Road to Konoha Present day

"So, I'm related to the little brat? And Sensei never told me? Just because I have a little drinking problem?" Tsunade demanded. "C'mon, even if you don't want me to raise him you could at least let me know I have somefamily left. I'm going to wake him from his coma just so he'll know why I'm punching him through a wall!" Tsunade had been ranting since Jiraiya stopped to catch his breath.

Jiraiya chuckled, "Yeah I was surprised to," Jiraiya agreed, "since we've stopped, do either of you have any questions?"

Shizune raised her hand, "I do. What happened to his eyes?"

"Well," Jiraiya began, scratching the back of his head, "it's kinda hard to explain without giving away half the story. It took us a few years to figure out exactly what had happened to his eye. At first we thought it was a new Kekkei Genkai, we called it the Nishikime (Two-Tone-Eye/Dichromatic eye). I'm sure Kurama knew exactly what it was from day one, but he enjoyed our confusion, damn sadistic fox."

"So," Tsunade interrupted, "what did it do?"

Jiraiya chuckled, "Don't ask, half the fun is in the surprise. Now where was I?"

Konoha: Five years, Eight Months, Twenty-Nine Days ago:

Naruto was going stir crazy, he'd been trapped in this hospital bed for a whole week! After he tried to escape for the third time the first day, they actually tied him down! And Kurama was no help-he was laughing his fuzzy ass off inside Naruto's head, apparently enjoying the sight of his jailer imprisoned. All he would say was, "Complain to me after you've been locked up for 150 years."

To pass the time Naruto had started reading Fuinjutsu for Dummies: or How to Make a Storage Seal with All Your Fingers Intactby "The Gallant Jiraiya." It was the first in a series of fuinjutsu instruction manuals. It was complicated stuff, even the most basic seal gave Naruto a headache, but Naruto swore that he would become the greatest seal master ever. After all, both his parents were seal masters-it was in his blood, and he would get there even if it killed him! He really wanted to start making a seal, but Jiraiya took one look at his hand writing and said, "Even if you made the seal perfectly your handwriting is so bad, all it would do is explode in your face. I'll get you a calligraphy writing set, but no Chakra inks until I say so. And if I catch you trying to make a seal unsupervised, Chakra ink or not, by the time I'm done with you you'll wish the seal blew up in your face!" So Naruto had read, with some help from Inu (who was appalled that no one had actually tried to teach him to read, and impressed with how much Naruto had managed to teach himself), through three quarters of the book and made his handwriting almost legible.

But right now all Naruto wanted to do was get out of this place. Although he wasn't sure where he'd go when he got out, he felt any thing would be better than the stupid hospital. "LET ME OUT OF HERE! IM SO BORED! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS! I'LL PRANK YOU SO HARD YOUR GRADNKIDS WILL FEEL IT!" Naruto had been shouting similar threats for the last two hours. Inu was sitting in the corner reading from a small orange book, apparently oblivious to the racket the blond was making.

"Alright, alright, the doctors say that if you can keep shouting like that for 2 hours straight, then you're fit enough to go home," Jiraiya grumbled as he walked into the room. "We got what was left of your stuff from the orphanage. The Hokage bought an apartment for you, I bought you some furniture, and Inu over there," he pointed at the silent man in the corner, who looked up at the sound of his name and gave Naruto a cheery wave, "bought you some books, although most of them will have to wait until you're 18."

Inu snickered at this, "Those are the good ones." The lanky man stood up and stretched, "C'mon Jiraiya-sensei, tell the brat the good news so we can head out. I hate hospitals."

"I was getting to that, brat." Jiraiya turned to Naruto with a large grin spread across his face. "Now here's the best bit. After what happened to you on your birthday the Hokage decided to place you in the care of some people he trusts, namely myself and Inu. Now, we both have jobs that can take us away from Konoha for weeks at a time, so we've set up a schedule. I'll take care of you for two weeks, one week we share, two weeks Inu watches you, then one week we share again." As he was talking to Naruto, he was unsealing the straps around Naruto's ankles, thighs, waist, chest, wrists, elbows, and head. "Wow, you must be quite the escape artist for them to tie you down like this," he said as he help Naruto take off the stiff mittens they had placed on his hands. "These things weigh a ton." Jiraiya was pretty impressed; even insane shinobi didn't have to be locked down like that. The kid was stubborn, you had to give him that. As soon as Jiraiya had unsealed the last strap Naruto bolted straight out the window and ran for his life.

Closing the book Inu sighed, "He doesn't know where the apartment is does he?" Sighing once more at the sight of Jiraiya shaking his head, Inu jumped out after Naruto.

"FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST!" Naruto shouted running and jumping through the town square. "NO MORE STUFFY ROOM! NO MORE NASTY FOOD! FREEDOM! WOO-HOO!" As he was jumping and spinning, a hand caught him by the shoulder.

Looking up Naruto could see that it was Inu, and judging by the man's body language, he was not happy with him for having run off. "Next time, at least make sure you know where you're going when you make your escape." Naruto could practically hear the sound of Inu's eyes rolling behind his mask. "Come with me." Inu said as he shunshined away with Naruto's shoulder firmly in his grasp.

"Whoa, everything's spinning Inu-ojisan, how were you moving that fast?" Naruto was staggering around in circles in the living room of the apartment the Hokage had bought him.

"Don't barf-we spent all day yesterday cleaning this place up for you." Inu said as he casually tripped Naruto on his way to an armchair so that he could continue reading. "We need to wait for Jiraiya-sensei before we discuss your training." Inu said while Naruto rolled around on the floor cursing him.

Popping up so fast even Inu had a hard time seeing him move, Naruto was vibrating with excitement. "Training? What kind of training? Will you teach me really cool jutsus? Or some awesome Taijutsu moves? Maybe more about seals? Tell me, tell me, tell me!" Naruto was hopping up and down on the spot, eyes as wide as they could go.

"Quiet, Brat" Jiraiya said as he knocked Naruto upside his head. "We're going to start simple with the three academy Jutsu, the Kawarimi, the Henge, and the Bunshin; the leaf sticking chakra control exercise; the basic academy Taijutsu style, until we know what your strengths are and find you a style that matches; how to recognize and break Genjutsu; and some slightly more advanced fuinjutsu training. Oh, and copious amounts of physical exercise, of course." Naruto gulped at the last bit, he didn't think Jiraiya would make the exercise any fun. "We'll start every day at six in the morning at Training Ground Seven for physical exercise, two hours of actual exercises and two hours Taijutsu training. After that comes four hours of chakra exercises, two hours of control and two hours practicing the Academy Jutsu. Then we'll have two hours of fuinjutsu training, followed by two hours of Genjutsu training. We'll be doing this routine five days a week and the sixth day will be focused on testing what you've learned that week. We'll keep this regime for the next year. If you do well, and have enough chakra, I'll teach you a jutsu that will let you keep up your training during your academy years. Remember, no matter how well you do I won't let you graduate early because the four years you spend in the academy is very important to your social development. Today, after we unpack your stuff and set up your room, we'll be going over your fuinjutsu to see exactly how much work you need to do." Naruto gulped-twelve hours of training a day? He could already picture how much pain he'd be at the end of each day.

After spending the next two hours arranging and rearranging his room until it was perfect, Naruto got out his calligraphy set and did the handwriting exercises to show to Jiraiya. "Well, it's a start; I can actually read what you wrote now. Tomorrow we can really start your fuinjutsu training. Now brat do you know how to access your chakra yet?" Seeing Naruto shake his head Jiraiya continued. "Well, start with a half-ram seal, like this," Jiraiya demonstrated the correct hand seal, "no, not like that, like this" Jiraiya corrected Naruto's hand seal, "your fingers are too stiff, relax. Much better. Now look inside yourself. You should feel something, some kind of energy-it feels different to each person."

His hand still held in the half-ram position, Naruto closed his eyes, expecting to find the energy right away. He was disappointed when he felt nothing, and as he searched, he grew more and more panicked. Just as he was about to give up, he saw flashes of light in the distance. As he grew closer to the lights, he saw a huge, almost flat, wall of clouds stretching into the darkness around him. He had technically found the energy at the very beginning, after all he had done exactly what Jiraiya had told him to do. He had fallen into the center of his powe-was it his fault that he had landed in the eye of the storm?

"Naruto! NARUTO! That's enough, your burning the floor!"

Blinking, Naruto came out of his trance. "Heh-heh, sorry about that it took me a little while to realize I had found my power…" Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

"Kid, just how do you miss that much power?" Jiraiya looked at Naruto with disbelief.

"Well, the center of my power was empty-it was pitch black with a smattering of stars overhead. But I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye and headed towards it, and eventually I saw in the distance a huge wall of clouds. There was thunder, lightning, wind and rain-it was beautiful!" In his head Jiraiya was impressed. Naruto's power took the form hurricane, which spoke of a strong affinity for wind, water and lightning. Then there was the fact that he had found his power instantly, and on his first try. The kid had real talent-it was shame he was as dumb as a box of rocks.

Reaching into his pocket, Jiraiya took out a piece of chakra paper. "I had intended to save this for later, but after what I just heard I have a theory that I want to test. Here, take this and channel some chakra into it." Looking at him as if he were mad, Naruto took the paper from Jiraiya and did as the Sennin said. Naruto yelped in surprise as the paper he held shredded itself into ten pieces. Then the pieces crinkled into little balls. Naruto bent down to pick up one of the pieces, "Hey it's soaking wet!"

"Heh-heh, looks like I was right. It seems like you have a strong wind and water affinity, and a decent lightning affinity. Having three affinities is quite rare, I can only think of one or two ninja with three affinities, most people only have one."

"Really? How many do you have? Which one is it?" Naruto asked.

"Believe it or not, I have the two you don't have, Earth and Fire. Inu is one of the ninja I know of with three. He has Lightning, Water, and Earth. Now before you ask, not having an affinity doesn't mean you can't use Jutsu from that affinity. Inu over here is quite skilled with fire jutsu, but he's had to work a lot harder to get as good as he is with them. Now go to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow and you'll need all the sleep you can get."

And he was right. By the end of the day every muscle in Naruto's body felt like it was on fire. If anything the next day was worse-Naruto barely managed to crawl into bed that night. But the third day was better. Naruto still hurt all over, but the individual exercises were less painful. And so it went for the next six months, each day Naruto got a little better, and eventually he moved from the leaf sticking exercise to the tree walking exercise. He had learned the Henge almost immediately, and the Kawarimi soon after. But try as he might, he was getting nowhere with the Bunshin no Jutsu. His fuinjutsu had improved by leaps and bounds-he could make basic storage seals and he could make functional, if unpredictable, explosive tags. Jiraiya discovered that while Naruto had a lot of potential for Genjutsu, his control was so horrible that making them was almost impossible. Plus, he was so thick that the first time he was placed in one he didn't notice for six hours. Eventually, Jiraiya taught Naruto three elemental jutsu, one for each of his elements; Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough), Suiton: Suiben (Water Release: Water Whip), and Raiton: Seidenki Shōgeki (Lightning Release: Static Shock). And while he enjoyed learning them more than the Academy Three, his chakra control was pretty poor and he had a tendency to overdo the jutsus all the time, leaving him exhausted by the end of the day.

During this time he finally learned Inu's name, which was Hatake Kakashi. Naruto also learned that Kakashi was one of his father's students and Kakashi promised him that when he graduated he would teach Naruto some of his father's techniques.

Konoha: Five years, Two Months, Eleven Days ago:

Naruto and Kakashi had just gotten to Training Ground Seven when it happened. The training ground filled with a thick white fog, and a voice echoed from around them, "Eight Fatal Targets; Larynx, Spine, Lungs, Liver, Jugular Vein, Subclavian Artery, Kidneys, Heart. Which One Should I kill you with?"

A/N Beta'd by TheCookieMonster77