, that the grinning brat he had in his grasp was the nearly infamous prankster himself. He'd obviously just been pranked hard by this kid, making him think he was taking something from the restricted section so as to get someone to chase after him. The blonde shouldn't have been in there, and him immediately making a run for it meant he knew he wasn't supposed to be in there.

Yeah, it was obvious, this was some dumb prank.

"Kid's up to his usual shenanigans, huh?" Came Shikaku's voice from down the aisle. He'd arrived just in time to witness the chase that lasted all but two seconds and was casually strolling over to the two. He came to a stop just a few feet from the two, casting a glance at Naruto before looking to the Chunin. "So, what'd he do this time?"

The Chunin gave Shikaku the scroll he'd just confiscated before saying. "Sir, I saw Naruto Uzumaki trying to sneak out of the restricted section; he had this scroll on him, a scroll that was from out here in the public access portion of the library. I'm thinking he made it to look like he was taking a scroll from the restricted section so as to antagonize a chase and-"

Shikaku had his hand raised to politely interrupt. "That's plenty, I'm pretty familiar with the kid's antics. Thanks, you can go, I'll handle things from here."

Without much in the way of protest, the Chunin offered a curt bow, then offered a quick glance at Naruto before quickly returning to what he'd been doing previously.

"And here I figured this would be the last place I'd find you; lucky break for me to check here first. Lucky for you too, huh?" Was Shikaku's follow up comment.

The boy folded his arms in childish defiance whilst stating. "I didn't need your help, it was just a prank." Causing to the Nara to raise an eyebrow, thus leading Naruto to persist with his demeanor.

Shikaku was a bit confused by the explanation given to him regarding the two-second chase he witnessed. "Uh-huh… so what was that all about?"

"I was bored." Naruto quickly blurted out.

The Nara blinked and looked unimpressed by the explanation. "You pretended to take something from the restricted section… because you were bored?"

The boy nodded and reiterated, "I was really bored."

Shikaku still wasn't buying it, but he really wasn't up for pulling teeth over something so trivial. He eyed over the scroll, noting the title, then held it out to Naruto. "Well, you've had your fun, now put this back. I'll wait for you by the entrance."

Naruto blinked and stared at the outstretched scroll for a brief moment, but decided to take it and do as he was told. Just this once. He headed back to where he'd gotten this scroll, pausing to see Shikaku heading to the library entrance before going the rest of the way to the specific aisle.

Once there, he glanced around, ensuring nobody was looking. He slid the scroll back into its place on the shelf, after removing the Jutsu scroll he'd swapped it with earlier.

Rai sat up in his cage, snorting in disbelief before stating. "So that was why you stopped and slapped your hand to the bookshelf while you were fleeing, clever brat."

The blonde chuckled and wiggled his fingers in the air in a playful display. "Sight of hand!"

"I think you mean Sleight of hand."

"Yeah, that's what I said." There was a brief pause after that, during which Naruto tucked the jutsu scroll away in his inner coat pocket and made sure it was hidden as best he could manage. He then zipped up his coat, just to be safe, and made his way to the library entrance where Shikaku was waiting.

"You're sure you just do these kinds of things as a hobby? You seem awfully skilled at this for someone who doesn't steal for a living." The big fox said with a generous dose of sarcasm.

Naruto sighed and replied with a mildly irritated tone. "Please stop, that's not funny anymore." He hadn't realized it, but he was within earshot of Shikaku when he replied to the kitsune.

"What's not funny anymore?" Shikaku asked; he figured that the kid had been speaking to the kyuubi when he said that, given the context. As such, he wasn't expecting a very informative response, but he still had to ask.

"Nothing."

After the expected lack of adequate response came to pass, Shikaku sighed and muttered, "Of course…" Then turned to leave the library. He gestured for Naruto to follow; the boy did, and from there the Nara's mind briefly wandered as they made their way to the child's apartment.

At the forefront of his mind was the chase he'd seen, obviously. Naruto was known for his attention seeking antics, as Shikaku knew firsthand, but pulling a "prank" in the restricted section? That was riskier than what was the norm for the kid. Shikaku couldn't put his finger on it, but something about that rubbed him the wrong way. He considered the implications as the two came to the halfway point between Konoha library and Naruto's apartment complex. 'Maybe the kid really was trying to nick something from the restricted section? Maybe he realized he'd been caught and ditched the plan; If that's the case, what was he trying to get?'

'...Or maybe I'm making too many assumptions, and maybe the kid was just being extra knuckleheaded today.' He deferred back to the explanation given to him by the Chuunin, conceding that until he was given sufficient reason to think otherwise, he'd stick with that for now.

The both of them wordlessly continued the rest of the way to Naruto's apartment.

"Alright, let's get this over with." Was Shikaku's nonchalant statement as they reached Naruto's front door a short time later.

Naruto, of course, halfheartedly stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry. He'd be happy when he could stop wasting time with learning about taking care of himself. Naruto still firmly believed he survived on his own just fine, no matter what Hiruzen said to the contrary. That smll never bothered him, and he was the only one that lived here.

Shikaku stepped to the side and gestured for Naruto to open the door. As the boy did so, Shikaku took a moment to voice what he'd been unable to yesterday. "What that parent did at the library yesterday was wrong."

Naruto stopped and looked up at the man with a confused expression. "Huh?"

"Yesterday at the library, when that parent had his outburst towards you. The crap that guy said to you and then shoving you like that… it wasn't right. I just wanted you to know that you didn't deserve any of that." The Nara reiterated, idly folding his arms as he waited for the door to be opened.

The boy stared for a good moment or two, his expression being a slightly confused variant of "neutral". Naruto wasn't sure what to feel about what he was just told, and he certainly didn't know what to say afterwards.

A few minutes passed with Naruto looking to the ground in thought, and Shikaku could tell that he probably threw the poor kid's train of thought into disarray with what he'd told him. After another minute passed, he decided to casually make the comment. "So, are you gonna open the door, or are we gonna stand out here in the cold?" In a lighthearted effort to get Naruto's attention.

The comment seemed to work as intended, since Naruto promptly unlocked the door a few seconds later.


(Yamanaka compound—Later that day)

"Same story, different day?" Shikaku asked in a pseudo anticipatory fashion that clearly stated that he knew what was coming next. He'd come to be able to almost perfectly predict his former teammate's recollection of the counceling sessions with Naruto Uzumaki for the past few weeks.

A small amount of progress would frequently be made with Naruto, but the Kyuubi either deflected, ignored, or mocked every attempt to communicate with it almost every time. It mildly amused and annoyed Inoichi that things had become monotonous in such a way, and Shikaku made a point to mention this monotony every time they met up in the hopes that maybe something would change. "Unfortunately, yes. Progress with Naruto, next to nothing in regards to his big red friend. How about things on your end?" Inoichi replied.

No such luck; not this time.

The two of them presently sat across from one another at a small dining table, a bottle of some mild alcoholic beverage sitting at the center. Inoichi held a half full glass in his hand, while Shikaku moved to refill his own.

"Not much has changed. Like I said last week, he's been doing less of his usual antics and spending a decent chunk of his time with those pre-academy books." The Nara declared as he finished topping off his glass. He went to take a sip, but stopped halfway, raising a finger and continuing to speak. "However, something… interesting happened at Konoha Library today."

Inoichi smirked and jokingly threw out a few guesses, "Was it the chair bridge again? Or was it the tower of journals? My personal favorite was the organized chaos. I still can't figure out how he managed to find the time to swap out every other book with-" Though he abruptly stopped upon noticing the deadpan look he was receiving from Shikaku. "Oh, something serious then. Alright, let's hear it."

Shikaku took a drink from his glass, then continued his train of thought. "Apparently, Naruto snuck into the restricted section; in broad daylight no-less. I walked in on the kid being chased down by a Chuunin."

"Are you serious? Was he trying to get his hands on a jutsu scroll?" came Inoichi's response with an expression and tone that said he expected something like this to happen.

The Nara paused and furrowed his brow at the oddly specific question. "I… don't think so? Well, I have reason to suspect he may have been after something in the restricted section. What makes you say that?"

"Naruto has adamantly voiced his displeasure over the fact that his pre-academy reading material didn't have any ninjutsu techniques in it. It was the first thing to come to mind." Inoichi clarified. "So, what did he end up taking, if he took anything at all?"

Shikaku shrugged. "Nothing I'd need to concern myself with. He had a non-restricted scroll, a biography on one of the Hokages, I think it was one of the ones about the Sandaime." The man paused to take another drink before continuing. "I made him put it back, and I didn't see any indication he was hiding anything. As far as I can tell, it seemed like he may have been trying to snatch something restricted; then, he got caught midway through and bailed out into a backup plan. The Chuunin that caught him seemed to think that the kid intentionally made it look like he was trying to sneak into the restricted section in this convoluted scheme to get someone to chase him, but I'm not sure I buy it."

Inoichi nodded; but was quick to offer his own interpretation of the events. "Or, perhaps he was originally reading up on our Hokage, but became bored and sought a distraction? You did say he had a biography of the Sandaime in his possession, well… Naruto has a high respect for the Hokage, and his behavior indicates that he looks up to the position of Hokage with a sort of reverence. He's also mentioned, several times, that he desires to obtain such a position at some point in his life." Inoichi offered.

"Yeah, perhaps…" Shikaku said, shortly before taking another sip of his drink.

Inoichi continued, "I'm thinking, maybe Naruto was trying to gain insight into what it might take for him to become Hokage someday. The reading material likely couldn't hold his short attention span for very long. Feeling bored, he decided to instigate trouble; the most obvious and quickest way for him to obtain the desired response was to trick a Chuunin into thinking he was sneaking into the restricted section."

Shikaku wasn't amused, but the explanation did sound like something the kid might do. It also helped that it made more sense the way Inoichi explained it than the Chuunin had. "Troublesome, but that does make more sense in the overall scheme of things. Besides, if the kid did nick something from that place, I'm pretty confident his babysitters would have done something about it… so no need for me to intervene."

Inoichi gave a knowing smirk. "You're just looking for an excuse not to intervene."

"No, I'm not."

The Yamanaka laughed and persisted. "Oh-ho, yes you are! I know how you get when it comes to these situations. Come on, we've been teammates for how long now?"

The Nara huffed and grumbled under his breath.

"Your laziness is going to rub off onto Shikamaru, you can count on that." Inoichi finished as he raised his glass in emphasis.

"Great, first my wife, now one of my old teammates is giving me grief over my kid's laziness."

Both clan heads had a good laugh at that.


(Naruto's apartment)

Naruto was seated at his table, holding the unfurled scroll against the table and going over it for the second time. Just like the first, he simply couldn't decipher what was written on the scroll. To be completely fair, he hadn't simply skimmed over it or anything of the sort his first time reading through, but seeing as he couldn't make out enough of what these symbols meant to adequately "read" the material, it didn't make much of a difference in the end.

"I still can't ready any of this… I mean, are these even words?" The boy said aloud, letting go of the scroll and scratching his head in bafflement. He thought he might understand what a few of these symbols meant and be able to figure something out. No such luck; even if one or two of these meant what he thought they meant, that didn't do him much good if he couldn't form sentences.

He shrugged his shoulders, deciding that he didn't have any choice but to ask Rai to help him out. Thus, he went to the big fox's prison; oddly enough, the kitsune had apparently been expecting him. Naruto was about to open his mouth, just as Rai beat him to it.

The fox had a mildly tired look on his face as he said. "I believe those symbols are called Kanji, if I'm remembering correctly." Rai had half expected the boy to have been here sooner than this, given that Naruto couldn't read Kanji and the scroll was almost exclusively written in kanji.

He supposed it was convenient that he remembered what the symbols were called, it would have been annoying to have to let Naruto come up with a name for them. Well, more than annoyed, he dreaded the notion of allowing Naruto to come up with a name for anything.

Naruto silently stood there, looking up at the fox as if waiting for something else to happen. When it didn't, he said. "Sooo…?" In a drawn out manner.

The fox simply stared back at the boy, unsure what exactly it was he was doing. That is, up until the obvious explanation hit him and he begrudgingly answered. "…Yes, I'll help you translate the scroll, as I clearly offered to do before. However, you're going to need to write things down as I tell you. Not because I won't be able to remember it, but because I don't feel like having to repeat myself."

"And because it'd be easier for you since I don't have to bug you if I forget anything. I can just use the stuff I write down!" Naruto added.

Rai would have shot a retort, but paused and considered that the boy's statement wasn't completely asinine. He settled for a huff and stated. "Yes, that too."

And so it went, Naruto returned to reality with Rai over his shoulder. He grabbed a blank scroll that he had handy, brushing off the coating of dust it had, and then took up a pencil to go with it. He proceeded to make room on the table and then sat down with his writing instrument and scroll in place. "Ready to write!" He boldly stated as he put pencil to paper and waited for Rai's instruction.

A minute passed in silence before Naruto looked up to no place in particular and asked. "Uhh… Rai? You there?"

In a voice of barely concealed condescension, the big fox said. "Naruto, I can't translate what I can't see."

"Oh, whoops." Naruto pulled the jutsu scroll closer to himself and gazed over it so that Rai could see. "That better?"

"Much better. Now, follow exactly what I tell you to write."

The boy sat and wrote, jotting down what the fox dictated to him.

Naruto stopped roughly an hour later and eyed over what he had written down so far. "Oh come on! Even in regular words I still can't understand this!" He shouted aloud, lightly banging his fist against the table in frustration. All that work, and he was no closer to a jutsu than he was the night before.

"Oh and who's fault might that be? Maybe the one who didn't study Chakra like his friend suggested?" Came the kitsune's mocking tone.

"I never said I wasn't going to study Chakra, I just said I didn't want to right away." Was the expected protest from Naruto.

Rai snorted lightly. "And look where that got you." He made no effort to hide his snark.

Naruto stood before the kitsune's prison gates in an exaggerated pose of defiance, jabbing his thumb towards himself in an emphasizing gesture. "Hey, I got a jutsu scroll and managed to juke several Chuunin!" His pose slouched slightly as he sheepishly added. "With your help."

The kitsune simply chuckled and grinned at the boy, satisfied with the result of that little round of button pushing. "Fair enough… at any rate, we might be able to streamline the process of you studying for Chakra and learning the ropes for using your mobility techniques. Much of the requirements for this jutsu appear to be a manner of simply having your chakra flow through your body and activate the various muscle groups…etcetera. You might just be able to combine your efforts in chakra studies into training to use this jutsu."

Naruto folded his arms and tilted his head. "How the heck is that supposed to work?"

Rai's ear flicked and he mildly growled in irritation at such an asinine question. "I literally just told you how it was supposed to work! The Jutsu scroll's instructions coincide with learning the ropes of chakra and how it's used. You can simultaneously train with this jutsu while learning about Chakra, as I've pointed out twice now."

Naruto sheepishly scratched the back of his head and said with a giggle. "Oh, right. I guess that makes sense."

Sometimes the kitsune swore Naruto intentionally acted in such an idiotic fashion to get a rise out of him. "So far you have half of the scroll translated, lets finish it up so I can be done with this."

Before the kitsune went any further though, he added. "Oh, and you should probably return this, tonight, preferably. The last thing we need is someone noticing the scroll is gone and finding it in your possession. Considering that the old fool banned you from the library, such an event wouldn't end well." After that, he laid his head down upon his forearms and continued dictating to Naruto the translation of what was written on the jutsu scroll.

Outside Naruto's apartment, Fox and Cat were perched atop the roof of a neighboring building that allowed them to peer through one of the kid's windows. Normally the two would rely on Cat's dojutsu to keep tabs on the kid from a concealed position, but Fox insisted that they try to gain visual on the scroll in the boy's possession.

"Anything?" Fox whispered quizzically.

Cat leaned to get as good an angle as she could manage, trying to catch a glimpse of the scroll. She eventually shook her head and leaned away from the ledge of the rooftop. "I caught some of what the kid was writing through his wrist movements, it's just a guide on mobility from the looks of it. Nothing worth getting worked up over."

"That's it? Then what the hell was he running out of the restricted section in Konoha library for?" Jun scratched his head in thought, trying to make sense of the event they witnessed earlier at Konoha library.

"Fox, we both saw Shikaku Nara leaving with the brat, and I myself saw the kid get the scroll confiscated. If he did leave with a scroll, it was from the regular part of the library, or it was something Shikaku gave him." Cat said. She looked to her teammate and patted him on the shoulder in a reassuring manner.

Cat then continued. "Besides, there were five shinobi of at least Chuunin rank in the restricted section at the time, there was no way in hell he would have been able to leave that place with something we'd need to be concerned about him having. Either way, it's nothing for us to intervene over."

The fox masked ANBU didn't like it, but his teammate had a valid point. "That makes sense… alright, I guess I'll refer to your judgement on this one."

"And that's my sign to buy a lottery ticket." Cat said with a quiet laugh.

Fox wasn't very amused, "You act as if I've never trusted your judgement before."

Cat simply sat there and stared at her teammate and silently judging them for completely missing the punchline of her comment.

"Still, the kid shouldn't have been there in the first place. Hiruzen-sama clearly told him that he was banned from that location." The fox masked ANBU contemplated aloud.

His partner was quick to retort. "Fox, since when does that kid ever not-go where he isn't allowed? Trying to prevent him from going someplace, you might as well put up a sign saying, Naruto, please come in!"

"Fair enough. If he doesn't return it by tomorrow, I'll stay back when he goes off to lunch and confiscate the scroll, just to be safe."

Back inside the apartment, Naruto pressed on and wrote everything exactly as Rai told him to. He kept at it for the next hour, give or take several minutes, though he largely didn't keep track of time. Once finished, he slapped his pencil to the table and blurted out, "Done, finally!"

"Actually, I have a few things I'd like you to write down for-" Rai had begun to say.

Naruto immediately reacted to the sudden addition of work and interrupted the big fox before he could continue. He threw his hands up in obnoxious fashion and verbally protested, "Oh come on, wry-fox! Why didn't you say something earlier?!"

Rai was having none of it, biting out an irate retort right as the last syllable left Naruto's mouth. "I just spent the past three hours painstakingly translating a jutsu scroll for you, and you have the audacity to complain about me asking you to write something down for me?"

Naruto hastily backtracked; he popped into view before the fox's cage and waved a hand in defensive gesture. "Th-that's not what I meant, I was just-" But the fox didn't let him finish.

"Frustrated that I'd ask you to do more writing right after you finished writing out the translation for this jutsu scroll? Yes, I figured as much, but you could try being frustrated without the impudent attitude." The big fox said with a stern tone. Although the fox's tone of voice was rough, his facial expression was less negative than the boy was expecting.

"Well… yeah, that." Naruto said in response to the fox's fairly accurate perception of what happened. He eventually followed up with. "…So, what did you want me to write?" After several moments in silence.

Rai huffed, his expression transitioning back to his usual neutral one. "I had something that I wanted written down for later use, just in case I managed to forget it by then."

"Well, yeah, but… what is it?" Naruto asked bluntly, with a quizzical tilt of his head.

"Something we both might find a use for at some point, but nothing either of us can use as we are." Rai continued.

Naruto folded his arms and gave a deadpan look as he stated. "That still doesn't tell me what it is…"

The kitsune would have gotten irritated at that, but he realized the context of Naruto's question and mentally facepalmed. "I need you to write out a few lines in Kanji, I'll walk you through the shapes and how to put them. It doesn't need to be perfect, just legible enough for me to read and be able to remember from."

The boy gave an uncertain look but was otherwise eager to help the big fox. "Sure, how hard can writing this kanji stuff be?"

As it turned out, this endeavor wound up being a lot harder than either of them had anticipated.

Several minues in had the both of them arguing back and forth about the legibility of the scattered lines and scribbles that Naruto insisted were accurate representations of the Kanji symbols Rai was tyring to explain in detail.

"No, no, no! That's not how that symbol is supposed to look! I said at a downward angle, starting from the top of the previous line, about a half millimeter over! Do you really think that's at all fitting my description?"

"Hey, you explained it! I just followed what you said! It's not my fault I don't know what the heck a milli-, mil, mell…meter-thing is!" Said the boy in response.

"How do you not know what a millimeter is?!"

"I'm seven!"

Rai pointed out another of the symbols. "This one here is absolutely horrible, your lines cross over one another! They're supposed to be close, not on top of one another!"

"I'm doing the best I can, making the lines so close together is hard!"

The Kitsune groaned and ran a hand over his face in exasperation. This was impossible, he'd never be able to get the kid to write anything close to acceptable Kanji. But he supposed this atrocious attempt was legible enough for him to be able to figure out what each symbol was supposed to be. He'd prefer a much cleaner series of symbols, but these might be the best he was going to get.

"Just… make sure you put this someplace hidden once we're done writing these down."

Naruto squinted at no place in particular as he curiously asked. "….Why do you want me to do that?"

Rai quickly thought up a suitable answer to satisfy the brat's curiosity without divulging the nature of the symbols. "Well, obviously because it's a ninja secret between the two of us; we can't let anyone know about it."

The brief flicker of wonder that flashed across Naruto's eyes as he said "awesome!" Indicated that he'd bought the fabricated answer.

It wasn't that Rai didn't trust Naruto… well, at least, he didn't trust him to keep his mouth shut about it if he knew that these lines of Kanji were entries from the so called Forbidden Scroll. Additionally, he despised the thought of that brat going on and on nagging Rai to teach him how to best use these entries, but that was more an annoyance than a legitimate concern. No, it was more that he was worried what would happen if that meddlesome Hokage caught wind of Naruto having a copy of a few entries from the Scroll of Seals.

If Naruto didn't know what the symbols were, he didn't need to worry about the kid blabbing to anyone. These entries from the scroll might come in handy later, but for now, they didn't serve much purpose to either himself or the boy. Rai wasn't in any position to be trying any forbidden jutsu whilst trapped in this prison. Naruto, well, Naruto hadn't so much as enrolled in the shinobi academy yet; teaching him any of these forbidden jutsu was simply out of the question.

Perhaps if Naruto wasn't the only person that had access to this prison, he'd be more open to the idea of giving Naruto these "dangerous" jutsu before he was ready. As it stood, Naruto was a critically important asset to Rai, so knowingly putting him in danger by teaching him jutsu he wasn't ready for was an unacceptable idea.

No, he'd let the kid start small, those forbidden jutsu would have to be shelved.

Meanwhile, outside Naruto's apartment, Cat was trying her best to figure out what the brat was scribbling down.

"So can you read what he's writing, or not?" Fox questioned for the tenth time.

Cat shook her head and sighed. "I think he's trying to write in traditional… the brat's Kanji is so bad that it looks more like a loosely assembled series of mazes. It's clear he's trying to write something, but whatever it is, I can't read it."

Fox pondered the implications in this and considered the brief argument he'd overheard from Naruto concerning the kanji symbols. Given the one-sided nature of the argument, he could only assume that the person the kid was arguing with was the Kyuubi. 'If I didn't know any better, I'd think the Kyuubi might be trying to teach him how to write Kanji. Psh, yeah right, can't imagine why that demon fox would want to teach the kid how to write traditional.'

"So, you want me to run a report to the Hokage?" Cat said, bringing Fox out of his thoughts.

"No?" the man stated with a bit of confusion. "Cat, it's just kanji. The kid wants to be a shinobi, right? Every shinobi needs to be familiar with Kanji at some point. Maybe if we knew what he was writing, it might be worth a report, but as it stands, all we know for certain is that he has terrible handwriting."

Cat simply eyed over Fox and gave an amused huff at her teammate not being excessively paranoid for once.

"…What?" Fox inquired, not entirely sure why his teammate was giving him that look. This only served to further amuse her.

Back in the apartment, Naruto had finished the last of the Kanji symbols. They were of atrocious quality, but there was little Naruto could do to improve them.

"OK, now find a spot to put these, someplace safe, someplace hidden." Said the kitsune.

The boy went to his room and quickly stowed the shoddily written Kanji into his night stand drawer. "There, safe and hidden."

Rai blinked and had a look indicating lack of amusement, "Really? Your bedside drawer?"

"What? Nobody would think to look here, right?"

The fox planted a palm to his forehead in mild irritation. "You don't have a hidden floorboard, or wall panel?"

Naruto tilted his head and scrunched up his face in quizzical fashion. "But wouldn't that be the first place someone would try to look for?"

Rather than trying to argue his point, the fox decided to let it go. "Nevermind; just remember to return that jutsu scroll tonight. It doesn't have to go back into the restricted section, just leave it at the library and make sure nobody sees you."

The blonde gave Rai the thumbs up, and then went back to his dinner table to get started with his Chakra studies, and by extension, his mobility jutsu. Naruto was, at the very least, eager to get started.

After all, he had a jutsu to learn.


Author's note

Aaaaand done! Chapter 12 veryone, I hope you enjoyed this one. I was going to have this one be a bit longer and feature another sequnce at the end, but that final sequence of the original cut was really stretching out this chapter to the point of being close to 15k words, and it wasn't even finished yet!

I cut the final sequence and will instead have it be the start for the next chapter. It had a few weeks of a timeskip anyway, so it'd flow better having it be a new chapter rather than cramming it into the end of this one.

At least this chapter didn't take as long to publish as the last one... that's mostly my fault though, so no biggie. Just me being nervous about the upload had me delay this an extra day...blegh. I'm such a coward sometimes.

Anywho, lets get to it.

This chapter picks up right where we left off last chapter, and sorry for the cliffhanger, I know I know, I hate cliffhangers too! I'm gonna make it a habit to not use cliffhangers except for rare occasions where it might add some needed flair...or if I'm being a lazy [redacted]

Darn Naruto and being uneducated and not adopted by a ninja clan! He was unable to read the kanji exclusive Scroll of Seals! Not that he'd have been able to use a jutsu from that thing anyways...since he hasn't even started studying chakra by that time. OH, but you know who does know how to read Kanji? Of course you do, you read the chapter!

Yeah, there's plenty in this chapter that I was more or less forced to just make up as I went due to a distinct lack of the context being unaddressed in the anime. I tried to make it kinda make sense and still align to how it's presented canonically, as I will in the future. I want to remain loyal to most of the lore, but there's just soooo many gaps in information that I really need, so some artistic liberty has to be taken, even if this wasn't an AU. Yeah, it's an AU and I technically have free reign, (technically) I do not want to veer too far from certain aspects of canon and the lore in the Naruto-verse. You have to understand, it's pretty scary for me writing this up and having to fill in certain gaps. I'm terrified of presenting something incorrectly, or doing something that might put off the readers. Remember, I'm not just writing this story for me. I want the readers to enjoy this too!

I really wrote myself into a corner (or so I thought) with Naruto being caught by Cat and having his gear (obviously) confiscated as a result. Our stubborn blonde had to have that jutsu, there wasn't any silly ban that could stop him! That, and he had Rai-dar! ...I'm sorry, please don't kill me.

Rai completely forgot the whole reason he wanted Naruto to go to the library originally. Though, it's also a point to know that I couldn't find any real context behind Rai's ninja radar besides the obvious that's already been stated... I was disappointed that they never went into detail about the ability, but that's just the way it is. Either that, or I completely missed something down the line. IDK, either way, I had to forget about them actually fulfilling that little arc of Rai learning more about the ability, because there just wasn't enough information about that sensor ability of his and I'm not confident enough to come up with anything more on my own!

Naruto managed to do his little stunt in the middle of the day without Cat or Fox knowing about it because they happened to not be there when Naruto pulled it off. Yeah, I sort of jerry rigged that sequence in, but it kinda makes sense that they'd be a little busy getting chewed out by the Hokage over their negligence (Cat's negligence mostly) since the forbidden scroll is kind of a big deal.

Speaking of the forbidden scroll, I've seen the scroll's security covered in other fanfics, and they're fairly reasonable. The way I had it, and hinted at, is that it's got a "tripwire" esc system built in that if anyone leaves that classified room with the scroll, the security activates and a team is dispatched to both reclaim it and apprehend the person that took it. AT least, that's how I imagine it in my head? If anyone has a better idea for how they might protect the scroll, well, I don't doubt that its probably better.

More demonstrations of the language barrier present in my story. I might need to make a name for "english" for if they refer to it by name, but I decidd to just stick with "Kanji" and "Romaji" for the inclusion of Japanese. I thought it would be an interesting way to include Japanese with a reasonable explanation instead of just having it in there for the sake of anime reasons. A personal pet peeve of mine is seeing folks put in Japanese dialect for things like Jutsu and honorifics, but keep english for the rest of everything else. I'll offer an In-story explanation during the academy, but to summarize, the civilization in Naruto started with japanse, and eventually started using a more modular language. Japanse has very specific terms and letters for everything. English relies more on tone and context to define its words. That, and I wanted to include some Japanese and have the language barrier in for Naruto to have to deal with...and I know some fans prefer the inclusion of Japanse terms, so...uh. Yeah. I put in japanese, and I'm trying to have it be there for a reason and not just "because". If anyone has an idea for what to call "English" instead of "english" by all means...please tell me, my naming suuuucks, in case that wasn't already obvious.

I've tried to make the minor timeskips fluid and reasonable, and add in tidbits alluding to what's been going on between timeskips and in the background. I really don't like doing this, since I prefer "show don't tell", but if I didn't skip along and move the plot forward, this story would very quickly become stagnant and the plot would slow to a crawl...so...yeah. I'm doing the best I can to offer insight into background goings on, but I'm not all that great with the fluff.

If a story is like a cheeseburger, I like to think I make a mean patty and use a nice quality cheese, but my bun is a bland pair of bread slices.

I don't think I really need to get into character development explanations, I mean, I'd probably mess up what the story itself is accomplishing.

Anywho, that's all for now. Enjoy!