A sharp creaking sounded out, waking up Naruto. As he sat up, the door to his hospital room opened with Jiraiya quietly emerging from the other side. Looking over, he saw Naruto hurriedly getting out of bed.
"Morning kid, are you feeling any better?"
At this point, Naruto was already rushing towards him. "You bet I do! What kind of awesome jutsu are you gonna teach me?! The old man said you were his student, so you must know a ton of really cool and powerful ones!"
"Haha, while I love the enthusiasm, I want to see where you are right now before I start teaching you new things. Once I understand your skill level, figuring out what I should teach you will be a lot easier for me. Now, here, I grabbed you a new set of clothes on my way here."
Pulling a scroll out of his pocket, Jiraiya spread it across the floor before putting his hand over it, unsealing the contents. A second later, a small cloud of smoke erupted from the paper. Once the smoke dissipated, a bright orange sleeveless jacket and black t-shirt lay on the rolled out scroll.
"Whoa, it looks so cool!"
"I'm glad you like it."
"So where are we going to train!? Are we going to some huge mountain or something?!"
"Maybe at some point, but for now we're just heading to one of the training grounds on the outskirts of the village. Now c'mon, if you want to get changed or get a shower I'll take you back to your apartment."
"Hmm, Sis keeps on telling me to change after training so there's less laundry to do. I'll get changed later. After we're done I'll head home and clean up."
"Your sister seems smart for being so young." Jiraiya commented.
"Yeah she's up at the top of the class with that weird Uchiha guy." Naruto said with a frown.
""Where are you at?"
"The lower half…" Naruto whispered.
The disappointed tone that the boy in front of him took on, as he seemingly admitted to some kind of defeat, caused Jiraiya to snort in amusement. He was reminded of himself back in his days under the Third Hokage's teachings.
"Hey, what's so funny?! I'm decent at taijutsu and stuff I just…"
"Let me guess, you can't remember most of the stuff they talk about in class, so your grade drops because of your test scores."
"Yeah! Wait, how'd you know what's happening at school?"
"Call it an old man's insight." Jiraiya responded. "Now then, how about we get going to train!?"
"Yeah, yeah let's go already!" As Naruto darted out of the room, Jiraiya stayed behind for a moment and moved his hands into a cross, creating a shadow clone to watch over Natsumi, before the original resealed the clothes still on the floor and left the room to follow Naruto and prevent him from getting lost in the halls of the ANBU Black Ops' base.
When the pair reached the exit, Naruto immediately threw his hands in front of his eyes to block the glistening sunlight from blinding him with Jiraiya squinting slightly before his sight adjusted to the daylight.
While Naruto's eyes were still covered, Jiraiya created another shadow clone and jumped on top of a nearby building out of Naruto's line of sight.
"Huh? Did you hear something, Jiraiya-Sensei?"
"No. What did it sound like?"
The pair continued on to their destination, arguing over the nature of what Naruto had supposedly heard. Meanwhile, the real Jiraiya watched over them following up to the halfway point of the journey.
'I'd love to train the kid myself, but I need to make sure both of them are alright. The shadow clones can tell me if something goes wrong with one of them, but for now, keeping myself an equal distance from them both will give me the best balance for reacting to problems. As for what to do to occupy my time…'
Jiraiya looked across the street and saw a familiar sight. The bathhouse that his team often visited as genin, both alone and as a group. Jiraiya lightly rubbed his ribs, recalling the constant wounds he was inflicted by Tsunade whenever he was caught peeping on the women's side of the bath. Disregarding his past wounds, Jiraiya jumped to the parallel roof and pulled a notepad and pencil out of his back pocket. As he observed quietly, he began jotting notes for the manuscript of the not yet titled sequel to his greatest success, Make-out Paradise.
The sage sat for a while, rarely writing things down. For once in his life, his worry had completely surpassed the view he was attempting to take in. Putting his notes away, he laid on his back and stared up at the sky, pondering what he might teach the two aspiring shinobi in hopes of keeping them safe from the world they would enter. Much of what he wanted to teach he knew would be too advanced for children as young as the twins. Shadow clones and the Summoning jutsu would likely be too chakra intensive for now, even with their Uzumaki blood and the Nine-tails' influence.
Many of the toad techniques he used to supplement his own arsenal were taught to him by the toads of Mt. Myoboku, meaning that they would need the contract before he could teach them, and entrusting an excitable child with the ability to summon animals without the chakra to handle it seemed like a poor choice. Jiraiya shuddered at the thought of the young boy managing to summon the toad boss, Gamabunta, and getting on his bad side. Continuing to ponder what to teach his new student Jiraiya's mind finally began to ease, even if only slightly, over the fate of the twins.
"So your mind has finally recovered…" a deep voice stated.
Natsumi shot up from the ground she was laying on as if waking from a nightmare. Her body felt sore all over, and a sharp pain attacked her head for an instant before disappearing. Murky water touched her palms as she tried to gain her bearings.
"Who said that?" the girl asked, looking around.
"Come closer, and you'll see."
Natsumi looked behind her, at the source of the voice, and saw five flaming blue altars, barely illuminating a very large silhouette. Each altar had four knives pointing up at each corner, with an emblem on the side, resembling a demon's head holding a knife in its mouth. The emblem glowed the same blue as the flames, and the knife looked identical to the ones fixed above it. From the back of each pedestal, large chains were pulled nearly taut, all wrapped around the now revealed, gigantic, Nine tailed fox. The fox laid on its belly, chains wrapped around all four of its limbs with the fifth around its neck.
"...No thanks."
"Pity."
"How are you here?" Natsumi asked cautiously. "I thought the Fourth Hokage killed you."
"That young fool was not strong enough to kill me. No one left in this world is. Your Hokage had to summon animals and the Shinigami itself, just to seal me, for which he gave up his life."
The fox was letting out a low snarl. With its size alone, it would unsettle most who laid eyes on it. Natsumi was no exception. Hiding the fear building from the creature's visage and voice, she stood up and continued to talk as if nothing was wrong.
"So you were sealed then?" When the question came out, the snarl got deeper. "If you were sealed, then how am I here? Last I remember, I was fighting Sasuke at school. Even if you were sealed in the academy practice field for some reason, I doubt anyone could enter it."
A low chuckle of amusement escaped the fox and permeated through the near empty space, disturbing the water around both of them.
"You still haven't figured it out, have you? You are a human sacrifice chosen by your Fourth Hokage. You are nothing more than a tool to be used by those who run the very village you live in. Every kindness that old man has bestowed upon you has been nothing more than an effort to sway you to his side." the Nine-tails declared.
"..."
'This may be even easier than I thought.' The fox said internally
Natsumi was left staring at the dark water that covered the ground. A silent conversation was taking place between the young girl and her reflection, barely visible in the ankle-deep body of liquid.
'Gramps wouldn't try to use me. He helped and cared for us. He bought us a bunch of stuff and got us into school.'
'Can you really be sure about that?' The reflection asked. 'Your school turns out people who take lives for the supposed safety of the place they live in. A village that's participated in three wars that brought a level of devastation you don't even know about. The man you so lovingly call gramps would have been the leader throughout at least two of those wars.'
'I don't know about the wars. I only know that they happened and that the First and Second Hokage died in the first great war.'
'Ignorance is just an excuse. He lied to you for eight years about why you aren't liked and left you alone.'
"...I don't know everything. Not about gramps, or history, or even the world today. I don't know much about you either. But I want to trust gramps. He's helped keep us safe and happy since we were little. My brother would trust him, so I will too."
"Optimism will only get you so far in a world that wants to use your life and body as a weapon. You and your brother are both doomed to suffer a fate of unthinking carnage and bloodshed. I can save you both from that fate."
"What do you mean Naruto is doomed as well?! You never said anything about him!"
"You really believe the Fourth Hokage could seal my full strength? You humans overestimate your own abilities. I told you he summoned the Shinigami in order to seal me. But that only sealed half of me. This half of me. While you live with me and the god of death's seal on your stomach, your brother lives with my… calmer half, and a seal invented by my previous host herself. One that will increase his chakra reserves to inhuman levels by siphoning my other half's chakra. Meanwhile, you are left with a seal that could affect you in unknown ways, one that could even lead you to the Shinigami's stomach, to be left in eternal combat with its other residents. You certainly seem to have been the forsaken sibling, no?"
The Nine-tails could barely contain his excitement from the reactions he was getting. Each sentence he spoke broke another wall that kept Natsumi standing up. Eventually, the young girl collapsed backward, only catching herself on her palms once she was already back on the ground.
"Do you understand now how truly alone you are?"
"I'm… I'm not! I have Naruto and Gramps Hokage. I'm not alone!" Natsumi shouted defiantly.
"You will realize it soon enough. When you do, I will be here to help." the fox replied with a growl. Only seconds after the Nine tails finished talking, the same sharp pain that attacked her when she first woke up in the strange place returned and continued for much longer. Once the pain became unbearable for Natsumi, the blue glow of the altar flames disappeared.
The moment Natsumi regained any form of sense and feeling, she shot up from the bed she was laying in, gasping for air. While she was sitting up, her forehead rammed into something, but before she could identify what it was, a puff of smoke erupted in her face forcing Natsumi to close her eyes and cough up any that she accidentally got in her mouth.
"Natsumi, are you okay?!"
Waving away the smoke in front of her, Natsumi opened her eyes and saw the Third Hokage standing next to her.
"Gramps…"
Words continued to get caught in her throat as she tried to ask all the questions she wanted to. Quickly, her mind felt completely overwhelmed by all that she had learned and all that she still had yet to. Unable to get any sentences out, Natsumi settled for hugging the Hokage tightly and quietly sobbing.
"Natsumi… are you feeling alright?" the old man asked, returning the hug. "You seem scared."
"I… I saw the Nine-tailed fox, and, and he said me and Naruto were human sacrifices to seal it." Natsumi said between tears. "Gramps… do you care about us?"
"Natsumi… please never doubt that I care for you and Naruto. You two are like grandchildren to me, and that will never change."
"You promise?" Natsumi whispered.
"I promise."
Natsumi sat there in HIruzen's arms for minutes as she calmed her breathing and stopped crying.
"Are you feeling a bit better now?"
"Y-yeah. I think so."
"I'm truly sorry I didn't tell you about the Nine-tails. I was scared to think about your reaction if you weren't ready for it."
"It's fine, gramps. I don't think I would have wanted to know anyway." Natsumi responded sadly. "Does Naruto know at this point? Is he doing okay?"
"Yes. He woke up yesterday, and my student, Jiraiya, and I explained everything to him."
"Your student?"
"I believe you headbutted him when you woke up." Hiruzen said with a chuckle.
"But then… where did he go?"
"He left a shadow clone here with me to help in case something happened with the Nine-tails. Just before you woke up, you were sweating and moving around in your sleep, so Jiraiya was staying close to see if anything changed. When you did wake up, you hit the shadow clone in the head, which caused it to dispel into the smoke that you were choking on."
"Oh. Should I apologize when I next see him?" Natsumi asked, still slightly confused.
"I doubt he cares that much. More importantly, though, can you tell me what the fox told you?"
"It-it told me that me and Naruto were human sacrifices chosen by Lord Fourth. It said something about the Shinigami sealing it inside of me and something about Naruto having a seal from its previous host as well as its calmer half." Hesitantly, Natsumi continued. "It also said something about us being weapons and tools…" she said quietly.
"Natsumi, you are not a weapon nor a tool. While there are some people who may believe you are, they are wrong, no matter what they tell you." Hiruzen said urgently. "The Fourth didn't want to choose you, or anyone else to bear this burden. Sadly, because of the way the shinobi world operates, without the Nine-tails in our possession, we would be vulnerable to attack and war by other villages and nations. Since he was forced to reseal it, he needed viable hosts for the beast to be sealed in. Unfortunately, only you and Naruto were capable of holding it."
"Only us?"
"Yes. You and your brother are the only Uzumakis known to Konoha left in the world."
"Last Uzumakis? Does that mean only our family can hold the fox? Was our family special somehow?"
"Indeed they were. Your family was a powerful shinobi clan before the founding of the hidden villages, and eventually, they made their own hidden village. They were a close ally to the leaf for over half a century before they were destroyed by an alliance of large shinobi villages during the second great war. Your mother came to live here only weeks before the Uzumaki clan was destroyed."
"So then… mom was the last host it was talking about, wasn't she?" Natsumi asked somberly.
"Yes. Your mother, Kushina Uzumaki. She was a wonderful woman with a talent for sealing jutsu that was only surpassed by the Fourth Hokage. You've likely pieced it together already, but your mother was the one who invented the seal that was used on Naruto, in the hopes that the next host would not have to suffer from the fox's influence as much as she did because of the seal that she possessed."
"Sealing jutsu, huh?" Natsumi sat in contemplation for a few moments, looking down at the bed she was still sitting on. A small strand of the girl's blood red hair lay on the sheets in front of her. Following her gaze, the old man sitting with her also noticed the stray hair and moved to pick it up.
"Kushina also had the same beautiful hair that you do, Natsumi. It was practically your clan's trademark." the Hokage said with a smile.
"Gramps… do you think I could learn sealing jutsu as well as mom did?"
"If you want to, and you try your best, then I know that you can. In fact, my student Jiraiya is an expert at sealing, and I'm sure he'd be glad to teach you as much as he can."
"Thanks, gramps."
"If you would like, we could go see him right now. He should still be training your brother right now, so it would be good for all of you to see each other." Hiruzen said.
"Okay. Do you know where they are right now?" Natsumi asked as she stood up. "If you do, then I can probably find them on my own."
"While I'm sure you could, I have a faster Idea."
As the Hokage finished his sentence, he placed his hands on Natsumi's shoulder and used his body flicker technique, accelerating him and the girl he was now holding to incredible speeds.
To Natsumi, everything that went by was a blur of color and sounds as she almost instantly saw the bright orange light of the dusk sun. Once she got used to the speed they were traveling, Natsumi began to take in as many sensations as she could. The cool spring air pushing against her face, the sprawling blue void called the sky that surrounded her and the warm rays of the sun that she basked in. All the feelings from the world and nature around her felt serene.
Suddenly, the sun's light dimmed, barely shining through the greenery that now filled the nearby area. Within only a few more seconds, the pair stopped in front of a small clearing with a large paved circle on the ground, covered in multicolored leaves, some of which looked as if they belonged to autumn. Some of the trees in front of Natsumi held the same out of season colors on their branches. The girl was about to ask the Hokage about the strange colors before heavy rustling, and a small yelp from the barricade of leaves caught her attention. Looking up, Natsumi saw Naruto, clad in his usual bright orange, fall from the tree.
"Naruto!" Natsumi yelled, running over to catch her brother before he hit the ground. Before she could reach him, however, Jiraiya jumped out of a different tree and caught the blonde by the leg, dangling him in midair.
"Dammit you old geezer, I thought I told you to stop throwing me up into the trees!" Naruto exclaimed.
"And I told you that it helps you practice your balance." The tall man retorted.
Natsumi stood in awe for a moment at how fast the man had moved from the tree to the ground. Quickly, she snapped out of her shock and called out to the man. "Hey, let go of my brother!"
Jiraiya snapped his attention to the newcomer's voice and saw the small girl with his old sensei standing behind her. "Morning kid, Sarutobi-sensei. Have you been feeling alright since you woke up?" he asked Natsumi.
"She was a little bit startled when she woke up, but she's been fine since then." the Hokage reported for Natsumi. "I'm sorry for speaking on your behalf, but I don't want to worry Naruto right now." the old man whispered. Silently, Natsumi nodded.
"Well that's good. We're just doing some taijutsu practice here because Naruto was chewing my ear out about losing to a classmate of yours who managed to get him out of the arena." Jiraiya said, setting Naruto down on the ground.
"So what if he did!? I totally would have won if there wasn't that stupid boundary rule!"
For the first time since she had met the Nine tailed fox, Natsumi had a small smile on her face, glad that Naruto was still the same energetic and carefree spirit she had known her whole life.
"Can I leave these two in your care, Jiraiya? My desk has likely been flooded with documents, and the council needs to know about these two's recovery."
"No problem, sensei. I'll start giving them some stuff to do. I'm sure you'll come running if anything happens anyway."
"The moment I know about it, yes. Come find me once you're done, and we can catch up a bit." Hiruzen said before turning and leaving for his office.
"Sis! Sis! Come on, let's spar! The geezer here started helping me with my taijutsu since this morning. I bet I could even beat you now!"
"Ok." Immediately, Natsumi dropped into a fighting stance. 'Just like that, huh?' Jiraiya thought to himself.
With a grin, Naruto bolted towards Natsumi and attempted to hit her stomach with his knee. Natsumi used her right hand to push the knee back downwards and to the side, making Naruto throw a jab that she dodged by moving her head back slightly. The blonde then launched a kick aimed at the side of his sister's stomach, still slightly off balanced from his failed first attack. Using her left arm, Natsumi blocked the kick while using her right hand to help push away the leg. Trying to move with the momentum, Naruto used his still grounded leg to jump away from his opponent, like he saw Sasuke do in his fight with her.
Only a second after his leg left the ground, however, Natsumi grabbed it and pulled him back towards her, ending with Naruto hitting the ground with his back. With Naruto laying flat on the ground, Natsumi gently put her foot on his chest in a mock gesture of preventing him from getting up. "My win."
"Nice job, kid! You're even better than I thought." Jiraiya said to Natsumi with a smile.
Bringing her leg off of her brother, Natsumi looked down and nodded quietly. "I told you she was at the top of our class." Naruto chimed in.
"I can certainly see why. With another year or two, you could probably make genin if you want."
"I thought I needed to graduate from the academy to become a genin?"
"Nowadays you might need to. Sarutobi-sensei has said he wanted to change things at the academy for a while now. But even if you aren't officially a genin, that doesn't mean you can't have the skills of one." Jiraiya cleared his throat and turned away from the two Uzumakis.
"Now then, I believe a more formal introduction is in order." The white-haired man turned around, now in a striking pose. "I am known as the toad sage, but that is only to conceal my true identity! I am the man with few equals from the north to the south and the east to the west, one of the fabled sannin!" the sage proclaimed, whipping his long and spiky ponytail around his head. With a pop, a cloud of smoke came into existence around Jiraiya. When it cleared, he emerged standing on top of a large frog, almost as tall as he was, in a new pose.
"Those who witness my power shall be struck with awe, enraptured with the visage of the great, JIRAIYA!!"
A few moments passed with no noise but the rustling of leaves. 'Really? This is the guy the old man trained? And the guy who was training me?' Naruto thought with a tinge of embarrassment.
'That was pretty cool. The pose on top of the toad looked nice.' Contrast to her thoughts, the only expression on Natsumi's face was a barely visible smile that could only vaguely be interpreted as such.
"Ahem, anyways, Naruto, you're going to keep on working on your taijutsu with me while Natsumi practices a jutsu I'm gonna teach her." Jiraiya said, hopping off the toad.
"What!? Why does sis get to learn ninjutsu while I don't!?"
"Because your technique is still sloppy."
"How is it sloppy?!" Naruto asked indignantly.
"You were too close when you tried jumping." Natsumi suggested quietly, looking away from her brother.
"Correct." Jiraiya said with a few claps. "Also your stance was too narrow. If you didn't notice, both times Natsumi pushed you, you lost your balance more than you should have. So, we're gonna keep practicing so that you don't repeat these mistakes. Sounds fair?"
"...Fine. But you better teach me something cool later!"
"Sure thing, kid, now take a few minutes to rest up while I teach her how to do this."
While Naruto sat down under a nearby tree, Jiraiya and Natsumi moved away from the arena to a nearby area with a large and short stump.
"Now then, I'm going to teach you one of my favorite defensive techniques. But before that, I wanted to talk to you a little bit."
"Talk to… me?"
"Of course. I've gotten to talk plenty with your brother, but all I know about you is what he and Sensei have told me."
"What exactly did Naruto tell you?" Natsumi asked with an embarrassed look on her face.
Jiraiya laughed loudly and jovially at the question. "He told me a lot. In fact, I believe I wrote it down after the first adjectives he used for you." Pulling out his notepad, he quickly found the page he had recorded Naruto's words on. "Let's see, quiet, anti-social, overly concerned, naggy…" the sage continued.
With every word, the blush on Natsumi's face deepened more and more as she stared a hole into the ground. "But he also called you really strong and said that you're a great sister." Jiraiya finished with a smile.
"Did… did he really say that?"
"He did. As for Sensei, he said that you used to be more open, but you've stopped trying to make friends in the past year or so. Other than that he mostly just talked about the same stuff Naruto praised you about. Is he right?"
"Yes…" Natsumi answered quietly.
"Do you mind telling me why?"
A long pause permeated the area before Natsumi replied "...I have my reasons."
"I see. In that case, can I ask why you want to become a shinobi?"
"I want to help Naruto become Hokage. I'm guessing he's already shouted about it to you two or three times. He's stubborn and wants to be better. As long as he really tries to be, I know he'll become one of the strongest people in the world. Even if all I can do is be a benchmark, or even an obstacle, I'll make sure he gets there."
'Interesting. I'll give her a few years to find her final answer.' Jiraiya thought with a smile. "Not a bad answer. A selfless reason to become a shinobi, is often the sign of a great one in the making. With that being said, a great shinobi should also know a few good jutsu. So how about it? Want to learn the needle jizo technique?"
"Um, okay. What does it do?"
Moving his hands slowly to give Natsumi time to see the hand signs he was making, Jiraiya ran through the six signs to activate the jutsu he was about to teach Natsumi.
"This jutsu will both harden and sharpen your hair, as well as make it grow temporarily to give you more protection." Jiraiya said as his spiky hair grew and covered him like an oversized cloak. After a moment the hair shrunk back to its normal size but floating right next to its owner's head. "With enough practice you can even control it yourself and use it like a weapon."
Natsumi stood in awe at the first ninjutsu that she had seen with her own eyes. A sense of childlike fascination quickly absorbed her.
"Did you see the hand signs that I used?"
"Yeah. It was tiger, horse, boar, ram, rat, and then snake right?"
"Correct. The hand signs will help you mold your chakra the right way, but you'll still need to control it properly. Keep working and I know you'll get it down quickly."
"Okay. Thank you for teaching me this."
"Of course kid. Now, I better get back to your brother before.."
"Hey geezer hurry it up! You said it would only take a few minutes!"
"Before that." Jiraiya sighed. "Good luck." he said before returning to the arena Naruto was waiting in.
"Took you long enough." Naruto huffed.
"Yeah, yeah. Now get up, It's time for practice."
Hey people. I saw one review about Naruto losing to choji so hopefully this slightly clears up my intention with how I wrote that. I also added a small detail about Jiraiya in the future of this fic so if you pick up on it and have ideas feel free to share them around. Like always I would love reviews/comments, especially regarding Natsumi's conversion with the Nine-tails as that is the one part about this chapter I was constantly feeling iffy about (also it fuels my ego and makes me want to write more). Hope this proves enjoyable!