Chapter 25
40 months- August
.
Team Kushina and co returned home four and a half months after the mission had begun, tiered yet happy to be back home but first they would have to go and report their final report to the sandaime.
From the 17 people who had been dispatched for the Yugakure mission, 11 made it home alive, the other six had already been sent home via gama and had hopefully already had their funerals.
Mizuki, Daichi, Shizu, the Hyuuga, The Inuzuka and one of the Foundations members had all been killed, the Hyuuga having been killed in a completely different battle than the others.
This mission weighed more on their hearts than any other missions they had been given despite having gone on several front line missions.
Had Naruto been feeling herself she would have noticed the lack of a certain chakra signature in the village however she wasn’t feeling herself and did not noticed, but Kurama did, although he said nothing.
An hour later of discussing their final report, those outside of Team Kushina were dismissed and it was now their turn to debrief the hokage.
“There will be no need to go in detail, you have written a full report, all I need is small yet summative details you think are important.” Spoke the hokage, a small smile on his face as their faces brightened at his news. It meant they would get to go home earlier than expected.
“Kabutowari and Hiramekarei are now in our possession. ANBU have left Hiramekarei in scroll 3 and Naruto has Kabutowari sealed away.” Naruto reached into her pocket and handed over the sealed weapon.
“Do you wish to keep this Naruto? It is after all, the weapon is yours as it is your prize for killing the man.”
She shook her head, “I can’t use double handed weapons as I usually use ninjutsu with the unoccupied hand.”
The sandaime gave her a thoughtful look and handed her the other scroll, “Though this blade is not your spoils, you can have it if you so wish. The ANBU do not collect bounty without my approval and should I give it to them, there would be infighting as it would seem more than one person procured this blade.”
Naruto stared dumbfounded at the scroll. Hirameikarei was also a double handed weapon however a person had the option to use on hand with the blade. She knew she could use it, Chojirou had allowed her to use the blade on occasion so she knew it responded well to her. There was also the added benefit that she would be able to give it back to Kiri at a later date- for a price.
This carried on for the next half hour before the sandaime stated he had something he wished to inform them.
“Team Kushina, on behalf of Team Minato I am to inform you that during their last mission at Kannabi Bridge-” Naruto tensed, heart dropping as she knew where this was going but wished she was wrong. “- Obito Uchiha lost his life and gave his sharingan eye to Kakashi Hatake.”
The sandaime’s face betrayed nothing but Naruto could sense this weighed on him, you didn’t get many Uchiha that vocally expressed their wish to be hokage with such innocence that Obito did.
Naruto shut her eyes as she took in a shuddering breath, feeling for Obito’s chakra and finding it near the general location of Tenchi Bridge but his chakra was wrong. It was… jumping and swirling around inside him. She could feel Madara, since the man was next to the chakra of someone she knew.
Naruto thought against going over there, Obito knew she was a jinchuriki and no doubt Zetsu knew as well which of course meant that Madara would know. If Madara managed to get control over her it would be bad news for everyone.
She decided to leave Obito where he was for now, this way Obito would be healed form whatever injuries and assumed loss of limbs as well which was something Konoha could not do just yet.
‘I say leave him. Let the Uchiha’s rot together with that filth.’ Snarled Kurama as he looked down at his host who simply sighed and smiled at his antics. She knew the filth he referred to meant Zetsu. Naruto found it funny they would all call her Mother but they wouldn’t call Zetsu their Uncle despite that being what he technically was.
Naruto heard her teammates’ intake of breath but unlike the others, she didn’t feel sad over his so called loss. Whether that was because she knew he was fine or because of what he had become last time she wasn’t sure. Despite the number of years that had passed, she wasn’t over the Allied Shinobi War just yet.
Iruka and Kushina had been dismissed, leaving Naruto and Shisui in the office with the sandaime who had placed silencing seals around the office.
They didn’t like where this was going.
“Shisui, about the Mangek-”
Naruto interrupted him, “I already told him everything he needs to know about the mangekyou, from its genjutsu to the Susanoo. Even the part of possible blinding and the eternal mangkyo.”
During their mission, they usually took turns to bathe in a river or lake as another person stood on guard with their back turned, Naruto and Shisui had taken their shifts with themselves or Iruka. When Shisui had been on guard duty as she bathed she had spoken about it, telling him about his eyes.
At which point he mentioned seeing a sharingan eye activated in her own socket and Naruto had mentally cursed anyone who may have been up there. She had lied, saying it was the eye of a friend of hers who lived in Takigakure with her, a bastard of the Uchiha clan that no one had known about and he had dropped the subject when he had seen her saddened face.
Naruto sometimes scared herself with her capabilities to lie so easily to those around her but most of the time she impressed herself.
“Which brings me to the part of Shisui’s report where he wrote that he had seen you with a sharingan. Jiraiya never mentioned anything about you nowing an Uchiha. Or about your sharingan.”
Naruto shrugged her shoulders, feigning innocence, “Ero-tou-san doesn’t know about everything in regards to me during the short time he was away. Having this eye, which was given to me, felt lie something that people didn’t need to know. The Uchiha are sought out because of their kekkei-genkai, if people were to find out I had one, I’d have the word after me.
“Nobody wishes to see an Uzumaki with the power of the sharingan and fuinjutsu mastery as well as my status as jinchuriki. I’ve had a target on my back for years and am making it bigger as I build a reputation for myself but I don’t need this to make that target even bigger.” It wasn’t a whole lie. If you added all those things together, you were asking for trouble.
The sandaime leaned forwards, “Jiraiya once spoke to me about the prophecy of the Ogama Sennin had seen of my student where he would teach the Child of Prophecy. From what he has told me, he has six living students; yourself, Minato and the Ame three, one of which matches the necessary critera for the title.
“When he had been telling me about this, he mentioned something about the blood of the Uchiha and Senju mixing.” Naruto hoped she was over-thinking this, praying to Hagoromo himself that the sandaime wasn’t going to mention the little detail she had successfully buried in her memory years ago.
“When the blood of those two clan mix one could unlock the Rinnegan. The Uzumaki are relatives to the Senju which is shown in you is your ability to activate and deactivate your sharingan at will which we have established Kakashi cannot.” He looked at her, waiting to see what her reaction would be.
Whilst Naruto didn’t have as much experience as the sandaime, but she knew this field of her work, “I may have their kekkei-genkai but it’s not mine. I do not have the blood of the Uchiha inside of me.” she flared a small, unnoticeable amount of chakra into Shisui’s piercing rod, a silent message for him to not say anything.
The sandaime didn’t need to know that he had transfused his blood into her, it would do no good. So what if she could activate the rinnegan? It wasn’t like she ever used the damn thing, just like she never used the sharingan.
Hiruzen squinted his eyes as he assessed them, they seemed to be keeping something from him but it wasn’t like he could pry it out of them. If it was important he could trust Shisui to tell him. He could trust Naruto, however she had too many secrets and many more that she kept a secret from him and because she was an Uzumaki, he wasn’t allowed to force her to answer him, a privilege granted when Lady Mito married the shodai- no Uzumaki or a jinchuriki were to have their actions questioned unless they were actions that put the people at risk.
The issue here was, he didn’t know if she would be putting the people at risk when this was all over.
The sandaime leaned back and sighed heavily as he reached for a document in one of his draws. “Given your status’ it is paramount that the two of you are aware of the hokage candidacy along with Kushina.” He gave the document to them and it clicked in their minds why Kushina sensei had been given a document upon leaving.
The two of the looked at their documents and Naruto felt the need to burn it with her black flames, fucking Danzo and of course Minato. She raised a brow and looked up, “Orochimaru isn’t a candidate?”
Sure, the man was aware of his future and wished to digress from that path however this was going a bit too far. As long as Orochimaru didn’t plan on experimenting on the whole of bloody Konoha or making them his slaves, she didn’t see why he would choose anything other than the seat of yondaime hokage.
He inhaled some of his tobacco before exhaling it, another thing Naruto wanted to burn, and replied, “He was petitioned by Homura and Koharu however he stated he did not wish to become hokage. Something about wandering around the nations.” This time both of her eyebrows rose, that was more on Jiraiya’s page than Orochimaru’s page to be honest.
“That is all I wished to discuss with you however, Naruto, I was asked by Jiraiya to give this to you. He said you could not open it till the 24th of the ninth month, as that would be exactly half the estimated time for his mission.” He reached once more into his desk and gave her a thick envelope which she took without question, however internally she wondered why.
.
.
.
Naruto had found him exactly where she had expected him to be. It was strange that the man’s habits hadn’t changed despite the fact that everything was different. She hadn’t even sensed for him, just expecting him to be here since she knew he was in the village.
She landed behind him and wrapped her arms around his torso, her head between his shoulder bones as he inhaled her scent, even though she wasn’t in front of him.
“It wasn’t your fault.” She said after standing there for an unknown amount of time, just allowing him to take from her presence what he needed for whatever he needed, she would always try to give.
He raised a hand and placed it on top of her own, clenching it tightly, “You don’t know that.” He replied gruffly, his voice betraying him as it gave away how clogged it was from his guilt.
“No, so why don’t you tell me what the last thing he said to you was.”
There was a long pause before he replied quietly, “He said ‘promise me you’ll keep her safe.’” It didn’t take a genius to guess who Obito was referring to.
“If he blamed you for what happened, do you honestly think he would entrust you with the safety of the girl he loved?” when she received no reply she carried on, “If Obito was with us, what do you think he’d say about you know?”
His reply was immediate, “That I was being a bastard with a stick up his ass.”
Naruto smiled, honestly she felt like the old her could have played the part of Obito without a problem since she always felt that way about Sasuke except Sasuke had the excuse that it was hereditary in 99.9% of his clan.
They didn’t say anything after that however Naruto did let go of Kakashi in favour of allowing him to hug her instead of the other way around.
.
.
.
41 months- September
.
Naruto felt sick to her stomach and actually considered vomiting.
Needless to say, due to Naruto’s fox genes and the fact she was attracted to male and females, she defined as Pansexual so should someone else say they were gay, lesbian, bi, pan, ace or anything else, she didn’t have a problem with it.
She didn’t exactly have an issue with these people being bi… more so that they were fucking bi for each other.
Naruto knew she fucked the past up considering the mission to Kannabi Bridge was a year earlier than what it should have been, however she had never thought this would happen.
The letter Jiraiya had given to the sandaime to give to her clearly stated he was sleeping with Orochimaru.
Jiraiya.
And Orochimaru.
In bed with each other.
Jiraiya who loved women’s breasts, behinds and thighs more than he liked being alive and Orochimaru who she didn’t know the sexuality of.
‘Someone get me the Yamanaka clan because I need mental bleach for this.’ She groaned mentally, trying to remove the image from her mind till reality forced her to see sense.
.
.
.
44 months- December- 9 years old
.
Naruto stood in front of the sandaime, waiting for his reaction. He had announced that he was going to retire and name his successor in a few days. Jiraiya and Orochimaru stated it would be best for her to come clean about her so she did, of course that was after much protesting and arguing which she couldn’t actually win against a guy who used his brain more than she did.
Which left her in her current position, looking up at the sandaime as she awaited his reaction.
His reaction was not something she had expected. The old man had gotten out of his seat and came over to her, bowing low before her, “I beg your forgiveness for the life you have lives under my misguided rule. You should not have had to suffer the way you did by the hands of my people and I only have my ignorance to blame. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, my child?”
Honestly she had been expecting concealed anger or something similar- not this.
“Uh… I kinda forgave you a while back so… there’s no need to bow jiji.” She replied awkwardly.
The man slowly raised his head and looked deep in though before going behind his desk, reaching into a draw that Naruto recognised and she honestly believed she was under a genjutsu because there was no way the sandaime hokage was allowing her- a recently turned nine year old- to enter the ANBU black ops.
The mask in front of her proved her statement otherwise as did the lack of dispersion when she tried to dispel the genjutsu.
She took the mask into her right hand as she crouched into a bow, her left arm in full display once she removed her haori, leaving her in an under-mesh-shirt. As he made her swear to the ANBU’s code and oath, he placed the ANBU seal on her upper left arm, and she was surprised to see it black as well as the red flames encased around it.
Her eyes widened in understanding of what the tattoo was. The flames around the ANBU tattoo allowed her to come and go from the village as she pleased with or without the hokage’s permission as long as she reported back what she was doing. Whereas the black ANBU tattoo allowed her to take high ranking mission alone and no one was allowed to judge her actions either.
She had only ever seen the flame mark on one other person and that had been Jiraiya, only because the man couldn’t stand to stay in the village for long periods of time after Minato had died.
She looked up at the sandaime when he was finished and asked him if he truly believed she was worthy, as in her time no one had been granted either of those marks.
“You served Konoha despite their treatment of you. You protected a comrade and bought him home just as you swore. You united the five nations. And even if you believe you failed one fifth of humanity- as I see it, you saved four fifths of humanity. There is no one I know that is worthy of these marks as you are, Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze.”
Her eyes welled with tears which she wiped off with her hand, not wanting to cry when she was holding a bloody ANBU mask however she knew they were tears of joy as did the sandaime as he said nothing to stop her tears other than to hold her to him.
.
.
.
Naruto stood next to Shisui and Iruka amongst the crowd that had formed at the base of the hokage tower- the yondaime was being named ad it bought a smile to her face as she saw her father turned brother donning the white and red flames robe he wore with the writing of Yondaime Hokage on the back along with the white hat with the kangi for Hi on it.
“I am the yondaime!”
“I am the godaime!”
“I am your Rokudaime!”
‘They’re all the same.’ She thought with mirth filled eyes. ‘Despite the generations, each speech ends the same, with the announcement of who we are.’
‘Look again, Naruto. Whilst your predecessors claimed to be the kage you claimed to be their kage. There is a difference with your speech, so it did not end the same, not will you end the same as they did.’
Naruto smiled at the proclamation, knowing she would not allow their endings to be the same as they had been before. She’d be damned to the pits of hell with Madara before she let them die how they did the last time.
Unbeknownst to her, a fire lit in her eyes. A fire which had been previously dimming with the current war which was now over thanks to the massacre at Kannabi Bridge as well as the destruction Minato had left behind at Tenchi Bridge, although Naruto was confused as to why the man had gone crazy there as well.
.
.
.