Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Chapter 6: Truth is a terrible thing
"Why are you holding back in class, Naruto-kun?"
Naruto froze for a second before he turned to Yakumo. The girl had quickly become close to him, especially because they often trained together in their free time. Choji had joined them since his enrollment in the academy this summer, but due to his different schedule they couldn't spent as much time together as they would have liked. Aside from training together they simply hung out and played together, but as always not as much as they wanted. Yakumo often had to take care of her uncle whose health was slowly but steadily worsening. Naruto still kept the extent of his forays into the woods and hunting a secret from the others. They were his friends, but trust was a matter of degrees.
Generally his second first year was much better than his first one. His new teachers still tried to discourage him from learning and occasionally one tried to sabotage him in inconspicuous ways, but it was a far cry from his previous experience. Sadly he and Yakumo hadn't really been able to make additional friends in their class. Whenever they tried that someone would attempt to drive a wedge between Naruto and Yakumo to monopolize the time of the clan heiress.
"Whatever do you mean, Yakumo-chan?"
"Don't take me for an idiot. Whenever we are working together outside of the academy you know almost all the subjects better than I do, but as soon as the teachers or other children are present you act like you have a hard time with understanding the stuff. You could ace the tests, but you always score far below average. What I want to know is why."
'So much for my attempts at playing dumb. Well, I guess it was unavoidable that someone who works as closely with me as Yakumo would see through it before long. The dangers of having friends, I suppose.'
Yakumo's eyes widened when Naruto's usually happy expression was replaced by one of utter seriousness she had never seen before. Determination or concentration, yes, but never this.
"You're right. I do deliberately hold back, and I think I have very good reasons for it. Did you know that my education was sabotaged from the beginning? This year it is much better, but still the teachers try to make my time at the academy as unpleasant as possible and occasionally try to teach me something wrong. If the bastards weren't so careful to disguise their sabotage I would have gone to the authorities."
"Why should they do that?"
"I believe I know the reason, or at least part of it. You are my friend, one of the two I have, but this is a matter of life and death. There are village secrets of the highest order involved. If I tell you, you can never talk about it to anyone else. It may change your opinions about the village and me."
Yakumo stared at him helplessly. "I don't know what to think or do."
"Just pay attention to how exactly the teachers and villagers treat me. Ask your uncle for advice. Then make your decision and ask me again. Or not, if you decide you don't want to know."
A week later Yakumo still hadn't asked him about his reasons. It was an uncomfortable situation but he couldn't see a way out of it. To distract himself Naruto tried his hand at the three academy jutsu. Normally they were taught from the second year onwards, but he thought that his grasp of the basics was now good enough to give it a try. His chakra control relative to his reserves was certainly better than that of the vast majority of academy students. For safety's sake he conducted his experiments under the watchful eyes of his parents.
The Henge worked straight away, or so he thought. In a cloud of smoke he transformed into an exact copy of the Hokage. Youko came closer to inspect the result, but soon narrowed her eyes.
"Hm, something seems off about this technique, but I am unsure exactly what." Youko circled around Naruto until she suddenly pulled on the beard. Hard.
Naruto cried in pain. "Ouch! What are you doing?"
"Sorry kit, but that definitely proves something is wrong. There's no way that an E-rank technique is an actual transformation, which would be way to powerful. What did the textbooks say about the jutsu?"
Still rubbing his chin, Naruto's expression grew suddenly thoughtful. "You're right; you pulling on my beard shouldn't have been possible. The Henge should only create on overlaying illusion, not be an actual physical transformation."
"What happens if you stop concentrating? Does the technique dispel then?"
"Only one way to find out." A puff of smoke later and Naruto was back to his usual form. "Very strange."
"Indeed. I suggest we think about that later and move to the other two jutsus first." Daiki said.
Naruto had some problems to get the Kawarimi to work properly, but after a few tries it worked. He needed to concentrate on an object to replace himself with, and it required a considerable time and amount of concentration to pull it off. The more similar in mass the object was to him, the easier it was. After testing it for a while, Naruto scratched his head in thought.
"That's a nice technique. If I become good enough to pull it off without or drastically reduced hand seals it will be really powerful. But if my enemies use it it could be a real pain in the ass. We have to develop a countermeasure in the future. Now to the Bunshin."
A puff of smoke later a dead-looking copy of Naruto was lying on the ground. Youko tried to poke it with her foot, but the appendage went right through it. "Okay, this one here is an illusion as it should be, but it is still not working correctly. Keep on trying."
Two dozen tries later the technique was still not working as advertised and Naruto was getting frustrated. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It looks like I'm overloading the things, but I'm sure I'm using the exact amount of chakra they should require in relation to the other two techniques."
"Try using more or less chakra and see what happens." Youko counseled.
"Okay mom." The attempts with more chakra were even more useless, the clones often completely refused to form. In contrast, if he used less chakra than the technique should require the Bunshin looked better. It was still useless, but now it looked only sick instead of dead. "That's as low a chakra investment as I can make. There's something strange going on."
"Shelve the problems for now, kit. Your father and I will do some research and see if we can come up with something."
A few weeks before his eight birthday his parents called him for a serious conversation. They had spent most of the day as foxes and had just transformed back into human form. Their current resting place was a small copse of trees quite a distance from the house on the border between the plains and the lush meadows.
"Son, I think it is time for us to tell you who your biological parents were."
This immediately got Naruto's full attention.
"Please sit down; this will be hard for all of us."
After they had taken their places on some tree stumps, Youko began to speak.
"Your mother was Kushina Uzumaki from the now destroyed land of whirlpools. She was my previous container until a man who claimed to be Madara Uchiha forcibly released me from the seal after you were born. Normally a jinchuuriki doesn't survive if his demon is released, but her heritage allowed her to cling to life for a little while longer. She first objected to the Yondaime sealing me into you, but ultimately relented. Your father however… he was Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage."
Naruto had thought that nothing could truly shock him anymore, but he was wrong. "My own biological father inflicted this abomination of a seal onto me? And my mother agreed with him?"
"Even if I hate her I don't know if she was aware of the seal's secondary functions, but I think it unlikely. She occasionally came into the seal to taunt me, and from that I gathered that she very much wanted a family. Kushina was send to Konoha by the Uzumaki elders for the express purpose of containing me because Mito Uzumaki, wife of the Shodaime Hokage and my first container was nearing the end of her life. Shortly after she had arrived here Uzushiogakure was destroyed and the Uzumaki almost completely wiped out. She was around six or seven when I was transferred into her. I only met your father in the short time between my release and subsequent sealing."
Daiki plucked a red-tinted sphere from nowhere. "Enclosed in this sphere are copies of your mother's memories of that night. If you want we can watch them now or later when you feel up to it. I must warn you though, they are not pretty."
Naruto took a few deep breaths to calm himself. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as it sounded. "I want to see them now. No sense in delaying it."
"As you wish." The sphere levitated from Daiki's hand into the air a short distance away and enlarged itself tremendously, almost filling the clearing. A moment later the formerly clear inside changed into a red swirling light before it sucked him into a vision of the past.
All of Kyuubi's limbs were impaled to a hovering rock, but it could feel the bonds that kept it chained weaken. It struggled with all its power to finally free itself from the seal. The effort had been unsuccessful so far, but it could now perceive the surroundings of its loathsome container. Several humans were attending the container who was busy giving birth to her spawn, with one of them preventing the seal from opening. From the conversation Kyuubi gathered that the man was the Yondaime Hokage and mate to its container.
Its attempts at freeing itself grew more desperate as the child was born. If it wasn't able to use this opportunity it might have to wait decades for the next. In spite of all its power it was losing ground as the seal tightened again. Then something surprising happened. A new chakra source entered the room through the ground… a very familiar one. In fact, it resembled one of the main culprits responsible for its current situation.
That person was Madara Uchicha, the man who had used his cursed eyes to gain control of the Kyuubi so long ago and used it in his fight with the Shodaime Hokage, Hashimara Senju. The Hokage had won and used his powers to temporarily imprison the Kyuubi, giving his cursed wife enough time to seal it into herself. At the birth of her child the seal weakened, but Kyuubi was prevented from escaping. Later it was transferred into its current container.
Madara managed to get the Hokage away from his wife and the still unstable seal by threatening the child, encouraging the Kyuubi to redouble its efforts. The Hokage escaped Madara's trap, who took Kushina to a prepared ritual site. Before the Kyuubi could free itself the damned Uchiha enslaved it again with his cursed sharingan. As a prisoner in its own mind it watched as Madara ripped it out of Kushina's seal and tried to use it to crush Kushina. Unfortunately the Hokage arrived in time to save the hated woman.
Following that Madara summoned it right inside Konoha to destroy the village. For a short time it was free to wreak havoc before the Yondaime Hokage arrived again. The wretch even managed to teleport a bijuudama away before it could hit him or the village. Madara engaged the Hokage, and the enslaved Kyuubi continued with its task of destroying the village. Suddenly it felt Madara's mental grip fade, and it was back in control again.
In the moment of confusion the human insects pushed it out of the village, but it proceeded to slaughter them with abandon. Nothing they could throw against it would be enough to truly hurt it. The Kyuubi was about to wipe the despicable village from the face of the earth with a second bijuudama when a giant frog summon tackled it. In the blink of an eye the Yondaime teleported them away. Before it could do anything the still living Kushina trapped it inside a barrier. It could do nothing but listen in helpless rage as its captors discussed its fate.
"I'll drag the Kyuubi… back… and die with it inside me. That'll… prevent it from coming back… for a while… It's the only way to save you both… with the little bit of chaka I have left. Thank you… for everything." Kushina said before they engaged in the exchange of some meaningless words. Dying with Kushina and subsequently reforming would be extraordinary painful for the Kyuubi, but it would be free again in a few years. That hope lasted until the next words of the Yondaime.
"Kushina… you don't need to take the fox down with you. We can use our last bit of chakra to see Naruto one more time! I'll seal the last of your chakra in Naruto with an eight trigrams seal. Then I'll lead the Kyuubi away with a seal only a non-jinchuuriki like me can use, the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. But I'll only be able to seal half the fox's power… It's just too great, it's physically and conceptually impossible to completely seal it all. I can't let the Kyuubi be revived without a jinchuuriki, the balance of bijuus would be destroyed. But with the Dead Demon Consuming Seal I can permanently seal half the fox's power along with myself. And the remaining half…"
Rage pulsed through the Kyuubi as it heard that. The Shinigami was one of the few beings that could actually seriously damage it. There had to be a way to escape. By focusing its power of sensing emotions solely on the Hokage it managed to cross the line to outright telepathy for a moment, getting the partial thought '…and the destined child will be its savior.' but nothing that could help it escape.
"I'll seal the remaining half inside Naruto with the Eight Trigrams Seal. I know what you want to say… but Jiraiya-sensei spoke of the world undergoing a revolution, and with it, a great disaster! The first is that masked man, the one who attacked you… he is the harbinger of that disaster! And Naruto will be the one to stop him. The jinchuuriki who will blaze the trail to our future. I just… know it."
"But Minato…" Kushina objected, but the Yondaime was already summoning the Shinigami. Meanwhile an old man had arrived outside the barrier, but he could do nothing but watch. "Have a little faith! He is our son after all! After I finish the Dead Demon Consuming Seal I'll place your remaining chakra into Naruto as well. You'll meet the grown-up Naruto sooner than you think. The time will come when he'll attempt to take control of the fox's power… I want you there to help him."
Kushina was still not done objecting. "Our son…"
"That's why! I don't want him to bear such a heavy burden all on his own!"
"But why… why the Dead Demon Consuming Seal? There's no reason for you to die… just so I can meet him for a few minutes when he's older! I wanted you to be there for him… I wanted you to raise him! Why… Why are you sacrificing Naruto just to preserve the balance of bijuu… to save the village… and the country… Why are you sacrificing yourself for me?"
"Turning your back on the country, on the village is just as bad as abandoning a child. Your should understand… you saw your own country fall apart. You know the pain of growing up without a home of your own… and you know that we are a family… of shinobi. Besides, even if I lived I could never substitute for you. There are things Naruto needs to be told, things I could never say myself. That's the mother's job, and I need you to carry it out even if you only have the briefest moments to do so. This isn't just for you… This is for Naruto. Dying to make a better life for his son… That's the stuff you let the father handle."
The Kyuubi's had vainly tried to free itself, but now it was almost too late. It felt the ice-cold grip of the Shinigami ripping the Yin-half of its being away. 'Curse you, Yondaime!' It saw the Yondaime summon a ceremonial throne and place Kushina's spawn on top of it. Suddenly it felt Kushina's chains slacken somewhat. It had only moments to utilize this slight chance to escape a new imprisonment by slaying the prospective container. Alas, it was not to be, the Yondaime and Kushina shielded the child with their bodies and prevented its claw from taking the life of the child.
"You win… First argument you've ever won. I guess you're really serious."
"Thank you, Kushina." A strange scroll like toad was summoned by the Yondaime while the Kyuubi strained to impale the child before it was too late. "Gamatora, I'm entrusting you with the key to the seal. Hurry to Jiraiya-sensei. Store it with him." he said before the toad dispelled again.
What followed was a stream of advice and a declaration of parental love before the Eight Trigrams Seal took hold and the Kyuubi was sealed screaming into the child before it lost consciousness from the shock of the sealing.
With that the vision ended, and Naruto found himself back in the clearing. The rage that had been building inside of him during the vision simply became too much to bear and he began to violently tremble. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug painfully into his flesh and he could feel blood beginning to flow.
Youko and Daiki held tight onto him. "Let it out, Naruto. Release the rage before it destroys you."
His voice began as barely above a whisper. "They abandoned and sacrificied me. THEY SACRIFICIED ME EVEN IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO!" He wasn't sure how he did it, but all at once the floodgates opened and he began to howl his wrath wordlessly at the heavens. The formerly clear sky darkened with clouds that came from nowhere until it was almost black. A strong wind picked up while Naruto could feel his chakra and magic reacting violently in tune with his anger. Lightning began raining down from the sky like raindrops, striking the ground all around them again and again. The winds grew to hurricane strength, forming several tornados that ripped large chunks of soil from the earth. Trees from the copse snapped like kindling if they weren't completely uprooted.
It seemed an eternity, but finally the storm subsided as quickly as it came. His rage, magic and chakra spent for the moment, Naruto fell to his knees sobbing. He had hoped beyond all reason that his original parents wanted the best for him, but what he had seen was beyond the pale. He buried his face in Youko's clothing while his body shook with sobs.
After his tears had subsided Naruto began to whisper. "I hate them. They simply threw my life and happiness away. You were right when you told me the generalities so long ago; they committed an unspeakable crime against me. What sort of parents sacrifices their child when they don't need to? And then have the gall to say they did it for my sake?"
"I don't know, kit, I don't know. Their rationale doesn't make much sense. Practically no one even knew that Konoha had the Kyuubi, so my loss wouldn't shift the balance of things. As far as the world knew I was simply lying low for a few decades." Suddenly Youko seemed to remember something. "Oh, and I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I was an evil being of hate and rage, you know."
"Don't be, mom, in your position I would have done the same." Naruto's expression grew curious. "What happened with all the hate I felt in your memories? Did you lose it when you ascended?"
"Actually it is still in me. It's just that I gave gained so much other emotions and memories that the hate no longer defines my being. I still hate Konoha and would like nothing better than to burn it to the ground, but currently you do need the resources the village provides. In the event of my freedom I would leave them alone if you want me to."
The blond boy shrugged. "For the sake of my friends I would like to keep Konoha standing for now. Another thing, why did the Yondaime seal your Yin-chakra before sealing you into me?"
"We haven't the foggiest idea. Perhaps your seal wasn't strong enough to hold me with all my power, perhaps the Yondaime needed to perform the summoning of the Shinigami as a prerequisite for his own sealing technique. It could be that he believed it would prevent me from reforming in the event of your death. It's not true, but even I didn't know it then. Your father was so free to wrest my chakra back from the Shinigami, but I believe I would have slowly regained the missing Yin-chakra from interacting with the ubiquitous nature chakra in the event of my freedom. Yin is associated with the spiritual realm, perhaps it would have interfered with the mind control functions of the seal."
Naruto's expression darkened when he was reminded of this part of the seal's purpose. "Did Kushina know about the mind control?"
"As you have seen, it didn't come up in their conversation, meaning we can only guess. I don't think so, in the few conversations I had with her she mentioned the Yondaime working on a new seal. Apparently the Yondaime felt the old containment seal wasn't enough and wanted one that would allow the jinchuuriki full access to my powers, but naturally she never told me details. I had to provoke her quite a bit to even get this information. She was quite the hot head, never thinking things through."
He scoffed. "I saw that. What idiot thinks spending a few minutes with their child is worth an entire life as an orphan? Granted, the Yondaime started with his invocation before she could do anything, but if she truly loved me she would have ignored the man and sealed you back into her. I would have still become an orphan, but at least not one with a demon stuck into his guts. If it weren't for dad changing you and helping me out, I would have lived a completely shitty life."
"Part of the blame for your life belongs to the Sandaime. If he hadn't announced you as the new jinchuuriki you wouldn't have to face such an amount of hostility. Conversely, if he had told everyone of your parentage it may have offset the animosity. I believe he feared enemies of your father coming after you." Daiki explained.
Naruto objected to that. "That's so much bullshit. The Old Man has made at least as many enemies as the Yondaime, and I don't see a lot of assassins coming after his children or grandson. If my parentage was known he could easily have adopted me. Or assign a permanent guard, it wouldn't be the first time the child of some high-ranking person was orphaned."
Youko shrugged. "It's only a possible motivation of the Sandaime. We simply don't know how much he knows about things, or what his own plans are. He saw me getting sealed into you together with two others, but that is pretty much the only verified fact we have. He was too far away to overhear the conversation between the Yondaime and Kushina. From his actions it appears as if he wants you to form an emotional dependency with him so that you follow his agenda without you being really aware of it. All other things are conjecture."
"Everything comes back to the stray thought Youko managed to pick up from the Yondaime. 'Destined Child' and 'Savior'. From some snippets that Kushina let drop earlier we know that the Toad summons gave Jiraiya and Minato a prophecy about someone who would save the world. Apparently the Yondaime decided to help things along." Daiki explained.
"But that makes no sense. How was I supposed to subdue mom? And what about that sharingan guy? The Yondaime could evidently fight him on equal terms, but no one else knows about him. He's probably busy planning his next attack in this very moment."
"You're right. We think the Yondaime was years from the planned implementation of his plan, but events forced his hand. What the Yondaime did was an act of desperation. If the Kyuubi had escaped his entire scheme with the new seal would have fallen apart. So he did the only thing that still offered a slight chance of success, even if it meant leaving Konoha ignorant to the danger the unknown attacker posed."
"Wouldn't he have had to kill Kushina to extract you and use the new seal?"
Youko nodded. "Yes, he would have. But consider, would a man that is ready to sacrifice his own son and life for this nonsensical reasons really shy away from killing his wife? I know they loved each other, but what if the prophecy and his idea for the fate of the world were more important to the Yondaime than his wife? Kushina was madly in love with the man and trusted him completely. It would have been only too easy."
Naruto gritted his teeth in anger. "I hate them, I truly hate them. If it hadn't been for the fluke of dad turning up they would have destroyed my life. They don't deserve to be called parents by me. I only wish I could ask them why they did it."
"Actually, it may be possible for you to talk to them once. You remember when I told you about the seal? Both left a part of their chakra and a splinter of their souls behind. Currently they are in a form of stasis, but as soon as I can completely isolate them from the other parts of the seal I can arrange a meeting. It will take a lot of time though, I don't want to risk that they could still access some functions of the seal."
"I understand. It's probably better anyway if I don't meet them for some time, currently my emotions get in the way of my judgment." For the first time since breaking down he looked at his surroundings. His eyes widened upon seeing the destruction. Practically everything inside a radius of 100 meters was completely desolated, and damage outside of that area was still heavy if slowly decreasing with distance. "Whoa! Did I do that?"
It was a good thing the revelation took place at the beginning of Naruto's time with his parents. If he had been forced to return to the waking world immediately he wasn't sure if he would have been able to sufficiently maintain his self-control to keep his act intact. Luckily he had more than a week to calm down. His anger at the actions of his so-called parents was still going strong, but it no longer threatened to overwhelm him. That was important whenever he was in the company of the Sandaime. The Old Man knew who his parents were and what he carried (or at least the Old Man thought he knew), but still pleaded ignorance. How much better would his life have been if the Sandaime simply announced his heritage to the village, or at least if he knew why the villagers treated him like they did?
Granted, at this point in time the issue was largely moot because of Youko and Daiki, but the principle of the matter still irritated him. He couldn't even call the Old Man's lies if he didn't want to blow his cover and had to consciously restrain himself when he was with him.
His eight birthday was spent with Yakumo (who still hadn't asked him about his secrets) and Choji in one of the restaurants belonging to the Akimichi clan. It was a great deal of fun, especially as Choji's family was slowly warming up to him. It had taken him a great deal of carefully disguised manipulation, but apparently the Akimichi clan head no longer saw him as a danger to his family. Naruto was sure that without his knowledge of human interaction provided by his parents he wouldn't have made so much progress for a long time if ever.
The New Year came and went, and another issue began to irk Naruto. In his opinion he had made no true progress in his magical studies. Sure, he was now able to create some pretty colored lights, but that wasn't especially useful. Especially because he could only cast it perhaps two or three times a day in the outside world and keep it going for around five cumulative minutes before his personal store of magic was empty.
Like with chakra he had his personal store of magic that replenished slowly over time, more quickly when he was sleeping or meditating. In contrast to chakra the energy in that reservoir wasn't plentiful enough to cast anything even if his maximum capacity was slowly increasing; he had to use it as a catalyst to draw additional magical energy from his surroundings. In his parents' world that didn't pose a problem and he could continue casting practically all day long. Unfortunately things were different in the waking world. The magic was somehow much more diluted and spread out, meaning he had to use substantially more of his own to gather a much lower amount.
His father had told him that in the vicinity of the spring of magic things were much the same like in the world at the edge of dreams, but he still hadn't gotten around to visiting it. It would take him too much time to reach it by foot to hide his absence, and the shortcut Daiki was working on was still not finished.
It therefore was a considerable surprise to him when his father approached him with a fist-sized facetted violet crystal in his hand. There seemed to be a complex luminescent pattern inside of the crystal that bore a striking resemblance to how he visualized the weaving of magic.
"What's this thing?" he asked curiously.
"This is my first attempt at transcribing a spell from a different world. Your outburst gave me some new ideas. It only deals with mental things, so it shouldn't cause any damage I can't repair." his father declared proudly.
"Gee, thanks dad. I will certainly remember your words if I blow my brains out. What is it supposed to do?"
Daiki patted the orb. "This baby here enables you to copy the information from one sense into a sort of extra storage area in your mind. Aside from deliberately purging it, you won't ever forget anything you store via this method."
"I have already a very good memory. Will that really be useful?"
"Certainly, and for several reasons. For one, you can memorize a sheet of text in the blink of an eye without having to truly read it, which is important if you only have limited time. Secondly, whatever you put into that storage I can physically recreate here."
Naruto took the crystal into his hands and started to observe the structure inside. For everyone else it would have appeared as a jumble of random lines, but Naruto actually understood what it meant and what he was supposed to do to bring about the desired effect. Sometime later he was sure he had studied the thing enough to cast it. He started to concentrate and implement the directions. The casting time itself was about fifteen seconds, but when Naruto finally completed the patterns of the memorization spell he felt something shift in his mind. It was like something was ready to pounce and only awaited his command.
"This is the ready state of the spell. You can't maintain it for long in that state, but you can now activate it to do its job anytime you want. Let's test it." Daiki explained and whipped out a sheet of paper full of a small script. Naruto mentally poked the feeling while looking at the text without reading it, and something snapped into place. If not for the years of mental exercises he wouldn't have known what changed, but he knew his mind quite well by now.
The image wasn't exactly in his normal memory. He had to consciously concentrate on the storage area to examine it, and he still needed time to read through the text. After he had done that he remembered the content normally, but he could examine it again for details he had missed, like the exact texture of the paper.
"Wow, now I understand what you meant. Is there a maximum storage capacity or something like it?"
"I don't know, but I consider it unlikely. A human brain has quite a lot of free space, and you can always purge things you don't need any more. Just remember that looking through the memorized things to properly internalize them takes time, and I doubt you can cast it more than once per day. Let's try to manifest it here."
Naruto could feel something reach into his mind towards the scroll, but it stopped before actually touching it. "It seems you have to release it for me to access. Interesting, that means your privacy is guaranteed." The boy tried to actually allow his father's probe access by leading it to the place where the image of the text was stored. A few seconds later, an exact replica appeared on the ground between them while the image disappeared from Naruto's mind.
Daiki smiled proudly. "Good work, son. That spell should make things easier. By the way, it has several variants for different senses and a continuous mode if you have to move your field of vision or leaf through a book. You can access them if you look through different facets of the crystal."
"Thanks dad and I think I have already an ideal target in mind."
"Oh? What do you mean?"
"Do you remember the forbidden scroll? If I can get my hands on the thing I will get to learn a lot of powerful jutsu. The Old Man never put it back into the secured Hokage library; it still sits on a shelf in his office."
His father looked thoughtful. "You're right; it would present a good target. Still, you have to be alone with it for a while. Simply luring the Hokage out of his office won't work; there will still be some ANBU present." Daiki continued humming thoughtfully. When Naruto was about to give up on the idea he spoke again. "Tell me Naruto, do the Uchiha act somehow different than normal?"
Naruto was surprised for a moment by the seemingly unconnected question, but he caught himself and went over his memories of the last weeks. "Yes, there is something. They are all more tense and act even more arrogant and superior than usual. One of their famous members named Shisui apparently died a few days ago. Why do you ask?"
"Because I believe they are planning a coup."
"WHAT?"
"You heard me. From what you've told me in the past they are discontent with their already large privileges and consider themselves the elite which should be worshipped by the rest of the village. In my visions I've always seen them attempt to take over the village, only the exact date varies. The other events seem play out mostly identical, meaning we can use it to our advantage. In a few days time the Uchiha clan will be destroyed."
"Do you want me to save them?"
Daiki shook his head. "We can't. Too many powerful people have a stake in the events for you to be able to stop them, and any interference would draw the attention of someone we really don't want to notice you at this time. If Shisui is already dead the culmination of the crisis draws near. No, what I want you to do is mentioning to the Hokage that the Uchiha seem to observe and follow you more than usual."
"I think I understand. That will lead the Old Man to believe that they might want to capture me to use the power of the Kyuubi."
"Precisely. He should let you stay in his office, and when the message of the massacre reaches him he will leave you alone for a while. I think it likely he will activate a security barrier around his office, but as long as you're inside it shouldn't be a problem. If there are any ANBU left you can signal me to take over and I will be able to put them into a sleeplike state for perhaps five minutes, but I hope to avoid that. Unscheduled takeovers are very stressful for your mind."
"That sounds manageable. I wonder how many cool jutsu are written inside of that scroll?"
"Who knows, but I want to promise me one thing." Daiki went to his knees to properly look into Naruto's eyes. "Promise me you won't look at the copied image of the scroll until you are back with us. The scroll is probably forbidden for a reason, and your mother and I want to be there if something dangerous happens."
Naruto looked a bit dejected but gave his consent in the end. "It's one of those situations with potentially dangerous knowledge, isn't it?"
Daiki nodded. "It is. I doubt there is anything in there that is as dangerous as my mind, but it pays to be careful."
In the end the plan went off without a hitch. The Sandaime jumped at Naruto's suspicions and didn't let him leave his presence without a heavy guard, and even then not for long. He didn't even have to wait three days before a panicked messenger brought news of the massacre.
"Stay here, Naruto. I'll seal you inside the office. ANBU with me!"
After the door closed behind the Old Man a visible seal array spread out over the entire room, glowed blue for a moment and disappeared. Naruto strained his senses as much as he could, but it appeared that all ANBU had left. Wasting no time, he immediately got the scroll from its shelf. Naruto had observed the Old Man very carefully each time he had seen him handle the scroll, and there didn't seem to be any defenses. It was even logical; the scroll was supposed to be stored in one of the most secure locations of the village. If some thief managed to come that far additional safety measures wouldn't help much and would only make using the scroll more uncomfortable for authorized personnel.
Naruto drew as much magic as he could and cast the memorization spell before opening the scroll. Without really reading he quickly scanned the full length of the scroll while the duration of his spell was ticking away. Unfurling the scroll was difficult for a boy of his age, but he managed. When he was finished with the inside he began scanning the seemingly blank outside while furling the scroll back up. The entire action took perhaps thirty seconds, and his spell gave out a second before he reached the end. Naruto carefully looked the rest over, memorizing the structure of the paper. It was unlikely for anything to be written there, but he wanted to make sure.
After he was finished he put the scroll back onto the shelf. No one could tell from simply looking at the thing that he had used it, but to make sure he touched most other things on the shelf a few times like he had done before under the Sandaime's eyes when he was bored. The other stuff in the office was rather uninteresting; the books were mostly about the different laws of Konoha and other countries that he could find in the normal library and the paperwork didn't make sense without context.
Naruto had already found the Old Man's hidden stacks of sake and Icha Icha books, but they were of no interest to him. He had read parts of them out of sheer boredom, but he could already say that they only bore a passing resemblance to reality. They had covered some of the concepts in the academy, and his parents had answered every of his questions exhaustively. It was really useful sometimes to have parents that had the memories of thousands of human lives and were not bound by any form of human morality. He had still some time left before entering puberty, but he was better informed than practically all of his peers. With nothing better to do Naruto grabbed one of the law books and began to read.
Finally the time had come to visit his parents again. He had spent the last four days scooped up in his apartment under ANBU guard before they left an hour ago. The entire village was in an uproar because of the massacre. Of the hundreds of Uchiha only two had survived, Itachi Uchiha who had apparently single handedly slaughtered his own clan before fleeing the village and his little brother Sasuke. Sasuke was in the hospital because of mental trauma, and the academy was closed until further notice.
Naruto was severely tempted to sneak a peek at his mental copy of the forbidden scroll in the meantime, but he managed to resist. No matter how big the temptation, he had promised his parents and wouldn't disappoint them. After the usual recounting of the past week and praising of his successful effort of obtaining the scroll, Daiki manifested the forbidden scroll out of Naruto's mental storage. He placed it on the large table in the center of the room and began to unroll it. Naruto was almost bouncing with excitement. Finally he could learn the super cool jutsus hidden in the scroll! His parents shared an amused look; it was always funny when Naruto acted his age.
"Let's see what we got here." Daiki announced after the three took seats side by side.
The first jutsu in the scroll was a clone jutsu of some sorts. After the technical descriptions of the hand signs that could be shortened to a single one after he learned the technique and instructions for chakra molding began the general description. Naruto began reading aloud. "The Shadow Clone technique allows the user to create identical physical copies of himself that are fully autonomous and are capable of the use of nin- and genjutsu. Clones are delicate and easily dispelled even by weak hits. Experience gathered by a clone is transferred to the original upon the clone's dispersal. WARNING: The technique carries a high chakra cost for creation of the clones and the user's remaining chakra is distributed evenly between original and clones. Once initiated, the technique WILL draw the necessary amount of chakra. Use with caution." Naruto looked up with a grin that threatened to split his face and pumped his fist into the air. "Yeah, jackpot on the first hit! By using this baby I can learn tons of stuff in a jiffy and swamp my enemies with clones. I have to try that out."
He jumped from his seat and began making hand signs.
"NARUTO! Stop that foolishness at once and use your brain! What did I teach you about using unknown abilities and easy ways to power?" Daiki admonished sharply in a voice laced with anger.
Naruto winced and stopped his hand signs immediately, his head hanging in shame. It was a rare event for his usually soft-spoken and patient father to react so strongly, and never without good reason. He used that voice only when Naruto did something incredibly stupid when he should have known better.
"If someone or something promises ultimate power, proceed with utmost caution. There is always a cost, sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden. Never try techniques or spells without knowing exactly what they do and carefully consider their implications before you use them." Naruto recited.
"At least you do remember my words. Mind them in the future." Daiki's expression softened. "Son, we are only worried for you. We know it is difficult for you to overcome your natural exuberance, but this is really important. More than one promising novice fell prey to the lure of power and failed to account for all the consequences of his actions. Frequently that was the last thing they ever did. Of course, the consequences aren't always fatal or even harmful, but it is far better to adopt a habit of circumspectness. Here in this place your mother or myself can protect you from almost anything, but in the outside world you are on your own. We don't want to lose you to some stupid mistake. Do you promise me to be more cautious in the future?"
Naruto nodded earnestly. "Yes dad, I will remember."
"Good boy. Now, sit back down and try to find the potential problems of the shadow clone jutsu. From first glance, I found already three problems with the technique, one of which doesn't really apply to your special case. Let's see how many you can identify."
The boy took up his previous seat at the table, carefully reading over the jutsu description and supplementary explanations several times while his parents conferred in low voices about their own discoveries on the technique. After he finished, he stared at the ceiling deep in thought for several minutes. Youko and Daiki shared a smile; obviously Naruto took the warning to heart. After roughly ten minutes, Naruto let out a deep sigh and began to speak.
"The first problem is obviously the high chakra cost. Shouldn't be a problem for me, I have already more chakra than most jonins. Second thing is this memory feedback thingy. I mean, if I make too many clones and they dispel, wouldn't I get kind of overloaded with all the memories? But I can't figure out what the third problem would be, sorry."
Daiki smiled. "Good reasoning. While the chakra problem is obvious and spelled out in the scroll, the memory overload issue is not. I imagine that is because most of the users simply didn't have enough chakra to create enough clones for it to become an issue."
"The chakra usage of the shadow clone jutsu is clearly not a deciding factor for someone possessing your chakra levels," Youko continued the explanation," but not only in the obvious way. You already know that traces of my Bijuu chakra are constantly running through your system. What I didn't know myself until you learned the Henge and Bunshin is the fact that it reacts in a funny way with certain shinobi techniques. Normally, a Henge creates only an illusion, but you managed to turn it into an actual transformation."
"A Bijuu is primarily a mass of intelligent chakra given physical form. Even small amounts of my chakra have a tendency to take a more physical shape than you would normally expect. You will experience that yourself if you draw directly on my chakra in the future. It will most certainly form a semi-corporal protective cloak around you and enable you to use pure chakra attacks that will take the shape of arms, claws or something of the sort. Because traces of my chakra are intermixed with yours some amount of that quality rubs off on you. Notably clone techniques will be far cheaper for you to perform."
"By the way, that explains your difficulty with the standard Bunshin. Even for normal shinobi it is a low cost technique, but for you it is almost impossible not to overload the poor things." his father interjected.
"More chakra control excercises?" Naruto asked dejectedly.
Daiki nodded. "I'm afraid so."
His mother chuckled softly when Naruto pouted.
"Right, where was I? Ah yes, the characteristics of bijuu chakra. An almost unknown fact is that when an amount of my chakra is separated from me but not directly bound in a technique or sealed, it will try to get back to me to rejoin the main mass. This is the main reason why a bijuu can't be permanently killed; the dispersed chakra will simply slowly aggregate until the original bijuu is reformed. Within limits that applies to your chakra too."
"To summarize, not only would you need far less chakra than usual for the creation of one clone, but you would get a higher percentage of the shadow clone's stored chakra reserves back when the clone is forcefully dispersed. I imagine you could throw hundreds or even thousands of the things around at the same time and still be able to create more if they are destroyed in battle. Most Kage-level ninja could only create perhaps a few dozen shadow clones before their chakra level becomes too low to be useful."
Naruto was once again bouncing on his chair. "Yeah! I could be my own one-man army!"
"And here we touch upon the third issue." Daiki said."Have you considered what the memory feedback would be if the clones are killed in combat? Especially in such huge numbers? And I can tell you from personal experience, dying really sucks in most cases. More so with all the creative ways the shinobi have come up with to send one on the journey from living to dead."
Imagining droves of clones incinerated by some fire jutsu Naruto winced. "Ouch."
"Ouch indeed. Luckily, the creators of the technique took that into account. Judging from what we estimate would be the actual result from these instructions, there is a filter in place that prevents the transfer of the actual death experience. Additionally there seems to be something like a cutoff-point that prevents the memory transfer if the clone is dispersed in a small time frame after its creation. It's hard to tell without seeing the technique in action, but I would guess it to be between a few seconds and a minute at maximum. "
"Now there is a fourth problem. Disregard the previous problems for this hypothetical scenario. Imagine you employ the shadow clone horde as a standard battle strategy. Some of them will inevitably be destroyed, and each time you get the memories of some deathly situation but without the actual death. Over time these memories accumulate. As the amount grows, you will subconsciously employ more and more reckless tactics and disregard your own safety, because that is what the clones did. You have their memories, and after a time you won't be able to differentiate between them and your own. You will remember doing some things in battle, and because you're still alive they must have worked. But one day you will take one unnecessary risk too many."
Naruto sighed."So that means no spamming of endless hordes of shadow clones for me? That sucks."
After moping for a few seconds his face assumed a thoughtful look. "But I should still be able to use a small number of them in non-combat roles like spying and training, shouldn't I? I've seen some jonin doing that."
This time it was Daiki who let out a heavy sigh. "Regrettably you can't, and it's because of something I did."
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked with a confused expression.
"You remember when we told you about your seal? How it was messing with your mind?"
After seeing Naruto nod he continued."The stuff I did to counteract that, combined with all the rest I had to do that affects your mind, like isolating the seal, creating and anchoring this place here and some other things I tell you later about made your mind particularly vulnerable against the memory reintegration shocks that results from using the shadow clones. Even after only a few uses of single shadow clones your sanity would suffer dramatically. It's really a shame; the shadow clones would have made so many things easier."
"It can't be helped, what you did was necessary for Naruto's survival. We just have to shelve that jutsu for now. If we someday get our hands on advanced jutsu creation theories and procedures and have a lot of free time we can try to remodel the technique into something useful or create a similar one from scratch," Youko said," Now let's see if there are any other goodies."
After concluding their discussion the three continued to carefully peruse the forbidden scroll. Naruto's face got longer and longer as his parents tossed out jutsu after jutsu as unsuitable. Not that he didn't understand their attitude. Many of the jutsus were glorified self-destruct techniques, and he didn't feel particularly suicidal. Others had such serious drawbacks that it made them virtually useless outside of very limited circumstances. The few of them that could be theoretically useful to him almost always required knowledge of other, more basic jutsu or advanced knowledge in specific fields that would take him years to learn.
"Hm, interesting, I remember that one." Youko remarked.
Naruto had somewhat dozed off and perked up upon hearing his mother speak.
Daiki looked interested and read out loud. "The Bringer of Darkness technique creates an illusionary effect that disables the opponent's eyesight, effectively blinding him. User's uninterrupted, focused concentration is required to maintain the effect. Use is banned for non-members of the Senju clan by edict of the great council." He let out a low whistle. "This is one neat technique. It got it's A-rank because of the concentration and relatively high chakra requirements, but it's really easy to use. Great against doujutsu users. I bet it was the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans who got it banned; it wouldn't do for them if someone could simply shut their almighty eyes down." Daiki looked at his wife."How do you know about it?"
Youko grinned. "The battle of the Valley of the End between Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju. Hashirama used it to disable Madara's sharingan. I think the Uchiha bastard invented a few new curses that day. It was almost enough to do him in, but Madara managed to break the Shodaime's concentration at the last minute after he realized that I wasn't affected and his control over me still held. Still, I think that is one sweet jutsu that the kit is ready to learn."
"Yeah, I get to learn a jutsu, I get to learn a jutsu!" Naruto did a little victory dance.
"Don't get your hopes up son; you won't be able to use it. If someone from Konoha notices you using it they will throw you into prison for violating the ban. They will ask some very pointed questions, like how and where you were able to learn it. After all, there are no more Senju in Konoha who could have conceivably taught it to you. This is one of the cases where you learn something and hold it in reserve until a life-and-death situation arises where only this ace in the hole can save your ass."
Naruto nodded. "Yes dad. Still, I get to learn a jutsu, I get to learn a jutsu!"
Chuckling at their son's antics Daiki and Youko turned back to the scroll. A few jutsus later Daiki frowned.
"Something is very wrong with this technique."
"You mean this one here? Edo Tensei? I guess it is pretty immoral to force the souls of the dead back into artificial bodies, but I didn't know you cared about such things." Youko asked.
Daiki gave her a deadpan look. "I know it's hard to believe, but I do indeed care occasionally for things that disrupt the natural order. But that is not the point here. Most of it is pretty much standard fare for such acts of false resurrection, like the need for a living sacrifice. No, what I'm wondering is where the energy comes from that gives the resurrected the ability of basically unlimited regeneration."
Youko assumed thoughtful pose. "That is pretty good question. It can't be the victim because he is already consumed by the initial resurrection."
"Neither does the user provide the energy. The resurrected don't need the user anymore aside from matters of control. Heck, these zombies keep on running even if the user dies. That leaves pretty much one option."
"I don't understand what you're talking about." Naruto complained.
"The Edo Tensei jutsu is basically a false resurrection to create combat drones from the dead with varying degrees of awareness and all the skills of the original. You need some body part of the dead person you want to resurrect and a living sacrifice. This creates an artificial body made from ash that the soul of the dead animates. The body is practically indestructible because even if ground to dust it would regenerate. What we are wondering is where the energy for the regeneration is coming from." Daiki patiently explained.
"As it is neither the sacrifice nor the user of the technique who is the source of the energy it has to come from the surrounding natural chakra. The effect of a single resurrected shouldn't be noticeable provided he doesn't stay too long in one area and doesn't use the regeneration too much, but you could easily create an army of them provided you have enough mortal remains and sacrifices. There are enough unscrupulous shinobi who would run with such an idea. That would drain the life of the environment in record time; creating dead zones were no life could survive for any length of time. The process would start slow and barely noticeable because natural chakra from the neighboring unaffected areas would try to compensate for the imbalance. But once the drain becomes large enough you reach a tipping point, and tada! now you stand in the middle of a zone where all life is dying because everything practically bleeds its chakra out since the surrounding air and earth have no natural chakra of their own anymore. Even if you remove the resurrected such an area would need decades to recover. If you keep an army of these things around long enough you can do some pretty heavy and widespread damage to the land." Youko continued the explanation.
Naruto shuddered. "I sure hope that I never have to face these things."
"Hope is good but it pays to be prepared. We should think about a counter to this technique some time, but I have a feeling that this is more a case for magic. Luckily it is very difficult to perform and practically unknown, so the probability of encountering it should be low. By the way, I wouldn't use this technique if I were you. This enslaving of souls will surely attract all kinds of attention we want to avoid." Daiki said.
Incidentally, there were no more pure nin- or genjutsu written in the scroll. The following part dealt mostly with different kind of seals. Still lacking even basic knowledge in the sealing arts, most of the details remained incomprehensible to them. Most of the depicted seals fell in the 'suicidal to use'-category anyway. The basic Dead Demon Consuming Seal provoked a growl from Youko, but there wasn't much interesting stuff. Apparently Konoha's very few seal masters had abstained from leaving the knowledge of their more useful creations in the scroll. Interestingly, the seal on Naruto's stomach wasn't described. Even after exhausting the jutsu and combat seal section, they had barely examined a tenth of the scroll. The rest was filled with complicated drawings and extremely intricate seals that weren't designed for use in battle by a single person or even a group of people. Both adults became a lot more focused as they read through this last and by far biggest section of the scroll.
It had gotten late, and Naruto had trouble staying awake. He wondered what it was that had his parents so excited over a bunch of overcomplicated drawings. He had only gotten one useable jutsu out of all the effort to get a look at the scroll and wanted more! Finally they had finished reading the scroll.
"That was a major haul, good work son," Daiki said.
"Thanks I guess, but what's so great about this stuff? There was only one jutsu for me that I'm not even allowed to use." Naruto wondered.
"These," Youko tapped her hand on the scroll," are the detailed descriptions of Konoha's original construction plans, in particular the seal-powered infrastructure. Barriers, water supply, and the chakra sources which generate the power for the seals… it's all here, complete with the methods to get master level access to all systems. This is a dream come true for every spy. Granted, most of the information is probably out of date, but it opens the way for a lot of interesting possibilities. For example, right here is a way to pass Konoha's inner detection barrier completely undetected."
Naruto thought he had spotted an obvious problem. "Won't they change the codes from time to time? If I was the one in charge, I would change that stuff in irregular intervals."
"Certainly, we will have to verify that information carefully. But you must understand, most of this is directly embedded into the structure of the seals and not subject to change in any way. It is more intended for use during the construction phase by the seal masters doing the work, or for the occasional general overhaul that happens one or two times a decade. The people who do light modifications, normal maintenance or simply use the system aren't supposed to know these backdoors. You'd have to completely redo large parts of the seal arrays to change it. For that, you would need several high level seal masters, and Konoha has always been a little short on that front. They relied heavily on external assistance from the now extinct Uzumaki clan." Youko answered.
"My human mother's clan? Weren't they wiped out at the beginning of the third shinobi war?"
"Indeed. The Uzumaki clan was the premier clan of Uzushiogakure and was famous for his mastery of seals. Before the time of the villages they were often hired for complex sealing projects that surpassed the skills of the local seal masters. After the introduction of technology augmented the general decline of the sealing arts they were the foremost authority on fuinjutsu left in the world. They were kin and close allies to the Senju and therefore friends of Konoha, even if they decided to stay independent at their ancestral home. Alas, their prowess with seals was seen as too great a threat to be left alone, and rather than let their knowledge fall into the hands of someone else, Kumo and Kiri decided to wipe them out in a short-lived alliance. It's possible and even likely that there are still some isolated descendents scattered across the world, but the clan itself and its secrets no longer exist. It seems that Konoha relied heavily on them for seal work. I wonder how they compensated for the loss." Youko explained.
Seeing Naruto's drowsy state, Daiki cut in. "I believe we can continue tomorrow. It's bedtime for you, young man."
Naruto was too tired to protest, and soon he was sleeping peacefully in his bed.
Unkai Kurama was slowly getting ready for the day, careful not to make any hasty movements that would send a spike of pain through his body. His health had gotten rapidly worse, and soon he wouldn't be able to leave the house anymore. Even slowly walking short distances left him out of breath and courted the danger of triggering one of his agonizing coughing fits. After he had seated himself at the kitchen table he allowed his thoughts to wander.
That Yakumo had befriended the resident jinchuuriki of all people had been surprising at first, but Unkai had immediately seen the advantages of the connection. The boy seemed stable, and from what his niece told him he was the only one of her class that had a decent amount of determination to make something out of his life. Unkai wasn't sure if Naruto would ever reach his goal of establishing a new clan, but he would certainly grow into a very powerful shinobi like all the other stable jinchuuriki he knew of. A powerful shinobi who would support Yakumo in her own goals, provided she continued the friendship.
It was a gamble on his part, but Yakumo would need all the help she could get. Their clan had been slowly disappearing in obscurity before the fire, but now even most of their previous so-called friends and associates ignored their existence. The Hokage practically ignored them because of more important matters after they had transferred their council vote temporarily. He now suspected the deal had been a set-up by the Hokage, the new civilian councilor surely seemed to vote for Sarutobi's proposals an awful lot. They didn't have any money or useful connections left, so the vultures had found a new target. It made Unkai incredibly angry when he saw and heard how the entire village fawned over the last loyal Uchiha while ignoring his dear Yakumo.
He could understand it from a rational viewpoint; the Uchiha was incredibly rich after inheriting the many possessions of his clan while they had practically nothing, but that didn't do anything to stem his anger. Unkai had already noticed how every family with female members of the appropriate age began conditioning their children to seek out the last Uchiha and try to gain his affections. If one of them managed to marry the boy it would be the coup of the decade. He didn't consider even for a moment encouraging Yakumo to do the same. The Kurama and Uchiha held a longstanding enmity, mainly because the Uchiha had frequently stolen many of the genjutsu the Kurama were once famous for.
Unkai watched as his niece was preparing breakfast for them. No, it was better that she continued her association with the Uzumaki boy. It had already yielded a connection to the Akimichi heir and might even be more useful later. He didn't know why the Hokage thought it necessary to keep his status a secret even from the boy himself and let him grow up alone and ignorant. A properly trained jinchuuriki was a force to be reckoned with; a symbol of strength they could have used after the losses inflicted by the Kyuubi so short a time after the third shinobi war.
His late son-in-law had even talked about adopting the boy shortly after the incident; he would have been a welcome boost to their waning influence and Murakumo had been sympathetic to the boy's likely problems. The Kurama knew only too well how it was to have powers that you couldn't completely control; more than one clan member had lost control over his abilities in the past and had to be put down for the good of the clan. They knew how to live with that constant danger and would have provided the best possible upbringing for the boy. Unfortunately the Sandaime would have none of it and insisted on a 'normal' upbringing. In Unkai's opinion that could have backfired badly, an orphanage wasn't exactly a cheerful place even for normal children. Withholding the knowledge of his tenant from the boy and not training him in controlling that power was simply criminal negligence. He shuddered to think what could happen if the boy tapped unintentionally into the Kyuubi's power.
"Uncle, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, Yakumo-chan. What is on your mind?"
"It's about Naruto. I noticed that he was holding back in class and asked him about it. He said almost everyone treats him badly or tries to ignore his existence. I watched him, and he's right. Most adults purposefully ignore him or glare at him, and that doesn't touch upon all the whispers behind his back. Naruto said he knew why they did it, but that it is a village secret and that I should be sure I want to know because it might change my opinions of him and the village. I simply don't know what to do. Do you have any advice?"
'Does the boy know?' Unkai wondered. It seemed that way, but he was certain that nobody had told the child about it. The Sandaime had declared on a council session so long ago that he would tell the boy when he made chunin. That only left the option that he had stumbled upon the fox by himself. If he considered his niece trustworthy enough to reveal his secret and she reacted properly it would cement their bond for years to come.
"I think I know what this is about, but I'm not allowed to tell you. If Naruto is truly your friend, ask him and listen. No matter what he tells you, keep his faith. I told you already that our bloodline grants great power, but also poses a risk. This is similar. If your opinion of… certain authority figures and the village lessens after you learn the facts remember that our clan has a list of grievances against the village too."
Yakumo was a bit confused by that answer, but it helped her make up her mind. "Thank you, uncle. I will ask him tomorrow."
Author's notes: My thanks to all my reviewers.
Naruto now knows who his real parents were, and he is not impressed. I took the description directly from the manga, so it should be close to canon. I never understood Naruto's lack of negative reaction when he learned the truth from his mother, if it had been me I certainly would have been furious that Minato effectively committed an unneccessary act of suicide to saddle me with a tailed beast and Kushina let him get away with it.
At the same time the entire plan for Naruto to subdue Kyuubi was so vague and hare-brained that it's a wonder it worked at all. For example, how did Minato know of Kumo's secret island, and how did he expect Naruto to learn of it and use it? Nobody else seemed to have any idea how to really subdue a bijuu. The story about needing an infant is obviously false, Mito Uzumaki was a grown woman when she sealed the Kyuubi into herself and Kushina was about six or seven by my estimate when it was transferred into her. And the entire time Madara/Tobi was running free unopposed...
Just a reminder, the characters don't know everything and might have quite different and biased viewpoints of the same facts. Just as in the last chapter the Akimichi wanted nothing to do with Naruto but weren't really hostile, the Kurama would have welcomed him with open arms in my story. There will be some politicking later, and I will try to stay halfway realistic. (No brain-dead civilian council that calls for Naruto's execution no matter what, nor will the councillors have all the same opinions)
So long.