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Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the related characters, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto, and various animation and production studios/companies. If I did I’d be dang rich. This is written solely for entertainment, not for any form of money.
A/N: Hey there everyone, this is my first Naruto fic, and my first fic on this site (have written some stuff in the past on forums and yahoo groups, so it’s not my first actual fic). Hopefully it’s well-written and enjoyable for all of you. Read and Review!

Chapter 1 - Revelations
Konohagakure, Land of Fire – 8 Years after defeat of Kyūbi no Yōko
Small stones crunched along the darkened dirt road under the pounding feet of a young boy running through the side streets of Konoha. Large explosions muffled the sound of the frantic footsteps, each explosion lighting up the street briefly as the sound of distant cheering for the fireworks carried in the still air.
Tonight was a holiday, a festival, to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the defeat of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox that had ravaged the Village Hidden in the Leaves. And the commemoration of the death of the Yondaime Hokage – who had given his life that night to protect their village by sealing the Kyūbi away – as well as all the other victims of the attack.
It was also the reason the young boy, known to most as Naruto Uzumaki, was running through the streets, his orange jumpsuit a bright blur as he ran back from the Academy to escape the village for the night. And the reason that the drunken group chasing him, had accosted him once they’d caught sight of him – just like they always did.
Unbeknownst to the boy, who was confused as to why they treated him like this on this day every year, the Yondaime had sealed the Kyūbi away within him the night he has been born. The villagers, especially the civilians but even some of the Shinobi, hated him for what he contained, and this night and its memories and its drinking brought the usual glares and muttered insults further, often into physical violence. His aching head where one of the drunken men had nailed him with an empty bottle of sake, spoke to that fact.
He had dealt with it for years, and his birthday had become the most dreaded day of the year for him, so he tended to try an early escape out of the village and into the forest to spend the night until tempers cooled and the villagers sobered up.
This time, however, he had been caught pulling a prank on his instructors – after several had pulled open their lockers to get their gear and had paint-bombs explode in their faces, of course. The entire prank had earned him detention and he’d had to scrub up the instructor’s locker room until it was satisfactorily clean and free of paint. Therefore, he was far later getting out than he had wanted, and festivities were already underway, which would make his escape much more difficult.
He heard a shout from down a side street as someone caught sight of him, and he picked up speed, panting as he tried to mentally map out his escape route.
“Damn it,” he muttered to himself as he realized he was being forced a bit closer toward the center of town where the majority of the festival was – he had to jog away on a side road or he’d end up in an even worse situation.
His thoughts were interrupted as he spun around a corner, and found himself barreling toward two people, one of them a young girl he recognized from the Ninja Academy.
He tried to put on the brakes, but the light rain from earlier in the day made the ground slippery and muddy, and he managed only to turn his head to the side and not break his nose as he landed face-first on the ground and skidded the last few feet, and into the girl.
His shoulders hit into her legs as he came to a stop, and she stumbled backward, landing on her bottom with a surprised expulsion of breath.
Naruto scrambled to his feet. “S-Sumimasen, Hinata,” he apologized, sticking his hand out, offering her help up. Hinata, of the Hyūga clan, was one of the few children at the Academy that was nice to him, although incredibly shy. “Are you okay?”
The dark-blue haired girl let him help her up, her pale lavender eyes glazed slightly. “H-hai, N-Naruto-kun, I’m o-okay,” she said softly, a blush spreading across her face.
The woman, who was carrying a baby wrapped up in a blanket, leaned down and brushed the dirt from Hinata’s kimono. The woman had the same color hair as Hinata, hers hanging freely down nearly to her waist while Hinata’s was cut short. Hinata’s mother, he realized, his face reddening.
He apologized again, bowing his head slightly. “I should have been watching where I was going, I’m sorry.”
Hinata’s mother, dressed in a finely-stitched komon kimono, saw the long, bloody scrape across Naruto’s forehead where gravel had sliced into during his fall, and turned to her daughter. “Hold your sister a moment, Hinata,” she said softly.
“Hai, okasan,” Hinata said, taking the bundled child, and trying to hide her beet-red face in the blankets, and yet peek over them at Naruto all at the same time.
The woman reached into the sleeve of her kimono for a small lacquered box, which she opened and pulled out a flower-patterned handkerchief. She stepped forward, the handkerchief in hand, and moved it toward his forehead.
She frowned mentally at the instinctive flinch as she neared him, but stepped even closer, taking his chin gently in one hand as she dabbed away the blood and wet dirt from the wound. She smiled gently at him as his shocked blue eyes rose to look at her face.
“Hello Naruto, I’m Hitomi – Hinata’s mother. She’s told me all about you,” she said, not noticing her daughter bury her face fully into her sister’s blankets at that, a flaming blush on her cheeks. “Are you alright as well? This looks like a nasty gash.”
He looked up at the kind, smiling face, shocked speechless for several moments, having expected a scolding at the very least if not a slap for knocking down her daughter. This woman was, really, one of the few people who had ever been kind to him, aside from the Sandaime Hokage, a select few ANBU who had helped him in the past, and Teuchi and his daughter Ayame who ran Ramen Ichiraku, his favorite ramen stand. ‘This must be where Hinata gets it from,’ he thought absently.
He flashed her a wide smile, and gave a thumbs up as she turned the handkerchief around and used the other side to wipe the rest of the dirt away. “I’m fine, I heal fast,” he said brightly.
“Okay,” she said, fighting between laughter and sadness at his sudden upbeat attitude at her gesture. “Next time, maybe you should try to slow down going around corners?” she asked, amusement finally winning out.
He nodded for a moment, and she dabbed once more at his scrape before dropping her hand. His entire demeanor changed the next moment, startling her. His eyes hardened slightly, and his face paled and smile disappeared, and she realized he was gazing at something behind her.
She turned her head quickly and noticed a group of men and women down the street, staggering along and obviously inebriated, and watched a shout go up from the group as they spotted the orange jumpsuit down the road.
Naruto’s expression became panicked and he backed up. “I-I have to go – if they catch me here they’ll go after you and Hinata too. Arigatō gozaimasu,” he said, bowing his head slightly before turning and running off quickly in the other direction before Hitomi could stop him.
“Naruto-kun,” she heard her daughter’s voice say worriedly at her side.
Hitomi placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulders, and guided her quickly to the side of the road, and then watched in disgust as the veritable mob stormed down the street past them, paying them no heed, assuming the “monster” (as many of the shouts could be heard calling him) had been accosting them.
“O-Okasan,” Hinata said quietly, “can’t we help him?”
Hitomi shook her head sadly, nearly grimacing as she brought her hand up to her stomach in remembered pain. She had been a strong ninja once, a feared young kunoichi who had graduated in the same class as Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage. However, she had married her cousin Hiashi Hyūga, and settled into a domestic role until her first child, Hinata, was born.
It had been a hard, long birth, one that had weakened her greatly. She had nursed her daughter for several months, her own physical condition weakening, before Hiashi has sent her and a number of Branch Family members away for six months to be treated by the legendary healer Sannin, Tsunade.
The treatment had worked, as did the physical exercises Tsunade had suggested, and she had slowly regained some of her former health, enough to see the rest of Hinata’s childhood. Her second birth, only six months ago to Hanabi, had been much easier, mainly due to Tsunade’s earlier treatments.
It had still been a hard birth but not nearly as damaging, and with the exercises she was now able to go on walks through the village with her daughter so long as it was not too strenuous. In her prime, she could have stopped the crowd, leaving them either unconscious or dead, but now she doubted she could take down more than a few before aggravating the old injuries and possibly dying herself. And interfering and being hurt would leave her daughters open to retaliation.
She had skipped the festivals, except for the previous year, and had never realized how the young boy who was protecting their village from the Kyūbi was really treated on these days. She’d known he was shunned, seen the dirty looks and heard her daughter speak of how most of the school children had been influenced by their parents in the same way, but hadn’t known this.
Hitomi sighed, and looked down at her daughter who was staring off in the direction the young boy had run. “I’m sorry, Hina-chan, if I could I would stop them, but I’m not strong enough yet. We can’t help him. But… I’ll talk to your father, and see if he can do something for your friend.”
“I understand, kaa-san, but w-why do they hate him?” Hinata asked, looking up at her mother, tears and confusion in her pupil-less eyes. “His pranks aren’t that bad, and he’s nice to everyone even if they aren’t to him,” she said, her voice trembling slightly.
Hitomi knelt next to her daughter, a bitter taste in the back of her mouth as she caressed Hinata’s cheek. “They hate him for something else, something that happened when he was a baby, which he couldn’t control. It’s stupid, but sometimes that’s the way people are.”
Seeing her daughter’s sadness hardened her resolve even further than Naruto’s bright smile had. No child deserved this, especially one that had been used to save the village. Hiashi would be bringing this all the way to the Sandaime if she had anything to say about it, Hyūga Elders and the “image of the clan” be damned.
She took Hanabi from Hinata’s arms, and stood, not caring that her kimono had become muddy. “Come, Hinata, I don’t feel like celebrating at the festival after seeing that. I’ll talk to your father when he gets back tonight.”
Hinata nodded, glancing one last time down the street Naruto had disappeared down before folding her hands in front of her and following her mother quietly down the road, back to the Hyūga Clan compound. ‘Naruto-kun… I hope you’re okay,’ she thought to herself.
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Naruto grimaced as he limped hurriedly toward the edge of the forest outside of the walls of Konoha, trying to keep ahead of the angry villagers, and dodge their thrown items. He’d tried to escape the town by skirting around the edges near the city walls away from the main roads.
And for a few brief moments, he had thought he was in the clear, before he realized a group was waiting near the gate, forcing him to dash past them and take several blows from the bludgeoning implements they held, the Chūnin at the gate doing nothing to help him.
One hit from a long and jagged wooden stick had ripped up the leg of his orange jumpsuit, and he could feel the blood trickling down his leg even now. Apparently, they had figured out how he’d escaped the previous year, and had been waiting for him to try it again.
His breath shot out in a gasp as he felt a hard and heavy object strike his lower back and he fell to the ground coughing, the kidney blow knocking the strength out of his body. The mob quickly caught up, and he curled into a ball, sobbing silently as he weathered kicks, punches, and anything else the mob threw at him.
“Jiji, jiji,” he gasped out quietly, praying for the Old Man Hokage to come and step in, something he usually did much sooner on these nights, hoping he had been at the festival.
A jarring blow to the back of the head sent his face into the dirt, a cry of “evil child” near his ear nearly deafening him, followed by another shouting “You murdered my sister!” Then he felt his hopes and spirit rise at the sudden heat at his face as a fireball flew out over the heads of the crowd.
He faintly heard an unfamiliar voice call out to the crowd. “Enough! Stop this, or you’ll all be answering to the ANBU! You’ve had your fun, now go home and sober up.”
There was a fair amount of grumbling, but another fireball, this one sustained for several long moments, changed their mind, and they grudgingly moved away, and headed back toward the safety of the city. Although not before a few got in a few last kicks as they passed him.
Naruto coughed, and then spat out some blood, before slowly and painfully rolling over onto his back as he heard the mob enter the village gates. He opened a bruised eye, saw a figure walk toward him, and eventually made it out to be a ninja wearing a Chūnin vest – apparently, the guard at the gate had decided to do something after all.
“Th-thanks,” he croaked out.
The figure knelt next to him, and his eyes finally focused enough to realize it was the silver-haired instructor who had started teaching at the Academy a few months before. He’d been a bit aloof with most of the students, but had actually been pretty helpful compared to some of the others. “M-Mizuki-sensei, thank you.”
He saw the silver-haired Chūnin smile at him. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something about that smile seemed…. Off. Something weird. He got the answer to that moments later.
Mizuki laughed darkly. “Don’t go thanking me just yet, Naruto-kun,” he said, making the honorific sound mocking.
“Mizuki-sensei?” Naruto said questioningly.
“Are you that dumb?” He asked with a sneer. “I chased away your mob of admirers so I could have some time with you myself, demon-brat.”
Naruto’s eyes widened as he realized that the kind face Mizuki wore in the classroom was really just a front for… this. He scrambled back painfully, to the edge of the forest, but Mizuki easily walked along next to him before finally tiring of the game and giving him a kick to the side that left Naruto gasping.
“You see, Naruto, the Hokage isn’t going to be here to help you this time like he has in the past. I have a friend in the assignment’s office who made sure the ninja that like you aren’t around tonight. I’ve got you all to myself!” He punctuated the last word with a sudden kick into Naruto’s side.
Naruto’s mind exploded into pain as he felt the toe of the boot dig into his stomach, and he cried out at the feeling.
“Wh-Why?” Naruto asked weakly, his hands fisting into the grass beneath him.
Mizuki pulled back and shook his head almost sadly. “You truly don’t know, do you? The reason why everyone hates you? The reason I hate you?”
“Why?” Naruto asked again, dragging himself further away until finally he found his back up against the trunk of a large tree.
“Because of this day, and what it represents. Because of what you are.” Mizuki said. “The Yondaime didn’t kill the Kyūbi that day, eight years ago. A demon can’t be killed, at least a demon with the sheer power of the Nine Tails. It can only be sealed away. He chose to seal it away into a child that was born that day, and sacrificed his life to do so.”
Naruto paled, pressing himself back against the tree as if trying to escape the thought that entered his head.
Mizuki’s grin widened, and became a manic snarl. “I see you’ve figured it out. Yes, Naruto, you are the Kyūbi. You are the Nine Tailed Demon Fox. You destroyed this village eight years ago, and killed hundreds of our people, including my parents. Even that ramen-stand owner. He tries to deny it, and to coddle you, but I can see that deep down he despises you for what you did to this village, Demon. That’s why everyone hates you.”
“No. Nonononononononono,” Naruto started muttering quietly, almost a mantra to try to keep himself from accepting what Mizuki was saying.
But he couldn’t deny it. It all made sense now. The hate-filled looks. The muttered slurs. They’d started well before he’d begun his pranks. It wasn’t those that had caused the animosity, it was what was inside him. A monster. A demon.
Naruto grasped his aching stomach, tears streaming down his face, and glared up at Mizuki. “I hate you,” he whispered weakly.
Mizuki laughed. “Good. Now, I sent those village idiots away for a reason. You were already going to die tonight in any case. I simply wanted to be the one that did it, not them, as my parting gift to Konoha before I steal their secrets and bring them to Lord Orochimaru. I’m going to kill you, Demon, and avenge all those who you murdered, and end your threat to this world. This should have been done long ago.”
Naruto closed his eyes in sad acceptance as Mizuki raised a kunai, knowing that this time, unlike all the others, there was no one else to help him.
A sudden gurgle caused his eyes to snap open in time to see a bright line of scarlet appear across Mizuki’s neck, blood spraying outward in a mist onto Naruto.
“You’ve said more than enough, Mizuki – thank you for breaking the Sandaime’s Law, traitor.” A low voice came from behind Mizuki, a very young voice, of someone in their early teens.
Mizuki collapsed to his knees, clutching his throat, as Naruto stared wide-eyed at him. A boot came down and knocked him onto his back so his terrified, fading gaze no longer met with Naruto’s eyes.
Naruto’s own gaze slowly moved up, and he saw a short young man dressed in an ANBU uniform, the only thing visible from his head aside from a slit-eyed weasel mask being his long black hair that hung to his cheeks, framing the mask.
“W-Weasel-san!” Naruto cried out, and dove forward to hug his savior tightly. “Thank you Weasel-san. H-he was going to kill me.”
“Hai,” the low voice behind the mask said. “But it is okay now, Naruto, he won’t hurt you anymore. Come, you’ve had enough excitement for the night, I’ll take you back to your apartment.”
“Was he telling the- the truth?” Naruto questioned as the Weasel ANBU pulled away and then grabbed the younger child’s hand, guiding him away from Mizuki’s body.
“Hokage-sama will speak with you in the morning about what the traitor told you. There was some truth in his statement, but also lies to hurt you. I cannot speak further on the matter due to the Law in place, but Hokage-sama will explain everything.” The Weasel ANBU cast an eye over Naruto’s already healing cuts and bruises, and decided he’d be better off simply going to the apartment as a hospital trip would require much more effort than it was worth, dealing with reluctant doctors and nurses for injuries that would be gone by the morning.
He bent and picked up a protesting Naruto before leaping off into the city. Rather than the half an hour it would have taken walking with him, he made it to Naruto’s apartment complex in under five minutes. After seeing the boy to his own apartment, he left shortly afterwards, nodding to two Chūnin stationed outside the apartment, and took off first to collect the body of Mizuki, and then to report to the Hokage.
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Naruto tossed and turned in his bed, trying his best not to think about what Mizuki had told him, but was failing utterly. Was he really the Kyūbi? Why did the Yondaime chose him, of all people, to do this to? Did he deserve the hatred he received from most of the villagers, if it was true that he at least had the Kyūbi inside him?
Naruto gave a frustrated sigh and tossed his arms over his head, trying to count bowls of ramen passing in front of him to get to sleep – though only really succeeding in getting him hungry. At least Weasel-san had told him he’d be getting explanations in the morning from Hokage-Jiji.
He smiled to himself, thinking of the times Weasel-san had protected him – this was the only time he’d seen him directly kill someone, as most other times ended with them writhing in pain on the ground around him. Weasel-san was one of the few ANBU he really trusted, who responded instantly when he saw he was in danger, and the only one aside from Neko who actually talked to him whenever he saw him.
The young ANBU sometimes had even helped him since he’d started the academy the previous year, whenever he saw Naruto struggling with some Taijutsu move out on the training fields.
Naruto sighed, and tried to get back to counting bowls of ramen, his arms covering his face and preventing him from seeing the creeping danger in his room until it was too late.
He was suddenly seized, and he felt hands grip his wrists and ankles, pinning him to his bed as he looked around in panic. Two men, both dressed in ninja gear, stood over him, pinning him down from either side. One had short red hair, his eyes cold as he stared down at Naruto, and the other was a black-haired man, whose hair was cut to shoulder-length, and he had a jagged scar across his chin.
“So, looks like that pathetic Mizuki failed what he said he’d do. Guess we’ll just have to finish the job. Glad the guard shift changed after he got dropped off, otherwise that little weasel would’ve gotten suspicious seeing me here,” the black-haired man said, staring down at Naruto with reddish eyes that had strange black shapes ringing the pupil.
Naruto opened his mouth to yell, but they flipped him over violently, shoving his face into his pillow. “Yeah, let’s hurry, give this demon plenty of time to fry.”
Naruto felt a cool liquid splash over his back, and the corner of his eye caught sight of the other red-haired man drizzling a large bottle around the bed, and then pulling another from a seal to do the same around the room. A cloying scent filled the air and Naruto recognized it as some sort of oil or lighting fluid.
His eyes widened as he heard the other man, the one with the odd eyes, incant some sort of jutsu, and felt a warm rush of air as a fireball shot out at the base of the bed, and flames quickly licked up the oil, and roared to life across the room.
Naruto screamed out in pain – muffled by the pillow – as the flames seared across his back, pure white agony filling his senses The men laughed, using more of the same jutsu to set other parts of the room on fire as their victim writhed around on the bed trying desperately to quench the flames.
“Demon, you burned my parents to death,” the red-haired man shouted, “now see how it feels!”
The room turned into an inferno as the men left, and he curled up tightly on the bed, trying to keep the flames limited only to his back as he felt them grow, and for the second time that night he begged the Kami to send Weasel-san again, or Jiji.
The flames began to not even be felt as his nerves were burnt up. He closed his eyes, and felt the tears leak from under his eyelids as he thought of the only people who had been kind to him, the faces of the Hokage, Weasel-san, and his friends at Ichiraku flashing into his mind, followed only by the faces of Hinata and her mother, before he felt his consciousness slip.
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Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure, sat down with a heavy sigh on a soft cushion in the more private quarter’s area of the Hokage Mansion. Despite it being a festival day, and ‘officially’ a holiday, he’d been hard at work the entire day.
The entire morning had consisted of going over various mission reports and mission requests – there were few ANBU and Jōnin left in the village after the recent onslaught of high-level missions, and each day he sent more away. Figuring out just who he could spare and yet still keep the village guarded was a delicate balancing act, but fortunately the mission requests were slowing down and most of his ninja would be back in the next few weeks.
The rest of the day, and into the evening, he’d spent locked away with his advisors and the Shinobi Council made of a number of heads of the Clans that made up Konoha. The most trying part had been several hours with his advisors as they argued the best way to approach a growing problem in the village – the Uchiha Clan.
Hiruzen rubbed his eyes, and took a long puff on his pipe, looking up when he heard the soft sound of a Shunshin in the room. His eyes came to rest on his youngest ANBU – he still found it amazing that the Weasel-masked boy kneeling before him with his head bowed, was only 14 years old, and yet one of his best ANBU captains.
“Yes, Itachi?” He asked tiredly.
“Hokage-sama, I have troubling news. I returned from my mission half an hour ago, and found Naruto being assaulted.”
Sarutobi sat up straighter. “Report,” he said, his voice serious.
“He is in decent health, a number of minor injuries from a mob. They were made up of many of the usual suspects – I will make a list of those I remember in the official report.” Itachi paused. “Hokage-sama, I was about to step in, when a Chūnin Academy Instructor, named Mizuki did so and chased off the mob.”
After Sarutobi nodded, recalling the silver-haired man, Itachi continued. “I was going to leave Naruto in his care, when the man became threatening, apparently scaring off the mob in order to have time to murder Naruto himself.”
“Where is he now?” Sarutobi asked, the look on his face and the chakra rolling off him enough to clearly show why the man had come to be known as the “God of Shinobi”.
“I killed him. He confessed to changing guard schedules to get the chance to kill Naruto, and that he planned to steal some of our secrets and defect to Orochimaru afterwards.”
Sarutobi sighed, feeling a heavy weight settle further onto his shoulders. “So he does plot against us, as I feared,” he said quietly. “Very well, is there anything else?”
“Hai,” Itachi said, looking up at Sarutobi, his mask off, and eyes serious. “He broke your law, and informed Naruto of what he contains.”
Sarutobi paled, and his pipe dropped from his lips. “He told him…. Everything?”
“Mostly. He implied that Naruto was the Kyūbi itself, though – Naruto seemed to be in shock when I brought him back. I couldn’t explain things to him myself due to the law, but I told him you would meet with him in the morning and explain everything.”
Sarutobi nodded, a sad expression crossing his face. “I’d hoped he would be older – at the very least already a Genin – when he learned of this. I hope he is strong enough to bear the pressure of this. I’ll speak with him first thing in the morning.”
“I took Mizuki’s body to headquarters and they’re searching his possessions. I’ll give you a full report after you meet with Naruto tomorrow.” Itachi said.
Sarutobi sighed, and then grimaced. “My advisors are pushing me hard on the issue of your clan. I hope your father will see the light, but I fear things may soon get worse.”
Itachi nodded. “I believe they may. My father is not the sort of man who budges on this sort of thing. They’re getting suspicious of me, but I see enough to know he’s continuing his plotting to overthrow you… Hokage-sama, know that I am loyal only to you. If you must make that decision… I will take care of my clan for you – no need to lose anyone else in the process.”
“I know Itachi, and I thank you for your loyalty. Are you sure you can do it? Your own clan?”
“Hai,” Itachi said, bowing his head. “They are leading themselves to destruction. If they must be cleansed, I want to be the one who does it.”
“Very well, though I hope things turn out be-“
“Hokage-sama!” a voice interrupted him with a shout as the door to his room burst open. A young Chūnin who he recognized as one of the late-night guards of the Hokage Mansion, entered the room.
“G-gomen”,” he said, eyes widening when he realized the Sandaime was in a meeting. “But I just got word – there is an enormous apartment-building fire in the West District – Hokage-sama, I’m told that it is Uzumaki Naruto’s building. Three are confirmed dead, and a number are missing, including the boy – they’re working on the blaze but can’t get close enough to the center apartments, where it appears the blaze started.”
Sarutobi shot up off the cushion with a speed that belied his old age, and grasped Itachi’s arm, as the young man moved his mask back onto his face. “Thank you,” the Sandaime said to the Chūnin, before both he and Itachi disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
They re-appeared moments later, at the site of a towering inferno that had enveloped the entire apartment building, and was already spreading to another nearby. Shinobi desperately battled the flames trying to catch on the second building, and many more concentrated on what amounted to a ‘bucket line’. The closest water source was a small pond several hundred meters away, so they had formed several lines of those proficient in water jutsu to transport jets of water from one ninja to the next until they launched out in long streams at the base of the fire.
“Hokage-sama!” A cry went up from the ninja and civilians who were battling the blaze.
One of the ninja directing them, Shikaku Nara, walked swiftly over to them – a rare sight from the normally lazy Jōnin clan-head. “Sandaime, we’ve accounted for almost everyone. Some of the ones reported missing were accounted for by neighbors who say they were not in the village. The only one unaccounted for is Uzumaki Naruto, and it appears the blaze started in his apartment. I only hope he was not here tonight-“
Itachi shook his head. “I just returned him to his apartment not an hour ago after an attack on his life.”
“Troublesome. I had hoped it wasn’t the case, but we are also unable to find the two Chūnin guards who were to watch the apartment. Do you believe- “
Sarutobi nodded once. “It isn’t a coincidence.”
He strode forward, his hands flashing through several dozen handsigns as everyone stepped back. “Suiton: Suihachi (Water Release: Water Bowl)” Sarutobi said as the handsigns were completed and he thrust both palms outward.
A torrent of water as thick as a large tree-trunk shot from his hands as he walked forward, toward the flames. “With me, Weasel!” He commanded.
Itachi darted forward, following behind his leader as the water sent up billows of steam wherever it hit, and they pushed together slowly into the inferno, falling pieces of the building blocking their way behind them.
The stairs were gone, utterly collapsed, so they had to leap up to the next floor to get access to Naruto’s apartment.
Sarutobi let the pulsing pillar of water launch down the hall, extinguishing much of the flames, before the jet of water itself died out. Sarutobi frowned. “There is no more moisture in the air here to draw on.” He said as they neared the flame-covered door of Naruto’s apartment.
“Hai, leave it to me, Hokage-sama.”
Itachi yanked open the door, bringing his fingers to his mouth as he breathed out. “Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu). An enormous, orange ball of fire launched from his mouth and across the apartment before hitting the wall on the other side.
Almost immediately, the leaping flames in the room snuffed out, the large fire jutsu starving them completely of their oxygen.
Itachi dashed inside with Sarutobi, toward Naruto’s bedroom. Itachi used the jutsu once more, killing most of the fire. A stench of burning flesh filled the air, and they found Naruto curled into a ball on his bed, the skin of his back burnt badly, but now being protected by an angry-red aura of chakra that began to dissipate with the lack of fire.
“Take him to the hospital!” Sarutobi ordered swiftly. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, after I help them put out this fire.”
Itachi nodded, gathered the unconscious and badly burnt boy into his arms, and disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
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A/N: Hey again everyone, hope you liked it and that I’m off to a decent start. Hinata’s mother, Hitomi, is a character of my own creaton since there has been nothing more than a picture of her in the anime. I’m guessing she passed away at some time in the story, but she’ll be living after this point in my fic. BTW, her name “Hitomi” was chosen because it sounded good (a good “H” letter name for the Main family), and only afterwards I found out it means either “beautiful” or “pupil of the eye” – both quite fitting for her.

Now, this isn’t going to be a Super-Naruto fic. Naruto will, over time, grow smarter and better. At best it will be a Smart! Or Talented! Naruto fic.
I got the whole idea reading the Manga and reading about Uzushiogakure, and how they were well-known for Seals (Fūinjutsu), and decided to write a fic where Naruto continued the legacy of his ancestors (especially when his dad was also a genius at seals). So there’ll be a lot of seal-making and seal-use in the fic, though that won’t be all he relies on.
As far as pairings go, I’m of the mind that Naruto deserves at least a few girls who truly love him. As someone in a plural relationship in real life, I’ll be writing the same for our knuckleheaded ninja. Right now all I’ll reveal is that it will be Naruto/Hinata/?/?. I’ve already decided on who the two other girls will be (and the third won’t come until after Chūnin exams), so please don’t make requests – he’ll be with three girls, and they’re already chosen and that’s set in stone. I’ll update the summary as each girl is revealed.
Anyway, hope you’ve enjoyed, and I’ll update soon – second chapter is already done and in for editing, and I’m starting on the third. Updates won’t come super fast after the second one, but hopefully once a week.
Please review and let me know what you think!