AvatarUzumaki - Thanks for the reviews! Glad to see that you're loving the story! I'll try to update faster, but my schedule is crazy now.

megagamelad13 - Read the chapter to find out!

AvexedAuthor - Thanks for the review! And about the time issue, I'm sorry I confused you but the when he glanced at Naruto after using his chidori, that was the second jonin dying. There was two fighting Asuma and Kakashi, Kakashi killed the jonin he was fighting and then went to go help Asuma finish off his enemy.

jenuzumaki - Thanks! And about the eye, unfortunately for Naruto, Kurama's chakra is just to raw and overwhelming to create a new eye for Naruto.

Onto the new chapter...

Chapter 17: Recovery and New Meetings

Hinata was currently sitting on a chair with Naruto's head currently resting in her lap while his feet took up another chair. After the fight with the Iwa jonins, Hinata took charge of taking care of Naruto. It was the day after the fight and Naruto had yet to awaken. Hinata quickly checked his chakra network and was shocked and horrified to see the extent of the damage Naruto had to endure. She could clearly see that his pathways were cracked and abused, whatever Naruto had done was terrible for his network. She wanted to try using medical ninjutsu to help Naruto recover faster, but she hadn't gotten used to practicing the techniques. All she could do was place his head in her lap and stroke his hair.

'Huh. I never felt so useless before.' She frowned and lightly picked up Naruto's head and gently placed it on the floor. She created a shadow clone to watch over Naruto for her while she went to go train. She'd need to be stronger if she wanted to be able to protect her teammates. After exiting the shack they were staying in, she saw Ino sitting against a tree all to herself. The Hyuga heiress decided to go check on the girl since they were still friends.

Ino was thinking to herself about everything that happened. About the fight between Naruto and Haafu, about when she took over consciousness within Haafu's body, and about how Naruto treated her afterwards and when she tried to stop him from killing the Iwa jonin when she thought he was down. About the look in his blood red and slitted eyes. About the rage they held. She had never been more terrified in her life. And there was also the amount of hate Naruto's chakra held, she had never guessed Naruto truly felt such anger and hate deep down.

"Ino-san?"

Ino shot up and quickly pulled out a kunai from her weapons pouch and quickly examined her surroundings. When she only spotted Hinata and no one else, she let herself calm down. "Oh. It's just you Hinata… So what's up?" She asked awkwardly.

Hinata stared at Ino for a couple of seconds before answering her question. "I was about to train. Ino-san, what's wrong?"

Ino stared at Hinata for a couple seconds, deciding whether or not she should tell Hinata about what she'd seen Naruto do and how he truly felt deep down. In the end, she needed her mind calm so she decided to tell Hinata how she felt so she looked to the ground and spoke. "It's… It's Naruto. He attacked me even after I told him I was in control of the guy we were fighting. He crushed his ribs and was about to kill me and the guy if I didn't release my jutsu."

Hinata felt a chill go down her spine. "W-What? Why would he do that?"

Ino shook her head and faced Hinata again. "He was fine at first. He was fighting the jonin and even managed to anger him after he made his clones explode."

Hinata's eyes widened at that. 'He can make his clones bigger or smaller, and now he can even make them explode? Naruto-san's ingenuity is truly superb.'

"But after that… he figured out that neither of us truly stood a chance. And then he did something to make some orange chakra bubble out of him." At this point, Ino had Hinata's full attention. She knew that Naruto was the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko. His transformation and confirmation during the wave mission helped confirm that. But she was still intrigued at what exactly that meant for Naruto. "After enough orange chakra was… gathered I guess...? Naruto was completely covered by the orange chakra. And after even that wasn't enough to beat him, another tail grew from the orange chakra and Naruto grew even stronger. Strong enough to take on the jonin we were fighting. But the longer he was covered by the orange chakra, it looked like his anger was growing as well."

Hinata slowly nodded and filed the information she just learned for later. "Ok… so you think that Naruto's anger grew because of the orange chakra?"

Ino nodded and looked back down to the ground. "T-That's what I think, yes… Either that or he was always like that but just kept it buried deep down."

Hinata pondered on that thought for a few seconds before shaking her head. "While Naruto-san does sometimes seem distant and even cold on rare occasions, he's not an overly angry person." She tried to explain to the Yamanaka, but she merely shook her head.

"No. You haven't felt what I had. I felt all the anger, and rage he had at that moment. I… I didn't know he had that much anger. I didn't even know someone could have such rage."

Hinata was about to say that the emotions she felt were most likely from the Kyuubi, but then remembered what Kakashi had told her. 'That's something I can't tell you. If you want to know, then you'll have to ask him. But if he tells you, know that it is an S-rank secret. Telling anyone else would result in death.' Hinata wisely kept her mouth shut and pondered a bit for advice to give Ino to make sure that she wouldn't be ignorant of Naruto's situation and didn't jump to conclusions.

"Why don't you try asking him what you felt and saw when he wakes up?"

"...Uh-sure sure. I'll talk to him when he wakes up. Thanks Hinata. I'm going to go get some sleep." Ino replied and left quickly. In reality, Ino wanted to stay far away from the Uzumaki. This mission had traumatized the blonde girl and made her realize that even teammates can be dangerous. 'Talk to him? That's the last thing I'm going to do. I hope this mission will be over soon.'

Hinata watched as Ino quickly departed. She felt a bit of anger towards the blonde for not listening to her words. The blonde could've at least tried to give Naruto a chance to explain himself. The Hyuga had no doubt that the blonde would explain his situation to Ino if what the girl had said was indeed true. She shook her head and made her way into a clearing to start her training. When she arrived in the clearing, she thought back on her fight against the jonin.

She thought back to how her gentle fist strikes had no effect on the rock covered Iwa nin. How she had only managed to strike his chakra points after damaging her hands at the cost of it. She either needed more strength, or a way to shoot her gentle fist through armor. She looked down at her still broken arm and frowned. 'I guess strength training is out for now. Which means all I can do is brainstorm on how I can make my gentle fist style more lethal… but how do I make it more lethal?'

She had to think back to how her clan's taijutsu style worked. The gentle fist is a form of hand-to-hand combat used by members of the Hyuga clan. It inflicts internal damage through attacking the body's Chakra Pathway System, to do this, the user injects a certain amount of their own chakra into the opponent's chakra pathway system, causing damage to surrounding organs due to their proximity to the chakra circulatory system.

'What if I manage to inject one of my chakra affinities? Lightning could possibly immediately immobilize or kill the target, however if I get the right amount of lightning chakra correct, I'd be able to successfully disable multiple chakra points at once… if the lightning chakra acts like how I predict. Water nature chakra... I'm not sure the effects it'll have on the chakra points when struck... I might have to do it just to quell my curiosity. I'll have to look more into this. But in the meantime..'

Hinata created a shadow clone and had her read further on the science, theory, and the applications of medical ninjutsu. The book Kakashi had given her had been enticing and helpful. She would soon be able to start practicing actual medical ninjutsu. However she'd need to finish this book first as well as have Kakashi's approval to work on the possibly dangerous art.

Hinata herself went back to the shack to get some well needed rest. When she entered, she saw Shikamaru and Choji hovering over Naruto. With an eyebrow raised, she went over to ask the boys what the issue was.

"Excuse me Nara-san, Akimichi-san, is everything alright with Naruto-san?"

Said boys looked up from staring at the blonde to see who spoke to them and was met with a pair of lavender eyes facing them. Shikamaru was the first to regain his bearings and decided to answer the Hyuga heiress. "Yeah, we were just curious as to what he'd done to make Ino so scared of him. And man, I can't believe Naruto lost an eye during that fight. He probably had to fight with everything he had just to stay alive and ended up losing an eye for it."

Choji nodded solemnly. "Yeah. Do you think he'll continue his ninja career?"

Hinata looked at Choji and scoffed. "Please, it'll take a lot more than this to make Naruto-san quit the shinobi ranks. He's too stubborn to choose another path." Her eyes moved towards the currently sleeping blonde. "Besides, this isn't anything but a roadblock for Naruto-san to overcome."

Shikamaru looked intensely at the blonde for a little longer and then shook his head. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Naruto's too stubborn for his own good." The Nara walked away with a small smile on his face.

Choji sent a sad gaze towards the blonde before he followed Shikamaru. Hinata sat down beside the blonde and lightly ran her hand through his hair. After letting out a sigh, the girl stood up and went to sleep in another part of the shack.

Kakashi woke up and slowly opened his right eye before having to slam it close again. The light in the room had briefly blinded him and he needed a second to readjust to the light. After opening his eye again, he tried to sit up only for him to wince in pain as well as let out a grunt.

"Easy there Kakashi."

The silver-haired jonin turned to face Asuma. He lazily looked over the fellow jonin and spotted that his wound that he earned from Daun had been patched up and looked to be healing already. The Sarutobi helped Kakashi sit up so his body could get used to the muscles moving again. He glanced around him and spotted Naruto still unconscious with Hinata once again watching over him but this time with Sasuke's help.

"How long have I been out? And is everyone ok? I don't see your team around anywhere." Kakashi asked with a gruff in his voice.

Asuma handed him a cup of water and answered his question." You've been out for three days due to chakra exhaustion. According to Hinata, you were on the brink of death with how low your reserves were. My team is out close by watching our surroundings and everyone's fine except Naruto. He has yet to awaken and as you can probably see from here, he has a scar on his face from his eyebrow to his whisker marks. He had his eye punctured from a kunai that was thrown from his opponent."

Kakashi was now looking in Naruto's direction and did a quick glance over at the boy. Asuma had been correct in saying that Naruto had an identical scar on his face, however it was mirrored to Kakashi's scar. Team 7's sensei's gaze slowly moved towards his lap, he felt intense guilt washing over him for failing his team. He slowly stood on his two feet and made it over to his two students, who had seen him struggling to make his way towards them, while Asuma went out to check on his team.

"Kakashi-sensei, are you alright?" Hinata asked with a hint of worry in her tone, which brought a small smile to his face.

"Feeling better now that I'm not on death's doors. So how's Chibi doing?"

Sasuke huffed sharply and shook his head. "The idiot isn't waking up. Even after we put smelling salts right under his nose."

Kakashi nodded and looked towards Hinata. "How far have you gotten in medical ninjutsu?"

"I haven't gotten far, Kakashi-sensei. All I have been doing is reading the book you gave me. I was for your permission to try healing anything."

Kakashi nodded his head and motioned for her to come close to him with his hand. After she was close to him, he sat crouched down to be at her level. "Ok, you have permission to practice healing on me. Go ahead, Hinata-chan." He gave her one of his eye smiles to show that he had complete faith in her. After a few seconds of hesitation, Hinata held up her hands and after a brief time of concentration, her hands faintly glowed green.

"I'm just trying to do the medical analysis jutsu right now Kakashi-sensei." Kakashi gave a nod and an eye smile at Hinata, encouraging her to continue. After a few seconds, Hinata's face held a shocked but proud look. "I think I have this down. Sensei, you have 3 broken ribs, a concussion, and your chakra pool is very low." She looked up to her sensei as he pulled out a food pill. Her hand shot to grab his arm before he could eat the pill. "Sorry sensei, but you'll have to let your chakra recover naturally. According to the books I read, if you forcely regain your chakra via food pills, it will just strain your chakra pathways even more."

Kakashi nodded and put the food pill back in his little jar where he kept all of his food pills. After putting the jar back into his weapon pouch, his gaze fell on the little blonde. "Well, it's been three days now Naruto. I'll give you a few more hours before I forcefully wake you up."

"Uh sensei? Are you sure that's a wise idea?" Sasuke asked, a bit alarmed.

"Maa Maa Sasuke-chan. It'll be alright in the end." Their sensei said as he walked away from his genin to go for a patrol walk.

The two genin that were left behind looked towards one another and then down at their unconscious teammate. Sasuke let out an annoyed sigh and sat down.

"Honestly. It's always Naruto getting into these predicaments. Fucking idiot."

"Wel, at least this time it wasn;t his fault." Sasuke looked back at the Hyuga with a confused look. "I mean according to the Iwa jonin, they were after him due to who his father was. He couldn't really control that."

Sasuke let out a sigh as he ran his hands through his hair as he looked back towards the sleeping blonde. "Yeah, I completely forgot about that… and from how he spoke back to the Iwa nin, he was aware of that fact and he didn't tell us." He said the final part with a scoff.

"Well, think about it from his perspective. Who would believe that the village pariah, the jinchuriki of the Nine-tails, was the son of the legendary Minato Namikaze?"

"I would. If he told me and he wasn't joking, I'd believe him. I don't know about you, but I came to trust in Naruto's word."

The Hyuga frowned at the Uchiha's words. "Of course I would have believed him. Naruto-san may be a prankster, but even I know he wouldn't have joked about something as serious as this. Besides, the two look eerie similar to the point where I'm ashamed I hadn't made the connection between the two myself."

Sasuke sighed slowly and nodded, agreeing with the last sentence Hinata had said. The ravenette turned to look at the blonde once more before getting up and stretching. "Well, he'll be up in a couple hours regardless. I'm going to go train."

After looking at the sleeping blonde, Hinata rose to her feet. "I think I might join you Sasuke-san."

'Where am I?'

Pure white and empty space. That was all the Uzumaki could see around him. He placed a hand on where his right eye used to be, and felt nothing behind his eyelid. He let out a sigh before he dropped his hand, giving up any hope of ever seeing anything with that eye again. He looked around once again, hoping that anything would change.

Nothing but pure white and empty space still.

"UGHHH! WHERE THE HELL AM I?!" He yelled out in frustration and a touch of despair. His predicament wasn't going to help his psyche, in fact with nothing but empty space there was nothing to stop all of his accumulated bad experiences from barging their way to the front of his mind. "I need to get out of here."

"You want to leave your mother behind?"

Naruto's head snapped towards the direction of the speaker. She was a fair-skinned and slender woman of feminine build with violet eyes, and red hair. Her hair was straight and reached her ankle with shoulder-length strands that framed both sides of her face and a black clip that parts her hair to the left. She wore a high-collared, sleeveless blouse under a long, loose-fitting dress with a wristband on her left wrist and standard shinobi sandals. It took him not even a second to figure out who the speaker was.

"M-Mom?" He croaked out in surprise and while trying to hold back tears.

A few tears managed to escape down his mother's eyes as she nodded. "Yes. It's me, my little Naru-chan."

Naruto immediately flew into his mother's embrace, which Kushina was more than eager to return. Naruto let out a few choked sobs as Kushina slowly and lovingly ran her hand through Naruto's hair. She made shushing noises so Naruto could calm down and relax, she had so much to ask and tell him.

After he calmed down, Kushina gently pushed him back. "Now, let me get a good look at my baby boy." She said gently. It took only half a second before she saw the big scar going over his right eye. "What the hell happened?! Who did this to my baby boy?!"

Naruto quickly slapped his right hand over the scarred eye. "It's fine mom! I just got this because I was careless in a fight with some Iwa nin."

"You were fighting some Iwa nin?! Why?"

"Well my team were sent on a mission to back up my friends' team because they fought some Iwa genin team. Then a few days after we got there, the Iwa shinobi came back, except this time they were all jonin. We split up to fight each jonin and then I got this when I was fighting the jonin."

"And why was your team sent?! Why not send a more experienced team?! What was the Hokage thinking?! Who's the current Hokage?!" Kushina rapidly questioned in anger. "Why was my baby sent out on a dangerous mission?"

At this point Naruto was starting to get a little annoyed. "Mom listen, I'm not a kid anymore-"

"You're still 12!"

"I'm a ninja now." He shot back, with a bit of venom in his voice that he didn't mean to let slip in. He let out a sigh before he continued. "I'm sorry for the attitude mom but you have to understand that I'm now a genin. I'm going to be sent on missions where anything can go wrong."

Kushina let out an apprehensive sigh as she sunk down to her knees. "I know Naruto… but to me you'll always be my little baby."

Naruto now felt a little bad for what he said. He went and knelt down to give her a hug. "I know mom, and I love you for it but you have to understand that I'm not a little kid anymore."

The Uzumaki mother hugged her son back and mumbled back apologies for not being there for her son. She pulled back and gave Naruto a wide smile. "So Naru-chan, tell me about yourself."

Naruto smiled widely and began talking about his life experiences up until now.

Kakashi walked back into the room where Naruto was currently unconscious. He looked towards Hinata, silently asking if anything had happened while he had been gone. His female genin shook her head, diminishing any hope Kakashi had that his favorite genin had woken up on his own.

The silver haired jonin nodded solemnly and approached the blonde. He knelt down and held his hand up, which soon lightly glowed blue from the small amount of lightning chakra that covered his hand. He reached out and placed it on Naruto's arm. He sent out a weak pulse of lightning chakra, intending to forcefully wake up his blonde student.

"And then I was forced to work with Zabuza and Haku because Haku threatened to cut my balls off before killing me if I didn't."

Kushina frowned at hearing her son getting threatened like that. "That's a little excessive of her." She mumbled out.

"Eheh I'm not sure whether Haku was a guy or girl. Haku had a feminine face, but she also had a masculine body, but it was also slender and appeared to not have many muscles, but his voice was also soft, but not feminine or masculine. And I didn't want to be rude and ask."

"Alright alright, what happened next?"

"Well then we went to Gato's mansion where I had to kill all the guys he hired. After that was done-"

Naruto didn't get to finish as he clutched his arm in pain before he disappeared from the space the two Uzumaki's were sharing. Kushina shot up and looked around to see if she could find where her son had gone, but to no avail.

As Kushina was about to give up and let her chakra essence fade away, her surroundings soon started to waver and fade, getting replaced with a sewer. She looked around and saw a giant cage with it's doors wide open. She walked closer towards it in confusion but soon froze when two giant crimson eyes snapped open.

Kurama woke up to find a different presence in Naruto's mindscape. He faintly remembered her chakra presence, which caused him to snap his eyes open. After spotting Kushina, he instantly shot out chakra tendrils, attempting to connect his chakra with hers to keep her chakra essence present.

Seeing the Nine-tails launch chakra tendrils towards her, Kushina reacted by sending out her chakra chains to nullify and counter the Nine-tails's attack. After the bijuu chakra evaporated, Kurama let out a low growl out of frustration.

"Dammit stupid woman! Stop fighting before you use up all of your chakra!"

That line made Kushina freeze from disbelief and shock, which allowed Kurama enough time to latch a chakra tendril to her, giving her some of his chakra in the process. She was about to yell out in protest, but then she felt her chakra essence fortify. She looked at the bijuu with a confused face and his reply was a huff of annoyance. The bijuu went back into the shadows of the mindscape and laid down, and fell back to sleep. Kushina was left in the light of Naruto's mindscape and all she could do at the moment was to sigh and close her eyes.

Naruto's eyes shot open. He quickly sat up and looked around, accidentally giving everyone a good look at what happened to right eye. He soon remembered what happened to his right eye and slammed it shut. He also noticed that he was surrounded by his team and that he had left the place where his mother had been. He remembered how his father had disappeared and he felt a spike of panic at the thought of not being able to at least say goodbye to his mother. He quickly closed his eyes and tried to go back to wherever he had been dragged to after falling unconscious, but Kakashi stopped him by placing a hand on him.

"Hey chibi, glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Naruto shook his head and let out a shuddered breath. "I-I'm fine."

Kakashi raised his only visible eyebrow and dropped his hand from Naruto's shoulder.. "Really? Because you're not looking or acting fine."

"I just- I just met my mother."

Everyone's eyes went wide at hearing his statement. Asuma's head snapped towards Kakashi's direction, silently asking what was going on. Kakashi immediately connected the dots, after all Naruto did explain what happened with his father, so it wouldn't be a stretch to find out that Minato had done the same for Kushina. The rest of the genin present were confused as to what Naruto meant.

"You met Kushina?" After receiving a nod from the chibi, Kakashi placed a hand on his shoulder. "What do you think of her?" He asked with a gentle smile on his face that was still visible through the mask.

Naruto, too, had a gentle smile now. "She was great. She was everything I thought she'd be and more. Although she was coddling me too much." He ended by puffing out his cheeks.

Kakashi smiled at seeing that his student was alright. He ruffled his hair and slid his forehead protector down to cover his right eye. He flashed him a thumbs up and chuckled. "You're really becoming a chibi blonde version of me."

Naruto let out a few light chuckles before he held his hand over his eye. He thought back to the fight and remembered what he had done to Ino. He gazed over all the people present until he made eye contact with the platinum blonde girl. He tried to get up but Hinata held him down by pushing down on his shoulder.

"Naruto-san, your chakra may have fully recovered but your chakra pathways and your body isn't. Rest."

Naruto looked up at his female teammate and let out a sigh. "Alright Hinata-chan, I'm sorry." He looked towards Ino again and bowed his head. "I'm sorry for hurting and attacking you in our fight Yamanaka-san."

Team 10 were left baffled but the rest looked at Naruto in sadness. Ino recovered the quickest and she gave Naruto a sharp glare, which caused Hinata to frown and Sasuke to scowl lightly.

"Don't think I'll forgive you for what you did back there Uzumaki. Just what was that back there?" She glared at the blonde harder as she asked her final question. "And don't say anything but the truth. What was that?"

Naruto kept his head bowed and he took a moment to gather his thoughts. When he raised his head, his pupil changed into a slitted red pupil. "I understand Yamanaka-san. What I did was unforgivable. To answer your question, that is why I was ostracized since birth. I'm the jinchuriki of the Nine-tails, meaning I had the greatest bijuu sealed into me since birth. I met him when I was nine. We talked and I found out he wasn't as bad as he was portrayed."

"Not as bad?" Ino growled out. "That monster killed over a third of our village!"

"He was being controlled." Naruto replied in a calm voice. "He was ripped out of my mother and was immediately put under a genjutsu by a rogue Uchiha."

"Naruto." Asuma spoke, gaining everyone's attention. "Are you certain that what the Nine-tails is saying is true?"

Naruto nodded and clenched the blanket covering him out of frustration. "I'm certain. Why else would he lend me his chakra when I ask him and help me out if I need it and not constantly whisper words that'll change me into a psychotic killer? Kurama has been there for me for over 3 years. He was the sole reason that I didn't kill myself when I was taken. Don't ever say that he is someone I can't trust. He has all of my respect and trust, however I can't say the same for the Hokage. He has purposefully lied to me about aspects of my life. He never told me about the Kyuubi, hadn't told me about my father, and barely even told me about my mother and he was even reluctant to tell me about her. He's lied to my face countless times whereas Kurama has told the truth, whether it's painful or not."

With that said, Naruto ignored Hinata's protest and stood up to walk away. He was not in the mood to deal with doubts about his best friend. He looked down to see that his chest was wrapped in bandages and so was his right hand and arm. He frowned in confusion at seeing his chest and arm covered up, until he remembered destabilizing his rasengan on purpose.

'Guess this is the backlash.' He touched his chest and winced from the brief pain it caused him. 'Kurama, can you do me a favor and heal me?'

"Afraid not brat. What your Hyuga teammate said was true. Your pathways were damaged by the amount of my chakra you forcefully pumped through them. It'll take a while even for me to fix."

Naruto let out a sigh and sat down against the wall on the opposite side of the room. 'Guess this means no training for me right now huh?'

"Physical training is fine after you recover, but chakra training will have to be put off till your pathways are fully healed."

Naruto nodded and closed his eyes, entering in his mindscape that was shared with his bijuu companion. When he entered, he saw his mother looking around his mindscape, mumbling about something.

"Why does his mindscape look like a sewer? Mine looked like a white and gold empty space-" She was cut off by Naruto tackling her to the floor.

Kurama let out a grunt and sent out chakra tendrils and picked the two up, and placed them right in front of him. "I feel your confusion. Ask your questions."

"How come I wasn't able to talk to my mom when I was awake?" Naruto asked a brief second later.

"Because you haven't established a mental link. You need to mix some of your chakra into her and let her do the same to you."

"Oh ok. Wait I didn't do that with you, how come we have a mental link?" Naruto asked the bijuu.

"That's due to the seal. It already takes your chakra to keep it active."

"Wait but we were part of the seal. How come we don't have a mental link then?"

Kurama let out a groan of annoyance. "That's because you guys were being locked up somewhere in the seal. A small part of the seal was holding yours and your husband's chakra essences, while the whole seal was meant to contain me in Naruto. Meaning that I was always surrounded and held back by his chakra, which let us establish a mental link. But you guys haven't."

Kurama let out a sigh before he looked at the two present. "Kushina, that chakra string I made for you is so you can stay here and not evaporate. I did the same for the brat's father but he spent so much chakra that it'll still take some time before he's able to interact with you two again." He pushed Minato's stasis chakra essence into the light, showing him to both Kushina and Naruto.

The two Uzumaki shot towards the Fourth Hokage's figure. Kushina's eyes were scanning over Minato, checking to see if he was fine. Naruto was checking to see what state Minato was in. After seeing that his father was unresponsive, Naruto turned to face Kurama.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's in a comatose state because he used so much chakra, so much that his chakra implant was about to fade out. I had to forcefully shove a bit of my chakra into him, preventing him from dissipating. However he'll need his chakra to be able to move and speak in here, so he's frozen until my chakra adapts and turns into his."

"What would happen if I pushed some of my chakra into him?" Naruto asked with a hint of impatience in his tone.

His response was a smack to the face from a chakra tendril. "Don't you even think about it, nor you redhead. If you try, you'll make the process longer or just completely destroy his chakra essence. The only reason I can is because my chakra doesn't have a signature to it since I'm a being of pure chakra."

Naruto scowled as he rubbed his cheek. "But did you have to slap me?"

"Yes, because you're incredibly dense and stubborn."

Naruto pouted at the fox and turned to face his mom, giving her a wide grin. "So, where'd we leave off?"

Kushina couldn't help but smile back and pinch his cheeks.

Sasuke was currently patrolling the area once again. He was a little angry at Asuma and the others for automatically assuming that the bijuu sealed into Naruto was completely evil and was dead set on destroying everything.

'...ok so it might make a little sense but still. Did Kakashi and the Hokage not tell anyone about how Naruto and Kurama were friends? What the hell?'

Sasuke was dragged out of his thoughts by the genin of Team 10 calling out to him. Sasuke rolled his eyes and jumped down from the tree he had been scouting in.

"Sasuke, is what Naruto said true? About him and the Kyuubi being friends?" Shikamaru decided to be blunt and ask directly.

Sasuke scowled lightly at the Nara. His gaze turned to the Akimichi and then to the Yamanaka. "None of you believe him, do you."

The two male teammates awkwardly shuffled their feet, meanwhile the female genin turned red from anger. "Dammit Sasuke! Just tell us if we should be worried or not!"

Sasuke scoffed at Ino's demand. "I don't have to tell you shit, Yamanaka. Even if I did, you'd only hear what you wanted to hear." The Uchiha heir turned around and started to walk away. Before he was completely out of earshot, he gave them some advice. "Hey word of advice, if you're gonna judge someone, make your own judgement."

The Uchiha let out a sigh of frustration as he once again leapt into the trees to scout around the shack. He didn't want to get snuck up on like the last time. He knew that Kakashi and Asuma were barely starting to recover, and that Naruto would need to take a few more weeks to be back to normal. They weren't ready for another encounter. All they needed to do was camp out here for another week and then they'll be replaced by a team of chunin, and would then be able to go back to the village.

'We just need to wait now.'

After a week of tense waiting just for nothing to happen, Teams 7 and 10 were replaced by a pair of chunin. They had just entered the Hokage's Tower, when something caught Naruto's attention. There was a brief flicker out of the corner of his eye. He looked at Asuma's and Kakashi's faces to see if they'd give any reaction to what he saw, but it appeared that they didn't see what he had. He was about to chop it up to paranoia, but Naruto knew better than to let his guard down. Ever so slowly and carefully, Naruto created a tiny shadow clone, wincing during the whole process, and sent it to investigate what he had seen.

While the real Naruto gave the debriefing and was later sent to the hospital to get a thorough examination and medical help, the clone was chasing down the figure they had spotted. It was in fact an anbu, the mask and cloak gave it away, and the clone realized that the anbu was leading him somewhere. He carefully followed the agent out of the tower, and down a narrow path that led into the woods. There he saw him enter an old abandoned building covered in moss, which he followed without hesitation due to being a shadow clone. After navigating through all of the corridors, the agent finally came to a stop in front of a wooden door.

"Uzumaki-san, Lord Danzo wishes to speak with you." The anbu said, confusing the blonde.

The clone transformed into his normal size and nodded towards the agent. He opened the door and came face to face with an old man that had his right arm and right eye covered in bandages.

"Hello Naruto Uzumaki, it's a pleasure meeting you."

Sorry for the long wait! I've been backed up in work, and it'll get a lot worse now that we're down an employee(there was just three to begin with). I'll try to update as fast as I can, I promise.

But anyways, how'd you guys like that chapter? Was it good, was it bad? How can I improve? Leave a review with your opinion to let me know!