Chapter 3 – The Monkey and the Fox

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the man known as the "Shinobi Professor," was currently enjoying the pleasure of a young woman's company and fine warmed sake. He raised his cup to his lips, but instead of the warm alcohol flowing into his mouth, he felt a sharp pain run through his entire face. He looked to his hand where his cup once was and where the warm alcohol once was, a warm crimson liquid trickled into his hand. The more curious thing to him was that the shattering of the glass made no noise and that there was another completely full glass. As curious as this was, the aged ninja decided that this was just simply a strange occurrence and that it was nothing of significance. Of course he was snapped out of this comforting train of thought as he felt another shooting pain throughout his face. Reaching up to the newly pained cheek, he felt the warm sensation of a copper smelling liquid filling his entire cheek.

Ichiro stood over the elder Kage with his hand cocked back behind his head as if he were to slap sense into someone that desperately needed it. As he let loose his hand to strike the elder Hokage's face, however in a blur of motion, the elder man's hand shot up and stopped Ichiro's strike as if with no effort.

"That's enough, young man." The Third muttered, releasing Ichiro's hand forcefully. "If it were anybody else, I would have taken their hand. But you deserve at least a few, after coming back from the dead, Ichiro Uzumaki." With the utterance of Ichiro's family name, Naruto's body went ridge.

'How could he have the same name as me? Could we be related?' Naruto thought to himself, 'what's going on here?'

"So you do remember me," Ichiro smirked, "And here I was, thinking you forgot about little old me." Ichiro spat out in disgust.

"Everyone thought you died! Where were you those two years?" The Hokage responded in kind to the amount of disrespect thrown at him by the teenager.

"Oh I just spent two years in this charming little known place called The Ox Pit, and despite its name, it is not some sort of barbeque restaurant." Ichiro joked, the disdain dripping off of his every word.

"The Ox's Pit, the Lightning Country's infamous iron prison on top of their mountain, where only the worst of the worst criminals are sent?!" the Hokage asked flabbergasted. "I thought that they had to close it down due to it being cruel and inhuman?"

"Well there are some pretty good liars over in that part of the world, because it was not only being used, but there was around three hundred of us locked on top of that god forsaken mountain, locked in those cells, exposed to that constant lightning storm on one side." Ichiro said, his head in his hands, "I didn't…I didn't know if anybody would even try to find me, or even try and find my body," Ichiro sobbed, his head in his hands. "I was… I was afraid that I would die living in my own filth, drinking fermented piss to try and escape the reality that was my life in that goddamn cell." Ichiro sobbed, his body shaking from the memories.

"My only escape, the only thing that made my life even somewhat tolerable, was the thought that my brother, was going to be fine." Ichiro stands up, his eyes welling up with tears, as he points an accusatory finger at the elder leader. "But no. No, my little brother, who was supposed to be hailed as a hero for what our father had to do, is afraid of being beaten in the open in front of both ninjas and civilians." Ichiro was visibly seething, his finger pointing at the older man, his eyes wild with rage and tears streaming down his face, following the black lines tattooed down his cheeks from his eyes.

Naruto witnessed this whole tense exchange only slightly; he of course wasn't interested and already used to people yelling around him, mindlessly was looking out the window at his classmates trying to balance leaves on their head or something stupid like that. He just wanted to be down there showing off his cool ninja moves for everyone. However in his musings, he heard Ichiro saying that he was afraid of being beaten, now that was something he could not stand for. Some random man, who yes stopped a beating, but claiming that HE, the great Naruto Uzumaki is afraid of anybody is laughable. So in order to let him know that he was not afraid, Naruto decided that a declaration must be made.

"I'm not afraid of anything! I'm the great Naruto Uzumaki and I will become the greatest Hokage! Then you'll see that I'm not afraid!" Naruto stood and shouted at the two people having the tense discussion.

Ichiro and the Third watched this dumbfounded. After a few seconds of silence that seemed to drag on for minutes, Ichiro was the first to break the silence, falling over in hysterical laughter and clenching his stomach. The old Kage smiled, because only Naruto, the most knuckleheaded ninja, could turn such a tense situation into his favor.

After taking a minute to regain his composure, the Hokage turned to Naruto, who had been told to sit down in the chair in front of his desk. "Naruto, tell me, what do you know of your family?"

"Nothing really," Naruto said with his fist on his chin, as if to improve his thinking. "All you would tell me is that both my mom and dad were great ninjas who died fighting the demon fox."

"That is true, Naruto, both your mother and father were great Shinobi, but they were not your only family." Naruto went wide-eyed at this statement, which made both of the men in the room smile.

"You mean there is someone out there who is in my family?" Naruto said, excitement making his voice rise in volume.

"Yes," Sarutobi said as he took out his pipe and started to pack it. "Yes, in fact, your parents had a child before they had you." He lit his pipe, as Ichiro took a cigarette out and lit his preferred tobacco medium.

"Wait, so if I have an older sibling, then why did I live alone? Did we just find them or something?" Naruto asked, in his trademark naivety.

"Or something bud," Ichiro said as he exhaled his first drag, "I'm your older brother."

"Oh that's so cool! My brother is some awesome badass ninja!" Naruto said like he just met a real life super hero. "But wait, you said that you were gone for only two years, what about before then? Why didn't I know about you before then?"

"I think I can answer that Naruto," the Hokage said to the pair of blonds. "Your parents were prominent members of the village, and unfortunately, there was a war going on when your brother was born. Nobody knew if they would live or die, so things happened to get a… little crazy." The Hokage took a large drag on his pipe. "Your brother was born while your parents were not married," the Hokage exhaled the smoke; he shouldn't have to explain this shit at his age. "There are more…closed minded individuals in the village and they refused to acknowledge that your brother existed, due to the circumstances of his birth."

Naruto nodded in affirmation with his eyes closed, "mhm…I knew some of those words." Both Ichiro and the Hokage sweat dropped at this.

Ichiro took the smoldering stick out of his mouth, "I'm a bastard and therefore people hate me because I remind them that a hero of theirs was human."

"What do you mean 'a hero of theirs,' who was it?" Naruto asked in excited curiosity.

Ichiro looked at the leader of the leaf, who nodded to him. "Well our mom's name was Kushina, and our dad's name was Minato."

"Who are they?" Naruto asked, not knowing who the names belonged to.

"Wow, do you even pay attention in school?" Ichiro asked his younger brother. He took a drag on his cigarette and explained, "Our dad was Minato Namikaze," nothing from Naruto. "Minato," still nothing, "Namikaze," and yet, nothing, "Wow either you suck, or you can't goddamn read. Our dear old dad was the Yondiame Hokage." Naruto's jaw dropped. "Yeah, because I'm a bastard, and our pappy was the fu…" he stopped himself to try and curve his filthy fucking mouth. "…was the Hokage, I wasn't really allowed near him."

"Yes, and after the fourth battled the fox, the council decided that they would not "tarnish" your father's legacy with everyone being reminded about his supposed 'indiscretion.'" The Hokage pinched his nose in annoyance, being reminded about this was something of a pain in his ass.

"So because of other people, I wasn't allowed to see my older brother? That sucks." Naruto said with a look of comical disgust.

"Yeah, well life sucks like that bud." Ichiro said as he smiled and flicked his filter out the window.

"Well, I think it's time for you to go back to class Naruto, I think we held you here long enough." The Hokage smiled and shooed the little kid away. "I'm sure Ichiro will pick you up after class and you two can talk about everything you want to." Naruto smiled his big cheesy smile and ran out of the building.

"So I'm assuming you want to learn about the Ox's Pit, don't you?" Ichiro said as he pulled out another stick of tobacco.

"I want to know everything there is to know." The Hokage said through with a freshly packed pipe.

A/N- That's it for this one, the next ones won't take as long dear and somewhat faithful readers. Kinda sucky and emotion heavy but I'm just trying to get back in the game after 2 years.

-Dipstick1214