Nagato Uzumaki, who also went by the alias of Pain, walked through the door of Naruto's apartment. Suffice to say, the elite guards were easily disposed of by this self-proclaimed god. The Akatsuki member had a completely legitimate reason to be here. Naruto's mother was an Uzumaki. His godfather was Nagato's old sensei. His father was Nagato's fellow apprentice.

Hell, Konoha was lucky that it still even had the blonde. Had Nagato been any less equipped to deal with a child- being the leader of a rebel group in a civil war did that- than he would have kidnapped the blonde, hands down.

Instead, Nagato silently stood at the side of the slumbering blonde and poked him. Nothing. Nagato poked him again. And again. And again.

"Argh!" Naruto garbled, reluctantly opening his eyes, "...Why do I even bother to lock the door anymore?"

The five-year-old wasn't particularly worried. He had never received the "Don't Accept Candy From Strangers" talk or other variations, and had also grown accustomed to finding strange men in his apartment in the dead of night.

"You shall call me Nagato-ji," the pierced man said bluntly, "We are distant cousins, you and I. You shall have to make allowances for my discomfort. I am unaccustomed to dealing with children."

"...Your eyes are purple."

"That is my dojutsu. It is called the Rinnegan."

"Will I have a dojutsu?"

"Only if you have everyone you love massacred in front of you, while you stand by helplessly, knowing that it was your fault for causing their deaths and that you are too weak to protect them."

"...I don't want it anymore."

"Yes, most people come to that conclusion, as well."

The two Uzumaki stared at each other, one a small, defenseless child of five and the other, a tall, lanky, heavily pierced man with bright purple eyes.

Then, Naruto proved what a remarkable person he was when he swung out of bed and ran over to the elder Uzumaki. Without even a flicker of hesitation, Naruto threw his hands around the older's man's waist and gave him a tight hug. Pain started to draw back from surprise, before he caught the hurt expression on the blonde's face and stilled. Slowly, he placed his own arms around the young boy, knelt down on one leg, and returned the hug.

"I used to have a very dear friend… Yahiko. He was very much like you, I believe," Nagato's voice carried a small inflection of sorrow, "The same kind heart; the same generous spirit. Had his- had my situation been different, I would have taken you away from this accursed village in a heartbeat."

"It's okay," Naruto smiled, even as his lips trembled and tears filled his eyes, "I'm happy here- I like living in Konoha. It's my hom- village."

"I would have rather that you had a proper home though," Nagato murmured, reluctantly stepping away, "And that you did not carry- or that I not have to… you are an Uzumaki, Naruto. Do you know what that means?"

"No," the child admitted bashfully, "I know a little bit about my mother… her name was Kushina Uzumaki!"

"Well, she was another member of our esteemed clan," Nagato told him, gracefully sitting in Naruto's bed, and not even twitching when the child crawled in trustingly onto his lap, "Our clan was a distant clan to the Senju- they founded Konoha- and our bloodlines were even similar. The Uzumaki Clan even founded their own village, Uzushiogakure, the Village Hidden in the Whirlpools. Would you like to learn a little about your ancestral land?"

Naruto nodded eagerly, and Nagato began recounting the stories of his own childhood, that his parents- refugees from Uzushiogakure- had lovingly passed on to him during bedtime. It was a happy young child that drifted away to sleep, carried on by the tales of a sunny island surrounded by foam-tipped whirlpools that was the home of the Uzumaki seal masters.

They would be stories that Naruto would pass on to his own children someday. That of a handsome warrior prince who gave his lifeblood to form the legendary blood sealed gates of Uzu or of the cheeky gulls with red-edged wings that carried the souls of the deceased Uzumaki clansmen up to the realm of Kami or perhaps at the bottom tip of Uzu's greatest whirlpool, which held a blood-red stone that held the secrets of the Uzumaki's longevity. Each story would be loosely structured with clever words, lovingly caressed by a tone of admiration, and diligently painted with vivid descriptions from parent to child for the next four generations. Until one of those children, an adventurer by the name of Kaito Uzumaki, would search for the ancestral island spoken of in family stories and bring back the great nation of Uzushiogakure.

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