Chapter 3: Revelations and first meetings

Mount Myoboku

"Jiraiya?" came Naruto's hoarse voice, finally waking up. He took a look around noticing the familiar sights of his bedroom.

"Hey kid, how are you feeling," Jiraiya asked the question on his, Fukasaku and Shima's minds.

Naruto sat there for a minute in his bed, flashes of what happened coming back to him. "Jiraiya why did that man keep calling me the Kyuubi?" he asked.

Jiraiya sighed, trying to think of the best way to approach the conversation. "Naruto, do you remember the stories I told you about the Kyuubi and the Yondaime?"

"Of course I do Jiraiya, I love when you tell me the story about how the Yondaime kicked its butt," was Naruto's reply.

"Well, Naruto, the story I told you and that they tell everyone back in Konoha isn't exactly what really happened," said Jiraiya, "you see, Naruto, the Kyuubi is a creature that's entirely made up of chakra. Do you remember what chakra is?"

"Uhm, it's energy, spiritual energy and physical energy," Naruto answered. For almost a year now Jiraiya had been introducing Naruto to various shinobi concepts, though in their most basic forms.

"Got it in one gaki. But energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred. So it was impossible for the fourth, or for anyone else, to kill a bijuu," said Jiraiya.

Naruto started getting nervous, "So, I-I-I real-really am the. . . ."

"No!" Jiraiya quickly said, "you are you, just Naruto, a little boy who I love very much."

"Then why did that man call me the Kyuubi? Is that why you and the Hokage won't tell me who my parents are?" Naruto said, tears welling up in his eyes.

Jiraiya looked down for a minute trying to arrange his thoughts, "Naruto, because no one could kill the Kyuubi, the only thing the Hokage could do was to seal it into something, but because of how powerful it is, it had to be sealed into a newborn baby whose chakra coils could develop to accommodate the beast. Naruto, the baby the Yondaime sealed it in is you. The Kyuubi is sealed inside of you, but it is not you, no more than the lake is the fish. Yondaime entrusted this burden to you because he had faith that you would be able to handle it to keep the whole Hidden Leaf Village safe."

"Then who are my parents?" Naruto asked.

"I'll make you a deal kid, I can tell you about your mom, but your father was a powerful shinobi who made a lot of enemies, enemies who would try to get revenge through you if they knew about you. So I want you to wait until you become a chunin to learn your father's name. Deal?" asked Jiraiya.

"Okay," Naruto answered, growing nervous at the thought that he was about to learn who his mother was.

"Your mom was Kushina Uzumaki. She was an amazing and beautiful woman, and one of the strongest kunoichi I've ever known. She, and your father, were so happy when they found out she was pregnant with you, and despite the attack on the village, I'd never seen her more joyous than when she looked down at you. Sadly though, she died the night of the attack," Jiraiya explained.

"Can you tell me more about her?" Naruto pleaded.

"Well, she was almost as energetic as you, constantly playing pranks on the entire village. She would've loved your little snake stream jutsu," Jiraiya said with a small smile, "but she was fierce too. She was known for her skill as a ninja, wielding her katana, her water jutsu, and her bloodline chakra chains. Her skills combined with her long red hair earned her the nickname Konoha's Crimson Death."

"Do you have a picture of her?" Naruto asked, awestruck at how amazing his mother sounded. Jiraiya unsealed a photo from a scroll and handed it to Naruto. "Wow, she's so pretty!" Naruto exclaimed, "can you teach me to be a strong ninja like her?"

"You know Naruto, I swore the night she passed that I would train you to become a ninja so strong that stories of you would even reach the heavens. You're still a little young to do much, but how about we get started?"

"Yosh!" Naruto shouted, no signs of his previous depression, "what are you gonna show me first? Maybe a really cool jutsu, or how to fight with a sword like mom!"

"Hahahaha, slow down gaki, the first thing is to learn to access your chakra. Sit up and close your eyes, then just breathe in and out slowly and search for a warm feeling in your tummy," Jiraiya instructed his new student, "that warm feeling is your chakra. Once you feel it, try to grab it and push it out of your tummy and through your body. I'll push a bit of my own chakra into you to help prime your system."

Naruto did just that. He was sitting there with Jiraiya's hand on his stomach, he enjoyed the soothing warm feeling of Jiraiya's chakra. He sat that for close to ten minutes before he finally felt something warm and soothing in his tummy, doing as Jiraiya had instructed him, he reached for it and imagined opening gates to allow it to flow throughout his body. Externally, Jiraiya and the toads' eyes shot open in alarm as a visible dark blue aura engulfed Naruto, making it look as though he was engulfed in a raging fire that was growing larger by the second.

"Jiraiya boy how is it possible for him to have so much chakra, he's not even four years old yet. If this keeps going, he could wind up giving himself chakra exhaustion," Fukasaku warned Jiraiya.

Before Jiraiya could do anything, Naruto's chakra suddenly pulsed outwards shaking the very ground throughout Mount Myoboku. Naruto then fell back, unconscious once again.

Jiraiya checked on the young jinchuriki, sighing in relief when he found the boy to just be sleeping from the chakra expenditure and exhaustion from the day's events. "He must already have about as much chakra as the Hokage," Jiraiya observed, "I knew that between being an Uzumaki and the Kyuubi his reserves would be large, but when he grows up, he might rival the lesser tailed beasts in terms of raw chakra."

Shima cut in, "It's good that you're going to get started with him now Jiraiya-chan. With that much chakra, it will be like he's trying to fill a thimble up by pouring water from an ocean."

"Before I set off for my next mission, I'll get him started on a couple of control exercises, and maybe have him practicing hand seals as well," Jiraiya said.

Jiraiya tucked Naruto into his bed, and he continued the conversation with the elder sages, hoping to get a game plan together for Naruto's training.

The last thing Naruto felt was his chakra rushing out of his body before he started to fall forward. Everything faded to darkness just as he hit his bed, but much to his surprise, he found himself awake lying on top of water. Naruto picked himself up and took a look around finding himself in a hallway completely made of stone, the floor covered in shallow water. Had he possessed the presence of mind, Naruto would have likely noticed that he was actually standing on top of the water.

Looking behind him, Naruto couldn't see anything, but he could see the hall continued on in front of him, dimly lit. Not knowing what else to do, he started walking forward. As the hall became more and more illuminated, Naruto began to feel more and more anxious. After walking for several minutes, Naruto came up to a doorway, but a deep rumbling sound made him pause. Looking back for a moment Naruto decided to press forward and stepped through the doorway.

Naruto stepped into a large open stone chamber, still with shallow water covering the ground. He looked around and found a series of large metal pillars on the far wall with a paper tag stuck to one of the bars. Despite the rumbling sounds growing louder, Naruto's curiosity pushed him forward to inspect the bars and the tag. Arriving about ten feet from the bars, Naruto fell on his butt when a gust of wind smacked into him. He picked himself back up and found himself staring into an eye taller than himself. "Ahhhh!" Naruto shouted, falling back onto his butt again.

"So, my newest warden is just a mere child. Come here kit, what is your name?" a deep growling voice asked.

Naruto again climbed up to his feet, "M-my name is N-Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki," the boy stuttered out, "w-who are you?"

The fox let out a resigned sigh, nearly knocking over Naruto once again, "so another Uzumaki huh? Well, I suppose I should've figured. Well, as for me," the eye Naruto had been speaking with started to rise and as Naruto stepped back to look upward a giant red-orange fox with long ears. Naruto's eyes trailed over the fox and finally they landed on his tail, or rather, on his nine massive tails.

"Ky-Kyuubi," Naruto gasped out.

"No," the nine-tailed fox said shortly, "Kyuubi is just some title your kind has given to me, it's not my name."

"Oh, s-sorry," Naruto said.

"Kurama," said the fox.

"Huh?" Naruto questioned.

"My name, it's Kurama, don't call me by my number of tails, call me Kurama," Kurama explained to Naruto.

"Kurama, uhm, Kurama, is there another nine-tailed fox?" Naruto questioned.

"Of course not, why would you think there would be multiple of me?" Kurama replied.

"Uhm, w-well, sorry, but you just don't really seem like all the stories I've been told about you," Naruto explained, "they always show you as a wild animal that just destroys everything in your path, like Konoha was."

Kyuubi let out another sigh as he crossed his paws and laid his head on top, "look, kit, you hairless apes like to label anything you don't understand as some kind of evil threat. I never wanted to attack your village, it's beneath me, but I was controlled by someone with a sharingan. But listen up, I'm growing tired, but I want to make a deal with you."

"What kind of deal?" Naruto asked.

"I've been sealed away in one Uzumaki or another for about a century now. But besides the brief few hours when I was being controlled, I've not seen the outside world or spoken to anyone the entire time. Rip a small corner off the seal and it will let me communicate with you easier and it will even let me experience the world through your senses," offered Kurama, "and in exchange, I will freely allow you to use my chakra without trying to influence you."

"Uhm well, I want to Kurama, but I don't think Jiraiya would be very happy with me if I just tore off part of the seal without asking him first. Can I let you know tomorrow?" asked Naruto.

"That's fine, kit, I've been in darkness for a century now, what's one more day? Now, I'm tired, leave me," and with that Kurama puffed out a stream of air, knocking Naruto out of the mindscape and into a regular deep sleep.