He had stumbled across the tales of the last generation of jinchūriki when researching his grandfather, the last true jinchūriki of the Sanbi. In his opinion, they should have been legendary and he was confused as to why someone had gone through the trouble of writing about their epic quests, yet it seemed like the world hardly even remembered that they had ever existed.
There were only two jinchūriki left now. The Hachibi jinchūriki and the Kyūbi jinchuriki, the Rokudaime Hokage. The Rokudaime Hokage was renowned for his kind nature and charisma. When all was said and done, the Hokage was looking like a better candidate for information than the isolated yet eccentric brother of the Yondaime Raikage.
Standing in front of Konohagakure's gates, he had been perfectly confident, perhaps overly so, but, as he sat in one of the waiting chairs in the Hokage's tower, he shifted his feet awkwardly.
Would the Hokage even tell him anything? On one hand, he was just a chūnin from Kirigakure who had hardly any authority, but, on the other, he was the aide of the Rokudaime Mizukage and a direct descendent of the Yondaime Mizukage. Surely that warranted at least a brief audience?
He lurched out of his thoughts at the call of his name. The black-haired lady Hokage Tower secretary smiled warmly at him and he relaxed a little at the gentle woman. He was directed to follow a brunette man with tired eyes upstairs.
It was a little nerve wracking and, at around the third flight of stairs, he stopped to just take a deep breath so he could continue without having a breakdown.
His little break made something clearer to him. This was a genjutsu. The air was very thick for a typically dry summer nation and his 'guide' was paused mid-stride, seemingly waiting for his charge to move before placing his foot down on the next stair.
Narrowing his eyes at the student-grade illusion, he broke out of it with ease and the dull, creamy walls dispersed into much more soothing, earthy red and white. To his left was a dark wood door framed by two green-leaved cherry blossom bonsai trees.
The brunette that had led him to this point gripped his right hand on the handle of one of the worn doorknobs, a smirk tracing his uninterested expression.
He raised an eyebrow at the test. It wasn't strange for a Kage to set up defences in their own office buildings, but what he had done was hardly a genin-level feat. The brunette man gave no explanation, just gesturing his head towards the door to invite the chūnin in.
Stepping forward took less courage than he thought. His breathe hitched at the sound of the doorknob moving and the opening click of the thick doors.
Soon enough, he was left to wait alone once more, but now he was in the Hokage's office in Konohagakure no Sato, sitting in a comfy chair by the door with only the information that the Rokudaime Hokage would be returning shortly.
The circular room roused his curiosity. On his 'side' of the room, it was only the incredibly comfy, thick couch that he just sank into and which curved with the walls. A door was tucked in the corner of his side of the semicircle. The other corner held another ominously harmless door and a bookshelf that mirrored the couch.
Not really seeing much else to do for the duration of his wait, he begrudgingly got up from the comfortable cushions to skulk around the books opposing him. Only expecting the usual boring information about village infrastructure and more useless garbage, he was unsure how to categorise his reaction to the first book his read the title of.
Surprise. Wonder? Confusion?
The first book he stumbled across was a fiction about the children of unfamiliar kami. Glancing along the shelf, he found that it was the first of a series of five and the sequel series was happily settled beside it. The next book he picked up was about a boy named after a kami from the previous series, though they seemed completely unrelated and this was a stand-alone novel. Another book sat alone with an author that had purposely spelt 'magic' wrong. Hunters of shadows. A sun kami (that wasn't Amaterasu) trapped in a mortal body. Eight books about...a boy who made pottery? Actually, seven books and a sequel about his son.
A monkey plushie broke the row of books on one shelf, holding a red heart displaying the word 'Jump' among the rather dull, dusty and antique colours of the many hardcover books. That shelf seemed to be the only one filled with nonfiction.
He slipped out a softcover book from a higher shelf that caught his eye. Bright white, yellow and orange hues had brought his attention, but a murky-coloured green and blue book followed the sunny fiction story, hitting his head on its descent. Muttering about messing up his hair, he grumbled under his breath at the dark novel and picked up both books with an annoyed look.
In truth, his hair looked no messier than usual, going unnoticed by the redhead who entered the room soon after the incident.
The messy-haired chūnin froze, half-bent, wide-eyed as a shinobi opened the door. He didn't move for an uncomfortably long time before snapping to stand at attention and staring, petrified, at the older shinobi who welcomed themselves into the office.
The red-haired shinobi paused at the sight of the young boy who stood guiltily by the bookshelf. Their posture and clothing seemed to say that they were high ranking, explaining why they were allowed to just stroll into the Hokage's office. Books flown open by the fall lay on the floor around the chūnin. The shinobi squinted his eyes at the sight.
Glancing down to the fallen books with unhidden amusement, the redhead raised an eyebrow at the familiar fiction in his hands.
"Karatachi Kagura, right?"
The grey-haired chūnin blubbered undignifiedly for a moment at the unexpected casual tone before shaking off the surprise and nodding his head quickly. He knew he was in trouble even before the tall person began walking towards him.
Instead of issuing any form of punishment for his accident, the older jōnin crouched to pick up the books.
Now that the shinobi was so close, Kagura started to notice more things about them.
Their skin was warm, dark like honey and anise, and flawed. Freckles littered their visible skin like a amateur pointillism. Even their eyelids had darker flecks, mimicking dry tea leaves. Their skin was unevenly coloured, the right side of their face almost Caucasian with scarring, warping the features of their face. Three scratchy birthmarks lined their left cheek (maybe once his right cheek had been the same).
Crimson hair fell down their sides, spilling around them like thick silk or noodles. The hair was dark as well, closer to auburn than the vibrant red he'd seen when introduced to the previous Mizukage.
The earthy tone of their skin and hair made their eyes all the more prominent. They softly pushed aside their opaque veil of red, revealing joy-worn round eyes. Their iris wasn't exactly one colour, as many eyes tended not to be, but had a strong thematic colour of blue. And there were other, more unnatural, underlying colours in their eyes. Were those flecks of gold?
Like Lapis Lazuli, he mused.
As the redhead stood with the books, Kagura saw their eyes shift with the light, briefly revealing a beautiful shade of bronze-gold that made his heart leap at their fierceness.
He quickly tried to babble out his apologies, but was quickly shushed by the tall shinobi. Kagura felt a little lost as the jōnin cleaned up his mess for him.
The guide that brought him back to reality was a questioning hand on his shoulder.
Looking up, he found another shinobi who was taller than him, but not as much so as the redhead was.
This shinobi was almost unremarkable. He was in peek physical condition (maybe on the softer side, more a weapons and long-range ninjutsu user than a taijutsu expert) and was wearing the dark green flak jacket of the chūnin and jōnin of Konohagakure. He looked like a regular shinobi of the Land of Fire until someone looked at his face.
He eyes churned like ink, like a secret dōjutsu, underlay with compassion and a peaceful self-content. His hair was relatively close-cut except for his bangs, which framed his face flatteringly. There were chaotic lines down his cheeks from his eyes, making him look much older than he likely was and a pale complexion brought out the slight flush in his cheeks, the only sign of the adrenaline released in his body indicating that he'd been running recently.
The tall black-haired man led him gently to stand before the Hokage's desk situated in the centre-back of the semicircle room, cast in light by the wide, open windows that gazed out to the village from the round part of the room.
Kagura was a little put off to the see the red haired jōnin sit in the Hokage's seat and start sorting through a stack of paperwork that had been held down neatly by a frog-shaped paperweight.
The other man in the room went to stand beside the apparent Kage, also reaching out to the paperwork and purposely removing an inconspicuous brown file that was identical to many others that were scattered on the dark wood desk.
The redhead cleared his throat, bringing the chūnin's eyes back up.
"I believe that you asked for a meeting with me?"
Kagura swallowed his nerves and nodded as confidently as he couls.
"Yes, sir. I wanted to talk to you about my grandfather, Karatachi Yagura."
The Hokage's eyes bore heavily into Kagura's. He felt naked in the judgement of those steel eyes, stripped bare of the powerful titles backing him and replaced by the fearful child that had tried his best to act strong in front of this legendary...legend.
He tried to swallow again, but stopped at the awkward thought of the Kage noticing his nervousness.
The redhead smiled, much like a father ready to tell his favourite bedtime story for his children.
"Well, then. Looks like we have a legacy-seeker. My name is Uzumaki Naruto, the Rokudaime Hokage. The man beside me is my most trusted friend and shinobi. You wish to know who your grandfather was, correct?"
He steeled himself and straitened his posture. He nodded to the Kage before him, a determined glint in his eye.
"Then I suppose we may as well grab some takeout and get comfy, because I'm going to tell you tales of madmen."
The redhead's smile grew until their unusually sharp canines became prominent in their grin.
Kagura allowed himself to literally swallow his nerves just once..