A/N: Trying to find a good rhythm for updates. Somewhere between 5k ~ 9k seems to work.

As always, disclaimer-disclaimer-disclaimer, blah blah blah... you get the idea.

~Siva'a

Chapter 5: Breaking the Mold

~I I I~

Back in the office of the Hokage, Hiruzen calmly, more calmly than he felt, walked behind his desk, grabbed two saucers and his best bottle of sake, and poured one for Jiraiya and himself.

"Jiraiya, the answers you seek are not always pleasant to the ears."

While the other accepted the saucer, he did not partake instead looking expectantly at his leader and mentor to justify the lynching of a six-year-old boy. Hiruzen sighed and downed his drink before pouring another and proceeding to pack and light his pipe. Knowing the uphill argument ahead, the Hokage admitted to himself that he was familiar with most of the visions they saw in the Kyuubi's genjutsu. He knew that the jinchuuriki's secret had been leaked but he'd done what he could to contain the damage believing that the boy could win over the hearts and minds of his fellow villagers if given half the chance.

The problem was that none of the villagers were willing to give that chance. The small boy had been isolated and shunned his entire life sorely lacking the necessary skills to affect that change. Unbeknownst to the august leader of the Leaf, many of the boy's frequent complaints of unfair treatment had been waved off as inconsequential slights or minor inconveniences misconstrued after some of the few major events of his life.

Hiruzen hadn't wanted to spoil the child by being the overbearing guardian figure as that would drive people away from the child for fear of upsetting the Kage. Instead, he'd hoped the child would be able to either win their hearts or learn to shrug off their hostilities as the minor annoyances he saw them as. After all, no one would be stupid enough to actually harm the boy after several of the Hokage's more pointed examples, right.

Right?

Clearly some of those "minor inconveniences" were a bit more substantial than he originally believed.

Jiraiya responded showing his displeasure by deliberately pouring his sake onto the carpet of the Hokage's office and crushing the saucer into powder with a calloused hand.

By this time, Hiruzen's ire at being constantly reminded of his failings had peaked and he was more than willing to share the blame for young Naruto's current dilemma.

"And just what would you have me do Jiraiya?! Where were you when the boy needed his godfather?!" Jiraiya scowled acknowledging that any semblance of respect had long since faded.

"I was doing the work that YOU APPOINTED ME! You knew I couldn't be here to take care of him and lugging around the gaki isn't gonna cut it for a growing boy!" While all true and the benefits of that network greatly helped, it would not be enough to appease the kami of shinobi.

"And just what pray tell kept you from making provisions for the boy while you were gone? Before today you never even inquired about his condition." The Hokage's glare was unflinching.

"I SENT MONEY!" Jiraiya roared.

In front of desk of the Hokage's secretary, the elderly Councilwoman flinched at the raised voices behind the thick walls and double doors of the Hokage.

At her desk, Kyou looked up at the steadily climbing eyebrows of the ancient woman waiting patiently for her crack at the Hokage and smiled warmly. 'Perhaps she'll have a coronary before the door opens…'

"I'm sure they'll be done in a moment, Councilwoman," the younger woman's smile faltering near the end.

The Councilwoman in question did not seem to agree.

"I'm sure that will ease Minato's spirit when you meet him in the afterlife to explain your reasons." This, more than any other argument Hiruzen could have made, floored Jiraiya and squelched his anger. There would be no just defense for abandonment on his promise. He didn't have the heart to explain that the money he sent via Tsunade never made it to the boy – she took the cash and gambled it away routinely hence the reason he no longer sent any, at least not through her. Given how badly the merchants cheated the boy, it was no wonder he was nearly destitute.

The Toad Sage's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm not the one needing to defend myself to Minato once I get there."

The temperature began to drop as the two shinobi powerhouses further squared off.

"Watch your tongue, gama-kun."

The threat wasn't lost on Jiraiya – a toad's tongue was their greatest weapon – but the old man was deflecting by pulling rank and that struck the Sage as peculiar.

Unfortunately, they didn't have much time to continue the argument as the office door opened suddenly admitting Homura and Koharu with smug looks on their faces. Hiruzen only moved his eyes their way, the killing intent oozing from his body and lowering the room temperature by another several degrees, forcing their breaths out in stuttered gasps. Takahashi Kyou, his new secretary, was standing in the doorway red-faced and apologetic.

Hiruzen did not fault her for their high-browed behavior. He cut his former teammates far too much slack these days.

"T-The c-c-council has called an emergency meeting." Without so much as a, "By your leave," they both turned on their heels and departed intentionally leaving the door open. The Sandaime Hokage was quickly losing his legendary patience as he stormed out of his office.

~I I I~

Kyou bowed low at the waist as the Hokage rushed by although he did pause long enough to gently pat her shoulder. She knew that he understood but she still bristled at how those two fossils disrespected her favored leader. They needed to learn their place and the freshly decommissioned ANBU was of a mind to teach them the correct behavior.

She sent the smarmy smile on the face of the Toad Sage along with him following an angry-sounding hiss to go with her narrowed eyes, Sannin or no.

With a sigh and a small sniff of disdain, she set the fresh pile of paperwork into his "In" box and moved to close the door to his office on her way out. They could discuss the new missives when he returned.

"He really should just let me make them disappear," she mumbled to herself. The two ANBU guards by the door merely chuckled at the five-foot-nothing petite figure tearing through the office like a tornado.

~I I I~

Entering the council chamber and assuming his seat, Hiruzen recognized the full board plus four additional faces standing behind the far wall. He recognized three as lawyers for their respective clans and, without prompting, the fourth identity clicked into place despite not having a name – they were all lawyers for the accused soon to be facing a tribunal for the assault on the boy.

Jiraiya entered and closed the door, an unpleasant look on his face as if he'd eaten something bitter recently and still had the taste lingering about his mouth. Several civilian and shinobi council members raised an eyebrow as he did so, but none questioned his presence. The sannin still kept his proverbial council seat despite the number of meetings he spent out-and-about the land on village business.

His network was that important to keeping Konoha one step ahead of the huntsman.

Utatane Koharu sniffed dismissively at the contemptuous look from the Hokage. She held no guilt in her part of this and was not afraid to indicate as much, at least now that she was back among her supporters.

'Safety in craven numbers,' he groused.

Hiruzen raked his eyes across the faces seated around the u-shaped conference table and noted the number of smug faces lacking the common decency to feel remorse for the recent attack. His mood soured considerably beyond his on-going battle with Jiraiya. Oh no, he had no reason to believe that particular argument ended conclusively.

"Hokage-sama, please review and sign our petition." Hiruzen gawked at Elder Utatane.

So, there was to be no discussion? Did they presume to openly dictate to the Hokage? Believing he already knew the offending document's contents, the Sandaime glanced quickly over the neat lines and promptly set the petition aflame, the ashes quickly burning out before they hit the floor. The outraged gasps in the room were expected.

"I will not commute the punishment for grown men attacking a small child." His eyes narrowed dangerously.

Uchiha Fugaku rose from his seat, the picture of arrogant nobility. "If it were the matter of a small, defenseless boy, I would be the first to surrender clan rights to prosecutorial adjudication, however-"

"You know where I stand on the 'demon-vs.-child' argument," the Hokage interrupted. "This contention holds no merit within these walls, Councilman Uchiha." Fugaku "tsked" and resumed his seat in disgust but not before sending one last barb.

"You cannot deny this is clan business. The boy does not hold shinobi status and, as none of them broke your precious law, their… questionable… behavior in attacking a civilian notwithstanding, bloodline clans may exercise jurisprudence." He blatantly left out the fact that the Civilian Council would never support the boy in any claim so that meant any petition on his behalf was dead in the water before it even began.

The Sandaime was well aware of the Shodaime's broad-reaching benevolence to clans in general, those with powerful bloodlines all the more so. He was also painfully aware of what would happen if he lost his grip on the attackers.

The fact that the only civilian caught in the act with three clan bloodline members and one non-bloodline clan shinobi was rapidly closing loopholes to avoid punishment was not lost on Watanabe Seiua, the lone non-shinobi. The Civilians in the room would most likely do all they could to protect him or minimize his suffering and Hiruzen knew that.

The old man decided right then that, if he could not make the villains suffer, then he would make their protectors pay through the nose.

The Sandaime argued a losing battle for the next twenty-five minutes putting up a valiant effort, losing one that it was. He knew that clan punishment would amount to little more than a slap on the wrist for three of them. As the Yamanaka did not have a bloodline and the civilian really had no clan-serving protection, only two of the five would have to pay reparations with the civilian council strongly advocating their shock at such behavior and vowing they would work diligently to ensure Seiua-kun met his appropriate financial obligation to the poor victim.

The Hokage was not so quick to let any of them off easy as he had a fairly good idea what the council felt would be "appropriate and sufficient" reparations.

"Watanabe Seiua and Yamanaka Rikuto, for their part in the brutal mauling of a defenseless child, will each pay the sum of five million Ryu (the hissing sound of air being sucked through teeth ringed the council table) to the aggrieved through the office of the Hokage, who, as the child's sole legal representative organization (none of the villages legal counsel were willing to represent the boy so the Hokage's office was forced to take up that role), will act as executor of the Uzumaki estate until he is of age to do so. The clans will pay the same in reparations, either in currency or the equivalent value of clan resources, through the Hokage's office, which will be remunerated directly to the Uzumaki Estate via established clan accounts."

The shinobi clan heads that had been scowling at this mockery of a council meeting nearly snapped their necks as heads on their side of the room whipped to the Hokage's seat, many with happy glimmers in otherwise murderous glares.

It was not enough but it was something for the boy currently lying comatose in the hospital.

Many civilians, and a few shinobi clan heads, stood to argue against what they felt to be an unfair and harshly punitive measure when the Hokage viciously cut them off.

"You have twenty days to remit payment. Delinquents will be referred to Ibiki-san for appropriate corrective measures and fines will be doubled."

With that, the Third rose from his chair and vanished in a swirl of leaves.

Homura and Koharu knew that had achieved a victory over the old leader but they weren't so smug as to assume it was complete domination. The civilian council wasn't so self-aware. A couple of advisors starting to feel their age, they released a sigh neither knew the other had been holding.

Another heavily bandaged shinobi scowled as he puttered out of the chamber, the only indication of his displeasure a slight tightening around his one visible eye. These fools were playing a losing game and, sooner or later, their one real weapon would tire of this foolishness and call in all debts.

Back in his office and for the second time in the day, the Hokage sat in impudent fury unable to change the outcome of what he was hearing. Sure, he could override the overall premise of the argument, their defense was rather loosely based on the clan imminent domain concept established by the First Hokage at the foundation of the village, but that doctrine was intended to govern affairs internal to clans themselves. The problem was that it was a loosely-defined concept meant to shape clan politics and blatant use of force could potentially lead to rioting and insurrection. He could not afford a civil war over the demon vessel that the majority of the civilian populace would turn against him causing the revolting clans to openly oppose him. In his mind, it was simply not worth the risk.

Furthermore, the fact that the child was not currently in a shinobi clan, was not an active duty shinobi, or at least attending the academy, something he would have started next semester; therefore, he did not have the statutory protections other shinobi enjoyed against baseless attacks by other shinobi. In essence, he had no one to defend him and no one else beyond the Hokage or a small ramen stand owner was remotely interested in doing so. He would rot in the lowest levels of hell before he left the boy unprotected another year of his life. Unfortunately, Hiruzen had few options.

As it was he jeopardized his own clan speaking on the boy's behalf, but he felt the risk worth it. He owed that much to Minato and Kushina.

More and more the Hokage was inclined to believe that the Kyuubi was correct in her – the fact that the Kyuubi was female still shocked him and that gorgeous bosom of hers… - assessment of what the child would need to survive. There wasn't much Hiruzen was inclined to do to stop the demon but there was something he could do to help protect the child. Hiruzen waved a hand and whispered to the crane-faced ANBU that appeared next to him.

"Find Cat for me." With a curt nod, the efficient ANBU vanished with tiny puffs of smoke.

Back in the Mindscape…

"I am going to help you, Naruto, and I am going to help you in several ways."

This pleased the boy greatly. He had a new friend that would never leave, and she was going to help him… somehow. Life was a hard day today and it was worse when you were a six-year-old that had no one to teach you how to get along in life. Jiji was nice in a grandfatherly type of way but he wasn't always available. In fact, he hardly ever got to see the guy since that meant getting past mobs that wanted him dead most of the time. This mindscape thing was nice to have and he wouldn't even have to leave his apartment!

Now if he could just get her to walk around outside of it…

"First of all, we are going to break the limiters that have been placed on you." Naruto was confused.

"Ano… anosa, what is a 'limiter,' Kyūbi-chan?" Kyūbi blushed at the familiar suffix to her unofficial name but continued anyway.

"A limiter is like… a very tall wall that you can't get over or around. Picture a wall with a hole just big enough for your hand to fit through and on the other side is all the ramen you can eat. The problem is that the hole only lets you get the ramen closest to the wall and the rest of it is forever out of your reach… that is until we find a way to remove the wall."

Naruto turned three shades lighter and had a look of abject horror on his face. He could resonate with that example and wanted very dearly to get past the evil wall blocking him from Ichiraku's perfect food of the gods. Seeing she had his devout attention, Kyūbi pointed behind him to the nearest (relatively) real wall.

Naruto glanced over his left shoulder and saw a statue of himself standing on a three-foot-high pedestal. The statue was made of a dark stone that looked dry and pitted. Around the statue's waist and neck were shackles connected to the pedestal base by thick, heavy chains. The statue's hands were shackled together with manacles and the chain connected those manacles to the pedestal base right at his feet. On the base held by a small strip of tape was a paper patch with two kanji characters he couldn't read.

Naruto never had a picture of himself or his unknown family so to have a statue with his image was impressive. He looked back to Kyūbi in confusion, an eyebrow raised in his unspoken question.

Kyūbi walked over to the wall of her cage on the same side of the room as the statue and placed one palm against the dark stone. Tendrils of red energy snaked out from her palm and lit up row upon row of strange circular symbols with lots of squiggly lines, groups of them glowing in different colors.

"These are seals Naruto, seals tied to the one that keeps me sealed in your body. One day soon I'm going to show you how to find that seal and together, you and I are going to learn how to harmonize our power so that no one can hurt you again."

Naruto was happy enough to hear this that his body started vibrating with excitement.

"Those chains on that statue represent the seals that form three major types of limiters placed on you to slow down your growth so that you don't absorb too much of my chakra. It can hurt you if you take too much in during a short period of time."

This was a revelation for the small boy. 'What was chatarah? And why would Kyūbi-chan's chatarah hurt him?'

"Your body needs time to adjust and absorb my chakra naturally and, while there are many seals to enhance our ability to work together, there are a few set to regulate the process, so you are not accidentally harmed by it." Okay, this sounded important so he nodded sagely, eyes squinted to near slits.

The bijū most definitely did not internally squeal at the sight. Nope, not one bit.

"While I cannot affect the master seal that keeps me here or even the majority of the seals that contain and transfer my power into something you can use safely, I can directly affect a few that are tied to my chakra and I believe this was intentional by the one that created your seal."

Kyuubi pointed to three seals at the lowest tier of the wall and Naruto tried to count all the others, including the two largest ones at the very top before he realized that he could only count to ten and starting over every time he got to ten didn't help very much. After the third round of ten, he simply stopped counting.

"When the doctors finish healing you and your body has stabilized, I am going to remove these three seals that form your limiters and then our training to make you powerful will begin."

"Ano… Kyuubi-chan, how will you train me in here?" Kyuubi merely smiled and touched a white seal on the wall on the far side of the seal array. With a pulse of energy, she pulled a large scroll out and partially unrolled it showing line after line of flowing script.

"Everything I learned through my last summoner before her great catastrophe is recorded in my memory and can be brought forth in scrolls and books for you to share here in your mindscape. You will need to transfer them to scrolls of your own out there if you want to read them when you aren't here with me."

Naruto lowered his head in shame and mumbled something too low for her hearing to pick up.

"What was that Naruto?"

The boy raised his head and shame literally poured from his eyes in the form of an almost anime-like flow of tears.

"I can't read or write! Nobody never taught me!" The boy was all but wailing in abject shame but Kyuubi's face brightened as she realized she had her way in to fully gain his trust.

"You meant to say, 'No one ever taught me,' Naruto-kun, but that's okay. That my dear kit is the first thing we are going to fix both in here and out in the real world."

Naruto's face brightened like a solar flare. He finally had someone willing to help him.

Kyuubi tossed the scroll through the bars and into Naruto's lap while a small desk filled with school supplies, a standing station set up for calligraphy, and a floating chalkboard that wrapped around his new learning station appeared out of thin air inside of her cage. Naruto was so impressed he failed to notice that, except for a few water puddles, the floor to the cage was dry.

Kyuubi did notice and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

With a quick "poof" of smoke, Kyuubi created a much larger scroll with golden trim and a large fox head crest on the outer casing. Unrolling it, Naruto saw line after line of script along with many blocks filled with red splotches blurred beyond recognition. When she reached the next open square, she laid it over his kanji station and motioned him over.

"This is how I am going to help you 'out there' where I cannot go, Naruto." Naruto was impressed with the neat and orderly script that he couldn't read.

"What is it?"

"It is the summoning contract for the Kitsune and you are going to be the next summoner." Blink, blink, blink.

"Summoner? You mean like Jiji's monkey friend?" It was Kyuubi's turn to blink in surprise.

"Yeeeeess, exactly like that. Except it's not a monkey contract. I don't do monkeys. They are smelly and fling poo. I do foxes."

She grinned mischievously and stroked his whiskered cheek soliciting a blush from the young boy who literally purred in her hand. Her grin, as a result, threatened to take in her entire face.

Violently reigning in her thoughts concerning the impressionability of young human children, she turned back to the scroll.

The truth was that there was no such thing as a Kitsune contract. The Kitsune was a very particular strain of Youkai, not a summoning clan.

While their realm bordered the Land of the Fae and the mortal realm, Kitsune were free to transcend those borders as part of an agreement through the Celestial Court. Their bodies didn't go into a state of hibernation as their consciousness was summoned to the mortal realm to inhabit a provided chakra body, which was an unfortunate oversight in the binding agreement between the Youkai, Oni, and Bakemono of the realms.

This meant that Kitsune could never take to combat with the same reckless abandon seen in a true summons as their very real bodies were put to risk every time they answered the call from their beloved Nine-Tails, the only being with the authority granted by Inari-sama himself to summon them for combat purposes.

This also came with various perks and limitations not associated with the more volatile summoning agreements.

Summoned Kitsune, Youkai in general, were not bound by chakra limitations that forced them to disperse and return home once the chakra sacrifice expired; once called by the substantially larger initial offering of life energy required to bridge the reverse summons, they could stay pretty much indefinitely short of death or old age. Also, while the summons required more chakra, it didn't necessarily require blood to enact the summons unless the summoner chose to identify themselves beforehand to their intended summons, almost like a blood contract of sorts that the summoned Kitsune could still reject. Biggest benefit came in that the contract did not conflict with the summoner actually obtaining a true summoning contract on their own, provided the race gleaned did not naturally conflict with the Kitsune.

While there would be certain pitfalls with wolves, dogs, and other natural predators, it made for a potential ace in the hole for young Naruto should he survive Konoha. She just needed to sync his chakra with hers so that the Kitsune would recognize the summons if he called.

All in all, it was a fairly useful tool for the chosen of the nine-tails to have, a gift for her bestow upon her host even if it did come with its own drawbacks.

As stated before, it was chakra intensive, each Kitsune summon requiring twice the normal chakra of a traditionally summoned creature. Once arrived, the Kitsune in question was just as vulnerable as the summoner, meaning that death, illness, starvation and a whole host of otherworldly ailments were all on the table, hence the Kitsune's less than willing acceptance to an unnecessary death. Seeing as the ability to call Kitsune originated from having the Kyūbi embedded in your chakra network, it guaranteed that something from the clan of tricksters would respond but that did not automatically insure obedience; short of a very specific pair of summons she had in mind for the boy, there would need to be a Herculean effort on his part to force the loyalty of a fiercely protective, and exclusive, clan of temperamental vixens to fall in-line with another male Kitsune.

The last one did not necessarily inspire loyalty instead forcing a rebellion among the ranks and the emergence of a strong matriarchal society that refused males any form of power or leverage as a result of his pain and treachery.

Naruto would have to deal with that nightmare in time but they would first need time to prepare. Until then, she needed to get him some help…

"Now bite your thumb, touch it to all of your fingers before it heals and press your fingers to this empty block. Since you can't mold chakra yet, I will have to help you."

Naruto did as she asked and looked up with wide blue eyes. The Kyūbi no Kitsune placed her hand over his and red energy poured from her fingers into his fingertips burning his bloody prints into the scroll paper. He figured that must be what she meant by chatarah. That would be cool to learn especially if his hands got all glowy like that.

With the contract signed, the scroll vanished in her hands and Kyuubi motioned for her student to take his seat. It was time for school to begin and maybe he would not notice the way his chakra network tingled as she sunk another tether to it...

That first infusion would make the next step so much easier.

Since time flowed differently in the mindscape – the mind works much faster than the body – they were able to compress many equivalent days of instruction for each day Naruto spent unconscious while medic nins broke and re-healed his many broken bones. It was a laborious process that involved preventing and or repairing nerve damage without exacerbating his condition and spending hour after hour removing bone fragments, so they didn't shear ligaments, tendons or other needed biological systems. Each limb was a major session, some requiring multiple surgeries when repairing complicated structures like hands and feet. Each session had to be followed by a recovery period where his small body had to cope with the trauma caused during removing the bone deformities and so it developed into a break-heal-sometimes break again-heal again-rest cycle before it all repeated.

At night, Kyūbi did her part to reduce scarring, calcium build-up, and deformities using her chakra to finish the job.

This cycle gave Kyūbi all the time she needed to focus on the basics – his ability to read, to write, to perform simple math, and begin the practice of molding chakra, something made infinitely easier by the way she taught through storytelling vice lecturing.

"Morning nee-chan!"

The Bijuu held back a groan. Being stuck in the body of what she considered to be a six or seven-year-old child was annoying enough. Being stuck in such a childish frame with an equally childish host tested her patience and self-control as she found small children infuriating most of the time. They were especially horrible in the early hours of the day after a really brutal night of healing his broken body.

Naruto, thankfully and for the love of Inari, wasn't a horrible alternative so long as his mask of insipidity was safely tucked away.

Kyūbi discovered what she dubbed the Inverse Law of Naruto-ality, meaning the more attention she provided the less air-headed he tended to act. As he was receiving mostly positive attention and reinforcement, the bright Ningen didn't feel the need to be loud and obnoxious. Oh, he had his emotional moments but those were becoming fewer and far between as he learned more and more about what was acceptable behavior from the memories of his mother and great grandmother and how Konoha was trying to hamper his development just to keep him compliant or subdued.

Did it make him angry? Of course, it did but Kyūbi was trying to teach him to find all the angles behind a problem before "going fox-mode" on someone, as he liked to threaten. Often.

One of these days she'd have to ask him just what he meant by that.

In the meantime, she was trying to expose him to the Kitsune way of life and that meant thinking problems through so that his solution didn't involve detonating explosive notes she hadn't yet taught him to make. She'd have to address how he could possibly get his hands on them at some point but that could wait until later.

Glancing down to the boy happily reading "The Lion and the Mouse," she plopped down next to him with a cheery smile on her lips.

"Have you figured out the true meaning of the story, kit?"

He seemed perplexed. "True meaning? Isn't this it?"

He pointed to the stylized words at the end of the story, "A kindness is never wasted" proud of his detective work earning a thoughtful nod from the powerful Kitsune.

"That's not a bad guess. It works for civilians and humans but there is another lesson if you want to be a shinobi."

She had his full attention now as the book clapped shut.

"There's more?" he chirped up in awe.

"For a shinobi, it means that today's enemy might be tomorrow's friend so be careful how you treat people. Never let them take advantage of you but don't needlessly antagonize them for you may have to depend on them at some point in the future."

The boy nodded sagely as he soaked up her words.

"Someday I will need to share with you the story of our TenthTaichou, the last great male of the Kitsune before the Upheaval."

Naruto remembered how she'd mentioned the Kitsune was now run by powerful females and men were little more than servants even among their own families. He bet this guy had something to do with that so the story had to be good.

Briefing hugging the dainty looking nine-tail, he hopped up to go find his next literary victim leaving behind a gently smiling vixen proud at his emotional progress, even if his mental training was moving along a bit on the slow side.

There was good news, however. In the month she kept Naruto buried in his mindscape, Kyūbi was able to erase most of the damage caused by the four years of neglected miseducation foisted on the boy by the orphanage and the civilian school system. With the limiters still on, Naruto didn't make great progress, but he was no longer functionally illiterate. If she had to assess his education she'd guess he was right around where he should be in the civilian system. It was frustrating that he couldn't retain what he needed to and some of the earlier lessons had to be repeated but it was better than nothing, which was where he started from. With nothing.

There were some positives. The boy took to calligraphy like a fish to water. Those lessons vastly improved his writing structure and uniformity, and this bode extremely well for when they would later get to Fūinjutsu. He also had a freaky compatibility with math that she couldn't explain but that was a good thing in her mind.

The problem was he wasn't advancing fast enough and soon he'd be back to the distractions of his daily life filled with hate and loathing. Pushing aside her normal thoughts of scorching Konoha to ash, the centuries young Kitsune turned her eyes to the slightly less-pitted image of her container.

Faster than she realized, her tiny feet found her before the wall of seals, the graffiti-like representation of the seal array molded into the bars of her cage. The vast, vast majority of them would remain beyond her reach, her face wrinkling up as she mentally cursed the evil Yondaime. Unfortunately, now was not the time for dark and gloomy thoughts as she needed to focus.

Her problem was a constantly shrinking level of patience. She was the greatest of all Kitsune bolstered by the greatest of all bijū. It was only fair that she have the greatest of all containers. The problem was the amount of time it would take to make him the greatest of all vessels in a village actively trying to sabotage everything about him.

Options?

She could train him at night while he slept but that option came with risks of its own. The mind, like the body, needs rest in between stress sessions. If he's actively using it while awake and she was forcing him to actively use it while he was asleep, when would it rest? Without a proper break, how long would it take before he snapped and starting stabbing puppies?

The whole train-til-you-break-and-demonically-restore-your-body trick was a given but they needed to resolve the accompanying you-can't-buy-the-healthy-food-you-need-to-repair-your-body-fully part of the equation. Without that, his body would eventually cripple itself – there was only so much she could do with youki. They would need a way around human stupidity and bias first.

Teachers? None of Konoha's learned had impressed her thus far.

Self-study? He couldn't get into either library and there wasn't a bookstore within ten kilometers that would sell him a used newspaper.

Fact of the matter was that she had very few options with him stuck in a hospital and even fewer resources beyond the mindscape if she wanted to keep him current – the past could only do so much for him. That realization, in and of itself, brought her back to the statue of her host, it's rough and slightly less pitted exterior drawing her eyes like a neon sign in the Red Light District.

With a deep shudder and accompanying sigh, her eyes never leaving her silent guardian, one delicate hand rose to press flat against the wall of her prison. In a vicious blast of flame and youki, the almost delicate collection of scribbles began flaking away into tiny wisps of ash.

She waited for a solid ten-count before breathing again just to make sure the walls didn't collapse.

Then she waited another ten count to make sure her container didn't flop onto the floor and start running in circles like one of the Three Stooges.

It was risky enough that she broke from her plan taking a chance on stressing his system during one of the doctor's reset periods by burning through the mental limiter seal that shut off or greatly restricted the functioning of his brain. It was an enormous risk but the results were instantaneous and very promising.

Lowering her hand from the palm-sized seal on the wall, Kyūbi turned to watch her student. He was bored stiff and trying to read through a scroll on the elemental nations when his eyes glazed over, then blinked rapidly four times in succession.

The neck chain on the statue shattered into pieces and fell away, the fragments vanishing before they reached the floor. At the desk, the boy's unfocused eyes began rapid back and forth reading motions as his brain assimilated the information that had previously been hidden under years of fog and drudgery. With the snap of his eyes back to the scroll, Naruto rewound back to the beginning and started reading in earnest, his mind soaking up the droll treatise on inter-village politics like it was elemental jutsu of the highest order.

It was a risk, a big risk, but one Kyuubi needed to take if she was going to upgrade his abilities before he could become eligible to request entry into the ninja academy. Kyuubi had planned to leverage the old Hokage to be his sponsor since no one else in the village would. She needn't have bothered as she found out while scrying into the room Naruto rested in while the Hokage conversed with a cat-faced ANBU in hushed tones.

She fed minute traces of chakra to the boy's ears and tuned in the muffled voices on the other side of the room...

~III~

"Hokage-sama, Naruto is registered for the academy for the next fresh class as you commanded. He will begin classes in the fall year after he graduates from the civilian preparatory academy."

Neko was standing at the foot of the bed, both she and the Hokage looking down at the still mummified child in the room. The sickening sounds made during the fixing of his bones had left him queasy with sympathy pains for Naruto and incredible frustration and anger at the council, both civilian and shinobi.

"That is good Neko-chan. Thank you."

The ANBU waved off the mild approval with a bow from the waist straightening just a hair as a thick envelope got pushed under her mask by the Hokage.

"I have one last assignment for you concerning the child."

Neko raised an eyebrow at this.

"I am promoting you to the rank of Tokubetsu Jounin, effective immediately. You are assigned a medium-term Class B mission to help prepare Naruto for his shinobi term start."

He knew the young ANBU had a soft spot for the child being one of the few not blinded by sheer rage at the bijū vessel. She saw a small boy and one that needed some form of guidance and protection. The promotion gave her leeway in mission selection and the relative freedom to see this through.

"And the money Hokage-sama?"

"Use it to prepare Naruto for his first year at the academy. He will need it. His apartment was destroyed the night of the attack, but I am making the necessary arrangements. Also, he will need new clothes, equipment… everything."

The envelope vanished along with the ANBU Captain.

Kyuubi, seeing that the boy had not started convulsing from the surge of cranial activity, closed off the scrying portal and glanced back to her student as he moved on to basic geometry.

Thinking to herself that she would need to adjust his training plan, she completely missed the Hokage's following apology to the unconscious boy.

~I I I~

Year 17 Day 297: He lives! The vessel lives! Kami has deigned to redeem this shattered servant assuredly when it is most needed; I fear buttressing my estrangement to the Matron's calls begins to wear thin. She comes soon.

I must prepare for her arrival and pray she does not rip my tails from my spine.

Toru, The Silver Ghost

~I I I~

A/N: A bit more of the sequel filler to plug gaps from the original posting.

Until next time!