AN: hi all, Wow thank you so much for the reviews; your support is greatly appreciated. I just want to clarify one point though; I was accused of being sexist in the last chapter as the reviewer felt that I only held the male clan members accountable for the attempted coup. This was not my intension, when I mentioned the women and children of the clan I meant those outside of the ninja role, either civilian wives and mothers of acting shinobi or retired former shinobi and so exempt from the daily planning of the clan elite. When I referred to the Jonin, Chunin and Genin clan members no mention of gender was made. In my head I picture the split to be eighty percent male to twenty percent female in the active shinobi of the Uchiha clan, with the split being more 1 in three in the younger members as to usual genin cells. So of the twenty eight shinobi exiled from the village, nine of these were female, of the four clan Elders executed at the Temple of Judgement, one was female. I hope this addresses your concerns. The guilt of Mikoto Uchiha was also brought up as in she should have been executed as well. Truthfully I almost killed off Sasuke's mum, she was all set to commit suicide in the last chapter, I had even typed it out. It seemed like something her character would do, you know the whole dutiful wife blindly following her husband into death. But I decided against this as it undermined the optimistic tone of the last paragraph, and I don't think she was ever really active in the coup, more like supporting through silence. She knew it was wrong, as seen by her calm acceptance of death, but didn't say anything as that would be going against her husband. That being said, if you want it I can kill her off, just say the word.
All right now that I've got that off my chest on to the bonus chapter.
As you might have read before when my follow count had reached over 100, I got so excited that I created a little bonus chapter in celebration. Well as my follow count is now well over 700, my review count over 200 and more importantly my favourite count is over 500, I bring to you Bonus Chaplette mark 2. This is a little scene that popped into my head after watching the Jinchuuriki Counting Song on YouTube. If you haven't seen it yet, do so! It's really cute and very catchy. The translation I am using is not very accurate but I got it from the YouTube video so it is what it is. This scene happens about half way through the next chapter, so about two years after the Uchiha raid. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto; I just think he's awesome. I also don't own the rights to the song or the translations on YouTube, I just borrowed them.
Warning: May contain spoilers and/or clichés, if you are bothered or offended by either; why are you reading fanfiction?
'thinking'
"speaking"
jutsu
demon speak
Bonus Chaplette 2.
Not all of Naruto's training could be completed in the Nara training grounds. Even though he had not been discovered there in the four years that he had been using them, they were still too exposed for Naruto to risk working on his Rasengan, elemental chakra nature training and most the precarious of all his techniques, the usage of Kurama's chakra. For this he needed somewhere secluded that not many shinobi would think to use for training but that was also easily accessible from the village. Only one place fit his requirements, the forty fourth training ground, the Forest of Death.
The stage for the second part of the Konoha Chunin Exams, the Forest of Death was surrounded by a metallic fence that enclosed its twenty kilometre diameter forest, containing rivers, over grown trees and plants and a tower located in the exact centre. Its primary function served as a testing ground for the survival and fighting skills of Jonin and ANBU teams and as such it was a very dangerous place, filled with hordes of plants and animals, often of gigantic proportions, highly poisonous or both.
Within this forest, in an out of the way corner far from prying eyes, Naruto had carved out a small training area for himself. Using a natural clearing of about ten metres in diameter, Naruto created an area for kata and jutsu training by clearing away all of the small plants and shrubs that littered the clearings floor and setting up some old training posts and wooden training dummies, he had managed to scavenge from the Ninja Academy store rooms. Using offcuts of rope that he managed to find in various alleyways and dumpsters he had wrapped the posts and wooden training dummies to avoid injury and was quite pleased with the effect.
Even though this new training ground was much more discrete than his old one in terms of training controversial techniques, he did not use it all the time as it was unfortunately not without its security risks. Of all the dangerous creatures that populated the Forest of Death, several of which consisted of large and deadly creatures such as leeches, tigers, and bears, none were more dangerous to him and his secrets than those of the human persuasion. It was not the abundance of dangerous animals that caused Naruto to avoid the forty fourth training ground on occasion, once he started to train with Kurama's chakra after the first week of obtaining his new training area the animals all tended to avoid him, it was the occasional and quite random teams of Jonin and ANBU who would pop in for training exercises that he had to look out for.
He also made a point of avoiding the area whenever a certain Crazy Snake Lady was in the village as she had a tendency to haunt the place whenever she was not out of the village on assignment. But even with all of these interruptions he still had plenty of time to train and had managed to regain much that was lost. It took three months to retrain his Rasengan technique, once he had figured out to use henge to purchase water balloons and rubber balls from the uncooperative shopkeepers. Though the technique took so much longer to relearn mainly because of the somewhat sporadic opportunities he had to train in the technique, but also because he wanted to do it correctly this time and learn how to caste the Jutsu one handed.
Naruto knew that he was not yet ready physically to create the more powerful Odama Rasengan, or any of his other Rasengan variants, as a long healed broken arm and the large scale damage on the western side of his training area could attest and so he contented himself with improving and refining the original technique as he had done so, and continued to do, with his clone, transformation and body replacement techniques.
His elemental chakra nature training was going well, as he had managed to complete the leaf cutting exercise in only six months due to his advanced knowledge and had moved onto slicing rocks in the absence of a handy waterfall and now he was working on slicing trees from a distance. Success in this new exercise was slight as he had only managed to nick the bark slightly even from a distance of one metre, but he was not anything if not persistent.
Much to his disappointment Kurama had banned any attempt at the Biju Cloak saying that his body was just not ready for it. Though this didn't stop them from working on incorporating more of Kurama's chakra into Naruto's chakra network than the seal automatically allowed for, by Kurama voluntarily sending small amounts of chakra through the seal for Naruto to use thus building up a resistance to the corrosive nature of Kurama's chakra in Naruto's body. As they worked together Naruto noticed a distinct change in the colour of the Kyuubi's chakra, no longer was it an angry, blood red but neither was it the golden hue of when Naruto had taken control of it, but it was distinctly lighter and more orange than it had been before.
At the moment, however, Naruto was taking a break from working on his high powered techniques and had decided to work off his excess energy with some basic kata exercises. As he struck at the wooden training dummy, again and again, he fell into an almost trance like state as the repetitive rhythm echoed through his head.
'Left strike, right strike. Kick, spin and thrust. Step back. Again. Left strike, right strike. Kick, spin and thrust. Step back. Again.'
His mind wandering he imagined that each strike echoed with the tone of the taiko drums that kept the rhythm during the festival dances. Almost unconsciously Naruto began to hum the traditional children's counting song that fit the rhythm he was making and that he had always found catchy but had never known the words to, having little occasion to sing during his childhood. Suddenly that imp of mischief that had visited him so often reared its little head as he playfully smirked and called out in rhythm to his song, "Biju counting song, All Right, here we go!"
"First, "Sleep is better than humans," says Shukaku,
Second, burning in fire, Matatabi,
Third, leave the water to Isobu,"
Deep within Naruto the great beast, Kurama, opened one eye as he was roused from his slumber.
"Fourth hot as lava, Son Goku
Fifth, always on the run, Kokuo,
Sixth, taking it easy and not in a hurry, Saiken,"
'What is the brat doing now?' mused Kurama, slightly interested in spite of himself.
"Seventh, the flying leaf insect, Chomei,
Eighth, 'yeah!' is all it needs, Gyuki."
Kurama snorted at this as he was reminded of his most annoying brother.
"Ninth, 'Ko-kon' cries the mighty Kurama."
"I do not!" roared an indignant voice from the back of Naruto's head causing him to jump and lose his rhythm.
"Wha?" he asked intelligently.
"I do not and have never gone 'Ko-on' in my life." Huffed the ancient beast sealed in Naruto's belly.
"Well I know that but I needed something that would fit into the song and foxes go 'ko-on'." explained Naruto trying to placate his temperamental tenant.
"Fix it, it's undignified."
"Fine, fine." said Naruto as if humouring a small child, "How about this?"
Once more Naruto took up the rhythm of the kata exercise and sang out, "Ninth, the strongest ancient and modern, Kurama."
"Better, you may continue."
'Glad you approve,' Naruto silently sent to the Great Beast as he kept up his rhythm.
"It's a bit hard, but they have nice names,
They're all splendid names,
They're all wonderful names."
"This is a very silly song." came the internal critic once more.
'I can stop if you don't like it." Naruto returned silently.
"I never said that." emanated the reply from deep within.
Naruto sped up his movements slightly to match the drums in his imagination.
"Next up, the Jinchuuriki, here we go!"
"First, the one with terrible bags under his eyes, Gaara,
Second, with a silky voice like a cat, Yugito,
Third, the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura,
Forth, together for forty years, four tails and Roshi,
Fifth, tough and powerful, Han,
Sixth, reserved and dressed in a kimono, Utakata,
Seventh, the heart-warming Kunoichi, Fu,
Eighth, he's got crazy rap skills, Killer Bee,"
"If you say so," said Kurama in monotone, causing Naruto to grin as he continued.
"Ninth, Konoha's Uzumaki Naruto.
All the powerful Jinchuuriki have finally come together,
Can they become friends with the tailed beasts?
They're all splendid shinobi,
They're all splendid shinobi."
Naruto slowed his movements as he came to the end of his song and sat down heavily in place as he finished. A thoughtful silence echoed up from his seal.
"What do you think the other Jinchuuriki are doing right now?" he asked as he lay back with his arms resting under his head to stare up at the sky.
"Fighting, sleeping, surviving. Whatever they were doing last time."
"and hurting. Right now they're suffering while I'm here safe."
"While you're here getting stronger. They can wait. You know that they survived once, they can do so again. For them it is the first time after all."
"You're right. Why are you all ways right?"
"Someone has to be the voice of reason."
"Great my voice of reason is an ancient demon of mass destruction. What does that say about me?"
"Humph! Whatever you stupid brat."
"He, he, he, ha, ha ,ha! Are you sure you're not a tsundere?"