A/N: For the past two weeks, I had no internet acess, so I couldn't get this up. Blame it on my parents. They drag me to places like Maine for crazy family reunions and the Cayman Islands to go scuba diving. At least I have a nice tan now :)

And also blame it on Stephanie Meyer. She forced me to stay holed up in my room for days reading Breaking Dawn over and over. Not that I minded that, particularly.

Um, this is another important chapter, as it introduces a new character and a whole new realm in the story.

Plus its back to third person, so you won't get confused by POVs or anything like that.

And yes, Ghostie is a good girl. :) Or guy? I don't know. I just hope I got it right :P

Music 1s my s0ul, I wish I could take and munch on all the cookies (yum!), but unfortuneatly, I'm trying to lose some weight...

So you all know the drill; read, review and enjoy!

Chapter 14 – An Old Friend

Naruto flopped, exhausted, onto his bedroom floor, too tired and sore to take out his bed. He rolled onto his back and sighed. Today had been another grueling, long day.

Both he and Hinata had been here a month and a half and each day was the same thing. They would wake up at six in the morning, get changed into their uniforms, eat breakfast and wash all the dishes involved in cooking and serving, then go outside and do a physical training regimen the even Lee and Gai would turn pale at. This would continue until one in the after afternoon for a half hour lunch break, in which they would also wash the dishes. From then until sundown, they would do exercises that pushed their ninja level balance to the extreme to perfect it to an excruciating degree. Dinner was the same as all the other meals, eating then cleaning up afterwards. After that, then they could do whatever they wanted, including sleep.

Unfortunately for Naruto, he was training twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When he was sleeping, that meant Kyuubi asked him logical questions in his dreams and if he got them wrong, the fox tricked him into waking up and losing sleep. If he got it right, then he would let his jailer stay asleep and would move onto the next question. Most of the time, Naruto go them wrong so he wasn't getting much sleep OR sleeping well.

What frustrated him the most was not Kyuubi waking him up, it was Myuri. Day in and day out, the man pushed him to and past his limits of both strength and patience, thought latter was nearly non-existant to begin with.

Even ever enduring Hinata looked to be wearing a bit. Over the last two weeks, Naruto had approached Myuri twice after dinner to ask him when they were moving on from strength-endurance training and balance training to where they actually learned how to use the sword. True, all three of those things had improved exponentially since that first week, but his body and mind was nearly at it breaking point and a person can only take so much.

The old man's response both times was to shake his head and say, "Your patience will be rewarded in due time."

Naruto rolled onto his side and groaned. This had all seemed like his big break, his ticket into becoming the best shinobi the world had ever known, even surpassing the great Yondaime Hokage. And yet, here he was, hid body's breaking strain nearly reached, his mind overworked and his hope and enthusiasm gone.

Over in her room, Hinata had taken the time to change into some clothes she had brought with her. The familiar weight of her training uniform made her regular clothes feel as light as a feather, a nice relief from the day.

She had gotten stronger over the past month and a half, though only physically. All the baby fat was gone from her face and most of her body fat was gone too, making her leaner, slimmer. She had also noticed her future partner had grown taller a bit, though he had muscled up even more than that since he was skinny to begin with.

Her patience had been tried every day since she had come but it was starting to slowly weaken. Before long, she too would approach Myuri and ask him. She was having doubts already if this was some sort of torture or if this was the Kenbu-Do, just strength and balance and swinging a blade around wildly.

And since that night that she had danced on the water, she had had exactly one other of those cat-monster nightmares. For fear of someone seeing her again, she didn't go out and try her Jyuuken again on the water.

Hinata, being the unfortunate bookworm kunochi she was, took the time to read almost every night before going to sleep since the time she was nine. This was actually how she hadn't become an idiot like Naruto, how she coped with her harsh father, how she learned to think, how she became perceptive, how her mind gained incredible depth. She had brought along three of her favorite books as well as a new one that the bookstore clerk had recommended she read. It was pretty lengthy and she was now only a quarter of the way through it, starting it the same day she and Naruto started training. Though it cut into her sleeping time from the day's strenuous routine, she like to have a bit of time to herself and forget the world around her, to come out of her sore body and dive into someone else's world.

She indulged that now and left the world for a time.

Izumi rose early in the morning to pack. She didn't mind having the duty of the outside world, of keeping up with the news and gossip and buying food for the now six people in the secret family, but it got annoying sometimes. This trip was a little different though than the many she had taken weekly out of the hidden security of the Oni chakra cloak. During those last few trips she had bought more food than necessary to last the five of them during the next few possible weeks she would be gone.

This would be a different trip though, for an entirely different reason than the usual. Izumi would go and visit him because of her grandson's faux "bloodline." He was a pleasant man and the Uzumaki clan was in his debt for the past thirty-five or forty so years, but she hated the trip because it was so long and dangerous. Though, if it was beneficial for Naruto, she would do it. Because that's what family does.

After helping Meng, the family chef, with making breakfast, she made her announcement near the end of the meal.

"Naruto-kun, Hinata-san," she said as she always addressed them, "Today I am leaving for a few weeks. I-"

"Izumi-baa-chan, you're leaving?! Why?" Naruto whined.

"I was just about to tell you that. I must go see someone and I don't know how long I'll be gone. It'll be at least two weeks, maybe more." She said, indifferent.

"Where are you g-going?" Hinata questioned. Even after all this time, old habits died hard.

"Onto the mainland and up in the mountains. That's why it's going to take so long."

"Can't you stay a little while longer?"

"Naruto-kun, I should have attended this business a month ago. I can't delay this any longer. Besides, it's for your benefit."

After a brief hug goodbye from both of her students, Izumi left the Uzumaki mansion in the same clothes she made the trip to Konoha in minus the mask. Other times when she left she would dress in a commoner's clothes and carry a basket but for this long distance trip where she would be traveling many countries, something more durable was needed.

Once she got to the main road, she took to the trees and headed northward to the bridge that connected the island to the mainland. It took five days to get to Konoha at a civilian's pace but she was going faster than that and wasn't going there anyways, so she made it to Fire Country in just under three. It took a day and a half to cross the southern part of it, another to cross into Wind country and follow the border until she was south of Earth Country. The next day she crossed into there and into the southern mountain range.

Finally, after about a week of hard traveling since she left, she came to the deepest reaches of the range where the mountains stood four miles high. The man had cast a huge genjutsu designed to turn wanderers away from the mountain he lived on but if you knew where to look and what you were looking for, it could be found. He had left a hole in it, though it was guarded.

Izumi jumped down from the rock outcropping after she had found the small warp in the scenery that marked where the gap was. She ran down the ridge of the mountain, through the thick pine forest, across the thin river at the bottom of the narrow valley and to the group of trees that appeared slightly magnified from a distance. She slowed to a walk as she approached he area and came to a stop. She took a deep breath before taking the next few steps, bracing herself.

As soon as she saw the tree to her left and the boulder to her right begin to transform, she stopped she knew what was coming but it always surprised her the few times she had been here. Izumi got down on both knees, bowed her head and put up both hands as a sign of surrender. Two towering shadows entered her vision. "I come in peace, Kurosu-san, Yori-san." She said in a loud voice.

"Look up and tell me what business you have here." A deep, warped voice said.

Izumi brought her head up and looked into the two faces of the two enormous Oni that stood in front of her, their rusty battle axes drawn.

The two stood at least eight feet tall, one with an ugly gray wrinkled and rough skin, the other having the color of dark olive green. They wore no helmets on their heads because of their two twisting horns that grew above their ears and slanted backwards. Their noses were squashed and piggish, their eyes both yellow and beady on their broad faces. A mane of hair grew on their heads and a bit down their necks matted and tangled, looking as if it had never been combed. The gray Oni had red hair and the green one's was an earthy brown. All the teeth on the top rows were visible with two long fangs that ended past their chins and curved outwards that were where their canines should be. Their heavy body frames with huge bulging muscles were mostly covered by rough tunics that could be seen through small gaps in the heavy body armor they wore. They had no metal on them from the mid-thigh down and they each wore a pair of well used geta. Knives and other small weapons were cluttered onto leather belts around their waists as well as a few pouches that held miscellaneous items.

"I wish to speak to Yoshisune Michinaga-sama on important matters."

"Recite the phrases of admittance." The gray one said in a similar gravelly voice.

"I swear upon my soul

No harm shall be

To the Demon and his kind

I am no foe,

For I know the Sage of Old,

The Sage on his Mountain High,

The Sage of the Dark Beings,

His knowledge I have come to find.

It shall not be abused

Nor shaped to do wrong

I swear this upon my life." Izumi recited it like she meant it.

The two demons stood aside and melted back into their previous unassuming forms.

Izumi, glad that she had found the right place and that the hardest part was over, sighed and continued on up the mountain and around so she ended up on top of a cliff about 400 feet high. There were bristly pine trees that stood only about twenty feet tall on top, and nestled between them was a small hermit's cottage.

"Naruto-san and Hinata-san, today we will take a break from training." Myuri announced after laying his chopsticks aside from finishing his breakfast.

If he had any more energy, Naruto would have exploded with joy. Instead, he put his head down on the table, closed his eyes and moaned. Hinata just looked at her sensei as if he had two heads. "G-Gomen, what?" The stutter this time was not from habit, but from surprise.

"I would like to take a break from our regular training. No we are not moving on, Naruto-san." He said seeing the new look on Naruto's face. "You two look like you need it and I am also extremely curious." It seemed like he said those last words to himself.

"Curious? About what?" Naruto groaned, his head still on the table. "You already know everything about us, what more do you want?"

"Do you remember your test?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember that you performed Rasengan and missed me by mere inches?"

"Yeah. What are you trying to tell me? You wanna learn it?"

"No. What I am curious about is how you learned that technique."

"So you do want to learn it." Naruto lifted his head off the table to look at Myuri properly.

"No again. You see, I can perform that technique too. Every single Uzumaki present here and all of our ancestors spanning back over a thousand years could."

"That's a lie! The Yondaime Hokage invented it!" Naruto argued angrily.

"No he did not. S-"

"Then let me see it! Show me a Rasengan!" he said fiercely, standing up out of his seat as if to make his point.

Myuri did, knowing that the conversation would get nowhere if he didn't do as his student requested. He lazily held out his palm and formed a blue orb of spinning chakra in his right. He held it for a moment and let it dissipate and put his hand back under the table. He watched as Naruto sat back down in a half daze and leaned slightly towards Hinata as if she would provide him with support.

"As I was saying, somehow he knew your mother and talked to her about it. I remember her as a young girl witnessing her older cousins practicing it as well as her aunts and uncles demonstrating it to them. Your Hokage essentially 're-created' it from your mother's description. So did you learn it from him? Your Hokage?"

Naruto looked down at his lap, his shaggy blonde hair covering his eyes. "No." The word was hard and full of pain. "The Yondaime died the day I was born."

"So where did you learn it from?" Myuri pressed.

"His name is Jiraya. He calls himself the Toad Sage and he's one of the Sannin of Konoha. He was the Yondaime's sensei and he learned it from him. He's the author of those stupid, disgusting Icha Icha books. I call him Ero-Senin because he's always peeping at girls in the bathhouses!" He scrunched his face at the last sentence.

Myuri fell into one of his silent spells for a few minutes. "Come." He said after a while. "Let us go out back. The dishes can wait."

"But I thought you said we aren't training today!" the boy protested.

"We aren't. I want you to perform it for us."

"So much for no training." Naruto grumbled under his breath, loud enough for only Hinata to hear as they stood from their places at the table.

She smiled at him in response. Even if she was over the stuttering reflex for the most part, she was still too shy around him to say anything back.

They put on their sandals and went outside, around the large dojo and to the open space of the training ground. It was far from midday so the sun hung low in the sky, creating long shadows. Everyone save for the student and master in question stood to the side.

"Create a Rasengan." Myuri ordered.

Naruto crossed his fingers in the appropriate manner and muttered "Kage Bunshin." A shadow clone came into existence on his right and behind him. He closed his eyes and drew the chakra from inside him to his palm.

Ah! How good it felt to have chakra flowing through him! It had been awhile since he had done anything that involved chakra, much less molding it, so it was nice relief to feel that he still had it.

As soon as it was completed, he let the clone dissipate to smoke and held his hand out with the completed Rasengan. "There. Happy?" Myuri inspected it from all angles, even taking Naruto's wrist and shaking it to see if he would let go of the chakra, which he did not.

Finally, after a more tests, the ancient man nodded approvingly. "It looks like a true Rasengan."

"Great. Can I go sleep now, since we aren't training?"

He completely ignored Naruto and kept speaking. "Although, the way you formed it was interesting. Through my long life, I have never seen one of my students form it that way. Was that how Jiraya-san did it?"

"No he does it the same way you do it."

Myuri simply looked at Naruto and said, "You are truly a boy full of surprises."

The rest of the day was peaceful and Naruto spent it sleeping, waking only for meals. Even Kyuubi backed down and let his thoroughly worn-out container sleep peacefully with no dreams, respecting Myuri's decision.

Hinata, on the other hand, did the exact opposite despite the soreness in her muscles. She joined the family in chores that needed to be done and helped Meng make lunch and dinner because she too loved to cook. Nearly all of this she did in silence and just enjoyed her sensei's company. At one point she began to hum a lullaby had taught her while she was still alive all those years ago. After going through it a few times, Meng caught on too and they hummed and cleaned and did laundry in much more than harmony.

Uesugi had come by at one point to deliver some clothes that needed to be washed and gave melodic Meng and harmonious Hinata a crinkly eyed grin when he heard them. "Women…" he muttered under his breath as he walked away. His wife heard and she smiled, knowing exactly what he was thinking through that strange bond called marriage.

"Ah! Izumi-chan!" The man placed his pipe down to run over to his friend and embrace her. "It's always so nice to see you!" His tone dropped. "Though I suspect you didn't come all the way here from Whirlpool country just to have a chat! What brings you to my humble house?"

She laughed. "I see you have taken to youth again."

"I find it preferable since your joints get creaky after a half dozen centuries." He jokingly agreed.

The old woman pulled out of the hug, dropped down one knee and bowed her head. "Michinaga-sama, I have a request for you."

"Oh stop with all these stupid formalities! You know I hate them!" He pulled her up off the floor by her arm.

"But you're hundreds of years older than I am!" she protested. "How can I not respect someone of that stature and who has also helped protect my family?"

It was true. Taking one look at Yoshisune Michinaga, you would assume he was a young man in his late twenties with his sleek black hair only an inch long, his handsome shaven face and his six foot four inches tall, impressive and muscular body.

The only thing that gave away his true age was his grey eyes. When he was a young boy almost a thousand years ago, they used to be blue, the brightest anyone could imagine. Now after all those hundreds of years had past, they had slowly faded to grey full of wisdom from pain and grief, eyes who had seen too much life lost before them.

"You're my friend, as is your family and friends must be friends, not stiff uptight feudal lords." He guided her to the edge of his porch where his pipe lay smoking and abandoned. "Now, what can I do for you, young madam?" He put it back in his mouth, sat down on the edge and looked at her, intrigued.

Izumi had taken her pack off by the door so she had no trouble sitting down beside him. "My grandson arrived from Konohagakure with his female friend about a month and a half ago. The next day, we learned that he had the Kyuubi no Kitsune sealed in my grandson-"

"What!? My old friend, Kyuubi, the nine tailed fox, King of the Bijuu!?"

"The same one apparently."

"How…Never mind. Excuse me. That was rude. Go on."

"Yes, he was sealed in my grandson by his father, the Yondaime Hokage. He seems to have poor control of the demon's chakra. We were wondering if you could teach him for two years up here so he has superb control of him and if you could train him in such a way that it would be extremely beneficial to his training in the Kenbu-Do."

Michinaga turned forward and his face fell into one of thought.

The sun traveled all the way across the sky and descended to the opposite horizon. The deep blue darkened and neither moved an inch from their positions, save for Michinaga's jaw as he continued inhaling deeply from his pipe even long after it had died out.

As the last of the light disappeared and only a faint glow in the west remained, Izumi got up, stretched her stiff muscles and went inside to prepare something for the two of them to eat.

As she boiled the dried meat on the tiny wood stove, she thought and hoped that he would accept since making dinner was only a job that kept hands busy. She knew that he would only say no if he thought that it was too much of a risk, that the Kyuubi was too powerful for him to control. Of course, that was highly unlikely. Michinaga wasn't called the Demon Sage for nothing. He knew everything about the World of Demons and its different cultures, not to mention how to control all the aspects of every demon in existence. He was in good favor with all of the Nine Bijuu, no matter how savage they were, and in turn all of their Lesser Demons. He even had good terms with the Shinigami.

What was holding him back then?

She placed their dinners in two rough cut wooden bowls and brought them outside, sitting down next to Michinaga and placed his next to him. It would be awhile before he moved, Izumi figured because he had done the same thing when they had asked him to create a ward to protect the remnants of their clan somehow. This was how the Oni chakra cloak came about.

Izumi ate her dinner in silence with her fingers, patiently waiting for his answer. He still hadn't moved long after she had finished. She left him and went inside the cottage to call it a day and sleep.

She practiced all her katas the next day, starting from the lowest, the beginners that she had learned as a child and worked her way up to the most advanced one, doing over a hundred in total. All in all, it occupied her for a majority of the day and when she finished, Michinaga held the same position as the same day before.

"Izumi, wake up."

Something shook her and she rolled over.

"What is it Michinaga?" she groaned.

"You said your grandson brought along a friend with him, a girl if I'm not mistaken."

"Yes, why?" She sat up, fully awake.

"Describe her to me."

"Her name is Hyuuga Hinata. She's about four and a half feet tall, has dark hair, little self-esteem despite her family name, a very thoughtful and kind person and she's in love with my grandson though he's completely oblivious to her feelings. They're really good friends. They do a lot of things together."

"So if he left to train here for two years, she would be all alone down there with you and your family for those same two years?"

"Essentially yes."

"Did you ever think of her?" He seemed almost upset now, even if his face was hidden in the dark.

"Of course. We had a bit of trouble when she came because we were expecting someone else but that was resolved and now they're secretly engaged."

"Do you realize what you have done?" He was very angry now. "Do you realize what will happen if he comes here alone? And what he will be like when he returns? She might not even know him anymore! Does she even know why he would have to come here in the first place? That he has Kyuubi-san sealed in him?"

She was shocked speechless by his accusations.

"Sometimes I wonder how your uncle thought these things out. You made it worse when you betrothed her to him. You are all just forgetting about her and shunning her aside when she's just as important as your grandson! She will carry his children someday and when that happens she's going to be even more important than him!" he said through clenched teeth. "Also, it pays to never be lonely. If I have learned anything throughout my long life, it is that things are best when you have someone to share it with. And, she might be even more precious to him than he realizes when he leaves. Did you ever think of that?

"This is my condition: this girl must come with him. She will train here for two years alongside him and learn how to control him if he loses himself to Kyuubi-san if it ever happens."

Izumi nodded her head, still too shocked to give any other response.

"Does your family have anything else to ask of me?"

She shook her head.

"Then you may leave in the morning."

A/N: So Hinata is shunned no more, thank the lord. Even I felt like I was shunning her a bit and that's not good. She's going to come foreward and start talking.

I just want to thank you all for being so patient with me. I have a slow writing process, so it takes me a while to get things out.

I'm sorry again that this was a bit late. And I wish it was longer but I'm saving whats happening next for the next chapter obviously because what happns next will start a whole new chain on events. Speaking of which...

Next Chapter: The secret he has kept since the night his life changed is in danger of being revealed to her, his most precious person. Will the lie he created hold, or will she see through it?

IBP