Naruto: Mixed Bloodlines
Prelude:
Side Effects
Long ago, before the Ninja Village system was first considered, the many ninja clans around the continent used to travel through the lands receiving payment for 'specialized' jobs like assassination, espionage, sabotage and any other job the honourable samurai wouldn't take. The ninja were particularly requested during times of war.
One of the side effects of always wandering – specially in times of war – that people and, many times, even the ninjas themselves didn't think much about was that with that many journeys, inevitably there would be many bastard children from these very clans, though when the clan found one of these unaccounted members, they used to reclaim them, even if those children were already 'claimed' by other parties. The members that were never found out, on the other hand, sometimes ended joining other ninja clans, marrying into samurai families or even just living their lives as simple civilians, without ever finding out where their blood came from.
The most powerful clans also naturally ended up accumulating quite a lot of money, so a few clans ended up buying lands to settle themselves on for many reasons, not the least being that this way potential customers would find them easier; and because these rich clans were so strong, they didn't fear being attacked by enemies, specially if they had powerful Kekkei Genkai, like the Hyuuga Clan.
There were, though, a few clans that never settled even if they had the riches and the power to buy and protect their lands, like the Uchiha Clan; one of the greatest Uchiha leaders ever born, Uchiha Madara, wouldn't settle down while their fiercest enemy, the Senju Clan, and specially his greatest rival, Senju Hashirama, wasn't defeated.
The other Uchiha, however, had grown tired of wandering and fighting the Senju all the time and they made their discontent known by Madara, so when the Senju offered a peace treaty, Madara didn't have any other choice besides accepting the deal.
The first Ninja Village ever had just been conceived.
But a village still needs a land to exist and their continuous war with each other had depleted much of both clans' savings, specially the Senju, so the Uchiha offered negotiating with their estranged relatives, the Hyuuga, in order to buy the land where upon a new shinobi age would be built.
The negotiations were hard and stressful, but in the end the Hyuuga agreed upon selling the biggest part of their lands so the future Village of Konoha could be built, their reasoning being that their property had grown up so much by that point that even with their Byakugan it was getting too hard to keep watch over their lands but because those lands were used to feed the clan they couldn't just give it away.
When the negotiations ended, both the Senju and the Uchiha had already used much of the money they still had after their many wars, even if they still could live comfortably for the next decades if they economized in the construction of the houses, so the Senju offered themselves to get the necessary raw material to build the village.
Using his Mokuton, Hashirama created the forest that would soon turn into Konoha and after years of labour from the three clans the Village system became a reality.
The Senju and the Uchiha, who made the treaty that originated Konoha, became know as the Founding Clans, and the Hyuuga, which didn't participate as much as the other two clans during the building of the village but offered the land, started seeing itself as the Predecessor Clan, even though the History books wouldn't refer to them as such, sometimes even not mentioning the fundamental but not showy role the Hyuuga Clan played, which sometimes is a disagreement they have towards Konoha.
Soon, many other clans founded their own villages and a new age for the ninjas was born.
But some clans never abandoned their ancient, violent and wandering ways, like the Kaguya Clan.
The Kaguya Clan was a nomadic barbarian clan that lived for the thrill of battle and nothing else, so they didn't fear any other clan because they couldn't believe there was a clan stronger than them in the ninja world; but even they had a fear: their own 'cursed' bloodline.
The reason for that was that their Kekkei Genkai was so powerful even the fiercest warriors in the clan couldn't help but tremble before it. Fortunately for them only a few in each generation, if much, awakened the Shikotsumyaku, but those who did were often the strongest fighters of the clan and that was all the Kaguya knew or bothered to know about these 'bone users'.
What they didn't bother to find out was that the Shikotsumyaku was a very recessive gene, so only if both parents had this gene- which considering how many children with people of different clans they had was quite unlikely - a child had the chance of being born with it.
And because they travelled so much, many people from other clans and even civilians families never knew they had Kaguya blood running in their veins and some of those anonymous Kaguya heirs even married among themselves. In the end the Shikotsumyaku gene was spread across the land.
Two of those unexpected heirs that never knew they had Kaguya blood were Namikaze Minato - the Yellow Flash of Konoha and Konoha's Yondaime Hokage - and Uzumaki Kushina - the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero and Kyuubi Jinchuuriki - who had a son they named Naruto.
Unfortunately in the night Naruto was born, Konoha was attacked by a masked man whom Minato concluded was the long thought dead Uchiha Madara, who forced both father and mother to sacrifice themselves and, in a way, even their just-born son to save the home they loved.
What they could've never have guessed was that Naruto had been one of the few Kaguya descendants to be blessed (or cursed), with the Shikotsumyaku and Naruto himself would only find out his heritage long after the brave, if unwise, clan was utterly crushed by the Village of Kiri...
Chapter I:
The First Step on the Journey of the Unexpected Heir
Uzumaki Naruto,(age 12, student of the Ninja Academy of Konoha, a small boy with blue eyes, white hair and three whisker-like birthmarks on each cheek), was very confused at the moment. Earlier in this day he had failed for the third time the Academy Graduation Exam. Later while he was still beating himself up for having failed yet again, his instructor Mizuki (age 27, silver hair and green eyes) said he still could graduate if he passed a special test that involved infiltrating the Hokage's Residence and learning one jutsu from the Forbidden Scroll of Seals.
And he, Uzumaki Naruto, Genin candidate, had done that, but something weird was happening because Umino Iruka-sensei (age 22, tanned skin, black eyes and hair and a noticealbe scar running across his nose's bridge) was until moments ago pinned against a wall by a lot of kunais and Mizuki was on a branch having threw the very same kunais that were pinning Iruka-sensei to the wood cabin in the clearing were Naruto had been training non-stop since he opened the scroll, and now Mizuki was saying something about a 'truth' that had been hidden from him and Iruka-sensei seemed to know what that was and visibly wasn't happy Mizuki intended to say whatever it was he wanted.
"You know about the Demon Fox attack 12 years ago, right?", began Mizuki.
Yes, of course he knew, everyone in the village that was learning about Konoha's History knew about this attack, when the Kyuubi no Youko suddenly attacked the Village for reasons yet unknown and was killed by the Yondaime Hokage who sacrificed his own life to do the impossible, but what this had anything to do about the 'truth' Mizuki was trying to tell? It seemed he would understand soon as Mizuki continued to speak, "Since that day a special law was made that applied only to this village".
"A law"?
"But... This law was never supposed to be told to you".
"Why? What is this law?! Tell me"!
Mizuki just chuckled evilly.
"What... is that law...?", repeated Naruto even though he had a very bad feeling about this.
"The law is that we are never supposed to talk about the fact that you are... the Kyuubi no Youko"!
!
"What...? What does that mean"?
"STOP IT!", cried Iruka.
"It means that you are the Kyuubi no Youko, the demonic fox that attacked this village 12 years ago and which killed Iruka's parents! You were sealed by the Hokage you so much admires and"...
"STOP!", begged Iruka, but Mizuki didn't even pay attention.
"...You have been lied to by everyone!", Mizuki kept going, visibly enjoying the pain he was causing to the little fox he saw while he prepared to throw the giant shuriken that would hopefully kill the Fox once and for all, "Didn't you find it odd how everyone hated you? Well, that's the reason and even Iruka is the same, he also HATES you"!
That was too much for Naruto, could this be true? Could he really be the Kyuubi? He certainly didn't feel like he was, but again if he was this explained many things, like his weird whisker marks he had for as long as he could remember and justified the way he had been treated for as long as; even so he didn't believe it fully, he didn't want to believe it.
"Nobody will ever love you!", Mizuki finished and threw the shuriken towards Naruto, who was immobilized by the implications this revelation entailed.
Noticing this, Iruka tried jumping in front of Naruto to protect him.
Unfortunately in this world, unlike countless other alternate worlds, Iruka was too far from Naruto to manage to defend the boy he saw as a younger brother; fortunately when Iruka yelled Naruto's name, Naruto was able to get out of his denial-induced trance; unfortunately when Naruto regained his senses he realized he didn't have time to evade the attack so he put his arms in front of him and closed his eyes, wishing with all his strength for something to happen that would save him; fortunately Naruto had a 'genetic quirk' he didn't have any idea about and this mutation chose that moment to reveal itself.
Before the shuriken hit Naruto's arms, bones tougher than steel popped out of his forearms and by luck deflect the thrown weapon that went spiralling towards the cabin behind them and got stuck in the floor right next to Iruka.
The moment the bones popped out Iruka was shocked, could Naruto have a Kekkei Genkai? But that was one he had never seen or heard about before!
When Naruto felt the shuriken hitting something solid in front of him, he opened his eyes to see what had saved him, that was when he saw his bones:
"What the hell?!" and he jumped back and finally noticed that the bones were his; had he been in other situation he would have found it 'cool', but because of what Mizuki said, all he saw was a creepy power that only proved that he was, indeed a demon.
"Damn you, demon!", screamed Mizuki, pulling many kunais from his pockets.
But this time Iruka was faster and threw one of the kunai that were piercing his body at Mizuki, who was hit in one hand making him drop the blades in that hand and even unbalancing the traitor a bit, so pulling out another kunai from his body Iruka threw it at the other hand, making his target drop the other knives as well. Taking advantage of the distraction, Iruka pulled the shuriken that was stuck in the floor and threw it at Mizuki, who wasn't able to recover from the attacks in time to defend the spinning star which stuck him true in the chest, making him lose his foot on the branch of the tree and fall from a height of ten metres, knocking him out.
After breathing in and out to calm himself a bit, Iruka walked to Naruto to comfort him, "Are you okay, Naruto?" and raised his hand to touch the boy, however the boy was too scared to allow even such an affectionate gesture and took a few steps back and stared at his teacher as if he was a cornered animal:
"Is it true? Am I really the Kyuubi"?
Iruka stopped and stared at Naruto as if he had just made a really stupid question:
"Of course not. You are Naruto, one of my most important people", replied Iruka.
"But then why do everyone hate me if I'm not the fox?", cried Naruto, "Why do people keep ignoring and hating and glaring at me when they think I'm not watching? Why am I so mistreated? I have to be the fox, otherwise they wouldn't have any reason to treat me like that"!
"You're not the fox, if you were I would know", assured Iruka, losing his patience (after all he was losing quite a bit of blood that could prove to be very lethal if not treated soon, but his student was more important now).
"How could you possibly be sure?", cried Naruto, "How can I be sure"?!
Iruka got silent for some time before sighing and sitting on the floor:
"I'm sure of that because I understand you, Naruto", confessed Iruka, "Sit a bit as well, I would rather having not to look up the whole time".
Only after Naruto sat did Iruka continue:
"When my parents died", here Naruto made a face but Iruka ignored it, "there was no one else to praise or acknowledge me. As I've never been very good in stuff like studying and paying attention in class", now Naruto just stared at Iruka as if asking if he was crazy, "Hey, don't stare at me like that! I was a student once too! As I was saying, because I wasn't a good student I started acting like an idiot, always pulling a prank, always calling attention to myself", here Iruka stared at Naruto intently, "and specially I was always smiling, even when I wanted to cry, I was always suffering a lot, but I didn't want other people to worry about and pity me so I always smiled. You know as well as I do how much loneness hurts but even so you don't want people worrying about nor having pity on you, just like me. And it's because I know this pain as well as you that I know exactly what you're trying to do: you just want to be acknowledged and I'm sure that if you really were the Demon Fox you wouldn't care about the others' opinions and because I know this I can fully trust you and believe in the fact that you're only Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha, not the Demon Fox".
By that point Naruto was already crying of joy and relief. Someone else acknowledged and accepted him! Only Old Man Hokage, Old Man Ichiraku and Ayame-nee-chan did so before! He was so happy, he hadn't noticed that the bones had already retracted to their place not leaving even a scar in his forearms.
"Thank you, Iruka-sensei!", cried Naruto, this time in joy, jumping on his older brother figure and hugging him with all his strength.
"Now Naruto, stop that, you're going to break my ribs like this!", laughed Iruka even though he was grimacing in pain.
"How (gasp!) touching!", a voice from under the tree, "So it has (gasp) (gasp!) fooled even you, Iruka!", a body moved and tried raising itself from it's spot under the branch of a tree, "I always (cough!) knew you were a fool, Iruka (cough) (cough) (gasp!), but I never thought you would be so naïve!", the other two turned to owner of the voice, "(cough!) It's obvious this demon used it's evil powers to (gasp!) control your mind"!
"Mizuki!", spit Naruto as if it was a terrible curse. Now that he knew for sure that Iruka accepted him, he wasn't going to quietly take sh*t like that from anyone! Iruka-sensei believed in him and that was enough to make he decide to stand up and fight to protect that trust!
"Shut up you damn demon! (gasp, cough, cough!) You're not going to trick me!", challenged Mizuki, rising slowly from the floor while pulling the shuriken from his chest, "I'm going to (cough!) kill you and be hailed as a hero! (gasp) (gasp) I'll even kill that idiot there who was corrupted by you! (cough!) Then I'll finally receive the respect I deserve"!
"Oh no, you won't, you bastard!", answered Naruto, "I'll will deliver the pain you put Iruka-sensei through a thousand times over! KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU"!
And smoke covered the clearing and from it a thousand Narutos burst out ready to fight.
To say Iruka was impressed would be an understatement as it would be to say that Mizuki was incredulous and quite a bit scared.
"Get ready to receive your punishment!", echoed all thousand Narutos at the same time. With a battle cry the thousand Narutos jumped on Mizuki and beat him senseless. Only the fact that none of the attacks were well-aimed saved Mizuki's life, even if only by an inch.
"Oops, I think I exaggerated a bit on his punishment", said Naruto sheepishly after he dispelled all the clones.
Fortunately for the traitor (or maybe not), the ANBU got to the scene just in time for one of the medic-nins to stabilize his condition enough so he wouldn't die and took him to the hospital where Mizuki would stay under emergency care before been interrogated by the ANBU.
Another ANBU medic-nin then proceeded to apply first aids on Iruka while the ANBU Commander surveyed the mess that was the clearing-turned-battlefield.
"Wow, it seems you guys had quite the party here", said the Commander, who was wearing a tiger mask, by way of opening the communication line with the two still conscious participants of whatever the hell happened there, "Care to explain what happened here"?
"Sir", called Iruka-sensei before Naruto could open his mouth, "according to what I heard and saw after I found the suspect, it seems my... colleague Mizuki tricked the student Uzumaki Naruto into stealing the Forbidden Scroll with promises of graduating him if he learned at least one technique from it, but then he tried to kill both me and the boy and steal the Scroll for himself, while using Naruto as a scapegoat", summarised Iruka-sensei.
"It seems things got quite 'interesting' here", concluded Tiger, "You do know, however, that until Hokage-sama questions you himself, I'll have to arrest you even if you're telling the truth, right"?
"What?!", this time Iruka wasn't fast enough to speak before Naruto, "That's not fair! That guy is a traitor and we are arrested while he goes to the hospital? How does that work"!
"Naruto", sighed Iruka before starting his lecture, "They don't know if we're telling the truth or not, so they can't take any chances, as for Mizuki he will be locked in a hospital room until he recovers enough to be interrogated and even while he's under treatment, he'll be watched closely by the ANBU, so he's pretty as arrested as us. Also don't fight or talk back at the ANBU Commander or your situation can get much worse, so just let them follow the protocol and be patient until Hokage-sama himself can talk to us".
"Fine", grumbled back Naruto, "But that's still not fair".
"Well, now that we're understood, can we 'follow protocol' already?", replied Tiger, "The sooner we get this dealt with the sooner we can go back to our normal lives, or in your case maybe not".
Then the ANBU arrested both Iruka and Naruto and took them to the Hokage Office to have a 'talk' with the Sandaime so he could decide what to do with them.
The travel was short and uneventful so before he noticed, Naruto was already in front of the Old Man Hokage:
"Thank you, Tiger-kun, you may leave soon, you just need to free them before you do", dismissed Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage (age 68, gray hair, dark eyes and a thik goatee), and Tiger disappeared after unlocking the two suspects, "So, Iruka-kun, Naruto-kun, could you both explain in detail to me what happened, each with your own words"?
After a couple hours of retelling in details everything that led to the incident and even the things that were said and felt by the two; when Iruka mentioned his suspicions about Naruto having a Kekkei Genkai, Hokage-sama didn't seem very surprised (but that could be just because the old ninja had an impressive poker face) and Naruto just seemed confused:
"Hey, what is this Ke-don't-know-what"?
Iruka-kun sighed and answered:
"Didn't you ever pay attention at class, Naruto"?
"Hey"!
"A Kekkei Genkai, Naruto-kun, is a kind of power or technique that people in a determined clan are born with and not taught, but not a technique that determined clan invented and only passes to people of that clan".
"Does that mean I have a family?", asked Naruto, joy filling him, but soon he noticed the Old Man's sorrowful expression and deflated.
"I'm afraid not any more, Naruto-kun, because the only Clan ever rumoured to have anything similar to this power Iruka-kun described and that I've seen through my crystal ball that I know of was a nomadic clan called Kaguya that was virtually extinguished a few years ago when they attacked the Village of Kiri", Sarutobi puffed his lit pipe in sadness, "It is said that no member of this clan survived".
Sarutobi just sat there, puffing in sorrow, until Naruto sobbed:
"I... see", it was just his luck, he couldn't find out he had a family before it was taken from him soon after, "So, did my parents... abandon me and die fighting against another village"?
"NO!", guaranteed Hokage-sama fiercely, "Your parents were most assuredly not Kaguya! They were official Konoha shinobi! I believe that they just happened to be descendants of the Kaguya and didn't know about that, which is not uncommon in our world, specially in this case. So, never again say that your parents abandoned you, they would've never done that even if they could"!
Nowadays it was really rare to see Sarutobi Hiruzen angry, but when it happened you understood why he was once called "God of Shinobi", for when he did, you felt all the power that was confined in his gentle-looking frame.
"Yes, Sir!", agreed Naruto quickly. He had never seeing Old Man Hokage so angry and frankly, he was scared. Thankfully Sandaime-sama quickly recovered his composure and relaxed:
"Oh, I'm sorry, Naruto-kun", said Sarutobi, who smiled embarrassed, "It's just I personally knew your parents and they were very good friends of mine, so I couldn't help it. They were good people and strong ninjas, so I get more emotional when they are involved".
"Hey, waaait...", replied Naruto, suspicion thick on his voice, "You knew my parents"?
"Of course I did! I was already Hokage when they started getting famous", replied Sarutobi.
"Then, could you please tell me more about them?!", begged Naruto jumping on top of the Hokage's desk ("Hey Naruto, get off there!", scolded Iruka-sensei, who kept quiet during this talk because it was something that didn't involve him).
But once again pain flashed across the Old Man Hokage's face:
"I'm sorry, Naruto", told him and Naruto's face fell again, making Hiruzen hate himself more for it, but still firm in his decision, "But because they were famous they had many enemies, powerful enemies, so if they discovered who your parents were, odds are high that they would try to kill you, so I'll only tell you something about them when you get strong enough to defend yourself from the most varied forms of attack".
"That means if I get strong enough, you'll tell me about them?", Naruto asked for confirmation, his mood improving already, which only improved when Old Man Hokage smiled like he used to in his presence.
"Yes".
"Promise?", asked Naruto, unable to contain the hope in his voice.
"Promise", nodded Hiruzen, his smile even more relaxed.
"Yay!", Naruto jumped from the desk and punched the air.
"Now Naruto, could you please get down of my desk?", smiled the elder.
"Oh yeah, sorry", obeyed Naruto sheepishly, then he smiled and declared, "Oh man! I can't wait for the next semester! The sooner I get stronger, the sooner I'll learn who my parents are and also the closer I'll be of taking your hat, Old Man"!
"Oh yeah, about the graduation", remembered the Hokage, picking something from a drawer and handing it to the boy, "Congratulations on graduating, Naruto-kun!", it was an old Konoha hitaiate.
"Really?", asked Naruto hopefully.
"Yes, after what happened tonight I'm guessing even Iruka-kun here agrees that you're most definitely ready for graduating, right, Iruka-kun?", the Hokage asked rhetorically.
"Yes, Sir, after seeing Naruto use the Kage Bunshin, a more powerful version than the Bunshin we teach at the Academy I'm sure Naruto deserves his graduation", agreed the Academy Teacher, smiling, "After all, what failed Naruto was his inability of using the Bunshin no Jutsu, but now that he knows the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, he is ready to be a Genin. Indeed I was intending in giving him my hitaite and pass him myself, but the ANBU got to us before that and brought us here".
"Really?", Naruto still couldn't believe how good this night turning out after how bad the day begun.
"Yes, Naruto, really", congratulated Iruka-sensei.
"By the way, Naruto-kun, this hitaiate I gave you was one of your father's spares", smiled Hiruzen, "I'm sure he would be proud his son was using it".
Naruto was by now so happy he wanted to hug both the Old Man Hokage and Iruka-sensei but didn't know who to hug first, so he summoned one Kage Bunshin (after tying his father's old hitaiate of course) and taking advantage of their slight confusion about his actions both Narutos jumped and each one hugged one of their two precious people in the room, laughing genuinely happy...
Author's notes:
11/18/2012: Well, here it is, my first normal fic in this site. I've published a cross-over before, but I intend to rewrite it in the future.
This story is in part inspired by Lucillia's Uzumaki and Uchiha story. Originally I intended to write an Uchiha!Naruto fic, but I also wanted to write a Kaguya!Naruto story, so I decided to first write the Kaguya one and when I'm better at this I'll write the Uchiha one.
Anyway that's not why I'm writing this notes, I'm writing these notes to say a few things about what I'm planning - I would've wrote it in the summary but I concluded the remaining characters wouldn't be enough -, namely: pairings are ultimately undecided but there will probably have NaruHina in the future and possibly Sakura may join the fun too, who knows? It may even turn into a Harem later too, but even if pairings are undecided, I do already have an idea for Sasuke...
Also, I'll keep this story similar to canon in the beginning but as you can see there is already a few differences from canon, like Iruka not managing to push Naruto out of the way of Mizuki's shuriken and Naruto receiving his father's old hitaiate instead of Iruka's. The only reason the latter happened was because Iruka and Naruto took longer in that clearing than in canon, which gave time for the ANBU to reach them and the rest just flowed from there, including Naruto learning a little bit about his parents much sooner than I expected; but the end I'm satisfied with the way it turned out, as it gave Naruto another motivation to get stronger (not that he needed) and I didn't actually say much about them.
Now, the reason I made Naruto have white hair in this story is mainly because I like white-haired young looking protagonists, I find it cool (I blame Castlevania: Symphony of the Night); this been said I do have an in-universe justification for it though, it might not be the best one but I do have, however I'll only tell it when it becomes vaguely relevant.
Edit 11/27/2012: Just corrected a few spelling mistakes I saw and tried making the reading easier to follow.
I also decided to say why, in this fic, I made Konoha having being built in land that formerly belonged to the Hyuuga: it is mainly because I have the feeling it was said in the Anime at some point that the Hyuuga Clan was even more traditional then the Uchiha Clan and I understood that as the Hyuuga having being longer in Konoha then the Uchiha, but after the author said the Uchiha was one of the two clans that founded Konoha I thought it didn't fit with previous information so after thinking about it long enough I figured out a way that both informations could not contradict each other, and this way is what happened in the prologue: basically, the Hyuuga had being living in that place longer then Konoha, but the reason the Hyuuga would allow a village to be built in their lands was something I considered later.
And that's why Konoha was built in the land that formerly belonged to the Hyuuga.