Once morning came on the second day, Naruto came down to have breakfast in his pajamas, not wanting to put on his normal clothes yet. He came down to see the sand siblings having breakfast, with the eldest sibling Temari cooking breakfast for herself. As he sat down at the circular table between Gaara and Kankurō, Temari noticed him.
"Oh, Naruto. Good morning. What would you like for breakfast?"
"Do you have any ramen?" He asked with hope in his eyes. Temari looked at him weird.
"Uhh, no. We don't have the ingredients for it. Aside from chesnuts and assorted fruits and vegetables, we're primarily a meat family. The only soup like recipe we have is Kenchin soup. Sorry." Naruto grumbled from this.
"Alright. Well, I guess I'll have an apple or something and roasted pork fillet."
"Hmm, never made that. I'll do my best but don't complain too much if it doesn't taste good." Temari remarked. Naruto again grumbled when he looked to his left and looked at Kankurō. The puppeteer stopped eating his breakfast burger and looked back at the ex-genin.
"What are you staring at, kid?" He asked a little annoyed.
"You look more normal without your weirdo face paint and black robes." Naruto responded. Kankurō took offense to this.
"Who are you calling weirdo?! It's Kabuki theatre face paint! All great puppeteers wear it if they want to respect the art!"
"Enough." Gaara intervened. The two stopped from his simple utterance. "It's breakfast time. We don't fight at breakfast. It's a rule. Apologize Naruto."
"Well, I guess I can't rag you on that too much. I mean, here's my first ninja ID card. I had to take another without the make-up." Naruto chuckled as he gave Kankurō one of possessions. Kankurō looked at it and laughed outrageously upon seeing the picture.
"Oh man, I can't believe you thought this would pass at an ID! Gaara, you got to see this." He passed the card to his brother. Once he saw the picture he gave a few good chuckles.
"Heh, not only is your choice of make up ridiculous, the pose you're doing is quite unnecessary." Naruto laughed while scratching his head to that comment.
"Hey, I thought just standing there with a plain smile was boring. I wanted to stand out and be awesome looking." Temari soon looked at the ID and laughed as well.
"Sheesh, I know you wanted to be those, but you look rather awesomely weird. They all laughed for about a minute before they smelled something burning. "Oh no! The pork!"
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Once breakfast was finished and everybody got into their ninja clothes, they exited the Kazekage estate to begin the second part of the journey.
"Naruto, which direction do we go now?" Gaara inquired.
"We need to go North. I can sense two tailed beasts in the Land of Earth." Kurama instructed.
"Kurama says we need to go North. In the Land of Earth."
"Good. It should only take a couple of days then, tops." Gaara said as he manipulated the sand in his gourd to make a platform underneath all their feet and raise them high over the village and go until they reached beyond the outer edge of the walls, and with all the extra sand available, he raised his hands and commanded, "Sand Tsunami." The ground under them connected to his platform and roamed forward with increasing size and speed until they were riding on top of a sandstorm.
"Wow, this is so cool!" Naruto shouted.
"No kidding. He never considered using one of his attacks as transportation. This'll get us to the Land of Earth in no time." Kankurō admitted.
"So, you guys know any games to pass the time?"
"Well, I don't know about games, but we could do some playing around with my puppet."
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As they reached the Land of Earth quicker than anticipated, they were surprised with what they found; countless upon countless amounts of rock pillars and mountains.
"Wow, when they say Land of Earth, they really underselled themselves." Kankurō commented, sweating slightly.
"Well, we need to stay away from their hidden village. They've been the sand's rival all the way back the first Kage's." Temari added.
"Kurama, is there a way to find them quickly? We'll be at a severe disatntage if we go too far deep in this land." Naruto asked the fox inside him.
"I can fire a wave of tailed beast energy of the lowest frequency. It won't alert any sensor type ninja, but any beasts within 50 miles will detect it. Raise your hand." Naruto did so and a orb of red and purple energy appeared and it mildly exploded to expand into the environment, becoming invisible as it went. "Now, we wait."
"Kurama says we're just going to wait for them to come to us now. We're going to need to prepare ourselves in case they're more in a fighting mood." Naruto explained.
"Good idea. We don't know how our typical fighting styles will fare against earth style jutsus. Let's make a plan if they're hostile." Temari suggested.
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After about an hour, Kurama spoke up.
"Naruto, one of the tails is coming any minute now. Get ready."
"One of them is coming guys. Get ready." Naruto relayed. The four person team prepared themselves. Not hostile looking, but anticpating nonetheless. Soon, someone did come, landing on a higher vantage point. He was a tall, intimidating man heavily covered in red armor and clothes. His legs were briefly white horse legs before reverting back to his natural legs.
"Who are you people? I sensed a surge of power here." He asked in a strong deep voice. Naruto spoke up.
"Hey, are you a jinchūriki? Someone with a tailed beast inside you?"
"Why ask me that?" The man said.
"Because two of us are jinchūriki too. I'm Naruto Uzumaki, host of Kurama the nine tailed fox."
"And I'm Gaara Saisho, host of Shukaku the one tailed tanuki." After a few seconds of silence, the man talked.
"Okay, you are genuine." He leapt from his vantage point and landed on his feet. As he walked to them, they noticed how tall he was. He looked to be about two feet higher than Kankuro. Naruto especially felt tiny, a full meter below him. He had to really aim his head high to see his face. "My name is Han Zenpōe. My tailed beast is Kokuō the five tailed horse. Why have you come looking for me?" Before Naruto could answer, a voice interrupted them, a voice that was softer.
"Han? It's been a while, hasn't it?" They all looked up to see another man in similar red garb, but not as imposing. "Who do we have here with us?"
"Fellow jinchūriki. The nine and one tails specifically. They're in the children."
"Children?" The man questioned as he jumped down and joined them. "I didn't know that the other villages just recently passed down their tailed beasts. From the looks of it your bands, you three came from the hidden sand village and are descended from the Kazekage. And you... where did you come from? Where's your headband?" The man asked in confusion.
"I was kicked out of the hidden leaf. I beat one of their favorites in a chunin exam and failed to bring back my friend Sasuke Uchiha. After that they couldn't tolerate me anymore and forced the Hokage to exile me or I'd be killed."
"Killed? I'm utterly surprised by that. Why would they kill the Hokage's son?" All of the sand siblings paled from this information, though Naruto was only confused.
"Hokage's son? What are you talking about? I'm not Granny's son."
"Hmm, who's Hokage right now?"
"Her name is Tsunade. I don't know her last name but she's one of the sannin. She only became Hokage recently."
"Then Tsunade is too old. Who was the Hokage before her?"
"I don't know his name. Everybody only refered to him as the fourth. I only know he died fighting the nine tails."
"You must not be aware. It's tradition in the five great hidden villages that the Kage passes down the respective tailed beasts among family members to keep the piece. Han and I- my name's Rōshi by the way, are nephews of the Tsuchikage. You're fellow jinchūriki are the children to the Kazekage. So that means..." Rōshi trailed off to let the kid finish.
"That means... the fourth Hokage is my father? And Kurama... killed him?" The color drained from his face and his eyes looked glazed and dead.
"I think you broke the kid, Rōshi." Han quiped.
"It seems I... have. Oops, my bad." Rōshi stated quite regretfully.
"Naruto, I am so sorry you had to go through with that. Temari whispered as she tried to hug him, but he backed away from her, tears cascading from his eyes, and ran off into the forest of stone pillars. "Naruto!" She tried chasing after him, but she was blocked by Han.
"You stay here. I know this land like the back of my hand. With my steam jutsu and Kokuō's legs, he won't outrun me."
"I'm coming too." Gaara spoke up. "Naruto and I went through nearly the exact same childhood. Exposed to loneliness and hate. He'll need someone he can empathize with." He manipulated his sand to make a flying platform under his feet.
"Very well. Follow my lead." Han said as morphed his legs into Kokuō's and the furnace on his back creating steam, he zoomed off at breakneck speed, with Gaara following the trail of steam.
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Naruto kept running. The only thing he wanted to do was run. There was only one problem; it was in him. His body has been on autopilot, while his mind was in an internal struggle. He looked at the tailed beast with a cornucopia of negative emotions.
"You killed my... dad?" The distraught young boy asked. The beast's face was neutral.
"To be fair, he and your mother jumped in between me and you so that my claw didn't turn you into a splat as well." If he thought he couldn't be any more depressed, he hit another low as he fell to his knees and his tears came out harder.
"My-my mom too?" He couldn't talk as he sobbed for as long as his body was capable, after for what seemed like 22 minutes, he stood up and raised his hand to the seal.
"What are you doing?"
"Out. I want you out."
"Fool. Don't you know what happens when a tailed beast leaves a host? They die. They just can't handle the experience."
"Then I die. So what? You can look for your own family. At least I'll be with my parents." Just before his hand reached the seal, Kurama added,
"What about your teachers? Your friends? Poor little Hinata?" That stopped Naruto dead. "Image the heartbreak you would give her. She's been your secret admirer for years. Hell, I'd bet if you died she'd kill herself just to be with you."
"I don't... want her to die." He whispered.
"Look, as much as I want to be free, I'm putting up with you so that we can reunite my kin. If we manage to get all of us together, we'll find a way to extract me from your pitifully weak body non-fatally, and you'll never hear from me again. Do we have a deal?" After mulling it over in his head, he sighed.
"Fine. I'll help you. But once we find your last sibling, you're gone asap. Got it?"
"Got it, brat."
Naruto came back into the physical world, having collapsed at some point at from a rock and just cried there. He noticed Han and Gaara near him.
"I'm just being polite asking this, but how are you feeling, Naruto?"
"Not very good, honestly."
"In a sense, I can relate to what you're feeling. In between you first beating me and you coming to my home, I looked into why my mother was dead after finding out my father died. He planted Shukaku into my mother just as she was giving birth to me. She died as a result. I wanted him out as well, even if it meant my death, but my siblings comforted me, reminding me what I still had. Eventually I came to accept Shikaku. Perhaps in time... you'll accept Kurama as well. Maybe." Naruto looked down to the earth beneath him. Thinking about it, he doesn't know if he'll ever forgive Kurama, but... perhaps his friends can help him with that.
"Thanks Gaara. I needed that."
"Let's get you back." Han suggested.
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Once the three jinchūriki returned to the rest, Temari ran to him and gave him a big hug.
"Naruto, thank goodness you're okay. Kankurō and I were so worried about you." Temari explained. Naruto hugged back.
"Thank you. I'm better now. Gaara helped." Temari looked at her youngest brother.
"Thank you Gaara." She returned her focus to Naruto. "Don't worry about Rōshi. I gave him a stern lecture." She reassured. Naruto looked to the older man, looking away in guilt. He got out of his hug with Temari and walked to Rōshi.
"Sorry... kid." Naruto gave a weak smile and extended his hand.
"It's alright. You didn't mean to freak me out. We're good." He extended his hand. "Name's Naruto Uzumaki." Rōshi looked shocked, but his expression softened ss he shook the hand.
"Rōshi Zenpōe. I know you're name. She yelled it into my face many times."
"Hehe, yeah. So, what tailed beast do you have?"
"He's named Son, the four tails." From that, Naruto could hear a voice from inside Rōshi.
"That's not my full name! My name is Son Gokū Seiten Taisei!"
"Uhh, can I just call you Son Gokū? I'm not all that good with names."
"Fine. But I expect you to eventually call me by my full name."
"Okay then." Naruto agreed to, laughing.
"Naruto." The ex-genin turned to Han. "Now that everything is good, why did you come for us? Rōshi interrupted you when you were about to answer my question."
"Oh yeah. So, I'm searching for all the jinchūriki all over the country so that... Kurama can be reunited with his kin. There's a total of nine of us, in case you didn't know."
"And why did you obligate to Kurama's request? He is a tailed beast, and one of the more violent ones at that."
"We were going to be friends if I succeeded. He offered." Han considered this for a few seconds before responding,
"Fair enough. Anything to be a tailed beast's friend if you value them, right? Okay, I'll come. Rōshi?"
"I don't mind. We technically don't have homes in the village. We're nomads around it. Needed to hone our beast skills." Rōshi replied. Naruto grinned.
"Cool." He then stayed silent for a few seconds before saying, "we're heading east. We're headed to the Land of Lakes; we're going to find the Hidden Waterfall Village!"