What has been going on while Kitsune was busy?
“Lady Arisu, is this really necessary?” Naruto refused to admit that he was whining – he didn´t whine. Uzumaki Naruto does not whine – but the almost exasperated and scolding look she sent him immediately made him shut up either way.
“Of course it is, child. I decided to look over the fact that you apparently only own shinobi wear and almost nothing else. I´ve seen your wardrobe and you can hardly show yourself in those clothes and expect to be respected. By the Uchiha clan head nonetheless.” She reprimanded him as she walked around the workplace, making his ears burn in shame. The woman kneeling in front of Naruto, who was currently measuring him in order to get him the right size if clothes, let out a small giggle at his misery, and he sent her a withering look in return.
Before he could retort and say something else in order to get out of this very uncomfortable position, the matriarch continued, “Now stand still before the measurements are messed up. We´ll have to get you appropriate clothes first and foremost.”
He refrained from rolling his eyes, because the last time he did it, she had somehow seen it despite not having looked in his direction and promptly whacked him over the head with a fan – a chakra enhanced one, mind you – effectively making him stop. She seemed to have some sort of instinct for his petulance, so whenever he was rolling his eyes or making a face, she would somehow know despite not even being able to see his face.
Naruto sighed and did as he was told, standing still so that the woman could do her job. “I´m sorry, I´m just not used to all those fancy clothes. I never had any reason to go to some sort of political or formal meeting dressed like that. No one said anything when I came in my normal clothes.” Which wasn´t exactly the truth, but Arisu didn´t have to know that. People always had complained about his horrible choice of orange clothing – mostly because they claimed it to be an eye-sore –, but when it was clear that Naruto wouldn´t budge on it and frankly didn´t really care what he was wearing as long as it got the job done, no one tried to tell him otherwise after a while.
Hiruzen had been indifferent with him with pretty much everything that didn´t concern the Kyuubi. What he wore, what he ate or how he addressed the higher ups that he would occasionally see when visiting his office. Hell, Hiruzen hadn´t even minded when Naruto constantly called him “Old man”. Tsunade had often times snapped when he called her grandma, or generally old, but that had been because of her weird age-complex, not because she had a thing against nicknames. It had been an affectionate nickname, something that let other people know that Naruto held them close in his heart.
Entirely unimpressed, the woman narrowed her eyes at him. “I would like to say I doubt that, but given the fact that you came here for help shows me that what you said is the truth, and I do not know what to think about it.”
Naruto shrugged, but regretted it as soon as he felt a small needle pinch his skin on his side. The woman taking the measurements quickly apologized, but he simply waved it off. “Well, not everyone lives in high society, or even a clan. Living alone since the age of five doesn´t really do anyone favors when it comes to etiquette and customs.”
At that the room briefly fell silent. Arisu´s eyes widened briefly and she stilled, chakra mirroring the reaction. The stillness in her movement caught Naruto´s attention and he tilted his head in her direction, slightly puzzled.
“Is something the matter, Lady Arisu?”
She took a moment to get herself moving again, but once she did she slowly shook her head. Her chakra swirled in something skin to – pity? No, not entirely. It felt similar to pity, but was less condescending. Sympathy maybe?
“Alone since the age of five? I would assume that even the place you came from has orphanages for such cases, especially for shinobi children who lost their family young, does it not?” Her voice had an odd tone of wariness and surprise mixed in it, which startled Naruto a little. He hummed in confirmation to the question, which caused her chakra to fill with even more confusion.
“We did have an orphanage, but I was – well,” he cringed at the memory. It was an unpleasant one, to be kicked out of the only place that could have taken him in. The orphanage had declared him self-sufficient since Hiruzen decided it was time for him to go to the academy two years earlier than his peers, but since he was ignored and neglected in his education, he was held back two years. He was kicked out and sent to live in a lone apartment in the red light district, where Hiruzen visited once a month. The only one to keep him company during that time where some of the nice old ladies who would occasionally give him some candy and tell him to stay away from the more dangerous streets during the night.
“The orphanage declared me self-sufficient at the age of five and I was kicked out. I lived on my own from then on. Occasionally some people visited to check in on me and make sure I wasn´t dead, but other than my parents I didn´t have family to take me in or teach me.”
The woman in front of him sucked in a sharp breath, so quietly that if it weren´t for Naruto´s enhanced senses he wouldn´t have heard it. Arisu on the other hand was clear with her distaste of the situation. She furrowed her eyebrows and stepped towards him, not exactly physically reaching out, but rather looking for him with her chakra. He recognized it as a similar thing that Tobirama and Hashirama always did for comfort.
She scowled and tilted her head, apparently searching for something in his face or in his tone of voice, but was successful with neither. Naruto didn´t think she would find anything either way. He had long gotten over the treatment of the village towards him, as well as his rather lonely childhood. There was nothing he could do to change it and he had already forgiven Konoha for doing it. After finding out about him hosting Kurama, he could – to a certain level – understand where their concerns came from.
He would just make sure that this time around, Konoha would take better care of their orphaned children. He didn´t forget, nor forgive, how Sasuke had to grow up in the compound where his entire family was killed either. That would be something to work on properly this time around.
“What about family friends?” She asked, not quite hesitantly, but careful not to overstep any of his boundaries. Naruto, never one to be scared of sharing with other people, found it easy to answer.
“None that were allowed close to me.”
“Allowed?” She echoed incredulously, baffled at the implications his statement left.
Naruto nodded. “My father had been a rather high profile shinobi, as was my mother. Both died the night I was born, so most didn´t even know I was their child. The ones that did know were ordered to keep my identity secret from everyone, including me, in order to keep me safe. That included not approaching me in any way, especially those who were close with my father.” There, that was most of the truth.
He knew that Uchiha Mikoto, a close friend of his mother, had tried to take him in, but was denied. He also knew that Jiraiya had been his godfather, but hadn´t been allowed to get close to him in his earlier years, not only because of his connection to Minato, but also because of the danger of his job. Nor was he allowed to tell Naruto that he was his godfather, or that Minato and Kushina were his parents. Shikaku too had tried to talk about it with Hiruzen, but once again he had been denied. Not even Kakashi had gotten close to him until it was time to make the genin teams.
In Naruto´s opinion, that had all been a huge shitshow. In the end he had to find out from his parents that they were his parents, which had been a huge chakra-and-emotions mess.
Arisu scoffed, her eyes blazing with true anger, and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “That is ridiculous. Who would condone such treatment of a child?”
Even though he knew exactly who would condone something like that – namely Hiruzen, Danzo and many other of the higher ups in Konoha who had no problem treating him like a vermin because of his Jinchuuriki status – he only shrugged. “I got over it eventually. I have – had,” he corrected with a wince that didn´t escape Arisu or the woman, “Friends that became my second family. Comrades that stayed by my side.”
He doesn´t say that they´re gone. He didn´t need to, because judging by the withering expression on Arisu´s face she could tell that he was on his own again.
Her chakra swirled again – and this time there seemed to be something fierce and, dare he say protective in the way it surged towards him – and she cleared her throat subtly, trying to get away from the topic that she feared would bring bad memories for Naruto.
“The village,” she began, “The one my husband told me you want to build. Is that the reason why?” Her voice wasn´t soft per se, she was too strong of a character for that, but there seemed to be something gentle and understanding in her tone that had Naruto suppress his own chakra and try to stop it from lashing out and encompassing her in it.
“Not exactly. My friends and I, we fought for peace. It has always just been a dream to build a village,” to be the Hokage, and later on to break the cycle of hatred like his master had attempted to do it, “and make life a little better. To stop war and end the cycle of hatred. It´s what my master taught me, and it´s what I have been living by for years.”
He looked up to Arisu now, blue eyes softening and smile forming on his lips, even though she couldn´t see it. His voice became gentle, as did his chakra, and Naruto could feel the woman in front of him shiver at the feeling of his chakra washing over the two.
“I´m not bitter, nor am I full of hatred at the people who have treated me like less, Lady Arisu. I just want the children of this generation to live better than I have. To be able to not live in constant fear of death,” and for them not to have to fight against a goddess. For them not to witness the destruction of the world as they knew it and come out as the sole survivor. Naruto just wanted to save his precious people, those who once were his and those who might become them in the future.
“Someone has to step up, has to make the first step towards peace, no matter the loss that may come along the way.”
It was silent when Naruto stopped talking. The woman was looking slightly uneasy while Arisu´s was currently doing her best to keep her chakra from lashing out for whatever reason. She had a tight hold on her chakra, not allowing it to flood the room like Naruto´s had done, but he could still feel the suppressed ire amongst other mixed feelings that were too unclear to identify.
The silence was broken by Arisu´s even voice. “My husband, he was right.”
Naruto waited for her to continue on elaborating what exactly Shirogane was right about, but when she didn´t, he hummed in question and tilted his head to the side, prompting her to speak.
She simply sighed in response, not in an exasperated way, but with a hint of sadness in her eyes, accompanied by something that seemed to be respect for him. It surprised Naruto, since he didn´t exactly know what he did to earn the respect just now.
“When he said there was something about you, he was right, Kitsune. For someone so relatively young, you surely know your way around words. I´ve known men who have grown up in a more sophisticated environment than you apparently have, but even they seemed to be less understanding of the world, or of the people living in it.”
She then smiled, gentle and small, but incredibly genuine. It suited her features well, in contrast to the normally stern expression she wore. “It´s good to see the young be this ambitious. Personally, I surely hope for you that you accomplish your goal of building a village. You seem like the right type of person to lead the people towards peace.”
Completely flustered at the genuine compliment Naruto felt a blush creeping up his neck, painting his ears and his cheeks red. He sheepishly raised a hand to the back of his neck and nervously rubbed it, smiling brightly. “That´s – Ah, thank you Lady Arisu, I really appreciate it. I´ll do my best, I promise!”
“I´m sure you will,” the laughter in a voice was clear, but it wasn´t condescending, only amused at his reaction, which left Naruto even more embarrassed than before.
“Well then,” she turned to the woman now, her face settling in a neutral expression once again and her emotions settling as well, indicating that this conversation was done. There was still a hidden pinch of anger in her chakra, but it was nothing that was outright visible to anyone else, so Naruto didn´t speak on it, “You´re done?” She raised a perfect thin eyebrow at the woman in question, who stood up and eagerly nodded.
“Yes, my Lady, the measurement is done. We should have something in Kitsune-san´s size, but I assume you want it custom made?”
Naruto spluttered, raising a hand to stop the woman. “Custom made? There´s no need to go out of your way to do that, really! If there´s –“
“Yes, that would be great. Will you be able to provide a basic idea and color scheme in a few hours?” At her nod, Arisu continued, “Good. We will come by then and take a look. After having it confirmed, have it done in two days, three at most. There is not much time.” Arisu smoothly talked right over him, interrupting and ignoring his protests. Naruto recognized the tone in her voice as the no-nonsense-tone she had used on him too many times in the span of his arriving and now. It meant that there was no way for him to refuse any of what she was saying.
Not because she held a higher rank than he did, something like that never stopped him, but because Naruto really wanted to avoid another whack with the chakra-enhanced fan, or another lecture.
“Understood, my Lady.” The woman quickly bowed her head forward before grabbing her notes, quickly giving Naruto a nod as goodbye, and rushing through a backdoor of the small shop in the Hatake compound that they visited. It was the shop of a small weaver, who apparently made incredibly good and sturdy clothes out of material that they gained from various trades with clients.
Now that it was done, Naruto hopped down from the small pedestal he had been standing on, waiting for what they might do next.
It was around midday and so far Naruto had been shown his quarters where he would be staying, a place for guests that came by during negotiations or a place for the allies of the Hatake clan that were staying over for a few days of shelter, and they had taken his measurements, which took longer than they anticipated.
“Now then,” Arisu smiled pleasantly, tilting her chin upwards and meeting Naruto´s eyes. Her green eyes seemed almost mischievous. Naruto would know, he would recognize that kind of gleam anywhere and in anyone.
“Let´s start with our actual lessons.”
.
“I see you´re having fun, Naruto.”
Naruto inwardly groaned, careful not to show his reaction to Arisu, who was sitting in front of him as he read through the scrolls.
The first few scrolls he had been given were describing basic etiquette and behavior in front of main branch families as well as the immediate family of the clan head. Apparently branching clans was not only a thing with the Hyuuga, like Naruto had thought at first. The Hyuuga just had a different sort of branching clans than most of the others.
The next few scrolls he had been given showed the basic history of the different clans and the current political state, something that should be common knowledge and that he was pretty sure Edo Tobirama tried to get him to memorize, but he sort of forgot – you know, being busy doing his job as Kitsune and saving the world. Now Arisu insisted on him at least learning what he needed to know to be able to survive in this time. That meant learning which clan had connections to another, who had a lot of bad blood between them, who was the prior and the current clan head, as well as the heirs he would need to pay attention to.
“This is the worst, seriously. Why can´t people just stop being so hung up on revenge? It´s not like it never did anyone any good, seriously. Take Sasuke for example. Or literally anyone else who wanted revenge. They´re fighting a war that their ancestors started and are pulling the innocent children into it who have nothing to do with their fights. It´s making me angry to watch. This is exactly what pervy sage was talking about when he said that there was too much hatred in this world.”
“It´s not just about revenge, kit,” Kurama grumbled, understanding what Naruto was getting at. He had lived during this time and watched as the shinobi tore into one another, and he could still remember it very clearly, “The shinobi of this time only know war. They don´t know how else to protect their kin, other than to kill the ones that are a threat to them. Peace is a foreign notion during this time and hatred towards your enemies is the safest way to survive.”
Naruto sighed, before quickly letting himself fall back into his mindscape. Arisu wouldn´t notice as long as he didn´t stay in here for too long.
Once he came face to face with Kurama, Naruto could feel the stress of the entire day melt away in an instant and instead be replaced with relief. With a few long strides, he was immediately at his partner´s side and let himself slump down onto one of the tails stretched out along the grass.
“I know that, Kurama. It´s just – reading about all of this just reminds me that there is so much to do in order to achieve peace. Not only that, but we still have to deal with Zetsu before he can free Kaguya. It just makes me feel as if we have accomplished nothing yet, even if I logically know that it´s not the truth.” Naruto explained, lifting one hand to remove the mask in the privacy of his own mind and using the other hand to run his fingers through the blonde strands of hair with a deep sigh.
They dropped the topic and fell into a comfortable silence, where Naruto allowed himself to sink further into the soft orange fur and Kurama wrapped his one tail tighter around him while gently swishing the others behind him. Naruto leaked his chakra out, allowing his normally reigned in reserves, too big for any normal human being, to go free. Kurama retaliated, sending his own chakra out towards Naruto and intervening the invisible threads with one another.
“It seems as though the Hatake are currently taking good care of you.” The fox grumbled, cracking one eye open to look at his host while resting his head on his paws.
The blonde hummed. “Yeah, they are. I´ve been with Lady Arisu most of the time, learning about the current time. I´m using the excuse of having to grow up alone and no one really teaching me in order to cover up my lack of knowledge about now. It´s not too far-fetched, since it was similar when I was a kid anyways.”
Kurama huffed at that. “Good to know you found a good enough cover story. No one is suspecting anything?”
“What would they suspect?” Naruto asked, looking up at Kurama with furrowed eyebrows, “It´s not like I´m lying about anything. Just withholding some of the information so that the timelines fit and so that nothing can be either proven right or wrong. It´s not a cover story if it´s the truth.”
At that, Kurama let out a deep and content grumble, satisfied with Naruto´s response.
“How much time is left until the departure?”
“Not a lot, honestly. I´ve mostly spend the last three days learning and reading and occasionally had some practice with Lady Arisu. Time flies though. I barely noticed that the days passed so quickly. In the evening we´ll go over everything once again to make sure I´m prepared and tomorrow morning I´m setting out to out meeting point.”
It really had passed quickly, the time he spend here in the compound.
After visiting the seamstress on the first day here, Naruto and Arisu had immediately started on the scrolls. The first day it had been etiquette and Naruto had been walked through the different customs and how to behave in front of a clan head. They had briefly taken a few breaks for Naruto to eat and for Arisu to attend her duties, since she still had those despite Naruto being there.
Naruto didn´t mind. It gave him some time to himself between all the lessons. Time that he mostly spend in his own quarters meditating to regain his strength, since sleep still didn´t come easy to him.
The second day they had gone over the history once Arisu noticed his utter lack of knowledge about now. While Naruto didn´t really like history in itself – it had been one of the lessons in academy he always failed, no matter how hard he tried. It just wasn´t interesting to him what was in the past, only what he could make out of the present and the future – he didn´t complain. Instead he diligently sat down with Arisu and got to reading, doing his best to memorize what he could.
On the third day, Arisu and Naruto visited the seamstress, since they had gotten word that she was done with his clothes. The woman presented a formal silk kimono in dark blue that came with a haori in similar color, but with a red belt, like the color of the marks on his Kitsune mask. They fit Naruto perfectly and were incredibly well done, but Naruto still felt a little uncomfortable in those clothes. He was contemplating going in his normal shinobi attire, but Arisu insisted that going only with an undershirt and a mesh shirt wouldn´t do any good.
After that, Naruto immediately started learning about the current political affairs, leading him to right now.
Overall, over those three days he spent here, Naruto had barely had any time for himself or for meeting anyone in the compound.
Kozume had visited once during one of his breaks and they had a nice talk about how they were each holding up. The young Hatake also asked a few questions about Naruto – or, well, Kitsune – which Naruto was happy to answer. Kozume hung on his every word, bright-eyed and curious, and Naruto found that he was really good company.
Kane had also checked in once and told him that Shirogane apologizes for not being able to see him at all during his stay because of his duties, to which Naruto assured him that it was fine. The man was a clan head who just vanished not too long ago. It´s clear he still has a lot of catching up to do piled on top of the duties he has to do either way. Naruto could understand.
Naruto sighed, running a hand through his hair again. “I can´t shake the feeling that something is going to happen. Things have been going way too good lately.”
A deadpan look was sent his way and it looked like Kurama had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at Naruto. “I would hardly call getting poisoned good. You´re just desensitized to little incidents because we´ve been fighting Kaguya for years. Not everything has to end in a world-ending catastrophe. Honestly, I hope it doesn´t. As much as we would be capable of dealing with it, I´d rather not use up too much of my chakra right now.”
The last sentence made Naruto frown and he brushed over the first part of Kurama´s answer for now, focusing on the last bit. “You´re still recovering? I can feel your chakra levels have almost gone back to the way they were, is something the matter?”
“Not necessarily, no,” Kurama conceded, “but I´d rather not find out in the midst of battle that the jump back somehow messed with my chakra.”
He grumbled a little and stretched himself, lifting his head off his paws and letting his tails swing behind him in a lazy motion. “I´ve been doormat for the past few days because I´m trying to balance out the extra chakra levels that I gained. I was –“
“Wait – wait a second,” Naruto interrupted, sitting up straight and sending a confused look towards his partner. “Extra chakra levels? I mean, I can detect some fluctuations in your chakra, which is probably you working out your balance, but where did you even get the extra chakra? I thought you were just gathering back what was yours before the jump?”
Silence briefly settled between the two of them and Kurama looked at Naruto like he´d grown a second head. “Are you serious?”
“What do you mean am I serious? I can´t imagine where you would get reserves large enough that you would have to actively work on balancing them out –“
“You do realize that we´re in the past?”
Naruto spluttered at the tone Kurama used with him, like he was absolutely stupid for not getting the point. He bristled and crossed his arms defensively in front of his chest. “Of course I do! What kind of question is that? What does that even have to do with your chakra reserves?”
Kurama, still not explaining what exactly he thought, asked again, “And you do realize that I lived during this time as well, yes?”
That had Naruto pausing, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to work out what Kurama was getting at. It took the blonde a few seconds to catch on to the point Kurama was making, but when he did, his eyes widened and he stared at Kurama in utter surprise.
“No way! You´re telling me you merged with the other you? I totally didn´t think about that!” Naruto groaned at his own stupidity and it didn´t really help that Kurama let out a long-suffering sigh to emphasize it as well.
How had he missed this?
“In hindsight, that makes so much sense! You recovered way faster than you should have after the jump back in time, and that could have only been because of getting chakra from another source, namely the Kurama of this time! And if you´ve been working to balance it out ever since you first merged with him, then it would make sense that I didn´t notice the changes in your or my chakra.” He flopped back down, dragging a hand down his face at having noticed only this late, before eyeing Kurama with very poor hidden curiosity and question in his eyes.
“So – what? You´re just two souls in a single chakra entity now? Two Kuramas? Is that a thing?”
Naruto yelped when Kurama clicked his tongue and tried to whack him to the ground with one of his tails, forcing him to roll to the side. He shot a glare in his friend´s direction, who directly shot a glare back.
“Of course not. When I say we merged, we fully merged. Given the fact that I had a stronger presence despite me being drained of chakra, since I had you with me, I basically only gained my counterpart´s chakra. There was a small memory backlash I suffered from it, but given that these were my memories in the first place either way, it wasn´t too hard to store them away and focus back on now.” Kurama grumbled, turning his head away when Naruto continued to stare at him in awe and work through the information he was getting.
“That´s – I totally didn´t think of that possibility. I was too busy with everything else going on that as soon as you were recovered I didn´t really think much of it.” Naruto admitted sheepishly. Honestly though, in Naruto´s opinion, thinking about the fact that his Kurama and this Kurama had merged inside of Naruto without him having even noticed was a little freaky in itself. Were his chakra reserved really that large that he was used to it?
Kurama, as if being able to tell what he was thinking, scoffed. “You wouldn´t have noticed it happen. One, I was already working through it, and two, since the foreign chakra wasn´t really hostile, to you it just seemed as if I was waking up. Your chakra levels, even without being a Jinchuuriki, are ridiculously high, courtesy of your Uzumaki genes.”
Naruto pretended not to notice the muttered “Damn Uzumaki and their freakish reserves” that followed after the explanation.
“I´m curious, would you mind if we tried some things out later? This is incredibly interesting. Were you conscious during the process? Did you get some of this Kurama´s personality traits?” Naruto smirked, pointedly aiming the last bit directly at Kurama with a smug look on his face, “Is that why you´re so grumpy lately?”
Laughing, Naruto dodged another tail that tried to attack him as Kurama muttered – or more like growled – curses under his breath. “If you speak like that you sound too much like that blasted Senju who was obsessed with his research and his new inventions. Don´t do that.”
He hummed, “I did spend a lot of time with Tobirama. He probably rubbed off on me a bit.” Naruto shrugged, not very phased.
Tobirama did have some sort of manic streak when it came to his research. When one thing interested him, then he would not let out before he had every answer to every single one of his questions, which could end up to be a lot.
As soon as the words “I´m curious” came out of Tobirama´s mouth, one knew it was time to run as far as they could and not to look back unless they can deal with his particular brand of curious.
Naruto shuddered a little.
“Well, at least that explains why you´ve been so absent lately. I kind of missed you grumbling around in my head.” Naruto chuckled, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back onto the tail that was lazily laying in the grass. Kurama´s ears twitched and he tsk-ed, turning his head away and bearing his teeth, not in a threatening kind of way, but in a way that showed that he was incredibly flustered by that.
It made Naruto smile so brightly that the whisker marks on his face scrunched up. It was so easy to fluster Kurama with kind stray comments that he wouldn´t see coming.
“Whatever Uzumaki, get out.”
A blink later, Naruto found himself blinking into awareness as he looked at the scroll in his hand, the one he´d started reading when he had been in the mindscape. By now it was around halfway done and the information of what Naruto had read subconsciously while he was with Kurama slowly filtered into his memory.
Naruto couldn´t help the small but fond huff that escaped him as he went back to finishing the scroll.