A/N: Sorry it was so late, had trouble starting this chapter off.
Coming from the Shadows: Failure in Success
Naruto woke at his usual time, a bit before the sun peaked its head over the horizon. Stretching, he got out of the borrowed bed and decided to get to work alone. Before he left the room, he made a quick kage bunshin for twin awareness.
Leaving his clone in his room, he quickly strode through the corridors. Reaching the stairs, he decided to head up, as there had been no signs of anything related to the Uzumaki heritage or ninja activity on the first floor.
He took his time carefully, step-by-step, as he made his way up the stairs, amazed to see seals even covering the steps and rails. Frowning, he touched the seals lightly and sent in a little chakra, almost as if guided by an unseen hand.
He felt the seal respond to him, and it began to resonate with his own. Spiraling within him befitting the Uzumaki name, the chakra the seal released within him centralized and spread evenly within him.
Feeling a noticeable increase in his available chakra, Naruto paused in his ruminations. Glancing back at the seal his fingers were rested on, his eyes widened in shock.
It was gone.
With a gaping expression, Naruto was frozen in his movements for a few moments. Shaking his head slowly, he cleared his thoughts. It wasn't something he could solve currently with his current ability in chakra control and his inability to see the seal that inserted that chakra.
Continuing, he cleared the stairway with no other surprises in store.
He entered the first room on the right and had one thought. 'Now we're going somewhere.' The room was filled with books. Not scrolls or seals. But books. There was bound to be some details on their heritage here.
He smiled. Letting everyone else get the entirety of their rest, Naruto left the room alone and went off in search of other potential leads on the upper floor.
He had only just left the room filled with books when he was informed of his companions waking up due to the connection he shared with his clone.
Heading downstairs, he greeted his team. "Good morning, Itachi, Ino, Shino. Senkai still sleeping?"
Ino nodded. "Yeah. She's a pretty heavy sleeper." She said. Staring at Naruto she continued. "You look happy. Find something?"
Smile widening, Naruto said. "Yeah. It looks good. Went up to the second floor and there was a room absolutely filled with books. There is likely to be something helpful among them. Although, it does make the Academy library look small in comparison, so there is a lot to look through."
Turning to their sensei, Naruto continued. "I skipped the rest of the first floor, I felt it was likely none of what we needed would be found on the first floor, as everything we looked through had stuff to do with day-to-day necessities."
Itachi nodded and said, "Continue with what you were doing, Naruto. I'll finish up down here. Ino you stick next to Senkai while she's still asleep, and after she wakes up, guide her to the kitchen. Shino, seeing as how Uzu-san is still sleeping, you'll be cooking up a light breakfast for us all."
Shino nodded and left to make preparations.
"Alright, see you guys in an hour or so." Naruto said, as he bounded back up the stairs.
An hour later, four alert shinobi and one drowsy civilian were in the kitchen staring at their breakfast. Naruto looked back and forth between the food and Shino a few times before giving his teammate a pitying look.
"Shino," he began, consolingly, "be thankful that you're a talented shinobi. You won't be able to fall back onto your cooking skills."
Shino narrowed his eyes at his red-headed teammate. "Oh? And you're saying you can cook, Naruto?" Shino said challengingly.
Naruto just smiled, before turning to the others. "If you three don't mind, I think I just got nominated for tonight's chef."
Itachi chuckled at his genin's antics. "Certainly. That's acceptable, Naruto." He then gave him a hard stare. "But I would like to have a proper meal today, if you would..."
Naruto just put a hand over his heart and pretended to wipe away a tear as if hurt. "You wound me so, sensei. No trust in your little student."
Humor out of the way, Naruto reached into his kunai holster and pulled out a ration bar. Noticing their incredulous gazes he said, "Hey. These are veritable weapons, you know. Even more deadly than kunai to an unprepared shinobi." Grimacing, he added on, "And seeing as how we won't be having a proper breakfast, we need to get some nutrients into our body, anyways."
Itachi nodded. "Yeah, that's a smart idea. The Uzumaki seals in place around this house might be strong, but they aren't flawless. Otherwise Uzushiogakure would never have fallen in the first place."
Grimacing, they all finished their ration bars reluctantly. Speaking up once more, Itachi said. "Ino, Shino. Follow Naruto upstairs. You two can peruse the archives Naruto has found for proof upon Uzu-san's heritage."
As one, they left Itachi downstairs and headed upstairs to the archives.
Pointing out the door, Naruto said, "It's in there. I've got more to do on this floor, so I'll leave you to it."
As they entered the room, Naruto continued down the hall. There had to be some scrolls to be found detailing the ins and outs of fūinjutsu.
A disappointed Naruto returned to his teammates hours later, the entire upper floor having been searched. A no special scroll upon the ins and outs of fūinjutsu was to be found. Sighing, he turned to his teammates and asked, "How's the search going, any luck?"
Leaving Shino to continue the search, Ino said, "We haven't found much for the intended purpose. But we've begun sorting the books into three categories." Ino gestured to the stacks of books behind her.
"First," she began, gesturing to the tallest stack, "books that are more or less useless for us. They don't detail fūinjutsu practices, history, or anything that could be of much help for us."
"Next," she continued, pointing to the next stack, holding only about a dozen books - Oddly, sorted by color. "we have books that detail jutsu: the ins, outs, and in-betweens of each skill."
"Finally," she finished, pointing at the last stack, containing a single book. "We found something of interest. The diary of Uzumaki Mito. While some of it isn't exactly relevant, she's mentioned as the first jinchūriki of the Kyuubi. And how, more importantly, the second jinchūriki of the Kyuubi, one Uzumaki Kushina, came to Konoha and was in Konoha during the time Kyuubi attacked."
Naruto showed no signs of reacting to that, as he was well aware of all that thanks to the scroll his parents left him.
"This does bring up one question, though..." Ino added on, frowning. "If she was the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi, why did it attack? I know of her, she made something of a name for herself in Konoha. With her talents in fūinjutsu, I wouldn't have expected the Kyuubi to break free."
Shino put the book he was reading into the useless pile, before speaking up as well. "Regardless of the how or why Kyuubi broke free of Uzumaki Kushina and attacked Konoha, we can be thankful for the actions of Yondaime-sama. If he had been unable to disperse its chakra, some poor kid would have been made jinchūriki of the beast once more. They would have probably been seen as a symbol of the jailed bijū and treated horribly, if not killed outright." He frowned. "It's been nearly thirteen years since then, though. Kyuubi could reform any day now. From what's been written in the books I've read on bijū, they tend to reform ten to twenty years after death."
Naruto frowned. "So nothing on what we're looking for, just something that brings up interesting questions that might not be answerable." Sighing, he said, "Well, we've still got a few hours before dinner. So I'll help look."
Silently, they got to work and as the minutes trickled by, the piles of books continued to grow in disparity. With none of the books being what they were looking for, and only a few having some particular use.
Just as they cleared one wall of books, Itachi showed up. "Cleared the main floor just now," he said, with a disappointed expression. "It was as expected, Naruto. Nothing of use down there. Anything up here, so far?"
"No," he said, leafing through a book. "This the only unfinished room left, the others weren't of any interest. Ino and Shino found some books detailing jutsu, and more interestingly, the diary of Uzumaki Mito, the first jinchūriki of the Kyuubi."
Itachi's eyebrows rose momentarily, showing his surprise. "I'll have to give that a read at some point."
Joining his genin, he grabbed a book and perused it rather swiftly, making efficient use of his sharingan.
The Konoha shinobi found themselves making rapid progress as Itachi matched their pace by himself.
Unfortunately, by the time Naruto felt he should go prepare dinner for the group, they had gone through the last of the books. They all sighed as they recognized what that meant, they didn't succeed in finding proof of their client's heritage in Uzushiogakure.
Decadently, they headed downstairs to the kitchen. Naruto merely went through the motions, as he felt desolate at his inability to truly help one of his only members of his family.
They ate in silence, energy from the morning having dissipated.
Itachi spoke up, as the one more experienced with missions not going quite as intended. "We'll head back to Konoha tomorrow. While we didn't find what we were looking for, don't forget that the mission is still considered a success. Uzu-san's request to us was more of a hidden purpose, and wasn't included in the mission details."
His three students nodded stoically. They finished up their meal in silence and then headed to bed. No one was going to sleep very well that night.
A week passed by and they found themselves back at the gates of Konoha. Leading his team, Itachi said, "Izumo. Kotetsu. Team Seven returns from their mission."
Allowed inside, they walked silently behind their sensei. Never before would they forget this feeling - failure hidden within the confines of success.