AN: I'm really sorry about the delay since the last chapter. It sounds like an excuse, I know, but real life does take priority over fiction unfortunately. Seriously, I've been in and out of the hospital so much the last few months that I'm beginning to know the hallways off by heart, and I just had another x-ray on Friday just gone that I'm waiting for results for. Amyway, on to more relevant things, this chapter was rather hard to write, it just didn't flow very well and has been re-written four times before this one was typed up. I hope you like it, and for those impatient ones amongst you, there's this and another small arc, maybe two, before Naruto becomes a genin (but don't expect that to be anything like canon), so please be patient with me. Also, for those who complained about Naruto's clothing, he's going to wear all sorts of things, not just a single outfit throughout the entire fic.

Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord

Chapter 25 - Burn

It had been several weeks since the Uchiha 'incident' and things in the village were starting to calm down. The rumours and whispers that had run rampant through the populace began to taper off as nothing new came up for them to talk about. Of course, some rumours persisted, especially after one Shirou Uchiha had knelt down in front of the demon child in the middle of the street and publicly thanked him for saving his life, along with the remaining Uchiha.

The fact that Naruto had looked very awkward and unsure about how to react to that had only made more people speculate about what had happened that night, as before that point it hadn't been known that the blonde child had been involved in any way with the incident in question, much less that he had saved lives.

Of course, not everything was looking sunny. Sasuke Uchiha, the heir of the clan now that Itachi had 'gone rogue', had not yet awoken from the coma he was in, and the remaining Uchiha were trying to get on with their lives. This was made much more difficult when they discovered that several of their dead clan members had had their eyes removed from their corpses.

It wasn't just the Uchiha who were angered by that. The other clans with bloodlines were pissed off that someone would dare desecrate a corpse to steal its bloodline. While this might be somewhat expected from a rival village, this had obviously happened within Konoha itself, and everyone was put on high alert while an investigation was started to look into it.

This came at a good time for Naruto though. The inchlings that swarmed around Naruto had told him that they'd started to see four particular ninja following him after that incident. It hadn't taken the blonde long to find out who they were once they'd given him their descriptions, and the jinchuuriki was a little unsure about the attention he was getting.

He'd expected the Hokage to assign him a watcher or the like after his 'little' revelations that night, but the ones who were looking over him… all four of them had a direct connection to the fourth Hokage, his father, and he doubted that was a coincidence.

It made him wonder… were they actually worried about him, because of who his father was? Were they feeling guilty that they'd never done anything about him before? Or were they specifically assigned his guards because they were his father's guards and so might be able to 'connect' with him in some way?

Okay, that may be an overly paranoid way of looking at things, but Naruto didn't know what to think. Before he'd met Benio, and through her the rest of the youkai he could now call his friends, he hadn't really had anyone. True, the Hokage made some time for him, but he was a very busy man and didn't really have much spare time for his own grandson, never mind Naruto as well.

Of course, Naruto had other things to be worrying about rather than just the habits of village ninja…

xxxxx

The blonde flinched as he ran his fingers over his newest injury, a dark purple bruise that was clearly in the shape of a hand, a slender and feminine hand at that. Just beyond that bruise were five small marks, the sort of thing you'd get if someone dug fingernails sharp enough to draw blood into your flesh and dragged them downwards.

That, along with his increasingly frequent nightmares, was evidence enough for him that his personal demon was gaining in power again. The fact that his biju-granted healing had trouble with injuries she had caused made him worry as well. In fact, the only way he knew of to get rid of the bruises and marks she'd given him was to use the demonic technique he'd created based on that flesh beast in Lightning Country.

Hacking up some of that foul black substance that always turned up when he used demonic techniques and spitting it out, Naruto grimaced at seeing the amount that he'd produced this time. Somehow, he didn't think the fact there was a lot less of it than when he'd first started using said technique was a very positive thing.

Ignoring the unpleasant implications of that for now, the blonde got ready for the Ninja Academy. He'd been up for almost two hours already, looking over his traps in the forest for any wild animals that had been caught, checking the fruit and vegetables he was growing, having a small spar with Takame, and just generally organising things around the house and tidying things up when needed.

There was a soft sound on the table as Minako set down a standard ninja pouch filled with Academy standard kunai and shuriken next to him as he ate his breakfast. He had to hide a grimace at that, as while he practised with the standardised ninja weaponry, he wasn't particularly fond of either of them at all.

At range, Naruto much preferred a bow, switching to a spear for close quarters. Where there wasn't enough room to comfortable use a spear, he then switched to a long dagger or short sword. Of course, that was when Naruto fought alone and without Takame there to become a pair of iron claws for him.

"Are you ready for another day of learning, Naruto?" Tsuyukami cheerfully asked the blonde, sorting through several letters as he did so. He was probably reading through the 'reports' that he got from various youkai, deciding which bits Naruto might like to know later and which ones were requests for assistance of varying sorts.

"Actually, yeah, I am." Naruto replied. "Umino-sensei said the other day that we're going to be looking at the founding of the hidden villages in history today. I remember reading that a large, organised group of bandits once tried to take out some of the lesser villages when they were still new. If I recall, they used siege engines like catapults and ballistae to great effect, and that sounds really interesting."

"Oh? You're interested in old fashioned artillery, are you?" Tsuyukami asked. "I remember they were popular centuries back, before ninja and samurai became the only real military forces around. Many 'civilian' villages and towns used to have them set up for protection, and I remember them being quite effective, especially when used in large numbers."

"Really?" Naruto asked. "I didn't know civilians used to have anything resembling a military, they certainly don't these days. The closest thing to 'civilian' armed forces are, well, bandits really. I guess it makes sense though, I've heard some of the youkai talk about how dangerous and violent the world used to be."

"And you should remember that." Tsuyukami cautioned him. "As much as humans call ninja wars hell on earth, it's nothing compared to how things were even two centuries ago. Back then no one was safe and everyone knew how to fight and kill. Even ordinary villagers would have a dagger or something ready and knew how to use them."

"That sounds pretty bad." Naruto murmured. "I can't even imagine how chaotic life must have been back then."

"It was bad." Tsuyukami agreed. "But the older youkai can tell you about a time it was worse. There was a short period of peace almost a thousand years ago, but before that was a dark time, far worse than anything that has since happened." He clapped his hands together. "Anyway, enough of the depressing stuff! You were telling me about your interest in catapults, weren't you?"

"Oh, yeah!" Naruto remembered what he'd been saying. "I was just thinking that stuff like that might make my shikigami more effective. They were used for a reason, right? And shikigami are stronger than civilians, so they should be able to use them without any problems, even if they're not 'ninja' strong."

"Didn't you already look into siege engines a while back?" Tsuyukami asked. "I seem to remember you looking into ballistae being the reason behind your shikigami using crossbows as opposed to yumi bows."

"Yeah, that's right." Naruto confirmed. "It's just that ballistae are too big for my shikigami to 'spawn' with, unlike arbalests, and you know that I'm unable to use regular storage seals, so I can't exactly carry them around like that."

"You could make a shikigami shaped like a catapult or ballista though, couldn't you?" Tsuyukami suggested.

"Maybe." Naruto glanced at his newest iteration of his shiki-bow, a charm on his wrist. "Probably." He corrected himself. "A siege engine is bigger than a bow, but there's no reason I couldn't do it… and given how shikigami don't quite follow the laws of biology or physics, there might be something a little special I could do as well."

Tsuyukami reached over the table and ruffled Naruto's hair. "You do that, Naruto. Now, finish your breakfast, you've got the Academy to get to, do you not?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, but did as Tsuyukami said and finished his breakfast which promptly disappeared. Calling a thanks to Minako and a farewell, the blonde jinchuuriki headed out of the cabin. Almost as soon as he did so, a swarm of inchlings surrounded him, calling out greetings of their own.

Amongst those greetings were little titbits of information here and there. For example, Hinoe had apparently drank herself into a hangover again the night before, Madara and Misuzu were butting heads like they usually did, and Shin the bakeneko had apparently gotten caught in one of the Kappas' pranks and was cleaning his fur right now, and had been for hours already apparently.

The gossip network amongst the local youkai was probably more effective than the reports that Tsuyukami got from across the continent. Still, there were things that even they didn't know, the location of the pilfered Uchiha eyes for example. That was something that Naruto, and Kurama too, really worried.

While they had been working on blind-fighting – mostly using Kurama's negative emotion sensing to detect the 'intent to attack' - not all illusions were visual. While less common, there were genjutsu techniques for making or muting sound, causing sensory deprivation, inducing nausea, confusion, and pain, amongst goodness knows how many more.

It was a foolish, and most likely dead, person who thought all genjutsu were seen, and an unprepared idiot who believed that the entire branch of techniques was limited to the five senses. To Naruto, that's what made genjutsu appear the most terrifying and dangerous of all ninja techniques, even more so than fuinjutsu.

It was a bit of an annoyance to him that he didn't have much success with 'mental' and 'suggestion' techniques. While his elemental techniques could be said to be wildly effective and successful, and his talismans were quite effective and useful, his attempts at illusions and mental suggestions were average, at best.

He could make non-corporeal illusionary copies of himself or other things, much like the Academy 'Bunshin' that everyone was taught, and he could also put suggestions in someone's mind, but only the really weak of mind would succumb to them. In fact, Naruto had trouble convincing a cat to get up and wander around.

Than again, Naruto personally believed that cat to have more strength of will than a number of unpleasant humans he had met, and a few handfuls of the more… 'simple-minded' youkai as well. He would never forget that odd vole-type youkai who'd resolutely kept bumping head first into a tree rather than walk around it and continue on his way.

Anyway, that wasn't important right now. While those thoughts worked well to occupy him on his walk to the academy, he didn't want to be distracted from anything he might learn in lessons that day.

xxxxx

Mari Uchiha, ten years old and only current Uchiha aside from Sasuke who had yet to graduate from the Ninja Academy, stood with her two distant cousins Shirou and Tsubaki. Neither of them had returned to active duty yet, apparently the hospital refused to allow it until they'd passed a psychiatric test.

Shirou still held plenty of anger and hatred towards Itachi, but if that was all it was it wouldn't be a problem, that boy – and Itachi had only been thirteen – had slaughtered their families after all, anger was understandable. What wasn't acceptable was his hair trigger temper that had him lashing out at the slightest perceived slight towards his remaining family.

Tsubaki, on the other hand, had withdrawn into herself, becoming empty and often unresponsive. The only exceptions was when she was approached by someone unfamiliar – in which case she would retaliate instantly with intent to kill – and when she was around Shirou, who she'd sort of latched onto.

Not in a romantic way, no. Lacking any immediate family, the two acted like overprotective siblings with each other. Well, Shirou was trying to hold together what was left of the clan as well as he could, and it was Tsubaki who was keeping him from losing himself as well.

It hurt, if Mari was honest with herself. Her family, her clan, had been one of the most well known in the entire Elemental Nations, as famous as the Senju and Hyuuga clans, two others that called Konoha their home, and in a single night, a matter of hours… most of them had been slaughtered like cattle.

She didn't believe that Itachi had done it to 'test' himself as so many said, which also happened to be the official story. That just didn't make sense, and what she knew of Itachi didn't match up. True, she had never even spoken to him once, but with how much he was hailed a prodigy 'beyond all others', he was quite well known, especially in the Uchiha district, and he seemed, if anything, too 'professional' to just lose it and slaughter everyone like he did.

Mari grimaced as a rather bitter taste ghosted across her tongue. A point against Itachi simply going 'rogue' was how he'd left Sasuke alive. Every other Uchiha, every last one of them, had been struck an efficient, deadly blow, but not Itachi's own brother.

While it was debatable whether long term mental torture was better or worse than the short term pain and lengthy recovery they'd had to deal with, it nevertheless marked Sasuke as 'different'. He'd been left alive, and she really didn't believe the bullshit excuse about him 'not being strong enough' to bother with.

He hadn't been strong enough, but her four month old cousin was? Itachi had killed little Kimiko, Mari remembered that happening, had seen it personally. That moment had been engraved into her mind by her activated sharingan, something that had only woken the night of the massacre after seeing her parents' corpses and Itachi stood over them with a blade dripping crimson red.

"Mari."

She jumped almost out of her skin as she felt an arm on her shoulder, looking up to see Shirou giving her a comforting and sympathetic smile.

She flushed with embarrassment. Intellectually, she might know that all of her remaining family, the younger ones especially, were prone to spacing out, panic attacks, flinching, and bouts of inexplicable fear, but that didn't stop her feeling ashamed for doing it.

Turning away from the boy, she pointedly looked down the path leading towards the Academy, catching sight of something that she immediately focused on.

What she saw was a blonde boy, younger than she was, wearing a red, almost robe-like, jacket that reached to just below his knees. The sleeves were long and flared, covering all but the very tips of his fingers, with a broad band of black edging to balance the red. Though she couldn't see it from the front, there was also a taijitu stitched on the back of the jacket as well. He wore dark grey pants and a simple shirt in a deep red colour.

"Is that him?" Mari asked quietly.

"Yes." Shirou confirmed. "That is Naruto Uzumaki, the one whom we owe our lives to."

"Is he… keeping his distance from everyone else?" She wondered, noticing how he didn't approach any of the other kids milling about, seemingly much more content to sit at the bottom of a nearby tree and lean back against it than to interact with his peers.

"It looks like it." Shirou agreed. "I don't know much about him, but I have heard that he's a bit of a loner, that he lives by himself, and he's generally friendly to anyone who doesn't insult him." Left out were some of the less pleasant rumours he'd heard, about Naruto being a demon in human flesh, possessing an incredible bloodthirsty streak, and more.

"He doesn't look like much." Mari admitted. "I mean, his clothes seem really impractical. How can someone fight with sleeves like that?"

"You're a shinobi in training, looks are meant to be deceiving." Shirou cautioned her, recalling one mission half a year previously where he'd fallen for a trick where a bandit scout had been masquerading as a merchant and had almost done away with all of his money.

"And the clothes?" Mari prompted him to continue.

"Are different to other things I've seen him in." Shirou commented. "Last time I saw him he was wearing almost pure black, and it was a lot more tight on his body than that outfit." Tsubaki leaned in towards him and whispered something into his ear. "He's also been seen wearing a kimono too." He relayed to Mari.

Mari froze in place, as did Tsubaki, when Naruto's eyes suddenly shifted focus to rest directly on the three of them. Her breath caught in the back of her throat as his sharp blue eyes seemed to stab right through her, and she began to shake and sweat with the intensity in them.

He gave the three of them a brief nod of greeting from where he was, before pulling out a notebook from an inner pocket and beginning to write in it. It was only when he looked away that Mari managed to get a hold of herself again, nervously swallowing and gulping the knot in her throat away.

She glanced at Shirou and Tsubaki to see that both of them had been affected as well. Shirou's right hand was clammy and he had a killer grip on the sword sheathed at his waist while his left hand was clenched into a fist so tight that his nails had dug into his hand, causing it to begin bleeding.

Tsubaki was worse though. Her eyes were darting frantically around like a cornered animal's, and she was almost completely hidden behind Shirou's back. Her breathing was heavy and erratic, panting almost, and Mari could almost smell the fear rolling off her.

"Y-yeah, don't take th-things at face v-value." Shirou stuttered out. "I've heard good and bad things about Naruto Uzumaki, but the only thing they can agree on is that he's odd, like he's not really there." Realising how this sounded, he hurried to correct their impressions of him.

"Not crazy, no!" He said. "Just… like he lives in a different world to everyone else." Mari gave him a look, to which he shrugged in response. "He lives alone in the forest around Konoha, it almost is like he's an outsider, and you already know just how many rumours are made about the Uchiha because we live in our own district."

Mari had to give him that one. Even she had heard some of the strange stories people had told about the Uchiha, like the one that claimed that their eyes were so precious to the clan that at a funeral they'd be cooked up and eaten to 'keep it in the clan'. That was just disgusting to think about, and so if Naruto lived even more separate from the village than the Uchiha had… well, a few odd rumours were kind of expected.

xxxxx

Naruto continued writing and sketching in his notebook even during class.

As it turned out, the lesson on the founding of the villages was very much propoganda. It was at least truthful, what with Konoha being the first ninja village and many others copying them, but… well, the lesson focused more on the politics of the various clans and how they all joined together to make a 'great' village.

Not that such things weren't interesting! No, the whole thing was actually quite fascinating, especially with how borders were decided, how clans were promised one thing or another to join, small skirmishes between those that opposed this new system, and how the organisation of such villages developed.

There was only three things keeping Naruto from really enjoying the lesson. The first was that, while Iruka Umino really knew his stuff, he had a rather dry and flat speaking voice. It was clear the man was trying to make things exciting and intriguing, but a public speaker he was not.

The second thing that annoyed him was that he'd gotten rather hyped up for the lesson, hoping it would go in a different direction, like how civilian villages developed alongside the ninja villages of the time, or the de-militarisation of non-ninja forces. He'd have loved to have heard about how bandits and non-ninja warriors developed in this changing environment.

Third… well, he really didn't like how much was missed out of the lesson. There was no mention of the biju at all, especially not of how Hashirama Senju captured them all and proceeded to hand them out like sweets at a child's party. There was no mention of the Uzumaki clan and its close connection to the Senju, the rivalry between the Senju and Uchiha was mentioned only in passing – Madara Uchiha himself being an exception – and there was very little mention of regular, non-clan ninjas.

Granted, a major percentage of the village's ninja force was composed of people from various clans, but not all of them! It was just that it was only after the shinobi villages settled that regular civilians really had the opportunity to learn how to mould chakra and fight like a ninja does.

Naruto glanced down at his notes – written in youkai-script out of habit – and looked them over. Mostly, they were doodles about heavy weapons and ideas for new shikigami and ways to improve current ones. Turning his falcon shikigami explosive would make them more combat effective. Modifying the arms of the crossbow wielding shiki would improve their rate of fire. Standardising the height of the spear/sword and shield shiki would make formation fighting easier…

Beyond all of this, however, were two particular ideas he was idly considering. One was a 'titan' shikigami. A regular shiki, but made enormous, tall enough to stand over a boss summon. The problem with this was how much it would drain him. Reiryoku, Naruto's primary source of power, was a spiritual power, and making something that big would require massive amounts of physical power, though exactly how much that would be, he didn't know.

His second idea looked like something straight out of Dungeons and Dragon's crazier sections – if Naruto had even known what he was missing out on – and was relatively simple in concept. It was essentially a 'living' ballistae, one that had arms to reset the weapon, release the shots, and load fresh ammunition.

Tapping his pencil on the page of his notebook, Naruto's eyes flickered up to the still droning on Iruka Umino, and finally gave into frustration. He slumped down in his seat, his eyes closing, making him look like he was asleep. Well, either that or look like a Yamanaka using one of their mental techniques, but Naruto didn't know anything like that, did he?

xxxxx

There are many wildly different types of youkai in existence. Humans have given names to literal hundreds of them, and yet there are many more that they are unaware of, and countless more than that which simply don't particularly fit into simple categories. Even the named youkai are not necessarily the same as humans imagine them to be, mistakes and misconceptions abound with such beings.

Kosenjobi, spirits that looked like balls of fire that float over old battlefields, were creatures that humans had misinterpreted. It was true that they formed there, the sheer mass of chaotic emotions, desires, intents, and desperation all worked to form a number of different youkai. Many of them were malevolent, others ominous, and a small handful were far more simple than that.

Kosenjobi fell in the last category, simple-minded spirits. The burning emotions that spawned them granted them an instinctive desire to seek out heat and warmth, fire in other words, and they drifted across the world in search of more fire to bathe themselves in.

As it was, one such spirit drifted into Konoha and immediately found a blazing fire to satiate its needs. However, after a moment, the spirit realised something was wrong. The fire was bright, hot, and it could even 'smell' the smokey ashes the blaze was producing.

Yet, the fire didn't feel… right. A kosenjobi might only have roughly the intelligence of a dog, but it wasn't completely dumb. After all, there were some pretty intelligent canines out there. So, in typical animal fashion it looked for people to bother to fix its problem for it.

Of course, with regular humans unable to see or sense it – except in relatively rare circumstances – all they noticed was a sudden burning sensation when it nudged them, leaving their flesh red as a lobster fresh from the pot. That didn't deter the kosenjobi though, and it continued trying to get the attention of anyone who could notice it, getting so caught up in its game that it almost forgot what it was after in the first place.

It wasn't until another youkai, a yatagarasu resting in a tree, became annoyed with the fire and told it to track down the 'whisker-marked' mostly human that anything actually happened. Given a direction, and using its supernatural senses to try and trace something 'mostly' human had it quickly narrowing down the one person who it had been told to find.

Naruto jumped in surprise when a fireball suddenly dived at him, leaving a painful mark on his arm. For a moment, he thought that a ninja was attacking him with a Katon technique, but when the fireball started bouncing around in front of him he realised that this must be some sort of youkai.

"Can you speak?" Naruto asked it.

It shook side to side.

"Do you need something?" He persisted.

It bounced up and down, before tagging his arm again and darting off.

"I think it wants me to follow it." Naruto said, looking to Tsurara next to him.

"I'm right here in case anything happens." The yuki-onna assured him. "If you want to chase after it, then I'm going with you."

The butterfly in his hair, Benio, whacked him with a wing – a lot harder than a butterfly really should be able to – letting him know she was there as well.

"Can you see anything from the way it came?" The blonde asked the inchlings around him.

One of them flew higher into the air and looked that way, before diving down to report to Naruto, telling him one thing.

"I can see smoke, lots of it." She informed him.

"Fire?" Naruto exclaimed, before getting to his feet and flashing away in a flicker of blue light.

xxxxx

Naruto might have been the first to arrive at the fire to find a blazing building, but he was soon followed by others, either people who had seen smoke themselves or those who had seen the flashes of blue light Naruto left behind as he used hirenkyaku to get there.

Either way, there was a large home – possibly a clan compound going by its size – and Naruto could clearly feel living people inside there, and… his negative emotion sensing was also sparking too.

It was unfortunate that Isobu wasn't with him, he could summon enough water to completely quench these flames. Naruto himself could conjure and manipulate water, but with the amount he could create it would be like pouring a thimble of water onto a bonfire, rather ineffective.

That didn't mean he was completely useless though, and several of the ninja who'd followed him had already begun using what techniques they possessed to dampen down the flames. That left the people he could sense inside that needed to be rescued.

Pulling a handkerchief out of one of his many inside pockets, he quickly tied it around his lower face. He then checked his bracers were strapped tightly to his forearms and proceeded to flash to the building, smashing a window to get inside quickly.

Several of the ninjas who were fighting the flames saw the actions of the brave child and wished him luck. As none of the ones currently present were sensors, and using the shunshin in quick succession would tire them out rather quickly, leaving themselves trapped in the burning building as well, Naruto was actually the best suited for the rescue.

Of course, as he rapidly flashed through the building, grabbed the first living person he could, flashed out again, and repeated his actions, he was soon seen again by the onlookers. Several of them split off to check the newly rescued individuals, those with medical skills checking them over as best they could.

Once they were stable, they were quickly hurried off to the hospital to deal with smoke inhalation, burns, and other injuries received while they'd been inside that burning building.

The last one Naruto rescued was a young girl, maybe a year or two older than himself. He'd found her in a cellar, relatively protected and safe from the fire, but seeing her sparked something in his mind, and it took him a short while to work out what it was.

The fire, it didn't seem to have an obvious central source. It was like it had just appeared from nothing, and the traces of chakra he could feel laced into it, as little as it was, made him sit up and pay attention. The burned canvas he'd found with the girl only made her more suspicious in his eyes, and that was on top of the negative emotions he could feel… buried? within her.

He'd try and work that puzzle out later, for now he was going to help the ninja try and save as much of the building as possible.