-Hokage Tower-

-Morning-

The night before, Iruka had scheduled a meeting with the Hokage. As a teacher of the academy, he had the privilege of being on a list that allowed him almost immediate access to the Hokage at almost any time. Even so, he thought it would be best to give the Third time to rest, thus, he scheduled the meeting for the morning.

Normally Iruka would have never behaved in such a manner, but there were a couple things fueling his drive to do so this time. He suspected that Naruto had experienced some form of sabotage early on in his time at the academy. He didn't know how far it went, and who it included, but he was sure something was up.

Furthermore, he realized after his talk with Naruto that he might've let slip important information regarding the fox. Although he was bound to learn about it someday, Iruka never imagined that it might be due to a slip-up on his part.

Lastly, and most importantly, it was his duty as Naruto's friend and mentor to seek justice against those who'd wronged him in the past. Iruka would not repeat the same mistakes of his former self.

Arriving before the door to the Hokage's office, Iruka fixed his cloths, before knocking to enter.

An old, wizened voice drifted out from the room, "Come in."

Hearing the response, Iruka confidently opened the door and entered, taking a moment to steal a peek at the Hokage before he got too far.

The man was the same as he'd remembered him, still dressed in that same old robe and hat he always seem to wear. And seeing the piles of paperwork on the desk before him, Iruka felt that he had it good in his job at the academy. Thinking for a moment, Iruka couldn't picture the Naruto that he knew sitting behind a desk all day, filling out paperwork and reading mission reports. He'd be in for a rude awakening the day he became Hokage.

Chuckling to himself, he approached the Hokage's desk and sat down across from the man.

"Ah, Iruka…How peculiar for you to schedule a meeting with me. And what was that that you were laughing about? I'm curious and could always use a good joke to lighten my mood considering all this paperwork."

Iruka was shocked for a moment, the Hokage he knew was always serious and business-oriented, so it came as a surprise that he would be interested in what Iruka had been laughing about. It wasn't a secret that Naruto wanted to be Hokage, so Iruka relented and told the Third to picture Naruto sitting behind a desk, doing paperwork all day.

Laughing, the Third pulled at this beard, and said, "That is quite humorous. In all our time together, the biggest impression I had of the lad was his endless supply of energy. You don't think he'd explode from sitting still, do you?"

Iruka stifled his laughter before it left his throat, it was one thing to chuckle prior to meeting with the Hokage, it was another to blatantly laugh in front of the man. The Anbu in the room did not seem to agree with Iruka's assessment of the situation, however, as they broke out into laughter at the joke.

Hiruzen cracked a smile as he continued talking, Kuma, it seems like you appreciated my joke, unlike Iruka here."

"Yes Hokage-sama, personally, I don't know how someone could not find your joke to be funny."

The Anbu named Kuma had practically accused Iruka, prompting him to defend himself.

"Hokage-sama, that's not true. I found your joke funny, just I…I thought…"

"It's fine Iruka, I was just pulling your chain a bit, after all, you seemed a bit tense. Listen to me, there's no need to be so formal, I won't mind. In fact, I think it'd do you some good to learn from young Naruto in that regard."

Hiruzen's words did help Iruka calm down, he had been a bit uptight. Despite their past encounters, Iruka had always tried to keep his distance from the Hokage. Originally, it had been due to his plans concerning Naruto, but now, it was more a force of habit than anything.

Still though, that had startled him, the Anbu had appeared behind himself with him realizing it, and they had already faded back into the shadows. Perhaps that was a warning, in a way?

Taking a breath to calm himself, Iruka started the conversation with something he'd just picked up on, "Well then, I guess I'll have to take your advice Hokage-sama. But in regard to Naruto, what's your relationship with the boy? You seem to be more than just acquainted with him."

Hiruzen, still stroking his beard, answered the young teacher's question, "I've known Naruto for years, we've eaten ramen together, I've been the victim of some of his pranks, and I was the one who found him his current apartment after he'd been kicked out of the orphanage. In a way, you could say we are quite close."

The information both did and did not surprise Iruka. He'd already known that they knew each other and had interacted, but he didn't quite expect that it was to that extent. The Hokage had called them close, after all. Not many people could claim such an honor, especially so as they were not even family.

It was interesting, but not exactly related to Iruka's goal here today, although their close relationship might end up helping out in the end.

Totally relaxed now, Iruka began to talk about his reason for his meeting with the Hokage that morning.

"Since you're so close with Naruto, I suppose you'll be very interested in what I have to say today. The information I'm about to share is a bit sensitive, is it safe to assume that I can trust everyone in the room?"

Hiruzen wiped the smirk off his face, taking on a serious countenance, as he said, "Yes, Kuma here is the captain of the Anbu and my most trusted subordinate. I can assure you, anything you say will not leak from this room without your consent—provided it isn't harmful to the village in some way."

Nodding, Iruka began to tell the Hokage about the sabotage Naruto may have been facing in the academy. He also quickly added on towards the end that Naruto has dyslexia, which more than likely, was making the sabotage have even worse of an effect on the boy.

Midway through Iruka's story, Hiruzen had pulled out his pipe, and begun to smoke. It was only upon Iruka finishing his story that Hiruzen pulled the pipe out of his mouth, letting out a long plume of smoke.

As the smoke faded in the room, Hiruzen spoke up, summarized what he'd heard, "So Naruto has a condition called dyslexia that makes it hard for him to read. And knowing this, one of his former teachers, Kozuki, convinced him that he was fine, ensuring that his condition would go unnoticed for years. Thus, Naruto was left struggling to get by in his years at the academy."

Watching Iruka nod his head at the repetition of the information, Hiruzen continued his summary of the events, "That naturally made you think of how Mizuki also harbored a grudge against the boy, and you began to have your suspicions regarding the other teachers. And what finally convinced you that you might be onto something, was your own past hatred of Naruto?"

Iruka nodded his head, quickly adding on, "Yes, I only realized it when I tried to compile a list of all the teachers at the academy that I knew held a grudge against Naruto at some point in the time they had been teaching him. That's when I realized that I had neglected to consider my own hate of the boy. From there, it was simple to assume that if I had become a teacher to ruin the boy, someone else was surely capable of the same thing."

Iruka's logic was sound, or at least, Hiruzen felt that it made sense. Technically speaking, if Iruka was included, there were at minimum, three known teachers to have tried to sabotage or planned to sabotage Naruto's education.

"I suppose you are here then to seek permission to investigate this further? Perhaps even seeking my backing in the endeavor?"

Confidently, Iruka declared, "Yes. That is exactly why I am here today, Hokage-sama."

Putting his pipe back in his mouth, Hiruzen nodded his head, saying, "I'll agree to this investigation of yours, and I will also give you, my backing. I expect to be hearing from you with results soon enough."

Hiruzen paused, taking a puff of his pipe, before continuing, "Well then, is there anything else? If not, you should probably get a move on, these papers won't read themselves after all."

Iruka suddenly remembered the other reason why he was there that day, but he was almost afraid to say it out loud.

And the Hokage picked up on his hesitation, asking, "You're not leaving? Then there is more for you to tell me? Well, what is it? I'm sure I don't need to remind you, but everyone in the room can be trusted to keep a secret."

Iruka copied one of Naruto's moves, as he scratched the back of his head and sheepishly said what was on his mind to the Hokage.

"I think I may have leaked some information regarding the fox to Naruto accidentally."

Hiruzen's eyes widened as he realized that he, not Iruka, had made a mistake. He was supposed to tell Naruto about his status as jinchuriki upon his graduation. Hopefully delaying the matter wouldn't result in anything too bad happening.

-Fuinjutsu Section, A Konoha Ninja Library-

The clone, nicknamed Fuinamaru, was one of the lucky few who had been selected to study Fuinjutsu. Unlike those unfortunate bastards of the mathematics division, he got to learn about something that not only interested the clone but was also a subject that they had talent in as clones of Naruto.

But, despite his interest and talent in the field, it did not make studying it any easier. Heck, thinking back to the original's memories of their first real experience making a Fuinjutsu scroll, it had taken almost two thousand tries to get it right. Of course, them starting with an alteration of a pre-existing formula might've had something to do with the difficulty involved in its creation.

It was thanks to that scroll that the clones could perpetually stay around without popping, however, so Fuinamaru supposed it was worth the effort. Although the original's experience with being controlled by their predecessors did still frighten everyone. Sure, none of them planned on popping, but as the clones of a shinobi, it was kind of inevitable for some of them to die. They'd just have to hope not to have the same effect on the original. Or even worse, if the original and every clone alive were controlled simultaneously, the potential chaos caused could be catastrophic.

All of those thoughts couldn't really be answered, so Fuinamaru returned to his reading. It was some book on the applications of sealing Fuinjutsu, and while it went quite in-depth, it was almost too specific to be too useful for the group to learn from.

For example, he had just started the section on something called a…jinchuriki? The power of human sacrifice? To be honest, it sounded like something dark and edgy, the type of thing to interest that bastard, Sasuke.

Still, it was his job as a Fuin-clone to learn everything and anything he could get his hands on about the subject, so he couldn't afford to be picky now. Thus, Fuinamaru read on.

'The sealing of a jinchuriki requires a master in the art of Fuinjutsu to create a four-layered seal on a recently born baby or someone with particularly strong chakra coils.'

Considering that each layer added would make the Fuinjutsu at least ten times more difficult to complete, Fuinamaru was really interested in what required such a complicated seal. After all, even their Chakra Absorption Fuinjutsu was only a single-layer Fuinjutsu, and they'd already had such a difficult time making it. It was well-worth the difficultly, however, so the jinchuriki's seal had to be hundreds of times more valuable.

Anything that valuable would interest someone, not to mention the fact that it required a recently born baby to be used on. He ignored the strong chakra coils part, as a recently born baby had much more of an impact. Fuinamaru wondered whether the Hokage was capable of the Fuinjutsu as he read on.

'Such a complicated seal is required for a single reason, the target that is to be sealed inside of the seal, tailed beasts.'

Tailed beasts could be sealed away? Surely that would be easier than killing them, right? But that didn't make sense. People would only seal away a tailed beast if it were easier than killing them, after all, who'd take the risk to mess around with seals? Especially one so difficult.

Not to mention that the Fourth Hokage had sacrificed himself to kill the Nine-tailed Fox. Why didn't he just seal it away if it were easier? Wouldn't he still be alive if he did that? Maybe the seal was only theoretical, and so the Fourth's only choice was to kill the beast.

Thinking the book would probably have the answer, Fuinamaru stopped thinking about it, and continued reading.

'You, the reader, may not have been aware of this fact, for it is not common knowledge, and may be wondering why the tailed beasts would be sealed away instead of killed, as dangerous as they are. There is a simple answer, tailed beasts cannot die. Or more accurately, they are beings of pure chakra who will reform given enough time after their 'deaths,' thus necessitating that they be sealed away instead.'

Fuinamaru, upon reading that, thought that what was written in the book must be false. The Fourth had sacrificed himself to kill the Nine-tailed Fox, and there was no way he would do that just to temporarily put the beast down. The only issue was, was that the author of the book was someone with the family name Uzumaki. The same Uzumaki as him, and the clan.

Surely a master of Fuinjutsu would not need to lie in a book they'd written on Fuinjutsu. Nor was it likely that they were incorrect. Which left Fuinamaru with one option, that the history they learned in Konoha was not true. Or at the very least, it was a simplification of what had happened.

That would actually make sense, it was easier to explain to a civilian and those inexperienced in Fuinjutsu that the tailed beast was dead, rather than saying it had been sealed away. After all, to those not accustomed to the art, stuff like four-layered seals did not mean a thing, and it would seem like the fox could break free at any moment and go on a rampage.

Not to mention it would be pretty morbid of the Fourth to seal the thing inside a baby. That was a stain better off not mentioned in the history of a Hokage. Still though, to think a baby had gotten the fox sealed inside them soon after their birth, that would've sucked. They'd be what, somewhere around 13 by now?

As soon as he thought that alarm bells began to ring inside Fuinamaru's head as everything began to come together. The glares and hate of the villagers. Mizuki's words that day. What Iruka had said to him. And now that he thought about it, the original's birthday was the same day the Fourth had died.

He tightly gripped his hair as he began to think of a reason why it was not true. Anything at all, no matter how minor could prove what he thought wrong. He desperately thought back to everything he knew and experienced, but the more he thought, the more evidence there was.

In desperation, he started to read more of the section on jinchuriki.

'It may also come as a surprise to you that several jinchuriki have been created throughout history.'

Not good, not what he wanted to see. He skipped forward, further into the section in hopes that there might be something else.

'Due to a lack of understanding, often times jinchuriki face ostracization and rejection from the communities they live in…'

Even worse, but that could just be due to the many pranks he's pulled through out the years. He read on.

'Jinchuriki have been noted to have increased levels of chakra, high levels of stamina, and an enhanced speed of regeneration.'

That was the original to a tee. Everything was the original to a tee. He could deny it no longer, nothing else would make sense, and even if he found something else now, there was too much evidence stacked up against him.

…

…

…..

He was the jinchuriki of the Nine-tailed fox. That was the reason for all the hate he'd received throughout the years. Inside him was the one who'd killed his parents. The one who'd destroyed the village in the past. And the one who'd caused Iruka to hate him for all those years.

All his suffering could be linked back his status as a jinchuriki. However, he couldn't bring himself to blame his hero, the Fourth Hokage, for ruining his life. In the end, the man had protected the village. And in doing so, fulfilled his duty as Hokage to the end.

At least he could take some comfort in him being a jinchuriki not being all bad news. He now knew the answer to Choji's questions regarding his diet, his stamina, and his freakish regeneration. It now made sense why his wound had scarred overnight.

No longer in the mood to read, Fuinamaru put away the book he'd been reading as he began to plan out how to break the news to the rest of the group.

Author's Note: Short chapter again. Should have more time this weekend to write longer chapters. Keyboard also might be getting too old; the space bar is starting to not always work. I'll look into it, and if it really is breaking, I'll order a new one. Shouldn't affect my writing too much either way but writing on my laptop's keyboard will be a pain on my fingers.

In any case, we got a nice cameo from Hiruzen, Kuma, and Iruka, who are beginning their investigation into the sabotage of Naruto's education. We also (finally) have Naruto learning about being a jinchuriki.

Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. :D

PS: Pa-atreon exists. Same name as this account. Donate please if ya wanna support my work.

PSS: I don't plan on writing any romance into the story anytime soon. Don't expect anything, any romance I wrote would've been cringe anyway. (Also, Naruto x A for life)