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Chapter 6

Naruto stood far off, watching the Sandaime's funeral. It was surprisingly, not a grand funeral. The only shinobi allowed to go were genin or ninja related to Sandaime. The village's security was top priority after all. Civilians were not allowed to go either; they had to start rebuilding Konoha.

Naruto stood so far away so he wouldn't get noticed. On the outside, he looked indifferent to the whole situation. His insides were another story altogether. Naruto felt regret and was second guessing his relationship. He was now unsure if the Sandaime truly cared about him, or if he was just doing his job as Hokage: protecting and taking care of everyone of his village. Naruto had to reconcile that it was most likely a combination of both. He also felt regret that he acted like a child for the past eight months. He wished he was able to just have one more talk with him, let him know that Naruto didn't blame the old man for what happened with him. Naruto knew that at first, he was being childish, but that later his own pride kept him from seeking out the man. Naruto would not let something like this happen again.

"What's up, gaki?" A gruff voice startled Naruto out of his musings... a familiar, perverted voice.

"J-Jiraiya?" Naruto asked, turning around in wonder and awe. Someone had actually come back to him!

"What? You thought I had left?" Jiraiya asked with amusement. "You've got to realize, little kid, that I'm a busy man. Things to do, women to peep."

"B-but I thought that you just left me, you know not coming back?" Naruto asked in a pitiful voice.

"Maybe I should have," Jiraiya said in a harsh voice, making Naruto visible flinch. "I'm not in the business of training people, or being around people for that matter, who feel sorry for themselves. I know that your life has been rough," Jiraiya began in a more tender voice,"but some things you need to rise above. You need to learn that not everyone is out to get you... just most people." Jiraiya finished while chuckling at his own joke, realizing just how true it actually was.

Naruto thought about Jiraiya's advice, and about his own realization just before Jiraiya got there. Naruto realized that swallowing his pride was needed, but he did need to have pride in himself to be able to be a functioning human being. He refused to be less than a human... a demon.

"So what did you come back for, Jiraiya-san?" Naruto said with a barely noticeable conviction in his voice.

Jiraiya was a little irked that the boy had addressed him as san. He has been addressed as sama, sensei, and hentai (which really wasn't a real honorific), but nothing irked him more than being addressed as san. Especially by Naruto, who knew that he took offense to the title.

"I came back for you, but I think that was a mistake," here Naruto smirked a little at getting under Jiraiya's skin, "and also to find a Hokage." As he guessed, Naruto's ears perked up with that information. He knew the boy secretly coveted the position, and that Naruto was his best chance to get his old teammate back to Konohagakure no Sato.

"Who are you bringing back?" Naruto asked with his head cocked to the side... they would have to meet his approval first.

"My old teammate, Tsunade, the Slug Sannin." Naruto nodded his head in thought. Tsunade was a very strong candidate. She was trained by the Sandaime, easily the foremost expert on medicine in any country, and an immense strength that made twenty shinobi with chakra enhanced limbs look like children.

"At least I can rest safely knowing you won't be Hokage," Naruto said almost if he was talking to himself, "I won't have to hang around the hot springs protecting the women from their Hokage."

"You damned brat!" Jiraiya yelled out as he reached to ring Naruto neck, but inside, Naruto lep deftly out of his way as they chased each other for the better part of a day.

"So what was the technique you were going to teach me?" Naruto asked as he followed Jiraiya. The duo were currently walking away from Konoha, looking for Jiraiya's errant teammate, Tsunade.

"The Rasengan, fool!" Jiraiya snapped back to Naruto. For his credit, Naruto didn't even flinch.

"What's so special about the jutsu anyway?" Naruto asked.

Jiraiya gave a big sigh and hung his head in defeat as he stopped in the middle of the road. "The Rasengan was created by the Yondaime Hokage. It was his second most powerful jutsu. It requires fine chakra control and can kill and maim or just incapacitate enemies. It's an A-rank technique and one of Konoha's most prized techniques..." Jiraiya finished.

"I don't want to learn that jutsu," Naruto said quietly.

"What do you mean? It's a great technique!" Jiraiya exclaimed.

"It seems like a very personal technique, something that the Yondaime treasured. It should be kept a secret," Naruto remarked as he walked on.

"If anyone has a right to the Yondaime's techniques, it's you, Naruto." Jiraiya stated in a calm voice. "What he did to you was a very regrettable thing, Jiraiya began, "and I know that his at ate him up on the inside. You are as close to him than anyone alive today, Naruto, for what he did to you. This technique, by all rights, is yours."

"I don't want the jutsu if it makes him feel better," Naruto said with a little edge to his voice. They all knew who he was.

"Look, I can understand that, really I can. But look at it this way: the Rasengan is the the pinnacle of chakra manipulation jutsu. It hones chakra control as well. If you learn this technique, you don't have to use it. The only thing you have to take away from this training is how to manipulate chakra on such a scale, you don't need hand seals." Jiraiya reasoned with Naruto. He didn't want the Rasengan to die with him. And when Naruto learned of his heritage, he might want to use the technique.

"Well, I guess I could learn it. I do have an idea for a jutsu, and it sounds like this training might help me out," Naruto reasoned. Besides, if worse came to worse, he would have a lethal jutsu to get him out of sticky situations.

"Excellent! And for further incentive, this is what the Rasengan does!" Jiraiya shouted out as a blue sphere appeared in his hand and shoved it into a tree. Naruto's eyebrows rose into his hair line as he watched the grinding action against the tree. It was truly powerful.

Naruto sat in his hotel room as Jiraiya went out to peep. Naruto was currently on the second phase to learning the Rasengan. It had taken him a week to get up to that point. Sadly, his arm felt like it was on fire. When the pain got to be too much, he would summon a dozen or so Kage Bunshin's to do the exercise. That was almost as bad though, because he always got "ghost pains" traveling up his arm afterwards.

It was currently one of those moments when he heard soft, polite knocking on the door. "Who is it?" Naruto asked through the door. He got no answer, and before he laid back down on his bed to rest for a little bit, another round of knocking occurred.

"What?" Naruto asked impatiently as he yanked the door open. Standing in front of him were two men, each wearing black robes with red clouds on them. The first man was abnormally tall with blue skin and gill-like markings on his face with a huge, bulky sword on his back.

The second man was far shorter than his comrade, but still quite a bit taller than Naruto himself. He had long black hair and tired looking eyes that surprisingly contained the Sharingan.

"We would like for you to come with us, Naruto-kun," the blacked haired man asked in a raspy, hollow voice.

"...No," Naruto said in a defiant whisper, looking death in the face as he stared unflinchingly into the eyes of the Uchiha.

"Then how 'bout I cut your arms and legs off," the blue skinned man asked with apparent glee in his voice.

"If you think you can..." Naruto trailed off as he turned his stony gaze to the blue skinned man.

Said man's eyes wide with joy has he yanked his swords from his back so fast, Naruto didn't even see the blur. The blue skinned man swung his swords with apparent sloppy movements as he took out the whole entrance way, with Naruto just ducking under the blade in time.

Naruto quickly flipped back, trying to make space between the blue skinned man and himself. When he landed, he heard the Uchiha say, "Kisame, we need him alive, and we need to be discreet." The blue man just shrugged as he returned his blood lust gaze back to Naruto.

"Let's continue this dance, squirt."

Naruto took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was in an unfamiliar taijutsu stance and his eyes were the blood red of the Uchiha. Naruto noticed the slight widening of the Uchiha's eyes. Naruto smirked as he explained.

"The Uchiha think they control the Kyuubi no Yoko with their Sharingan eye. The truth is, Kyuubi granted them that power, with his own potent blood for a sacrifice... the clan leader's closest friend, his brother Hyuuga Hinoiri...

"As to why I have the red eye of the Sharingan? Because the Kyuubi is my prisoner! His powers, knowledge, strength... everything I want of his is mine!" And before both men, Naruto seemingly teleported in between them. Naruto vaulted into the air and gave 'Kisame' a roundhouse kick to his head. But instead of launching him, Naruto barely moved his head an inch. The only pain Naruto caused, seemed to be him shattering his own foot.

"Oh. That tickled!" The man remarked. "Besides these shockingly good looks, I'm stronger than ten Jonin!" He boasted before he clutched his head. It seemed that Naruto's kick at least gave him a migraine. "Son of a bitch!" Kisame moaned before he shook his head and stood up straight, giving Naruto a deadly glare. The only movement made by the Uchiha throughout the ordeal was moving his head slightly out of the way of Naruto's attack.

Before Kisame made his charge at Naruto again, him and the Uchiha both stood a little straighter, followed by a strong, boastful voice. "Well, well, well..." remarked the perverted hermit Jiraiya, "If there is one thing I'm passionate about than peeping," he began, "is TAKING ADVANTAGE OF PRETTY GIRLS!" He yelled at the two.

Kisame was still shaken that someone had gotten within ten meters of him without him noticing, and neither did his sword. However, before he could square his shoulders to his new opponent, everyone heard a loud chirping sound, before the blur that was Uchiha Sasuke stormed in. He made a beeline for the other Uchiha, but the older Uchiha simply grabbed Sasuke's lightning coated hand and snapped it.

"Foolish little brother," the man rasped out. Naruto now recognized the man. He remembered seeing him every now and again when ANBU had to protect him. He was also the man that slaughtered Sasuke's clan: Uchiha Itachi.

"Itachi," Sasuke growled out, "I'm going to kill you!"

Itachi didn't even raise an eyebrow as he threw Sasuke against a wall. Through this time, Naruto was able to get next to Jiraiya.

"Aren't you going to help him?" Naruto asked.

"Somethings," Jiraiya began in a rough whisper, "are better learned the hard way."

At that point, they both heard Itachi whisper out, "Tsukiyomi!"

A second afterwards, Sasuke screamed out and fainted. That must have been Jiraiya's signal, because he began hand seals and shouted to Naruto: "Get Sasuke!" Before he shouted out "Kuchiyose: Gamaguchi Shibari!"

Suddenly, the walls of the hotel hallway erupted into that of the fleshy substance of Iwagama's esophagus.

"Kisame, RUN!" Itachi rasped out as the walls began to try and suck them in. When the walls got too close for comfort, Kisame would beat them back with his sword. Jiraiya and Naruto commenced to chasing them shortly after they fled, but were too late when Itachi used a fire technique to burn away the last part of the wall before it too was consumed and they escaped.

While Jiraiya examined the strange black flames, he didn't notice Naruto's wide eyes, until he sealed the black fire. Jiraiya heard Naruto murmur a small "Sugoi!" before smirking to himself.

It looked like there might be a new toad hermit and seal master coming to Konoha in the coming years.

Techniques:

Kuchiyose: Gamaguchi Shibari: Summoning: Toad Mouth Bind

Tsukiyomi: Itachi's Mangekyou Sharingan's ultimate genjutsu

AN: I have decided to to this story into a darker tone. At first, I was going to have Naruto find happiness. Now, after contemplation, I'm going to loosely base this off Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" song (totally bad ass, and I can't believe no one has done that yet!). Not word for word, mind you, but you might here a line or two in some coming dialog that gives a nod to the song.

Also, I'm calling it now: Naruto becomes the new toad sage, masters hermit mode (probably another break in manga, where Naruto comes back after two years, totally mastering toad summoning, maybe the next series will live up to the Hurricane Chronicles instead of the Lightning Chronicles, if you get my drift), takes out 'Hawk,' kills Sasuke, then beats Akatsuki, which allows him to become Hokage. You heard it here first.