Naruto frowned. They'd been on this bandit clearing mission for three days, and last night and the night before they had shared body heat rather than lit a fire so as not to alert their quarry. During both nights, Gaara had gone off by himself and his teammates had let him despite the fact that he was obviously cold and sleep deprived. Deciding to solve this mystery, he got up and walked over to the other boy.
"Why are you over here on your own?" he asked as he sat down next to the boy who'd gone from strange to downright maniacal when they'd cleared out that last bandit nest.
Having seen a number of strange techniques, Gaara's control over the nearby sand hadn't phased him, but the sheer brutality of his attacks on the unfortunate bandits had. The attacks the Jounin made on the bandits who ran in their direction in order to escape Gaara had seemed almost merciful in comparison. There was less blood for one, and there were more clean cuts rather than crush injuries for another. Sakura had completely frozen up at the first nest of bandits, but when her life had come directly into danger and nobody could come to her rescue because everyone else was busy fighting one of the largest bandit gangs that had been seen in a long while, she had come unfrozen and clumsily done what she'd been trained to do. If she hadn't lucked out and gotten a civilian, it didn't bear thinking about. She'd lucked out, end of story.
They'd been clearing out the nests of bandits they'd come across in their search of the desert during the day despite the heat and the risk of dehydration because the bandits expected Ninja to come in at night and tended to be more alert during the night because of this. The normal bandit sleep schedule accommodated afternoon attacks on merchant caravans when their prey would be less on guard because they were more focused on where and when they would make camp, and nighttime raids by shinobi. By coming in during the day, using jutsu to keep cool, keep from going sandblind, and keep hydrated, the ninja tended to catch them with their pants down, sometimes literally.
"Mother wants their blood." Gaara said somewhat matter-of-factly though there was a trace of his earlier bloodthirstiness which had startled the hell out of him earlier in his voice, pulling him out of his reflections on their bandit hunting expedition. "I can't however, not yet. It'll bring disgrace to the village, and I'll never hear the end of it from Him."
Wondering how a ninja with so many issues had managed to be sent out into the field, he scooted away from Gaara slightly. He decided not to get up and leave just yet since Gaara seemed to be in control, if only just.
"What of your mother?" Gaara asked, looking at him somewhat curiously.
"She died the day I was born, during the Kyuubi attack, her and my father both." Naruto replied, having the oddest feeling that that probably wasn't what the other boy was asking about.
"Kyuubi attack?" Gaara asked, startling Naruto who'd thought everyone in the world had heard of the Kyuubi attack by now, especially since he'd rather spectacularly though completely unwittingly let a certain cat out of the bag in Kiri a while back. A cat that somehow rather strangely still seemed to be in the bag in parts of Konoha despite the fact that it had done gone and left the building entirely.
"The day I was born, the Kyuubi appeared out of nowhere and attacked the village." Naruto said. "Most people seem to think that the Uchiha were responsible somehow. It kinda makes sense since the last time anyone had seen the Kyuubi before then it was under Madara's control, and the Uchiha clan suffered almost zero casualties during the attack."
"Where'd you learn all that?" Sasuke piped up from where he was curled up between Kakashi and Tetsuo-sensei.
"A couple old history books, the October 15th issue of the Capitol Courrier, and some old gossip that makes sense now if I put your name in rather than mine." Naruto replied. "The Capitol Courior didn't outright say it, but they printed out the casualty lists by family, mentioned that nobody could remember seeing Uchiha Fugaku and a number of other Uchiha during the attack, and let people draw their own conclusions."
Tetsuo-sensei forcing him to read had broadened his horizons significantly. One area that he'd rather naturally read up on had been the Kyuubi attack since it involved his greatest hero, the Yondaime. Some of the old history books which hadn't been assigned as required reading at the Academy had been enlightening to say the least. The fact that the Kyuubi had been involved at the battle of the Valley of the End had been something he hadn't previously known despite the fact that the Kyuubi had had a major hand in creating that valley.
Based on the look on Sasuke's face, the other boy had apparently known little to none of this which he found surprising, considering the fact that it directly concerned the boy's clan. If someone had accused his clan of doing something like turning the Kyuubi loose, he'd want to know why. Then again, since most of the villagers were all smiles when Sasuke was around, it was entirely possible that he hadn't learned that anyone had accused his clan of anything.
Why everyone was all smiles when Sasuke was around, especially with the accusations that had been made against his clan, he didn't know. It was possible that they were afraid he'd snap and imitate his older brother, but with the village as targets rather than his now virtually non-existent clan.
"Why'd your village leave the lot of them alive for another eight years after that?" Baki asked, looking honestly curious.
"No proof." Kakashi replied from where he'd been lightly dozing. "They were a founding clan, and if we offed them without any proof, it'd look bad for the village."
"Yeah," Baki said after a moment of reflection. "It would, considering that Konoha was First, and the Senju/Uchiha peace was considered a major miracle, and evidence that peace was possible. Good thing for you that Uchiha Itachi took them out before they could've offed your current Jinchuriki while he was still untrained though..."
"What's a Jinchuriki?" Sakura asked, showing that everyone was awake and listening.
Baki and his students all gave Sakura incredulous stares, even Gaara. Kakashi and Tetsuo-sensei both winced, and Sasuke still looked somewhat horrified by the casual mention of the massacre of his clan in that semi-detached way of his.
"How could she not know what a Jinchuriki is?" Kankuro said in the tone of voice that one would use when one is particularly awed by the level of someone's stupidity and/or ignorance.
"The Hokage decided that those who didn't remember the Kyuubi attack would not be told certain things in order to not prejudice them. Seeing as the parents already knew, the plan rather spectacularly backfired, and most of the children were taught by them and the other adults in the village to ostracize a certain someone without knowing why." Tetsuo-sensei said, sounding as if he'd just swallowed something particularly bitter. "There were certain hard feelings in the wake of the attack, and they rather unfortunately got transferred onto the one individual who could be considered to be completely blameless in the matter."
"Ouch." Kankuro said, wincing slightly. "I'd hate to meet Konoha's Jinchuriki."
"You already have." Baki said, nodding towards Naruto.
"How could they have met our Jinchuriki when we haven't?" asked Sakura, who hadn't seen the nod in Naruto's direction which had set Kankuro to staring at him as if he were a specimen in a zoo, cutting across Kankuro's exclamation of "But, he's so normal!".
"You mean you haven't told them, even after that mess in Kiri?" Baki asked, looking somewhat stupefied by shock.
"The law's still in place." Kakashi primly replied. "If anyone from Konoha breaks it..."
"I see..." Baki said.
Sakura, not being happy to be left out of the loop, wondered what was going on. Sasuke however was rapidly slotting pieces into place and not liking the picture they were beginning to form. A picture involving a clan that had practically shut itself away from the village becoming more isolated than even the Hyuuga or the Aburame who generally kept themselves to themselves when they weren't on duty, and a certain teammate of his. A certain teammate of his who had been born on the day of the Kyuubi attack.
"It's Naruto." Sasuke said as a certain memory came unbidden, a memory of his father pointing out a grubby looking blond and telling him to stay away from him. "Naruto's the Jinchuriki."
"But, what is a Jinchuriki?" Sakura asked as she studied the boy she'd been told was dangerous before she'd seen it for herself.
"Power of human sacrifice." Baki said, almost relishing the opportunity to teach the Konoha brats an unpleasant lesson which would disillusion them in regards to their favorite hero. "Your Yondaime Hokage didn't destroy the Kyuubi as you claim. He sealed it inside that boy. Where or how he managed to find an actual Uzumaki to use as the host considering how thin on the ground they are, I do not know."
"Naruto's got a demon in him?!" Sakura shrieked, potentially alerting every bandit in the Elemental Nations to their presence.
Suffice to say, almost nobody got any sleep that night. Sakura who had been heading for one since she'd first become a Genin finally had her major freak-out, and Kakashi and Tetsuo-sensei had been stuck trying to bring her down. Kankuro continued to stare at him as if he were a zoo exhibit since he was "normal", Sasuke had sat there staring at him like he didn't know what the hell he was. Baki who'd slept the night before had watched all of this as if it were primetime entertainment, and Gaara sat impassively listening to his "mother" while Naruto sat watching all of them wondering what things were going to be like in the future now that his teammates knew. All in all, the only person who got any sleep that night was Temari who found the discussion of Jinchuriki to be boring since she'd heard talk about such things for most of her life since her youngest brother was one.
The next day, the combined team cleared out one last bandit nest which they'd practically stumbled over and bid each-other farewell before breaking apart into two teams and making their way towards their respective villages. Both Sakura and Sasuke gave Naruto a wide berth as they sandwalked and later tree-hopped their way home, Sakura giving Naruto a wider berth than Sasuke who continued to look at him as if he were trying to figure out what he was and exactly where in his world he was supposed to fit.