so yeah i started writing this one before I even edited the previous chapter cause I wanted to get as much as I can down on paper before I lose the motivation again, so please do keep the interactions coming to keep me motivated ehe\
also, oops, i mistakenly named the previous chapter as what was supposed to be this chapter so i hope y'll appreciate the sneak peek into what this chapter is gonna deal with
I've also decided to crosspost this on AO3 cause I started writing this before I started using that site and felt it appropriate.
Well, i did end up procrastinating on editing it soooooo, well at least the ideas are down on the page.
"I must say, I've never quite seen such a scenario in my life," Hiruzen Sarutobi stroked his goatee, thoughtfully.
That was quite a statement coming from a man who held the title of Hokage for the better part of fifty years.
"I'm going to have to agree with you, Hokage-sama"
Beside the third Hokage, stood a tall jonin. The man had long ash blonde hair reaching into his lower back, which he wore spiky on top and ending in a long ponytail, light green eyes and strong facial features, which included a well-defined jawline. He was wearing a standard Konoha flak jacket over a black outfit, complete with handguards and a sleeveless red haori.
Inoichi Yamanaka, while proud of his daughter for reaching out to Naruto, was puzzled as to how the Jinchuriki of the nine tails managed to end up in such a predicament. The child that stood before him was neither the loud nor boisterous young man that he had grown accustomed to while wandering the village, the execution and repercussions of the boy's so-called pranks had always left the Yamanaka clan head amused, if not ever so slightly impressed.
When he had gotten the call from the Hokage to report to his office, he had entirely expected some kind of emergency regarding the safety of his village, and in turn his family. Naruto's situation was almost insignificant to the scale of his worries, not to say it wasn't important, the young child was clearly shaken from the whole ordeal.
Regardless of how terrible things could have been, the older blonde was relieved the village wasn't in danger.
While Inoichi wasn't all that surprised to witness the younger blonde's academy instructor present in the room with them, he had, after all witnessed the two hanging around the village numerous times and was keenly aware of the soft spot the brown haired chunin held for Naruto, he was surprised to also find his daughter in the room with them, cautiously hovering around her classmate.
If what Inoichi knew was to be true, Ino had never been particularly fond of the prankster, oftentimes he had been regaled with tales of how annoying the other blonde was, clearly not finding the boy's pranks as amusing as he did. As far as he could remember, Ino was completely obsessed over the last Uchiha and nothing he or his wife told her seemed to have any sway in her decision.
"Can you try scanning his- um her? -" Hiruzen paused and turned to Naruto, "What would you prefer, Naruto?"
The blond remained with a quiet, nervous expression on their face, "Jiji… I'm actually not sure…"
The Hokage's wizened expression softened a little, becoming almost parental. He beckoned the child closer and placed a comforting hand on their shoulder and spoke with a comforting whisper, "That's alright, Naruto, you can take all the time you need to figure things out… Things might be a little overwhelming for you right now"
Inoichi had never witnessed the Hokage soft like this, even when he conversed with his own son, Asuma, the village leader remained formal and seemingly impartial.
Naruto simply nodded, then threw on a nervous grin.
Hiruzen turned back to the jonin, "Inoichi, could you please try scanning Naruto's mind to see if this could be some kind of mental block preventing the Henge from being performed?"
The Hokage's choice of words was careful and deliberate. He didn't want Inoichi wandering into any recesses of Naruto's mind he shouldn't be in, he had no idea what kind of mental barriers the Fourth's seal would have caused, Inoichi doubted the nine-tails was in open conversation with the boy, but even if there was a miniscule chance of the tailed beast tampering with Inoichi's jutsu while Naruto was in such a vulnerable state, it wasn't a risk worth taking.
Inoichi nodded, "Naruto, you aren't going to feel a thing, just relax and try not to fight back so I can make sure everything is okay."
Naruto still looked nervous, unsure of letting the adult into his thoughts. He sat down on the Hokage's lap, something which caused his daughter's eyes to widen.
"Naruto, you can't -"
Hiruzen cut her off, "That's okay, Miss Ino, it's best if Naruto's as comfortable as he can be when your dad performs the mental scan"
Ino backed down in wordless agreement.
Inoichi performed the hand signs and placed a hand on the forehead of the child bracing themselves against their grandfather-figure.
"Saiko Denshin (Psycho Mind Transmission)"
A few minutes of tense silence passed, and Inoichi opened his eyes once again.
"There doesn't seem to be any mental blocks in place," Inoichi sighed, his heart reached out to all the young child has to go through, as if the apathy or ridicule wasn't enough, the child was also deeply insecure and pretended to be so gleeful and outgoing just to be noticed. And while the attention they did receive was a common annoyance, any attention seemed to work for the child.
Inoichi felt a pang of pride at his daughter for trying to help Naruto. To go out of her way to feed and help out Naruto, at seemingly no benefit to herself, was a sign of growth for sure, albeit a little uncharacteristic.
He would need to have a word with her about her genuine intentions.
"Very well, thank you for your time, Inoichi. You and Ino are dismissed, let me check in with some other clan heads on their opinion. Please feel free to discuss the situation with anyone you see fit, I trust your judgment." Hiruzen turned to Iruka, "Iruka, would you mind finding Kakashi for me, I have a feeling we could use his special abilities to determine what could have gone wrong with the technique.
The jonin bowed and corralled his daughter out of the Hokage's office despite her protests.
Once the father and daughter were outside the building, he turned to Ino, "I don't need to head back to work for some more time, care to grab a bite to eat with me, Ino?"
It wasn't really a question, he expected her to come with him, he did have a few questions to ask her about the whole ordeal after all.
"But I'm not-" Ino paused, sensing her father wasn't about to take no for an answer. She nodded and followed along.
On their way to the restaurant, Inoichi passed along a message to his teammates to meet with him in a few minutes.
Finally, having reached, the two took a seat and ordered their respective lunches. Ino only ordered a salad, as Inoichi wholly expected.
After a tense moment, it was Ino who broke the silence, "Dad, why is Naruto treated like that?"
Now that was not something he expected her daughter to ask him, and honestly, he wasn't sure how to answer. From the brief glimpse he had taken into the child's psyche, he knew exactly what the girl was referring to.
Ino continued before her father could say anything, "You know that he performed the transformation, but Hokage-sama didn't mention why exactly he had to resort to that."
He wanted to give his daughter the answers she sought. He didn't want to lie to his daughter, but at the same time, the fact that Naruto housed the nine-tails was classified information of the highest order.
The only explanation for the treatment of the child could be if someone leaked the fact that Naruto was a Jinchuriki. Could the people of the village really be that blind! Did they doubt the Fourth's seal that much?
Stilling his breath, Inoichi attempted to diffuse the conversation, "I wish I could tell you Ino, but just trust me when I tell you that Naruto is a good person and didn't deserve any of this."
More perceptive than Inoichi expected, Ino then said, "So there is a reason."
Inoichi nearly let out a flinch, perhaps he had revealed too much, however, thankfully she did not probe further, for which Inoichi was glad.
"What compelled you to help Naruto out?" He quickly added, "I'm very proud of you for that, by the way."
He smiled at his daughter, who blushed at the praise and seemingly let go of the previous topic of discussion.
"Well at first I was just curious as to why Naruto was in disguise, I thought he was planning one of his stupid pranks, but when he explained himself, I felt compelled to listen…"
Inoichi wondered the scope of what Naruto had revealed, and he wasn't sure how much the boy knew of the situation himself, after all.
Ino trailed off for a second, "You know I'm on a diet, right?" At Inoichi's nod, Ino continued, "well my diet is self-imposed, and I can't imagine someone having to go through that when they don't even have any choice… I've seen Naruto eat ramen before, and he always ate like his life depended on it… I used to make fun of him for that, but I now realize how close to the truth that was in reality."
The jonin was stunned at his young daughter's maturity. Perhaps there was still hope for her turning into a great kunoichi yet.
"That's very profound, Ino."
Ino's smile was bittersweet: "I just regret how mean we were- I was to him."
"There's always time to change that, you know?"
Ino nodded, "I intend to!"
Inoichi's heart swelled with pride.
"Naruto could use a friend. Especially now."
"You summoned me, Hokage-sama?"
The telltale signs of a body flicker faded away to reveal a tall, gray-haired jonin, forehead protector over one eye.
"That's perfect timing, Kakashi"
Now, Kakashi would have taken his sweet time and taken the long route to the Hokage's office, but the summons mentioned Naruto and he had to make sure his sensei's son was okay.
However, when he appeared in the Hokage's office, seated on the wizened old man's lap was a young girl, roughly the same age as what Naruto would have been… Come to think of it, the young girl had an uncanny resemblance to who he was expecting. the sunny blond hair, the bright blue eyes, the telltale whiskers on her cheeks, the fucking orange!
Kakashi's eyes met with Hiruzen, and understanding passed over him.
Just then the doors to Hiruzen's office opened to reveal a similarly tall jonin, but this time with bleached white eyes.
"Hiashi-san, please come, I'm sure you must be wondering why I called the two of you here"
Hiruzen explained to the two of how Naruto was seemingly trapped in a Henge.
"I would like for the two of you to use your respective eyes to check whether anything is amiss. Kakashi, please also check for any genjutsu that might be affecting Naruto."
If the Hokage had summoned both of them, the situation might've been more dire than Kakashi had initially expected.
Kakashi lifted his forehead protector to reveal his implanted sharingan.
All Kakashi saw was a familiarly massive pool of chakra, flowing through a constellation of tenketsu points. Kakashi probed deeper, seeing all that he could. He noticed the corrosive pool of crimson chakra that swirled near Naruto's navel, but besides that, he noticed nothing unusual, he even expelled some of his chakra and let out a "Kai" in order to dispel any genjutsu that might've been placed on the child.
"Everything seems normal, Hokage-sama."
"It's the same for me," Hiashi inserted.
Hiruzen sighed, "I see, thank you both for your time."
The Hyuga bowed and left the Hokage's office. Kakashi stood where he was.
Naruto, seemingly passive until now, approached Kakashi.
"You've got a cool eye!"
Adjusting his forehead protector back into place, Kakashi eye-smiled at the kid, appreciating a brief glimpse at their playful nature.
"That I do"
No need to explain the years of severe trauma that came with the 'cool eye'.
"You smell familiar."
Kakashi stiffened, was the kid's sense of smell so keen that he could recognize him even without his usual ANBU garb? That couldn't be too good, not even the Inuzuka could isolate his scent when in a crowd. Was this the Fox's doing?
"Well, I did forget to shower today, sorry about that," Kakashi ruffled the kid's hair, who crinkled their nose.
Naruto's expression then softened, "So ya think I won't be able to go back to how it was before?"
Hiruzen answered for Kakashi, "Seems like so, at least for the moment, Naruto."
Naruto nodded, solemnly, seemingly understanding.
Kakashi knew the hyperactive blond well enough from all the time he spent watching over fine, both on the clock as an ANBU and off, and this new female version of Naruto just didn't sit right quite yet. Naruto wasn't supposed to be this quiet. He half expected them to begin bouncing with energy, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I'll see what I can do, Naruto. How about you go home and take some rest, all this must be a lot to process."
well, that's the end of this one. Updates might start coming a bit slower as compared to the past couple, the weekend being done and all that, I'll see if I can maintain a semi regular schedule, wish me luck!
now, as I'm sure some of you might be wondering, 'why is naruto acting so out of character?' Well, the next chapter is finally gonna get back to Naruto's perspective and I'm gonna do my best to give a believable reason for the temporary shift.
That's about it for now, see ya!