"Normal speech"

'Normal thoughts'

"Demon/Summon speech"

'Demon/Summon thoughts'

"Jutsu name"

flashback/memory

~locations and transitions~

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Chapter 9: A fox but not Kyuubi

The Hokage was standing in a hospital room after the incident with Mizuki was resolved and looked over the other occupants that were around the room

Anko was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed watching the hospital beds occupant.

Iruka was sitting in a chair in the corner, bandaged up with a crutch leaning on the wall next to him.

Hana was sitting on the free hospital bed, listening to the Hokage with wide eyes.

Inoichi was standing in the corner of the room, next to the door, with his arms crossed

The Hokage himself was standing in front of the hospital bed occupied with an unconscious Naruto, who was still wearing the burnt orange jumpsuit. He had been retelling the story of what happened four years ago.

Anko was looking at the Hokage, looking ready to hit the old man but hed herself back, waiting for the old man to finish his story. She did feel somewhat thankful to the fox for saving the gaki, even if it was only to save its own ass. As The Hokage got to the point of Mizuki tricking Naruto, Anko began to think of ways to torture the man but her thoughts stopped when she heard about Naruto's transformation and how he beat Mizuki. 'Why can't the kid ever get a break'. Her heart stopped when she heard the name of her former teacher "Orochimaru", but after hearing that there was a spy within the village, she was even more sure that she needed to protect the gaki.

Hana didn't even know what to think about what she just heard. 'The little boy that Kiba kept bragging that he kept beating, was turned into this….this….three-tailed fox? How does something like this even happen?' Looking at the fox and then back at the Hokage she became confused about what she was even doing there "um….excuse me, not to be rude but what am I doing here? I don't see why I was called here?"

The Hokage looked at Hana with a smile "I have called for you because you are friends with the boy and I require him to be examined to make sure that he is alright." Sighing tiredly he looked at the fox "As he is right now, I cannot allow a medic to see him, so I ask you to exam him since you know the boy and are a well-practiced veterinarian"

Hana was unsure how much she could help but she figured that any help she can give will be given. she got up from the bed and walked up to the fox before she began to exam him using a medical jutsu.

Anko just stood there watching her friend Hana make sure the gaki was ok. After a few seconds, she looked to the Hokage "what happened to that bastard Mizuki" the venom in her voice was recognizable to everyone conscious

The Hokage took off his hat and told them "Mizuki is being detained in the Anbu prison cell and the medics there are doing their best keeping him alive." This bit of news shocked everyone, sans Inoichi, as they were surprised to hear that the traitor was dying. not that they felt sympathy for the man. "The wounds he had received are deteriorating at an immense rate. The wounds on his hand and throat can be healed but much slower than it would usually take using the medical knowledge we have. However, the wound in his shoulder won't close and is causing him great pain, like a poison. He is at this moment being sustained as best we can so that we can interrogate him later."

Anko felt no sympathy for the man. He was a traitor to the village and worked for the snake Orochimaru. He also planned on using her favorite gaki as a scapegoat…..yep, no sympathy.

Hana had finished examining Naruto after fifteen minutes and turned to the Hokage to give her analysis "from what I can tell he has massive chakra burns on his arms and legs as well as his head, his center tail and most of his back with the most severe on his lower back close to the base of his tails. He is also suffering from an interesting case of chakra exhaustion." The Hokage, hearing this, nodded his head for her to continue "as I recall, bijuu are constructs of chakra that have somehow gained consciousness and as well as elements that give each a specialized ability or attribute. From examining….um…..Naruto here, he seems to be mostly made of chakra with some organic structure but I can't tell what is organic and what isn't. some of it is easy to tell, but as of now I can't give a hundred percent report on it."

The Hokage nodded his head in understanding "from what you have said, he is mostly made of chakra that is condensed into this form. It makes sense seeing how dense his chakra is already and how large his reserves had become that day".

Anko not really understanding what the two were saying just shook her head "some of what you said went over my head. Just tell me if he will be ok"

Hana looked at her friend with a smile "from what I can tell….yes he will be ok. In fact, he seemed to be healing much faster than any normal animal….oh um..." she felt a bit ashamed at calling Naruto an animal but with how he looks, it was hard to avoid it.

Anko just chuckled at that and looked Hana in the eyes "it's ok, with the way he looks and the fact that the old man called in a vet, he might just call himself that in a panic." She said imagining Naruto reacting in a funny way from his new form

The Hokage was dreading how Naruto would react to this "I hope his reaction won't be so severe."

~next morning, Hospital~ marker

Naruto began to shift in the bed he was laying in and realized that he was in a bed. He wanted to move but the shot of pain he got when he moved his arms told him not to 'ow! What the hell! Ugh was I attacked again? What happened yesterday?'. Naruto started to think about what happened the day before from waking up early, the exam, him failing, Ino and Hinata seeing if he was ok and then….' Mizuki! That bastard he tricked me! HE LIED TO ME, USING ME TO STEAL THE FORBIDDEN SCROLL, HE…..he…..he told me…' remembering this he had a few tears sliding down his face '...I'm the Kyuubi. I killed all those people!' He began to think that the villagers were right to do what they did to him after he killed all their families and friends *whine, yip*. After he heard the noise he made his eyes shot open as he was sure that he had tried to speak. He looked at himself and although he saw that although he was still wearing his jumpsuit, albeit ruined, the sight of what he was only caused him to panic.

Normally this wouldn't have shocked him so much since his favorite henge was a three-tailed fox however after remembering what he was told he wanted nothing to do with the animal. He didn't want to believe the words of a traitor and someone who did nothing but use him. the sight in front of him though was not helping his nerves.

"Gaki, Gaki! You have to calm down! NARUTO!"

Naruto didn't hear what was being said as he kept panicking. He pushed himself back against the back of the hospital bed until he fell off, hitting the ground hard. this didn't break him out of his panic as he kept moving back until he was against the wall. He continued pushing backward in a futile attempt to get away from his own body 'No! NO! It's not real! it's just a dream! A nightmare! I just need to wake up and I'll be normal. I just need to wake up!' He began to hyperventilate like all his breath had left him and remained out of reach.

This kept going until two hands grabbed the side of his head and moved to look into light brown eyes "Naruto! You need to calm down Naruto and take a breath."

Naruto knew those eyes 'Anko-nee-chan?' *whine yip, yip*

"you're ok. You just need to relax…."

Naruto started to relax a bit but was still anxious about what happened

Anko saw that Naruto was starting to calm down but, she needed to get the Hokage to inform him about Naruto being awake. This meant that she would need to leave Naruto alone, which didn't sit well to her. Closing her eyes and taking a breath she looked back into Naruto's eyes "Gaki, I need to go get the Hokage."

Hearing this Naruto shook his head frantically 'no! no! no! I don't want anyone else to know about this!'

"Naruto!" Anko shouted before she continued in a softer tone "It's ok. He already knows about this and he isn't mad or anything. He is just worried about you. So I need to go get him so we can talk."

Naruto felt his nerves calm down at hearing that the Hokage wasn't mad at him. he took a breath to calm down before nodding gently at the older woman.

Anko smiled lightly at seeing her favorite gaki in a much more stable state before she got up slowly and walked to the door. pausing in front of the door she turned her head to Naruto who was sitting in the corner and with a small smile she said "I'll be back in a bit. Try to stay out of trouble gaki." and with that, she left and ran fast to get back as soon as possible

Naruto just sat on his haunches for a few minutes until he went to the hospital bed to grab the pillow and blanket with his mouth and with a little effort he pulled them off the bed and moved them to the corner and just laid down on the pillow and the blanket on top of him completing covering him and just stayed there.

~20 minutes later~

Hiruzen along with Anko walked into the hospital room but was confused since he didn't see Naruto in the room. "Naruto? Are you here?" he asked looking around the room. He heard some shifting in the corner and noticed a blanket moving. He saw Naruto move out from the blanket with his head hanging down and tails dragging on the floor with one in between his legs. "Ah Naruto, there you are." he said in a grandfatherly tone, getting Naruto to lift his head a bit to look him in the eyes

Naruto felt his fear die down when his Jiji spoke as if nothing was wrong. He looked at the Hokage and Anko before *yip, yip, yap, whine* it was at this point that Naruto realized that he couldn't speak to them like this 'how can I talk to them if I can't say anything! I can't speak like this! And this isn't a henge I can't change back to normal….or is this normal for me?'

Hiruzen noticed that Naruto is unable to speak like this, while Anko looked worried for the gaki. Hiruzen began to think for a bit on how to communicate with the boy and stared at Naruto until he thought of something "Naruto you are able to use the henge right?"

Naruto hearing the question looked up and nodded.

"Are you not able to do a henge without hand seals?" he said as he looked at Naruto's front paws noticing an interesting factor 'although from how his paws are formed he might still be able to use jutsu in that form'

Naruto realized that he practiced the henge so much that he could do it without hand seals. concentrating on how he would normally do the jutsu, he thought about his form before he became engulfed in a poof of smoke. After the smoke cleared, he was now standing in his human form, still wearing the ruined jumpsuit.

Hiruzen noticing this thought to himself 'seems the henge only works on his physical form and not his clothing. interesting...' "Good, now I believe we can speak and go over some things that concern you."

Naruto looked up from looking at his hands and looked into the Hokage's eyes "...Jiji…...am I the Kyuubi?" Naruto asked still praying that it wasn't true. However, in the back of his mind, he had the thought that the fox wasn't as bad as everyone said it was. He didn't really know why but it just seemed to be the honest truth.

Hiruzen takes a deep breath before he went through some hand seals and slammed his hands on the wall placing a privacy seal while Anko closed the curtains. After this was done he began to speak "no Naruto, you are not the Kyuubi."

This was something that he wanted to hear but it also angered him as it went against what everyone else in the village said. it made sense that he was, otherwise why would everyone hate him. "HOW THE HELL CAN YOU SAY THAT!? YOU SAW ME! I WAS A FOX WITH MULTIPLE TAILS AND AFTER WHAT MIZUKI SAID ABOUT THE FOURTH WEAKENING ME BY TURNING ME HUMAN. AND NOW YOU ARE LYING TO MY FACE! WHY!?" Tears slid down his face as his pupils became slits but his iris remained blue.

Hiruzen was hurt hearing this. Seeing that the boy had so much doubt in him and believing what the traitor said. The child learned that he had a burden that no child should be forced to deal with but it was the truth.

Anko didn't like seeing her little brother figure hurt so much from what happened to him all in one day. She was really hoping that Mizuki lived through his injuries, so she could play with the man herself.

Hiruzen decided to tell him what had happened that night four years ago "Naruto, it is true that you turned into a fox. However, you are NOT the Kyuubi." taking a breath he continued "do you remember the time when you were having trouble walking normally four years ago?" seeing the boy nod he readied himself for telling the story "you see four years ago…"

~later~

Hiruzen told Naruto what had happened from what he was told from Inoichi including the truth about being the Jinchuriki as well as the semi-permanent henge that was placed on him "and because of what happened the seal was broken…."

Naruto was now sitting on the hospital bed, trying to process everything but some of his behavior made some sense now. After finally processing everything, something was nagging at the back of his mind. He wasn't sure if the Hokage was hiding something from him but he felt that the man wasn't lying to him so he accepted what he was told.

Anko stood to the side looking at Naruto worried about how he would react to the story but she relaxed a bit when the kid just took a deep breath and flopped on his back and just looked at the ceiling. For a few seconds, he just laid there until he spoke "so my henge was the real me and my normal self is a henge?"

Hiruzen nodded with a "hmm" to confirm it

"Ok I guess, but now what do I do Jiji? I failed the academy three times and now I can't ever be the Hokage." he said with a tear falling from his eye ' but then again...I don't think the village would ever let me be the Hokage. Nothing seems to go right in my life.' He would have kept up this trail of negative thoughts until he heard a chuckle coming from his Jiji. lifting his head looking at the old man he gave a confused tilt of his head

"Actually Naruto I have something from Iruka-san that he wanted to give to you along with a message." Hiruzen said as he reached into the sleeve of his Hokage robes.

Naruto got back up to his feet and walked up the old man and saw that he pulled out a hitai-ate and then heard Hiruzen continue

"This was Iruka-san's. He wanted to give this to you with this message: 'congratulations on your field promotion and becoming a genin. I expect you to be at team assignments next week'."

Naruto couldn't believe what he had heard. He slowly reached out to take the Hitai-ate before looking at it in his hand "...but …..I..."

He was brought out of his stupor when Anko got him into a one-armed headlock while throwing her free hand into the air "Al~right Gaki! Now it's time to celebrate with Dango, Sake, and more Dango!"

Naruto just looked at Hiruzen "How did he…..why did he….?"

Hiruzen just chuckled "I had told Iruka about the seal I placed on you. I think he assumed that I would be doing the same thing and thought ahead. Though I may have to inform him about this later. Now, however, be happy that you have graduated."

Hearing this Naruto gained a smile on his face as he tied the Hitai-ate around his forehead. He couldn't keep in his excitement and with a big smile on his face, he pumped his fist into the air "YATTA!" He was so excited that he dropped the henge, landed on all fours, and gave a few yips of excitement with the Hitai-ate dropping to hang around his neck. Bouncing up and down in the room had caused his little notebook to fall out of his jacket pocket. Stopping to see what fell out, he henged back to normal and picked up the notebook noticing that half of it was burnt and missing "aw man. I had written down a bunch of tips on this and even the last bit from the jutsu that I learned from the scroll." after saying that he looked down to his clothes and grimaced "this was my last set of clothes too. Now what am I going to do?"

Anko hearing this piped up placing a hand on the Gaki's head "consider it a good thing. This means that you can finally wear something decent!"

Hearing this Naruto mumbled, "why does everyone hate my outfit? it's not that bad." Looking back up at Anko he brought something up "but none of the stores sell anything to me though. They kick me out or make the price of the stuff I want to buy too high."

Hiruzen made a mental note 'find the shops doing this and raise hell….I mean discuss store policies.' he may have felt a little vindictive but he was getting tired of how the villagers treated the boy

Anko just slapped Naruto on the shoulder with a grin on her face "don't worry about it! I know just the place to go to and they sell great stuff to Shinobi. Just meet me in two days and I'll show you the place!"

With a smile, Naruto nodded "ok Anko-nee-chan!"

Hiruzen just smiled at the interaction between the two and was thankful that Naruto didn't pick up any of Anko's bad habits. After this thought came in his head he remembered something that Iruka informed him about last night and what Naruto said just a bit ago "Naruto-Kun, you said that you learned a jutsu from the forbidden scroll correct?" see the boy nod he asked, "what Jutsu was it that you learned?"

Wanting to show off a bit, Naruto extended his index and middle finger on both hands, crossed them together with one hand going vertically, and the other going horizontally "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" and with a poof of smoke there appeared another Naruto with a big grin on its face and said "hi everyone! Now tell us….." while wrapping an arm around the real Naruto's shoulders and with the real Naruto continuing "...which one of us the real Naruto?"

Hiruzen was shocked that Naruto learned an extremely useful jutsu and didn't seem bothered by the chakra requirement 'than again... he has massive amounts of chakra. And from what Iruka had told me the clone jutsu was the only one Naruto could not do.' with a sigh he had one more thought 'Naruto would never have been able to do the normal clone jutsu, no matter how hard he tried. it's also forbidden for instructors to teach other versions of clones due to the student-teacher ratio and the shadow clone is far too dangerous for many Jonin and Chunin, let alone an academy student. But I should have known Naruto-Kun would be able to learn this. I'm getting too old if I didn't think of that.'

While Hiruzen was deep in thought the Naruto clone spoke up "Hey boss, don't you think you should ask about the note you wrote for this jutsu? You know the one before the warning on the chakra limit thing."

Hearing this Naruto began to think about what the clone had said and then it hit him "oh yeah, hang on." looking through the notebook hoping the note he was looking for wasn't completely burned away he found it "yeah here it is. Hey Jiji what does it mean 'retain memories from the clone'?"

Looking at Naruto, Hiruzen tried to make it simple for Naruto to understand "it means that whatever your clone learns you learn it as well. For example: if you send your clone to speak to one of your friends, then when your clone dispels or is dispelled, you will remember the conversation it had with your friend or if you send it to read a page from a book, once it dispels you will remember what the clone has read."

Naruto and the clone stood there in aw, both slack-jawed until they looked at each other and high fived each other while saying at the same time "Cool Dattebayo!" The clone then dispelled as Naruto stood there "oh so that's how it works." he said as he got the memory of the clone

"Well Naruto, I believe that is everything that we needed to discuss so you are free to go home." Hiruzen said as he began to walk to the door "oh and don't forget to come in for your Shinobi license photo. Be sure to come in before the team assignments"

"Hai Hokage-Jiji!"

And with that, they all left to go about their business

~40 minutes later Ichiraku's~

Naruto had run all the way to the stand to tell Ayame and Teuchi about Graduating "Ayame-nee-chan! Teuchi-Ji-chan! Hey, guess what!"

Hearing the shouting Ayame walked out from the back to the counter while Teuchi leaned over to get a look at who it was "Hey Naruto boy where you been, I thought you would have been here yesterday to celebrate graduating". Looking sheepish Naruto Apologized about not showing up, but keeping everything that happened a secret.

Turning his head to face Ayame who was smiling at the boy "hey Ayame-nee-chan, look I got my own Hitai-ai" he said as he adjusted it a bit.

After hearing this Ayame grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug "oh Naruto I'm so happy for you for finally graduating" she said and for her own little amusement, she began to rub his whisker marks.

"Ay…..ya…..me….w-wai….*purr~*" Naruto started to weakly protest but it didn't last long and for some reason, it felt much better than before and he even started to kick his leg much to Ayame's pleasant surprise.

'KAWAII!' she wanted to continue but knew she had to stop and was thankful that she did it behind the counter so no one saw what just happened.

After Ayame let him go he walked to his seat in a daze and softly said "chicken ramen please~" and then softly placed his head on the counter and gave a content sigh

Ayame chuckled a bit at seeing her little brother figure like this "coming right up Naruto-chan"

~Naruto's apartment that night~

After Naruto left Ichiraku's with a blush on his face and telling Ayame that it never happened, Naruto made it home and spent the rest of the day in his house trying to forget what Ayame did. It was night and Naruto was now getting ready to sleep in his little corner of nature. Now up in the small room and walking on all fours he remembered that he was still in his henge and released it. Once back into his fox form he shook himself 'it's a bit weird to think that this is now how I am normally'. He took a few steps until he tripped and realized that his tails were stuck in his pants and it was re~ally uncomfortable. After wrestling with his pajamas a bit, he finally removed the shirt, pants, and boxers 'Finally! Man, it almost felt like how I was when my arms and legs didn't feel right.' Now free, he made his way to his pillow bed and blankets, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

~unknown~

Naruto slowly opened his eyes to find himself in a clearing surrounded by a forest, laying curled up with his tails as a blanket, in a small flattened patch of tall grass and under the moonlight. Lifting his head he started to look around even though he couldn't really see over the grass "where am I? How did I get here?" he said as he got up, stretching a bit before giving himself a shack

"..."

Turning to his left and ears perking up, he felt something calling him in that direction and although he was somewhat wary of it he followed his instincts and started running towards it

For ten minutes he ran and ran and ran through the forest, all the while the feeling, was getting stronger. As he kept running through the forest he finally came to a stop when he came upon a massive tree that looked hollowed out but it was too dark to see what was inside but he felt compelled to know what was inside "...hello?"

After he spoke loud rustling was heard and he could see something coming out. He stood there as he saw a paw/hand come out of the shadows followed by a muzzle, a face, and then long ears. As he watched this being come closer to him he felt tears coming out of his eyes as he recognized who was coming out and it wasn't until it stood in front of him did he speak as he took a few steps closer "...Rama-san…..?"

"Good to see you again kit"

That did it for Naruto and he just used all his speed to run and jump onto Kurama's head and hugged the top of his muzzle "Rama-tou-chan! Rama-Tou-chan! *sob* ...Kurama-Tou-sama….. I missed you! Where were you? I wanted to see you again *sob* for so long. Where did you go?" he said between his sobs and nuzzled Kurama's muzzle and holding on tight feeling like if he let go he might disappear again.

Kurama couldn't help but smile at how his kit reacted to seeing him again. He had missed his kit as well and wanted nothing more than to stay like this for a while but he had to talk to the kit "kit we need to talk, so will you stop please."

"No!"

"Kit you need to get off for a bit so I can speak to you face to face"

"No."

"Are you going to let go anytime soon"

"No."

With a sigh, he just laid down with Naruto still attached to his muzzle. He looked at the smaller fox attached to his muzzle and smiled "I like your new look."

Naruto just hugged tighter "...shut up," he said as he started to calm down a bit but still had tears streaming down his own muzzle "...thank you."

Kurama hearing this looked a bit cross-eyed at his kit "for what?"

Naruto not moving, answered "for being there for me when I was younger, for playing with me…. for being the dad I didn't have and saving my life that day….just thank you"

Kurama smiled even wider "you're my kit, I would do anything to make sure you are happy and safe."

The both of them just stayed there until they both fell asleep with smiles on their faces thanks to their reunion

Boy what a chapter

Edit notice 2/9/2020: went through this and fixed some errors and some format problems. I am sure that there are still some errors so please point it them out so I can fi them. But if you just outright give me flames than I will ignore them as they don't do anything but waste time.

8/16/2020: reworked the wording and fixed the structure

Fox Naruto is back

I really enjoyed writing this one and I'm happy to bring Kurama back into Naruto's life

Really hope you like this one

I think I might be bringing in another character in the next chapter and it's time for a wardrobe change for Naruto

Also just to let you all know Naruto will still be on team 7 sorry if any of you wanted him to be on another team

Anyway hope you look forward to the next chapter

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