When Naruto first became aware of the nine-tails, it was the night Mizuki told him, before he was carted off by ANBU and never seen again, making Tsubaki sensei cry. Everyone, even Iruka and the third seemed to ignore the fact that Naruto now knew what resided inside him, and sent him off to bed instead.

In the early hours of the morning, in his empty apartment where Haku and Karin had yet to arrive, Naruto took a deep breath, and fell into a part of himself he hadn't known was there.

It was a stinking sewer, bits of trash floating past his ankles, dark water swirling around his legs like it wanted to pull him down too. He followed the tunnel until he came across a huge cage.

Eyes the size of a building glared at him with malice. Stinking breath hissed at him, and jagged yellow teeth the size of Zabuza's sword gnawed at the cage to get to him.

The Fox.

It roared at him, and Naruto was blown backwards into the darkness of the sewer.

He sat up with a gasp, sweaty hands clutching the bed sheets, alarm blaring that he had school in half an hour.

He got ready, put on his headband from Iruka, and plastered on a smile.

Looking into the mirror at his bright white teeth and sparkling blue eyes, he almost believed it.

For a while afterwards, he was too scared to go and visit the fox again. It was a hellish creature that killed Iruka's parents and made it so Naruto was a hated outcast. It was the root cause for everything wrong in his life and Naruto wanted nothing to do with it.

So he ignored the Fox as best he could, going about missions with team seven with them none the wiser with his inner conflict. It was all going smoothly.

Until the wave mission.

The fox's hatred and loathing had boiled under his skin and to the surface until Naruto couldn't tell the fox's loathing apart from his own. It scared him even more than Zabuza.

By the time he finally got the fox under control and locked it in a tight little box in the ugliest corner of his mind, the battle was over, they were all okay-except Zabuza. Sakura, Haruhi, and Sasuke nearly dying had shaken him. He hadn't realized how important they had become to him until then.

He knew he had to get the fox under control, or he could end up hurting them.

Starting as soon as they got back, Naruto would visit the fox every night. He spoke to it, and tried not to scream too much when it scared him. As he continued to visit the fox, he began to realize the fox wanted to be there even less than Naruto wanted it there.

Naruto began to sympathize with it.

It was trapped and locked up for goodness knows how long, and forced to be a chakra battery to people who didn't appreciate him and used him. It became angry and hateful after being mistreated for so long.

Naruto couldn't help but see himself in the Fox.

Maybe Mizuki was right.

To a degree.

After training for so long with team seven, Naruto could better harness his Chakra. Unlike before, where his ignorance and lack of talent kept him unaware of the Fox, he could now always feel it lurking on the edge of himself, ever present.

When fighting Gaara in the Forest of Death, he felt the fox snarling at the other jinjuriki. Naruto didn't know there were others like him out there but if The fox was the ninetails, then it made sense for the other eight to be there as well.

The fight is at once a blur and crystal clear. Naruto is forced to use the Fox's chakra to make a wind ninjutsu that mixes with Sasuke's great fireball technique to turn an arm of Gaara's sand into immobile glass. Sasuke pumps so much chakra into his fireball technique it turns blue. Red energy lashes the air around him and Karin is gawking at him. Tenten looks at him with eyes as sharp as her weapons, and they escape on Haku's rabbit summon, with a horrifically injured Ino.

When they rescue Haruhi and Sasuke, Naruto thinks about taking more chakra to fight Orochimaru.

He stands before the cage once again, then pauses.

"I know you don't like me, and I can't blame you. I know bad stuff has been done to you, but I need to borrow some chakra, or else we both die here!"

The fox, who had been growling, looks startled instead. Had no one ever asked before?

They escape.

After the trial, Tenten approached him. Her adopted older sister, the blacksmith named Emi had finally relaxed enough to let Tenten go again. The grim line of her face and the knowing glint in her eyes told Naruto all he needed to know.

"Don't tell anyone. Please." He ground out, teeth clenched and trying not to cry.

Tenten approached him gently and pulled him into a hug.

"I won't."

They sat on the Hokage monument for awhile. He could feel the heat of her unsaid questions.

"Ask away."

She hesitated.

"How long were you the nine-tailed fox for?"

"Since the day of my birth."

"When did you find out?"

"The day we had the genin exams."

Tenten deliberated. Then took a deep breath.

"You know Gaara is one as well, right?"

Naruto nodded.

"His seal isn't like yours. It was risky and experimental. It allows him more access to the one-tails and therefore his power, but that also goes the other way. It means he cannot sleep, and the one-tails is constantly whispering to him. He wants to do better, but he can't hold his resolve forever."

"That's true."

Then Tenten blushed.

"T-temari, she, uh…"

Naruto smirked.

"Yeah?"

Tenten got serious, shaking off her heart-eyes.

"She approached me before they went back to Suna. Temari will see about getting Lady Chiyo to strengthen the seal, but that might be fruitless. I was hoping to study your seal to see if I could garner anything to help."

Naruto froze. So did the fox.

"I mean study it, not mess around with it, I won't try to change or alter it, I just want to see why yours is stable and Gaara's isn't."

Naruto considered.

Then nodded.

As he walked behind Tenten who was shamelessly getting information out of Jiraiya, he could only smirk.

Her hand was held snugly and safely in Kakashi's hand, a physical promise of his to support her as they continued onward and away from Konoha. Her nerves were firing rapidly, mind stuck in the Wave mission.

Sasuke and Naruto were walking in front of them, hands and shoulders bumping occasionally as they followed the steps of Jiraiya and Tenten. The two boys had become close friends, and seemed to find comfort in the presence of the other, haunted respectively by insane elder brothers and creepy godfathers.

As they boys ducked their heads to whisper about something or other, Haruhi couldn't help but notice the puppy fat on their cheeks, and how their hands were still smaller than were still so young.

Sensing Haruhi's mood drop, Kakashi took to rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. His eyes never left Jiraiya from over the book.

Tenten was still asking rapid fire questions about sealing, and Jiriaya had given many useful tips and information.

"It's refreshing to see the youth so interested in seals!" Jiriaya laughed. "Many consider it to be a dying art. So many of the old masters are gone, and many consider sealing to require too much effort."

"What sort of effort?" Tenten asked.

"Creativity, discipline, accuracy, that sort of thing."

Tenten smirked. She had those things in spades.

"Where did you learn sealing theory from?"

Jiriaya, almost unnoticeable unless one was waiting for it, glanced back at Naruto.

"From Teachers that are now long gone. Most sealmakers only focus on lower tier seals. Not enough to be called masters. They make sealing scrolls and seal bombs, which are pretty basic. But anything more complicated is lost to them."

"So if I wanted to learn more, what could I do?"

"I can't personally teach you everything, but I could give you a few books on sealing theory, fundamentals, and beyond. A few people in Konoha have enough skill to also be considered masters or near maester level. Genma Shiranui is one I can think of if you want to contact of the sand perhaps."

Tenten's eyes flashed.

"Koharu Utatane is another. Have you heard of her?"

Tenten raised her eyebrows and Haruhi tried not to think of the trial.

"I have." She said flatly.

"Old Koharu is probably the best out there besides myself. She specializes in modification seals. If you can convince her to teach you she will."

"Great." Tenten wrote that down, along with taking the offered sealing texts and storing them in her sealing scroll. "What about enhancement seals?"

Jiriaya whistled, shooting Tenten a considerate look.

"That would be the lady we are currently going after. Tsunade Senju isn't quite as good as I am, but when it comes to body modification/enhancement seals, she's the expert. Her strength of a hundred seal is notoriously hard to pull off, but gives incredibly strength. You'd have to have the chakra control of a medic nin though."

Tenten's eyes sparkled, and she wrote something else down. Haruhi knew she was thinking of Sakura.

"Have you heard of Tsunade?" jiriaya asked.

Tenten then did something that belied her serious laid back nature.

She giggled.

"Have I? Who hasn't!? Everyone loved her back at the orpha-" Tenten cut herself off. Haruhi had forgotten that Tsuande was Tenten's role model, and the main inspiration for becoming a kunoichi.

"Tsunade-sama set strength records, she crushed the boulders at the twin peaks pass with her bare hands and could practically reanimate the dead!"

Haruhi felt bad for Tenten and all the other orphan kids for when they found out how jaded and washed out Tsuande was. Not that Haruhi could blame the woman after all she went through.

"Kakashi over here isn't too shabby himself."

Tenten whipped her head around to stare at him, a gleam in her eye, and he waved his had with the book in it. Haruhi knew he was working on her seal to get her back home.

As they walked down the path shaded by trees, Haruhi could only wonder what could happen next.

Moegi sighed as she scuffed her sandals against the tree bark.

She had been rather lonely as of late. Naruto had gone on a quest. Sakura was busy with her parents and the hospital. Hanabi had reconciled with her big sister, and while Moegi felt happy for her, she was suddenly spending almost all her free time with Hinata. Udon parents were keeping him close to home to help his grandparents recover from the invasion awhile ago.

Ebisu sensei was busy with some higher up jonin stuff and told her to practice on her own.

She sighed heavily, throwing a kunai quickly at a target from her perch. It was off.

Konohamaru was so sad lately. Moegi didn't know why, but she thinks his grandfather isn't doing well.

Which is very scary.

Moegi jumps down quickly, like she can run from the fear inside her.

Her mom and mama were worried too. They tried not to show it though. A sense of fear and disquiet had settled over Konoha, like the very village was holding its breath. Even though most of the damage had been fixed since the attack, everyone was still so scared. Many had figured out that not all was right anymore.

And that maybe it had never been.

Udon's grandparents certainly thought so.

Thinking about his grandparents made her think of her's. Her mama knew her parents, and Moegi met them after her father died in the third shinobi war and her mom started dating her mama when Moegi was a toddler. They were very nice and Moegi loved them very much.

Her father's parents didn't like her mom marrying mama, and didn't talk to them anymore.

Her mom didn't know her parents. She was found as a baby abandoned near the tail end of the second shinobi war. She had strawberry blond hair, and a large chakra pool. Mom speculated one or both of her parents were ninja.

So Moegi's other grandparents were probably people who died in the second ninja war.

Moegi walked around, before deciding to do something with her own sizable shakra pool.

She heard there was this thing called tree-walking from Naruto. You channeled your chakra and could stick to a tree.

Or something.

Moegi walked over to a tree that looked to be dying. One to many fire jutsu's. It was about ten feet tall, with withered leaves and scorched bark.

Moegi took a deep breath, focused her chakra to her feet, and pressed it to the bark.

She was blown backwards.

Moegi tried again, decreasing the amount of Chakra, only to slide right off the tree.

She threw a fit, before calming down, taking a deep breath, and sinking into a light meditation like Tsubaki-sensei taught them.

She felt the power of her chakra move through and around her, felt the mightiness of it, and placed the sole of her foot to the trunk.

Something… happened.

She felt her chakra move and intertwine with the natural chakra in the tree, become one. She felt and saw as the scorched healed and the leaves raised up and became a magnificent emerald green.

Before her very eyes, the tree healed, and grew several feet taller.

Moegi just stared at it.

She had done that. There was no mistaking it for anything else.

Quickly, Moegi moved to a little sapling a couple feet away from the now healed tree.

Calming her racing heart, she concentrated, and sent threads of her chakra into the baby tree.

It grew right before her very eyes, trunk solidifying, branches extending until something that wasn't even up to her knee was now taller than her.

Her mind raced.

How was this possible.

Her thoughts went to her mom's unknown lineage, and to the history books she read about. The ones with the first Hokage, explaining his wood release. How he could make trees grow with nothing but his chakra. How he was hunted down and killed at the end of the first shinobi war for his ability, and how desperately and viciously people tried to steal the ability, but to no avail. It was the reason the Senju were all but gone now.

Moegi whipped her head around, to make sure no one saw that.

She took one step back.

Then another.

She broke into a run, desperate to be held in her mothers' arms again.

Wow! Don't you just love Tenten? And Moegi's got the wood release, what!?

Question of the chapter: Which chapters, out of morbid curiosity, made you cry? (I ask this because I want to know if my writing is genuinely impactful on my readers, and if this question is unsettling, please abstain from answering) What do you think of Moegi?