Chapter 1 - The birth

"Talking"
'Thinking'
Flashbacks
Jutsu
"Bijuu/summons" - talking
'
Bijuu/summons' - thinking

The birth had been a hard one. It has now been two weeks since the birth of Minato and Kushinas' son, Naruto. Kushina was still recovering. Keeping the seal intact so the great fox did not break free during birth was strenuous on her body.

Flashback

She could see that Minato was nervous. His task was to make sure the seal inscribed on her stomach was kept intact. She could not blame him for his nervous look; the seal was the only thing keeping the great kyuubi from breaking free.

Kushina smiled at Minato and said, "Don't look so nervous. You have been up against bigger challenges than this".

He looked down at his wife, giving her a forced smile, "I'm not nervous! It's just hard to see you in so much pain, Kushina." He took her hand and squeezed.

"Never again!" Kushina screamed as she pushed through the pain. Giving birth was a pain in the ass.

She felt a strange sensation in her body, even through all the pain. It felt like something was sucking both her spiritual energy and chakra slowly from her.

She gave Minato a strange and pained look. "Is something wrong, Kushina?" Minato asked.

Kushina made one last mighty push and screamed in pain. Their son has been born. Kushina noticed the strange feeling disappeared as soon as Naruto had

been delivered.

Kushina panted out in a small panic. "I think the damn fox tried something; I got this strange feeling that my chakra and spiritual energy got sucked away from me."

Minato did not know what to say. He had never heard of anything like it before."How are you feeling?" He asked her, slightly embarrassed about not coming up with

something better to say.

"The strange feeling is gone. I'm very tired though, "Kushina said as she looked towards the nurse cleaning her baby. "I want to hold our son," Kushina said.

The nurse nodded while cleaning the last gunk away. "Here is your beautiful son, Kushina-san and Minato-sama," she said as she put the baby in Kushina's arms.

They both looked down at their new born son, Naruto, and could not be happier. Everything they just went through went away as they watched the sharp gaze of their son.

Naruto just laid there calmly watching them. He had bright, stormy blue eyes. His look was intense. It was almost like he was observing them. Kushina smiled and said, "Look at his beautiful hair!".

"He looks so much like you, Kushina," Minato said.

"I knew he was going to get red hair like me; I could feel it. He got your eyes though, even your intense stare, "she winked at him. Minato gave her one of his famous intense stares, and then smiled and started laughing.

They just sat there for a few minutes in silence. "Is it not weird that he'd made no sound at all?" Minato thought out loud.

"Maybe, I don't know! I have been a parent just as long as you silly. "

The doctor entered, congratulated them, and then asked to examine Naruto. The doctor took Naruto and started with some tests just to see if he was healthy. There was nothing wrong with the baby; he just got a strange feeling while holding him but said nothing to the parents.

He gave Naruto back to the happy parents and congratulated them once again on having a healthy baby. Then he left.

Kushina looked down at Naruto in her arms, then at Minato, and said, "Let's go ho.." She could not finish as she passed out. Minato panicked and was fast at catching the falling Naruto. He put him down in a crib, then went straight back to Kushina to check on her. He pushed her shoulder gently and said her name but got no answer. He called in a nurse to check on her.

"She probably is just tired from the birth, she just needs some rest," the nurse said.

Minato thanked the nurse and she left. He was still a bit shocked about everything. The thing about her getting her spiritual energy and chakra sucked worried him a great deal. He put a hand over Kushinas' stomach and closed his eyes. He concentrated and found her chakra and spiritual energy strong but exhausted.

That should be fixed with some rest, but he couldn't help but wonder what just happened.

Flashback ends.

Kushina slowly opened her eyes. She was met with a sharp pain and blindness and closed her eyes again. She groaned and slowly tried to open her eyes again. She gave them time to adjust to the bright light and could finally, after a few minutes see her surroundings.

She was still in the hospital, and when she tried to sit up, she noticed her body being a bit stiff and sore.

She looked out the window and saw it was dark outside, so she guessed it was in the middle of the night as she heard no sounds either inside the hospital or outside.

'My son!' she thought, and where is Minato?

She tried getting up from her bed but noticed her body was not following her commands. After a few minutes of struggle, she stood by the door in her hospital room and was just going to open the door to leave when it opened right before her hand could turn the handle.

"Kushina! What are you doing? You should be resting!" Minato said as soon as he saw his wife standing at the doorway looking half dead.

She had no other thought in her head but her newborn son. "Where is our son?" she asked.

"Tsunade is watching him. She has taken quite a liking to him." Minato smiled at his wife.

He then grabbed his wife and led her back to the bed, where he sat down with her. "You have been out for two weeks," he looked at her with a hint of worry and said. "How are you feeling"?

"I feel just fine, a bit tired but fine. Why have I been out for so long? Is that normal after giving birth"?

Minato looked out the window and sighed, then turned back to his wife. "Tsunade could not find anything out of the ordinary, so I am not sure why you have been unconscious for so long." He looked at her and smiled. "So long as you feel fine, we should not worry too much." He squeezed her hand.

"Now that I'm awake, I want to go home and see Naruto," Kushina said.

Kushina and Minato talked a bit more, then Minato went to find a nurse to sign Kushina out.

When they got home, they were greeted by Tsunade sitting on their living room sofa with Naruto. "Hi there little Kushina and Minato-baka," she said while giving Minato a bit of a glare.

Kushina watched Minato and wondered why Tsunade would call him baka. Minato just stood there, fidgeting with his fingers, acting nervous.

"Little Naruto here is a special child," Tsunade said, smiling down at the baby. "He is not very talkative."

Still Naruto had made no sound after two weeks, and Minato started to think there was something wrong with their son. "There's nothing wrong with him Minato, he's just a quiet child," Tsunade said, as she had done for the past week.

Kushina glared at Minato, "You think there is something wrong with Naruto?" Minato defended himself saying "Of course i dont think there is anything wrong with Naruto, it's just"

"Just what?" Kushina did not let him finish.

"I'm just new at this, Kushina," Minato said, taking a step back from his wife's death stare."I don't think there is anything wrong with our child, I just can't help but worry a bit. "

Kushina grabbed Naruto in her arms and proclaimed, "He is the most beautiful child I have ever seen!"

Minato was fast with trying to be funny and pointed his thumbs at himself, "Of course he is beautiful, just look at this handsome, strong, and soon to be hokage." He smiled at himself. He was usually no jokester. He saw his wife's annoyed look and quickly corrected himself, "And he got the most beautiful mother as well".

Kushina could not help but smile at her husband's antics. He was usually not a very funny person. With his position as soon to be hokage, he had little time to goof around and just be himself. So seeing her stoic husband lighten up a bit made her smile. She could not help but wonder in the back of her mind though, 'Naruto has not even cried once. That's not normal right'?

"Sooo Tsunade, did anything noteworthy happen while I was at the hospital?" Kushina said

"It has been quiet, as i said he makes no sounds. So he is quite easy to handle. I would also love a non-screaming baby. That must be every mother's dream," Tsunade said, daydreaming about peaceful babies.

"Your husband here has been quite the nervous wreck, running between here and the hospital the last two weeks whenever he was not with Sarutobi-sensei."

"I have not been nervous!" Minato said. He has a reputation to uphold. He was the village's strongest shinobi, for god's sake. He does not get nervous!

Both ladies started laughing at Minatos' attempt to save face.

In the middle of all this, little Naruto made an attempt to grab Kushinas' hand. When Kushina gave her hand to Naruto, she suddenly yelped and instinctively snatched her hand from Naruto. Naruto had grabbed one of her fingers so hard it almost broke from the pressure. 'I knew babies had deathgrips, but this is insane!, and what was that I felt? Natural energi from Naruto'?

"Shit that hurts little naruto" Kushina half screamed out. As soon as she said that she regretted it and thought she would make Naruto upset. She looked down at Naruto and he was just giving her a confused cute look. And she singed at her own overreaction.

"Tsunade, did you feel it as well?" Minato said as he had a frown on his face while thinking about what just happened. "Yes i felt the natural energi, but he is just two weeks old" she was at a loss for what happend. "There should be no possible way for him to gather natural energy at two weeks old!" "It takes ages for extremely disciplined shinobi to learn of senjutsu, and even that is extremely rare"

"Well, this was mostly just a fluke. We need to keep a check on Naruto though. Senjutsu is extremely dangerous to the user if not controlled in the right way," Minato said. As a sage himself, he knew one or two things about the art of senjutsu. He had to check with Jiraya about all of this as well.

Kushina was a bit shaken up but was just happy that Naruto showed some form of instinct to interact with her, even if it almost broke her finger. She watched Tsunade and Minato bicker back and forth about Senjutsu and the strange phenomenon that just happened.

She looked down on Naruto's face, and he was tracking her every movement with his piercing blue eyes. "You are going to be a strong shinobi in the future, won't you little Naru-chan"?. For the first time in two weeks, he made a little giggle sound and just fell asleep. All three adults were stunned and fell silent just watching the small child.

Little did they know, this little guy would one day change the world.

Timeskip 8 years.

Naruto stood in the hokage office waiting for the adults to speak their minds. He had just come back from yet another successful solo A-rank mission, but there was a problem. He had killed a whole squad of five taki-shinobi. His mission was to kill an A-rank missing nin from the Kusa country.

'How could this have happened? Taki is our ally. This could spell a diplomatic disaster. Taki is a small country but has a lot of trade with Konoha.' Were the thoughts of some people in the room.

Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado, two of the hokages advisers, glared at the small chunin who just stood there with his usual stoic face.

"Why in the world would you kill our allies!? What happened!? Do you even know what problems you may have caused? Koharu growled out.

Danzō Shimura just watched everything with an amused look on his face. He liked how Naruto handled himself, even if he was just 8 years old. What he hated about the child was that he could not control him. Especially because of that damned Minato. He would some day get his chance, he thought.

'I will find a way to break you Naruto, then I will mold you into my image.'

During all this, Minato was in deep thought. 'I knew this would eventually happen. He always takes everything too literally. He does not understand social cues or when to look underneath the underneath'. He signed and then said, "Silence!". No one could deny the athority of the hokage and everyone fell silent.

"Naruto, explain yourself," Minato said as unharsily as he could not to upset Naruto. He already had quite a strained relationship with his son and did not want to make it worse. He was forced to act as the hokage in this matter though, and not as a father would.

Naruto looked around the room at the different faces and could not understand the big deal

"I had just completed my mission of eliminating the missing nin Kazu Migmu A-rank from Kusa. Then, on my way back to Kohona, I met up with five shinobi from Taki on the border between our countries. They attempted to take advantage of my youth in order to steal Kazu's bounty. I pointed out our alliance to each other, but they did not care and tried to attack me. That's when I killed them."

He looked around at the shocked expressions on some of the faces and said, "What?" as if he had done nothing wrong.

"What do you mean," "what"? You just killed them! " "Do you even know how this looks?" Homura blurted out. "There is no evidence that what you say is true, nothing. The only thing it looks like is a konoha shinobi killing five taki shinobi in cold blood. "

Naruto just stood there staring at her as if she were stupid. "But you were not there. I was there. They tried to kill me, so I killed them. There is nothing more to it" he said matter-of-factly.

Shouting started inside the office about what was to be done.

Minato signed and put his face in his hand, then he looked up at Naruto. "I'm sorry Naruto, but you will be suspended until an investigation has been made about what happened out there." 'Kushina was not going to be happy', he thought.

"As you command, lord Hokage," Naruto said in a respectful voice.

Minato got a little sad about how he addressed him, but quickly pushed the feeling away. This was a serious matter. "You may leave Naruto." Naruto bows to the hokage and disappears in shunshin.

Minato looked at his advisors and the late Sandaime Hokage "Sarutobi-sama, I want you to stay. Everyone else can leave." They all knew not to push the matter, the hokage was in a foul mood. So they bowed to the hokage and left quietly.

When everyone left, Minato slumped down on his sofa with a heavy sign. Sarutobi walked up to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and sat next to him.

"What am I supposed to do, Saru? He is my son! and sometimes it feels like he already hates me. If I punish him too hard I will just push him further away, but if I do nothing, people will blame favoritism."

Sarutobi studied the young Hokage with sympathy in his gaze. "Have you ever thought about just talking to him? He is still just a young child"

"A young child at 8 years old thats is just as strong as almost any jounin in the village," Minato responded. "He is anything but a normal child and I don't know how to speak with him." He signed. "Kushina understands him much better than me and I don't have the time to get to know him better."

"Sometimes I wish I never took this damn job." Minato looked miserable.

Sarutobi understood Minato very well, he himself had a pretty worn relationship with his own son. "Naruto is young, you have plenty of time to talk to him. And if you talk to him, I think he would understand if he did something wrong. But you also have to understand that we don't actually know what really happened. Have faith in your son that he is telling the truth."

Minato nodded to the old hokage but in his head he thought, 'Do i really know my son at all, what really happened out there' he pushed those thoughts far away, feeling guilty even thinking about his son that way. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had his doubts about Naruto's character.

"I will issue an investigation, and I want it to be kept quiet. I will get Kakashi on it. And I think I'll take the rest of the day off and spend it with my family. Kushina will soon give birth, so I better prepare for that as well," Minato said as he stood up.

"That's a great idea Minato, and this time Bawiko will be there to help with the birth," Sarutobi said as he smiled. "And Minato, I know your son very well. He does not hate you, he is a special child. He just have a hard time expressing himself"

Minato smiled and nodded in thanks.

They said their goodbyes and left the office.

When Minato got home, he saw Kushina on the sofa watching TV. "Hey wifey, I took some hours off so I could get home early today."

"Hi Minato-kun, perfect timing. Can you make me some food?" Kushina asked as her big stomach growled something fierce.

Minato sweatdropped "Of course" he replied,"what do you want?"

"Ramen, i want ramen!"

"Coming right up, lovely lady. Where is Naruto by the way?" Minato inquired, listening for any sounds upstairs.

"He came home an hour ago and just went straight to his room. He said nothing, and i have no energy to go upstairs to ask, i can berley move." Kushina saw on Minato's face that he was a bit uncomfortable.

"Did something happen in the office? I know he was to come home today from a mission. Did something go wrong?" She looked at Minato but he did not answer.

"What happened Minato-kun"? Kushina asked again more forcefully as Minato just stood there trying to find a way to tell her.

Minato signed and decided to give her the short answer. "He killed 5 taki-shinobi and is now suspended under investigation."

Kushina was shocked beyond belief, "WHAT!?" She yelled out. "There must be an explanation; he must have been protecting himself. I will go and talk to him."

And she started to make her way upstairs while Minato went back to making ramen.

There was a knock on his door. He just sat there by his desk, studying some seals and other documents.

"Come in," he said, and put all his stuff away he was working on as he had an idea what the conversation was going to be about.

"Hard at work I see," Kushina said and winked at him. "You know, you don't have to be training and studying all the time. Mabey, you could try and find some friends your age. Itachi is a good friend, but that's just one friend. Don't you want more friends, Naruto?"

"Itachi and Shishui are my friends. I do not need more," Naruto said as he watched his mother looking through his work.

"So you are studying nature transformation? she looked at him for a reply. When no reply came she asked "So, why are you studying nature transformation rather than simply training your Mokuton?"

Naruto held his hand out to demonstrate something to Kushina, and she watched his small hand confused. "I noticed something strange with my chakra when I tried to combine my water and wind element," he said as ice started to form around his hand.

Kushina let out a gasp "Thats Hyōton from the yuki clan!. That bloodline is supposed to be extinct, and how can you use it!" Kushina was at a loss for words.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out; I tried looking for a link between Uzumaki and Yuki, and even Namikaze, but I couldn't find any. We know so little about fathers clan.I also have another theory about nature transformation." He paused and thought about how to explain it to his mother

"Maybe you can combine elements without a bloodline if your mastery of both elements is extremely high."

Kushina looked skeptical "But would we not see a lot more people using nature transformation then? If anyone can do it with enough training?"

"If my theory is correct, it would mean you would have to have mastery of your element on the same level as Tobirama Senju had over suiton if not even higher, and then you have to have at least two elements on that level. That would make it almost impossible for anyone to do," Naruto mused

"But not for you?" Kushina she pointed out a bit amused at how arrogant her son sounded even if she knew he did not intend to be. Naruto did not like to show of his skills.

"I naturally have all five elements as you know, and my control over them far exceeds the norm, and i get better at it every day with training. Mokuton feels second nature for me and is easy to use, but when i try to combine any other elements it just does not work." Naruto said matter-of-factly.

To someone else it might sound as he was bragging. But kushina knew, this is just how his mind works.

"And it was just a fluke that I discovered I could do ice release. Now that i know i can do it, it feels like Mokuton. It's second nature. It's like my body adapted to it and made changes.I don't know how to explain it, i have tried to combine water and air before without any results, then just one day it works and feels like second nature"

"It may not be a bloodline or that anyone can make nature transformation with training. I also thought it may have to do with my body's constant intake of natural energy. Me being infused with senjutsu since i was born may have changed something biologically in my body"

Kushina did not like where this conversation was going as there were no real answers. Her son was just doing a lot of guesswork on some seriously dangerous things.

"You have to keep this to yourself, Naruto. You can tell your father but no one else. This is dangerous stuff. Someone with your potential would have a lot of eyes on you," Kushina said, a bit worried.

"Don't worry, mother. I will never allow anyone to cause harm to my family."He said that in a way that made Kushina's hair stand up in her neck. She loved that her son was so protective of his family, and especially since he was soon to be a big brother. But the way he said those words made her shiver.

"Oh yes, that's right, i came up here to ask you something important Naruto. And i want you to be honest with me" Kushina said as she sat down beside her son.

Naruto looked up to his mother and waited for her questions.

"So I heard what happened on your latest mission." Kushina looked at her son to see if she could see some kind of indication on his face about how he felt.

He had his usual stoic face and said, "As i told father and his goons, i killed them because they intended to kill me."

Kushina frowned a bit about how casually he mentioned him killing someone, and not just one but five other shinobis. "You are a very fast shinobi Naruto. Was there no way for you to get away without hurting them?"

Naruto hesitated a little and thought about it "Well, yes i think i could get away without having to fight them."

Kushina knew her son had problems with other people. He could almost never read a situation right and was very socially awkward and inconsiderate of others' feelings. "So, what made you stay and fight instead of fleeing? You already finished your mission" Kushina said.'he is getting annoyed, i can see his left eye twitching' she thought.

Naruto became a bit frustrated, "I don't understand what you mean."Naruto grumbled "They intended to kill me and take my bounty, so the logical action would be to kill them first no?" He looked at his mother and saw she had a troubled look on her face.

"You are not fully wrong, Naruto, but killing should always be a last resort. You can't just kill everyone that intends to harm you or the people you love. Sometimes you just have to leave the situation or solve it in a matter where killing is not involved" she paused to see if he gave any indication about understanding what she just said.

"Do you understand what i mean, Naruto?" She looked at Naruto almost pleadingly.

She has had similar conversations with and about her son before, about hurting people in unnecessary ways. It was like he did not know where to draw the line, he saw everything so black and white.

"I think so, mom, but I'm not sure," he said, starting to become a bit confused about his own feelings.

She let go of a breath she did not know she was holding and asked, "Do you feel sad about people you had do kill?"

"Why would I feel sad? They made their own choice attacking me, that makes them bad people yes?"

"Not everyone you kill is a bad person, they probably had family and friends themselves."

Naruto looked at her and said nothing, Kushina could see he was confused and asked, "If someone from another village was ordered from there hokage to kill me or your father, does that mean me and your father are bad people and deserve to die"? She looked at her son and gave him time to think about her question.

"I know you have done bad things to other people, but I don't think you are bad people," he said.

Kushina smiled at her son "Yes, we have done some very bad things in our life, but that does not necessarily make us bad people."

Kushina thought about her words a bit more and continued, "There are people in this world that thinks me and your father are bad people. There are also people in this world that we think are bad but someone else loves".

"It's more about the intent of your actions, Naruto. If you want to do bad things and do them, that makes you a bad person. You have to try and read situations individually and not always act in a logical way. Those people you killed may have been bad people. What they did was wrong and should be punished in some way. But you took it upon yourself to kill these people for their transgressions, when you clearly have the ability to either run away and leave the situation or capture them for their crimes. You killed them Naruto, that was your choice right or wrong".

He looked up at his mom with somewhat sad eyes and asked "im i a bad person mom"?

That question almost crushed Kushina's spirit , she hugged her son tight and said, "NoNono Naruto, you are not a bad person, you just have to learn to consider your actions and the consequences they bring"

He looked as his mother "im sorry mom" and for the first time in his life he cried. If there was one thing Naruto could not take it was when he disappointed his mother or when he thought she would look at him as a bad person.

He still didn't fully understand what his mother was saying about the whole he promised himself he would dedicate himself to learn more about feelings of other people and consider his actions potential consequences in the future.

"come downstairs with me and have some ramen, your father is cooking" Kushina said as she wiped away her son's tears. Somehow seeing him crying made her somewhat glad. It may not be something a mother should be glad about, but even the smallest emotion from her son was something to embrace, as he almost never showed any kind of emotion.

That night after dinner Naruto laid in bed with his thoughts.

People called him the genius of the century. Especially his perverted God father Jiraya. He liked to boast about how great Naruto would become, and wanted as much credit as possible for training young Naruto. But with all his genius and skills he could not understand why killing those five shinobi was wrong. Yes he could have ran away and they would live to see another day. But they attacked him, they made their choice and that choice was to die.

He did not feel happy about killing them, but he did not feel sad either. He did not prolong their deaths, he made it very quick and painless as he usually does. Is that not a mercy? Surely these bad people would otherwise go on and do bad things to other people? So he may have saved some other good people and possibly even bad people.

He noticed that he tried to rationalize why he killed them and for him it made no sense. He did not care if they lived or died, he only did what he thought was right in the moment to save himself. At Least that was what he told himself. Deep down he knew these people deserved to die, if only for being so stupid. He tried to push those thoughts away as he knew his mother would be upset for him thinking like that.

He promised his mother, so he would do all he could to try and understand other people's feelings better. He was going to ask Itachi and Shuishi about these strange matters tomorrow when he trained. He may even ask his father, he knows he usually gave the old man a hard time.

His father was the hokage, so he got very limited time with him and Naruto held a bit of resentment towards him because of that. But deep down he cared for his father just as much as his mother. Naruto's protective instinct of his family was almost unhealthy at times, giving space to some rather awkward birthday parties and such. When he learned Mokuton at age 6, he covered their whole yard with big trees so no one could get close to the house and hurt his family. It took them 2 days to cut down all of them as he infused the trees with senjutsu as well.

'Yes i think i will stop buy fathers offices tomorrow and talk to him before training, i got a lot of time now anyway when im suspended. Its good timing as well as now i can train my ice release before using it in action'. Naruto did not often get excited, but the thought of trying to combine his wood release with his newfound ice release gave him goosebumps. 'Oh the possibilities'. He thought and drifted towards sleep with a small smile on his face.

End of first chapter

*Author's Note*
Hi there, this is my first story ever written. I have read 100s of fanfictions but wanted to give it a try to write my own. This is a OP Naruto fanfiction, but he will have his problems i assure you.
If you have any questions, feel free to pm me. And I would love all criticism good or bad, as there really is no bad criticism. I want to learn everything I can about writing as my goal someday is to write my own series. I'm well aware that my grammar is not the best, so all the help is appreciated.

This is planned to be a pretty long story. I'm not sure how long it will take to finish, but my first chapter is just over 5000 words and i have 20 planned chapters at the moment (not written).
And those 20 chapters won't even cover a ⅓ of the story. My goal is to release at least 1 chapter each month. Now in the beginning it will probably be more than that. But i wont promise like 1-2 chapters each week. But if i can write that much i will release chapters as they are done.

The story itself will be centered around Naruto and his struggle to learn about feelings and relationships. He has problems with understanding people and their actions and gets in a lot of trouble from hurting others unintentionally. He sees the world as black and white, right or wrong.
By his side he got Itachi and Shishu as his friends. And of course his family.

Read to find out how he deals with the world in his own way.