A/N: Next edition of NOTSB. As always, I own nothing and I'm strangely cool with that.

Added 2/23/2020: Thanks to AJGuardian for the catch in the Behind the Scenes posted below. Oddly enough, I had the same typo twice in the same paragraph and didn't catch it. Yes, I know that Konoha's Jounin Commander isn't the same as a 3-story Tanuki but no one is perfect (which is why the world has editors and proofreaders).

Figured while I was at it I'd reread the whole chapter to correct any other glaring errors, of which there were several. My apologies for the slip in quality.

~Siv

Chapter 4: To Dream A Dream

~I I I~

Given the furor that Inu went about trying to incarcerate, or eliminate, those responsible for the cruel attack on a child, you would think he'd been aware of the child's identity secretly squirreled away in the deepest vaults of the Hokage. One might even argue that he represented all that was good and right in the inarguably questionable morals of the shinobi universe when, in fact, nothing could have been further from the truth.

Truthfully, he was indifferent to the child's plight, the woes of an orphan he'd had the opportunity to watch over briefly during his ongoing career as one of Konoha's elite. It's not like the child was the long-lost son of his beloved sensei no matter how similar his golden shade of hair was or how often the boy's even rarer moments of quiet reflection (when he thought no one was watching) reminded him of the one man the Cyclops would have single-handedly stormed the very walls of Iwagakure no Sato to avenge.

The boy served a purpose. He was the final masterpiece of his beloved master and, yes, Kakashi could finally admit – to himself at least – that he held his beloved Minato-sama in that particular lens even if he'd never utter it aloud. As his master's remaining Namikaze family in Konoha had been wiped out on the tragic rampage of the nine-tailed demon, his particular affectation towards his departed master transferred to the only tangible object left of his legacy; the child sacrifice.

The Jinchūriki of the Kyūbi no Youko.

The child's last name was peculiar to say the least. Why the Sandaime chose to name him after the defunct clan from Uzushio was, at a minimum, bizarre and yet poetic at the same time. Kakashi had the opportunity to see the seal on his little tummy under the supervision of the ancient Hokage and Jiraiya-sama, the Great and Powerful Toad Scholar responsible for Icha Icha perfection in all its many hues. That great honor shed light on the Uzumaki influences shaping his master's greatest work, therefore, making the homage to the extinct clan of seal masters noteworthy, any similarities to the raging redhead that dogged his master's heels notwithstanding.

He was uncaring, not obtuse.

The boy meant little to him outside of his representation as his master's greatest sacrifice to the village that he loved and protected until his dying day, that being October tenth – which coincided with the child's day of birth. Inu could mourn the first and celebrate the second in his own way.

It was also the reason why he could never be near the boy on the day of the Remembrance Festival lest he spiral and lash out at the innocent not responsible for the death of his beloved icon. He understood the sacrifice needed to seal away the beast and clearly understood the difference between the kunai and the holster that carried it, much like any competent shinobi familiar with the storage seals they used daily in the performance of their duties.

Unfortunately, he was only human despite the myths and legends surrounding the great Copy Ninja.

Humans had their faults, their weaknesses and he didn't want a moment of weakness to cause him to see nine malevolent tails of chakra instead of a whiskered face crowned in gold. So he stayed away on the same day every year. He kept his distance on this one day and this time it cost him more than he was comfortable with paying so that meant the thieves that stole the innocence from his master's legacy needed to pay for their crime.

This meant that if Kakashi couldn't rest until they were found, then they could not rest – wouldn't be allowed to rest – until he found them.

Whether or not they survived to reach Ibiki was questionable but that's considered resting of a fashion, right?

His mask was good at hiding his grimace as he cursed them. Inside he was hoping that the malevolent fury of the demon that slew his master would burn them for all eternity in the deepest bowels of Mugen Jigoku, or the Hell of Unending Suffering, as it was commonly used in curses to ward off evil.

In the meantime, he'd focus his efforts, when not guarding his master's legacy, to honoring his promises to his fallen team. Perhaps he could find a way to sweet-talk Mikoto-sama, fine and reasonable woman that she was, into letting him take little Sasuke under his wing when Itachi was out on missions. Obito would like that.

Yeah, Obito would probably wouldn't begrudge him looking after the latest generation of Uchihas.

Decision made, he snapped open his favorite orange distraction and began a leisurely stroll to the hospital. It couldn't hurt to check one last time on the blond science project.

~I I I~

Said "science project" was in a bit of a bind at the moment.

Naruto didn't know where he was, where he was floating off to, or how long he'd been at it. At least he thought he was floating. Everything was dark, he was laying on his back, arms and legs splayed out at all angles, but he couldn't feel anything holding him up. He was just kind of… there. It was peaceful here and he didn't hurt so much anymore. To be honest, it was kind of nice.

Just as he was growing comfortable with the sensation he felt something pull on his belly button, just the briefest tug at first. Then that tug became a yank and, before you knew it, he found himself plummeting into a pool of dark, dank water. Paddling frantically for the surface, his head broke through and he managed to tread enough water to get a look at where he was.

The pool itself was square in shape and he'd fallen right into the middle of it. He couldn't see the bottom, but he wasn't keen on looking for it. He was a passable swimmer, at best, and the water was hard to see in… and salty. One side of the pool grew shallower the closer you got to the edge almost like a ramp. That ramp led to a hallway that disappeared down a dark tunnel. That tunnel appeared to be the only real exit unless you counted flying back up the way he fell.

Since he couldn't fly that pretty much settled things. Forward it was so he started doggy-paddling, hands and legs kicking frantically as he inched along painfully enough until his toes began kicking off the ramp beneath his pistoning limbs.

Odd how his clothes were bone-dry once he finally stood up out of the pool, the water swirling lazily around his knees.

The room was dark but fairly large with enough torches spaced out along the edge to help see where you were going. The walls were dark and dreary, no windows or other light sources but he was used to that; the lights in his tiny apartment didn't work half the time. On the left side of the hallway, a pipe as big a round as his body and pulsing with a blue light ran high up along the wall disappearing off into the dark distance. On the right side, three glowing red pipes, each three times the size of the blue pipe, ran the hallway in the same fashion.

For a second, he thought it looked… familiar.

Not wanting to hang out in the dingy pool, Naruto started sloshing the rest of the way out (the pool must have flooded because four inches of water filled the hallway) and through the tunnel. This place reminded him of the sewers he used to use to hide from angry villagers.

It was depressing to be quite honest.

He stopped, his head cocked to the side while he tried to remember that word people kept saying when they felt like they saw something once before. He gave up after a few seconds and, with a shrug, kept walking.

There were no windows or doors anywhere in this place, so he went the only direction he could. Straight. Before too long, the tunnel opened up into another wide area that ended at the largest set of bars he'd ever seen. He couldn't even see the top because the bars disappeared into the dark nothing above.

He couldn't see anything past the bars and, even though they were clearly big enough for him to slide through, bars were meant to keep something dangerous locked away so he wasn't going to risk the deep shadows in there. He paid attention to horror movies on the rare chance he could sneak a peek at one without Jiji finding out.

He didn't have a key anyway and there wasn't one conveniently hanging around on a hook. There was a sheet of paper higher up on the bars with some weird kanji on it, but he couldn't read that either (no one at the orphanage bothered to teach him and the civilian school he went to for the last year and a half kept him just below the level of a functionally illiterate vagabond), so he couldn't tell if it was a clue, a warning, or a message. It appeared that he was stuck up the river without a homemade fishing pole.

Maybe there was a secret way out at the bottom of that pool? The more he looked around here the more appealing that idea began to sound. Just as he turned around and was about to go back whence he came, a very small, very soft voice called out to him.

"Hello Naruto-kun."

Naruto froze in place, his head slowly impersonating a barn owl as it tried to pivot one hundred and eighty degrees back to the bars. He couldn't see the voice past that dark curtain of metal and no one appeared next to them. Despite a small voice in the back of his head screaming, "Run away!" Naruto edged closer.

"H-H-Hello?" … Nothing.

"Can you help me? I can't find the way out."

A girl about his age, and unlike any other he'd ever seen, stepped out of the shadows and into the dim light next to the bars. She was breathtaking, at least to the gaping six-year-old.

Her hair and yukata were a deep shade of red he hadn't seen except for in those fancy glasses people used in those expensive restaurants he was never allowed in to at night. Her hair fell down in crimson waves along her shoulders to where her elbows bent. Her skin was the color of honey and looked smooth like those fancy dolls in Mubiri's store window. Around her neck was a choker made of black silk with a tiny golden bell attached to it. Her yukata had golden patterns all over the lower half, like butterflies, and the sleeves hung low enough to cover her hands.

The only odd thing he could see was her eyes; they started out a bright red but faded into a deep gold color the closer you got to the middle. Given the wide variety of eyes he'd seen in town this wasn't odd by itself – it was the tiny slits that should have been her pupils that seemed… off. Naruto couldn't even shrug at that because he was too stunned by how pretty she was and the odd question in his mind as to why she was locked up in here. He wondered who she had made angry enough to get this kind of detention.

Even with how much the school hated him, they at least kicked him out at the end of the day – sometimes sooner. Well, most of the time sooner rather than later.

That small voice in his head was screaming now for him to run away before she could rip off his head and slurp out his brains. It was too bad that his feet weren't listening.

"P-P-Pretty," he stammered.

She blushed, eyes wide in shock, before her hand shot up to cover her mouth with a yukata sleeve while he stood there gaping like a blond koi fish.

"I can help you, but you can't leave just yet."

Naruto blinked in confusion and asked the obvious question, the whole time swearing that inner voice was mocking him now.

"Why not?"

The tiny girl sighed, her eyes growing tender as she waved her left arm at a section of the wall on his side of the bars. A red ball of energy expanded and spun unfurling into a large flat disk of energy resembling a swirl. That swirl exploded in a burst of color shaped like a window, a window looking down into a room with a small child wrapped in many bandages and laying in a hospital bed.

That child looked a lot like him.

"You can't leave because if I send you back to your body right now the shock will most likely kill you."

Naruto's answer was underwhelming in its simplicity.

"Oh."

Then his slow-churning brain began to grind through what he was hearing.

"What do you mean, '…send me back to my body?'."

"I am going to keep you here with me in your mindscape. I need to keep you here… for just a bit longer."

"Mind-what?"

The tiny girl sighed, and it was such a heart-wrenching sound to the would-be Hokage. The teachers at school often made that exact same sound whenever they had to interact with him. Naruto wished she wouldn't make that sound anymore.

"Your mindscape is comfy spot deep down in your brain where you can meditate, learn and get away from the outside world." Naruto looked all-around at the floor, the walls, the bars, the non-existent roof, and his face fell.

"My mindscape isn't very comfy. It looks like a sewer just not as stinky."

The young lady blinked, her head tilted to the side as she studied the fixer-upper named Naruto Uzumaki.

"Maybe that will change in time. For now, let's work with what we have."

"Okay!" Naruto chirped.

Without much ado, he plopped down in the water, crossed his legs and gazed up lovingly at the very nice girl that was happy to just sit and talk with him. Yes, it was true that she couldn't run away screaming or angry like everyone else he'd ever met in Konoha as she was trapped but being willing to talk was a vast improvement in his social network of now four people, three of which he couldn't talk to until he got out of here.

"You know my name, but I don't know yours. What do I call you?"

"Kyūbi, for now."

Naruto let out a surprised, "Hunh," thinking to himself one of her parents must not have liked her very much to give her that name.

Kyūbi's body shimmered and began to vibrate violently causing her whole form to blur for about three seconds. Then the blurring image stepped away to stand next to her and stopped vibrating revealing another Kyūbi – an exact replica. The new "twin" winked at the very confused and highly impressed six-year-old before stepping over to one side of the cage, her back to their ongoing conversation.

"Don't mind her Naruto. She needs to… have a conversation… with someone, a conversation that I can't take care of since you and I are having a very important conversation of our own and I don't want to be rude."

Naruto's crestfallen face brightened a bit as he took that to mean she wasn't going away for good and he might get another friend to talk to even if she looked exactly like Kyūbi. Two Kyūbi friends had to be better than one and now his day would be twice as awesome. With that earth-shattering realization, he turned his deep blue eyes back to his newest friend and inhaled until his face started to swell before letting it all out in a rush.

"Ohmygoshthatwasawesomepleaseteachmethat!"

Kyūbi blinked very slowly and deliberately as her mind methodically broke down and processed that very compressed statement. As the words, and their meaning, began to sink in, she realized that Naruto had absolutely no idea who or what she was. All he saw was a friend, an awesome friend that he could learn cool things from and hang out with. Her burgeoning smile faltered as her demonic disposition, despite clearly not being a nasty demon, warred very quickly between crushing his optimism with brutal reality or deceiving the poor child in order to keep her promise to her last host and only true friend. She found her answer somewhere near the middle.

Kneeling as close to the bars as possible, Kyūbi took a quick breath to steel her nerves.

"There are a great many things I need to teach you Naruto and, additionally, a great many things we need to accomplish but first you need to understand some things."

Naruto slowly nodded his head sagely to indicate he was following along and hide the fact that she used several big words he clearly didn't understand.

"The first thing you must understand is that I'm the reason why your village hurts you, why they don't like you."

The boy's face twisted up in confusion and the robust nature of his personality let her know exactly what he thought of that.

He laughed.

It was a gut-busting, lay-on-your-back-and-roll-around-like-a-baboon type of laugh that had tears in his eyes. Kyūbi hated to do this but he needed to know. He needed to see her for what she was if they were to move in any way forward.

While he was slapping the water around him in fits of hysteria, she quietly stood, backed away from the bars, released her transformation exploding to her full red-orange-furred glory, and roared for all she was worth. Naruto's body was blown thirty feet down the tunnel and his laughter ceased almost immediately with a frightened yelp as shock abruptly took over.

Silence. Then more silence.

After what seemed like ages - closer to five minutes in Naruto-time, Kyūbi could hear the sloshy footsteps headed her way and waited for their biggest hurdle to begin. If he could accept her as she was, there would be nothing holding them back. If not…

Kyūbi didn't want to entertain the idea of her remaining years in this vessel being filled with silence and solitude. It was far too depressing to consider, and she'd grown fond of Kushina's company no matter how much she hated to admit that. She also wanted that closeness with Kushina's kit. She needed that next relationship. Imprisonment held little else of value and his seal was different as it allowed her to experience his life along with him, no matter how miserable and tragic it currently was.

Waiting for him to return was torturous.

Naruto stopped roughly in the same place he had the first time he approached the bars, his head tilted back so that he could look up into the muzzle of the very, very large fox on the other side of the bars, his jaw practically unhinged and his eyes as big as saucers.

Kyūbi blinked one large eye.

Naruto blinked both of his smaller eyes then slowly closed his mouth and gasped.

"You were for real?!" Naruto's question came out in a squeak. Kyūbi merely nodded her large head, her muzzle near the bars as her large body flopped down on the ground sending waves spiraling outward from her location, the warm air from her nostrils shooting Naruto's hair out behind him like a spiky flag.

"You really are the Kyūbi." The large fox nodded again amused at the child's amazement. "But… but… everyone says the Yondaime killed you!"

This time her snort was derisive to indicate what she thought of that.

"So… it was all a lie?" The tone of his voice was much more reserved as the truth began to slowly sink into his tiny mind.

They lied to him. Did everybody else know?

All along they told him one thing and hid the truth. They told him one thing and hated him for the other the entire time.

Kyūbi nodded a third time peering with interest as the emotions played across the child's face. Shock. Confusion. Realization. Comprehension. Shock again. Rage. Finally, sadness. His large puppy dog eyes looked up into her slotted ones and the boy fearlessly stepped through the bars and wrapped his arms around her muzzle trying to hug as much of her furry face as he could with such tiny arms.

Kyūbi blinked in confusion, her "What?" coming out nasally as the boy pinched her passages. Naruto just spoke into the short hairs of her muzzle while tears streaked down his face and fell onto her fur.

"Sure, the village hates me. Even when those mean ladies in the orphanage used to lock me up they always had to let me out when Jiji came to see me. You can't even get out on your own. It's like people are always mad at you."

He had the reasoning power of a six-year-old and apparently the forgiving heart of one as well. She would have to wean him off that attitude if he was to survive. With one large paw, she scraped him from her muzzle and pinned him to the floor.

"I don't need your pity! I am the Kyuubi no Youko!" she roared. Naruto just smiled and hugged the paw that threatened to crush him.

"Everyone needs a friend. Even if you are the strongest, it's gotta be lonely here in my brain and now neither of us will be lonely any longer." The boy flashed a blinding smile up at the five-story fox pinning him to the floor.

And just like that, he accepted her. She was his friend and she could do no wrong because they were stuck together.

She was so shocked the Great Kyūbi reverted back to her tiny human form and promptly got tackle-hugged by the blonde dynamo. She vaguely realized as her mind sifted through the child's mercurial emotion shifting that she enjoyed the physical contact. She couldn't kill him without killing herself thanks to the seal, so she just sat there until he hugged himself out and broke contact with a large blush painting his entire head bright red.

A small voice in the back of her mind wondered how he would feel about those hugs once her front was considerably less flat but that could wait.

She hoped it wouldn't change. Kyūbi really liked hugs.

Naruto released her then plopped down once again only this time it was inside of the cage and without a care in the world. Kyūbi, despite this unusual new… relationship knew their next conversation would take a very long time to work through. She needed to know what his future plans were, as best that a six-year-old could plan, so that she could figure out a way to keep him alive long enough to release her from the seal. If for no other reason, she needed him to trust her implicitly before anyone else.

For her goals to become reality, nothing could come between her and her vessel, and that included that worthless mass of human flesh the boy lovingly referred to as "Jiji," making this a vital conversation to get right on the first go.

Meanwhile, her clone was having an entirely different conversation with that "worthless mass of human flesh." Oddly enough, as she considered her toes while planning her next opening salvo, she realized that her red toenails weren't completely covered by water anymore.

She smiled. It was a start.

~I I I~

In Konohagakure General Via the Mindscape…

Hiruzen Sarutobi, leader of the remaining Sarutobi clan, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, was experiencing a nervous breakdown. It had to be. There could be no other explanation for what he was seeing despite his previous four attempts to clear away without success this horrible genjutsu.

"Kai!"

Five failed attempts. Maybe it was a stroke? Retirement had to be better than this.

The Kyūbi clone simply glared at him and asked dryly if he was finished. When the stunned Hokage lifted his hand in another half ram seal, the clone lifted a clawed hand filled with flames and challenged him with her eyes, which were now pulsing with flames as well.

Hiruzen slowly dropped the offending limb.

He was right in that it was a genjutsu just one made with her youki, something he couldn't purge as a human. He just didn't need to know that right now.

The Hokage had been in the middle of receiving his monthly spy update from Jiraiya in Naruto's hospital room. This new routine served several purposes:

First, it allowed him to be near the boy, observe his current status, and receive any medical updates while checking up on the ANBU guarding him. Inu, who had arrived as part of the watch shift, still maintained the guard thankfully making the brief easier to facilitate.

Second, it allowed Jiraiya to view his godson as he had heard of the attack and wanted "proof of life" as he called it. Hiruzen was not fooled despite his spymaster's nearly stone-chiseled face. Jiraiya was mad enough to kill and would have to be guarded during the remainder of his Konoha visit so he didn't inadvertently make things worse for the boy. He knew the perfect pair of kunoichi for the job but it would take major bribery to get them to accept the mission given his student's (proudly) self-proclaimed super pervert status.

Last time he asked them to babysit the Sannin, they threatened to castrate the toad sage in the middle of Market District during the lunch hour.

The Hokage's office was still receiving bills for psychiatric services provided to minors based on the emotional scarring of that event.

Finally and more importantly, it allowed him time and space from the pressures of his two advisors concerning the ninja still yet to face tribunal over the assault. Koharu and Homura were a little too eager for things to move along, as they put it, so he could return to the proper affairs of a hidden village leader. They seemed a little too eager to help if you asked him.

He wasn't fooled and none of that included a free trip to the Land of Crazy.

So that was precisely why his schooled mind was futilely trying to regain control of his current predicament. The dungeon-like quality of the Kyuubi's cage, and the thankfully still intact seal, was doing little in assisting in the matter.

Inu, Jiraiya, and the Sandaime were standing on one side of the bars with Kyuubi just behind the seal. She had already explained how she had pulled them into a mindscape genjutsu where the four of them could talk. It was all a lie of course since she couldn't cast jutsu directly through her unconscious host; the seal gave her very limited influence on his body so she'd begun flooding the room with her youki in trace amounts until she had enough to gradually saturate the networks of other inhabitants of the room. From there it was simple chakra network manipulation through overwhelming force, hence why the old man couldn't purge it from his very human chakra system.

Her chakra for days had been saturating both his room and the operating room the staff performed their procedures in effectively deadening their perceptions of it. Overpowering their pitiful human networks had been child's play and, while she had their undivided attention, she decided to have a little fun with it.

Kyūbi was in a distinctly human form, a female human form, most likely of a woman in her early twenties. None of them could tell for sure as she was moving around by using four of her nine tails as legs, two pairs of "legs" to the front and two to the back. Her remaining tails curled up around her body like a tulip revealing only her neck and head resulting in her having to hoist her left hand above the tails in order to threaten the Hokage earlier with serious bodily harm before returning it to the cover of her remaining appendages. Hiruzen caught her movements afterward as if she were adjusting something awkwardly in her arms. The slowly growing puddle of red beneath her was not lost on any of the three men warily watching her questionable movements from beyond the bars.

"Why did you bring us here, demon?"

Now that the initial shock had passed, Hiruzen attempted to keep her engaged while Jiraiya attempted to peek under the tails under the premise of examining the seal above her prison.

Kyūbi smirked and ignored the posturing behind the snide comment.

"To tell you that your 'concern' for the child is no longer warranted." All three visibly stiffened as if they'd been stabbed.

"You are hereby relieved of most of your duties. I will provide hereafter for my kit."

All three males then gasped with varying levels of hostility, the Hokage glaring as his killing intent began to flood the chamber. Kyūbi was less than impressed and flooded her own anger-laced youki thereby obliterating the Hokage's influence and effectively "resetting" the atmosphere.

"Don't be such a spoil-sport Hiruzen. You had your chance to protect Naruto and failed, not once, not twice, not three times… but many. I can hardly do any worse than you have."

Hiruzen was not impressed or pleased and he opened his mouth to contest her claims only to be rendered mute when the she-demon lowered her remaining tails to reveal a bloody Naruto laying across her lap, her legs crossed and tucked neatly under his body to support his weight while her remaining tails kept them above the sewer water. Her yukata was open to one side as the boy nursed from a rather healthy-sized breast, his remaining deep blue eye open to the roof above and unfocused. The blood running from many tears, breaks and other injuries dripped in steady rivulets into the water below. Even the sight of the Kyūbi's magnificent and nearly naked bosom did little to hide the impact of the gory scene.

His most recent failure, despite the boy's miraculous recovery to date, was boldly on display and Hiruzen had no pliable defense.

Kyūbi used her tails to once again cover up her nursing of Naruto's spirit, much to Jiraiya's groaning displeasure. She was well aware of his perverted leanings and had more than made her point. No need stroking his twisted ego... or for him to be stroking anything else while this was going on.

There was a muffled explosion followed by the redheaded beauty glancing down as she readjusted herself beneath the luxurious curtain of fox fur provided by her tails.

"Come now, Kyūbi, surely you wouldn't risk all the progress the boy has made with the people of Konoha?"

She scoffed hard enough to ruffle the tips of the tails still blocking the perverted Sannin's view of her figure. "What progress?"

"It's there but change takes time. If we make hasty decisions now we risk souring Konoha's view of the boy and isolating him further." The old man sounded desperate to believe that Konoha would eventually make good on Minato's request and embrace him like a long lost son.

"I think your medical shinobi need to inspect your tobacco for signs of tampering," she cut back snidely. "How much more pain does he need to suffer before you realize they will never accept him?"

Hiruzen seemed ready to argue something idiotic about the Will of Fire when she waved her hand and a large circle of red flame burst into view. That circle expanded to reveal a screen of sorts that began flickering through brief moments in Naruto's life like a short film. What the three seasoned shinobi saw therein cut off all further argument.

It began with scene after scene of Naruto being thrown out of store after store sometimes at the end of a broom. The ones that didn't throw him out marked-up prices on the rotten crap they sold him four to five hundred percent, none of it sufficient quality to offer a beggar.

Jiraiya's hands closed into trembling fists as he stared on in disbelief.

Hiruzen's opinion of the Merchant Guild, and the current Haruno guild head, hit an all-time low despite not being able to prove any of what he'd just seen. In the back of the old Kage's mind, plans immediately began shaping ways to earn the boy's forgiveness on behalf of the civilians that cheated him, as it was the lesser of two evils in his mind.

Scenes of his life in the orphanage were too horrible to bear and Hiruzen asked if those could be skipped. Kyūbi gleefully refused to reliving every unnecessary paddling, poisoning with pesticide, starvation attempt, and bullying by peers and adults alike. The finishing blow came when, despite getting a new matron, the orphanage threw the child out onto the cold streets of Konoha five days after his fourth birthday.

"They already have an opinion of the boy and, as you can see, it's not positive," she nearly growled out.

The Toad Sannin glanced at his mentor with barely concealed disgust, something Hiruzen noticed from the corner of his eye.

The vast majority of events after the orphanage involved inhumane amounts of emotional, educational and social neglect from every quarter of his life save for the owner of a small ramen stand, the stand owner's daughter, a small group of ANBU, and the Hokage. Given that the boy spent a short stint on the streets once the orphanage kicked him out, their collective efforts did not make up for the ongoing abuse of an entire hidden village. The boy's absentee landlord would apparently be paying a visit to Ibiki's hostel based on what Hiruzen saw in some of those snippets.

Jiraiya's pained face blanched a little more after that with each example Kyūbi spat in their faces.

"This rotten village has tried to kill him for the last time," her voice finally falling to a growl.

Hardest to take were the scenes of other children at playgrounds kicking and punching the little guy while adults cheered them on. There weren't too many of those but there were enough to paint a very dismal picture of Konoha, especially on the day of the Festival when adults did less cheering and got more directly involved.

When the images finally stopped, Kyūbi resumed her verbal assault.

"You had one job when it came to the boy; you were supposed to keep him safe and cared for." Her voice was like a hammer blow to the old man's conscience. "You had your chance and you blew it."

Her bare feet settled on the wet stone floor even as all nine tails re-positioned themselves behind her body like a fan, her yukata firmly back in place.

"This doesn't let you off the hook though as he needs you to continue providing the means with which he can feed himself."

Jiraiya's eyebrows were knitted together in rage but he stepped in to defend the old monkey, sort of. He was his teacher after all.

"I thought you were going to provide for him, Kyū-chan?" Jiraiya considered his comment entertaining obviously, that is if you were judging by the self-satisfied smirk on his face. The Kitsune female did not appear amused.

"I can provide for his needs but I doubt you'd be happy with how I do so." Her eyes narrowed dangerously, the glint in them hinting at nothing socially acceptable. "If you doubt me, test us and find out."

"No, that won't be necessary." The old man slapped the back of Jiraiya's head hard enough to face plant the Toad Sage into the wet flooring of the mindscape. "Please ignore Jiraiya's good-natured ribbing."

The curvy demon's eyes followed the dazed Sage on his way to prone reflection, her growing smile taking a darker turn. "I'll consider it so long as he never calls me that horrible name again."

Both the Hokage and his prized ANBU were quick to slap a hand over the opening mouth of the Sannin and chorus out an exuberant, "DEAL!"

The entire experience of having the boy's life shown to them from his perspective was jarring especially given the shinobi he saw in those images partaking in the explicit torture of the boy. If he had any way to prove even half of what he saw, Konoha would have a ninja manning shortage that would take decades to overcome. Heck, they were still trying to recover from the losses of the Kyūbi attack six years ago and that was contained to a few hundred lives.

This systemic level of abuse and neglect was heartbreaking.

~I I I~

Once the three were forcefully ejected from the mindscape jutsu, Jiraiya turned to his teacher with an angry scowl and asked, "What did she mean when she said, 'The village had tried to kill the child for the last time,' Sensei?'"

The Sandaime cursed bitterly hoping his very adept student had missed that portion of the conversation. He supposed an exposed breast could only do so much to distract the toad sannin and now he desperately wanted a drink of sake and a smoke.

~I I I~

A/N: Behind the Scenes – Ecology of the Nine-Tails

One of the biggest complaints from the original story was the overused FEMKYU story hook.

"Oh, another sexy Kyūbi, so cliché!"

"Why would she offer help? The Kyūbi is a big ball of hate! It hates all humans!"

In canon, this was correct until Naruto eventually won over the bijū. In this story, Kyūbi is a completely different entity. To understand, you have to go back to Mr. Six Path's decision to "release the Ten-Tails as nine separate entities and give them form" on how things changed in this version of Naruto's world, an explanation I originally felt went too deep into the world-building weeds and disrupted the flow of the story. What follows is the abridged version of the backstory I made for the Kitsune culture.

Now, I'm a fan of mythology. As an amateur writer, I find it diverse enough and just vague enough to let me get away with all kinds of crap. Bonus, should anyone say, "That wouldn't happen!" I can rebut with, "Are you on good speaking terms with the Shinigami?! Prove it!" Deities (and mythology in general) have plenty of wiggle room and literary license to let a writer change crap to suit their story. The problem with that is that if the writer hasn't put at least some thought into their concept, you end up with One-Punch Naruto wrecking the elemental nations and retiring to Uzushiogakure with his seventy-two kunoichi virgins by the time he's twelve.

No, some reasonable boundaries (even in a story laced with unbelievable kami-driven interference) are needed to make the story entertaining yet reasonable. So, I set out to create a world with enough divine intervention to stir the pot and (hopefully) make things interesting for you the reader.

To that end: Kyūbi as a Kitsune is not the hate-filled world wrecker from canon (I will cover the Kitsune culture created for this story in a separate Scenes note). She has the capability to do so just not the desire and that has largely to do with her origin story.

Deities have that mystical eyesight crap that lets them see how badly humans screw shit up in the future. That allows kami "A" to reach down and tweak the situation "B" to hopefully produce a revised situation "C." Only hitch in that giddy-up is that mortals D – F tend to use that "free-will crap" to throw monkey wrenches in stuff and bust up the best-laid plans of mice and gods.

The pantheon in this story loosely centers around eastern mythology and, through access to multiple Narutoverses, they decided a divine intervention was in order. So, nine Kamis used the Divine Litigation Tool (i.e., multiple rounds of Janken and salubrious (healthy) amounts of horse-trading) to deduce who would interfere in the plans of a specific man while trying to prevent the next round of World War Shinobi Part IV: the Sage of Six Paths.

As a result, Inari won rights to Kyūbi in the final round versus Jashin, who got Shukaku as a consolation prize. These chosen nine would become the patron deities (i.e. babysitters) for the bijū with seven of them taking a "hands-off" managerial style; Jashin would influence Shukaku to turn his hosts into suicidal avatars and Inari would use the nine tails to groom powerful leaders of select Kitsune.

To remove Kyūbi from the "Rebuild the Ten-Tails" plan by Akatsuki, he decided to hide her in plain sight and merge the bijū with the Kitsune equivalent, the evolved eight-Tailed Taichou (Note: this is not the literal 'Captain' reference seen in most fan-fiction for the word but the larger 'Leader of a Group or People' reference), or ruling equivalent of an emperor in the Kitsune society. With thirteen Kage-level Clan Leaders (seven tails) of the ruling tribes, there would be plenty of raw power to hide the Kyūbi from greedy mortal men.

This process of growth involves ceremony and mysticism, combining both entities into a single Kitsune body (with Inari's help and guidance so neither is lost and the Kyūbi can be passed on to subsequent generations). Too bad man didn't get the memo and Madara started tinkering with the plan throwing everything out of whack.

How did he find out you might ask? How did he even learn that a newly evolved nine-tails was on her required pilgrimage, referred to as "The Awakening" among Kitsune vixens, leading to adulthood so that he could attack and force her to assume her divine form (the enormous fox he used to battle the Shodaime and Tobi later used to attack Konoha)? More importantly, how did his interference affect our beloved nine-tailed Kitsune?

Well, that's a story for an entirely different Behind the Scenes…

-Ja Ne!