Disclaimer – Kishimoto owns Naruto and the characters therein.
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Memories Of Others
Chapter 33
A Genin's Revelations
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The sliding door closed behind the departing waiter and Naruto took the opportunity to look around.
Several of the other genin had been confused by the fact that their Jonin-Senseis had insisted that Naruto sat at the head of the table (even though it was oval), despite the fact that as an independent genin rather than an elite genin, he was technically the lowest-ranked of them all.
Hinata was sat by Naruto's left with Shino, Akamaru, Kiba and Kurenai beyond her. To his right were Neji (who was occasionally glancing across as if to check that Naruto wasn't taking liberties with Hinata, or vice-versa), Tenten, Lee and Gai. Kakashi was sat beside Gai, occasionally throwing a teasing comment at him while ignoring Gai's half-joking complaints about his unyouthful behavior and his team was lined up beyond him while the final quarter was taken up by Team 10 with their Jonin-sensei Asuma sat smiling next to Kurenai.
"That was an amazing meal." Kiba sighed, looking at the spot where his plate had been until the waiter had removed it.
"There's still pudding to go, right?" Choji asked and several chuckles sounded.
"There is, but before pudding, there's some business to take care of." Asuma noted. "Naruto?"
Naruto nodded as everyone looked at him, the Jonin in support and the genin with curiosity.
"Before we begin, does anyone know what the word Jinchuuriki refers to?" Naruto asked. The genin exchanged confused glances, except for Hinata who snuggled against his side.
"Power… of human sacrifice?" Shikamaru offered and Naruto nodded.
"That's the translation of it, yes. There can only be a maximum of nine Jinchuuriki at any given time. Asuma…?"
"Suna has one, as does Taki." Asuma supplied. "Mizu, Kumo and Iwa all have two each."
"That's only eight." Shikamaru noted.
"I'll get to that in a moment." Naruto replied. "A Jinchuuriki is a shinobi who has had one of the nine Biju sealed into them, usually during infancy. This is intended to allow them to use the Biju's chakra as if it was their own, as well as the Biju's special abilities. For instance, the Ichibi can control sand."
"Judging from your comment, I would postulate a high probability of Gaara being a Jinchuuriki." Shino said.
"You'd be right, he is." Naruto confirmed. "I don't know if it's his normal personality or if there was something done wrong with the seal, but he's a psychopath who loves killing. Taking him down will be very hard, he's got more chakra than the Hokage and uses a layer of sand over his skin to protect himself from harm."
"I may need to seriously rethink my tactics." Shino admitted. "You have my gratitude for the information you have provided."
"Yeah. Point is, though, he isn't the Ichibi, he's the container for it. Kinda like if you seal a kunai into a scroll, the scroll doesn't become the kunai."
"Well said." Tenten noted.
"Many people don't see it that way." Naruto continued. "One particularly nasty myth is that sealing the Biju into a child kills the child and the Biju wears the body like a glove. That's not true, but if you don't know anything about sealing, you might believe it."
"That's a nasty rumor." Ino shivered. "Just enough yech in it to appeal to the meaner type of gossipers."
"I can confirm it's not true." Naruto supplied and Shikamaru gave him a long look.
"I had suspected something like that."
"You had suspected something like what?" Ino asked.
Shikamaru looked at Naruto, who gave him a nod.
"Naruto is the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi."
"You're kidding!" Ino laughed. "He can't be the… wait. He is?"
"I am." Naruto agreed. "Like my mother before me was, and her aunt before her. You may have heard of them, Uzumaki Kushina and Uzumaki Mito, better known as… Senju Mito."
The entire room was silent with both Ino and Sakura staring at him wide-eyed.
"On the day of my birth, something happened and the Kyuubi escaped from its seal." Naruto continued. "My father led the fight against it and my parents sacrificed their own lives to seal it away."
"Wait, wait, wait." Sakura protested. "Your father led the fight against the Kyuubi? But all the histories I've read about it said that the… Yondaime… Hokage… Oh. My. Kamis."
"I see you've worked it out." Naruto chuckled as Sakura's eyes widened so much that she could have been mistaken for Lee's sister. "My parents were the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato and the Red Hot Habenero, Uzumaki Kushina."
"Then why are you an Uzumaki rather than…" Shikamaru began before he paused and face-palmed. "Iwa."
"Iwa." Asuma agreed. "Dad decided that he'd let Naruto keep one of his parents names, but calling him Namikaze was just begging for assassins to flood the village."
"As for the civilians disliking me… remember the rumor I mentioned earlier?"
"And not many shinobi study fuuinjutsu for more than sealing scrolls and explosive tags." Shikamaru commented.
"So quite a few shinobi disliked me as well." Naruto agreed. "As a kid, I sought attention because no-one really gave me any. That's why I became such a loudmouth. Even if people were scowling at me and telling me to shut up, they were still paying attention and any attention was better than none at all."
"No-one taught him how to read, or make friends, or anything like that." Hinata said sadly and Naruto gave her a one-armed hug.
"It was only after I graduated that I found someone willing to actually teach me the basics." Naruto continued, giving Hinata a grateful glance. "Hinata-Hime is why I got so much better… or at least less dreadful… between graduation and team assignments. After I learned how to read, I almost devoured the civilian and shinobi libraries… the genin portion of the library, anyway. I even found a copy of Uchiha Madara's treatise on traps."
Most of the genin briefly winced in painful memory while Ino growled.
"I also got the few scrolls my parents had left me and that had survived the Kyuubi. Between the scrolls and several teachers that Jiji found for me, I learned how to do the Rasengan and a version of the Hiraishin."
Kiba and Shino both nodded, as did Neji, Tenten and Lee.
"Before we continue," Asuma interjected, "I must point out that Naruto's burden and heritage are S-class secrets. Only he and my father can speak of them without suffering severe penalties."
"Thanks, Asuma-san." Naruto smiled.
"Question." Tobio raised his hand. "Did Hinata already know?"
"I told her a while back." Naruto admitted while Hinata smiled. "She took it far better than I feared."
"She glomped him." Kurenai giggled. "Hiashi told me. He was… almost smiling."
"Anyway." Naruto said quellingly, pausing as he realized just who it was he had tried to quell. "The Kyuubi is the great secret that your parents weren't allowed to tell you as well as the reason that many of the adults warned their children away from me."
"Does explain why you smell of fox." Kiba mused, then he grinned. "So, Hinata loves snuggling her foxy-boy, huh?"
Naruto opened his mouth, then paused as he glanced down to see Hinata's vacant, happy gaze.
"Dammit, Kiba." He grumbled. "Now I'll have to come up with a new Henge."
"What?" Sakura asked, completely lost by the sudden turn of conversation.
"Can we have pudding now?" Choji asked.
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"Father, I will need assistance in formulating new tactics."
Aburame Shibi looked at his son, one eyebrow raised just enough to show above his sunglasses. "Elucidate."
"I have been informed that my primary adversary in the final stage is the Jinchuuriki of the Ichibi who is gifted with the ability to manipulate sand to such a degree that he utilizes it as a protective exoskeleton of his own. This is in addition to his ability to wield large quantities of it in both lethal offense and powerful defense."
"Then the obvious solution is to prevent him from using his sand." Shibi mused. "A thought occurs to me, but we shall need to examine the stadium to determine its validity. You may also be required to learn water-walking, if you have not done so already…"
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"That was fast." Sasuke gasped, staring at the low, round house in front of him.
"Naruto helped and we had a lot of building material in Wave that he helped send over." Tazuna shrugged. "Once the foundations were ninj'd into place, building the actual house was easy. Can I show you around?"
Sasuke followed Tazuna through the front door and into a large room that seemed to take up half the total floor-space.
"This is the general area for guests and so on." Tazuna explained. "Those stairs lead to the balcony. That door is a small bathroom with a toilet and sink while over there is a general kitchen area for making snacks and so on. There's a corridor that goes round from that door to that one, but we're going this way."
Sasuke followed Tazuna down a corridor to the junction.
"Kitchen/dining room on that side, general room on that one." Tazuna pointed. "Staircase at the back leads up and down, there's a basement below for storageand so on, but we're going up."
Sasuke glanced down into the basement before following Tazuna up the stairs and through another, shorter, corridor.
"Four bedrooms of equal size, one bathroom with shower and a windowed area for whatever you need it for." Tazuna said, then he led Sasuke out through a central door. "And the roof balcony."
"The house seems to be based on the Uchiha Fan." Sasuke noted and Tazuna nodded.
"That's right."
"I… like it."
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Onoki stared at the man standing in front of him.
"Akatsuchi's team… failed?"
"I'm afraid so, Onoki-Sama." Kage replied. "He sent me ahead to tell you that he's confirmed that Naruto is indeed the son of Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato, as well as having knowledge of both of his father's techniques."
"Fuck." Onoki swore. "This is not good."
Onoki glowered at the far wall, then looked at Kage curiously. "Is there something else?"
"On my way back, I made contact with an injured shinobi." Kage said, pulling out a prisoner scroll. "When he realized how fast I could move, he asked if I could use one of his scrolls to carry him."
As he spoke, Kage unrolled the scroll and applied some chakra to it, causing a figureto appear in a cloud of chakra smoke and Onoki's eyes widened in shock.
"Kitsuchi?"
"Your son-in-law, on his way back from his mission." Kage confirmed. "Apparently it was a success."
"Lord… Tsuchikage…" Kitsuchi managed to whisper and Onoki looked down at him.
"Stay quiet." He commanded. "Report later, for now, I think you need to recover. And don't fake your death again without informing me first, dammit!"
"Sorry… pops." Kitsuchi managed, then his eyes closed.
"MEDIC!"
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"What a day." Naruto sighed as he closed his door, then he paused as a flash of golden light from outside reflected off the walls. Turning, he re-opened the door just in time to see the three men who had taught him the Hiraishin vanish, leaving Hinata standing alone.
"Hinata?"
"Hello, Naruto-kun." Hinata smiled as she walked up to him and gave him a quick hug. "I told my dad about what you did today and he agreed with my suggestion."
Naruto shook his head in confusion. "I'm sorry, what suggestion?"
"You just told eleven people your deepest secret." Hinata said, gently pushing Naruto backwards so that she could enter his house. "After a day like that, you need some serious snuggle time, right?"
For a long moment, Naruto simply stared at her, then he grinned and caught her up in a huge hug, causing the bag that she had been carrying to drop onto the ground.
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"You were right." Kiba said, lowering his binoculars. "Just as you predicted."
Beside him, Shino nodded, lowering his own binoculars with an air of satisfaction.
"I believe that we should leave them be." He said and Kiba nodded.
"Yep. I've got to get some sleep, mom's going to teach me a new move tomorrow."
"I shall look forwards to seeing it in the finals." Shina said as the duo slithered backwards over the ridge of the valley, making certain that they were completely concealed before standing up.
"See you at the next team meeting." Kiba said and Shino nodded.
Neither of them saw the amused expression of their Sensei, watching them from behind a genjutsu while sitting on a tree branch above their heads. As they departed, her gaze moved to the circular window where Hinata was laying out both her pajamas and Naruto's.
"Sleep well." Kurenai whispered with a soft smile. "I am so proud of you, Hinata. So proud."
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Author's note - Sasuke's new house can be found on my DeviantArt page (MoA folder).