A/N: I do not own the anime series Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto!

While Minato explained to Naruto about the Nine-Tailed Fox, Hiruzen looked down on Naruto's body. He heard the report earlier about how Naruto leaked some of the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra, so he rushed his ANBU to bring Naruto to his office.

He wanted to check the seal on Naruto's stomach, but he when he couldn't see the seal, he figured that the seal was too advanced for him to check and he called for Jiraiya. He had faith on Minato's seal, but he wouldn't relax until Jiraiya personally checks the seal.

"Find my student, Jiraiya of the Toad Sage. For now, have some extra ANBU monitor Naruto Uzumaki, and don't let other ill-willed civilians near him."

Hiruzen paused and started to think. 'The civilians certainly wouldn't chase after a normal boy while holding knives and pipes, so it's obvious that they know about the nine-tailed fox inside the boy. But the question is, who told them?!'

Hiruzen grit his teeth to stop himself from jumping in anger, but his chakra still spiked and made the nearby ANBU kneel in front of him. After a couple of seconds, Hiruzen sighed and waved his hands to dismiss the ANBU who thought that he had something important to say.

'Danzo, you're the only one I know who would do something like this. Especially since only you, the elders, and the shinobi clan heads know about the boy's burden. With this, the civilian council would also learn about his burden and at the same time it would undermine my right as the Hokage. Danzo, you're starting to cross the line… Don't do this again, Danzo, or I'll have to take action against you!'

Hiruzen gritted his teeth while thinking of his former teammate. He knew Danzo was important to the village and that was the only reason Danzo was still alive and kicking, instead of being six feet underground.

–Inside Naruto's mind.

"So the villagers would start to hate me from now on?"

Naruto asked. His face blank and devoid of any emotions. He just couldn't understand why the villagers would hate him when he saved their everyday ass by keeping the nine-tailed fox.

"*sigh* Yes, Naruto. While I can't say they will hate you from now on, they will most definitely avoid interacting with you from now on. Be careful out there, Naruto. Promise me, okay?"

Hearing his father's concerned voice, Naruto smiled for the first time since Minato started to talk about the nine-tailed fox.

"Okay!"

"Good boy!"

Minato himself was proud. He didn't expect Naruto to understand everything he just explained, but Naruto did. He wondered how a four years old could understand complicated words like seals, a giant fox attacking the village, and so on.

"Now, do you want to meet Kurama?"

Minato already told Naruto about Kurama and his name, and how Kurama was a friend and not a foe.

"Yeah! I want to meet uncle Kurama!"

"Don't call me uncle, you brat!"

Hearing Kurama's scowling voice, Naruto was surprised but he smiled just as fast as he was surprised.

"Dad! Dad! Was that uncle Kurama's voice?!"

Looking at Naruto, Minato chuckled and nodded. He wondered how Kurama would fare against the energy of a four years old child.

"I said stop calling me uncle!"

—1 week later.

Konoha's morning was as lively as ever. Konoha's future, the children, were all playing on the playground or running around the street. Young genin did missions around the village to help maintain it, while civilian children played with themselves and some helped their family with chores.

In another playground devoid of any children apart from one, sat a red haired boy with lavender eyes. Around him were towers of rocks that were balanced on top of each other. Some rocks around him were cracked and some exploded, but there were two successful towers of rock that Naruto was able to build.

Using chakra, Naruto balanced the rocks on top of each other, and with some skill and technique, the rocks would stay balanced even without his chakra keeping them together.

On Naruto's lap were sticks, leaves, and a variety of flowers. He was working on making a wooden crown using these materials using his chakra.

"Use chakra to stick leaves into the sticks, then use chakra to stick flowers to the leaves. Huh…! Use chakra to bend the stick without breaking it, here we go!"

Naruto had several failed attempts at bending the stick already, proven by the several snapped sticks around him, but he was determined to succeed on this one.

His father told him that he should be able to do this if he focused hard enough, and he was focusing very hard right now. The purpose of this was to train his chakra control, because after sticking the leaves and flowers to the stick, he must maintain a chakra string to the leaves and flowers to stop them from falling apart. The same went with the rock towers.

The moment he detaches the chakra strings keeping the rocks balanced on top of each other, it would fall. It was only after a week of practice that Naruto was able to stack the rocks on top of each other and remove his chakra sticking them together without the rocks falling. To say that Minato was surprised when Naruto was able to steadily control his chakra and was even able to maintain chakra string after only a week was a massive understatement. Minato beamed with pride every time he watched Naruto practice chakra control under the guise of playing.

"Done! I did it!"

Naruto exclaimed as he looked at his recent masterpiece. The base of the crown was made of thick sticks that were bent into forming a circle. There was a variety of flowers sticking on the crown like lobelia flowers, scorpion grasses, also known as forget-me-not flowers, and Peruvian lilies. The shades of violet, blue, pink, and orange went well with each other forming a gradient of colors. The flowers covered most of the crown, and any part that didn't look pretty covered with flowers were covered with leaves.

Naruto jumped around while he kept the wooden crown on top of his head. He had a bright smile on his face as the sunset rays reflected hit his face and skin, making his eyes of lavender shine and shimmer and his skin reflect the light of the sun revealing his soft unblemished skin. His smooth bright red hair jumped around the air as he jumped and celebrated his success.

The ANBU watching over him felt like they were watching a movie were a prince was wearing a wooden crown. It didn't help that the sun was setting, painting the ground with red and orange, and that Naruto had fair skin, shining lavender eyes, and smooth bright red hair!

"Wow…"

One of the ANBU couldn't help it and muttered in amazement. If only Naruto danced and sang right now, he would be convinced that he was watching a movie.

The ANBU weren't dumb, they knew that Naruto was using chakra, and they've already reported it to the hokage. The hokage told them that it was fine and that Naruto probably found a way to control his chakra and was playing around with it.

Minato also anticipated this, and he had the same excuse. As for the seal being unlocked? Even if Jiraiya, his sensei and another seal master checked the seal, they would find that it was perfect. This was all thanks to Minato's ingenuity and planning.

When he unlocked the seal of Kurama, his own chakra started leaking and he would only have six years left inside Naruto's mind, and that was if he used his chakra sparingly and rarely appeared on Naruto's mind. The fact that Minato had to create a fake seal on Naruto's stomach after unsealing Kurama didn't help. Minato didn't trust Hiruzen right now, seeing that the man already broke his promise about taking care of their son.

Hiruzen could've easily brought Naruto under the Sarutobi clan, but he didn't do this. So what if the other clans didn't agree? The moment Hiruzen tell them that it was Minato's and Kushina's will, they would shut up. How could they disprove Hiruzen? Minato knew at this moment that Hiruzen was trying to make Naruto loyal to the village by helping him with Naruto's life as an orphan.

Of course, Minato was smart enough to know that it was probably Danzo who caused the villager's hate to be focused on Naruto, as Hiruzen would not agree on such a cruel method. Hiruzen was sly, ruthless, and merciless, but that was to his enemies, not his own shinobi. Danzo was sly, ruthless, and merciless to both his enemies and allies.

Naruto laid on the playground after finishing the exercise. He didn't have a home, as he was just kicked out of the orphanage, but he didn't care. He didn't feel cold sleeping outside because Kurama's chakra would keep him warm at night, and he didn't need to bath as he could clean himself using chakra. Every ninja could, but Naruto did miss the feeling of washing himself with water.

When Naruto closed his eyes, he was already inside his mind, and Kurama was waiting for him there. He ran up to Kurama's tails and let himself drown inside the fluffy tail.

Kurama only sweat dropped at Naruto's antics, but he didn't say anything. He already learned his lesson when he tried to get Naruto off his tails. He got an earful, and he wasn't able to rest for the whole time Naruto was inside the mindscape.

After a minute, Minato appeared and sat near where Naruto was buried in Kurama's tail.

"Naruto, how was the exercise?"

Minato asked, his smile not hidden in his voice. He knew Naruto enjoyed the exercises he made, to which he was relieved because if Naruto found it boring, the exercise would be ten times harder. It was easier to learn something when you were interested on learning it, as to when you're not.

"Yeah! Do you have any other chakra exercise dad?"

Naruto really had fun doing chakra exercises. He loved the feeling of controlling his chakra, and controlling how much chakra he used. When he found out he could explode stones by putting a lot of chakra inside it, he exploded every stone he found until his chakra reserves was halved. That incident caused his already massive chakra become a little bit bigger.

That incident also caused Hiruzen quite the headache as civilians sent complaints about how some ninja was exploding rocks everywhere, when in reality it was just Naruto exploding rocks because he could. He found that out when his ANBU reported it to him, but the headache didn't go away, rather it became bigger. He was worried that Naruto would enjoy blowing things up too much and cause havoc in the village. He had heard of a certain blonde who loved exploding things become a missing ninja because of the exact same reason.

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