Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Chapter 4

It was just after midday as two figures travelled towards the border the Fire Country. The scorching sun beamed through the grand trees of the forest. The smaller of the two, a boy not even seven years old yet, appeared to be sunk deep in his thoughts. On one hand he was happy to finally meet his biological family and learn their techniques, though on the other hand he hated the thought of having to leave his beloved Konoha for what seemed to be quite a while.

The longest he had ever been away from home was the month it took him to travel back and forth the Hidden Waterfall village during the Chuunin exam. He knew this time he'd be away much longer as he didn't expect to master a completely new bloodline limit within such a small amount of time.

As his mind returned back to reality he looked up to his guardian, who just jumped to the next tree branch.

"Ano Ero-sennin, how long do you think we'll be away from Konoha?"

The toad master turned his head slightly. "Expect to be gone for at least a year kid." Hearing this brought back the sombre look on his face. Jiraiya continued. "First we will see your family and stay with them for a while until you have learned everything about their techniques. I've requested to your kasaan if I can take you around the shinobi villages for a while so you can learn more about besides Konoha."

When the words 'bloodline limit' were mentioned, Naruto brightened up a little as he tried to get his sensei's attention again. "What do you know about this bloodline limit?"

The toad sannin pondered his student's question for a second before replying. "I think it's best to leave the explanation to your family. I will tell you that I think you are going to love it. I don't know the details but from what I've heard it's very powerful."

Being the eager boy he is, the caused a big fox grin on the boy's face. "Sugoi Ero-sennin! Soon I will be able to kick your perverted ass and there's nothing you can do about it!"

Annoyed, Jiraiya stopped in his tracks, causing Naruto to crash into his sensei and fall down on the floor.

"Hey, what did you do that for old man?" Jiraiya cracked his knuckles before speaking up. "You know Naruto, if I kill you here right now, no one will know it was me. That way you will never be able to defeat me…."

Naruto swallowed. Although he didn't appreciate his mentor's pervertedness, he was even more wary of his serious moments.

"Gomen Jiraiya-sensei. Even I realise that it will take me many years before I can even think about being on the level of the great toad summoner Jiraiya." He had always known that the old man was very sensitive to this kind of tactic. Soon, a smile appeared on his face as he helped his student up.

"Good you little brat, I knew you had it in you. From now on I expect this kind of behaviour from you. If not, you will meet my true wrath," he finished as Naruto noticed as mixture of extreme sadism and pervertedness on the man's face. "Whatever Ero-sennin," he said half-heartedly while jumping back on the tree. An annoyed Jiraiya followed his example and soon the two were on their way again.

A few hours later the two reached the border of the Fire Country. They sat down for a short break when Jiraiya told Naruto that he should take of his forehead protector as he didn't want to attract unwanted attention from enemy shinobi. He was also told not to use any of his Uzumaki techniques for the time being until he got stronger. Naruto reluctantly agreed to both as they started to move again.

"We should hurry up," Naruto was told. "I arranged for them to meet up with us on the border of Wind Country and Earth Country." Naruto nodded as he understood the underlying message. "We don't want to keep my family waiting."

The rest of the journey went by fast. On their way, they ran into a gang of bandits who had mistaken them for some weak targets. Naruto quickly dispersed of them as he showed off his new and improved Rasengan, much to the admiration of his sensei who made a mental note to learn that himself when he was alone.

Four days later, they reached the border between the countries of Wind and Earth. The area looked deserted and barren, a mixture between the former's windy desert and the latter's rocky layout, creating a place no sane person would want to live. Everything seemed dead or dying. The wind caused the sand from the desert to fly through the air and torture the people that walked through it.

The two Konoha shinobi decided to head for a nearby cave area to wait for the Hitomi clan as they were able to scan the whole area from over there.

As they sat down to rest and eat something, they suddenly felt the air tightening around them and found it hard to move. "Fuujin: Air Solidifying Seal" they heard coming from inside the cave.

Naruto felt his heartbeat shooting up now that he was completely stuck and unable to defend himself. When he looked to the man next to him, he could only see a smile on his face as he spoke.

"I guess you found us first…….. Amato-sama."

Three men approached the trapped duo. The one standing in the middle spoke. "You're getting sloppy Jiraiya-san, we could have killed you both if we had hostile intentions."

Embarrassed, the older of the two looked at his feat, searching for a way out of this. "It was the brat's fault Amato-sama. He……." He gave up as he knew there was no way out of this.

Amato smiled as he released the jutsu. He reached out his hand towards a very confused Naruto. "You must be young Uzumaki Naruto. We have heard a lot about you my boy," the older man said, carefully taxing the nervous six-year old.

Naruto finally decided to grab his hand as he stood up, starting to understand who these mysterious people were.

"Forgive me for the rather unfriendly welcome," Amato explained. "You have to understand that my people have grown very careful since the incident. .

It was like a light bulb was turned on inside Naruto's brain. "Y..Yo…You are.." when he was interrupted. " Yes boy, we are what's left of the Hitomi clan. My name is Hitomi Amato. These two men are my nephews Hiro and Kozu."

Naruto gave a slight bow to the two men when Amato moved closer to him. "Let me have a look at you," he said as he inspected the kid, who was told by Jiraiya to stay quiet until he was accepted.

"I see he has my daughter's chin and hands." Jiraiya replied. "Yes Amato-sama, though it seems the rest of his looks have come from his father."

Amato snorted. "Well, that seems to be the first time he was able to get the upper hand in anything that concerned Akane. I sure hope the kid is blessed with her personality."

Naruto, confused and exited by what he just heard, chose to speak up. "Ano Amato-sama, you mentioned me looking like your daughter. Doe….Does t-that mean…."

Amato gave him his warmest smile. "Yes Naruto-kun, your mother was my daughter. I am your grandfather…."

Naruto couldn't hold back his tears anymore when he heard these magical words. The hurled himself forward towards his newfound grandfather and started to cry uncontrollably. For a moment, Amato didn't know what to do. The Hitomi weren't particularly known for their affectionate behaviour.

He soon regained his composure, knelt down to the boy who was still hugging his leg and gave him a firm hug. Smiling, he thought to himself "maybe this boy can change us for the better. I feel I haven't lost you completely Akane…"

Shortly after, the two arrivals were led further into the cave. They were greeted by eleven other members of the clan. There was Amato's younger sister Yuriko, her two daughters Miho and Tomomi. Miho's husband had died during the attack years ago. Tomomi's husband Atamaru was still alive. Together they had two sons, Makona and Hide, and a daughter, called Yumi. The children were below the age of 5.

The remaining members of the clan were Atamaru's older brother Hiroyasu, his wife Lati and their two children Tado and Maru, who were both in their twenties.

After everybody was introduced to one another, Naruto had a good look at his family. He found that his grandfather, although already in his fifties, looked most similar to him. He noticed everyone wore the same outfit. Violet shorts or trousers and virgin white tops. Some of them also wore an emerald with violet jacked, carrying their family's crest on the back. It looked like three lines of spiralling air waves forming a triangular shape. The inside of the triangle had a heavenly light-blue colour. Most clan members had blonde hair, though not by far as blond as the new addition to their family. Their faces showed sharp features, indicating a strict training regime.

That evening, all sat down in a circle around a large bonfire to eat. Some of the men had gone hunting earlier that day and managed to bring back some rabbits and birds. During the meal, Amato told the two guests about what happened to clan.

They originally came from the Hidden Village of Air, a shinobi village that always maintained impartial in inter-village affairs. His clan used to be the rightful leader of the village. This changed when the village council decided to sire with Leaf traitor Orochimaru. Amato's father, at that time leader, opposed against this and was challenged by the snake sannin, a fight which killed him.

Fearing their lives, the rest of the clan fled from the village and travelled around. Some months later, they were found and attacked by Orochimaru who used Edo Tensei to summon ten of the strongest members of the clan who had already passed away, who killed the whole group.

When the members who weren't present at the time of the attack returned and found their clansmen dead, they decided to split up and wander around in smaller groups to avoid more killings. Every now and then they would send their summons to meet up and exchange messages. It wasn't until just before Jiraiya found them they had found it save to regroup and travel together again. They swore never to return to the villager until they had broken all bonds with the bastard snake.

Then Amato explained that they knew Akane had gotten pregnant from the Fourth. After news of Kyuubi's attack, which killed both the Fourth and Akane, had reached them, they could do nothing but t assume that Naruto was dead as well. Even then, they couldn't risk exposing themselves by going to Konoha and risk another slaughter.

Since then they've been wandering around, not staying at the same place for more than a few weeks. They used four layers of high level genjutsu to conceal their hideouts so that it could be used again in the future.

When the night fell, everyone went to sleep. Naruto was told his training would start the next day. His sleep wouldn't come quickly though as he tried to process the new information that he had received that day. He silently promised his family that one day he would be strong enough to kill Orochimaru and have them return to their village.

The next day Jiraiya told his student he had to leave for a while to check up on some rumours that had come to him through his contacts. They agreed to meet up in six months time in the Cloud Country. After he left, Amato and Hiro took the young boy to a secluded area to commence his training.

"Naruto, I heard from Jiraiya-san that you don't know about your Hitomi bloodline limit yet, right?"

The boy just nodded as his grandfather continued. " It has four aspects to it. First of all we have the ability to perform one-handed seals. Few other shinobi are capable of this and even then they can only do this for relatively low level jutsus or techniques involving their own bloodline limit. I believe the Uchiha clan from your village can do that."

Naruto felt like jumping in the air, hearing he would be able to do this but forced himself to stay calm and listen.

Hiro took over from the old clan leader. "The Uchiha's sharingan eye can copy one handed seals, but not from us," he said as he performed three one-handed seals after which his hands started to be surrounded by white chakra.

"When using our 'Blind Aura no jutsu', no one will be able to copy any of our skills or even anticipate our next jutsu by analysing the pattern of the chakra we mould for the next technique as they simply can't see it."

All this good news became too much for Naruto to shit up. "SUGOI!" he screamed, earning a glare from his uncle while his grandfather couldn't help but smile.

When Naruto sat down again, Hiro went on. "When the time is right for you, you will get a summoning contract from our family. In your case this will be the contract for the Wild Lion, King of the Tundra tribe. This used to be your mother's summon. The tribe leader Surumoto is a tough one but as he was fond of your mother you have a good chance to get accepted by him as well.

Naruto couldn't believe his luck as he jumped around like a drunken kangaroo. When he had finally calmed down again, his grandfather spoke up again.

"Another trait of our ability is being able to fully conceal your chakra. Haven't you noticed that none of us show any sign of chakra?"

The young blonde hadn't given it much thought but now that it was mentioned, he did know something was missing, but had shrugged it off in all his excitement.

"This ability proves to be very useful as your enemy will find it extra difficult to locate you. We are not sure whether or not you can get rid of Kyuubi's chakra as well because this is the first time someone from our clan has a second source of chakra, but we'll find out as soon as we train on this."

Again Hiro took over. "Our clan also has its won taijutsu style, called Dance of the Diamond. It doesn't directly involve our bloodline limit, but used in accordance with it, it becomes extra powerful. This style involves high impact strikes to the enemy's body. We harden our own body to its maximum through extensive training so we can focus less on defending and blocking, but instead execute our next attack faster, therefore surprising the opponent."

"NANI? You just let other kick your ass so you can hit them faster? What is that for stupid tactic?" Naruto yelled angrily. He couldn't believe they expected him just to take hits so he could surprise his opponent.

"Quite boy!" Hiro was getting very annoyed now. "When your body has been trained for this style, it will be no problem anymore. The only catch is that you harden your body as much as possible." Then a sadistic smirk appeared on Hiro's face. "I believe we can help you with that."

Naruto found it hard to swallow. He wasn't sure if he going to be able to pull this off, earning a loud growl from inside his body. His grandfather saw the doubt on his face and knew exactly what to say to motivate him.

"ARE YOU A COWARD BRAT? ARE WE WAISTING OUR TIME ON A MERE WEAKLING?" he screamed of the top of his lungs.

Hearing these words, steam had started to come out of Naruto's ears. "NOBODY CALLS UZUMAKI NARUTO A WEAKLING!"

"Well, prove it kid," Hiro added to his anger. "I WILL ACCOMPLISH EVERY TASK YOU GIVE ME AND I WILL NOT TAKE BACK MY WORD. THAT IS MY NINDO! I AM THE FUTURE HOKAGE OF KONOHA, DON'T YOU DARE HOLDING BACK ON ME OLD MEN!"

Both men could do nothing but laugh as Amato thought. "I knew this would work. His faster reacted the exact same way when I questioned his loyalty towards my daughter."

"Then consider it a deal. From now on we will teach you in our family abilities. We will start by teaching you to hide your chakra because at the moment your presence is endangering all of us. When you have done this we can see what can be done with Kyuubi's chakra."

"Then it's arranged. From now on we will teach you in our family's abilities. We'll start by teaching you to hide your chakra because right now your presence is endangering us. After that, we will see how much of Kyuubi's chakra you can hide."

He continued. "When this is done, we will split the days in four parts. From six till eleven in the morning we will train your body to become stringer and able to withstand more pain. During the afternoon, some of us will go hunting. When you have obtained your summon, you will have to join them occasionally. When you stay at the camp, some of the other will help you in converting your jutsus into one-handed seals."

Amato paused to catch his breath. "From four in the afternoon onwards, we train you in our taijutsu style. After that you will train by yourself. I have been told that Jiraiya gave you 5 scrolls withy two of his stringer ninjutsu and three Uzumaki sealing techniques. If you Uzumaki are the sealing masters you claim to be you shall be delighted to learn some of the sealing skills from Hidden Air as well."

"During your stay here, I expect you to practise these techniques as well as your Uzumaki taijutsu style. I promised Jiraiya that by the time he comes back you have mastered all of them and like you I don't go back on my word either. You will call us sensei during your training."

Naruto bowed his head in understanding. "Hai Amato-sensei, I think you will be pleasantly surprised to see my own training standards. I don't intend to disappoint my new family."

Amato smiled at his grandson. "Good, if you train as hard as you claim to do, you will master your Hitomi bloodline limit. It is only then that you will be allowed to go by your full name Uzumaki Hitomi Naruto."

Naruto stood up and nodded to Amato and Hiro. "Also I have to train extra hard as I have to defeat a certain old man back in Konoha to earn the greatest of all summons."

Amato asked Naruto to explain himself further. When he was told that Emna, the ape king had demanded that he beat Sandaime in a taijutsu fight to earn his tribe's allegiance, he turned to Hiro. "If this kid has to defeat the third Hokage of Konoha when he comes back, we have a lot of work to do."

He looked at his grandson, who was leaning on a rock, lazily looking at the scenery. "On the other hand, if he was chosen to summon the apes, he must be an extraordinary child."

He signalled Naruto to come to them. "Kid, if you want to defeat the one they call 'The Professor' we'd better get started. That man is nowhere near your current level." All Naruto did was assume his nice guy pose, causing his onlookers to sweat drop.

"It's a good thing he left that village for a while. He seems to have picked up this really disturbing habit. I wonder who he got that from."

Six months passed quickly as a large group of fishermen approached Cloud Country. The group showed absolutely no signs of having the chakra and stamina of full-fledged shinobi.

The Hitomi clan used Henge to disguise themselves as poor workers to avoid unwanted attention. They were two days late, so they would have to start looking for the toad sennin.

It was Naruto who suggested heading for the hot springs. When they arrived there, it didn't take them long to find an old man giggling from behind a large tree, while taking notes and looking through his telescope.

Naruto sneaked up to his mentor and could hear the man mumbling." Yeeeees little girls, run, jump….do it all. Oh I love this country. The ladies are delicious."

Jiraiya had no idea someone was right behind him until it was too late. His young apprentice performed Sennen Goroshi on his backside, making him flying through the air and falling in the ladies section of the hot spring. Soon PEEEEEEERVEEEEEEEERT could be heard all over the country as Jiraiya was severely beaten up by around fifty very angry naked women.

After he was finished channelling his anger on Naruto, the whole group headed towards one of the Hitomi hideouts in the vicinity. They soon sat together catching up on the past six months.

Jiraiya refused to reveal why he had to contact his informants but was more than interested in the boy's progress. When Amato finished explaining what his grandson was capable of now, the perverted hermit couldn't help but to be very impressed.

Naruto had by now completely mastered the Uzumaki Kenamju taijutsu style and was able to incorporate it with his other two styles from Konoha along with his Kirameki and Shunshin no jutsu. He was currently working on using other jutsus with it as well.

He had finished the jutsus given to him by Jiraiya and picked up a few Hidden Air skills. Also he could now perform all his jutsus using only on hand. He was practising doing two jutsus at the same time but found this extremely difficult. He hard a very hard time concentrating as he needed to divide his attention on two things at the same time.

Kyuubi's chakra turned impossible to fully conceal after all. Naruto was able to reveal only the amount of chakra equal to a weak Genin, but going further proved impossible.

He had learned three quarters of the Dance of the Diamond style, but according to Hiro he was useless with it for the simple reason that his body wasn't strong enough yet.

After learning his summon, he often joined the men on their hunting trips, subsequently improving his tracking and stealth skills. Also by using his chakra as a weighted suit he had gotten used to releasing the exact same amount of chakra constantly. His speed had improved a lot because of this.

Looks wise, Naruto changed tremendously. His hair had grown out, almost identical to his father. His body was now slightly toned due to his family's merciless training regime.

His old clothes were gone. Instead he wore violet and orange trousers, his family's virgin white top and an emerald with orange jacket. The back of his top and jacket were decorated with his own personal crest, He had included his Uzumaki swirl into the Hitomi triangular shape with the same heavenly light-blue colour inside. Around the three sides of the triangle, he had positioned nine red fox tails, evenly divided over the sides, representing his allegiance to Kyuubi.

It was decided that Jiraiya would join the family on their travels for the next six months, although he would have to leave every now and then to catch upon his 'work'. The coming period Naruto would train on mastering his Hitomi taijutsu style most of the time, together with making his body stronger. As soon as this was finished, it had to be integrated into his combination of other styles. Jiraiya would teach him a few new techniques. He would also exchange some jutsus with the Hitomi family as he had become very interested in some of their skills.

When it turned night, the group went to sleep, with the exception of a certain young blonde who wanted to proceed with his training as soon as possible after the long trip.

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