Arc One: Prelude to Darkness

Chapter Two: Meeting the Senseis

As a low-density fluid, the air parted easily as a kunai whistled through the air, the curvature of its path providing its destination, light glinting off its silver sheen. Disappointingly for its caster, the point end of the projectile landed on the outer edge of the ring, with its shaft sunk in only a few inches. He showed his disappointment with a few choice words loud enough to cause the slightest of echoes, despite the open field he was currently in.

Standing beside him was a figure donning a cowled white cloak that indicated his status as a captain of the Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, most commonly referred to as ANBU. Surveying his new pupil's form every time he threw and watching the end result of each trial, he was quickly coming to a conclusion: Uzumaki Naruto lacked the skill, but his passion to improve burned hotter than the black flames of the legendary Amaterasu jutsu (at this thought which he shook his head, and decided to cut down the amount of time he spent around Gai).

That was a good thing for Itachi Uchiha, however. Shortly after he had first activated his Sharingan at the tender age of eight, he had gotten into an altercation with the aforementioned bowl-haired over his odd personality. Even though Gai had been six years older than him, he still thought that he would win easily thanks to his doujutsu. It was with great shock that he was absolutely slaughtered in that battle, as he realized that even if he could see Gai's movements (and the Sharingan's ability to keep up with them was still strained in comparison to the motion of other people), it meant nothing if the rest of his body couldn't keep up with his eyes. That had been a literal eye-opener to Itachi, and since then he had taken the lesson to heart, forcing his body through training sessions almost as punishing as what Gai did, although even he couldn't be quite as enthusiastic as the spandex-clad man was in paying in sweat and blood.

Over time, that had allowed his body to be able to catch up extensively with his eyes, and he had begun to become a prodigy of sorts. To the Uchiha clan, and most importantly his father Fugaku, head of the Uchiha, he was something they could brag about. He loathed it, as he had been consistently hyped up as a once-a-generation genius. He never once felt special – all he had ever done was to actually push his limits, something which he had awkwardly become aware that few Uchiha ever did. Gai was the one whom deserved to be put on a pedestal – if every ninja in the Uchiha clan and Konoha put in even a quarter of the effort that that man did, the great tree that was Konoha would benefit for it, and the Will of Fire would burn stronger.

And yet, even though he had become a perfect physical specimen, he still relied too much on his Sharingan eyes. He came to realise this during his ANBU entry tests two years ago. On the taijutsu examination, he performed with perfect marks, his only flaw being the relative lack of experience, having never been sent to the front lines in the Third Great Shinobi War. However, for the genjutsu portion, they brought in a Chunin called Kurenai Yuuhi, who was quickly becoming known as the Genjutsu Princess of Konoha. It was there he realized two flaws in his Sharingan: the first being that even if it can see through illusions to some degree, there is a point where he had to rely on himself to be able to break them. Secondly, even if he could take cues from or copy hand signs, it doesn't help when your opponent uses a genjutsu on you that doesn't use hand signs. Kurenai had gotten off more than a few genjutsus on him that way, and so he only did about average on the genjutsu portion.

But it was the ninjutsu portion where he was truly humbled, as he had gone up against Kakashi Hatake, a Black Ops captain. Itachi had gotten to know him a slight-bit over the past few years, ever since Hatake had gotten a Sharingan eye from one of Itachi's relatives. Throughout the whole fight Hatake had fought one-eyed, so Itachi had presumed that he would have an advantage, only to be once again defeated. It wasn't just the power behind the jutsu (as Itachi had increased his chakra reserves severalfold over the years thanks to his intense training), but also how one used it. It was Kakashi's clever use and mastery of several ninjutsus in rapidfire combination that showed that even if one could use a jutsu, it meant nothing unless one knew how to use it.

For Itachi Uchiha, it was a sad experience for him once he came to the conclusion that most Uchiha would have shrugged the results of the fights off and continued to believe in their own superiority because of the Sharingan. Ever since then, he had gone above and beyond the call of duty in breaking down everything he learned, understanding the theory behind it, putting it all back together and mastering it. In the process, he had struggled to encourage other members of the Uchiha clan to do the same as he was doing. Only a few caught onto it, with only minimal enthusiasm. His cousin Shisui, who he considered a second brother, was the only one whom had begun to see the light and do the same as he did, although he remained in the regular shinobi force as opposed to joining ANBU. Itachi knew that he would be able to convince Sasuke of doing the same, as it was his image that the brother looked up to with almost unparalleled devotion. Itachi would leave his little brother be for a few more years; after all, he himself had been the way he once was until he had been eight, and shortly thereafter had become a 'genius'. Let Sasuke have a childhood for a few years longer, and then he would start training Sasuke himself.

The blond standing beside him, however, had no such timeline to be a child. He never had and never would have a chance to just be a carefree, innocent child, ever since the day that he was born and the Kyuubi was sealed in him. But it was also this that endeared Itachi to wanting to train Uzumaki Naruto himself: the boy had not once had anything to lose, and he had everything to gain. He had fought tooth and nail every day of his life to survive his environment, and would not back down until he had lost the will to live. He knew harshness and opposition, and had never once fallen down and not gotten back up. But what truly boggled Itachi's mind was how if only Naruto could turn the Kyuubi, the one thing that had brought him his never-say-never attitude, towards increasing his strength, the boy had almost infinite potential. In addition to being able to build muscle and bone mass and density quickly and having almost instant regeneration, he also had nearly a limitless amount of chakra. With the Kyuubi actually taking a hand in young Naruto's teaching, he felt his new protégé could become a Kami amongst men.

What had the raven-haired man to gain from this? He had thought about this a few times in the past few days, and he couldn't put a clear finger to his motives. They weren't malicious reasons; although he admitted that a small part of him hated the boy because of irrational fear of the unknown and of his jealousy, he was able to put that aside and see someone in need of guidance. Some part of the why were ulterior motives – he wanted to be able to take pride in being the sensei to who he hoped to be a legendary shinobi, and to be able to show others that his methods of being a shinobi were the best, though he was unsure at what point in the future his hand in the boy's development would be able to be revealed. Another part was to make up for his clan's actions. To this day, he still found himself in disbelief whenever he thought about how the Uchiha clan brought to bear all of its political power to pressure anyone who had wanted to adopt 'the Kyuubi gaki', and now that he knew that Uchiha Madara had instigated the attack against Konohagakure, also felt he owed a blood debt to Naruto for his clan having ruined his life. Itachi knew all too well his father Fugaku's motivations: Naruto was dangerous to Fugaku, not in the sense that Naruto held enough power to destroy Konoha if a conflict ever occurred with those two on opposite sides, but because Naruto could become so powerful as to put the Uchiha clan in his shadow. It was typical thinking like that that Itachi detested, and he had slowly come to loathe his father over the last year as a result. In his own mind, if the clan was to be overshadowed by another clan or a person, then the clan needed to become strong enough to hold its own, not become petty and eliminate the threat before it could become an existential threat. Itachi had read through some of the secret Uchiha archives, and had become disappointed at seeing how many clans in Konoha had become undercut by both the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans in the past. Most particular was the Kurama clan, who had their clan halved in one night during the Second Great Shinobi War as a result of the aforementioned two doujutsu clans becoming fearful of their strong genjutsus and having them sent on a suicide mission behind the Sandaime's back. He was disgusted at the action of both clans, and resolved that once he was clan head, he would do his best to root out the corruption.

But beyond all these ulterior motives of Itachi, there was one that struck a chord in his stoic manner: it was how Naruto looked. His sea-blue eyes and sunny-blond hair resembled the electric shock-blue hues and golden colouring of the Yondaime's own eyes and hair. It was something that Itachi had yet to think on consciously, but the resemblance was uncanny, and he was surprised nobody had remarked on it yet. It was this last fact that made up Itachi's motives: the Yondaime Hokage was one of the few men he had one hundred percent respect for, both for the aura of power he exuded the few times Itachi had seen the man in person, as well as his unselfish sacrifice he made for Konoha. It was that sacrifice that saved Itachi and all he held dear from being vanquished by the majestic force of the Kyuubi, and it was the least that he could do to actually fulfill the Yondaime's wish to treat his legacy as a hero.

It was with a jolt that Itachi broke free from his thoughts as he saw that Naruto had rethrown all eight kunai in his possession. Looking over at the practice targets, he saw that his new student had gotten considerably closer the bullseye on the targets. He had had his Sharingan on and looking at Naruto the whole time while he was thinking, so he called up the memories of the images that had been burned into his retinas and analyzed the jinchuuriki's stance and throws. The results were beginning to show. "Much better, Naruto. You're beginning to minimize the unnecessary movement from your body, but you're still relying too much on raw power and not enough on finesse." He was quite glad that the Kyuubi had extended his container's vocabulary to a level that he would be able to understand Itachi when he got into more technical terms. "You also must remember to rely more on the flick of your wrist and your fingers as opposed to your arm to guide the direction of the kunai. It may not seem important now, but eventually you will be using shuriken as well, and they need spin velocity to work. After some practice and increase in skill level, you'll even be able to throw up to four kunai or shuriken from each hand by putting one projectile between each two fingers."

It was with fervent dedication that Naruto paid attention to the ponytailed ANBU, whom had just recently moved into the cabin on Training Ground #46 with him. To him, only a few people had paid any sort of positive attention to him, with most others opting to either scorn him, glare at him, or ignore him, with a few more bolder people beating him on the occasion, particularly on festivals when there were large numbers of people together and under the influence and one idle spoken thought of the demon brat could set off a riot. That somebody was actually not only giving him positive attention but also helping him in something, anything, was something he latched onto right away, unwilling to let go. So long as it did not infringe upon the survival instincts he had developed over the last five years, he would do anything Itachi-sensei asked of him, and listened carefully to what he said so as not to disappoint the raven-haired ANBU.

And so he took Itachi's advice into consideration after he collected up his kunai. Correcting his stance by adjusting it ever so slightly, he kept a focused gaze on the target twenty meters dead ahead and inclined above his head at about a twenty degree angle. Letting instinct do the job of calculating the effects of angle, distance, air pressure, the direction and velocity of the slight breeze, he let the kunai fly with its own slender grace, and was rewarded with a loud thunk that indicated the blade going in significantly deeper than all his previous tries. A quick glance brought a gleeful look to his face, the sunlight glistening off his hair and the sheen of his sweat on his forehead making the impression of the bright smile even more intense. Hopefully the fact that his kunai was only a sliver away from being dead center would impress his new sensei.

The man in question was in fact impressed, and let it show, having slightly understood that trying to remain his normal stoic-faced self would only damper the enthusiasm that Naruto had for learning the shinobi arts. Seeing that Naruto had the form for throwing a weapon mostly down, he decided to finish this portion up for the day, leaving the boy's body time enough to recover and for muscle memory to be ingrained. Besides, if what he suspected was true, he might need the rest of the day to keep up with his new apprentice anyways. "Naruto-san," he said, not at all nonplussed by the complete informality of this odd sensei-student relationship, "That's it for weapons training for the day. Go put away your kunais and come back right after." All he got in response was a quick, short bow and a loudly exclaimed "Hai, Itachi-sensei!" before the boy ran off. Oh yes, he would be a legendary shinobi indeed.

When he came back, Itachi indicated for him to sit down. The younger of the two took to sitting cross-legged on the verdure grass while the older sat in a composed position on a nearby stump, as if he were at a fireside chat. "Now, Naruto-san, what do you know exactly about chakra energy? Tell me everything you can think of about it."

Naruto scrunched his face up in concentration. Up until now, he had never really had an education of any sort that wasn't learned on the streets. Nevertheless, between his short, brief conversations with the Kyuubi since their first meeting, and his occasional chats with the old man Hokage, he had gathered a meagre understanding of the concept of chakra. "Um, chakra comes from mixing your spiritual energy with your physical energy. You can use this chakra to perform jutsus, and that's about all I know."

Itachi refrained from sighing, knowing all too well how badly a five-year-old could react if he took the sigh the wrong way. Still, at least Naruto understood the very, very, very basic idea of chakra, and it was something he could build off of. He started off telling Naruto as much, then launched into a more in-depth explanation. "So yes, chakra does use physical and spiritual energy. Your body and its fitness and age is what is considered physical energy, so a person with lots of stamina will likely have more chakra than a person who becomes fatigued more easily. On the other end of the spectrum, your intelligence along with your mental experiences makes up spiritual energy. Your body under normal circumstances combines the two automatically into chakra. To be able to use more chakra, you must train both body and mind. The most important thing is that by using your chakra, your body will be forced to replenish it, and automatically ups the amount of capacity that it can have. You, on the other hand," at this point focusing his gaze solely on Naruto to drive home the point, with the fair-hair flinching slightly under his onyx eyes, "You have two additional ways of increasing this chakra capacity, both of which are automatic. From my discussions with the Kyuubi, it appears that the seal that imprisons him causes some of his demonic chakra, more commonly known as yokai, to leak out into your own chakra system. The amount that does is a very small fraction, but what does get out, for lack of a better technical term, pushes on your own chakra reserves, and the two have to counterbalance. The chakra and yokai that counterbalance will be lost from your system, but both will regenerate itself through natural processes. However, the nine-tails actually permanently loses yokai from the other process that the seal has: it forces yokai to be converted into chakra, which then permanently expands your own chakra reserves."

Pausing to allow Naruto to mull over his words, and noticing him hanging over his every word, Itachi continued, "That brings us to your chakra system. Think of your chakra system in terms of your circulatory system – you have a central organ, the heart, which pumps out blood through the arteries, and the blood after serving its purpose returns to the heart through the veins. Much akin to your arteries and vein, chakra is delivered throughout the body via a series of chakra coils. The length of your coils will grow over time with your body, but the width will increase ever so microscopically every time it needs to, although even that is restricted by your body size. In comparison to the heart, however, there are actually eight different points in your body, often referred to as the Eight Gates, where your reserves are stored. While the chakra is in your body, you can manipulate your chakra and release it through points called tenketsus, of which there are 361 such points on the body. The Hyuga clan's doujutsu allows them to see these tenketsus, and they can also use their own chakra to block off the points, which can be very devastating."

"However, in your particular case, there are some problems. Over the past five years, between natural growth, the yokai pushing on your own reserves, and the actual absorption of the Kyuubi's yokai, your chakra reserves have become extraordinarily large. Depending on whether your parents were themselves shinobis or not, you may have been gifted with naturally large reserves, demonic influence aside. Because of this, your body has had to constantly adjust to be able to contain all that chakra. I estimate that you probably have enough chakra to rival Ichibi, the one-tailed tanuki. Although I do not have experimental evidence, it theoretically makes sense that your chakra is, again for lack of a better term, far denser than the average person's, simply because it only has a finite amount of space to fit in. In addition to that, my Sharingan eyes allow me to see chakra flow to a minimal degree, and it simply astounds me – your body is producing so much chakra that it is literally leaking out of your body. Once you hit a growth spurt you should be able to get a hold on that, as the length of your coils will increase in size and hence have an easier time of it, but I believe that after awhile your chakra capacity will catch up and cause the same problems all over again. Hence, you will have to regularly expend chakra until it stops leaking before you can even have a chance at controlling it. Unfortunately, you will probably end up having to do this everyday until we find a solution to this." Itachi took this time to stop talking for twofold purposes; the first was to let Naruto digest the information as some of it was a bit on the technical side. The second, to his undying shame, was because he was nearly red in the face from having to speak so much. He simply wasn't used to lecturing for so long without pause, and he was furthermore part of a clan that he sometimes felt had a genetic predisposition to respond to everything with short, to-the-point grunts.

After having caught a breath and letting his jaw cool down a bit, he carried onwards after pinning part of his cloak underneath his arm to better protect himself from a strong breeze that was passing by. "This also means that until your out-of-whack chakra growth stops, you will probably never be able to perform any low-grade jutsu that requires a significant amount of chakra control. Before I teach you anything else, however, you'll need to be able to actually use your chakra. Normally, it would take you weeks if not months of meditation to be able to do so, to attain that feeling of being able to reach into your body and pulling out energy for your own use. However, much like I said before, your chakra is literally leaking from your body, so you should have a much easier time of following it. The best method to start off is to meditate."

"Lots of people have funny concepts about medication, such as having to sit cross-legged, or keeping your body rigid, or clenching your hands together. All you really need to do is to be sitting down in a comfortable position – yes, laying down suffices – and keeping all your muscles in a relaxed state. From there, you have to clear your mind of your five senses. The best way for a beginner to filter them out is by thinking about something, and then letting your mind drift off from there. For an example of what I mean, look at that tree over there. I'm thinking about the tree, and noting that the leaves are a bright green. I then think about how springtime is coming to a close based off the hue of the leaves, and how the Kyuubi festival was a few days ago. Obviously that's not a string of thoughts you would go off of, but carrying on; I would then gush over the various stands at the festival selling pocky, yes, I'm a pocky addict much like you love your ramen, and then think about how I should get some pocky later on tonight. Then I'd be thinking about whether I should get strawberry or chocolate pocky."

"By this time, you've noticed I've completely gone astray from my initial thoughts, and by then, my senses aren't quite as keen. Once you've picked up on the fact that you've stopped paying attention to the surroundings, you should quickly slow down your thoughts. Close your eyes, ignore your hearing and smelling, and purge your mind of any thinking. After a short while, you should pick up a sort of flow to your body, not quite unlike the passage of blood throughout your circulatory system, but you can inwardly feel it as opposed to having to put a finger your hand to feel for a pulse. When that occurs, you'll have to try to dam up the flow, or push on it to make it move faster. Once you can successfully do that even once, you'll instinctually be able to manipulate chakra, and we can go onto the next part of the lesson." Itachi was glad to finally be able to get onto the practical part of the lecture, as he was beginning to feel a bit of a sore jaw from so much talking, and Naruto's yawn indicated that he was struggling to keep interested in so much theory.

---

It took a couple of hours, but Naruto was finally able to do it. The first time he felt the flow of chakra within his body, the sheer sensation of it startled him out of his trance. Thankfully, the second time he began meditating, it took him only five minutes of meditating to clear his mind of all thoughts, and another five to feel the chakra flow. This time, he experimentally did what could only be best described as 'flexing' the chakra flow, and excitedly got to trying to actually manipulate it. This time, he was knocked out of the odd state of being by his frustration when he had been unable to actually do anything. The third time was the charm – once he managed to feel his chakra, he did something weird that felt like nudging it, which returned an odd sensation to his brain. He took the initiative and built off the action of the nudge, and there it was. With some experimentation, he managed to stem and quicken the flow, and even cause a slight pulse to the movement.

Itachi was able to sense the slight disturbance in his pupil's chakra flow as well, but was more amazed at how quickly Naruto had managed to manipulate his chakra. Most people took weeks or months to do such a thing, and were it not for his previous theories on how much easier it would be for Naruto to manipulate it, he would have thought it flat-out impossible, or believed Naruto to be a Kami amongst geniuses. Even taking into factor his guesswork, he still believed it would've taken at least double the time it actually required.

Shaking off his thoughts, leaving them to linger for later, he spoke up, bringing Naruto out of his reverie, "Well then, it seems that you've managed to reach within yourself and use your chakra. That brings us to the next part, actual chakra manipulation. As I've mentioned before, chakra is a form of energy created by your body through the mixing of physical and spiritual energies. On its own, it is merely that – a form of energy. The best you might do is to just release all your chakra and cause it to heat your surroundings, possibly blowing up."

He took a breath, going into the next part of the lecture. "Over time, nobody really knows how they managed it, ninjas developed a system of twelve hand symbols also known as hand seals that allow us to manipulate the flow of chakra, named after twelve animals, and several seals can be strung together to perform jutsus. Each hand seal has its own properties to it. For example, the tora handseal is affiliated with the fire element, and hence is the last seal used in basically every fire element jutsu. The snake handseal is often associated with deception and illusion, so many genjutsus and other illusionary techniques will have at least one snake handseal thrown in there. "

Naruto leaned forward as Itachi did a demonstration of a handseal, clenching all four fingers on his left hand while pointing his thumb upwards, with his right ring finger and pinky overlapping his left and the middle, index and thumb all pointing up. "This is the Ram seal, which has several uses. However, what I want you to use it for right now is to channel forth your chakra. When you do this, it will be raw, unadulterated chakra, and it will escape from your tenketsus. The visibility and feel to it will tell me how much chakra you have and the amount of pressure there is to it." Itachi picked himself up from his position on the stump, and, indicating to Naruto to stay where he was, walked back approximately ten meters – he was no fool, and if Naruto's chakra levels truly were what he suspected them to be, he would need to take care to stay out of the immediate vicinity. He shouted out to the young lad, "Put your hands together in the Ram seal while feeling your chakra, let it out, then drop the seal after about ten seconds."

He almost immediately regretted stepping back only ten meters, as his knees grew weak with the strength of the first wave of chakra that washed over him. Thank god that the seals on this training ground prevent anyone outside from feeling this, or else I'd have a squad of ANBU here within minutes! The second wave of energy caused him to stagger backwards, while the third wave sent him down to his knees. OK, if I ever spar against him, I have to stay away until he exhausts his outermost layer of reserves!

By the fourth wave, the time had expired and Naruto stopped his Ram seal. Seeing his new sensei on the ground with his hands clenched deep into the earth, he ran forward in alarm, shouting out "Itachi-sensei, are you alright?!"

Itachi replied in favour, "I'm alright, but thank you for the concern." Getting up, he swept the grass and dirt off from his cloak, and allowed his analytical mind to take over. That first wave of chakra had been very intense, but the second wave not quite as intense (but still intense), and the third wave weaker still. Rolling it over in his head, he came to the conclusion that Naruto's chakra coils must have forced out as much chakra as possible in those three bursts to alleviate the pressure caused by having so much chakra to begin with. Applying it in battle, his first few jutsus, if he could control his chakra at all, would have that pressure behind it, meaning the beginning of a fight would be where he could cause the most damage. He said as much to Naruto, who soaked up the concept like a sponge and began bouncing around at the idea of having such a massive amount of power.

"Calm down, Naruto!," Itachi scolded. Naruto, not wishing to disappoint his sensei, stopped, red lighting up his face as he understood how foolish he had acted. Standing at attention, he listened as Itachi carried on, "Now, as I was saying, your chakra system is a mess, but you should be able to fix up most of your problems if you let out as much chakra as you can a couple of times a day much like you just did there." He paused, trying to figure out the best way to say what was coming next, before deciding to just fess up, "However, even if you can get rid of most of the excess chakra, your control will still have problems because of its density and what's left of the pressure. I simply cannot help you there, because even the simplest exercise I know for helping with that will still be too difficult for you to do. That will be left up to your other human sensei, Ebisu, who you will meet in a few days. He is far more capable with helping you with that sort of thing than I am."

Naruto sighed, in disappointment at his incapability to tap into the power that Itachi had just told him he had, and in frustration at his glee having been led on like that. Itachi, seeing that Naruto needed a pick-me-up, continued, "Cheer up, Naruto. I can still teach you any jutsu that doesn't require any control whatsoever, and in fact, considering just how much chakra you have and the state of your studies, I have the perfect jutsu for you." Naruto perked up at this as he saw Itachi form his hands into another handseal. "This is a Tora handseal," Here, he moved each index finger into a cross position, "And this is an adjusted Tora handseal used exclusively for a kinjutsu known as the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." With a poof sound and a whisp of smoke, there was a second Itachi standing right next to the first!

Naruto couldn't help but gape in awe. To him, it was truly a remarkable technique, especially when both Itachi's spontaneously poked him on the forehead. The bunshin was not an illusion, but was solid! "H-h-how?!" he stuttered, unused to such a phenomenon.

A smirk crossed Itachi's features, the two lines on his cheeks crinkling ever so slightly. "The wonders of chakra, it makes you wonder how the civilians can live their mundane day-to-day lives without the excitement of the techniques one can do with chakra. Now, the Kage Bunshin is known as a kinjutsu, or a Forbidden Jutsu. Kinjutsus are that way for a good reason, as they can have bad side-effects, or require a sacrifice of sorts, or are used for malicious purposes. In the case of the Kage Bunshin, the cost of summoning them is so great that usually only those of jonin levels can summon them, and to reinforce them to take more than one hit consumes even more chakra. For you, however, it'll be a pittance; in fact, I daresay that unless you gain perfect chakra control, you will never be able to perform the regular Bunshin without going overkill on the number you make. Additionally, every time you summon one you split a small part of your soul to make it – it isn't quite as bad as I make it sound, there isn't any adverse effect because of that – and as a result Kage Bunshins are able to act independently and think on their own. The real reason that it is considered a kinjutsu, however, is that when you dispel a Kage Bunshin, the piece of soul returns to you, and along with it, all the memories of that piece's lifetime away from you. In other words, if your Kage Bunshin was to read a book and then be dispelled, you would remember reading that book and its contents. With only a few Kage Bunshins the effect isn't that bad, but if you were to dispel a dozen Kage Bunshins all at once, your brain would have to compile through all of the memories all at once. In other words, mental overload."

Seeking to both shoot down some of Naruto's false hopes and build up others that lied deep underneath the surface, he pressed on quickly. "In your case, since you are only five years old and have already had a large-scale mental change with Kyuubi filling your brain with the ability to read, write, and talk, you will need to take it even more lightly than usual. With practice, you can increase the pace you can keep up with information. For the first little while, do not use them for training purposes at all. Instead, set them to mundane purposes while you live out here, such as gathering firewood, doing dishes, or cooking your ramen, although it is your own physical entity that must eat the ramen to sustain yourself. You cannot have a Kage Bunshin do that. If you are reading a book, be sure to only read for about an hour before dispelling the Kage Bunshin."

"Eventually, as your ability to tolerate new information increases, as well as being able to filter out more mundane memories, you can use it for actual training. You can use them to read and understand multiple scrolls at once. You can set them on chakra control exercises and speed up the results ten times as quickly. You can spar with them and fix any flaws and inconsistencies in your movements. You CANNOT, however, use them to improve your physical body, nor your reflexes or muscle memory. That you must do entirely on your own."

"Besides ninjutsu and genjutsu, I will also eventually teach you in the arts of kenjutsu. I will not teach you any style of taijutsu; instead, I will show you how to move your body around with maximum efficiency and minimal effort, and train your reflexes and muscle memories."

"However, before I even do that, you must train your own body. Thanks to the Kyuubi's yokai and its regenerative powers, you should have Kami-like stamina, and whenever you exercise and train your body, you will build muscle and bone mass far quicker than the normal person. Of course, I realize you have not been fed very well over the past five years, so I will be obtaining groceries at least once a week, and you will be eating something other than ramen. Your body needs protein to build muscle, it needs calcium and other minerals, and it needs even more calories to keep up with the pace I'll be setting you through." Having finished outlining his own duties in teaching Naruto, he motioned towards Naruto to stand up and get ready for some practical work.

Itachi showed the modified Tora handseal to Naruto again, who copied the gesture. After a bit more elaboration on what he should feel, Naruto went through the handseal and let his chakra pulse out. The first few times, nothing occurred except for a heaviness weighing down on him ever so slightly. When he brought this up with his sensei, Itachi informed him that he was giving off a large amount of chakra with each attempt, and that the heaviness was a result of his body losing large amounts of chakra all at once, although the side-effects would be worse if he were to actually approach having little chakra instead of just losing lots of it at once.

The ANBU captain adjusted his handseals a couple of times to fix small mistakes, and had him rest for a few minutes before attempting it again. It was a weird feeling for him this time around: as soon as he let go of his chakra, his feet seemed to be as light as a feather, and a small measure of warmth enveloped his feet. The feeling extended up his body until it exited out the top of his head, leaving his whole body feeling weightless and yet at the same time full of energy and brimming with life, before the warmth of it all left him. Looking around, he was surprised when he saw more than twenty clones of him, white shirt and black pants and sandals and all, identical down to the tag on the back of his tee. A second later, Itachi flickered in and out of existence, with smoke filling the area. A flood of memories enveloped Naruto's mind for a split second before he shook his head to get rid of the small buzzing sound in his ears. Although he remembered each of his clones getting killed by a punch or kick, their five-second lifetime and similar deaths all blended together so it wasn't so painful to recall. So this was what Itachi meant by the side-effects not being so bad when the memories were of a more mundane value.

The man in question allowed a small smirk to cross his face, not allowing anything uncharacteristic to cross the shadows of his lips. As he brushed his hair with his hand, fingers twitching in his ponytail, he proceeded to praise Naruto, "Well then, you managed to make twenty Kage Bunshins after only a few tries. Well done. Most genin would be hard-pressed to make more than three at the apex of their time in the lower ranks, and it's a rare gift indeed to be able to succeed in doing a jutsu on your third attempt." He was pleased to see the smile cross Naruto's face, before being slightly disturbed as he realized the boy's whiskers and the slightly feral trusses of his hair made the smile a bit too close to a fox's for his liking. Brushing it off as a side-effect of being the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, he then continued onto the last matter for the day. "That said, that's enough talk about chakra. Your body hasn't had the right kind of exercise to help it develop. Running around and scurrying through alleys is not the right kind, and I intend to correct that."

Needless to say, Naruto soon realized why Uchiha Itachi was claimed as a prodigal genius. It wasn't because he was born talented, or because he had a strong Sharingan, but because he pushed himself beyond his limits. In the short training exercise that followed, he was utterly ruthless. He had Naruto going through push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, and more complicated maneuvers all day long, giving him only brief periods of rest before dousing him off with a small Suiton jutsu. He called it off after two hours, however, noting that in his current malnourished state he shouldn't do too much exercise.

---

It was in the cabin that Naruto thought about his new life. The last thing he had remembered that fateful night was entering the Kyuubi's chamber with Itachi and Hokage only to be banished within the second. When he woke up, he found out that he had been whisked away to a secret training ground, and had been lying in a bed in the cabin there. The man in the weasel mask, who he had learned to be Uchiha Itachi, had made it very clear at the beginning that he was not like other Uchiha and did not hate or dislike him (though he admittedly held a healthy amount of fear for him because of his status as a jinchuuriki). He was to train him, he was to feed him, he was to help him ever so steadily reintegrate back into society after that incident at the Kyuubi festival.

The Sandaime clearly trusted the ANBU captain, so he would trust him as well. Naruto understood all too well that he was to foster and develop his skills as a shinobi, and so he would go along with it, so long as it could help him achieve his end-goal of cutting down on the suffering many people had to go through. It was a strange sort of irony – a ninja was supposed to do several things such as assassination, kidnappings, and sabotage, but depending on the intended consequences and the motivations one could ignore the darkness of the business and make the best out of it. He would try his best to seem loyal to Konoha for now, and use any position that he might gain here to do what he could. He was ambitious, but also had to admit that he was ignorant: he had no idea whatsoever whether Konoha was one of few or one of many or even the only village that at least tried to embody the same ideals he held. Sure, while walking through the streets he had been either ignored or glared at with malicious intent, had received the occasional beating at the orphanage for what were unfair reasons, and on festival days and Saturdays often had to stick to the shadows to avoid drunk people who had gotten it into their heads to hunt him down, with the recent attack being one of the few times where they actually tried to kill him, but he was the only one to be forced into such a fate. Otherwise, the orphanages were well funded, many of the kids were quickly adopted, the streets were kept cleaned up, and he had only twice seen homeless people. For Naruto, he simply didn't know whether this was the case with every community, or if Konoha was a diamond in the rough.

He had shunted aside these concerns for later, feeling quickly that he would be unable to click on Itachi in the way that was needed to bring such a matter up with him. For now, he would let it rest until he found someone else to talk to about it. However, it was that first night that he had woken up suddenly in a cold sweat, as a thought had spontaneously crossed his mind while sleeping – the demon that was sealed within him was Kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox, who was said to be the greatest of all bijuu. Did that mean that there were eight other individuals out there that suffered the same burden as him? Perhaps there were even more who had the same fate, but had demons that weren't of the bijuu class. Even if his earlier concerns about regular people were unfounded, he couldn't help shake the worrying feeling he had for his possible fellow jinchuuriki.

---

The next few weeks passed with little incident for Naruto, who had been all but cut off from the outside world, Itachi his only companion. The Kyuubi hadn't yet gotten in touch with him since that destined day, but he had a sinking feeling that he would soon come face-to-face once more with the kitsune lord. Itachi promised him that he would soon meet his third sensei, but for then, he forced Naruto to eat incrementally larger amounts of foodstuffs daily, purge his system of large amounts of chakra daily, and work him through steadily harsher exercises. After the first few days, he had shown Naruto how to stretch his body and warm up every joint and skeletal muscle. Since then, Naruto had steadily begun to progress in Itachi's teachings over how to keep his body in a constant state of readiness, so he could recoil and pounce at a moment's instance, without needing to pause and get his body into position first.

Eventually, the day came where Itachi was called out to take on a mission for ANBU, interrupting his 'undercover assignment' that he was supposedly engaged in to explain his whereabouts whilst he lived with Naruto. Before Itachi had gone off, he had brought in Ebisu, and introduced the two, debriefing Ebisu on all the details of his and Kyuubi's arrangements, specifically mentioning that Naruto was in contact with the fox so that the tutor wouldn't receive any nasty surprises when he worked with Naruto.

Ebisu was...unique, to say the least. Most Fire Country ninja wore light clothing, but Ebisu practically ignored the local climate and took to wearing dark blue, high-collar cotton shirts. Naruto couldn't understand why he would do that in contrast with the smarter choice of sunglasses and matching dark blue bandana. Before leaving , Itachi told him to make a good impression with his new sensei, noting that Ebisu was far more of a stickler than he was for respect, and Naruto took the Uchiha's words to heart. He paid attention to his honorifics, stood at attention whenever being spoken to, and did whatever Ebisu asked without complaint (although he would often ask for elaboration on why he needed to do certain things whenever he couldn't understand the importance of them). When Ebisu assigned him scrolls and books to read overnight (as he, unlike Itachi, did not stay long-term at the cabin, preferring to stay at his own apartment), Naruto would read them over with an analytical eye, often doing it twice, taking advantage of the Kage Bunshin.

While Naruto was doing his best to match up to and exceed his sensei's expectations from the first day onwards, the Tokubetsu Jonin had been flabbergasted. Truthfully, the main reason he had taken on Naruto as a new pupil was to get on the good side of the Hokage, who promised him that if he did a good job with Naruto, he would be under serious consideration for being the future private tutor for Sarutobi's new grandson Konohamaru. He promised himself he would sacrifice whatever piece of mind he would need to give up to make it through teaching the demon brat, but he hadn't expected Uzumaki Naruto to be so cordial. The boy never blew up like he expected him to when he had ridiculed his chakra control; it was true that he had become frustrated at his inability to hold a leaf on his forehead for longer than three seconds (even after Ebisu had cleared him for using a few Kage Bunshins to cut down on the training time), but that had been understandable when he realized just how much chakra Naruto had. With an amount that surpassed that of most Kages and the density of what was left, it would take a miracle to get a hold on it right away, and so he had set about to forcing Naruto to flush out even more chakra from his system every day to ever so slightly increase the chances of improving his control.

He had begun to wonder; just why was it surprising that Naruto acted how he did? His mind had wondered over this reaction of his several times. He had originally been in the interrogation section, but had changed his field of expertise from interrogation to teaching for two reasons. The first reason was that he had felt more at home with teaching the younger generation, but the second reason was more shameful for him: his superiors had deemed him far too impressionable and too easily swayed into another person's line of thinking, and it was a quality that the Interrogation and Torture Department simply couldn't afford to allow.

He had yet to crush that character flaw of his, and so when conversation came up that involved Uzumaki Naruto, and the whispers brought dislike bordering on hatred, their opinion had become his opinion. Perhaps this was why the Hokage had asked him to teach the vessel of the Kyuubi no Kitsune – to see the real Uzumaki Naruto, and not the Uzumaki Naruto that had been generated by the false words of others who themselves relied on second-hand or third-hand sources, or just outright testimonies. It was a bit of a shock to Ebisu that it was working, but he still was unsure of to his own personal view on the boy. It wasn't until Naruto had worked up the courage to ask a question that he managed to sort it out himself.

"Neh, Ebisu, might I ask a question?" It was requested in such an innocent tone during the middle of an idle downtime that Ebisu immediately acknowledged the request and motioned for Naruto to go ahead and ask. "Ano, why do people hate me if I'm not the Kyuubi, but just its jailer?"

It was certainly not what Ebisu had been expecting, and he froze up. Naruto had quickly panicked when his sensei hadn't responded for five full minutes, and was about to prod him when Ebisu finally answered, "Well, Naruto-kun, there are several different layers of answers to that question."

"You must realize that the Kyuubi never actually once touched Konohagakure itself, as it was stopped thirty miles out by the Yondaime Hokage. However, on its way here, it left a path of destruction that killed several thousand and completely razed multiple towns in south Hi no Kuni. Furthermore, over three hundred shinobi lost their life that night, including Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime himself, who was almost worshipped by civilians and ninjas of Konoha alike. With their hero dead, you must understand that they needed a scapegoat, and unfortunately that scapegoat was you."

"However, even then, I suspect most everyone would eventually get over it, but that was not the main problem. You see, even though the Kyuubi was stopped thirty miles out, it still radiated such power and killing intent that it struck fear into the hearts of people still in Konoha at the time. Many sick and elderly passed away that night from the stress caused by that fear, despite no direct interaction with the Kyuubi no Kitsune. Every single person that lived in Konoha that night felt that fear. It was like a bolt of ice that struck you in the heart, paralyzing you, freezing you in place, unable to move. I was fifteen at the time, a newly promoted chunin. Against that monster, I was nothing." Ebisu suppressed a shiver as his mind dredged up his own memories of the Kyuubi's attack. Even after five years, the impression that such power had left on his psyche had only barely begun to fade.

"And you know, I believe that you can find most people's reason for their pathological fear right there. We are a shinobi village, a military institution. The sheer power and aura that the nine-tails exuded even from so far away struck fear in those of us who had trained from birth to overcome fear, and they hated it. They hate you because that power is sealed within you, and what they can't understand, they fear, they see as a threat. Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage, was seen as a master of seals, it was his Hiraishin no Jutsu that practically won the Third Great Shinobi War for us against Iwagakure. If anyone were to design a seal that could perfectly contain the greatest of all bijuu, it would be him. But that's the problem, only he understands the seal. Even Jiraiya-sama and Hokage-sama, both highly accomplished connoisseurs of seals in their own rights, can't understand just what the Yondaime did in that seal, so nobody knows what exactly it does."

Ebisu left Naruto to think over that, while he was reevaluating his own opinion on the boy. Kami help him, he realized, he had let his impressionable nature get to him and it might have caused him to scorn an innocent young boy whom had been nothing but a model student, cordial, quiet, but naturally curious and with an unquenchable passion to learn and improve. The night after that conversation, he went to the Sandaime and asked for clearance on the rest of Naruto's profile (beyond his psyche profile), and with the notable exception of a few pieces of information that were ranked as SS-class state secrets, had gained access to his files. What he saw shocked him – Naruto's medical file was almost three inches thick, a file size that most retired shinobi don't obtain, the result of a mob mentality that had taken over Konoha five years ago. Deep down, Ebisu resolved to no longer let his natural biases get in the way of his judgement, having just seen the consequences of doing so.

From the seeds of that conversation sprouted Ebisu's grudging respect towards Naruto for having had to put up with that proverbial crap for so long. He began putting forth that extra bit of dedication that he had felt missing from all his times teaching in the past, and it paid off with surplus, as Naruto began to grow like a weed under his guidance, eventually attaining moderate success in holding a leaf onto his forehead, then moving onto holding two and then three and four leaves at the same time onto various spots on his body, then being able to spin the leaf on his forehead. At the same time, he taught Naruto about the general world around them, of the Elemental Nations and the Hidden Villages, of the civilian and shinobi lives, and the history of the past and present of the Leaf Village.

Perhaps the turning point in their relationship was when Ebisu was one day at the bookstore subtlety going through the Icha Icha series section, occasionally sneaking a look and leafing through a few pages while trying to avoid being witnessed by anyone he knew, not wishing for his reputation to be established as being amorous. While going through, he found a lone copy of the first book ever written by Jiraiya of the Sannin, one that had nothing to do with sex and romance as all of Jiraiya's later novels were. Taking a chance, he purchased it and read it over that night. The Legend of the Gutsy Ninja was inspiring even to him, a full-grown man, and so he gave it to Naruto to read. Naruto, who had rarely received gifts, took it and devoured it within the hour. And then he read it again. And then again. After the fourth time reading it, he couldn't help but feel a sense of kinship with the main character, whom was also named Naruto, and he felt his ambitions and desires solidify. His relationship with Ebisu improved even further, and he decided that one day he would like to meet the man who authored The Legend of the Gutsy Ninja, Jiraiya of the Sannin.

---

It was a couple of weeks after that day of reckoning that Naruto felt himself being pulled into his mindscape after he had fallen asleep. Traversing the hallways of his gutter mind (not being old enough or versed enough in slang to attempt a self-deprecating joke to himself), he came to the chamber of the king of kitsunes. The water that had been ankle deep the last time he came had receded ever so slightly, and the darkness of the sewers had retreat some more, signs of his new life bringing back some form of mental stability.

As soon as he stepped into that giant chamber room, however, it all came crashing down on him. He was the vessel for the soul of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, a demon that had destroyed and slaughtered, massacred and killed. His body bore the weight of another, with the blood of tens of thousands on his hands. He couldn't help what he did next, as his consciousness locked itself up and he sat down, curled up in a fetal position, trembling in the damp waters.

The fox saw this happen, and began to worry. It wouldn't do for the ningen it was sealed into to suddenly have his mental frame of being shattered just like that. The first time they had met, he had gotten a freebie ride since the gaki needed companionship of some sorts and was naive to the full weight of just what the fox was and what his presence meant. He had stayed out of the gaki's life for the last few weeks to let him heal and come to terms with what he was, a jinchuuriki, before calling him back in. Clearly, however, he was losing the battle, but he wouldn't let the mortal just go like that. "Oi, gaki! Snap out of it!"

His pleading call worked to a degree, as Naruto's trembling form began to calm down, and his head began to rise up from his legs. Seeing his ministrations working, the fox continued on, "You said before you wanted to prevent others from living the same life as you have, but how are you going to do that if you just sit there and cry and shut yourself away from the world like that?!" The catcall managed to provoke Naruto enough that he stood up with indignation present in his stance, only to realize what he had done.

"My apologies for that, Kyuubi-dono," he said, making sure to nurse his healthy fear of the fox. While he understood that the fox was at his mercy for the next nine years, the past two weeks had revitalized him and brought back his own desire to live, so he was definitely willing to be respectful to the kitsune demon, though the youko had awhile back requested to be called by the lesser honorific -dono. Thinking over what he just said and what Itachi had told him about his and Kyuubi's chat, he let his face light up in a fox-like grin and added, "Or would you prefer Kyuubi-sensei?"

"Kyuubi-dono will do fine," the fox demon said, intent on having his container get used to it by force of habit, having plotted for the years ahead on how he would groom another servant. So far, on the outside world his container was improving his physical condition along with getting more nutrients and energy into his body, and his recent acquisition of knowledge was pleasing. It would not do for Kyuubi's status to be reflected by a weakling. Meanwhile, on the inside, Kyuubi had been examining the seal that imprisoned him within that ningen's son. When he had first looked it over, he was impressed at how the Namikaze seal master had truly looked over at every possible outcome. While the Kyuubi retained almost no control over the mortal he was sealed inside of, and could not stop his yokai from being absorbed, he could, with permission from the gaki, send a small continuous amount of his yokai into the gaki's chakra coils.

That would be something that he would talk about in a few years, though. For now, he thought it best if he bring Uzumaki Naruto into the fold of the clan by talking about history. "In any case, your two new senseis on the outside plane of existence have been teaching you these last two weeks, and you no doubt by now have seen the improvements and results. From now on, every night while your physical body is sleeping, you will be here in the mindscape with me, learning whatever I feel at the time that you need to know. Because your mindscape does not exactly follow physical laws, time can vary, and you can push it up to about an hour in here being only three seconds outside. Therefore, I can teach you for more than just a couple of hours nightly."

Seeing Naruto nod at the end of every sentence that he understood, the fox carried on, allowing his eyes to move around erratically. "For tonight, I will not be teaching you anything about that really relates to the shinobi arts. Instead, I will speak about something that heavily relates to you: the history of the bijuu. For time eternity, the realm of demons, known as Makai, and this realm, the realm of you ningens and other beings, were separated. In addition, there are also two more divine realms, Kami's realm and the Shinigami's realm. When a ningen dies, typically the Shinigami comes and takes their soul away. A rare few of extraordinary greatness are invited into Kami's realm. Ningens come and go in the blink of an eye, causing the majority of the work for the Shinigami."

The Kyuubi no Kitsune paused, his tails swishing behind his rear in an agitated manner, the expression on his vulpine features almost wistful. "In Makai, however, demons are essentially immortal. With age we only grow more powerful, as opposed to growing old and dying. Ningens cannot kill a demon on their own. That is why they seal them away in others, to prevent them from causing havoc in the mortal realm. There are only three ways to kill a demon: the first is at the hands of another demon, or weapons imbued with demonic or divine power. If you ever sign a summoning contract in your lifetime, you will find when fighting other summons that a summons will not die by your hand, leastways not unless you choose to become a part-demon, something that is possible with my presence, but can die at the hands of another summons. The second," and here, he focused his gaze on Naruto to emphasise his next point, "Is to seal a demon into a human being. Some seals won't work, but any seal that forces the souls of the sealed and the vessel to intertwine will kill the demon when the opposite dies."

Something akin to a shiver passed through the fox's spine, and for a being as large as it was, the shiver was visible as indicated by an intense vibration along its backside. "And the third way is to summon the Shinigami itself. To be honest, I never thought that that was possible for a mere human to do, but Namikaze Minato was the first to do so, and for such a thing he deserves my respect. Much like I said before, the Shiki Fūjin was not permanent on me, as the amount of power the Shinigami puts on it is only proportional to the chakra and lifeforce the user can offer up as a sacrifice. Namikaze was smart, too: under normal circumstances, that kinjutsu would have caused both his and my soul to be devoured by the Shinigami and stuck us in his stomach for an untold amount of time, although not eternity as the Sandaime thought it did."

Realizing he was going off track, the fox snapped back to attention. "In any case, Makai is separated from the ninkai realm. While demons are allowed to cross over, any demon that has over a quarter of tail of power will be stripped of any extra power, permanently, which is kept in effect even if they come back to Makai. They can still gain power while in the ninkai realm, however, which is why there are a number of minor lesser demons running around. It is an edict passed down by the gods who govern over the two realms of the living so as to not cause chaos in this world. If that law were not in place, demons would have long ago ravaged this world. Humans, however, cannot go to Makai unless they wish to face certain death, and the means of getting there is far more inconvenient than it is for a demon to leave Makai."

"However, about one thousand years ago, Kami finally intervened just once. He took the souls of nine recently deceased animal spirits from the mortal realm, and changed them into demons that could go between the two realms without having to sacrifice a specific amount of power. The nine of us all become tailed demons of ascending order, starting with the one tailed tanuki, and ending with me, the nine-tailed fox. That is not to say that is our fixed-amount of power, however: in the demon realm, the one-tailed tanuki actually has the equivalent of about fifteen tails of power, but when he comes here, he can only keep one tail, but if he returned to Makai he would have all fifteen tails of power again. We are different because we can travel back and forth without all the rules."

"We nine were the founders of nine great demon clans in Makai, which are different from the remaining clans because we all draw off the characteristics of our original body. For example, the Ichibi was once a racoon, but his demonization caused some characteristics to change around to become a similar but different entity. I suppose that was somewhat vague, so a better example would be me: I am often called a nine-tailed fox, but that would be inaccurate. I am not a fox, but a kitsune. While we greatly resemble foxes, we are not, as we have the ability to grow multiple tails. There are no non-demonic kitsunes, and there are no demonic foxes: a fox that is changed into a demon will become a kitsune, but it is not simply a fox made a demon. Nevertheless, us kitsunes still feel great kinship with foxes, so you will tend to take on some of the features of a fox, such as those six whiskers on your cheek."

"Back to business, we are the only ones able to cross between the two realms with impunity. That is what makes us the bijuu, the feared tailed beasts of this realm. Kami made us the bijuu for a reason, though. A thousand years ago, humans had no idea how to use chakra." Seeing the look of shock cross Naruto's face, the Kyuubi allowed a devilish grin to cross his own. "That is right! We were the ones who brought about the dawn of the age of chakra. Monks, shinobi and samurai alike all grew out of the dark age of humanity! We were the one whom gave the Sage of the Six Paths, the Rikudo Sennin, his powers! We were the ones who taught him how to use his powers, which he handed to the next generation, bringing about the existence of clans wielding these powers, and eventually small plots of territories, many groups lands and clans coming together to form the Elemental Nations and Hidden Villages of today!"

Naruto just sat there, dumbstruck. The legend of the Rikudo Sennin had been one of the few things that he had managed to get around to reading in the last two weeks. It was said that the man was the founder of the ninja world, but he had been a myth for so long. To hear from the words of one of the most powerful beings in existence that he had personally taught the man who was acclaimed as the strongest shinobi to ever live wasn't something that he could reasonably express disbelief in; the Kyuubi had no real reason to live. "So what you're saying then is," he took a few seconds to come up with the right words in his head, "Is that I definitely shouldn't get on your bad side?"

"Oh, absolutely!" The kitsune demon sneered, going for the dramatic effect. "We nine bijuu gave him a single task at the end of all our training. With all the knowledge and power that we taught and granted him, he was able to use a technique that manipulated gravity. Pulling together debris from outer space and pulling up most of the mountains in Lightning Country, he managed to create the moon!" The kitsune couldn't help it, he let out a chuckle that broke out into a full-blown laugh. Naruto just sat there dazed all the while, not paying attention, his mind having shut down in trying to comprehend the sheer amount of power that would have been required to create the moon. The kitsune, seeing that Naruto had since lost all conscious thought, pushed the young jinchuuriki out of his mindscape, letting him sleep without a fit.

---

Whew, hot damn. I had a bit of a tough time writing this chapter, having to lay down the foundation for several concepts, and proofreading being a pain. Most of the difficulty with this chapter was expanding on the idea of chakra systems and usage and reserves beyond "Some people have lots of chakra and some people have lots of efficiency aka control to it", as well as the concept of what exactly make the bijuu bijuu and different from regular demons. Then, of course, I had to read through both of my explanations and smooth it over so I don't have contradictions or plot holes for certain points later on in the story. Then I had to add on descriptions since there were originally points where there were several hundred words of talking without a single thing to break from all that non-stop talking. The part that annoyed me the most was the whole meditation part. On at least half a dozen occasions I just wanted to say 'screw this' and deus-ex-machina Naruto knows how to use chakra the whole thing, but I prevailed.

While reading over Ebisu's speech, there were many times that I wanted to fix the disjointed manner of speech, but eventually decided against it. I envision him rushing the words out, trying to say them all at once, not exactly excited, but more of a frantic pace, therefore needing to take several stops as he says his thoughts as soon as he comes up with them, and constantly repeating himself and saying redundant phrases. As for Ebisu, in canon, at the beginning of the story he doesn't really like Naruto, but he soon changes his tune, with Chapter 426 being the culmination of his character. 'Uzumaki Naruto: The True Shinobi' by Gaara the Sandwarrior shows a side of Ebisu that I think he would have if he were ever to be inspired to be more serious than he is in canon.

I'd also like to clarify on Naruto's treatment by the villagers, so one doesn't draw the wrong conclusion from what I imply in the main text. Naruto's life isn't some free-for-all punching bag life. He doesn't get assaulted every time with impunity, with the Hokage and a couple of ANBU as his only benefactors. He isn't universally viewed as the demon reincarnate. However, many people still harbour a healthy dislike or hatred of him for the reasons Ebisu supplies, and on weekend nights and festivals, when people drink and get ideas into their heads, they take that hate too far sometimes, and Naruto simply doesn't always have ANBU guards 24/7 (especially not on festivals when they need that manpower elsewhere), and of course some of those who dislike them that are more influential will hire assassins and the like. Sarutobi commands a great amount of power, and he has those who assault Naruto thrown in prison or executed, but he's sometimes far too weak-willed to do what's right until something drastic happens (just see in canon where he doesn't even tell Naruto about the Kyuubi by the time he's 12/13, a fact that could have helped Naruto graduate the academy more easily as soon as he realizes that he needed better chakra control or a technique that used more chakra because the demon in his gut causes him to have too much chakra for a regular bunshin)– therefore he doesn't accept Itachi's whole 'let me train him' spiel until trauma from a runaway festival finally awakes the Kyuubi. In any case, the orphanage matron disliked Naruto, and wouldn't let him interact very much, or have him learn how to read, or even talk well.

Finally, Kyuubi's motivations are meant to be secret, with only a few hints dropped here and there as to what they are. He isn't evil, but he's not good either. You'll see as the story progresses.