A DIFFERENT GENEALOGY

ACT IX
~ MEETING CRACKPOT NUMBER THREE ~

"What do you mean? Are you saying you can't do anything?!" Sasuke demanded loudly, though the stirring emotions in his voice were far from anger.

"Well… no. Not without her guardians permission; she has yet to achieve Chunin rank, and not being of adult civilian age, we can't attempt the few treatments that might have any affect without it," the doctor informed them.

Sasuke stood frozen to the floor, not wanting to believe the man's words, but having no choice having seen the blood with his own eyes.
"But she heals!" he protested fixing the doctor with a pointed glare; his age was an indication that he would know of what she contained.

The doctor gave him a surprised look, before receiving an encouraging nod from Itachi.
"Judging by the effects of the technique, I'd say whatever was used on her is preventing the…. Uh…"

"Stinking Deranged Ball of Fuzz?" Sasuke suggested, receiving an alarmed look in reply.
"Whatever this technique is, it is preventing her tenant from speeding the regeneration of her cells completely, it is being controlled," he stressed in a hushed voice.

"I'm a Medical Ninja, and I don't concern myself with battles when I can avoid it, but whomever she crossed paths was clearly very dangerous to have accomplished this; I'll do my best to make sure she survives, but please find Mr. Uchi-"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible" a familiar voice interjected.

A grey haired man was walking down the hallway with a grim expression on his face; Sasuke recognised him as the man who had trained Naruto for the exams, the Sannin who had first sealed away his doom-hickey, and removed the two five pronged seals the Snake had placed on Naruto.

"Jiraiya-Sama!" the doctor spluttered, nearly dropping his clipboard.
"I'm sorry to be the bearer of more bad news, but Fugaku is… he was one of our losses. Her guardian would now be me; I have the paperwork here" she informed them, before handing the doctor several papers.

Sasuke fell back onto the bench, face glazing over. His father was dead? That was a mistake; he'd seen his father fight numerous times. He was one of the strongest ninja in the village, right up with scarecrow and his green stalker! He couldn't be dead!

He was a student of Jiraiya, along with the fourth Hokage, and not to sound overbearing, but he was an Uchiha! He was capable of at least standing up to Orochimaru for a decent length of time! It would take one heck of a powerful…

The man in the mask!

Shaking his head - pushing his father to the backburner - he forced his attention back to Naruto. The doctor, satisfied with the papers, was going over the various treatments they could try with the man and his older brother; his grim expression was not promising.

"…but this is only a theory, and if I'm honest, there's no ninja in Konoha with the medical abilities to even attempt this operation; the best I can do is try, but I cant see high odds of survival…"he informed them.

Jiraiya frowned I thought.
"When you say Konoha; you mean there's no one with the ability actually in the village itself, yes? In that case there is one person who could perform the operation," he ventured.

The medic's eyes widened.
"You can't possibly mean her! Yes, she would easily be able to perform the operation, but there is no way to know where she is! You know this better than anyone Jiraiya-Sama!"

The old man grinned.
"It's a good thing I know where she is right now then isn't it? How long did you could keep those wounds closed?" he asked; there was a maniacal gleam in his eye.
"T-Two weeks, but that would be a miracle in and of itsel-"
"Perfect! You do that!"

He turned to the two stunned Uchihas with a less genial expression.

"Itachi, as far as I'm aware, you're the new clan head. Your grandparents are willing to take you and Sasuke in until the compound and main house are completely reconstructed, and Sasuke will be in your custody. I don't know anything about the clan- you'll have to figure that out for yourself."

He turned his gaze on Sasuke.
"As for you, I'll be borrowing you and your other blonde team-mate. I'll be needing your help with something; be at the gate for six am tomorrow morning. You heard what the medic said!"

And with that, he headed back down the corridor, leaving two stunned brothers in his wake.

"So to clarify, again, Mr. Mask's freaky Sharingan thingy is more than the hospital medics know what to do with, so were going on what could possibly a wild goose chase for the third crackpot?"

"Yes" Sasuke replied.
"….I still can't believe any of this" Ino sighed, trailing behind the old ninja with Sasuke.

He was much quieter than usual, but she attributed that to all the bad news he seemed to be getting recently. She wanted to gouge the stupid swirly eyes out of that masked guy for hurting Naruto like that, preferably with blunt spoons.

Thoughts of the masked man brought up the choked words her friend had hissed at him to the front of her thoughts; what did she mean, she remembered him? The man had verified it in a roundabout way, but not very clearly. Who on earth was that man?

"What's wrong with you? You look constipated…" Sasuke asked, giving her scrunched expression an alarmed look.

Ino made good use of her famed elbow-stomach manoeuvre.
"Ow! Jesus, way to freak out Ino!"
"I was thinking you git!"
"And it took so much effort?"
"…you did not just say that Uchiha!"

"Oi, will you brats be quiet? I'm trying to make sure were on path!"
"…Ino you're right; this is going to be a wild goose chase"
"Isn't it?"
"Shut up you brats!"

"What?! Hokage? I thought you were looking for her so she could heal Naruto!" Ino raged, standing up from her seat to glare at the old ninja, fists balled.

Sasuke was equally surprised, but was much better at hiding it than Ino; a brief flicker was all that crossed his face. The woman, Tsunade, gave him and Ino a scrutinising.
"Who are these brats Jiraiya? I thought you weren't going to take on any more students?"
"Believe me, the one I have is already nearly more than I can handle; these are Kakashi's trolls" her old team-mate snorted in reply.

"Ino, Sasuke, this is my old team-mate Tsunade - I'm certain you've heard of her. Tsunade; Ino Yamanaka, and Sasuke Uchiha" he introduced them.
"Kakashi passed a team?" she asked incredulously, before adding: "Who's the other one?"
"Naruto Uzumaki" Sasuke informed her, speaking for the first time since meeting the medic woman.

He did not spot the flicker of recognition cross her face, but Ino did, and she caught his gaze; Sasuke had to wonder if her ability to read facial expressions was really as bad as she claimed. Sure, her brother was better, but she picked up things no other ninja would have been able to spot with ease.

"You know her! You know everything don't you? Both of you do! That's why that snake creep knew too!" Ino raged, glaring at the woman with ferocity; the woman simply blinked as Ino continued to rant.

"If you know who she is, then you'll come back with us and heal her! If you don't she'll die, and if you run off like a scared little rabbit, then I'll scramble your brains so bad you wont be able to tell what chakra is anymore an- mrgmph!"

Sasuke placed a hand over her mouth and yanked her back down into her seat irritably.
"Shut up Ino! She's not going to do anything if you threaten her!" he hissed, noting the curios expression on the woman's face.

The woman let out a loud long snort of laughter, much to his surprise, and smacked her sake cup onto the table with a loud bang amidst her mirth.
"God, she's exactly like Inochi when I was beating chakra control into him!"
"Uh… What?" Ino asked, seeming somewhat confused
"I like you girl; you have spunk, so I'll indulge you. Tell me why you want my help so much and I'll consider taking up that request"

Ino looked at the grey haired man warily, and he gave her a nod. Still looking somewhat shell shocked, she explained the circumstances Naruto had wound herself up in with far more detail than Sasuke would have been able to - even slipping in a few rudimentary medical terms.

"I see Inochi's been teaching you medical techniques," the woman noted.
"Only the basics, but that's what happened, and the doctors don't have the skill to counteract the technique, so unless you help her shell die from the blood loss!" Ino grit her teeth at the woman, as if daring her to say no.

Tsunade turned
"And you? I can tell just by looking at you your Mikoto's youngest boy. Why are you here?"
"Same reason as Ino… Well, sort of…" he replied loosely, his mind warping at her statement.
"Humour me" she persisted.

Ino his her puzzlement with the woman's wording; Youngest boy? Was she accidentally implying that Sasuke's mother had given birth to a girl? That was impossible! Sasuke did not have any… Her gaze whipped wide to meet the woman's own; even Ino could tell by the twitch of her mouth she was cursing her slip of her tongue.

Sasuke remained silent for a long moment; he had no doubt in his mind that Ino's assumption she and the older man knew everything about his girlfriend. If he got into their good graces, maybe they would be able to wheedle some proper information out of them. It would be more reliable than the ramblings of a certifiably insane renegade he had not even been awake to hear in any case.

"Dating" he grumbled, not meeting her gaze.

Tsunade choked on her sake, before turning to her old team-mate.
"He's joking right?" she whispered, trying to keep her expression from that far-too-sharp-for-her-own-good daughter of her old student.

Jiraiya sighed.
"Apparently Fugaku didn't think it was a good idea to clarify things; he was pulling his hair out"
"…I need more sake" Tsunade sighed, looking around for another bottle.
"The blonde one is stalking Itachi too," Jiraiya added, in a slightly louder tone.

Ino turned a shade of red close to the skin of a tomato in colour.
"I'm not stalking him!" she protested, earning a snort from Sasuke.

"You tried using Iwan voodoo on him" he stated, a slight layer of disgust in his voice.
"That wasn't my idea! It was Naruto's and it didn't even wor- Hey, how the hell do you know that?!"

Tsunade gulped another glass of sake before slamming the cup onto the table once again.
"Alright; I'll heal your team-mate, but after that I'm gone. I'm not sticking around for that Hokage gig"

She took great pains to stress her intent after healing Naruto, but Sasuke could care less; she was going to fix Naruto. That was all he cared about. Ino was whooping with the sound of victory (well, half victory at any rate), much to the woman's amusement.

"Bloody hell, you weren't kidding when you said this place was trashed" Tsunade noted, gazing at the wreckage of the village.

Sasuke noted that many of the buildings were on their way to being rebuilt, and wondered if his own home was fixed. It was not that he minded staying with his grandparents - the Senbei they made really was some of the best in Konoha - but it just wasn't the same.

He noted that it wouldn't be the same without his father either, but brushed the thought aside; he had already finished his momentary grieving. His father would not be happy if he spent his days moping over his death, - he would probably turn in his grave - and he had no intentions going against that belief.

The medics were almost in tears of relief when they entered the hospital with Tsunade, and immediately dragged her off to examine Naruto. Sasuke had to force himself not to stumble at the sight of her; she was horribly pale; hooked up to several blood drips that seemed to be doing no good at all. Ino, brazen harpy that she was, had tears scratching the corners of her eyes.

"This is a nasty technique…" Tsunade mumbled to herself, glowing hands of chakra tracing the wounds on Naruto's back, the two Genin watching with bated breath (and Ino's case fascination).

"You're lucky I got here so quickly; any longer and she would have been beyond help," she informed them gravely after her examination.

"I can start immediately, but…" She wringed her hands together, clearly uncomfortable with what she was about to say: "…she needs a bone marrow transplant where the wounds have kept opening; If I healed them again they would probably cause an infection" she finished.

"So? There's bound to be a matching donor in the village somewhere!" Ino protested, like Sasuke, not recognising the problem with the requirement.
"Civilian bone marrow cannot be used to treat a ninjas; it's all to do with not using chakra. And I cant use any old ninja's either; while the marrow may be compatible, if the chakras are in opposition it would be just as bad" she explained vaguely.

Ino frowned, thinking over this new information to herself. Sasuke was doing the same thing; he reached the conclusion quicker than his team-mate.
"You need bone marrow from a close family member," he stated.

He immediately held out his forearm; these oldies already knew he and Naruto were related. Only close family members, from the same main line, had the Sharingan so Sasuke could safely assume his would be compatible with Naruto's.

"I'll do it"
"Sasuke, what the hell are you on?!" Ino demanded.
"Oh, like they don't know anything we don't Ino!" he replied exasperatedly.

He turned back to the medic woman
"I don't know how close a match it'll be, but you already know she has the Sharingan; the furthest she could be is a second cousin" he stated calmly.
"You knew? And you're dating anyway?" Tsunade asked in surprise.

"We didn't know, Naruto's Sharingan manifested by itself, so we just went with it" he replied blandly.
"And you knew too?" the blonde woman asked Ino.
"It wouldn't be the first time; just look at the Hyuuga clan" Ino waved a hand in the air blandly.

"Besides, if Naruto and Sasuke get married, and I manage to wake up Itachi's hormones, then she'll be my sister for real!" she added, and Sasuke shivered.

Tsunade stared at them for a long moment.
"You lot are crazy, you know that?" Tsunade mumbled.

Jiraiya sniggered.

The removal of bone marrow was a lot more painful than Sasuke had originally expected, but he was not going to complain if it was going to save Naruto's life. Immediately after the marrow harvesting, the blonde woman whisked Naruto off to an operating theatre with her assistant and the male medic. It was during the hours he sat waiting outside that Itachi came to have the long conversation he had been expecting; Ino had informed him of Naruto's Sharingan use during his match.

"How much do you know?" he asked bluntly.
"She's close enough to have the Sharingan. That's about it; Ino has her own ideas, but they want to look at those by themselves first" Sasuke replied, not at all worried about his brothers opinions or reaction.

If Itachi had been against things, he would have been more obviously unsupportive. If there were anyone who had been unsupportive, that would probably have been his father, understandable from the paternal view.

"I won't stop you, but I will tell you I can't answer all the questions you're going to ask later; I never got a chance to ask all of them, and father was very vague with his brief…" Itachi stated pointedly, some irritation creeping into his voice.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow but did not prod for answers; his brother had stated any curiosities would have to be satisfied himself. Itachi was not going to stand in his way, but he was not going to egg him along either.

Itachi nodded in approval, shifting his shoulder so his brother's second team-mate had a slightly more comfortable angle for resting her head. Besides Sasuke's bone marrow, Ino had given out a large amount of blood - with the recent invasion; stocks of type b were running rather low.

The donation had left her rather lethargic, and she had been too stubborn to take an actual bed - stating there were plenty of others needing them more thanks to the sound ninjas. Five hours they had been waiting so far, and the surgery light still flickered above the door to the operating room.

Sasuke's thoughts focused on finding out more about how Naruto had gained her Sharingan; Itachi would not actually tell him, and he was certain that the medic woman and perverted old man would be unwilling to share.

He focused on what Ino and Naruto had discussed before they had all ended up having a water fight: 'pull the influence cards on the nurses' Ino had told Naruto. He assumed that meant going into the permanent records of births; unless Naruto had been born in a ditch, there was bound to be a birth certificate.

It would be a fairly simple matter to get past the nurses if he told them he had been sent by his brother; he could say the certificates were needed for registering the deaths within the clan, something Itachi had been doing during their eight day trip.

'…I'll tell you what he said. I promise, just let me do this by myself, okay?'

He frowned; it was not like Naruto to keep secrets from him. Even after discovering the Kyuubi for herself, she hadn't hidden it from him for very long. For her to ask that meant whatever Snakey-Pedo had told her had done more than shaken her.

He didn't like that, but he had promised he would let her find out by herself first, and he wasn't about to back out of that unless she told him otherwise. He supposed he could just relay the idea to Ino; but how would Naruto get past? She had no influence to speak of, and was generally hated by the populace.

There were seals throughout the building to prevent ninja using transformations, and though a skilled Jonin could easily bypass them, he couldn't say the same of a Genin with sub-par chakra control. Naruto would never be able to regulate her chakra enough to cast a full illusion either.

The doors to the operating room opened, and a troop of medics carefully wheeled out the gurney Naruto had been rushed in on. He could see residual black ink on her arms where medical seals had been attached as she was wheeled past and into one of the intensive care rooms.

The blonde woman came over to Itachi and his younger companions with a grim smile on her face; it promised good news in once case, but no success in another.

"We managed to separate the techniques physical effects; all that remains is to undo the psychological aspects. I want to let her recover from the surgery for a day or so, but I can guarantee that waking will not be pretty - I believe a resurgence technique was used, and those are never pretty even in an amateur's hands. Whoever cast this was far and away from an amateur" She informed them seriously.

Ino shuddered at the mention of a resurgence technique; they were well known amongst her clan, and every ninja had experienced one to learn how to overcome them in combat situations. They forced suppressed memories to the forefront of the victims mind - and they directly aimed for the worst ones it could find.

Her own experience had been just after the wave mission; she had been forced to watch Naruto loosing her self-control, tearing like a ravenous animal into that Haku person, and Sasuke being frozen in ice. It had been torturous at the time; the situation demanded she did not leave Tazuna's side, but that had conflicted with her desire to at least try to aid her team-mates.

It was not pleasant re-living the experience again.

"Sasuke, what did the caster look like?" Itachi asked, jerking her thoughts back to the matter at hand.

He had not managed to ask before his brother had disappeared with Ino and Jiraiya to find the blonde woman, and the curiosity on Tsunade's face told him she had not been parted to that information. Sasuke frowned for a moment, seeming to ponder something.

"I don't know; he had this orange mask with and eyehole on the right. He used the Sharingan on her though, and when I tried to stab his foot, my kunai just phased right through him; he didn't even use hand-signs" he recalled, raising several loud worrying alarm bells in Itachi's mind.

One person who had stood out in his fathers explanation had worn an orange mask, and Itachi had a sickening suspicion that person was Madara Uchiha. Never minding the fact he was supposedly dead, what did he want with Naruto?

Sasuke frowned as he looked trough his father's files.

His house had escaped marginally unscathed, only the bedrooms had been drastically damaged, meaning his fathers files and documents were free to be rooting through, especially with Itachi staying with Ino till she was deemed recovered from the large blood donation by Tsunade.

Had it been any other time, he would have teased Itachi incessantly, but he was certain Itachi would have drawn a line at looking through their fathers files. Not that he was finding anything; he had assumed his father to be an organized kind of person, but that was beginning to look like a horrible misconception.

How had his father managed to keep track of anything in this mess of a desk?! There were tax receipts mixed up with mission payments and clan documents! He swore some of them were written in blood too! He understood running out of ink, but surely, that was what shops were for?

Raking through the desk, he came across the family tree. He was unsurprised to find Naruto nowhere in existence on it but, after following the thin lines of succession, he did discover something else that raised his eyebrows.

His parents were cousins! His grandfathers were siblings! His father was a fucking hypocrite! All that surreptitious non-support of his relationship with Naruto when he was married to his cousin! The filthy old buzzard!

Making a mental not to tell Itachi of this when they went back to their grandparents for the night, he moved the family tree to the tiny pile of useful information; he could add Naruto to it later on. When he figured out where she was supposed to go.

Underneath the family tree had been a wooden box, and he pried at the lid with his fingers with unsuccessful results. He tried channelling chakra into it - some chakra locks worked with familial chakra - but nothing happened.

Turning it over, he found a surprising etching underneath: Property of Minato knew his father had been on the same team as the fourth Hokage, but apparently they had been closer than he had originally thought. The box annoyed him enough to add it to the small pile, atop the incomplete family tree.

Reaching into the drawer once again, he pulled out a large bunch of faded letters, held together with string, looking well thumbed if the worn edges were anything to go by. He had seen his mother's handwriting a few times, and immediately recognised it for the spider scrawl it was.

He was dying to open the letters and look at their contents, but he needed to get out before Itachi came back from the hospital, and there was no set indicator as to when that would be. This in mind, he quickly stored the small pile of gathered clues into a scroll, and left for his grandparents' house.

The streets of the Uchiha district were quiet; many civilians had died in the attack on Konoha besides ninjas, and it showed as he moved through the streets towards the Senbei shop his grandparents ran. After greeting the ageing couple, he headed into the room he had been given for his stay.

He did not bother with the box; that had some sort of seal on it that would only accept a certain type of chakra and his had already proven useless. Naruto might know something about what type of seal it was, so she could take a look at it when she woke up (she had taken an advanced lesson on his only flunked course at the academy - sealing).

What he could look at were the letters to his father from his mother; taking car not to damage the slightly faded envelope, he unfastened the string holding them together, and opened the first one.

This mission is the worst one I have received to date! This is even worse than chasing after that demonic cockatiel of the Daimyo's! Poor Kurenai was traumatized by that animal, and I cant say much better for Raido or Hayate (I'm curious to know how Minato's Genin handled that thing). I am certain this is payback for something; Minato can be sadistic when he wants to be.

For obvious reasons, I cannot go into mission details, but I can tell you there was a nasty incident the other day when one of the villagers set of one of our traps - the poor woman was covered in dirt, and she kept chasing Raido with her rolling pin.

I heard Shikaku took on a team of his own a few weeks ago from Inochi; isn't Tsume's daughter on it? I'll bet he was overjoyed with the news. Find out how he tested them for me; god knows I could do with a laugh right now.

How's Minato? Tsume tells me Deidara is driving Ibiki and his team-mates up the wall. I hope he isn't too harsh on the boy; he's just a little enthusiastic sometimes. I think he takes after Kushina in that respect. Make sure Itachi doesn't torment him too much…

Speaking of sons, how's Sasuke doing? I really don't like taking a mission when he is so young! I know it's unavoidable, but children need their mothers when they're still at this age! Make sure you don't poison him with your cooking!

Go ask Kushina for some leftovers or go to that ramen place. The one owned by the family of that civilian girl on Itachi's team; Kushina swears by it, no doubt. Then again, she swears by any ramen restaurant. No, going to Inochi's for aid is out of the question - he is as bad a cook as you are, and has his interrogation exam to prepare for.

I don't know how much longer this mission will take; there seems to be some progress, but it's very slow in coming along. I think maybe a few more months at the most but it is impossible to determine at the moment.

I will have to cut this short - Kurenai fell into the pond in the middle of her chakra exercises and I am not certain that dress of hers is designed for swimming. Kiss the boys goodnight for me (and tell Itachi I don't care that he's a ninja already - he's six; I'm his mother, and I have the last word!).

Miki

Sasuke did not know how to react to the letter; on the one hand, it did not provide the information he wanted, built on the other he had never had much interaction with his mother. She had died before he had gotten the chance to form a memory of her in his mind.

His father had been very touch on the subject, avoiding it as much as he could; he barley mentioned his old team-mates too, so this letter was illuminating in other ways. From what he had gathered from this first letter, Naruto's mother adoptive mother (adoptive being an assumption) Kushina had been married to the fourth Hokage, or at least romantically involved enough to produce a son of their own.

Said son had been one of Itachi's team-mates (as had Ayame, off all people) underneath Ibiki (Sasuke shuddered to think of the man as a Jonin instructor - no wonder Itachi had turned out with a twisted streak).

His mother had, apparently, been on some sort of mission during the time of this letter with her own team; names were recognisable as Jonin instructors or as the exam proctors. Sasuke wondered if this mission had been her last one, their father had never really specified how she had died.

Another Genin's name that popped up was Kakashi's. Sasuke assumed that meant Kakashi Hatake, going by the ages. He had not realised Kakashi had been a student of the fourth Hokage, but it was good news. He could probably get some coherent answers from him if he was told Itachi did not care what he did with the information.

Well, he had made some progress, even if it was not what he was originally looking for. He would ask his brother about this Deidara character when he returned form the hospital (Tsunade had forbidden them from staying overnight, claiming her patient needed uninterrupted bed rest for physical recovery).

As for the whole thing with the fourth Hokage, he could ask Kakashi the next time he saw him. He had a bad feeling they would be receiving several d-ranks before long, the village being in the state it was now.

This in mind, he hid the scroll under one of the floorboards, and headed down the stairs at his grandmother's call for dinner with a feeling of satisfaction.

"Remember what I said; this is not going to be pretty" Tsunade warned, before placing her hands ob either side of Naruto's temples, hands emitting a scouring green glow.

There was nothing for several moments before Naruto's now near-healed body began to spasm on the bed. The Shizune woman and the doctor did their best to hold onto her arms and legs, keeping her from throwing herself off the bed and from disrupting Tsunade's delicate chakra-scourge.

A long agonizing scream ripped from her throat and the violent thrashes increased in severity, and Itachi had to place his own shaking had on Sasuke's shaking shoulder to keep him from interfering. He was glad Ino had disappeared to snoop or meddle, or whatever she was doing.

He was not sure he would be able to keep her off; Ino was not above using the mind-body disturbance technique off-duty if it was to be in her benefit.

Naruto's eyes opened, but there was no coherence in them, and the flashed from blue, to Sharingan red, back to blue, and then to a different red - ominous red.

"What's going on?" Sasuke asked, horrified by the sight in front of him.
"This is the illusion at work. I'll hazard a guess that whatever she's been dreaming about involves the Kyuubi," Tsunade informed them over the pained shrieks, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face.

'Infiltration status: Success!' Ino cheered to herself as the nurse left her to her business in the hospital records room. She immediately proceeded to delve amongst the filing cabinets marked 'U-V' for the surname Uzumaki.

"Uzuahoa, Uzuakio, Uzudiku, Uzujai, Uzukori… Shit!" Ino swore loudly.

Unless the file had been removed, there was no Uzumaki file in the hospital records. That made absolutely no sense at all; Naruto's name was Uzumaki. True she had the Sharingan, but she had been registered on the ninja system with Uzumaki!

Growling to herself, she moved further back in the list of U's until she finally came across a large fat folder titled Uchiha. Groaning at the weight ('Just how many Uchiha's are in this file?!'), she dropped it onto the reading table with a thump.

Thankfully, the main family had a separate folder within the larger, so locating Mikoto Uchiha was easy. Ino frowned upon going through the files. Birth certificates there were, but not for Naruto. Checking Fugaku's file proved just as useless. Not willing to leave without having checked everything, she scourged the death certificate of Mikoto Uchiha with her irritated gaze.

Finally, she had found something that could be useful! The cause of death for Mikoto Uchiha was written down as childbirth. Not strange by itself, but according to the other documents Mikoto Uchiha only had two children. Examining the dates put Mikoto's death at the 10th of October, a year after Sasuke's birth on the 23rd of July.

Naruto's birthday was the 10th of October!

But that by itself was not enough; Ino wanted Naruto's birth certificate for some good and solid hard evidence, and it was distinctly missing from the folder. Grunting at the weight once again, Ino replaced the folder in its drawer and frowned at the masses of filing cabinets.

She had been certain to find something with the records of Naruto's adopted mother, but those were nowhere to be found under their supposed letter grouping. What had Sasuke said this morning? There was something to do with Kushina having a boyfriend, and a kid of her own, but who had it been?

The family name had been a well-known one, that much she was certain - not Senju or Sarutobi famous, but definitely one that popped up in their old history books. What was his name? It began with n, that much she was certain of.

And his name had something to do with boats, or was it the sea? Or was it both? No, that was his fist name… it was sea and…. Sea and… gale? Wind? WIND! Ino grabbed a piece of paper kindly provided for scribbling along with a pencil and began speedily scratching kanji on the paper, rearranging them until something familiar showed up.

After scribbling for several minuets, she finally stopped on one selection of names: 'Harbour' and 'Ocean Wind'. Better known as Minato Namikaze, or the fourth Hokage. No wonder it had been so stuck as being familiar.

Scrunching the paper up and placing it in her pocket (she couldn't have people knowing what she was doing in here after all), she moved to the set of files marked 'M-N'. Rifling through finally dredged up a thankfully small file.

Opening it up, she found the old dude on the council in the folder, and the fourths medical records. Ino hoped she was not committing some sort of moral infringement by touching
them - she had already broken several legal ones by snooping through files not her own, she did not need moral guilt as well.

Not wanting to dig further through the file in case of inadvertent blasphemy, she focused on and finally found, Kushina Uzumaki - newly named Namikaze. Sasuke had been right on the mark with the mention of a son too - a bright blonde kid with paler iron-blue eyes than his dad had, more like Kushina's had been.

The file mentioned Naruto as a second child, and she was listed as adopted, but no birth certificate to speak of. Deciding she might as well cover all the bases, Ino clasped her hands and prayed for forgiveness before opening the file belonging to the fourth Hokage.

Footsteps in the hallway set of alarm bells for the blonde girl, and she carefully stuffed the Namikaze folder back into its drawer, slamming it closed and busying herself with a Yamanaka one just in time for the nurse to appear at the doorway.

"Sorry honey, but your times up; I can't let you stay in here any longer than this. If you didn't find what you need, you can come back tomorrow okay?" she smiled apologetically.

Ino badly wanted to strangle the smiling woman, but forced a smile instead.

After what seemed like an age, Naruto calmed, Sasuke and Itachi relaxed, and Tsunade was aided into a chair by her old team-mate, exhausted by the effort of removing the technique. Itachi seemed to understand the significance of this more than Sasuke, having once seen the extent of the woman's chakra output before, but made no comment.

Naruto's eyes fluttered for a few long moments, before opening hazily. She groaned at the bright light in the room, raising a hand to cover her eyes. Her finger had barley lifted when Sasuke decided to crush her.

Her surprise soon dimmed, and she gladly returned the sentiments, only Sasuke noting the shake in her shoulders.

"what was it?" he asked, not bothering to ask if she was alright; Tsunade had seen to waking her up and healing, but the illusion itself and what she had seen were not so easily cured. The question 'are you alright?' was pointless.

"I… I think it was the sealing… I remember fire, people screaming, roaring, and being carried, and then…" she frowned in troubled confusion for a moment before moving on with her explanation: "…Then there was a dark place with candles I remember them, and then people started poking and drawing on me before…" she took a deep breath of air before continuing...

"…and then there was this sickly thing with a knife in its mouth, and then I just… God there was so much pain! I thought I was dying! It was like being reworked from the ground up! And then… I woke up, and that man in the orange mask just stood there, watching…" she shivered at the memory.

She didn't really know how she could remember the day of her birth like that, but since the encounter with that masked guy, it was all that had been playing through her head - the back wounds from the wave mission had been on repeat fro a while though.

Apparently Sasuke though it odd too, since he asked his brother how remembering such a thin was possible.

"Naruto's memory has always been better than the usual Sharingan user, so that may be part of it, but I think it lies with the original manifestation requirement" he mused, pausing to think for a moment.

"Even as a baby, you can recognise danger, that's one of the reasons for crying; a call for help, and Naruto was born in the middle of the Kyuubi attack" Sasuke nodded once to indicate he understood this, noting the rapt attention Naruto was giving his bother.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she manifested it for a short period of time from subconsciously sensing the danger around her and branded the event onto her memory, but suppressed it. I cant imagine a demon sealing being a very pleasant memory… the Resurgence technique directly targets such memories; it probably broke past the subconscious barriers around it" Itachi finished, as quietly as he began.

Naruto said nothing, her face twisting in some sort of confusion. Sasuke could tell there was more to what she had been reliving than what she said, but he didn't mention it. Getting information from Naruto when she was against sharing was worse than squeezing blood from a stone.

"Oi brat! Where are your manners? Tsunade just exhausted herself bringing you back from dreamland!" Jiraiya berated jokingly, drawing Naruto's attention from her thoughts.

She gave the blonde woman a contemplative look, her eyes widening at the size of her breasts. Were those real?! They must give her a lot of back strain - Naruto wasn't too concerned over her non-existent chest size, but she drew a line at anything that caused back pain.

"Who are you old lady?" Naruto asked bluntly.

Of course she knew who Tsunade was, and that the medic legend was her sort-of mentor's old team-mate, but she wanted to irritate someone. She had a lot of pent up stress that was best released by causing havoc, as per the norm.

Besides, Tsunade didn't have to know.

"What did you just call me?" the woman asked incredulously, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"Well, if you're as old as he is, you've got to be pushing mid-fifties, early sixties even…" Naruto reasoned, snickering at the building twitch in the woman.

"You brat!" Tsunade growled loudly.

So, we have a letter from Mikoto to dear old Fugaku, Naruto wakes up, and the plot thickens! Next chapter signals the beginning of the end! Of Part I at any rate. Then we'll have a nice little flashback to Konoha around 40 years ago, and then finally on to Part II! Part I is always so drawn out for me… I don't really know why, but it seems like a prologue to the main story to me, and the Kakashi Gaiden is a Prologue to the Prologue.

Im sorry for all the delays lately, but one I finished one chapter I moved on to the next (the plot bunnies are rampant!) with ought running them through spell check, and I hate going back to spell check something; I normally do it directly after finishing… So yes, I was a lazy arse. Sue me bitches!

Love them there reviews!
Nat.
xxx