Two chapters in a week! Seems my muse really likes me right now.

Thanks for the reviews. While there weren't as many as I had hoped, hopefully this chapter will inspire more of you to hit that review button. While there have been a lot of changes already in this story, this chapter is where things are really going to start taking off.

I own nothing but the plot and what I create. Also, this chapter is dedicated to and inspired by a quote I heard recently. "Knowledge is the power that changes behavior."

It was a warn sunny day in Konoha that found Naruto practicing with his bow at a training ground not too far from the Uchiha Clan compound. It had now been over a year since he had started at the Academy, and he had been excelling in all his courses, though you wouldn't know it by his performance in class. Naruto knocked another arrow and took aim at his target, the homework that he had turned in earlier in the week that Iruka had given back that day. With a smirk, Naruto loosed the arrow and it streaked across the clearing, traveling over 100 feet in mere seconds and pierced the piece of paper right where Iruka had corrected one of his 'mistakes'.

As he grabbed another arrow from the quiver on his back, Naruto thought back to the day that he had decided to hide his true abilities. While he had wanted to show off how awesome he was, Shisui had said something to him that had stuck in his mind and was the catalyst for his decision to hide not just his abilities, but his true strength as well.

They had been talking about the true mark of a shinobi, and Shisui had told him that "a nameless shinobi who protects peace from within its shadow was the true mark of a shinobi.' A ninja had to be willing to sacrifice everything for his home, his family, and his village and be willing to die a nameless death if it meant saving those they cared about.

Naruto had taken that to heart and from then on, he had tried his best to blend into the shadows, neither excelling in class nor failing, staying exactly in the middle of the class. While other aspiring ninja tried to be the best, such as the insufferable Sasuke and Ino's rival Sakura, Naruto simply did what was required and no more, sometimes purposely making mistakes to lower his grade on written assignments, such as the one he was using for target practice.

Naruto let out a scoff as he nailed another correction with an arrow. "Like it really matters what our school grades are in the real world. Being the 'Rookie of the Year' is just a label for the weak minded to feel better about themselves…and a target for others to aim at," Naruto thought with a vicious smirk.

He started to reach for another arrow but stopped and stiffened as he felt a presence suddenly appear behind him in the trees just as a kunai flew through the air and scratched his cheek as he tried to dodge. He grabbed an arrow and knocked it, spinning to try and find the person that had snuck up on him.

"Who's there?" he demanded as he opened his senses to try and track his attacker. The fact that someone had managed to avoid his passive senses picking them up was very unusual. Granted he hadn't been actively paying attention to his surroundings, but after all the years of practice with his empathy and the last year of developing his telepathy, it was highly unusual for him not to sense someone these days, especially this close.

"Wouldn't you like to know," a woman's voice drifted in on the breeze, though it was being masked using a chakra technique to make it hard to tell where it was coming from.

"The most dangerous weapon is the one you never see coming," was a thought that Naruto picked up just before another kunai was launched at him. This time, however, he was ready. His arrow met the kunai in the air, knocking it away.

"I'm going to need to remember that saying…if I survive this," Naruto thought to himself as he quickly readied another arrow.

"Nice try, lady," Naruto called out as he scanned the tree line.

"Oh, how cute. The brat actually knows how to use his toy," the woman mocked him from the shadows.

"You have no idea. Now, come out and tell me why you attacked me," Naruto growled out in annoyance. He had spent untold hours practicing with his bow to get as good as he was, and this woman dared to call his weapon a toy!

"Make me, brat!" Her voice came from behind him this time.

"Fine," Naruto said as he finally tracked her down. Her mind was very well protected and hard to find, but once he did, she stood out to him like a spotlight.

Naruto spun to his left and let his arrow fly into the branches of a tree nearly fifty feet away. There was an undignified shout of surprise as a woman in a tan trench coat tumbled out of the tree with a cut on her cheek in the exact same place that Naruto did.

The mysterious woman righted herself in midair and landed gently on her feet. She rubbed her cheek with a finger and narrowed her eyes when she pulled it away and saw blood on it. She glared at Naruto, though there was a good amount of respect in her eyes along with the anger.

"How did you do that? A little brat like you shouldn't have been able to find me," the woman snapped at him as she walked up to him. Though walked wasn't the right word as she practically glided across the ground.

Naruto just grinned at her. "Wouldn't you like to know," he said, throwing her earlier words right back at her.

The woman's jaw dropped slightly before she started laughing. "Oh, that's good. You got serious stones, brat, I'll give you that," she told him as he neared him, causing him to stiffen in worry. Naruto took a step back into a ready stance in case he needed to fight as he reached out to her mind to try and learn more about her. He still wasn't too good at going into other people's minds on purpose, though he was getting better at reading surface thoughts.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked cautiously as he looked at the woman. She was of average height, with an amazing body that was covered by a dense fishnet bodysuit that ended at her shapely thighs and a tan trench coat. Her hair was styled in a spikey ponytail and her light brown eyes appeared to have no pupils. She also had a fang pendant handing from her neck and her forehead protector was tied around her forehead.

"Well, since you managed to actually tag me, I guess you deserve a reward," she told him with a smirk that sent shivers down his spine. She placed her hand on her hip and winked at Naruto. "I am the sexy and single, Mitarashi Anko!"

"Sexy and single? You know I'm only ten, right?" Naruto said with narrowed eyes.

"Brat, I'm not hitting on you," Anko growled at him. "You couldn't handle all this," she said as she motioned to her body. "Maybe when you actually grow up, short stuff…then again, I'm picky and you'd be damned lucky to be picked by me."

Naruto rolled his eyes as he took another step away from her. "Ok, so why'd you attack me?" he asked her cautiously. He wasn't picking up any negative feelings from her, and her thoughts were…very different.

Anko rolled her eyes and started spinning a kunai on a finger. "I figured I'd cut through this training ground on my way to my favorite dango place and saw you playing with your toy and decided to have a little fun."

"This isn't a toy," Naruto snapped at her as he held up his bow, though he knew from her thoughts that she was doing that on purpose to annoy him.

"Well, I assumed that as no real ninja would ever be caught actually using a bow, you were playing around with a toy you found," she told him smugly.

Naruto gave her a deadpan look and pointed over to the kunai he had knocked out of the air with an arrow. "Well, I was able to use this 'toy' to deflect your kunai, as well as tag you while you were 'hiding'," he told her sarcastically. "You suck at that, by the way."

Anko suddenly vanished from his sight, though he caught her thoughts suddenly appear behind him and he felt the cold of the metal from her kunai resting against his throat. He gulped as he felt a bead of blood run down his neck as the kunai broke his skin.

"You want to say that again, brat?" she asked softly as she leaned against his back.

Naruto cursed the fact that he had heard enough thoughts over the year that he knew exactly what was pressed against his back and he also knew that he was hitting puberty and that was affecting him slightly. "Uh…I…" Naruto stuttered as he tried to focus on the situation and not on Anko's sizable assets against his back, cursing his body. He let out a sigh as he focused his mind to ignore everything but the knife at his throat and Anko's mind.

With a slight telepathic nudge, Naruto distracted Anko and knocked the kunai away, diving forward into a roll and coming up with an arrow pointed straight at her heart. "Would you knock that off? I'm only an Academy student, you psycho!"

Anko was yet again surprised by the boy she was playing with. She wasn't really trying to hurt him, just to scare him, yet he was not reacting like she expected him to. "What's your name, brat?" There was something about him that was familiar, but she wasn't too sure.

"The name's Uzumaki Naruto, and one day I'll be the best ninja ever," Naruto told her confidently, though he didn't lower his bow.

Anko let out a soft laugh as she put the name to the face. She didn't have much exposure to the kid, having worked a lot in the Torture and Interrogation department over the last few years. "Well, you certainly have the sack for it. Not many kids like you can stand up to me."

"Lady, there aren't any others like me," Naruto told her with a grin.

Anko laughed again as she sheathed her kunai in her coat. "Well, that is almost true," she told him, thinking about his status as a jinchūriki. "Being one of only nine people with demons sealed in them makes him very unique."

Naruto looked at her in surprise as he heard her thought. "What do you mean there's a demon sealed inside me?" he asked her in shock, forgetting in his shock that she didn't know about his abilities.

Anko looked at him with equal shock and surprise. "I didn't say anything."

Naruto gulped and back away, keeping his guard up. "No, but you thought it."

Anko knew that the Yamanaka's were able to read thoughts and communicate telepathically, but they generally needed either to be very familiar with the other person or have a machine to amplify their ability. Also, such a technique was generally reserved for higher level Clan members, usually chunnin and above.

"How did you do that?" she asked him cautiously. "You aren't a Yamanaka."

"No, but it's just something I can do...among other things," Naruto muttered, his thought flying as he thought back to all the things he had felt and heard over the years, all of them suddenly making sense. All the hatred and fear directed towards him for no apparent reason. People pulling their children away from him, leaving him all alone, right up until he was introduced to the Yamanaka's. Meeting them probably saved him in ways he couldn't imagine.

Naruto looked up at Anko with narrowed eyes. "Why didn't anyone tell me?" he asked her, his voice breaking slightly.

Anko sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "There's a law, kid. No one could say anything."

Naruto could feel her telling the truth and nodded as he slowly put his arrow back in the quiver on his back and slung his bow over his shoulder. "Well…uh…thanks, I think."

Anko blinked in surprise. "Why are you thanking me?"

Naruto gave her a slight smile. "Because out of all the people in my life, no one ever said anything to me, but when you slipped, you didn't deny it and told me the truth."

Naruto went over and collected his arrows, leaving Anko standing there staring at him in thought. When he finally moved to leave, Anko called out to him. "Hey, you want to come with me to get some dango? My treat…for the misunderstanding. But don't expect it to happen again, alright?"

Naruto let a smile form on his face as he nodded his head and walked over to her, letting her lead the way.

XxXxXxX

Naruto left the dango shop a while later and started walking in a random direction. He usually kept his abilities suppressed to keep from getting overwhelmed and to give people their privacy, but that night he decided to open his senses and listen to those around him. Eventually he ended up sitting on a rooftop looking up at the Hokage monument as he listened to all the thoughts around him for over 100 yards.

Shisui found him a while later, having come from a secret meeting with the Hokage about the forming rebellion in the Uchiha Clan. He stopped and sat next to Naruto.

"Hey Naruto, what are you doing here?" Shisui asked curiously.

"I know now, Shisui," Naruto said numbly. He looked up at a confused Shisui. "I know about what's inside me."

Shisui cursed under his breath. "I take it you heard about it inside someone's mind?"

Naruto just nodded and looked over to his right, were he heard the thoughts of a man planning to cheat on his wife.

"Naruto…Naruto," Shisui said, trying to get his attention. He could see by the slightly unfocused look to his eyes that he wasn't paying attention to him, listening to the voices only he could hear. When Naruto turned to look at him, Shisui placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Come on, kid. Focus on me, just me."

Naruto shook his head and pulled his senses back, all the thoughts around him fading away as he focused on just Shisui. A single tear rolled down his cheek as the emotions inside him started overwhelming him without the distraction of listening to others' thoughts.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Naruto asked him softly, his voice breaking. "Did they really think that I'm…it? Am I it? Do I even really exist?"

Shisui cursed the decision to not tell Naruto, but it wasn't his choice. He pulled the young boy into a hug, Naruto breaking down into tears at the action. Shisui just held the boy as he lost his composure. "No, Naruto, you aren't the fox. You are just it's jailer, the one that protects everyone else from it. You're a hero."

"Then why does everyone hate me? I walked through the village and I heard them! They want me to die, to pay for the crimes of the fox!" Naruto sobbed into his shoulder. Now he knew why Inoichi had made him promise not to read other people's thoughts unless necessary. He had thought at the time it was to protect him from being overwhelmed, though now he knew there was another reason for it beyond that.

"Not everyone thinks that way, Naruto," Shisui told him softly. "I certainly don't, Inoichi-san doesn't, Iruka-san doesn't, and Hokage-sama certainly doesn't. The people that know you and truly care about you, we don't care what you contain, as we know who you really are inside."

After a few minutes, Naruto sniffled and pulled away from Shisui, rubbing his eyes and looking away in embarrassment. "I'm sorry."

Shisui just smiled gently at Naruto and ruffled his hair. "Don't worry about it. I think your reaction was pretty reasonable, considering the situation. Just don't forget, you have people that care for you, and we always will."

Naruto nodded and stood up, wavering on his feet as he suddenly felt lightheaded and then a sudden burst of pain had him cradling his head.

"Naruto, you alright?" Shisui asked as he hurried to his feet.

"Yeah, just never done anything like that before and feeling the result," Naruto told him with a groan. Eventually the pain faded, and Naruto gave Shisui a grateful look. "I'm alright, thank you."

Shisui nodded and watched as Naruto jumped down from the roof and headed home. He sighed and headed home himself, his thoughts heavy.

XxXxXxX

Naruto spent the next few days keeping himself busy with training, school, and more training. Shisui would show up to help him train at times. Over the past few months, they had started working on a whole new style of taijutsu, designed around Naruto's use of a bow. It was slow going, adapting other techniques to his new style, but Naruto was excited. This was something that Hawk hadn't even done before. He might have adapted his father's kyūjutsu and bow to be more ninja friendly, but when it came to close combat, even Hawk dropped the bow to use his sword and other weapons.

Naruto looked up at the sky, seeing the sun overhead reminded him that Shisui was supposed to meet him around noon to help him with his bunshin technique, which he was still having trouble with. But Shisui was nowhere to be seen and Naruto couldn't sense him anywhere within his range, which had grown to be significant, especially after him using his telepathy so strongly earlier in the week. Letting loose with his abilities seemed to have given them a boost, whether or not that was temporary still remained to be seen.

Naruto sighed and gathered up his loose weapons, having been working on his aim with shuriken and kunai, before heading off towards the Uchiha compound. Shisui probably had gotten distracted and forgot again, so he'd go to him instead.

As Naruto got closer, his mind picked up what he had taken to calling an 'echo'. When he was in the same area where something intense had happened, he could sometimes feel a remnant of that and see what happened, all depending on how powerful the echo was and how strong he was. Despite wanting to go grab Shisui for some practice, Naruto's curiosity was peaked, and he stopped to focus on his senses to see what had happened.

All around Naruto the colors seemed to fade slightly, and wisps of blue energy swirled around as his mind started to recreate whatever had happened. Judging by the strength of the echo, whatever had happened, it happened recently, probably within the last half hour.

Naruto looked around, his eyes and mind seeing both the present and the past at the same time, and a gasp escaped him as he saw an echo of Shisui walking towards him, only to stop and look around.

"I know you're there, so quit playing around and come out," Shisui's echo said, the voice sounding to Naruto as if coming from a far distance. He concentrated harder, trying to strengthen his connection.

Two masked figured in cloaks faded into view, probably having come from the trees surrounding the echo's location. "You have become a threat, and you need to be removed," one of the figures said emotionlessly as he drew a tanto that had a flat tip.

"Just me or the whole Uchiha Clan?" Shisui said cautiously, his eyes turning red as he activated his sharingan. The red of his eyes really stood out in contrast to the blue energy that was giving form to the echo.

"Both," the masked figures told him before blurring into motion. Naruto tried to keep up, but even in a memory, all three figures were moving too fast for him to see more than a blur.

Naruto followed the fight around the forest, moving with them as they traveled, and eventually he tripped over two prone figures laying on the ground about a hundred yards away. They were the two masked men that had been fighting Shisui, but they weren't dead either. It seemed they were merely unconscious.

Naruto focused again on the echo, having to put more effort into it as the energy was a little weaker now. He was able to skip past a lot of the fighting now that he knew that Shisui had obviously won and was looking for that spot in the echo.

After a few seconds, Naruto saw the echo Shisui stop and smile as the two masked fighters dropped to the ground unconscious. He shook his head and started to move away before a kunai being flung at him from the shadows stopped him in his tracks.

"Finally getting your hands dirty, Danzo?" Shisui said as he caught the kunai easily. "You should have known your drones couldn't defeat me."

"Indeed, you are correct," a shadow figure said as the echo suddenly got stronger, though Naruto couldn't make out more than a blurred man talking to Shisui. "It seems that I will have to do this myself."

"Why are you even doing this in the first place? You know the Hokage's plan! If I can change Fugaku's mind, either through words or with Kotoamatsukami, then the war will be averted," Shisui said to the shadowy man.

"If you believe that will work, then you are as stupid and naive as Hiruzen," Danzo said evenly. "Also, if you are willing to do that to the leader of you clan, then what is to stop you from using that technique on the Hokage or myself?"

Shisui stiffened as he drew his tanto. "So that's what this is about. You're afraid of being manipulated. Ironic and hypocritical to the last, Danzo. You probably think you can use my abilities better for your so-called 'Greater Good', but we both know that you are only interested in your own good, not the village's," Shisui said with a shake of his head.

There was more to the echo, but Naruto felt a massive explosion not too far away, and he could now sense Shisui. He was fighting for his life, probably against this 'Danzo' guy, judging by the amount of chakra being flung around.

Naruto hesitated only for a second before running as fast as he could towards where he could feel Shisui.

XxXxXxX

Only a few minutes later, Naruto skidded to a stop before he could fall off a cliff. It seems that Shisui had led Danzo to a quarry or something, Naruto wasn't sure what, but Naruto could see that Shisui was greatly outnumbered as there were other masked figures fighting him that looked like ANBU but didn't feel right.

As he watched Shisui fighting against the odds, with an older man with his right arm in a sling watching the fight as well, though he was much closer, Naruto decided to help even the odds a bit. He pulled out his bow, knowing that if he tried to get in closer, he would probably get crushed. He was good enough to be a genin, but these guys were ANBU level… or better.

Naruto knocked an arrow and took aim at one of the masked fighters that was hanging back, waiting for an opening in Shisui's defenses to attack. With only a moment of hesitation, Naruto loosed the arrow adjusting its course slightly with his mind.

The masked Root ninja saw an opening appear and was about to move to take advantage when he felt an impact to his chest knocking him back. He blinked and looked down at his chest to see an arrow sticking out of it before he slumped to the ground and knew no more.

Fortunately for Naruto, no one noticed him killing one of their own, so he knocked another arrow and took aim, this time at a ninja that was higher up who was keeping Shisui distracted by throwing shuriken at him. A few moments later and he was dead with an arrow through his throat.

Naruto purposely kept from thinking about the fact that he had already killed two men and focused on the current situation. When it was all over, and if he was still alive, then he would deal with that knowledge and its consequences.

Carefully moving to better vantage points, being extremely careful to keep himself hidden, Naruto was able to thin the forces fighting Shisui until, with a slash of his tanto, Shisui was able to kill the last Root ninja he was fighting, leaving only him and Danzo on the field.

Shisui was surprised that no more Root came to fight him, but when he looked around, he saw a number of them dead with arrows in vital locations. He stiffened as he knew instantly what had happened. He had hoped at first that one of his clan had been helping him, maybe his cousin Itachi, but he only knew two people that used arrows, and if it had been Hawk, then there would be other ANBU helping him fight. So that left only Naruto.

He turned to face Danzo with a glare. "You're out of men, Shimura! And we both know you can't defeat me, which is why you called out so many of your flunkies to try and take me down by numbers. Surrender!"

Danzo glared at Shisui, his normally cool and collected attitude shaken as he watched his men get taken out by a man that didn't have the good sense to simply give up and die. Only he had the right to wield such power, and he would have it, one way or another. For the good of Konoha… and himself.

With a blur of motion, Danzo dashed towards Shisui, but froze mid-step only a few feet away from him as he was trapped in a paralysis genjutsu that Shisui trapped him in using his sharingan.

"You're a fool, Danzo," Shisui said with a shake of his head. He turned his attention to where he saw Naruto approaching him, having climbed down from where he had been sniping the Root members trying to kill him. While he was grateful beyond words that Naruto had helped him, he was also extremely annoyed that Naruto had placed himself in such a dangerous situation. "You! What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass, it seems," Naruto shot back with a grin, though that grin faded into a look of shock as he looked past Shisui.

Shisui turned just in time to see Danzo's body shimmer slightly and break out of his genjutsu. Before he could react, Danzo closed the distance between them and shot his hand towards his face. Shisui felt a burning pain in his right eye and he jumped back, feeling a tearing sensation as Danzo ripped his eye from his socket.

Danzo looked at Shisui with a smug look before glancing down at his prize. With this one eye, he could make anyone do anything he desired, and they would never even know it. When he looked up, his smug look vanished as a cloud of smoke appeared around him as the jinchuriki brat dropped a smoke pellet near him. He looked around to try and see anything, but when he felt the eye vanish from his hand, he let out a roar of rage that blew the smoke away from him as he channeled wind chakra.

In one fell swoop, Danzo had lost over fifteen Root, Shisui's eyes, and his place in the shadows, seeing as Shisui would inform Hiruzen that he had tried to steal a sharingan. That was an act of betrayal that Hiruzen would not be able to overlook. Danzo's days in Konoha were over, and he knew it. With a rare growl of anger, Danzo hurried away. He had a lot to do, and little time to do it in.

XxXxXxX

Naruto helped support Shisui's weight as he leaned against him. They had managed to slip away, with Naruto grabbing Shisui's stolen eye as they did, but Shisui had used a lot of chakra in the fight, and he had used far too much transporting both of them far enough away to be safe from Danzo, leaving him running on fumes.

"Who was that old guy?" Naruto asked as they took a break, sitting on some rocks. Looking around, Naruto realized where they were. They weren't too fare from the cave that he had found as a kid.

Shisui held his hand to his eye, trying to stop the bleeding. "That was Elder Shimura Danzo. He's one of the Hokage's advisors, though I had no idea he was willing to go this far to get his way," Shisui said as he bit back a groan of pain. Having one's eye ripped out wasn't a pleasant experience.

Naruto could feel his pain, and the depression that was starting to set in. "But now we know, and we can go to the Hokage about it, right?"

"What's the point? Danzo was right, the Uchiha won't listen anymore and will probably start a civil war," Shisui said softly. Naruto had figured out a few things on his own, so Shisui had told him about what was going on but had made him promise not to tell anyone what was going on. With his abilities, Naruto was the keeper of lots of secrets now.

Naruto turned to look at Shisui in shock. He had never heard him say anything like that before, it went completely against Shisui's character to even think that. "The point? The point is that the Uchiha have been driven to this point by all the fear and mistrust of the village, and after what I just saw and heard, I'm willing to bet my life that that creepy old bastard was behind it all," Naruto told him with narrowed eyes. He poked his finger into Shisui's chest, drawing his attention. "And if you ever even think about giving up again, I will go into your mind and make you think you are an eight-year-old girl!"

Shisui looked up at Naruto in shock, and a bit of amusement. "Oh really?"

Naruto nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yup! I'll even have Ino braid your hair."

Shisui let out a choked laugh as Naruto glared at him. He quickly held his free hand up in surrender. "Ok, ok, no giving up, I got it."

"Good, now let's go. We're almost back to the village," Naruto said as he helped Shisui stand up. "Seriously, what would you do without me?"

Shisui chuckled as they moved on. "Probably something stupid…like give my other eye to Itachi and kill myself to protect my clan and the village."

Naruto looked up at him with a deadpan expression. "Yeah, don't ever even think about doing that again."

Shisui used his free hand to give Naruto a little salute. "Promise. By the way, how did you find us? I could have sworn we were far enough away from the village and outside the range of your mental senses that you shouldn't have been able to find us."

Naruto shrugged slightly. "I came across the echo of your fight with those first two losers and followed it."

"Ah, I see," Shisui said with a shake of his head. Just when he thought he had Naruto figured out, the kid would do something to surprise him. Shisui frowned and sighed. "But Danzo has my eye…this is really bad. You don't know what he can do with just one of my eyes, but I do. This can turn out horrible."

"You mean this eye?" Naruto said innocently as he pulled out Shisui's eye from a pouch on his belt. He had stored it in an extra plastic baggy that he kept on hand for emergencies so that it wouldn't get damaged.

Shisui was shocked yet again. "How?"

"Snagged it when I threw the smoke pellet. Figured you might want it back," Naruto told him with a wide smile.

Shisui just shook his head in wonder as he took his eye back from Naruto. He had probably just saved the village with his actions and yet the kid had no idea just how much he had really done. He would definitely be talking to the Hokage about Naruto's actions when he told the old man about Danzo's treachery.

XxXxXxX

It took them a while, but eventually the two made it back to the village, Naruto immediately taking Shisui to the hospital where the two friends waited for the Hokage to show up. Surprisingly, it only took twenty minutes for the old man to get there. Either it was a slow day for him, or he had dropped everything when he was informed about Shisui and Naruto being in the hospital.

"So, according to you, Elder Shimura used his private forces to try and subdue you, and when that failed, he attacked you himself in order to attempt to steal your eye," Hiruzen said evenly after listening to Shisui's report of what had happened. "And how does Naruto fit into this?"

"I was on my way to meet with him when I was attacked, sir. When I didn't show up, he tracked me down," Shisui replied quickly. "When he came across the battle, instead of going for help, he decided to become the help I needed and covered my back."

"And you let him?" Hiruzen said in shock.

"I didn't really know until after the fake ANBU were all dead or incapacitated. Naruto kept his distance and attacked from range with his bow," Shisui said in defense of both of them. He stared at the Hokage with his good eye, the other one wrapped to protect it from further harm after having the eye replaced by a medic ninja.

Hiruzen looked over at the sleeping Naruto nearby. He had drifted to sleep during Shisui's report, though by the frown on his face, he wasn't sleeping peacefully. "I didn't know he was that good yet."

Shisui shook his head with a slight smile. "Hokage-sama, Naruto saved my life today. Every shot he made was a kill shot and he took out seven of them himself. He then distracted Danzo with a smoke pellet and stole my eye back before I was able to grab him and make our escape. And then he was able to help me get my head on straight afterwards, even though I know he was struggling himself to keep from thinking about the people he killed today," Shisui told his leader softly. He been around Naruto's age when he made his first kill, so he could understand how the boy felt.

Hiruzen studied the young boy carefully before turning to look at Shisui. "How good is he, Shisui?" he asked the injured man.

"Honestly, Hokage-sama, I don't know. Every time I think I know what he can do, he finds a new way to surprise me," Shisui told him honestly. "Though I can tell you, sir, that he is at least genin level, and with some one-on-one training on a constant basis, he could be chunnin level in less than a year."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow in surprise. That was high praise from Shisui. He glanced back at Naruto in thought. A reward was in order for the boy, but he wasn't sure what. It would require some thought. Hiruzen turned his attention back to Shisui. "Very well. Now, do you feel able to continue your mission? I doubt I need to tell you how vital it is that we prevent a civil war."

Shisui nodded his head, though he winced slightly as his right eye pulsed with pain as the nerves continued to heal. "I understand, Hokage-sama. Once I'm released from the hospital, I will continue my mission, hopefully without further interference from Danzo," he told his leader. "Though, sir, I have a feeling that even if I can change Fugaku's mind, there will be some Uchiha that won't fall in line."

Hiruzen nodded and pulled out his pipe to start stuffing it with tobacco. "I agree, but this will give us more time to find a way to end this without bloodshed, I hope. Now, be careful, Shisui, and stay safe." With that, Hiruzen turned and headed out the door. He had a lot of work to get done thanks to this debacle.

"As you command, Hokage-sama," Shisui said softly to the almost empty room.

Whew! So, Naruto and Anko have met, and sparks have flown resulting in Naruto finding out about his status as a Jinchūriki! And then, on top of that, Naruto saved Shisui from losing an eye to Danzo and having to commit suicide to keep the other one from that old fossil. One can only imagine how this will change how the future unfolds.

Let me know what you think!