"Really!?" Zennyo looked at Ryoko incredulously. Not believing her until further inspection. Their face shapes were similar and they had the same icy blue eyes. In addition, the tips of Naruto's hair were silver beneath the blood that caked them.
"Yes he's my son. As your I said earlier, Konoha had told me he died so that they could keep him to themselves. All of this time I've beloved that he was dead, but when we locked eyes, I knew he really was my son." A single tear flowed down Ryoko's cheek, breaking her aloof and cold persona.
"I'm just... I don't know. I never thought I'd see him again, but he's here. Regardless of the condition he's in, I finally have my baby back." She began walking to the room she laid Naruto down in, everyone else a little behind her.
When she opened the door, Naruto was sitting up in the bed with bandages wrapped around his eyes and arms. He heard them all come in and he turned his head towards them.
"Is anyone going to fill me in on what's happening? I'm not sure who this lady is, but I really like her."
They sat down either on the bed or on a chair and explained everything to Naruto, including the part about Konoha lying to Ryoko.
"What do you want to do, Naruto?" Ryoko was the one to ask the question while she held his hand.
"No matter what they did, we can do anything to them. My cousin is there, and he wouldn't agree to coming here with us since he doesn't even know me. We should leave them alone. I can't say I hate all of them, there were a few who just treated me like any other kid, and for that, there's no need to do anything to them."
The emotional maturity Naruto had surpassed that of many adults. He had been forced to grow up extremely quickly, so that he could figure out what kind of persona the villagers would hate least, giving him incredible people reading skills in the process.
"It seems as if I'll have leave Konoha alone, since it is the wish of my N-kun." Ryoko sighed and went back to speaking in her monotonous and cold voice.
"N-kun?" Zennyo burst out in hysterical laugher. "What a good nickname!" This action earned him a bump on the head from Ryoko.
Naruto was more confused than embarrassed, but a light blush could be seen on his cheek. "Why N. Why not something like Naru?"
Ryoko thought for a second and then answered. "I like it more."
Everyone sweat dropped at this, but moved on quickly.
"How are you just able to accept that I'm your mom? Don't you have any questions?"
"I guess it's just a feeling. I've also never been one to get surprised easily, so those two things probably. But it's nice to finally have a family, and a mom at that." Narto smiled in Ryoko's direction.
"Well then. Welcome to your new home."
There it was again, a voice he heard had come true. "Yeah... thanks." Tears came from the young boy's eyes as he smiled. "Thank you so much."
~~
From then, Ryūjin, Otohime, and Zennyo left for home and Naruto was stuck in bed for multiple days. He hadn't done much other than sleep and get to know his mom during that time.
After a week of being in bed, he was healed and able to walk normally. Another week and he could somewhat function on his own while being blind.
He was halfway through his 3rd week there, when Ryoko heard loud sobbing coming from his room. She rushed over, only to see Naruto smiling and running around.
He didn't have the bandages on his eyes anymore and they were still closed, but he was navigating around objects while running like he could see them there.
"Kaa-chan! I can see! Everything is so clear!" He had ran up to her and hugged her leg, crying into it.
"What? How?" She was understandably confused. It wasn't everyday that someone who was blind told you they could see.
"TheresaweirdthingaroundmethatletsmeseeblueoutlineseverywhereandwhenItouchthethingswiththeblueoutlinetherereallythere!" At first he spoke fast and in a jumbled mess. So fat that Ryoko couldn't properly get everything.
"Slow down and take a breath first. I can't understand you when you speak like that." She calmed down Naruto so he could try again properly.
"There's a weird thing around me that lets me see blue outlines everywhere and when I touch the things with the blue outline, there really there!" He reached out to her hand and grabbed onto it.
"I can see Kaa-chan now!" Tears flowed out of his closed as Ryoko had a revelation.
'It must be that.' She crouched down in front of Naruto and put her hand on his forehead. When she did, she now saw things the same way Naruto did. "Ryouton..."
Ryoko had two Kekkei Genkai, those being the Heikōton (Equilibrium Release) and the Ryouton (Realm Release).
Heikōton added someone's strongest natural chakra affinity (Raiton for Naruto) to Meiton (Dark Release) and Akaton (Light Release) technically making it a Kekkei Tōta rather then Genkai. It gave the user control over the balance of their Physical (Yang) and Spiritual (Yin) chakra, letting them decide what type of abilities to enhance. This control over the balance gave them two choices in combat. Increasing physical strength and decreasing accessible chakra by increasing the Yang balance in their bodies. Or increase physical speed and accessible chakra with an extreme decrease in physical strength by increasing the Yin balance. This alone made them extremely powerful, but what took it a step further was the ability to coat the body in either type of Chakra to increase performance even further.
Ryouton combined Fūton and Raiton chakra together to create an area in which everything could be sensed. The way it worked exactly was by the Fūton chakra picking up on larger physical disturbances and the Raiton picking up the smaller details, allowing it to work as a sort of 360 degree eye. If it was combined with Dōjutsu, it was considered an eye and could increase the range in which that Dōjutsu could see. In addition, it allowed the user the ability to guide Fūton and Raiton Jutsu with extreme precision inside their field of divination.
At the moment, Naruto had unlocked Ryouton. But due to his unique circumstances it seemed to burn less chakra and refill the chakra it expended relatively quickly. A good solution to his main problem of not being able to see, the only problem was that if he ran out of chakra he wouldn't be able to use it and would be blind again until he regained his chakra.
"That's good. Now then, I guess you're ready to be trained then. If you can use Ryouton, then you can train." She recovered fast and went back to being aloof.
"Eh?" By the time Naruto could process what Ryoko had said, they were outside.
5 Years Later
"Come on N, live a little! We've finally got an off day from our crazy parents, so what should we do?" Zennyo was walking alongside N, who had changed a lot over the 5 years he had been in Morigakure. Not having to suppress his real emotions and such led to him becoming a lot like his mother and looking aloof and indifferent to everything.
Zennyo had messy, medium length, turquoise blue hair and golden eyes with slit pupils he has had since birth. He wore an open turquoise vest with a light grey short sleeve undershirt. In addition he had white pants and light grey knee high Shinobi sandals. He was relatively tall and stood at 178 cm.
Naruto now wore a black cloak (Think exactly like Sasuke's cloak in Boruto but darker) over a long sleeve white shirt. He wore black pants and Shinobi sandals with fingerless gloves. No matter where he was he also had his eyes closed, showing the scar that cut across his eyelids and nose. He was just a bit shorter than Zennyo at 176 cm.
In addition, he had been trained to the extreme during those 5 years by both Ryoko and Ryūjin, leading to him being hard to intimidate. But since he took after his mother, he was a very hard person to make go places such as movie theaters and such to hang out.
"Fine let's go somewhere, if it's even remotely interesting I'll stay." Naruto allowed himself to be dragged away by Zennyo to somewhere he hadn't been in a while.
They stopped at the Academy, the place where young children had the choice to learn about any profession they wanted to go into, including ninja. Due to being 12, both Zennyo and Naruto were in the Academy, at least sort of. The 2 and Otohime had been getting trained more so by their parents than by going to the Academy, meaning that they only went once a month or so.
"First let's pick up Otohime." Unlike Naruto and Zennyo, Otohime spent her days off in school. Primarily to talk to her friends, but it makes her seem like a better student than her twin brother and Naruto.
The two walked through the building, eventually making it to Otohime's class. They were on lunch brake at the moment so the two walked in. Some of the girls in the class blushed at Naruto and Zennyo, but the two paid it no mind and went to Otohime.
Before they even spoke, Otohime sighed. "What is it you fools want?"
Otohime had changed as well. Her flowing turquoise hair went down to her mid back and her golden slit eyes had long eyelashes around them. She now wore a turquoise crop top with black pants and sandals. On her forearms she wore sleeves that reached halfway up her bicep, under metal arm guards.
Naruto sighed and sat down on a random empty chair. "Please don't lump me in with this idiot." He said it in his normal cold tone, drawing a smirk from Otohime.
"Why do you guys always pick on me." Zennyo said it in a hurt voice, but a smile was on his face. "Anyways Nee-chan, we're going "there"."
A small smile came onto Otohime's face before it disappeared. "Well, fine I'll go. But only to stop you two from doing something stupid."
The three exited the classroom, knowing that Otohime wasn't even obligated to stay in the classroom.
"Should we really be doing this the day before we graduate?" Being the ever reasonable one amongst them, brought up a valid argument.
"C'mon bro, like I said before, live a little." Zennyo put his arm onto Naruto's shoulder and Otohime did as well.
Because of them holding onto Naruto, they reached their destination fairly quickly. They stopped at the base of a mountain, the mountain in which all dragon summoners signed their contracts and gained a Stigmata.
A Stigmata was a mark that gave a dragon summoner a unique ability based on their greatest desire. Most summoners were inducted at the age of 16 due to most reaching enough power to be noticed by the dragons at that age.
As for who could be a summoner? There were six factions in the village that worked like clans, members of those clans would gain a chance depending on how strong they were. Candidates were chosen once a year and a maximum of 4 could be chosen from each faction. The factions each represented one of the 5 chakra natures, excluding the Arashi (Storm) faction which consisted of three of the five nature types. Each faction had a type of dragon they would summon based off of the chakra nature they used.
That isn't to say that someone who isn't a part of a faction can't be a summoner. Dragons valued strength over anything, so they would often pick strong people outside of factions. In the end though, you had a higher chance of you were from a faction.
The three walked up the mountain until they found a cave. This cave was one they had never seen while taking this very same path before, but their curiosity got the better of them and they decided to enter.
"Just remember, if Zennyo does anything stupid it's your fault." Just as Naruto said that, Zennyo pressed on a stone that looked like it protruded from the wall a bit.
The cave started rumbling and a few things started shifting, so Naruto and Otohime looked over at Zennyo and saw him nervously grinning. "My brother is an absolute idiot. Why couldn't he have been normal?"
Naruto grabbed onto the two of them and tried running out of the cave at full speed, but before he could even start running, his Ryouton sensed that the way they came in had been closed off.
"Shit. You two, watch my back for a second." He let go of the two, and instead opted to focus his Ryouton strictly forward to see if he could find anything helpful up ahead.
He extended the range of his Ryouton to its max and saw a large scroll. He breathed a short sigh of relief and returned his Ryouton to normal.
"We should be fine, I think this is what our parents were talking about. We can get a personal summon." Naruto started walking in the direction of the scroll.
"See? I'm not that much of an idiot." Zennyo tried convincing the two, but was ignored promptly and almost left behind.
Otohime was the first to think about what would happen and if she would come to regret it. Eventually she gave in and continued. "If what you're saying is right N, that means you're getting a Stigmata."
"Yeah, I can only hope for the right one now." They talked over the risks as they approached the large scroll. Naruto was first to touch it, leading to it pricking him and drawing blood before a sealing sealing array written along the outside of the scroll flaring blue with chakra.
Instinctively, the three jumped back. Not knowing what was going on, they watched as the scroll lit up the area of the cave they were in. It unrolled itself, showing a long list of names. The unfortunate truth for them was that they weren't some of the earlier summoners, but that didn't matter to them.
Naruto's name started to be written in his own blood, and when it finished, he started feeling immense pain from both his left shoulder and long dead eyes. "AH!!" He screamed in anguish, not knowing a way to deal with the pain.
"What's happening to him!?" Otohime and Zennyo ran over to their friend, as the pain in his shoulder soon died down, contrary to his eyes that were still burning.
"What do you expect me to know!? I'm supposed to be dumber than you!" The siblings tried their best to comfort their hurting friend, but he couldn't even hear them, as he was already in a conversation.
But a few seconds after they touched him, the pain came to them as well, as their names were written in blood on the scroll.
"Hoh? It seems you're unable to withstand the pain out there? Pathetic." Naruto stood in front of two large red gates that led into an even larger cage.
Inside of that cage was the legendary Kyūbi no Yōko (Nine Tailed Demon Fox) that ravaged Konoha twelve years ago. All of this was possible because Naruto was stuck in his mindscape, a place where few people who weren't Yamanaka could go into in their lifetimes.
"The Kyūbi? Where am I?" 'What I really should be asking is why am I so calm?' He was submerged in water up to his ankles, and surrounded by sewer like walls.
"Your mindscape, where I remain sealed within your pathetic self." The giant fox chuckled sinisterly. "You came here to escape the unimaginable pain out there, but I'll hand it to you kid. You're only able to come here because of your dormant talent, hopefully your friends are the same, or else they might die from the feeling of pain alone."
Naruto's face hardened as he started glaring at the Kyūbi. "What do you mean? I thought that a lot of people went through this every year and survived?"
"Idiot. Do you really think altering someone's DNA by granting them a Stigmata wouldn't hurt at all. It breaks you down on a cellular level before reforming you with new cells. The only reason everyone survives the change and doesn't feel this pain is because they did it with all of the right tools and preparation. Even then, a large amount of pain would still happen. My guess is that your two friends got an even higher level Stigmata than you did, seeing as their still screaming in pain out there. When you get out, you should be able to help them out by absorbing some of the energy that's trying to force its way into their bodies."
"Why are you telling me all of this? Don't you hate me, my friends, and all of the insufferable humans in the world?"
"I'm just repaying an old debt, it's nothing of your concern. I'm sure at this moment if your friends survive, they'll have had an interaction similar to ours, just with different things. Anyways, I hope you die, yada yada, whatever, just go and do what you want."
"What was that? I'm starting to doubt you hate anything with the way you're acting."
"Just shut up and leave. It's annoying having someone in here while I'm trying to sleep."
"Fine, I'm leaving. I'll come back when I can... and thanks, I guess."
With that, Naruto faded out of the mindscape, slowly melting back into reality.
"AH!!" He snapped back to the bloodcurdling screams of the kneeling Otohime and Zennyo, he seemed be be lying down face first on the ground, so he picked himself up and put his hands on the twin's shoulders. "This might hurt."
The chakra like energy flooded through his body, circulating through his chakra network until it was expelled from his back. The next one to pass out and stop screaming was Zennyo, but Otohime lasted much longer, 5 minutes to be exact.
Finally, once he was sure the other two were fine, he collapsed face first and fainted as well, their bodies had endured more than the human limit for pain, it was even unclear wether or not any of them were alive.
The three woke up in hospital beds in separate rooms, hooked up to multiple machines and with medical ninja on standby.
Bright white lights lined the ceiling and had blinded Zennyo and Otohime when they woke up.
"Looks like you're finally awake." Sitting next to Naruto's bed was his mom, Ryoko. She acted aloof and cold like normal, but even the most unsociable person could tell she was a bit shaken up, so for someone like Naruto who had studied human emotions unintentionally, it was easy to tell.
"Sorry Kaa-san. It's my fault, I should've gotten us out sooner." His weak voice was loud enough for Ryoko.
"All three of you said something like that. It doesn't matter anyways, all that does is that you're okay."
A small chuckle escaped his lips. "Okay."
"On another note, you need to get ready and go. The twins are dressed and waiting for you outside. Since team assignments are today, it would be in your best interest if you hurry."
Naruto waited for him mom and the medics to leave and pulled himself out of the bed. Surprisingly, there was no pain anymore, in addition the Stigmata mark was still on his shoulder, meaning it all worked out in the end. He would have to try summoning his personal summon later on.
He dressed similarly to how he dressed before with a few key differences.
His hair was down and his bangs reached just past his eyes. His cloak and shirt were the same, but now he wore a bunched up, black scarf that hid his mouth from view and a katana strapped to his waist. As always, his eyes were closed, but something about them was different. He'd find out soon enough though.
He walked out of the room to see Zennyo and Otohime waiting by the wall. "Let's go."
Zennyo laughed a bit before running up and putting his arm around Naruto's shoulder. "Cold as always. You know, you should really try and be more sympathetic. It makes it seem like you don't care about us when you act like this."
Otohime sighed as she walked alongside the two out of the hospital. "That's the only way this idiot knows how to show affection. And we probably would have felt worse if he showed that he worried about us."
"Anyway, while we make our way to the Academy, tell me about what happened to you guys back in the cave."
Otohime spoke first, which was unusual. Normally, she didn't want to share information like this normally, so it slightly took Naruto off guard.
"When I first touched your shoulder in an attempt to help you, I went into someplace called my mindscape. Inside was a pure white room with only a full body mirror. When I went up to the mirror, it wasn't my reflection that I saw, but at the same time it was. Instead of me standing in the mirror, an older version of myself seemed to be there, and instead of a white room, hers was blood red with little splatters of white. Before I could even talk and ask what was going on, she explained everything to me. Apparently, she could converse with me due to the Stigmata I gained, and was technically me from another timeline. Everything was strange, but I had no choice but to believe her."
Zennyo spoke next. "Mine was similar. I appeared in a place also called a mindscape, but there was no white room. I was floating in a void with countless memories that weren't mine displayed on floating screens. Soon after I was able to grasp where I somewhat was, an old man with a long beard and hair appeared. He said he was the previous summoner of my personal summon and that those were his memories I gained via my Stigmata. He also said that with time I'd be able to get more of them that contained hints to his past and abilities, allowing me to get stronger from them. That was really all he said."
"Hmm... it all seems strange. Is any of that supposed to happen, and why did our parents ask nothing of it? Were we really found inside the cave? And last but not least, did they know of or see our Stigmata, and if so why were they so unconcerned about those?"
"I dunno man. Let's not concern ourselves with that right now. If we don't make it in time for team assignments, things could go downhill fast." Zennyo started walking ahead of the two, basically telling them to speed up.
They arrived at the academy just in time for announcements and sat in the back row, Naruto in between the twins. Just early enough that students were still talking amongst themselves. Their teacher walked in and started arranging the papers on his desk, ignoring the chattering students.
As the time turned to 10:00am the teacher at the front of the room spoke. "Hello students. It's finally the day of your graduation and I'm proud of each and every one of you. Even coming to the classroom today is just a formality so I'll start listing names. Squadron 4's Jonin sensei is..."
He drones on for a while, until something he said caught the three friends' attention. "Squadron 11's Jonin sensei is Ryoko Hitoshi. The genin are Otohime Igarashi, Zennyo Igarashi, and Naruto Hitoshi."
This was another one of the few things that could catch Naruto off guard. His mom? A sensei? He knew that she was definitely the strongest Jonin in the village by a long shot. In addition, she was the strongest ninja in the village period, she was even supposed to be the current leader of Morigakure, but turned the offer down because she thought it was too much hassle and instead recommended Ryūjin for the position. He was the second strongest in the village, but wasn't very far behind Ryoko in terms of strength. But letting the strongest Jonin in the village become a sensei made no sense to Naruto.
Due to the situation, both Otohime and Zennyo laughed quietly. After all of the teams were announced, the sensei came to pick up their genin.
Ryoko arrived just on time, exactly when the clock hit 10:30 to pick up her Squad. "Alright Squadron 11, meet me outside the shed behind the school in five." With that she disappeared, leaving her students to follow her out.