House of Paper: A Mother and Son's Journey

Chapter Two: The Beginning of Naruto

It was night when Jiraya arrived back in Konoha. Through the entire trip, Jiraya had a lot to think. A lot was regret as he considered how his former students from Ame had come to be and their current war against Hanzo. His thoughts then turned to the bundle strung to his chest.

The young babe that was Naruto had slept soundly through out the entire trip from Taki. Only awakening once to be fed and then fell back asleep. Jiraya was saddened by the boy's mother's choice but respected her for not wanting her son to be in the midst of all she was trying to accomplish; no matter how Jiraya felt it was futile.

Passing the guards, who recognized Jiraya instantly, thus letting him pass with no intrusion or inquiry; he continued on toward the Hokage Tower, jumping from rooftop to rooftop as he held the child securely to himself. He then took a mighty leap towards the window outside of the Hokage's office. Securing himself to the side of the building by chakra, he carefully slid the window open and crouched on the rim as he announced his presence.

"Hey Hokage-gaki, how've things been since I've been gone?"

The Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, standing in the room along with the former Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Minato's fiancé, Kushina Uzumaki; grinned broadly as Jiraya came in.

"Ah, Ero-Sensei, how was your travels?"

Jiraya grumbled about disrespectful brats as he settled himself on the couch in the room, taking Naruto out of the sling and holding him in his arm.

This got the attention of the room as all the eyes settled on the sleeping dark-blue haired baby nestled in Jiraya's arm.

"Uh, Jiraya-kun, what have you got there?" Sarutobi asked, sticking a pipe in his mouth ready to be lit.

Kushina knocked the pipe out of his mouth scowling at him and then focused on the baby and raised an eyebrow.

"Stealing babies now, you old leach?"

Jiraya growled, "No! An old acquaintance of mine gave me this brat as she is unable to raise it herself."

Kushina's eyebrow remained risen. "And you are?"

Jiraya sighed, "No, I'm not. Naruto, here, will be put into an orphanage. I told her this and she accepted."

Minato came and sat down next to Jiraya. "Naruto, huh? Like the character from your book?"

Jiraya nodded and puffed his chest out as he gave a big shit-eating grin. "Yup, she named him right after the character. Practically makes me the boy's Godfather."

A slight happy-gurgle came from the bundle making everyone turn to the dark blue-haired child.

"See he likes his Godfather." Jiraya said proudly as Naruto reached out and grabbed his finger.

Minato sighed as he looked at the child. "Well, I guess I better get the documentation together for this kid to go into the orphanage." Walking back to his desk, Minato was halted by the loud rumble that caused the whole tower to shake. Outside, the forestry surrounding Konoha was engulfed in flames and a monstrous roar came thundering around them.

Minato's bottom lip began to quiver as his eyes were wide in panic.

"No…the Kyuubi….intelligence said he wouldn't be coming for a few more months…"

Jiraya stood up straight holding the child who began to now cry.

"So, the beast has finally come."

Minato shuddered as he lowered his head, his whole body now shaking. Kushina came next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Minato-kun…"

Taking a deep breath, Minato turned to the others and soon the door to the office opened and in came Tsunade, Orochimaru, the heads of the Clans of Konoha, Homura, Koharu, Danzo, and the Captain of the ANBU forces, Sanosuke.

"Everyone, the protection of the village comes first and foremost. Tsunade-sama, I need you to get the hospital ready for what I fear will be inevitable."

Tsunade nodded and wordlessly took her leave.

"Orochimaru-sama, I need you and the Clan heads to set up the defenses and plan out the first wave of attack against the monster. Take no risks, no matter what."

Orochimaru sneered at the Hokage but then turned and walked out followed by a majority of the Clan heads.

"Sandaime-sama, I need you along with the Hokage's advisors and the Nara heads to come up with several alternative measures should the worst come to pass."

Sarutobi nodded and left the room along with Koharu and Homura along with the current Nara clan head, Shikasa Nara.

Minato turned to Kushina, "I need you and the rest to order a safe evacuation point for all the citizens and-"

A thundering crash interrupted Minato and all in the building fell to the floor due to the tremor. When Minato shakily rose, he looked out the window to see that the Kyuubi had breached the gate and now hundreds of Konoha's forces were in a futile combat against the beast fox. Its tails caused a multitude of disasters as buildings were being destroyed around it, fires shooting out in all directions causing people to run in fear.

The sky was turning an ominous black mixed with grey.

Minato swallowed hard as he turned back to the people still in the room.

"You have your orders, now go!" He shouted.

They nodded and departed in flickers and leaves.

Minato, then, fell to his knees and started slamming his fist against the ground.

"Dammit! Dammit!"

Jiraya bent low, Naruto still in his arm, and grabbed Minato by the arm and pulled him up.

"Now's not the time to shake, Minato! Act!"

Minato nodded and went into the file drawer and pulled out a scroll and looked over it before sighing heavily.

"Jiraya-sensei, I neglected to mention that there is no way we can possibly defeat this thing by our means alone. Through my studies, I found the only think to stop it fully is to use the Shikafuujin and seal it inside of a person. However, it comes with a price as it takes the life of the person who casts it. It's a double-edged sword."

Jiraya nodded, grimly. Knowing the hidden statement about what his student was planning on doing, wishing there was another way.

Minato's expression became more forlorn as he looked at the child in Jiraya's arms.

"I'm about to ask you something I'll regret as I go into the afterlife, only hoping something good comes after it."

Jiraya looked down at the child and he put two and two together. His eyes, at first, widened in shock, but then closed and he sighed in bitter understanding.

"You need a child to complete the sealing and to seal the beast into, am I correct?" He asked in a quiet, detached, voice.

Minato nodded, sadly.

Jiraya sighed as he held out the child, who had calmed down, to Minato, looking away.

"For Konoha." He said in a withdrawn voice.

Minato nodded and took the child into his arms before vanishing in a blaze of yellow light.

Jiraya stumbled back and fell to the couch he had been previously on and held his hands to his head.

Please forgive us for we are about to do, Konan.

==Six years later==

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage, reinstated to the Hokage position; looked out the window of the Hokage office as he reflected all that had happened in the past six years.

After the sealing of the Kyuubi into young Naruto and the subsequent death of the Yondaime; Naruto was to be proclaimed as hero of Konoha and was met with much opposition as nearly every villager, learning about what was done to the Kyuubi, had called for his death. However, when Jiraya submitted a report about Naruto's parentage to the council and the fact that his mother had a rare bloodline, it then became complicated.

Many of the Shinobi on the council were interested in what Naruto might become and that Konoha would soon gain a new bloodline. People like Danzo were interested in taking the boy under their wing to be trained and integrated into their clan or unit. At the same time, there were those that felt it either didn't matter whether he had a bloodline as the Kyuubi was still a danger in their mind or they felt that he may never develop his mother's bloodline abilities thus he should be eliminated before the seal weakened or when the Kyuubi might be able to influence the boy against the village. Sarutobi was forced to instigate a law that would forbid anyone speaking of the Kyuubi under punishment of death. This way the boy would be able to make friends in his generation and possibly live to be reunited with his mother when or if she succeeded her coup against Hanzo in Ame.

That was a naïve belief. A week after the meeting, news came that announced that all the rebels against Hanzo had been killed in a brutal attack by Hanzo himself. All hope that Konan Hitogawa survived were slim as the report stated that no one survived. Once this news had reached the Clan Council, several Clan heads started putting their names in consideration for adoption of the boy as he now had no one to claim him.

The dispute went to a decision that the boy should be raised by a clan who had no goals for power of a Jinjuruuki or were greedy for his bloodline. A clan that might help the boy harness and utilize his virtually unknown bloodline for the benefit of Konoha.

Sarutobi rubbed his temples in agitation as the memories came back on how tiring that was.

In the end, the Nara clan was chosen to take him in. Shikaku gave the boy a place of his own on the Nara estate where he was to be raised by his niece, Saiyuri. Sayuri Nara was a perfect choice as she had no ill-will against the Kyuubi who had taken her husband's life and had always wanted to have a child. She raised young Naruto Hitogawa well.

Other than Naruto's situation, there were other troubling issues that came.

Sarutobi's students, the Sennin, had gone into a torrent of changes.

Tsunade, still in grief over her fiancé and her younger brother's deaths, from the years that had past in the village, left with her student, Shizune, in tow; vowing never to return.

Orochimaru, bitter over the loss of the Hokage position first to Minato and then to Sarutobi reclaiming it, began horrible experiments on the shinobi and villagers and then ran away into exile and becoming a nuke-nin. Naruto was once a target of his but was carefully protected by practically all of the Nara clan and Shikaku nearly had a fight in the middle of the street with Orochimaru when he became insistant on using Naruto for a few "select" experiments to see what he truly would be capable of.

Jiraya was the most heart-breaking, in Sarutobi's eyes. With his student gone and his Godson turned into the village pariah, Jiraya left with a heavy-heart with little or no reassurances of his own return. However, Sarutobi was reassured by receiving reports from his student over the year to aid Konoha in their reports of current affairs in the shinobi world all over.

Sarutobi put his pipe in his mouth as he took a deep intake of smoke and exhumed a plume of smoke from his nostrils as he folded his arms behind his back.

It had been a long six years, but now Konoha looked to be slowly getting back onto its feet.

The Burning Will of Fire was becoming reignited.

Sitting outside, tending to a small garden in front of a small cottage, a woman with shoulder-length black hair sat as she attended to the shrubs and greenery. Her brown eyes looked all over her work as she wiped her brow from her exertion and then stood as she wiped the dirt onto her white apron. Her eyes become diverted as she sees a small figure approaching. Squinting against the sunlight she smiles as she sees her cousin Shikamaru coming up the path to the cottage, dragging his feet lazily.

"Hello Shikamaru!" She called out to him.

Shikamaru looked up and muttered lazily, "Morning, Sayuri-nee-chan."

Sayuri giggled. She liked how, even she was his cousin by blood; that he always thought of her as the older, troublesome, sister he has come to refer her as.

"Is Naruto up yet? We have to get to the Academy today. So troublesome, I can't even take in my morning cloud-watching."

Sayuri smiled as she then turned her head towards the cottage.

"Naruto! Shikamaru's here! Get going!"

Shikamaru held his hands to his ears to disrupt the yelling Sayuri was doing.

Troublesome women and their troublesome voices.

The door to the cottage opened and closed as a small figure came out. Standing as tall as Shikamaru, his spiky dark-blue hair made him appear taller than he was. Wearing brown baggy pants and a black t-shirt with white bandages strapping his pants to his legs, chewing on a sprig of celery; Naruto Hitogawa-Nara came out, squinting his slanted eyes against the morning's light.

He sighed as he turned to his adoptive mother.

"You know, Kaa-san, with your voice you could awake the whole village for war time."

Sayuri cocked an eyebrow and she grinned evilly at her son, cracking her knuckles.

"Care to repeat that, son?"

Naruto rolled his eyes and looked at Shikamaru.

"To quote you, troublesome."

Shikamaru nodded.

Sayuri sighed and rubbed her eyes with her fingers.

"Look, kiddo, just get going. You don't want to be late for your first trip to the academy, do you?"

Naruto shrugged and walked with his hand sin his pockets, like Shikamaru, and followed in step beside him as the two headed to the clan's gates leading out into the village.

Sayuri watched them until they left her site, worrying. She was afraid as this would be Naruto's first time outside of the Nara's gates. Ever since the sealing of the Kyuubi inside of Naruto, and with the adoption of Naruto into the Nara clan; there had been a constant fear of someone trying to harm Naruto. Shikaku had decreed that Naruto would remain in the Nara's walls until he was old enough to join the Shinobi Academy. Since that time, there had been repetitive times where some villagers were stupid enough to try and breach the compound and try to find Naruto within the grounds. They were quickly captured and then thrown back outside. The real headaches came when several other clans tried to convince Shikaku that those kinds of problems wouldn't happen in their clan houses and Naruto should be given to them.

Sayuri smirked as she remembered all the fun she had putting those snobs into their places and reminding them that Nartuo was hers and hers alone.

Sayuri sighed, that was then, though. Now he was outside the walls and he had to face both of those things on his own. She knew that the clans were probably now were going to try and have their daughters associate themselves with him in hope of a marriage arrangement in the future.

Her baby was growing up and now all she could do was watch from afar.

"You worry too much, mom."

Sayuri turned to see Naruto leaning against a tree looking at her, smiling. He then walked up to her and gave her a big hug.

"You don't have to worry. I'll be fine."

Sayuri chuckled as some tears came down her face.

"I know kiddo. I just love you too much, you know?"

Naruto leaned forward and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek.

"I know mom." He then gave her another quick hug before taking a step back. "See ya tonight!" Making a hand sign he turned into paper. The numerous sheets twirled up wards and then got caught by an updraft of wind. Sayuri watched as he sailed himself in all those pieces towards where Shikamaru was. Smiling, she took a deep breath before turning back to go to the cottage.

When Naruto and Shikamaru arrived at the Academy, they were soon greeted by the sights and sounds of chatter as students and their parents were gathered outside of the building, talking amongst themselves awaiting for the opening of the school.

Naruto and Shikamaru moved themselves to join their friends, Chouji and Ino who were with their parents.

Ino, who noticed them first began waiving her hand at them.

"Naruto! Lazy-butt! Over here!"

Naruto waived back while Shikamaru muttered another diatribe about annoying girls as the two of them moved to join their friends.

Ino's announcement caught the attention of many of the adults as their eyes soon came upon Naruto and soon they began whispering to their youths either in warning to their sons and daughters; others, giving suggestions to gain the blue-haired youth's favor to their daughters.

Naruto, continuing to chew on his celery, took all of it in, remembering his mother's advice prior to this day on how to deal with both sides. He knew about the Kyuubi inside of himself as Shikaku had decided, along with the Hokage, that Naruto should know as soon as he was old enough to understand so he could avoid any unpleasant confrontation and to better understand the village's behavior when he was met with it. Shikaku Nara drilled it in deep to Naruto when he was four that he was NOT the Kyuubi but rather his jailer that kept it away from the village and always remember it as such.

Swallowing the last bit, he joined in with Chouji on what they thought would their first year would be like. It ended at the first ringing of the bell announcing that class would begin soon.

Parents said goodbye to their children, giving hugs and words of encouragement before leaving them to go to their first day.

Naruto entered the classroom with his friends and walked up the stairs with a paper in his hand signifying his assigned seat and found himself next to a boy with shades and a high collared jacket. Sitting next to him, the boy turned and nodded at him before turning his gaze to the desk where a spider was walking across.

"What type of spider is that?" Naruto asked.

The boy turned and looked at Naruto again before setting his gaze back on the spider.

"It's a Kiri-Ridgeback, not of this region; must have come here from the imports of the merchants in town."

Naruto nodded. "Poisonous?"

The boy shook his head.

"Interesting." Naruto said.

The boy turned away from his object of interest and looked at Naruto.

"You are as well. Most of our age are repulsed by insects or are disinterested."

Naruto shrugged and leaned back and placed his feet on his desk. "The world is filled with many things. To be afraid or uninterested is stupid, in my opinion. Insects help our ecosystem and to know what they are and how they help, help us in return."

The boy nodded.

Naruto extended his hand. "Naruto Hitogawa."

The boy took his hand and shook it. "Shino Abarame. Nice to meet you, Naruto."

Naruto gave a grin and nodded. "Likewise."

Their conversation came to a stop as two teachers entered the room and called for class to settle down and take attendance.

One of them, a man in a Chuunin vest with his hair in a short pony-tail with a small thin scar on the bridge of his nose, looked up and surveyed all of the promising new individuals soon to become shinobi. His eyes soon stopped upon a boy with dark blue spiky hair sitting with his feet propped up on the desk. He looked at his list and soon came upon the name "Naruto Hitogawa" and a multitude of emotions came forward. Many of them anger towards the Kyuubi for making him an orphan. However, the teacher calmed himself down reminding himself that the Hokage was right, that there was a difference between the jailer and his prisoner. Though, it was going to be a rough year, he knew it as it would take him awhile before he could disassociate between the boy and the fox he had within him. Looking at the boy in question, you would have never had guessed he held the fox within him, unless you looked at his eyes closely as they were slanted like a fox's.

Sighing, the man turned to his assistant, also a Chuunin, who was glaring at the boy under a mask of faux-pleasantry. The man sighed once more, knowing what this year was going to be like and he didn't like the idea of it.

He turned back to the class.

"Welcome to your first year of Shinobi Acabemy. Here you will learn all what it means to be a ninja of Konoha and we will mold you into the best shinobi we can. I'm Iruka Umino, beside me is my assistant, Mizuki Kobayashi. We expect all of you to behave yourself for these six years we will be your instructors. Now, let's call for attendance. Abarame Shino."

"Here." Said the stoic boy next to Naruto.

"Akamichi Chouji."

"Here!" Said Chouji, who was munching on a bag of chips.

"Haruno Sakura."

"Here." Said a small voice. Naruto looked to see a girl with pink hair, her head down, she long bangs obscuring her eyes.

Iruka then gave a sigh as he looked up from his paper and looked directly at Naruto, which unnerved him a little bit.

"Hitogawa Naruto."

Naruto raised his hand, "Here."

Heads in the classroom turned and looked at him, then some whispers broke out. Some of the girls in the class began looking at him in a lusty manner while some gave him some suspicious manner. One boy looked at him from the corner of his eye, sizing him up before turning his attention back to the front of the class.

Iruka called everyone to be quiet before continuing on.

"Hyuuga Hinata."

"H-Here." Said another small voice, though stuttering. Naruto found her to be up in the row behind him in the corner, her head too down to her desk, her finger-tips tapping each other.

"I need all of you to speak up, please." Iruka said. "Inuzuka Kiba."

"Here!"

"Bark!"

Naruto looked down the rows to see a boy with his hood on and a small white puppy sitting on top of it, wagging happily.

Iruka then called out some others before coming to the N's.

"Nara Shikamaru."

There was silence.

"Nara Shikamaru?" Iruka repeated, now looking up from his paper and scanning the students to look for the student.

Naruto sighed and then took a sheet of paper from his pack and, without touching it, caused it to fold into a paper airplane.

Shino, watching, lifted his eyebrows in surprise and continued to watch in fascination.

Nartuo then lifted it up into the air, again without touching it, and caused it to come rocketing toward the back of Shikamaru's head to where it hit his head hard as if it were a rock.

"OW!" Shikamaru yelled. Rubbing his head hard, he snatched the paper and looked up with a scowl at Naruto who was pointing to the front of the class.

Shikamaru looked to Iruka and gave a lazy, "Here."

Iruka, who had witnessed the entire thing, sweat dropped.

"Alright. Continuing on. Uchiha Sasuke."

"Here." Came a dead tone of a boy in the front. Several voices in the class, most of which belonged to a handful of non-shinobi-related girls; started squealing outloud in fan-girl glee at the site of the boy. Naruto rolled his eyes and shared an unspoken sigh with Shino beside him.

"Yamanaka Ino."

"Here!" Ino's cocky smile came out as she raised her hand.

Iruka nodded and smiled as he looked over all of the students once more.

Maybe it won't be so bad after all.

To be continued…..

A/N: Here's my list of potential Naruto pairings, not final nor will they happen soon, at least not for a few or more chapters. I'm unbiased so I'll see what you think:

Hinata

Ino

Sakura

Tenten

Fem. Haku

Yugito

OC (Most likely to be the green-haired girl featured to be the jinjuruuki who has the seven-tailed bijuu in her that's from Takigakure. If she has a name, please tell me, I don't know it)

Q-n-P