Emiko Niwa was a very happy new mother. She had recently given birth to her first child, Daisuke.

And now she was going to be there for her favorite cousin Kushina and her husband Minato as they were due for their first child.

However, right as Kushina was about to give birth something happened. A man came and ripped apart the seals holding back the Uzumaki clan's greatest achievement.

The Kyuubi no Yoko.

Emiko had been hidden well enough that she escaped with her life...but Kushina hadn't been so lucky. Both her and her husband were killed by the beast she contained trying to reseal it. Emiko was horrified.

As a civilian, the shinobi didn't really pay much attention to her. So when she found the new born infant in the hospital, Emiko put her family's thieving skills to good use. She took the infant, because she had overheard the Hokage's quiet announcement what happened to the beast.

She was not about to let Kushina's son be raised an orphan. Even if it meant he wouldn't be raised as a shinobi.

"Papers?"

Emiko produced them. Her father had slipped away with Daisuke during the chaos of the attack. People were more interested in the beast than they were about a civilian slipping over the gates with an infant. Fortunately she still had her son's papers, since her father had left them behind in the rush to get out of the village.

"These seem to be in order. Have a nice day," said the chunin.

Emiko walked right out of the village with a newborn infant under her arm, and they didn't even try to stop her.

It took her a week to get to the port, where her father was waiting.

"Who is this?"

"Naruto, Kushina's son. I wasn't about to leave him behind in that village after the Third foolishly told mere civilians who the demon was sealed inside of. There were already nasty rumors about killing him before he becomes a monster, as if he's the Kyuubi reborn."

"You want to turn him into a thief," said Daichi.

"At the very least Daisuke will be getting a new baby brother."

"What shall we call him? Naruto is a dead giveaway that he's from the Elemental Countries."

"Kisuke Naruto Niwa."

"A fine name."


"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S MISSING? HOW THE HELL DID YOU LOSE A NEWBORN WHO'S NOT EVEN A MONTH OLD IN LESS THAN TWO HOURS?!"

Jiraiya was pissed.

"All we know is that a woman with red hair came to claim an infant in the hospital three hours after the attack. The nurse was overwhelmed and assumed that the woman had been separated from her son," said Sarutobi tiredly.

Naruto had been born with his mother's red hair and his father's blue eyes. The nurse hadn't even thought twice about handing over the infant because the woman had red hair as well and knew the name of the infant.

She had been questioned extensively. He couldn't really fault her for the mix-up, because the hospital Naruto had been left in was quickly swamped...and so soon after the attack it was unlikely she would have had time to confirm this woman was Naruto's real mother so long as most of the features matched hers.

The thing was, he had a sneaking suspicion who the mystery woman was.

"Why are you not panicking?"

"Take a look at the logs two days after the attack," said Sarutobi.

Jiraiya scanned them. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. That is until he looked over them again and realized there had been one civilian who left with an infant son.

"Niwa Emiko?"

"Kushina's third cousin from outside the Elemental Countries. Civilian contractors who got tired of the constant in-fighting and wars. They still practice the old ways of Uzushiogakure, but for the most part they stay out of it. Emiko came to the village to visit Kushina and to compare children, from what I was told."

"How the hell did the gate guards miss a second kid?"

"They didn't. Odds are she brought another family member with her and they took her son out of the village while the attack was happening. Everyone was so focused on the Kyuubi they wouldn't have noticed a single civilian leaving with their child."

"Do we know where they live?" asked Jiraiya dangerously.

"Jiraiya, I am not giving you their address, even if I did know where they lived. We knew Naruto would be in danger if people knew who his father was. Being raised by his maternal cousins outside the Elemental Nations means they won't be able to find him any more than you could. Maybe one day Naruto will return. Until then we can only hope they'll raise him properly."

"He's the son of two noted shinobi...and you're letting them raise him as a civilian?" said Jiraiya in disgust.

Sarutobi leveled a glare at him.

"Just because they're civilians doesn't make them any less of a threat. There is no discussion Jiraiya. You shall just have to wait and see if they ever tell Naruto where he comes from and hope for the best. At the very least Minato's enemies won't be able to find them across the ocean."


Time skip, ten years...

Kisuke was helping to clean out the basement where all the artwork was stored when he found something odd.

"Hey Okaa-san, what is this?" he asked, pulling out some piece of cloth and a strip of metal with something etched into it.

It looked like some sort of weird spiral.

"That is a part of our heritage. You two are old enough to hear the history of the Uzumaki clan."

Kisuke and Daisuke sat down.

"About seventy years ago, there was a village in the Elemental Countries called Uzushiogakure. It was home to a clan of seal masters called the Uzumaki. However, their profiecency at seals was also the reason why the village was destroyed... some of the other villages and clans were afraid of their ability with fuinjutsu and in less than a week destroyed the entire village."

Emiko had a dark expression on her face.

"The Uzumaki were scattered, but still very much alive. And some eventually changed their names."

"Your great-grandfather was an Uzumaki who left shortly before the village was decimated. However he was one of the clan elders, and took several of the clan training scrolls with him. He saved the Uzumaki clan heritage by marrying into another clan outside the Shinobi-run countries."

"Arashi Uzumaki. A man brave enough to cross the ocean with a merchant ship in hopes of bringing back new trade to the clan and to get away from the ever present fear of war. He would marry into the Niwa clan after they learned of his proficiency at sealing artifacts that had unusual energies about them, and would go on to become clan head...at least until the Niwa began to drift apart. He would keep the clan alive despite the always present threat of the Hikari clan."

"Who are the Hikari?" asked Kisuke. He knew most of the artwork in the basement was made by a relatively unknown clan, but they had never said which one.

Daichi sipped his tea while Emiko started dinner.

"About five hundred years ago, give or take, there was a clan called the Hikari. They were known far and wide for their art works...however it was these same pieces that drew in the latent energy all humans have through the emotions they invoked. The Niwa made it their life's mission to seal away the pieces before they grew too full of energy and woke up. The Hikari didn't like that, and thus sparked a feud between out families. After one too many times they stopped us from sealing the pieces, eventually we had enough. That was when we first started to steal the artworks."

Daisuke looked upset at that news, Kisuke not so much.

"What would have happened if we couldn't steal the pieces?"

"To be frank, after a certain amount of energy is collected they tend to go on a rampage. Unless created deliberately to be alive, artwork is not supposed to collect energy. Imagine how much damage a mindless statue could do if it wasn't sealed properly? The main reason the Niwa clan originally became seal masters is because one of the clan had been killed by an artwork that came to life without warning...and the piece had been a depiction of a battlefield."

That seemed to make the fact they were thieves a bit easier to take for Daisuke.

"However, fifty years after our clan feud began, we began to hear rumors of the Hikari clan attempting something that was not only dangerous, but rather unpleasant in nature. Even now we have no idea what sparked this attempt, but the after effects were felt ever since."

The boys eagerly awaited Daichi to continue.

"The Hikari were attempting to create something with a soul. Not only did it go against the natural order, there was no guarantee such a thing would have a conscience. And considering the only way they would have been able to create enough energy to pull that off would be to tie into the earth's natural leylines, there was no way the Niwa would allow such a monstrosity to exist. And so during the middle of the ceremony, the clan struck. However, the beast they were attempting to create was already beginning to form. Unsure of which clan was the one it was to serve, the creature split into two pieces."

"Wait, you said the effects of us interrupting are still being felt. What happened to the two pieces?" asked Kisuke.

Daichi chuckled. Sharp as a tack, Kisuke was.

"The two pieces attached themselves to the clan. And after a few trial and error years, began to think. However I'll tell you the rest when you both are a little older. It'll be easier to explain then."

Kisuke pouted.

"Well can you tell us more about the Uzumaki clan then?" he asked.

Daichi was a bit more elaborate as he explained about the Uzumaki clan.

And it was roughly as Emiko set the food on the table that she dropped a bombshell that the boys weren't expecting.

"Actually Kisuke, you're closer to the Uzumaki than we are," said Emiko. He was old enough to hear where he really came from.

"How so okaa-san?"

"About ten years ago, your grandfather and I went to Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village, to visit our second cousin and the clan head of the Uzumaki, Kushina. However, there was a terrible incident the day after we arrived. You see the Elemental Countries is...well, there are nine demons that inhabit it that simply do not get along very well with the shinobi. These demons are collectively called 'bijuu' or tailed beasts."

Emiko looked Kisuke in the eye.

"Your birth mother, our cousin, held one of these beasts."

"But your my mother..." said Kisuke.

Emiko smiled.

"Three hours after the attack, Daisuke and Daichi had already left the village. I went to see if I could find out what happened to your mother Kushina, only to learn she and her husband had been killed resealing the fox. The only one left alive was a baby boy with bright red hair and blue eyes. The village leader felt he had to tell the families what happened to the fox, despite the fact that Kushina's status as a demon container had been kept quiet her entire life. With all the discontent from the civilians, I claimed you as my son and used Daisuke's passport that your grandfather left behind and we left Konoha. I'm sure Kushina would rather her son be raised a civilian with the bare minimum of shinobi training than forced to grow up an orphan."

If Kisuke wasn't already sitting, his knees would have given out.

"I'm adopted?"

"You're still my son and Daisuke's brother," said Emiko firmly. "We don't love you any less because you were born an Uzumaki and not a Niwa."


"You okay?" asked Daisuke. Whenever Kisuke was feeling off, or had a bad day, he went to the roof of the house and laid back to look at the stars.

"It just..."

"You don't know how to feel about being adopted, right?" said Daisuke. He could always get Kisuke's moods. It was like they were twins, but not really.

"Yeah."

"Well if it means anything, nothing's changed between us. You're still my head-in-the-clouds brother," said Daisuke, settling in next to him.

"And you're still the shy goofball brother who's head over heels over a certain long-haired ditz," said Kisuke flatly.

He liked Risa Harada, he really did, but she was too ditzy for his tastes. Riku was nice, but too much of a tomboy. It was hard to believe they were identical twins, though Riku's hair was cut short.

Daisuke playfully nudged his brother. Even if he wasn't his brother by blood, Kisuke was still his family.

"I wonder what the shinobi nations are like?" said Kisuke.

"Me too..." said Daisuke.

A few hours later Emiko came up, found them on the roof again, and put a cover over them both. Because it was supposed to be a clear night and the side they were snoozing on faced the ocean and not the street, she saw no reason not to let them sleep. They would come in once the sun either rose or they realized they were still on the roof.

The two woke up up four hours later and went back to sleep in their own beds. About the only benefit of sleeping on the roof was that it wasn't booby trapped.