Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any other references within this story.

Key:

"Summons and other Biju speaking"

'Summons and other Biju thinking'

"Human speech"

'Human thought'

Jutsu

The Other Side of the Coin

Chapter 2: Fuinjutsu

"WAGH!"

"I got you Naru-chan!" shouted Rin as she rushed to the bottom of the tree. Quickly catching Naruto she set him on the ground and fussed over him with a professional medical eye. Naruto had recently begun tree-climbing and somehow managed to convince Rin to help oversee his training to catch up to his sister. Naruto wasn't blind, he knew his parents were favoring his sister. He had made excellent progress with the exercise.

"I'm ok nee-chan, you don't have to– WHERE ARE YOU STICKING THAT THING!?" Naruto quickly jumped back evading the needle aimed for his arm.

"Naruto," began Rin, a small fire burning in her eyes. "My job is to make sure you're safe. I don't know if you contracted an infection from any splinters you might have gotten, but I don't want to risk you getting sick. I don't care if you're an Uzumaki and have a miraculous immune system, you will receive your shot!"

Naruto pouted at her and Rin's heart couldn't help but melt in sympathy. Her gaze softening she approached Naruto and pulled him on her back.

"I'm very proud of you Naru-chan. You managed to get to the top of the tree with your chakra! And at such a young age too! Not to mention the enormous size of your reserves hampering you all the while." Rin began walking out of the park, Naruto smiling all the while.

"Nee-chan? Can we visit jiji?"

Rin smiled. "You mean the Sandaime?"

"Yeah!"

Quickly turning around and channeling chakra to her feet, Rin jumped up and began hopping across the branches until she reached the main square. Falling back on to the road in front of the Sarutobi Compound, she couldn't help but feel her heart lift as Naruto giggled. Rin had recently been feeling as if the Namikaze family were paying less attention to Naruto than to his sister. She noticed that Minami was receiving all the praise and love from her family, while Naruto was left alone. She hoped that things would fix themselves soon. Snapping out of her thoughts, she realized she had already reached the door to the Sandaime's office.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was having a peaceful day. He had woken up at a decent time in the morning and had gone down to breakfast. As it turned out, his daughter, along with her little baby, his grandson, Konohamaru were visiting the doctor's for Kono-kun's monthly check-up. He had a very peaceful breakfast and lunch, before quietly retiring to his office for the rest of the day. Sitting in his comfortable chair and leaning back, reading his student's most beautiful work (he had long since figured out how to suppress a nosebleed), he was quietly waiting for his family to come home. Hearing the sound of footsteps he quickly hid his book in his secret compartment, he turned and received a large blond haired rocket to the chest.

"JIJI!"

"Ah, Naruto-kun, I wasn't expecting you today," was the calm response of the Sandaime, while inwardly, he was complaining about children and his old bones being weak nowadays.

"Jijijijijijijiji," was all that he could make out as Naruto bounced up and down. "I have a favor to ask you! Can you tell me about how the Kyuubi was sealed?"

Frowning slightly at Naruto's question, he lightly puffed on his pipe, before Rin smacked it away.

"There is a child present!" was the quiet hiss of the esteemed medic-nin.

"Ah, well Naruto-kun, the Kyuubi was sealed by your father through the use of the Hakke no Fūin Shiki (Eight Trigrams Sealing Style) and the Shiki Fūjin (Dead Demon Consuming Seal)," Hiruzen spoke softly, all the while ruffling Naruto's hair affectionately. "He used the Shinigami to seal half of the Kyuubi away, as a newborn couldn't handle too much of the Kyuubi's chakra, whilst also sealing the other half into your sister, Minami."

"Wow," Naruto muttered under his breath. "So seals are really powerful, aren't they jiji? If they could defeat the Kyuubi like that, they could defeat anyone! You wouldn't need any other kinds of jutsu, would you?"

"Now, now Naruto-kun, you mustn't forget, over-specializing in any kind of style is a deadly miscalculation, and will ruin you eventually is an enemy has a counter to your ability," admonished Hiruzen. "While yes, seals are in fact very powerful and very useful, it's a better idea to not over-rely too much on seals, as well as never underestimating your opponent. If you get too confident and arrogant, you will be blind to the moves of your opponent. Remember, there is always someone stronger than you out there."

"Even more than you and tou-san, jiji?" came the innocent response of Naruto.

"Yes, even more than Minato and I." Hiruzen smiled kindly. He couldn't help but feel as if Naruto simply existing in his presence lit up his day.

"What's that jiji?" Naruto was sitting on his lap, staring at a few overturned scrolls and manuscripts. He was pointing towards a scroll with a spiraling insignia written in ink.

"That my dear Naruto-kun, is a storage seal," Hiruzen smiled. "It is used to seal small objects like books and kunai away into another dimension."

"Can you teach me?" The idea of sending things to another dimension appealed greatly to Naruto for no other reason than that it 'sounds cool'.

'It's good to see this generation so interested in the old arts. Most ninja underestimate fuinjutsu and its capabilities. Hopefully Naruto will become a master of the craft in the future. It would be a shame to see such potential and such curiosity, the main component of any seal master, to go to waste just like that.' Hiruzen thought inwardly.

"Of course I can Naruto-kun. Before you learn fuinjutsu, you must first have excellent handwriting. If you mess up a character on a seal, it could possibly explode in your face!" Hiruzen chuckled at Naruto's semi-disgusted expression. "Come, come Naruto-kun, now see, this is the character for "ta", see if you can copy it…"

By the time the sky turned dark, Naruto had already mastered his calligraphy to a decent degree. Whilst not on the levels of most fuinjutsu users, it was enough to prevent a seal from malfunctioning and blowing up his face. Rather impressive for one so small.

"Come on Naru-chan, Sandaime-sama needs his rest." Rin patted her knees crouched in front of Naruto.

Naruto quickly ran to his nee-chan and hugged her tightly. Rin carefully maneuvered Naruto onto her back and bowed to the Sandaime.

"I am terribly sorry for interrupting your time with Naruto Sandaime-sama, but it is time for him to go home now."

Hiruzen merely chuckled and waved her away. "It's quite alright Rin-chan, please, come again tomorrow. I'm sure that Naruto will excel in the noble art of fuinjutsu."

Naruto looked behind him and watched as Rin hopped off into the distance. He could sense the small amount of chakra built up within her legs, letting her jump across the rooftops. Walking to the front door, he wriggled the doorknob and found that it was locked. Frowning slightly he ran to the other side of the garden and rolled over a small rock. Digging underneath and compacted gravel and sand, he reached into the hole and pulled out a small key. Running to the front door and back, he quickly unlocked the door before hurrying back and burying the key. His frowned deepened. Did his parents really lock him out of the house by accident?

Walking into the house, Naruto took off his shoes and locked the door behind him. He could hear the clatter of pots and pans, as well as the laughter of his sister and mother as they talked about the day. Peeking in he noticed there wasn't a fourth plate laid out for him. Frowning slightly he listened in on the conversation between his kaa-san and nee-chan.

"Kaa-san, kaa-san! Tou-san and I finished water-walking today! I can stand on it for a whole minute!" Minami bounced in her seat.

"That's great Mina-chan!" exclaimed Kushina, pumping her fist into the air. "Soon you'll be just as strong as kaa-san and tou-san!"

Grinning slightly to herself, Kushina stood and began cleaning up the table. As she was washing the dishes, she frowned as she counted only three plates, before brushing it off as nothing but a bad feeling. Recently, she had been feeling small stabs of guilt for some unknown reason, whenever she saw other children play. Before the plates there was the park, and before that there was that time at the lake.

'It's going to be alright Kushina' she assured herself. 'It's all for preparing Minami. We need to make sure the world survives. As much as I don't like it, the needs of the village outweigh one person's wishes...'

Putting away the plates, she turned back to Minami only to see her staring at the door. Turning she saw the door slightly creaking and nothing else. Shrugging to herself she picked up Minami and headed for her room to tuck her in.

Minami was a sweet girl. She was raised by her parents to be kind and happy, to always help out her friends. She frequently had sleep overs with Ino Yamanaka and Hinata Hyuga, sometimes together. She was a very social and bubbly young girl, always making the villagers smile as she ran past them, laughing as her tou-san chased her, covered in purple paint (a story for another day). She always trained her hardest to make her tou-san and kaa-san proud. Happily chatting with her mother, she turned slightly and stared while Kushina stood to collect the plates and wash the dishes. She saw a small pair of cerulean eyes, sparkling at the edges with unshed tears staring at her through the crack in the door. The small eyes widened before quickly moving, revealing a shock of yellow hair rushing past the door, leaving it squeaking. Her kaa-san quickly picked her up a few minutes later and carried her to her room.

Recently, she had begun thinking of her adorable estranged younger (as she sees it) brother, who had, in her mind, almost none of the training she had. She always felt a little guilty seeing her brother so sad while she was playing with her friends or training with her tou-san. Though Minato nor Kushina never sensed him, she always saw him peeking through the windows, seeing what she and their parents were training in.

"Kaa-san?" came her small quiet voice. This instantly worried Kushina, as her daughter was always so bubbly. "Why does nii-chan never train with us?"

A stab of guilt shot through Kushina's body, before quickly being assuaged by her previous thoughts. "Well Mina-chan," Kushina began. "We promised your brother that we would train him at the start of the academy, so that we would have time to focus on you now. You need to learn how to control the Kyuubi, and how to be an excellent ninja, in order to prepare for the challenges ahead."

Sighing with no small amount of relief at the fact that her brother would not be left out, she indulged her curiosity. "Kaa-san? What do you mean by challenges?"

Eyes widening at her slip-up, Kushina decided 'to hell with it' and to just tell her daughter a half-truth. "Well you see Mina-chan, you are destined for great things, and tou-san and I just want you to be prepared, that's all."

Minami smiled as her mother tucked her into her bed. "Kaa-san can you read me a story?"

"Of course sweetie."

The next day would find Naruto determinedly attempting to walk on water. He was having great success too, managing to stay afloat for a good 4 minutes if he didn't move too much.. Not being the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi had its advantages in the form of chakra control.

If any bypasser had seen him, they would've been shocked. A mere boy, at the age of 5, was surrounded by multiple copies of himself. Only twelve, but twelve Kage Bunshin (Shadow Clone) was impressive for one so young and not a jinchuriki. The fact that he even knew this jutsu was shocking in and of itself. There are advantages to being neglected by your family, one of which is that they never really pay attention to you, so sneaking into your father's study at night in search of the lesson plan for water walking, which conveniently mentioned the use of Kage Bunshin as a training method, was relatively easy.

Naruto sighed as he thought about his family. 'Maybe. Just maybe. Maybe if I master this and show that I am just as good as Minami, if not better, they'll pay attention to me again...'

Pushing these thoughts away, he focused back to the task at hand. Dispelling all his clones and almost falling into the water at the influx of memories, he began hopping up and down, and running around. He smiled at the fact that he didn't sink. Running back to dry land, he quickly began his journey to his jiji's house.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was having a rather awful day. His adorable grandson had apparently begun teething, and was gnawing on everything, crying whenever particularly dangerous objects were taken away from him. A female maid also had found his book and burnt it in the fireplace.

Always, on days like this something would happen to brighten his day. He assumed it was maybe Kami letting him catch a break after the life he led these past few years.

Almost instinctively he opened his arms and within a few seconds a blond and orange shaped rocket slammed into his abdomen.

"Jiji!" was the adorable shout of the 5 year-old.

"Ah, hello Naruto-kun," was the kind reply of the old Sandaime. "Are you here for fuinjutsu lessons?"

"Yeah!" Naruto excitedly hopped up and down. "I wanna be a great shinobi just like you and tou-san, and I'll do it with seals!"

Hiruzen sighed before puffing on his pipe a little. Rin wasn't there today to reprimand him, so he was free to do as he pleased.

"That is an excellent goal Naruto-kun. Come inside, your lesssons start now."

The candles in the room were still burning. Hiruzen had long since gone to bed, but not before ordering an ANBU to watch the compound to make sure Naruto was safe. Naruto was in fact snoozing on the Sandaime's office chair, his head on the desk. There was a smudge of ink on his face and the desktop was a mess. Through the chaos there were several completed seals, ranging from storage to explosive ones that the Sandaime had modified when teaching Naruto so that they would explode into paint (a personal request from Naruto). Naruto groaned slightly in his sleep, the scroll in his hand loosening and rolling across the desk before falling to the floor and unfurling slightly. Written on the piece of the scroll that was visible were two words.

Shiki Fūjin

A/N: Well that's chapter 2. I hope you are pleased with it. I am sorry for the hold-up but while I do enjoy writing, I feel as if my studies take precedence over this story. So far we have Naruto starting to progress on his way to be a ninja, his chakra control is going a lot better due to the Kyuubi not being sealed in him. Once again, please review, any constructive criticism is highly appreciated as this is my first fanfiction. Any advice is welcome. I would like everyone to note, this fic will most likely be updated on Saturdays and Sundays, with the occasional Friday.

EDIT:
A big thanks to nynrahghost for pointing out that the feelings of guilt and the neglect of Naruto were somewhat reasonless. I had a reason in mind as to why they were neglecting but I just forgot to write it in.