I do not own Naruto

Three hours later, central tower

"Does that mean that we should open the scrolls?" asked Naruto, looking at the poem.

"It seems like it." answered Sasuke.

"It's not like we have any more instructions…" commented Sakura.

With a nod, the three opened the scrolls, revealing a sealing formula that somewhat reminded of the one in Sasuke's summoning contract.

With a puff of smoke, the familiar figure of Risu-sensei appeared in front of them, before slumping on the floor.

"Thank kami you three are ok." he said, relief clearly evident in his voice.

"Sensei, what happened?" asked Naruto, concerned.

"Oh, nothing much. Just three Kusa genin murdered before the start of the second test, the fact that the most wanted man in the elemental nations, who is notorious for his horrific experiments on Kekkei Genkai had decided to attack one of my students… the usual." He took a deep breath, then stood up and regained his composure.

"Sorry about that. Team 7, congratulations on completing the second stage of the chunin exam." he declared with a solemn voice, before turning serious.

"Now, I want to know everything that happened from the moment you three entered the academy, starting from that story I heard of you teaming up with some ninjas from Kusa."

The explanation took them quite a long time, from them entering the room through the window, Naruto recognizing Karin as an Uzumaki, how they breezed through the first stage, them learning of team 4's abilities and the decision to make an alliance, the counter-ambush of the Ame team, the fight against the snake and Orochimaru, the kunoichi's stand against the Oto nin and Sakura's first kill.

Risu had waited in silence, pondering the situation. He had given Sakura the same speech he had given Sasuke, telling the story of his first team and the importance of a memento, then silently thanked Sasuke for giving her the much needed speech in his stead.

He moved on to Naruto, inspecting the seal on his belly. It was a rather powerful yet simple seal designed. The seal was, however, applied in a rush and was strangling Naruto's coils, preventing his chakra from flowing normally. He promptly promised to teach the three while flashing through hand signs.

Gogyo Fuin

The forced release of the seal was painful, forcing Naruto on the ground for a couple of seconds as his chakra resumed its natural flow. When Sasuke and Sakura had asked about Naruto having a seal already, Risu had told them it was Naruto's secret to tell and even if enemy ninjas could be listening, it was no longer something he could postpone. Naruto nodded, asking if he could also wait for the Kusa team and tell all of them about it.

Despite being very skeptical about the wisdom of such a decision, the Kusa team had seen much and would probably learn about Naruto's status as a jinchuriki when reporting the event to their Kage. Perhaps their jonin sensei had sufficient knowledge to puzzle it together. In either case, trying to keep them in the dark would be pointless, so Risu allowed it.

When Risu looked at Sasuke's seal, he frowned.

"That's a juinjutsu. Cursed seal of heaven, if memory serves me right. I have studied the general theory behind it when I was considering whether to focus on my fuinjutsu or my career as a spy. It's actually the thing that convinced me I reached my peak in the sealing arts."

"What does it do?" asked Sasuke.

"Unclear. We know it's a variation on a particular type of slavery seal with the ability to mentally influence the person it's placed upon, but the specifics are way too much for me to understand. Plus, this one is different from the one I studied, far more complex with a lot more parts to it. The seal matrix is also compacted, which means that even if I knew how to understand it I would need a specialized tool I do not have nor have any clue how to one has extra functions added on top of the mental influence compared to the ones I researched. I'm sorry, but I have no clue how to remove it."

Naruto frowned "Is there some that can?"

"Jiraiya-sama might. He's far more experienced in seals than I am and has been hunting Orochimaru for almost a decade. If anyone knows anything about that cursed seal, it's him. I'll arrange a meeting soon. In the meantime, I'd like to send you to the hospital for a full checkup, but unfortunately you're not allowed to leave the tower until the end of the exam, so we're stuck with observation. I'm going to observe you training with my Byakugan and ask for Sandaime-san to assist. He might be able to find something I missed."

Sasuke nodded. A slavery seal capable of mentally influencing him didn't sound good. He might still want to use it, if it gave him power, but he wanted to know exactly what it did and what would be the consequences for using it.

"When can we test it?" asked Sasuke.

"I suggest now, my boy"

The genins turned their head toward the familiar voice of Hiruzen Sarutobi walking towards them, flanked by Mitarashi Anko and an escort of four ANBU guards carrying large wooden boxes.

"The sooner we understand how that seal works, the sooner we can do something about it." finished the Hokage.

"You should block it away with as many seals as you can slap on top of the damned thing. It should not exist." Bit back Anko with gritted teeth.

"Anko-san, I understand your reluctance but we'll never be able to remove it if we don't study it first. Sasuke's seal is more complex than yours, it could hold the key to finally removing it." replied Risu.

"Just like you studied that Yukimi girl's? Mizuki's? Or like all the others? You have studied this thing for years, it's time to face it: this blasted thing is not coming off." spat out Anko.

"Mizuki had one of these seals?" asked Naruto in surprise.

"A story for another time. Sasuke, do you think you can start with a few laps around the room to test if the seal affects your endurance?" asked Hiruzen.

Sasuke nodded and started running.

That evening, mess hall of training ground 44's tower

Sasuke tests took the entire afternoon. The seal had no reaction whenever Sasuke was performing normal exercises. It did not affect the boy's speed, stamina, strength or endurance, but it had affected his chakra, reducing his reserves by almost a third, a fact that pissed off Sasuke to no end.

When Sasuke's chakra started to get low, however, the seal began to stir. It clearly influenced Sasuke, trying to turn his personality into that of a sadistic battle junkie, but within the controlled environment of the tower, the boy had little issue shrugging off its influence. What the seal did to his chakra, however, was rather curious. As it activated, the seal produced a black flame-like pattern that spread across his body, providing him with a chakra boost. The three weren't sure what the seal did, but Sasuke's chakra did not turn into Orochimaru's, like Anko suspected it would, but seemed to dilute with something else that was making his chakra more potent, even if only by a small margin.

The Sandaime had suggested some faulty version of senjutsu chakra, but the only sage in Konoha that could confirm or deny such a theory was Jiraiya, who was already expected to check the Uchiha's seal. At the end of the day, they had concluded their observation claiming that if anyone could make light of it, it was Jiraiya and let team 7 go.

After a fulfilling meal where they were soon joined by the Kusa team.

"So, they don't really know what this cursed seal is supposed to do." summed up Fuzaku.

Sasuke shrugged. "Pretty much. They think a guy named Jiraiya-san might know more about it, so we'll meet him as soon as he gets back in the village."

"Jiraiya? THE Jiraiya? The Gama Sennin? He'll be in the village? Can I come with you and ask for an autograph?" asked Fuzaku with sparkles in his eyes.

The Konoha group looked at each other in confusion.

"Uh… sure, I guess? Why do you want his autograph?" asked Naruto.

"You guys don't know? Jiraiya-sama is a best selling author with millions of sales!" he exclaimed, pulling out a red book titled Icha Icha Innocence.

"That's the porn book Kakashi-sensei read all the time!" shouted Sakura, jumping on her feet, pointing her finger at Fuzaku.

"It's a fucking masterpiece!" rebuffed Fuzaku.

"Fuzaku! Put that smut away!" shouted Karin.

Fuzaku scoffed, reluctantly stashing the book away. "Prudes." he muttered under his breath.

"Now that we've caught up with what happened, I think it's about time we talk about the elephant in the room." said Sasuke once everyone sat down.

Naruto took a deep breath.

"It's about the red chakra, isn't it?" asked Ryuzetsu.

Naruto nodded. "It's a bit more… more complicated than that. You three have seen the red chakra, Sasuke and Sakura know that I have a seal on me."

"You have a second chakra reserve? That's cool, dude!" said Fuzaku with a smile, cleaning his teeth with a senbon.

"Don't be stupid. Sealing away chakra isn't possible. it dissipates after a while, the seal would need twentyfour hours of daily maintenance to prevent that." pointed out Sakura.

"Not if the chakra belongs to a creature." muttered Naruto.

There was a tense silence after that revelation.

"From what I've been told, there are certain… creatures made out of pure chakra. Hokage-jiji doesn't know where they come from, but they are walking natural disasters that cannot be killed. The ninja villages have been sealing them away as weapons since the Shodaime. The one Konoha has was first sealed in the Shodaime's wife, then it was passed to my mother and then to me." said Naruto.

"Damn." commented Fuzaku.

"That's why the red chakra was so different from yours." muttered Karin.

"Can you control it?" asked Sasuke, curious.

Naruto shrugged. "I don't know. That time in the first was my first time using it and I'm not really sure how I did it. I checked my mom's things for some notes, but I only found a few comments on her seal hurting on certain days, About the only thing I could piece together is that her seal was completely different from mine."

"Say Naruto… you said those creatures are used as a weapon, right? How come they didn't use it when the Kyuubi attacked?" asked Sakura.

Naruto's face darkened, unable to speak. Realization dawned on Sakura's face.

"It's Kyuubi." she whispered, hands clasped around her mouth.

"Naruto, I'm so sorry. I didn't think it…" Sakura tried to apologize.

"It's alright. You didn't know." said Naruto with a smile.

"No it's not! I should have figured it out! I shouldn't have said it out loud…" Sakura got up and bowed to her blonde teammate "I'm sorry for being inconsiderate."

Karin put a hand on Naruto's shoulder "I don't care if you're holding a demon. You're still an Uzumaki. We're family and family sticks together!"

Fuzaku's slammed his hand on Naruto's back, using a bit too much force and knocking the wind out of the blonde. "I, for one, think it's dope. You're basically controlling a demon! That's badass!"

Naruto smiled, content about his friend accepting him.

Sasuke smirked "So, another one of your big secrets is finally out. First you are the heir of a lost clan, then your mother was a war hero and now you have a demon sealed inside of you. What's next, you're the secret son of the Yondaime?"

Naruto laughed nervously, scratching his head "About that…"

Sasuke blinked "No fucking way."

"You can't be serious." said Sakura, mouth agape.

Fuzaku started to laugh.

"Hey, I'm not even supposed to know about it! Jiji said he would tell me when I became chunin because it was a security risk!" protested Naruto, only to be drowned by Fuzaku's bellowing laughter.

Notes

A bit of a shorter chapter, but I kinda wanted to leave the preliminaries for their own chapters, however many those will take up

Don't worry, Sasuke's seal will be explored a bit further during his meeting with Jiraiya. Got what I think is a pretty good scene, but we'll see when it comes to it.

I spent DAYS trying to figure out how Naruto would break the news to his team, and honestly I'm not 100% sure about it. I had an idea them having the discussion in the sky while flying on Sasuke's summon and while that would have been cool, it just didn't feel quite right. I think this is iteration 7 of that scene and... it's ok. Not great, but hopefully not too bad.

On another note, I hope you're pretty excited about the prelims, because apart from two fights, everyone else will have a different opponent. Care to guess who's fighting who? A candy for every correct pairing