The next few days were spent exploring and cataloging what was in the house. The three locked rooms also had blood seals on them, and I couldn’t help but be amused with how paranoid my parents had been. One room was a study, clearly belonging to Minato. One was a library with an absolutely absurd amount of books and scrolls, a lot of which weren’t shelved. I made three clones for each of those rooms and tasked them on cleaning and finding out what was in there.

  The last room was the largest. It was a massive basement, far larger than the rest of the house. All of the walls were covered in different seals, some I recognized as space expansion, and others that strengthened the room itself. But what was really impressive was the massive amount of weapons. This was clearly an armory and training room.

  Of course not all of the weapons were out, but there were dozens of storage scrolls containing a plethora of different weapons. I hadn’t really studied any kenjutsu in my life, aside from kunai work. But…maybe that was what I needed? An edge in combat. Literally.

  Something for the future. “Okay.” I formed a handsign and pumped quite a bit of chakra into it. “Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!”

  In a massive puff of smoke, thirty clones appeared in the room. Thankfully Shadow Clone really did not require precision. I could just dump chakra at it and get the results I wanted with no finesse.

  “Group one, library.” I pointed at a group of ten clones. “Find and read anything on fuinjutsu.”

  They nodded and sprinted up the stairs.

  “Group two, office.” I pointed at eight clones. “Three of you start reading about the Flying Raijin, the rest of you start going through whatever dad had in there.”

  They dashed upstairs as well.

  “Final group, chakra exercises. Get leaves from the backyard. You know the drill, start with leaf sticking, then palm hovering, then finger, then multiple fingers if any of us can get that far.”

  With a solute, this final group ran up the stairs.

  “Yosh!” I called out with a big grin on my face before I started stretching.

  “And what are you going to do?” Kurama asked, curiosity dripping from his tone.

  “Strength training, of course,” I said, still grinning. Clones could learn things, work on chakra control, create muscle memory, but all the actual strengthening was on me.

  Like that, time passed.

  Itachi never told the Hokage, or if he did, the old man never said anything. We still had talks every so often, and he also asked what was wrong. I used the excuse that the Academy was hard, and everyone was mean, including the teachers. And seeing everyone getting picked up or dropped off by their family really hurt. Of course, it wasn’t actually me he was talking to, but the clone pretending to be me.

  He was upset, but only gave his usual set of excuses, excusing the actions of everyone around me. Even when I tried to press the issue, call out specific things, I was ignored. It was hard to not go off at him. Instead I just pranked him harder. That was something that I still greatly enjoyed doing. It was just harmless fun. Old age had never kicked my habit of pranks.

  As far as training went, I had gotten myself up to one hundred clones after a few months with Kurama's help - I didn’t have room for more - and was almost at the stage where I could start tree climbing. Every few days, I pumped a clone full of chakra and had it delivered to the school clone. Part of me wanted to know how long a clone like that could last, so I was just refilling it rather than replacing it.

  Research into fuinjutsu was going surprisingly well, and it really made me appreciate just how absolutely complicated the seal that held the Kyubi was. When I had finally figured out how to expand it to view it in its entirety, I was shocked. Hundreds of intricate sealing formulas all meshed together to form one cohesive pattern. Just looking at it made me dizzy. But I was getting there.

  As Kurama had suggested, I found a fuinjutsu that made an area appear as it did when the seal was applied, and would remain that way until the seal was turned off. Then I spent weeks cleaning up the front and back yards. Gardening and plants in general were something that I greatly enjoyed in my later years in life. I even had a bonsai I had cultivated for ninety years.

  So of course I bought numerous houseplants. Actually, I probably bought too many.

  But I was going to blame that on the fact that it was Ino’s family, the Yamanaka’s who ran the shop I bought seeds and plants from, and they were extremely kind. Neither Ino or her parents ever overcharged me, and even gave me things for free. Throw in that it was actually weird how much Ino and I had in common when it came to plants, and we somehow became friends. Although she was extremely wary of me at first, since I was already known as a prankster.

  Hinata was another problem entirely. I had tried numerous times to talk with her, but she would just blush and become a complete stammering mess. So I had taken to just sitting near her and being in her company in silence, which she seemed almost thankful for. Ino started joining us as well.

  Choji and Shikamaru were also people I was starting to get close with. And much to my bafflement, Shino. It started when I asked the boy a question about a beetle specimen I had found in the home library. Apparently it was rare and hadn’t been seen in decades. I’d given it to him, since he knew so much more about it and actually had wanted it. He also never asked where I got it.

  Much to my surprise, we all became a rather odd group of friends; Ino would complain about Choji and Shikamaru being lazy - she really suffered being on a team with those two - and spent a lot of time talking with Hinata about things, while Shino usually just quietly observed and hung out, occasionally giving input on a subject out of nowhere and surprising all of us that he was even there.

  It was nice.

  Until it happened. The Uchiha Incident. Eleven months after I returned and had that conversation with Itachi. There wasn’t a hint anything had happened at first, except that Sasuke never showed up to class one day. And that never happened. He hadn’t missed a single day that I was aware of, so when he didn’t show up I knew it was bad.

  News of the event came out slowly. Itachi was classified as a Missing-nin for killing nearly every member of his clan. There were only two survivors: Sasuke Uchiha and his mother Mikoto Uchiha.

  It was two weeks before Sasuke returned to class, looking depressed and cold just like I expected. I wondered if his mother had explained things to him. Explained that his father and the rest of the clan were about to attempt a coup, and Itachi chose the village over himself and his own clan. Time would tell.

  Months later, after I turned eight, I hit a problem with Kurama’s seal. I wasn’t making any progress with the material I had. It was starting to look like I would just be stuck for a very long time. Then Kurama suggested I attempt the summoning jutsu. Maybe I would get lucky and the toads would respond, since my chakra should be similar to my fathers. My attempt at performing the summoning jutsu had… strange results.

  For a moment nothing happened. Then there was a poof of smoke, and for the briefest of moments I thought I had succeeded, but instead of a toad sitting in front of me, there was a fox. The vixen was white in color, with black, orange, and red symbols painted on her face. “You’re chakra is really interesting!” she exclaimed, hopping around. Which is when I noticed the two tails.

  “Uh… Who are you?” I asked cautiously, watching the creature.

  She stopped and was suddenly in front of me, putting her paws on my chest, which drew my attention to the fact that she was quite large. Bigger than me in fact. “I’m Jiji!” she greeted happily.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jiji… I’m Naruto. Uh… Did I summon you?” I asked.

  “Naruto…” she said slowly, as if tasting the words. “Hey, hey.” She pat my chest several times. “You don’t have a summon contract right? Right?”

  “Not at the moment,” I replied honestly.

  “Excelent! Let’s go!”

  I opened my mouth to ask what they meant, but my entire world seemed to tilt before twisting and distorting before in a blink I was somewhere else. It felt like my whole world was spinning. I was in some sort of bamboo forest, with mist swirling around. Ahead was a sort of monastery or shrine looking building. And there were foxes similar to Jiji everywhere.

  Thinking of Jiji, she was bouncing around me, now and then pushing on my back with her head. “C’mon! C’mon! We haven’t had a contractor in such a long time!”

  “You…want me to be your contractor?” Just saying that seemed to get the attention of every fox in the courtyard, and they all began hopping and yipping around excitedly. They ranged in color from the red-orange matching Kurama, to shades of gray, brown of differing levels, and white like Jiji. Not all of them had face paint, but they all had between one and three tails.

  “Yes, yes. Ayma!” Jiji suddenly called out, and rushed into a nearby building, the door sliding out of her way as she approached, and then slamming shut behind her.

  There was a moment of silence. A moment of calm before I was suddenly swarmed with foxes. Some of them talked and asked questions, but others only made noises that I didn’t understand. They were hopping around, many of them nudging me with their noses or tails, while some pawed at me to try and get my attention.

  “I’m Naruto,” I introduced myself, since I had heard several of them asking who I was. I couldn’t help but laugh at their antics.

  “Enough,” came a voice, and all of the foxes froze for a second before they all suddenly appeared several feet away, bowing towards a figure that was walking out of the building, Jiji behind them with her head lowered.

  The old fox, as that was the only way of describing them, walked slowly towards me. He was massive. I had no idea how he even fit in that building considering he was almost as big as it, and that was very much a regular size door. His fur was gray, and he had black and silver face markings. There was a long pipe in his mouth, similar to the one the old man had, and he even had a similar hat to the one worn by the Hokage. In fact, he was the spitting image of the third Hokage, but a fox.

  With a bit of a smile, I bowed to him. “My name is Naruto Uzumaki.”

  “So I’ve been told,” he said as he sat down. Expertly, he pulled the pipe from his mouth, holding it out to the side. Without a word, two foxes began to refill and tamp the pipe. They lit it before he brought it back to his mouth and took a deep drag and breathed it out the sides of his mouth before speaking, “I am Aymaphosa. Current leader of the Fox Clan.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said with another slight bow.

  He looked me up and down for a moment before nodding. “You’ll do,” he said finally and somehow snapped the fingers of his paw. A brown three tailed fox that was missing an eye came forward. I watched as he pulled a large scroll from the fluff of his tail, one that was definitely far too large to fit inside, and unfurled it in front of me.

  Immediately I recognized the scroll as a summoning contract.

  “It’s been a long time since our last summoner died,” Aymaphosa explained slowly, looking at the contract. “Jiji says that when you performed the summoning ritual, and without an active contract, your chakra called out to us.”

  “That’s probably thanks to the Kyubi,” I mused aloud.

  If I thought they were excited before, they were far more excited now. “You are the container for Lord Kyubi?” Aymophosa said, his eyes practically sparkling.

  Slowly, I nodded. “Yes?”

  “Then… Please.” He gestured at the contract. “Please, we would gladly become your summons. While most of us are pacifistic, our illusions and manipulation of time and space are unmatched. When we were well known, we were known as the Messengers of the Gods, because there is no place that we cannot enter and nothing we cannot deliver.”

  As I looked around, I realized I was surrounded by so many foxes ranging in size from teacup, to one larger than the Hokage tower. All of them giving me pleading looks. And clearly it was more than just their natural expression, as I could feel the slight amplification of chakra. It was a puppy-dog eye jutsu. As if they weren’t cute enough already.

  “They would be useful,” Kurama commented, having been silently observing until now. “I thought their clan had gone extinct, as I had not seen them since your humans' First Shinobi War. But it seems that only their summoners were hunted down. Though that may also have been since I was sealed…”

  “Hunted?” I asked mentally as I looked over the contract. Nothing seemed off about it, but I did note that they specified that they would not deliver anything that would cause harm to the recipient.

  “Imagine a creature that can get past any barrier. Bypass any security. Ignore patrols,” he continued. Which was honestly a terrifying thought. “Then add that they can simply appear to not be there if they are caught, or make others see things as if they were under the effects of powerful genjutsu, even to sensors with above decent skill. Averse to causing harm as many of them may be, they can be an absolute menace if applied correctly. And the few that do engage in battle were quite formidable.”

  With a nod, I sliced my thumb with my canine and signed my name. The amount of cheering and celebration was startling. Several foxes pounced on me, rubbing against me and saying things like I would not regret it, or how excited they were to work with me.

  “Enough.” Was all the old fox had to say to end their celebration and have them all returned to their positions. But even then I could see the excitement on his face. “We may be a minor clan, but we hope that we will be of help,” Aymophosa said before bowing. “Thank you.”

  All of the other foxes bowed as well, muttering their thanks. It was honestly a bit weird that they all did that.

  When I was returned, I had to think for a few minutes on what to do with this new found boon. Messages that could be delivered to anywhere, to anyone? There were a lot of things I could do with that.

  Heading up to my fathers office, I started to pen letters to all of the other Jinchuriki. The only restriction to sending a letter was I needed to know their name, and I knew all of their names. In the letters I explained who I was, that I housed the Kyubi, and warned them of the Akatsuki and their goal to capture and extract the biju from them. Of course I also added a bit about possibly helping each other and being allies. The only letter I really customized was the one to Gaara. I expressed that I was hated and feared by almost the entire village, and it took a lot of effort to find people that I could call friends. I ended it offering that if he wanted, I could be his friend.

  Satisfied with that, I sent the foxes on their way. And over the next year there had been some correspondence between the other Jinchuriki. Most of them took a few days to respond, but all of them seemed willing to keep in contact. Especially the one called Fu. It seemed that she was definitely in a similar boat to how I had been and was almost desperate for companionship. Gaara had been extremely cautious at first, but over the months I was whittling down his defenses. By the time he showed up for the Chunin Exam we’d be the best of friends.

  Ukataka was an interesting case. Holding the Six-Tails while also being a Missing-nin posed a bit of a problem. However, that seemed to solve itself when I explained that Isobu - the Fourth Mizukage of Kirigakure - was also a Jinchuriki. Apparently neither of them knew that the other possessed a biju. It took some careful planning, with myself as the middle man, to get them to meet. Kinda wish I had been there for their face to face meeting, but I also knew why they didn’t want me there.

  A month after that was the point I hit another problem. But things were still oddly nice. It was like getting a little bit of the childhood that I never got. Sakura almost joined our little group thanks to Ino, but quickly distanced herself when the two of them started butting heads over Sasuke.

  On a whim, I decided to engage Sasuke in conversation when we were nine. I had been watching the young Uchiha become more and more withdrawn. I asked if he and his mother were doing alright. He got really mad and asked why I would care, and I explained that she and my mother were friends. The way that all his bravado deflated was almost amusing. It took him a few moments before he told me that sometimes she doesn’t eat, or he finds her crying.

  That wasn’t the problem. The problem was what happened a few weeks later. After class he approached me and reluctantly invited me to dinner on behalf of his mother. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been in front of the entire damn class. Getting those memories from my clone during a refresh was almost painful with how awkward it had been.

  But I decided to accept, and was now heading to dinner. The real me. Not a clone, but the real me, out and about. It was the first time that the real me actually willingly exited the Namikaze residence since entering all those years ago. I just sent clones out to do things while I trained.

  It was weird having to transform into a version of myself that was shorter and skinnier. Almost malnourished. But I had to keep up the disguise. My body was more than a little different at this point. I hadn’t cut my hair, and I had put on a lot of muscle and several inches of height. I felt stronger now than when I graduated as a Genin. That was all thanks to the fact I took a page out of Guy Sensei’s book and used weight, but in a better way. Instead of just wearing weights, I used a personal gravity seal and a chakra syphon seal that I had found in my mothers library.

  It was brutal every time I turned up the gravity seal a notch, but it would be extremely worth it later. The chakra syphon was even worse. It absorbed a certain amount of chakra, sealing it into a scroll. Every time I increased its draw it put me back to day one almost every time, and I had to start over at leaf sticking, working my way back to water walking. So far I had only increased them twice in the time I’d been training. I knew the only reason why I could even keep up this pace was thanks to Kurama’s ability to heal what I was doing to my body.

  It also helped that I was relearning skills and concepts, rather than building them from nothing.

  It wasn’t the proper use for the chakra syphon. Originally it was supposed to take in a certain amount of chakra to be used at a later time. But with a slight modification I managed to make it constantly draw instead of being all at once. It also meant I was ending up with a lot of scrolls that were full of a rather absurd amount of chakra.

  Entering the Uchiha compound was…eerie to say the least. It was on the edge of the village, almost shoved into a corner away from everyone. Which I knew to be the case. But it was the silence that really got to me. All those abandoned buildings, and knowing that the inhabitants had been slaughtered was almost painful.

  The massive house that Sasuke and his mother lived in was just as imposing as it always was. Surprisingly, Sasuke was waiting outside, leaning against a supporting pillar. He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

  “You came,” he said flatly, his eyes narrowing slightly.

  “Yes?” I responded, tilting my head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but before he had the chance, the door opened. “Sasuke? Dinner is almost ready.” The woman who appeared in the door was fair-skinned, with straight black hair that roughly framed her face. She was wearing a simple blouse with a red-plum skirt, and a light yellow apron that was almost familiar. Her eyes seemed to widen a bit when she spotted me. “Oh my, Naruto. You came.”

  I bowed slightly. “Yes, thank you for inviting me.”

  The smile that she gave me was so warm and genuine that it actually made me relax. I had already gotten used to the looks the villagers were giving me, again. So seeing her actually look happy to see me was really nice. “Please, come in. The both of you.” She gestured for us to enter as she moved back inside.

  The two of us stared at each other for a moment, before I took a step forward, removing my shoes as I entered. Sasuke was right behind me, and then silently led me to the dining room. It was awkward, but only in that way when no one knew what to say.

  The awkwardness lasted until part of the way through dinner, when Mikoto decided to break the silence. “So, Naruto… How uhm… did you find out about your mother and I?”

  That felt like such a loaded question. But at the same time, with her history, I honestly couldn’t see her running to the Hokage with any information that I gave her. “It was in one of her journals,” I said after a moment. Which was true. Mikoto was my mothers best friend, and she wrote about her often.

  “I see… I…” The words seemed to get caught in her throat for a moment before she managed to recover. “Your mother and I were very close…” A fond smile came to her face as she seemed to get lost in memories. “She once asked me if giving birth was painful. There was something about child birth that terrified her.” She shook her head.

  I smiled a bit. I knew the real reason. That’s when the seal became weak, and she was afraid Kurama would get free. “She never struck me as someone afraid of anything.”

  A soft giggle escaped her and she nodded. “Very true. Honestly, I’m surprised the Hokage let you have any of her journals.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Another probing question. I glanced at Sasuke, who was remaining quiet and just watching. There was a certain calculating look in his eye that I was extremely familiar with.

  With a bit of a chuckle of my own, I answered her honestly. “He didn’t.”

  Her chopsticks stopped in the air, and her eyes became a bit unfocused. Slowly her focus came back to me, and her expression was questioning. Sasuke seemed even more interested, though he was trying to keep his nonchalant attitude.

  “He doesn’t want me to learn about anything,” I said, and I couldn’t help the small amount of bitterness that slipped into my tone. “All I get from him are lies. He knows things. I know he knows. He knows that I know he knows. And yet he still lies.” It was the most annoying thing about talking with the old man. He was clearly aware that I knew something, but he deflected all my attempts at questioning. If I wanted to get anything out of him, I was going to have to practically yell at him.

  A bit of a sad expression found its way onto her face. “I tried to take you in, you know?”

  Now it was my turn to freeze and stare at her.

  “Lord Third refused. Said that there were reasons that you could not be taken in by the Uchiha clan. Or any clan for that matter…” She took a bite of her food. “I was the closest thing you had to family, and he refused.” Her chopsticks suddenly snapped from how hard she was squeezing them, and it seemed to startle her out of whatever spiral she was having. “Ah. I’m sorry. I… I need to get a new pair,” she said as she walked out of the room.

  Sasuke and I watched her leave, and both of us remained watching the way she went before turning back to our food. Several minutes passed, and it was clear she had gone to calm down. Sasuke finally broke his silent streak, “That’s the first time she’s laughed since…”

  I almost didn’t hear him, but I turned my full attention to him now. He was glaring down at his bowl. This man- this kid was my brother in another life. And apparently he was almost an adoptive brother. But I just didn’t know what to say to him.

  Suddenly he stood up. “Thank you for coming over,” he muttered, before leaving the room.

  Neither of them returned, and eventually I decided to excuse myself from their home, and head out. The entire situation had been extremely awkward. And yet, for some reason, they invited me again for the next week. Which is how we started a weird tradition. Most of the time it was silent, or we would talk about things we learned in class. I didn’t go all the time, usually just sending my clone.

  When I turned ten was when quite a lot of things started to click into place.

  The first major breakthrough was finally comprehending the Flying Raijin Technique. Four years of research, and I finally understood it. All thanks to the help of a fox named Skiar, one of the older three tailed foxes that liked to hang out and help with my research. “Look, it’s mostly these two seals. This creates a chakra marker, and this one folds space to bring you to its location when you activate it. It’s just like how us members of the Fox Clan do it,” he explained as he adjusted his glasses. It was always amusing to see a silver colored fox wearing fancy spectacles.

  It was like having some kind of revelation. It all seemed to click into place and I understood it. It still took months to perfect and actually successfully perform the Flying Raijin, but I had actually done it. Then it was all about perfecting it and practice, which thanks to Shadow Clones, I could do faster than anyone.

  But of course everything couldn’t go too long before a problem came up.

  Six months after training with the Flying Raijin Technique began, I was suddenly struck with the memories of a clone.

  I had been aware that the long term clone had been struggling. Existing so long like this was starting to actually wear him out mentally. When he received new information from other clones, if it was too much he tended to zone out as he was forced to organize new memories, and he was losing the ability to do that quickly. I had actually started thinking about replacing him with a fresh clone.

  Unfortunately I waited too long.

  It was Saturday, and there were no lessons that day. The clone was a bit sluggish to get up. Why was he getting up at all? Oh right, someone was knocking at the door. Probably the old man, or Iruka Sensei. The man had come around and was actually a lot kinder to Naruto since last year. That disconnect of Nine-Tails and container finally settling into place.

  However, when he opened the door, it wasn’t either of them. “Oh, hey guys. What’s up?” he asked to the group. Standing in the hallway was Ino, Choji, Shikamaru, Shino, and Hinata.

  Ino let out an over dramatic sigh. “We were supposed to meet at Ichiraku’s like half an hour ago.”

  He blinked at them. “Oh. Sorry, I guess I overslept,” he said with a slight chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “How’d you guys even know where my apartment was?”

  “Hinata,” Choji said simply, making the girl make a slight noise of surprise.

  Should have probably expected that from my little stalker. “Oh, right. Well, give me a moment and I’ll get my coat,” he said as he retreated back to his room.

  Ino stepped in, looking around and frowning. “Where’s all the plants you’ve bought?” she asked a bit accusingly, not seeing any of them.

  “Oh, they’re at home,” he said, and it wasn’t until he was half way through putting on his coat that he realized what he had just said. He looked back, noting the confused and calculating looks on their faces. “Crap…”

  “What do you mean at home?” Ino asked, her tone thick with suspicion. “Isn’t this your home?”

  “I… Uh…” He was panicking now. His thought process faltering. He really had been around too long. In his panic, he immediately turned away and made a hand sign. “Shadow Clone Jutsu,” he said hurriedly, much to the shock of all those present as a clone of him appeared in front of him, and immediately dispersed to refresh the memories back to the original.

  Shikamaru’s eyes narrowed in recognition. But before anyone had the chance to say anything, I appeared in front of the clone with a flash. Immediately I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. “You idiot! You had one job!”

  “I’m sorry, Boss,” he managed. “I just… I can’t… Brain…”

  I sighed as I pushed him over. “Okay… Well… Crap. Four years is definitely too long…” I looked over at the five who were now crowded in my entry room, gaping at my appearance. It was the first time in years that anyone had seen what I actually looked like. I was wearing a simple black shirt and shorts. My hair was now much longer, as I hadn’t cut it in four years and just had it held back by a simple strip of cloth. Probably the most noticeable difference was the fact I was nearly a foot taller than my clone, and far more muscular. “Uh, hey guys.” Mentally, I quickly asked, “Are we being monitored?”

  “Clear for now,” came a rumbling response.

  “Naruto?” Ino asked incredulously.

  “Yeah. That’s my name. Hey, so I can explain everything. But not here.” I looked out the window. “So if you want to find out, you’re going to have to come with me.”

  There was a moment of hesitation, but Hinata was the first one to step forward, tapping her fingers together. “I… I’ll come…”

  Shino was the next to step forward. Shikamaru and Choji both shrugged at each other, though the former let out a grumble of “Troublesome” before stepping forward.

  “Where are we going?” Ino asked as she closed the door, stepping towards me.

  With a quick handseal I summoned four clones, and all of us extended a hand out towards them. “Grab on, and hold on tight. It’s a bit rough with passengers.”

  Again there was some hesitation, but eventually they all reached forward, firmly grasping onto a clone. Though I had to practically force Hinata to grab my hand, giving her a bit of a smile as I did. Her face went bright red and I was worried she was going to pass out.

  With a flash we all appeared in the underground training ground. Everyone either dropped to their knees, or put their hands on their knees to keep upright. “Okay, everyone out!” I announced to the many clones who had stopped training to look at what was going on. But at the order, all of them raced upstairs out of sight. “Raise your hand if you need a bucket,” I said to my group of friends, and was slightly amused when Choji and Ino both raised their hands.

  “Was that… what I… think it was?” Shikamaru asked, a bit paler than normal but otherwise seeming to keep his composure.

  While I handed out the buckets, I had to give him an appreciative look. Even now he was the smartest person in the village, so I wasn’t surprised he had recognized it. “It takes quite a bit to get used to the nausea. I threw up the first several times.”

  As if on que, Choji emptied the contents of his stomach into the bucket. Ino seemed to have been holding herself together, until she heard Choji losing his breakfast, and then joined in.

  I pat Choji on the back slightly, Hinata doing the same to Ino. Surprisingly it was Shino who spoke next. “That was…an experience,” he said, and I could hear the strain in his voice.

  “Right?” I said with a chuckle. “Pretty fun now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, though.”

  “How?” Ino managed before dry heaving into the bucket.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to decide how much to explain to them. “Well, first… I have to ask that you keep everything that has happened today, and everything that will happen, a secret. Something you can’t talk about until I say otherwise.”

  “Troublesome,” Shikamaru grumbled.

  “It’s a caution,” I said with a bit of a laugh. “What you’ve seen, and the things you’re going to hear are considered an S Class Shinobi Secret. You can’t talk to anyone about it, or even mention it outside of this building.”

  They were silent for a moment, looking between each other. “Okay,” Hinata said, an odd look of determination coming to her face. After a moment everyone else agreed.

  With a nod, I gestured to the stairs. “Let’s go upstairs, I’ll make some tea.”

  Ino seemed to feel much better once we were back upstairs, and she started to examine all the plants decorating the halls. I had really gone overboard, as it was hard to really feel like you were inside with the amount of different plants. “So here they all are,” she said, sounding amused.

  “Yeah,” I said with a bit of a nervous chuckle. “I don’t uh… Actually live in the apartment.”

  “Where are we?” Choji asked softly as they sat around the dining table.

  As I started to prepare tea, I thought about how to answer that question. Shikamaru actually beat me to it. “Judging from the window, somewhere in the mid-residential district.”

  I blinked at him. The fact that he could get that from literally one window was scarily impressive. “Yup.”

  “This is the Fourth Hokege’s house,” Shino said, and I could feel every eye suddenly bore into my back.

  “Yup,” I confirmed before turning around, waiting for the tea. “Like I said. S Class Secret.” I took a moment to look at all of them in their eyes, and for once Hinata didn’t blush and shy away. “You’re looking at his son.”

  “What?!” Ino shouted, slamming her hands on the table and jumping to her feet, startling everyone.

  “How is she so loud?” Kurama grumbled.

  “Makes sense,” Shikamaru said with a nod, relaxing in his seat.

  Now everyone, including myself, was staring at him.

  He just frowned. “Troublesome… Ino, he is the only other blonde in the village that isn’t part of your family.”

  Now everyone turned their attention to Ino, who reached up and touched her hair. “Okay, yeah. But that doesn’t explain anything. If he’s the Fourth Hokage’s son, then why does no one know?”

  “Because if it got out, I would be assassinated,” I said bluntly, pulling all of the attention back to me. “Minato Namikaze was so devastating during the Third Shinobi War that he had a flee on sight order issued. Not kill. Not capture. Flee.” I paused for a moment to let that fact sink in. “He was so brutally efficient that he single handedly wiped out nearly a thousand Iwa-nin and forced them to accept a peace treaty. What do you think would happen if those other villages found out he had a son?”

  “They’d kill you,” Ino said with a sigh as she sank back into her chair. “Okay, makes sense…”

  “But why tell us?” Choji asked, munching on a bag of chips that he pulled from who-knows-where. “You could have just lied. Seems like you’ve done that a lot.”

  “That’s a good point,” Ino said, scowling at me as I brought the cups and tea to the table. “How much of you is a lie?”

  My brow furrowed as I looked at her. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You’ve clearly been hiding a lot,” Shikamaru said, watching me with oddly intense calculations. “Do we even know who you are?”

  I paused in my pouring of tea. With a sigh, I finished pouring and sat down, leaving the pot on the table. “The only thing I’ve kept from you are things I can’t tell you, and my training. I’m still me.” Again I paused. “I guess also technically my appearance, but that kind of falls into those categories.”

  There was silence, as I watched Shino and Hinata start to pour tea. They seemed oddly unfazed. Shikamaru was just staring at me, doing that hand thing he did when he was thinking, where he cupped his hands with all the tips of his fingers pressed together. Choji just shrugged and went back to eating his chips.

  Ino just looked thoughtful. “Wait. If you’re so skilled, then why are you dead last in class?”

  That seemed to get everyone's attention back on me. With a sigh, I relaxed in my chair. “Part of it is a minor deception to hide my true abilities. But mostly it’s because the teachers are sabotaging me. I’m far from the best in class, but it’s hard to do anything with all of the teachers, aside from Iruka Sensei, skewing all of my results.”

  “Why would they do that?” Choji asked.

  I could practically see Shikamaru putting pieces together at a scary pace. Before he came to what was most likely the correct conclusion, I wanted to be the one who told them. “This is also part of the whole secret, except this one goes further. If it’s found out you spread this information… the punishment is death, by order of the Hokage. So this is your last chance to back out.”

  Their eyes widened a bit, but no one responded.

  “Do any of you know what a Jinchuriki is?” I asked. Shikamaru’s eyebrows furrowed. Of course he would have heard that before.

  “No,” Ino said, and Choji was quick to also deny knowing.

  “It means the power of human sacrifice,” I began my explanation. “When someone has a biju, one of the tailed beasts, sealed within them, they become a Jinchuriki. Ten years ago, the Fourth Hokage didn’t defeat the Nine-Tails. A biju can’t be killed, they are beings made of chakra. Killing it merely makes it go away for a while until it reforms. So he sealed it within a newborn.”

  “You…” Hinata choked out. “That’s why the villagers are so cruel to you?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “So you have the Nine-Tails inside you?” Shikamaru asked, less of a question and more to just confirm it.

  Again I nodded, giving my stomach a bit of a tap.

  “That’s so stupid!” Ino shouted. “Why the hell does it matter? They treat you like crap because of something you had no control over!”

  There was a general agreement around the table, with a lot of nodding and muttered curses. I actually felt a bit touched.

  “I can’t believe the Fourth would do that to his own son,” Choji said with a bit of a frown, having paused in his chip eating.

  “It’s not like he would have done it to someone else's," I said with a sigh. “Making decisions like that is what it means to be Hokage.” They fell silent, and I thought about telling them more.

  “They seem to be taking it well. Go ahead and tell them the rest.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, accidentally voicing the question aloud in surprise.

  Everyone looked at me questioningly.

  “Ah…sorry.” I cleared my throat. That was a habit I was going to have to get out of. I had spent so much time alone with Kurama in this house that I often slipped to talking out loud. “I should explain more… This is something that very few people know. But the Nine-Tails didn’t attack Konoha because he wanted to. He was being controlled. And he is extremely upset about that.”

  There was a moment of silence. “You can talk to him?” Shikamaru suddenly asked, the first one to pick up on how I worded things.

  I nodded. “Yeah. We uh… We talk a lot.”

  It was silent, and I watched as Hinata just started pouring tea for Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru. Her and Shino’s calmness was actually rather surprising. When I caught Hinata’s gaze for a moment, her face flushed red and she looked away. “I can see your chakra,” she muttered. “I knew we were interacting with a clone… and that you had two different chakras.”

  “You did?” I questioned.

  Shino nodded. “My insects detected it as well.”

  Ino slapped the table. “And you never told us?”

  Hinata shrunk in on herself a bit, but the bug boy just shrugged. “It wasn’t our secret to tell. And Naruto is our friend, and had his reasons. I’m not surprised that he maintained a certain distance considering that some of the villagers, and some Shinobi, have tried to kill him.”

  Everyone was staring at him, completely caught off guard as we watched him sip his tea. None of us had heard him ever speak that much all at once.

  “Wait,” Ino turned her attention back to me, “People in the village have tried to kill you?”

  I nodded. “I think I’m up to… Nearly forty?”

  “Thirty seven.”

  “Thirty seven,” I clarified.

  “But… But you’re just a kid,” Ino said softly.

  “Some people can’t tell the difference between a kunai and the scroll it’s sealed in,” I said with a shrug.

  “So people actually think you’re the Nine-Tails?” Choji asked, frowning.

  “The average person doesn’t know how seals work. Nor do they care to learn.” I sighed. “It’s easier for them to just push their hate on me,” I said rather bitterly.

  “That’s stupid,” Ino grumbled, and everyone agreed.

  Everyone fell silent after that, seemingly digesting the information. Honestly I was just so glad that they all immediately accepted it. It was…nice. They all seemed to understand, and none of them were particularly upset at me.

  “So what’s your plan now?” Shikamaru asked suddenly, with a far off look. “Now that we know?”

  I had to think about it for a moment, but eventually shrugged. “I don’t know. I was planning on revealing it after I became a Genin. That way I would be out from under the Civilian Councils influence.”

  “Ugh those bastards are so annoying,” Ino wined, covering her face with her hands. “We have to deal with them all the time, and they always make us jump through extra hoops because we’re Shinobi.”

  “I think my plan will be the same,” I said with a nod, amused a bit at the blonde girls complaining. “Pass the exam, become a ninja, reveal some of what I’m capable of.”

  There was some nodding. “So, what have you found out about your family?” Hinata asked curiously. Of course they would all be interested in that.

  From there, the explanation flowed quite smoothly. It was comforting that everything just went back to normal after the revelation. Returning them back to my apartment - after checking it wasn’t being watch - was rough for them, but no one threw up. I replaced the clone before leaving.

  Nothing major happened in the next two years between then and graduation. Or at least what I thought was going to be graduation. I kept up my training, working on increasing my strength, chakra reserves, chakra control, fuinjutsu, and all the jutsu that I knew. I also started preparations for the post-graduation reveal. I had so many ideas and things I wanted to make. Fuinjutsu was so much more interesting than I had ever thought.

  Things with the other Jinchuriki seemed to be going well. Something that did concern me, is that most of them were paired up. Gaara, Fu, and myself were the only ones who didn’t have someone watching their back. Things were also going well with Gaara, and he seemed to be a lot more mentally stable. Fu on the other hand was…almost painful to think about. She was a lot like how I was. Isolated. Feared and hated. And she masked it all behind a chipper, happy go lucky mask. I wouldn’t have been able to see past it had I not done the same.

  My Flying Raijin Technique had gotten much better now, and I had refined it with the help of the foxes. I would probably never be as good as them at it, but I was getting close. In theory, I could go to any of the seals, but the farther it was the longer it would take to locate and the more chakra it would take. I was tempted to go and visit the other Jinchuriki, but that would cause an international incident if I just randomly showed up in some other village. Of course that didn’t stop me from implementing some emergency measures.

  Would have been funny to see the look on Gaara’s face, though.

  I started to replace my clone every day, rather than just pump more chakra into it, and it was far more stable like that. My friends never commented on it being a clone, and treated him normally. I was fairly certain Shikamaru explained that it would retain all of its memories, so anything they said to it or did, I would know.

  The week that I was expecting the announcement of the graduation test, there was nothing. I was very confused, and as several more weeks passed, and there was no test, I got even more confused. And then I found out that the test wouldn’t be for another four years. That was something drastically different than my previous life. I had been wondering why everyone seemed so far behind where I remembered them, but I just figured that was due to poor memory.

  But no. It turns out that graduation isn’t until sixteen.

  To say that I panicked would have been an understatement. Was the timeline different from what I knew? Immediately I started keeping an eye out for Tazuna, but he never showed. I waited seven months before determining that the events must have been pushed back, or just straight up weren’t happening.

  I just had to keep a better eye out for things, and one thing did confirm my idea that things were just delayed from the timeline I knew. There wouldn’t be a Chunin exam in Konoha for five years, as one had just passed. And considering it wasn’t the one where that snake attacked, and Gaara wasn’t there, the timeline had to all just be delayed.

  This also meant that I potentially had more time to prepare. And I knew just what I was going to do.

  The Uzumaki Temple that Sasuke had told me about. It was mostly destroyed and completely gutted when I eventually found it. The buildings had been burned down, and there weren’t any of the masks that he had mentioned. It had been disheartening to see the place completely empty.

  However, this time there was at least a building. It was late, and I was using the cover of rain to help mask my travel. Eventually I came to the outskirts of the village, far outside of the walls and through a place that clearly hadn’t seen any person in quite some time. Ahead was a barrier, but as I got closer it felt almost welcoming. As if it recognized me, or more likely recognized my lineage.

  After traveling for a minute longer I came to a building struggling to stand and slanting slightly. Over the entry was the Uzumaki symbol. I spent some time just looking at it, wondering what it used to look like.

  As I carefully made my way into the building, a few chakra lights tried to turn on. I gave them a bit of my chakra to rejuvenate them and get a better look at the place. And there was the wall of masks. Dozens of different types, all of which I know had purpose. But I knew better than to meddle with things I didn’t understand.

  After a quick search of the building, I found many scrolls. All of them were preserved with seals, and required Uzumaki blood to open. I left them alone as I searched the final room of the building, which was full of weapons. Some of them were rusted, clearly made from mundane metals, but others seemed perfectly preserved. They were most likely made of some kind of special chakra metal.

  I took everything, including the rusted weapons.

  As I was gathering everything up, the weapons reminding me how I should train in a kenjutsu style, Kurama spoke up, “The floor there. In the corner. There is something under the boards.”

  My attention immediately snapped to where he mentioned and I reached out with my senses, trying to spot it. “I don’t sense anything,” I said after a moment, but still I went over.

  “It is faint. Some sort of array meant to hide something.”

  It didn’t look like there was any way to open the floor, no little symbols or markings to indicate that there was anything there. Even right there I couldn’t sense anything. Slowly I began to remove the floorboards, which came up surprisingly easily considering how rotten the wood was.

  What I found was indeed a small array. “Five Element Obscuring Array?” I mused aloud as I traced the pattern with my eyes. “No wonder I couldn’t sense it… I’m shocked you could.”

  “It is an older version. And it has degraded,” Kurama rumbled, also examining things through my eyes.

  I spent a few minutes examining it. It was the only array I had come across while exploring the building that didn’t just allow me passage. Of course, I kept getting distracted by what was in the array. It was a long box absolutely covered in seals. There were dozens of paper seals slapped haphazardly, as if someone really did not want whatever this was to ever see the light of day.

  They were all sealing arrays of various types. Some of them were more obscuring arrays. “This looks fun,” I said with a bit of a laugh, checking to make sure that moving the box wasn’t going to trigger some sort of failsafe with a grin on my face. When I found none, I lifted it out of the obscuring array. “I think this is a sword case.”

  “Someone did not want that box opened.”

  “Yeah well, sucks to be them. I’m gonna poke it.” I laid it on the floor and went back to collecting everything into a storage scroll. The box itself couldn’t be put into the scroll for some reason; probably one of the seals. I grabbed all the scrolls in the building as well, storing them away before I made my way back to the main room, staring at the masks.

  One of my long term goals was to figure out a way to summon my dad. I needed the other half of Kurama. But that could wait. I could be patient. I wasn’t able to fully utilize the amount of chakra I already had, so no point in working to get more. At this point I was struggling to control one tail worth of Kurama’s power. He said it was because my body hadn’t matured enough, and training wasn’t going to help with that.

  I decided to carefully seal every mask in a special scroll to contain it, marking them carefully. I would spend time slowly going through the collected scrolls for information on them, and then begin to experiment.

  When I attempted to flash back home, the box fought me. One of the seals prevented the use of transportation jutsu. Someone really did not want this found or moved. As I searched for the tag in order to see if I could get rid of it, I had quite a few thoughts. What happened to this box in my last life? Did it exist? Was it destroyed?

  After a moment, I found the correct tag. It took some effort to deactivate it. I wasn’t a fuinjutsu master, but I knew enough that with time and patience it only took an hour of study and testing. Then I went home.

  Everything was given to clones, and they immediately started to organize everything. The masks were left in their scrolls and put in the office, while everything else was free game for the clones to start to go over. And read all those scrolls.

  The box was left to me, and I got to work.

  It took two months for me to remove all of the obscuring seals, and actually be able to extend my senses inside. And whatever was in there was cold. It was so cold that it caused my chakra to crystallize, and if not for Kurama responding with his own chakra it might have damaged my chakra pathways. From how it was interacting with my chakra, there was a very real chance that it could have killed me.