Summoners. A select group of Shinobi who have contracted with various animals for the right to summon them. These animals are normally led by a sentient boss who has the capability to converse with humans to be able to form a contract in the first place.

Because of the scarcity of summoners and summoning contracts, if you are contracted, you are held in high regard. In addition to this, if your summon's boss is sentient, they have the choice to form a household.

A summoning household is a group of summoners or sentient summons with the capability to become humanoid. When forming a household, only on of those two conditions have to be met, meaning that houses like the Toad house of Mount Myōboku didn't exist until Jiraiya of the Sanin formed a contract with them.

Same goes for houses such as the house of Crows, Snakes, Slugs, and even Monkey. Although the formation of these houses were recent they hold people such as, Shisui and Itachi Uchiha, Orochimaru, Tsunade Senju, and Hiruzen Sarutobi, giving them each great amounts of respect throughout the Shinobi world.

Most Shinobi villages would do almost anything to get a single summoning house under their jurisdiction, but most failed.

Due to their high prestige, Summoning Houses are even given the chance to participate in the Chunin Exams held by one of the 5 major villages. All houses are sent letters, but only those who meet three requirements can enter.

Requirement 1, the summoning house must have at least 4 humans or summons capable of turning into a human. Requirement 2, the aforementioned humanoid summons must be under the age of 17 if they wish to participate as a part of the three man cell. Requirement 3, the person or summon acting as Jonin leader of the three man cell must be stronger than all three of them individually.

If they meet all of those criteria, than they will be allowed to participate in the Exams to further their prestige as well as make other houses fear them and their power.

But as time went on, the number of houses attending decreased, rather than increasing, leading to most minor houses being nearly wiped from existence and major houses only getting involved in their own affairs.

Eventually, the prospect of houses faded into obscurity, with the latest generation only knowing the bare minimum, and they would pay the price for that.

~~

A young boy who was about 7 was falling. The boy had and icy blue eyes that complimented his pale blond hair with silver tips. He had tried his best, but in the end still failed. He was previously being chased by an angry mob. They had cornered him at a cliff, but instead of him stepping away from the cliff, he jumped off with his eyes closed and welcomed death with open arms.

As he hit the ground, a series of voices flooded his mind.

"Welcome to your new home."

Home? He hadn't ever had a home before.

"I'm Otohime, nice to meet ya!"

Oto... hime? Who was this mysterious person? And she seemed like a girl?

"Congratulations! You're officially..."

Before the last sound could play in his head, his body hit the ground. Or more like water? It was some weird mix between the two, but it wasn't mud. He knew that if he landed on water the impact would kill him, same goes for ground, so what was this and why was he still alive?

He opened his eyes in an attempt to see, but had forgot that his eyes had been destroyed already. During the chase, one villager had gotten a hold on him and slashed his eyes with a kitchen knife, deep enough to leave permanent damage and make him live in the darkness for the rest of his life. Somehow he managed to escape with his life and make it to the cliff. The only reason he even knew he was in a cliff was because he almost accidentally fell off before he jumped.

During his futile attempt to see, he heard a voice.

"Are you okay?" It seemed to be the voice of a boy about his age.

"Um... I... yeah I'm fine." He turned his head in the direction of the voice, hoping he would be facing the boy and put on the biggest smile he ever had. He couldn't stand it when people who hadn't been mean to him or anything of the sort worried. Someone that was kind didn't need to be worried about trash like him.

"Zennyo! Where are you!?" The voice of a young girl could be heard coming towards them.

"You don't look fine, are you sure?" The boy ignored the call, and stared straight at the blind boy in front of him.

The boy was bloody beyond the amount a normal child should be. A straight scar ran through both of his eyes with blood dripping down it. In addition he had both deep and shallow cuts all across his body, all dripping blood.

"Yeah, I'm sure." He smiled even wider as he heard small footsteps coming not too far away.

"Here you are." The girl approached the two and eventually saw the boy floating in the air. "What happened to him!?" She rushed over and began to check the young boy's injuries.

"Zennyo! Did you do this to the boy!?" The girl yelled at Zennyo, accusing him promptly.

"Why would I, I just saw him falling from up there and created a water and air cushion to stop him from dying!" The two seemed to be used to arguing, and the girl dropped the topic entirely after getting another good look at the boy.

"What's your name?" The girl somehow grabbed his body while it was in mid air and held him with ease. It wasn't to hard though, seeing that he was malnourished.

"N-Naruto." He blushed from the prospect of someone carrying him and buried his head in his hands to hide it.

"I'm Otohime, nice to meet ya!"

'Otohime? Wasn't that the name I heard earlier?'

The confusion he had wasn't visible because of him being used to putting a mask on in front of people to protect himself.

"Why were you falling earlier? It doesn't look like it was an accident." Zennyo spoke to Naruto while he walked next to his sister.

"Uh, I was being chased. The villagers don't particularly like me, and they've been openly showing it for a while. This was from one of them." He pointed to the scar across his eyes. "We'll I guess you could say that about any of these really."

Shock passed the two children's faces. "Why would they hate you?" Otohime was the first to recover from her shock and ask.

"Because I was born to be cursed. A month or so after I was born, my cousin was born and the Kyūbi attack happened. He doesn't know this, but my uncle sacrificed his life to seal the two halves of the Kyūbi into us. Everyone knows that the Kyūbi is sealed into both of us, but because of his father, my uncle and his reputation, and the lack of knowing who my parents are, they choose to believe that he is still himself while I'm the Kyūbi. I don't hate him for it though. It the ignorance of the villagers, not him. He's all I have, so I'd rather cherish and protect him than curse and resent him." The first genuine smile the two had seen out of Naruto came onto his face. It wasn't necessary the widest, but those wide smiles were all fake anyways.

By the end of his story Otohime and Zennyo were sobbing.

"H-how could they think that!? If they would spend a second to talk to you, then they would know what a good person you are!" Otohime seemed to be the one capable of expressing her feelings through words.

"Sorry, um don't cry, please. I didn't mean to make you cry." Naruto quickly comforted them by trying to apologize, which only made their sons increase in volume.

"Don't apologize for something like that! It's better if you don't say anything, when you apologize, it makes us feel as if you're scared of angering us."

"Okay, I'll stop."

The three continued on for a few more hours, handing Naruto off between them as they made small talk and got to know each other. They eventually stopped somewhere in Hi no Kuni where Naruto could hear multiple voices of adults looking for someone.

He tried squirming out of Zennyo's arms who was currently hiding him, only to fail because of the boy's superior strength.

"Let go! If their looking for me, it's better that you escape! Don't let me get you guys hurt and run!" Naruto tried getting away for a bit more until Otohime put her hand onto his head to ruffle his hair.

"Don't worry Naruto, their here for us, not you. Well, I guess their also here for you now, since you'll be our guest."

"What're you guys talking about?"

"She means that we're gonna ask our father to allow you to stay with us."

Less than a minute after she said that, a woman could be heard coming out from the bushes.

"Otohime, Zennyo! There you are. We were all so worried when you left the temple without telling us. Who's that boy?"

Otohime assured the woman and continued talking. "Don't worry Nee-chan, he's our friend. Where's Otōsan? We need to ask him something." The woman must have pointed, because Zennyo and Otohime moved quickly somewhere.

"Otōsan! Over here!" A tall man ran towards them at a high speed and crouched down in front of them.

"Where did you guys go? We were looking everywhere." The worry was evident in his soft voice.

"We went near Konoha and happened to find Naruto. We want him to live with us." Zennyo showed Naruto to their father who gasped.

"What happened to put him into that state?"

"The villagers in Konoha." Otohime continued on and explained his entire situation. Not missing a single thing, from the more gruesome details he told them about after, to Naruto's blindness and so on.

By the end of it all their father's eyes were wide open and he seemed to be in an extreme state of both shock and anger. But upon closer inspection of Naruto he noticed something.

"Can you show me his back for a second, I want to confirm something."

The two siblings look to Naruto who nodded, and they showed him his back. At first nothing happened, but when the siblings' father put some of his chakra over Naruto, 5 tattoos of kanji in total appeared on his back, one on each shoulder blade and one in the middle of his back. The one on his right shoulder blade said "Kurai" (Dark/Gloomy) and the one on the left said "Akurai" (Light/ Bright). As for the one in the middle, they translated to "Heikō" (Equilibrium). With that their father stood up to his full height and started mumbling something with a serious look on his face.

"Let's go, and bring Naruto with you. I have someone he needs to meet." They walked out of the forest they were in and passed a strange border into a village, but they didn't stop there. They all continued until they reached a large house with a big gate stopping entry.

They pressed some sort of seal on the gate which made a buzzing sound before opening the gate.

When they walked in, a lady walked out who looked to be in her twenties. She had long flowing silver hair that went down to her butt and cold teal eyes. She wore a white and purple crop top hoodie with black short shorts and white knee high Shinobi sandals over fishnets. Her overall appearance gave off the vibe of being unapproachable and cold as she didn't smile much.

"Ryūjin-san, what brings you here today?" Her manner of speech wasn't particularly polite, but it wasn't rude either, she just stated what she needed to and nothing more in a cold and uncaring voice.

"Kayda, I think we found "him"." Laura's face was that of surprise and happiness, a small smile reminiscent of Naruto's real one came on her face that quickly faded.

"If you're lying to me, I don't care that you're my boss, I'll kill you." A completely serious look replaced the happy one until Zennyo walked out from behind Ryūjin carrying the still bloody Naruto.

Naruto had had his eyes open when he turned to face Kayda. Their teal eyes met, and although Naruto couldn't see anything, he had a feeling that he should keep looking in that same direction.

She ran over and took Naruto from Zennyo and before they could even blink she was at her door again, and walking inside while holding Naruto Princess style.

She looked over her shoulder in a way that only allowed one eye to be seen. A cold glare was in her eye as he started at Ryūjin with enough pressure and KI directed at him to kill one of the 5 Kage from fear alone.

"Explain." With that she walked into her house, not closing the door behind her to signal them to follow her in.

They were all sitting down on the, after a few minutes Kayda came out from a room without Naruto. She sat down on the chair right in front of the couch with her legs crossed and her head resting on her arm in a somehow queenly way. Lightning surged through the air around her as she sat there silently.

Ryūjin didn't waste any time. "Zennyo found Naruto just outside of Konoha, falling from a cliff. He seemed like he was content with dying, but didn't seem like he wanted to either. Zennyo used a his chakra to stop and hold Naruto in mid air until Otohime arrived. They picked him up and started carrying him back here. Otohime said that he was extremely light, even more so than most of the 5 year olds here in the village. In addition he eventually told them about what had been happening in Konoha."

Before saying the next part, Ryūjin took a deep breath. "It turns out that back in Konoha, 7 years ago the Kyūbi attacked. You already know most of the details of that attack. Naruto's uncle had been taking care of him for you due to unforeseen circumstances, and he decided to save the village by sealing half of the Kyūbi into his son and the other half into Naruto. Due to no one knowing who his parents were, he was hated for having the Kyūbi sealed in him, contrary to his cousin Menma who was praised for keeping the Kyūbi back, as they trusted more in Menma than him due to Menma's dad saving the village."

All that happened was Kayda's glare strengthening, but not at Ryūjin and his family. "From there, they beat him up for years, not giving him a second to rest. Just this last time, he barely escaped them when a man came at him and slashed his eyes, making him blind. Even though the Kyūbi normally healed him, it had run out of chakra it could supply to Naruto through the seal before that, leaving him with permanent damage to his eyes. Based on how bad it is, I'm not even sure if our best healers can reverse the damage. I'm pretty sure that the only time he'll be able to see again is if he gains the right Stigmata, all we can do is hope."

She hadn't said a word, and her facial expression didn't change a single time, but that just made her scarier.

"Thank you for saving him. I have to go now, I'll be back in a few hours." She slowly stood up and started walking toward the door, about to leave.

"Kayda, stop. Don't do it. They're not worth the trouble." Ryūjin stood up and put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

She swatted his hand away as if it was noting and continued walking. "Yes I they are, it's simple. If you're going to try and stop me, I'll kill you too. You already stopped me once when they told me Naruto died after the Kyūbi attack, saying that it wasn't their fault. But now, not only have they lied to me, they kept him to use as a weapon because of the Kyūbi and abused him on top of that. I'm going, Ryūji."

Ryūjin sighed, but was also scared at her use of his nickname. She only stopped talking to him formally once she had made her mind up about something. "It's not a matter if you have enough power to or not, or even if they lied to you, it's a matter of the consequences and what little that accomplishes. If Konoha is destroyed and no one is able to fight back. The backlash we'll all face is immense. And one last thing, is that even what Naruto wants? His cousin is living there, and he wanted to protect him at all costs."

She paused, and the aura around her calmed down, getting rid of the lightning in the air surrounding them.

"Let's ask him then. If he wants it, I'll do it. If not, I'll leave Konoha alone."

Before she could start going to Naruto's room Otohime asked her a question. "Why do you care about Naruto so much? Isn't this your first time meeting him?"

Kayda smiled to Otohime, fondness clear on her face. "Do I need another reason to care about him? He's my son."