"I will be waiting," Madara told Obito as he left the underground cavern.
"I hope I do not make you wait too long, sensei," Obito replied, swirling out of existence.
Madara waited for a while, as though to check whether Obito had truly left. He then sighed, eyeing the Gedō Mazō statue.
"I shall achieve peace, and end the reign of war," Madara murmured as he unplugged himself from the chakra feeding tubes.
Without the chakra that his body had grown to rely upon, Madara died instantly. It was painless, as though he was merely falling asleep.
Asura and Indra's souls and chakra were floating around in the real world, waiting for a descendant they deem worthy to be born. In this state, they possessed full memories of every one of their past lives. However, they are unable to attack each other due to their ethereal forms. They were watching the birth of Itachi, Indra considering the thought of latching to the infant.
Indra shook away the thought. Although the child was destined to be strong, his soul and personality was nothing like that of Indra. If anything, he was similar to Madara's younger sibling, Izuna. As such, he let the child pass through safely and join the world of the living.
Indra was once again with his brother Asura, waiting.
He did not have to wait for long.
Not even a decade after, Sasuke was born.
Indra knew, instantly, that this child was a perfect fit. Without a second thought, he proceeded to latch onto his descendant's soul and chakra. He felt the two different chakras assimilate, slowly becoming one with that of Indra being predominant, almost entirely Indra's. This was not expected. It had never happened before in any of his previous transmigrants.
This was new.
Indra knew that his memories would leave him as the souls fully merged, but for some reason, he felt his original memories stay along with those of his previous transmigrant. He did feel the other memories leave him until he almost forgot they existed. But with a thought of being "reborn" into Madara and now, Sasuke, he remembered the transmigration process.
As such, a mildly disgruntled and confused infant opened his obsidian eyes. The parents cooed at the child naming it what both Indra and Asura had known instantly when the child was still being given birth to. Uchiha Sasuke.
Indra felt his memories get suppressed, letting them become dormant in the back of the child's mind. The memories would return when the time is right. The child would have his childhood.
Indra was no more, for the time being. Sasuke was born.
Although Asura was watching as his brother latched on to the child, he did not know what happened. He only saw that the chakra had assimilated much more thoroughly compared to all the past transmigrants. He did ponder upon the reason, though not for long.
Barely a few months later, he felt the tug of another of his descendants being born. He looked at the strangely blond child. 'His father's probably blond. His mom's the Uzumaki,' Asura thought to himself.
For some strange reason, Asura felt a connection to this child. He just knew that this child was destined to be his host. It was almost as though the previous hosts were completely unsuitable and he was merely just making do with what he had.
Asura did not even consider why he would feel the pull. Asura just latched onto the soul without a thought, similarly to how Indra did.
Asura too felt the chakra of the child to already be an almost perfect match to his own. The chakra assimilation process was practically perfect due to the close match between the two of their chakras. Their souls merged, fully. He waited for the memories to leave him.
And leave him they did. Memories of his first transmigration and on started to vanish without a trace. However, when it came to the previous time, the memories did not disappear. Asura assumed that it just took longer than normal and waited for the memories of that life as well as his first to fade away into nothingness, but it never happened.
Asura opened his eyes in confusion, blinking away the black spots. He noticed that he was in the arms of a scarlet haired woman, Uzumaki Kushina. Smiling at him was the blond, Namikaze Minato.
An orange masked man swirled into existence. 'Obito?' Asura thought in confusion, remembering the man that Indra had told him about.
"Step away from the jinchūriki or this child dies!" Obito yelled at Minato, Naruto in his arms as he poised a kunai at the infant's jugular.
"Please, calm down... Put down the baby and let's negotiate," Minato stuttered out, panicking.
"Yondaime, I am perfectly calm here. It is you who needs to calm down!" Obito scoffed.
Minato looked helplessly between his wife and his son, debating whether to do as the man said.
"Minato-kun," Kushina whispered, "Go to our son. I'm okay."
Minato looked apologetically at his wife as he quickly snatched his son from the air as Obito threw the bundle up. He noticed multiple exploding tags all over the blanket. Minato quickly pulled off the blanket and flashed the child away to the nearest safe house.
With his excellent hearing, Asura listened in to what was happening nearby.
Minato flashed into the scene of Obito, whose identity he had no clue about, ripping the Kyūbi out of his wife's gut. He could only gape as the orange masked man looked the bijū in its eye as its eyes morphed into that of the Sharingan. The Kyūbi roared as it started to bound toward the village of Konoha.
Minato took her wife away to where he left Naruto, who was not at all shocked when they appeared and had not seemed worried when he was left alone. They did not notice. Kushina just picked up the baby, wrapping the tiny thing up in a blanket and cuddling it to her chest.
Asura frowned slightly as Minato flashed back to face the masked man.
"Who are you?" Minato asked the man, suspicion dripping from his tone.
"Uchiha Madara," Obito lied.
"No, you are not him. Everyone knows that he had died at the Valley of the End. Moreover, I find your chakra signature rather familiar. I am sure that I have never met Uchiha Madara," Minato said defiantly.
"Well, believe it or not, I am Uchiha Madara," Obito said confidently, mild annoyance lacing his tone.
Minato only shook his head in disappointment at how the annoying man kept trying to keep up his hopeless charade, clicking his tongue as he shot forward to attack. To his surprise, he phased through the man who claimed to be Madara. Although the man was clearly real, he had just passed through him as though he were a ghost.
'What is he? A ghost?' Minato thought in frustration.
Minato shot forward with a normal-looking kunai, only for the masked man to absorb it into his pocket dimension. Minato finally understood the man's technique.
"Space-time ninjutsu..." Minato breathed in surprise.
After all, as a fellow master of the art, he had to admit that his opponent had reached the epitome of time-space ninjutsu. Minato shook his head in awe, discreetly making a Kage Bunshin that flashed into the pocket dimension. Minato proceeded to charge another Rasengan and charged at the masked man, aiming at his stomach.
The self-proclaimed Uchiha Madara did not think, he just warped the part of himself that Minato was about to hit away. He did not expect it to not work as his stomach received considerable damage, some of his organs being badly shredded. However, he did not think much of it, only just believing that he had warped away too late.
Minato aimed another Rasengan at Obito, this time at his shoulder. Once again, the foolishly unknowing man warped away his shoulder. As he expected to receive no damage, he did not prepare himself for the pain of his shoulder receiving another Rasengan. He screamed in pain as his shoulder was grounded into mush.
"So you left a clone in my pocket dimension..." Obito muttered, sending a clone of his own to dispose of Minato's clone.
Once that was done, he glared balefully at Minato.
"It seems I have no choice but to take my leave. I assure you, this is not the last all of you will see of me," Obito grumbled as he warped away, Minato too late to stop him.
"Now what?" Minato asked himself, deflated at the anticlimactic ending to their rather intense battle.
Minato finally looked to the village, remembering that the Kyūbi no Kitsune was on the loose and seemingly under the now missing Uchiha's control. He flashed to a hiraishin seal near the location the Kyūbi was.
"Hokage-sama!"
"Yondaime-sama!"
"Namikaze-dono!"
Minato was greeted by similar shouts as he entered the battlefield.
Asura focused more on his hearing and his sensory, intentionally muting the sound of Kushina's breathing and erratic heartbeat. He strained his senses as he managed to detect what was going on back at Konoha.
The first thing Minato noticed was the many corpses of shinobi, all killed while trying to keep the village safe from the Kyūbi. The next was how the living shinobi were mostly the more experienced chūnin, the jōnin and the ANBU. The third was how despite all of the ninjas' valiant efforts to hold the Kyūbi off, they were still being pushed back.
Minato shook himself out of his stupor, going through the familiar hand signs for the Kuchiyose no Jutsu. A large blast of wind was caused by the massive displacement of air as a huge toad puffed into existence via a puff of smoke. This toad was Gamabunta, the legendary toad boss. It wielded a large double-edged sword and had a pipe hanging from its mouth.
"What is it, Minato? Another of your dates with Kushina you need advice for?" Gamabunta asked in slight annoyance.
The toad finally saw the massive fox in front of him, dwarfing himself in size despite being a boss summon. Gamabunta gulped.
"Please, just distract the Kyūbi no Kitsune for five minutes," Minato begged as he began doing a multitude of hand signs before he even landed on the ground.
"I appreciate that you think that I am amazing and all, but you are grossly overestimating me. Either that or severely underestimating the Kyūbi!" Gamabunta yelled at his summoner, doing as he was told.
"Please, just for a little bit more," Minato pleaded as he continued flashing through hand signs.
The bijū suddenly began charging a massive bijūdama. Minato cursed, throwing a bunch of hiraishin kunai as he focused a ridiculous amount of chakra to transport the mass of chakra away to a desolate area where it detonated harmlessly. However, it still left a crater about the same size as Konoha, making the other shinobi gulp at the thought of the bijūdama hitting its mark.
Minato finally ended the series of hand signs right before Gamabunta vanished in a puff of smoke. The other shinobi braced themselves for their deaths. The attack never came.
"Hiraishin no Jutsu!" Minato yelled as he teleported himself as well as the Kyūbi to an area near the safe-house where his only family was in, him being an orphan.
"Minato-kun?" Kushina asked cautiously as she stepped out of the safe-house with Naruto in her arms.
She had felt the chakra of the Kyūbi and her husband appear outside the safe-house. Unable to leave her son behind, she had scooped up the child into her arms as she left the room. Kushina quickly lashed the bijū down with her chakra chains.
"Kushina-chan..." Minato said seriously as he trailed off.
"Is there no other choice?" Kushina questioned, her eyes begging her husband to tell her otherwise.
"There is no other way..." Minato breathed out, sadness and guilt all over his features.
"I do not want for our son to live the life of a jinchūriki. I'd bet that everyone in the village'll know of his status as jinchūriki, ya know?" Kushina mumbled softly.
"But if we do this, our son will be the hero. He should at least be treated as such!" Minato declared.
"If you say so..." Kushina reluctantly conceded.
With that, Minato did the hand signs to summon the shinigami. He sealed the Kyūbi within Naruto with the Shiki Fūin with the help of the Shinigami in exchange for his soul. He was prepared to be stuck in eternal darkness. All for the sake of his son and village.
Right before the Kyūbi had been sucked into the seal, Obito made it attack little Naruto. Before Asura could react, Minato and Kushina both jumped in the way of the incoming claw. Asura cursed internally at how his newest transmigrant will be orphaned on his first day in the world.
As the blond male finished up the sealing and said his last words along with Kushina to the small child, Asura used his extensive knowledge of sealing to hide the fact that the boy had the Kyūbi sealed in his gut. Just as Hiruzen ran into the clearing, Minato and Kushina took their last breaths and Asura let his memories be suppressed and lay dormant. He knew, somehow, that they would return when the boy needed them most.
And he hoped it would not be anytime soon.
A young boy, barely three, ran through the alleys of Konoha, trying to shake off the mob that had been hot on his heels ever since he had left the orphanage. The matron had ordered him to get lost so that the other children could properly celebrate the festival always hosted on this day. In other words, it is Naruto's birthday. His third birthday, to be exact.
Naruto had no idea why people were chasing after him, nor why they were calling him names like "demon brat" and "kitsune". All he knew was that he liked foxes for some odd reason and did not really mind that that was what they called him. He just did not understand why they called him a demon or acted like being called a fox is an insult.
Naruto soon ran into a dead-end, surprised that he had not run into one sooner. He backed into the wall, cowering at the withering glares he received from the villagers and a few low-level chūnin. Naruto began to tremble in fear.
"I'm sorry! I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry!" Naruto yelled, hoping that it would halt the villagers' approach.
It did not work.
"Oh? You, sorry? You most definitely didn't look very sorry when you killed my husband!" a woman yelled from the crowd.
"You, demon, killed my beautiful son!" another woman yelled.
"This is for my father!" one of the chūnin shouted as he stabbed Naruto in the hand with a kunai.
The rest of the shinobi pelted the poor blond with weapons, pinning him to the wall. Villagers went up to him, taking turns to punch him or kick him. Then they started to carve words into his flesh: "demon", "monster", "useless". All Naruto could do was scream out in pain as he finally fell unconscious, not noticing as the villagers and shinobi too fell to the ground as the kanji for sleep glowed on their shoulders before dimming and melting away.
Naruto found himself in a dark sewer. Without even considering how he got there, he began walking in a seemingly random direction. He eventually found himself in a cavern with large prison bars at the other end. Naruto pondered what sort of creature would require such a gigantic prison as he walked through the bars without heed for his safety.
"Father?" Naruto heard a voice call out in surprise, "Old man?"
Naruto found himself replying without any form of hesitation, almost automatically, "I am not tou-san."
Naruto did not register what the words had come from his mouth, as though out of habit, until a few seconds later. That was when it came.
A whole flurry of memories, of another life, rushed him. He could suddenly remember having a father and growing up with his older brother, Indra. His name was Asura. He had daily friendly matches with his brother and their father loved them both. He eventually got the position of his father's successor despite being younger. This caused a rift between himself and his older brother.
He remembered living again, as Senju Hashirama, an overly cheerful man. When he was still but a child, he befriended a boy by the name of Madara. Due to the clan wars ongoing, neither revealed their clan names. They often discussed what they should do to achieve peace. They eventually concluded that the solution was a village, a safe haven for all clans that wished to join.
However, at some point, they got caught by their clans, being separated for a long period. Their dream did come into fruition, a safe hidden village Madara named "Konoha" rather lamely as the village was situated in a forest in Hi no Kuni. Peace was something that lasted for quite a while, at least until hidden villages began to pop up all over the elemental nations.
These villages, despite their original intention to provide the clans within with peace and safety, began to lust for more power. They launched attacks at the well-known strongest village which was also the first to be founded, Konoha. Although Konoha always won these skirmishes, it eventually became an all-out war. This war was later known as the First Great Shinobi War.
During this war, many Konoha shinobi died and even more enemy shinobi perished. It was horrifying. Soon after, the Second Great Shinobi War happened. Even more Konoha shinobi died, but Konoha still emerged victoriously.
Among the injured shinobi was Uchiha Izuna, Madara's younger brother. He died soon after from a slow-acting poison, giving his older brother his own Sharingan as a gift. This greatly saddened Madara, who fell deeply into grief.
Madara eventually found the Naka Shrine, finding the method to use Infinite Tsukuyomi there and how with it, Otsutsuki Kaguya was able to achieve peace. Madara decided to aim to achieve that. He left the village under the guise of death after collecting a sample of Hashirama's DNA, eventually achieving the rinnegan through methods he refused to explain. He had told Asura all this while they waited for their next transmigrants. Asura, though, was almost completely sure that Indra had managed this through a combination of the two DNAs.
By the time Madara managed this, Hashirama had already died. Asura had to watch his progress from where he floated at the edge of existence.
Madara died soon after he had found Obito and moulded him to his own needs. He received his past memories upon his death, suddenly realising with a start that if mankind had worked together to defeat an enemy far too great for them to defeat on their own, they would fear the mere thought of going into war again. They would most likely not even want to, seeing as they would have bonded with those from other villages. Asura had nothing against this plan, despite finding it rather harsh.
Now, with the knowledge of what monsters humans can become when overcome by hatred, Asura finally agreed that Indra's idea was possibly the only method to achieve long-term peace. Now, as Naruto, he would try to work with the transmigrant of Indra instead of fighting him as he had done before. Asura will vanquish the darkness in Indra's heart if he had reverted to his previous state once again.
Asura swore on it.
Naruto greeted the Kyūbi.
"Hello, Kurama. Long time no see. I'm sorry, need to go, Kura-nii. I'll come back later," Naruto said hurriedly before leaving his mindscape.
Naruto, now with all of the memories that were suppressed for the past three years, went to the Hokage tower as he recalled the location from Hashirama's memories, ignoring the humans out cold around him. He decided to tell the Sandaime, who had treated Naruto like his grandson and Hashirama had trained in Hiruzen's youth. Hiruzen did visit every now and again to check on the boy, while the matron acted like she treated Naruto the same as the other children only on those visits so as to avoid his suspicion.
Hiruzen had been a self-confident brat in his youth, but had grown to become wiser with age.
Naruto took the rooftops as he made his way to the tall tower in the middle of the village. He knocked on the door after slipping past the receptionist he recognised as one of the onlookers that did not participate in his torture and had managed to leave before his tormentors were knocked out. Although his wounds have all healed without so much as a scar to show that he had ever been injured.
Naruto heard a muffled cry of "come in!" as Hiruzen groaned at another document on his table.
"You'd better not be coming in with yet another stack of this damned paperwork or I'll-" Hiruzen started before he cut himself off, seeing Naruto.
"Naruto-kun?" Hiruzen said worriedly as he went up to Naruto, concerned by the sheer amount of blood coating his body.
"It's okay, jiji. They have healed completely a while ago," Naruto said softly while Hiruzen quickly scanned his body for wounds.
"Who did this to you?" Hiruzen asked as he looked up at Naruto sharply.
"The villagers. The matron told me to 'get lost', I quote. They were waiting to ambush me," Naruto mumbled.
"They were?" Hiruzen asked, about to ask the ANBU to go get the villagers involved.
"Don't worry, they're all back in the back alley behind the civilian shopping district. The blood's all mine. They're only just knocked out. They'll wake in several hours," Naruto interrupted.
"Oh? How did you know I was worried?" Hiruzen asked, genuinely curious.
"You spiked your chakra and were about to make hand signs, sign language, maybe, towards the ceiling where I feel seven different chakra signatures in the rafters," Naruto replied nonchalantly.
"Seven? But there are only six!" Hiruzen told Naruto.
"Those six are yours, yes? The other isn't. That's all there is to it," Naruto replied as he grabbed a book off the study desk, tossing it with deadly precision.
The book hit the ROOT ANBU in the back of the neck, causing the man to fall to the floor with a loud thud. Another ANBU, with an animal mask, jumped down, taking the ANBU away.
"So Danzō sent spies to check on me..." Hiruzen muttered, disappointed in his ex-teammate's choice of action.
"Danzō?" Naruto asked, recalling the boy who had great dreams for the village under Tobirama's tutelage.
"Yes, Danzō. How did you know they were there? Are you a sensor?" Hiruzen sighed.
"Hmm... Maybe. What's a sensor?" Naruto asked, pretending to be oblivious.
"It means you can sense chakra," Hiruzen explained.
"Oh."
'He's probably a natural at sensing due to his Uzumaki heritage,' Hiruzen concluded to himself.
Hiruzen smiled at him, sending his ANBU to retrieve the unconscious people. He then pulled out a few forms from a drawer.
"Would you like to have your own apartment and all that? I know that you're still young and need a guardian but I do not trust anyone in the village with you. They may hurt you. I am too busy with these ahem, annoying stacks of paperwork to take care of you," Hiruzen tried to explain.
"I would like that," Naruto told him, surprised by his thoughtfulness.
"I shall arrange for that," Hiruzen said warmly.
"Thank you, jiji," Naruto said with a smile.
"Anything for you, Naruto-kun. I'll give you a monthly allowance-"
"I apologise, but I would prefer it if you were to send me food. Money will not do anything if I cannot even enter stores. I would be overcharged if I could, anyway," Naruto told him.
Hiruzen face-palmed at how he failed to think it through.
"Of course. I'll get you furniture and all that along with clothes too. The food will be sent weekly. You'll still get a monthly allowance of 1,000 ryō," Hiruzen told Naruto.
"I cannot thank you enough, jiji," Naruto said gratefully, now finding it slightly strange to call someone who had lived through much less compared to himself, "jiji".
It almost made him feel discomfort.
Hiruzen only shook his head with a fond smile playing on his lips. He brought Naruto to a nice apartment near the Uchiha district. Although the apartment was new, people have yet to live in it.
"You'll stay here. Since I doubt anyone would wish to live near you with no evil intention, I shall give you the whole building and the space within this complex. Do as you wish with it. The keys to all the apartments are here," Hiruzen told Naruto, handing him a ring of keys.
Hiruzen pulled out a sealing scroll and unsealed a futon.
"You can sleep on this for now. I will bring you your furniture... Later today. What colours?" Hiruzen said as he noticed that it was one in the morning.
"My favourite colours? Erm... Cyan, navy blue, crimson red, gold, silver and um... Yeah, that's it," Naruto told Hiruzen with a thoughtful look on his face.
"I see."
Naruto waved at Hiruzen as he vanished in a shunshin, entering an apartment.
'You know what? I don't like this place,' Naruto commented to Kurama.
"That doesn't concern me, Asura," Kurama grumbled, annoyed at being woken up from his nap.
Naruto shrugged, walking back out of the building as he eyed it with a frown. That was until a brilliant idea surfaced. After all, what better way to get a living space suiting your needs than to build one yourself? Moreover, the whole large plot of land belonged to him.
Naruto used Doton to turn the whole apartment into a large trench. He proceeded to use Mokuton to make the basic structure of the house, covering all with stone using Doton. He did all these with only chakra, not bothering to use jutsu. Asura did live in a time where his father's Ninshu had not yet been perverted into ninjutsu, after all. He did not have any hand signs back in the day that was required for his techniques.
Naruto made the flooring wooden, using quartz to encase it. He did this with Shōton, which he was able to use as Asura. Asura had all five chakra natures, as did Indra. However, their descendants failed to share that trait. Naruto, for some reason, had all of Asura and Hashirama's abilities. Asura was the only one of the two brothers to experiment with chakra natures to form the various chakra types that are now known as kekkei genkai as people often lack the natural innate ability to mould two chakra natures together in the right ratio. Asura had also dabbled in fūinjutsu far more than Indra ever did. Indra always had his amazingly overpowered eyes while Asura had to rely on everything else he could manage to get his hands on.
Naruto then went to the forest where he made paints of various colours (his favourite colours). He used a few different types of stone and minerals on the exterior of the house, making stone walls surround the house, leaving seals to prevent people from barging in with a force field that can deflect any and every attack in any form. A single metal gate was the only entrance to the place, both the walls and the gate with what looked like intricate carvings he made with Doton and Kotōn respectively. The patterns were that of dragons, gold inlaying them. The gate had the same markings as the Rikudō Sennin's sage cloak. There was also an unlocking pad where only Naruto's chakra was needed to open the large, heavy gate.
Naruto quickly painted the interior and left it to dry and, using Mokuton, seeds taken from beautiful plants and yang chakra were used to make a beautiful garden outside. He left a large underground room empty to use as a training ground. Naruto purposely made pretty flowering creeper plants grow all over the wall, another type of flower, morning glory, on the wrought steel gates that only showed a little bit of the lawn and the front porch of the house.
Naruto decided to sleep for a while before his grandfather figure came, checking that the button that acted as a doorbell with the help of some seals was working. Naruto then went to sleep in where he planned to have his living room.
Hiruzen took his time, selecting the best and most luxurious furniture. It was the least he could do after leaving Naruto at the mercy of the very people that hate him for so long. Hiruzen made sure that all the colours were within the colour scheme he was given. Hiruzen paused at the bed frames as he tried to decide which to get. One was a beautiful silver-embedded pine, the other rosewood embossed with gold.
Hiruzen just could not make up his mind. Both were king-sized. The designs were different, one depicting a forest with all sorts of forest creatures (well ravens, mostly), the other was of mythical creatures (mostly dragons). Hiruzen decided to just get both. Naruto had so many rooms, after all, he can just switch between rooms as he please. Hiruzen purchased matching bedside tables and wardrobes for each of the two bed frames. He then got a large study table made out of cherry wood, somehow fused into a smooth surface. Hiruzen got the most comfortable mattresses he could find, taking two of them such that there was one for each bed frame.
Hiruzen also bought a kitchen set made of dark marble, black with gold and silver veins. High-quality pots, pans and other items were also purchased along with an ebon dining table that had cyan gems inlaid within the beautiful carvings.
All this caused quite the dent in Hiruzen's pocket, but he did not care. He shoved everything into a bunch of sealing scrolls, placing the scrolls into a backpack that he picked up before using shunshin to get to Naruto's property. That was when he saw the large compound on the very ground where the apartment once stood. Hiruzen made sure to check that it was the right place, looking around as he checked things off a mental checklist.
This was the right place, but the building looked like it had been there for years. Plants were already growing on the walls and gate! The trees were tall enough to be seen from the other side!
Hiruzen decided to check. He pressed the doorbell, waiting patiently for the owner of the house to show up. Naruto casually walked out and unlocked the gate, letting the old man in.
"Naruto? What's all this?" Hiruzen asked in confusion, gesturing around him.
"You said that it was my property, did you not?" Naruto asked, perplexed by his reaction, not noticing anything unusual about his new living quarters.
"No. It's just, how did you make this place? How was it completed so quickly?" Hiruzen asked, baffled.
"Magic," Naruto said simply, hiding an amused smirk with a poker face.
"Tell me," Hiruzen said sternly.
"I already did," Naruto replied innocently.
Hiruzen sighed and shook his head in exasperation at the blond's antics. He pulled the large bag off his back, showing Naruto the scrolls. Naruto only nodded before leading him into the house, which despite all its grandeur, had no interior decoration of any kind.
Naruto led Hiruzen around the house, allowing him to unseal items and set them up in the house.
Hiruzen left an envelope with money inside on the new dining table before leaving the house to allow Naruto his rest, seeing as he had probably been up all night building the house.
"Naruto-kun, would you like to attend the shinobi academy?" Hiruzen asked the said boy.
"I don't mind," Naruto told Hiruzen, knowing that his biological parents were shinobi as well.
Hiruzen only nodded in reply, passing him a copy of the entrance exam.
"I am a jinchūriki," Naruto suddenly said as he took the piece of paper from the Hokage.
Hiruzen froze, eyes widened.
"Who told you?" Hiruzen barely managed out.
Naruto almost rolled his eyes at Hiruzen's antics. "Who would not notice a huge nine-tailed fox sealed in their gut?"
Hiruzen's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. He had assumed that whoever told Naruto of that fact only told him of his status as a jinchūriki, not of which bijū he housed. Moreover, he did not think that Naruto would figure it out on his own.
"Why the Kyūbi?" Hiruzen asked, trying to feign confusion.
"I was born on the day the Kyūbi no Kitsune was supposedly killed. A bijū with chakra like that of the Kyūbi needs to be sealed within a newborn baby or Uzumaki who have strong life forces. I was the only one to fit the criteria," Naruto replied simply as though it was the most obvious thing he could ask, as though Hiruzen was stupid for even asking that.
"Where did you get information about your clan? All of those books were burned!" Hiruzen asked sharply.
"You did not destroy everything. I was still able to (re)discover my heritage," Naruto said, thinking the "re" instead of saying it aloud.
"Do you-" Hiruzen was about to ask when Naruto interrupted.
"Know my parents? Why wouldn't I? It's no secret - I look so much like the Yondaime that whoever is unable to tell has to be an idiot. I am not as stupid as you seem to think," Naruto told him seriously.
Hiruzen nodded numbly.
"You do know that the academy instructors probably will not train me, right?" Naruto asked Hiruzen.
Hiruzen blinked. 'I never thought of that.'
"So I am requesting for permission to send a solid clone to school in my stead while I study alone," Naruto continued as he noticed his grandfather figure process his words.
"Of course, I will attend on days with physical training so as to avoid being found out," Naruto explained.
"All right. I see nothing wrong with you doing that. I permit you to do as you just said," Hiruzen stated with a nod.
"May I be permitted to enter the Hokage's library as well as the shinobi section of the public library?" Naruto asked once more.
"Of course," Hiruzen said kindly, passing Naruto an amulet that gave him access to the Hokage's library and a card to flash to enter the library.
"Thank you, jiji," Naruto said with a smile, the form of address coming out smoothly this time.
"Anything for you, Naruto-kun," Hiruzen replied with a warm smile.
Naruto went into the village, entering a clothing store. To get rid of him, the shopkeeper threw a whole crate of clothing rejects at Naruto. He left the store, checking the contents of the package. He saw bundles of hideously orange jumpsuits with Uzumaki swirls and a bit of bright blue here and there. It would make anyone stick out like a sore thumb.
Naruto nodded to himself, deciding to wear the horrid thing to the academy. He went back home, writing down what he should act like in the academy:
Personality: optimistic and cheerful, stupid and dumb, slow-witted
Obsession(s): ramen
Likes: orange, Hiruzen, human interaction
Goal(s): become Hokage
Naruto shuddered at the final one. He would never want to face the paperwork again. He conquered it once as Hashirama, he did not want to suffer that again. Should he ever be forced into such a role, he would just send clones in his stead.
With that, he prepared for the entrance ceremony.
That was actually tomorrow.
