A/N: After explaining things to the Hokage, Team Kakashi returns to their homes, some reflecting on their past, while others prepare for the future.

Summary: One fateful night in Konohagakure, the Yondaime Hokage chose his village over his only son; only time will tell if he made the right choice. Feral!Naruto, NaruXAnko, Some yuri

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto yada yada

Key: Normal, "Speech" 'Thoughts' "Demon Speech" 'Demon Thoughts'

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Chapter 12

Home?

Tsunade tapped her finger against the heavy wooden desk as she idly waited, a look of annoyance upon her face.

'The guards said Kakashi's team was back, they should be here by now…if Kakashi tries one of his excuses again, I'll find that old lady he seems so fond of helping and ram her straight up his…'

"Ano, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune said, growing concerned over her mentor's growing murderous grin.

"Huh? What?" She replied curtly, disappointed at having her violent fantasies interrupted.

"Ah! Its just that Team Kakashi is here to see you"

"Right! Send them in!" Tsunade said exuberantly, rubbing her hands together and grinning maniacally. Shizune flinched before turning to the door.

"You can come in now," She said, before scooting to her position near the Hokage's desk. Tsunade narrowed her eyes in a calculating expression as five people filed in, her hand reached towards the pocket on her jacket in preparation.

"So, Hatake, why where you late this time?" The buxom blonde asked accusingly.

"Maa maa, we where on our way here when Sensei's son ran off, so we decided to go and retrieve him from the Ramen stand before coming here" The silver haired jounin said, doing his patented eye-smile.

"Hatake, of all your excuses you've ever had, this is by far the most feeble, pathetic, blatantly obvious ones to date, why I outa…"

"Ano…Tsunade-shishou, it's not a lie…" Sakura said hesitantly. Tsunade paused, her fist half way through an overdramatic shake, as she eyed the team critically.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" She said coolly, taking the time to cross-examine the five nin standing in front of her.

'Wait five?' She quickly went over a head count,

'Pinky, crazy blonde, crazy chick, one eye, crazy blonde…wait a minute…'

"Who is this?" She demanded, pointing an accusatory finger towards the extra blonde.

"And why doesn't he have any pants on?" She elaborated, lowering her finger somewhat. Tem Kakashi had the decency to look sheepish, while Naruto stood there, eyeing the female hokage.

"Er…"

"It kinda…"

"Slipped our minds…"

"Better this way…" Anko mumbled. Tsunade raised a bemused eyebrow at her excuse.

"Care to repeat that?"

"I said I don't think pants would suit him, Tsunade-sama" Anko replied, her face set firmly to deadpan.

"And, who is he?"

"Hokage-sama, I'd like you to meet Naruto…" Arashi was cut off when Naruto chose to leap onto the Hokage's desk and stare at her oversized chest critically.

"Demon stone…" The feral blonde said, his red eyes somewhat glazed over as he gazed at the necklace around her neck. Tsunade raised her fist to strike the whiskered boy, only to freeze at what was said next.

"…My son" Arashi finished. Having lost interest, Naruto leapt off the desk and wondered over to the coat rack in the corner of the office. He gently picked up the pointed Hokage hat and brought it to eye level, before grinning and biting into it.

"Naruto! No" Arashi said. Naruto pouted before letting the hat drop to the ground. Anko snorted as she tried to stifle a giggle.

"Care to explain, I thought your son was officially listed as dead, as of eight years ago." Tsunade said, ignoring the antics of the immature teen. Kakashi shrugged,

"Sensei will have to explain, we're just as in the dark as you are."

"I see, Arashi, the podium's all yours, care to explain this…'bundle of joy' that is destroying my office?" Arashi stiffened momentarily before replacing the hat on its stool. He turned around to talk, his face void of all emotion.

'Is it really that hard for him to deal with emotional pain? It can't be healthy…' Tsunade thought grimly, reflecting on his coping mechanism.

"Going by several first and second hand accounts," He began, his voice flat and dead. Kakashi sighed. "I have managed to piece together an accurate concept of what had happened."

"Go on"

"As you know, several years ago, one Uzumaki Naruto, my son, and jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi-" He was interrupted as Naruto let out what sounded like an angry cough. "-Was…assaulted by a pair of rogue chuunin acting on their own interests, and left for dead outside the border of fire country. Shortly after his arrival, Kyuubi-" Another cough, slightly louder.

"Made contact with him, and instructed him on how to stay alive, and how to draw upon its power. Approximately two-an-a-half years ago, Kyuubi attempted to take control of Naruto-" There was a definite snarl, and the sound of a vase breaking against the ground. No one flinched.

"Naruto retaliated, and removed the seal in order to reach the Kyuubi, and then proceeded to…'attack and devour' the Kyuubi in its entirety. This action is what resulted in my being released from the Shinigami at the same time. Naruto then proceeded to live as he always had, living of the wild, and the livestock of a nearby settlement."

"They good meat, there" Naruto offered.

"About a fortnight ago, he was attacked by two unknown individuals, one possessing 'evil eyes', the other seemingly possessing some affiliation with a shark. Shortly after this attack, the villagers applied for shinobi aid. My team responded, and shortly after arrival-"

"You call a week shortly?" Anko scoffed. Arashi ignored her.

"-Shortly after arrival, we encountered Naruto, who, upon laying sight on us, launched an attack. Thanks to the combined efforts of the team as a whole, however, we where able to subdue him, and Naruto, after some…'explaining', agreed to return with us. As his Father, he will be living with me, and be under my protection, and as such my responsibility" As the former Hokage said the last part, his voice took on a harsh tone, leaving no room for argument.

"I…see, so be it. Your all dismissed, take a weeks holiday or something, good day." She said sternly. The group turned to leave, Naruto filing behind Arashi.

"Hatake, I'd like a word with you…"

"Hokage-sama?" Kakashi said, pausing as he reached the door. The other members of his team filed past him.

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With Naruto and Arashi

As Arashi led Naruto to his house, his mind was frantically racing, self-doubt and fear invading his chaos. As usual, when he didn't know what to do with these painful emotions, he hid them. A large grin upon his face, he turned to his son.

"It'll be great once I show you my place, it's not much but it's enough to get by. There's a pool, and a garden, and its close to the forest. Lots of wildlife, fresh air, away from all the hustle and bustle of the main centre, you should get a load of the view, oh and…" Naruto let his mind wonder as his somewhat deranged father rambled on. He briefly wondered about the woman he'd seen back at the tower.

'She strong…but chichiue stronger…yet she pack leader? Shouldn't strongest be pack leader? Maybe ask chichiue…'

"Chichiue?"

"Hmm? Nan desu ka?"

"You stronger than old woman…yet old woman pack leader…why you not pack leader?" Arashi was taken aback somewhat by the question; he had to admit that Naruto was certainly more perceptive than how he came across.

"The person who leads the village is called the Hokage, at one point…I was the Hokage, but I sacrificed myself to seal the Kyuubi when it attacked, in order to save the village. When you defeated Kyuubi, you set me free. However, I had lost…much. I was…no longer fit to lead, as such, Tsunade, and older but more experienced ninja than me took up the position. I do not regret the decision" Arashi closed his eyes as he relayed the past several years to his son. Naruto scrunched his brow as he tried to interpret what he was just told; attempting to apply the knowledge to the image of his father he was painting in his mind.

"So…Chichiue…gave up himself to defeat fox, chichiue come back…but still missing something…so now weaker than used to be" "Hai, you could put it like that, although…" Arashi paused for a second to smile at his son. "…I think I may have found what I had lost"

Naruto cocked his head to look at his father, before smiling. Not understanding what the elder blonde meant.

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With Sakura

Sakura sighed as she slumped down on her bed. Long missions had always tired her, then again so did near death experiences. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and groaned, seeing that it was only four in the afternoon. Her face formed itself into a frown as it found its way to her old team photo.

'Uchiha…Sasuke…' She had honestly loved that boy, but apparently it wasn't enough to sate his desire for revenge. Occasionally they received reports about a dark haired fire and lightning user, but she'd stopped caring after the first six months. As far as she was concerned the Uchiha clan was dead. Her eyes travelled to the other person standing next to her.

'Dareko…Daremo' The boy that had given his life in an attempt to save his teammate from his own personal darkness…and failed. Shortly after his death, she had learned that Daremo had actually had feelings for his pink haired teammate, but had never voiced them out of fear of rejection. That had been a painful blow for her, knowing her teammate had died trying to keep her happy. Sakura sighed; she had terrible luck when it came to men. When she had finally gotten over the death and betrayal of her teammates Tsunade had convinced her to try seeing some of the other boys in her generation. She had gone out with Inuzuka Kiba for a while, but they broke up when she found him cheating on her with another girl. Hell, she'd even gone out with Rock Lee for a while, but in the end they drifted apart, driven away by their conflicting personalities. They where still friends, they just both knew it would never work out as anything more. After that, she had pretty much given up on relationships and thrown herself into training to keep her mind off things. It caused Tsunade no end of grief to see her apprentice do this to herself, but Sakura didn't mind. As long as she was useful nothing else mattered, as long as there where times she could say she was 'happy'.

Her mind drifted on to the incident with Anko, right before they'd found Arashi's son. Her cheeks matched her hair for a moment as he remembered just what had happened. She wondered why Anko had decided to do that…did she actually find Sakura attractive? If so then she'd never hinted towards it on any of her previous missions with the snake woman. Anko's words came to mind as she thought about it;

"It's all about what makes you happy, and when you're happy, nothing else matters." She murmured out loud. She knew how that felt, to be drowning in the sorrow, desperately clinging to something, anything to make it all the more bearable. Anko, it seemed, had casual sex to escape her pain, and Sakura had her apprenticeship, but still…you could only immerse yourself in your work for so long until it becomes a part of your darkness, and you lose your means of excape.

Sakura shook her head, as if to clear her mind of these melancholic thoughts.

"I suppose I might as well eat out" She murmured to her quiet apartment.

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With Anko

Anko was smiling as she returned to her home, a small, quiet cottage at the far end of the forest of death. She was smiling as she found her fridge almost empty, smiling as she sat down in a chair in front of the fire, smiling as tears ran down her face. After a solid ten minutes her smile finally fell away, replaced with a hollow looking expression of disinterest, giving her the appearance of a mindless drone. It was a face she had worn often towards the end of her apprenticeship to the snake sannin, and well into her self-imposed exile within her own village. She got up and walked into the bathroom, shedding her damaged clothes and turning on the shower. Her smile, that was something she had created for the Yondaime Hokage, one of the few people who could see past the teachings of the snake. She had worn it so he would let her suffer in silence, thinking that she had recovered. She could still walk; she just used alcohol and sex as crutches. Many saw her as nothing but a mentally unstable, nymphomaniac. That was probably the way she saw herself if anyone asked her about it. But the truth was it went far deeper than that, she would make dramatic entrances as a way to get people to look at her in something other than fear and disgust, something she had learned from Maito Gai. Her mind drifted to the spandex glad jounin as she stepped into the shower.

There probably was only about half a dozen ninja's in the world left that knew of Gai's past, herself, Hatake Kakashi, his student, and Shikaku Nara. Back then he had worn complex camouflage instead of green spandex, back then his hair fell around his face like sticks dancing in the wind. Back then 'Konoha's Green Beast' was one of the most feared and loathed shinobi across the world. Back then he had gone under a different name. He could break bones with a single strike, and destroy whole armies on his own. Lurking mongst the undergrowth, he could render an entire division of shinobi incapacitated for months, years, even for life, in a matter of seconds. But it came at a heavy price, many who knew of his reputation avoided him like the plague, no one save a few would look him in the eye. Eventually he snapped, cut his hair into a bowl, threw out his assassination clothes for a mock parody of stealth, and took to making proclamations of 'the power of youth' to further degrade himself. Within a month no one recognised him as the same person they saw as a demon. Even now he was teaching a student the same techniques that had granted him an A in the bingo books, yet thanks to his 'mask of youth' he shared with his student no one blinked twice, and if they did it was for the mutual hugging.

As for the sex, that was perhaps the only thing that had kept her from suicide for almost twenty years. For a short time there was something other than killing that she was good at. To be able to bring pleasure to other people, to make them happy, it made her feel wanted, if only for a short time.

The image of the blonde teen her group had picked up flashed through her mind. That boy, Naruto, at first he had seemed like the antithesis for all that ruled her life. Free of obligations, responsibilities, and reputations, more of an entity than a person. But that image had shattered when she saw him at the ramen stand, for all his power he was trembling in fear, it had forced her to remember just how bad his life had been before he has removed from Konoha. She couln't help but feel it was cruel to force him back into a world that didn't want him. Yet he seemed overjoyed by it, even if it was only a means to remain with his father. It seemed he would endure anything for that man. But still, Anko had to admit that he was no less free than he had been a day ago, the only thing keeping him here was his own choice, and she doubted the boys father would stop him from leaving, no-one else could, that's for sure. When she fought him, it was like fighting a god. The sensation of just being near that power had been intoxicating for her, if he had of killed her there she would have died happy. In a way she had to admit, some part of her was probably hoping for that outcome, which was probably why she had used the Sōjasōsai, a something that was listed as a kinjutsu under suicidal. Anko smirked, she couldn't help but find it amusing the technique Orochimaru had created to cause death had been used to save a life. Feeling slightly better Anko stepped out of the shower and turned of the tap. Throwing on some spare clothes she decided to head out into town and stock up on supplies.

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With Kakashi

"What did you want to see me for, Hokage-sama?" He asked, all signs of laziness vanished.

"I feel simply allowing a potential hazard into the village based on the words of a mentally unstable father to be too big a risk for my liking, I wanted to hear your perspective on exactly what happened.

"I see, I'll tell you what I know, but I'm afraid I was knocked out early into the battle"

"Oh? Arashi said the whole team had contributed to the fight"

"Sensei feels the need to embellish everything, by 'contribution' was a raikiri through the kids chest" He chuckled darkly, Tsunade's eyes widened in shock.

"And why, pray tell, did you do that?"

"A person emanating demonic chakra, same as that of the Kyuubi which nearly wiped ot the village sixteen years ago, appears and shouts out vows of vengeance against the Hokage normally warrants immediate action. Had I known it was sensei's son I might have reconsidered." Tsunade frowned at the 'might'.

"And what happened after you attacked him?"

"Believing he was dead I turned around, I was then struck by an enourmous killing intent and was rendered unconscious by an impact into a tree. I can safely say that any wound from the raikiri had completely healed away."

"That's…impressive healing, do you know anything else?"

"I questioned Sakura during our journey, she described him as having 'tails' of chakra, she was defeated shortly after healing by wounds, where she not so adept at chakra control she would have drowned. She managed to perform water walking while unconscious from broken bones."

"So Anko and Arashi defeated him on their own?"

"I don't know for sure, the damage Anko received suggests she used Sōjasōsai at some point, there were a large number of craters in the landscape, a particularly large gouge the length of a large lake, and a large number of Arashi's Hiraishin kunai where present on the battlefield, exactly how the jinchuuriki was defeated I do not know, as he had already healed any wounds sustained by the time I came to"

"I see, so he is extremely powerful, and what do you think about his claim of the Kyuubi being dead?"

"All we know for sure is that the seal was released, the exact fate of the Kyuubi is unknown"

"Is it possible Kyuubi is, in fact, the one in control?"

"Perhaps, but if that is true then Kyuubi is an exceptionally good actor."

"What do you mean?" Tsunade asked, Kakashi then went on to describe what he'd seen at the ramen stand.

"I see, so that is unlikely, but it is still possible Kyuubi is dormant within him somewhere?"

"Hai"

"I see, I'll ask you this then, Hatake, do you believe he poses a threat to Konoha or its inabitants?"

"He acts solely on impulse, and seems to disregard anyone other than Arashi-sensei, if provoked, it can be expected that he will respond in turn, and his demonic powers seem to be tied to his emotions."

"So your saying is one slip up and he just may level he whole city?"

"That may be, but he also seems to have a very unyielding set of values, he expresses distaste for what he calls 'kinslayers' and seems to follow a self appointed pack system, with Arashi-sensei designated as the leader"

"So in the end it all revolves around Arashi? I see…the council will have to be informed of this. You're dismissed". Kakashi bowed and left via shunshin. Tsunade groaned and reached for a bottle of sake.

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With Naruto and Arashi

Arashi looked over his son who was staring intently into a closet. It had been quite a battle to get the grimy teen to take a bath, as he seemed to see it as a sort of game. Eventually they had success, and Arashi was observing the spoils of his war. Naruto's hair no longer clung to his scalp and neck, instead falling around his face in a way similar to his father's. His whisker marks no longer seemed quite so intimidating without the leaves in his hair, or the dried blood on his face, and the markings around his eyes seemed to be accentuating his grin, more than his red, slitted eyes. Arashi had managed to get the boy into a pair of black pants, and was now trying to work out what else he should wear. He was brought out of his thoughts when Naruto held up something for him to see.

"So, you like that do you?" He asked jovially, Naruto nodded energetically.

"Okay then, lets get that on you"

Fifteen minutes later Naruto was admiring himself over in a mirror, after taking the obligatory ten minutes of chasing is own reflection and looking behind the mirror. Along with his black pants, Naruto had found one of Arashi's old overcoats. As opposed to Arashi's preferred white ones, with the red flame motif, Naruto had found one of his older ones, before he'd gotten the style down. It was a soft yellow, with an orange wind motif at the hem, the kanji for 'golden storm' sewn into the back, what people called him in Konoha before he got the nickname 'yellow flash', he wore it over bare skin, leaving his chest and stomach exposed to the elements.

"All set, Musuko?"

"Hai, Chichiue"

"It's been a while since you where here last, how about I show you around town?" Arashi offered

"Hai, explore!" Arashi laughed as they set of. Happy to be reunited with his son after so long.

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A/N: Woah, longest chapter to date.

This chapter contains my interpretation of some of the characters, I particularly like the Gai one, which came to me as I as writing this chapter, I just thought 'what was Gai like before finding youth' and I got this, I love how my mind works.

I'm not too sure about Naruto's outfit, sometimes I have brilliant fashion sense while others It seems like I'm colour blind, if you want to draw it just tell me your DeviantArt account so I can check it out, or else wherever it is that you post it.

On Naruto's eyes: The way I see it, Naruto draws on the kyuubi's chakra instinctively when he feels the need to make himself stronger, in this fic, Naruto has the instinct born paranoi he needed to survive in the wild, as such, he's always on alert, therefore always in his no tailed state (vs Haku, also seen at VoTE). Respectively, if Naruto feels the need to make himself small, to disappear so to speak (like back at the ramen stand), his desire to appear insignificant causes him to repress the latent demon chakra, which is why his eyes went back to blue temporarily.

On a side note, Naruto's replacement, Dareko Daremo; literally means 'Someone No-one', I felt it was an appropriate name for someone who had relevance, but was still unimportant.

Read…um…Entwined Tails by MountainWind for one of the most cracktastic harem fics ever