Truth and family
"Summoning jutsu!"
There was a puff of smoke and two people appeared from it, one person was tall with long dark red hair, green eyes, she wore a blue tank top with spaghetti straps, long black leggings that stopped at her mid-calf. She looked tired and angry at the person who summoned her. The person next to her had dark violet hair and eyes, she wore a dark purple casual kimono with a white apron around her waist, the sleeves of her kimono was tied up with a white string to free up her hands and most her arms. The two women looked at Kurama, the one who summoned them, "what's the big idea summoning us this early? I thought we were to be called tomorrow?" Hidi asked agitated by the kitsune clan head.
"Sorry, sorry, but since I was going to summon you anyways, why not do it now?" Kurama said with a nervous chuckle at the end.
The girl with the violet eyes stared at him, "Lord Kurama, you know I can tell when you're lying, I have been taking care of you for the past few years now. Even before you left and got sealed into a child while I was still very young, however, I can still tell that you're hiding something." Kurama hung his head, he knew that he was beat, "what's wrong this time?" The girl sighed.
"Well, Hinata, when we came to Uzu this morning, we were followed around by the linkage and his two sons until a little while ago," Kurama said peeking the two girls entrust.
"Wha-so you've talked to the rikage already? What'd he say?" Asked Hidi.
"It was a very well meet, everyone got along great, after Naruto and the others told them why they ran away, the rikage asked if he could adopt them. All of them..." Kurama smirked, "although I think he has other ways to bring me into the family," he chuckled.
Hinata walked up to the smirking fox man, who seemed to be lost in his perverted thoughts, she lifted her hand and slapped him across the face. Hard. Kurama snapped out of his thoughts at the slap, his ears fox ears flattened themselves onto his head as he found and rubbed his bruised cheek. "Are you done, my Lord?" Kurama nodded, "good, I apologize for that slap, however, you know that I don't like hearing you talk like that... *shudders* It's gross, like hearing about your parents made you. *sigh* Now tell us how Naru's seal is holding up, it's already been a year since I renewed the seal, it will need changing soon."
Kurama sighed as well, "he's doing fine, in fact without the seal I doubt he would have been able to stay outside this long."
"If he's still doing alright, then you can just call us back tomorrow, right?" Hidi shrugged.
"When I say he's doing fine, I meant to say he was fine, but now.." he trailed off.
"What happened?" Hinata asked, her ears standing at attention on her head.
"When the rikage and his sons started following us from a distance, at first he was fine, but then he started to feel overwhelmed and tired. He took a nap after lunch and was feeling better, but after meeting the rikage and his sons, talking to them, I could see it... "
"See what?" Asked Hidi and Hinata at the same time.
"The reason why Naruto got tired before, I was only guessing before, but when he meets with them, he started looking slightly pale. I had to ask watch and see for a little while during dinner, once Naruto and Shikamaru started making the food and the three weren't too close by, he felt better. Yet after serving dinner, he fainted, Shikamaru, as expected with his... sensitivities for emotions... he also passed out when he tried to wake Naruto up, one-touch and he was out cold." Kurama folded his arms, "Jin was about to check Shikamaru to see if he was alright, but I stopped him knowing that the same thing would happen to him too."
"And what of Kibo, how's he handling this?" Hinata asked.
"He was looking pretty sick when I left, so I put him under a sleep jutsu until I got back."
"Who's watching them now?" Hidi asked.
"Before I left, Shukaku was looking after Naruto with help from Gaara and Haku," the girls looked at, "we kind of picked them up on our way to Uzu." They nodded for him to continue, "I asked little Hinata to look after Shikamaru, with the triplets, with their high energy levels, I simply told them to stay positive around him and he'll wake up soon."
"...You think he's related to Mito, even though she was an Uzumaki?" Hidi asked.
Kurama shrugged, "how else you explain his sensory of emotions?"
"Whether that's true or not, we must look at that later, but for now we need to take a look at Naruto." Hinata looked around the clearing they were in, "tell me, where's your camp located?"
"I'll take you there," Kurama said walking out of the clearing, "oh, and the rikage is still there, so try to be nice, I know that you don't like meeting new people, Hinata."
"No promises, Kurama," said girl replied.
Kurama eyed her, " fair enough, I guess... let's go."
Back in Konoha
One week earlier
Narumi was playing with her new toys that she had gotten a week before on her birthday, she got a lot more presents this year than the last, maybe that was because she may or may not have taken the little presents that some people were going to give her brother, Naruto. Maybe because she didn't like how Naruto got a pet fox with gold fur, and then his friend, Shikamaru, got an orange one about a year later and she didn't, so she complained about it to her parents. Maybe it's because she wanted more presents than him, again, this year. Who could say? Speaking of her twin brother, all the presents that she did take from him were all about cooking and baking, Narumi hated the book and she could never see herself cooking for anyone but herself. She got bored with his presents after flipping through this one baking book that showed how to make things like wedding cakes and stuff like that, she liked to look at those pictures and think about how good they would taste with tea at one of her tea parties.
Now it's a week later and she was looking at the cookbook again because she had nothing else to do when suddenly, she had an idea. Instead of just looking at the pictures, she could have the real thing for herself! All she had to do was ask her brother to just make it for her, perfect, now all she had to do was find him and ask. She skipped her way down to the kitchen where she knew he would be around this time of the day, she barged into the room, ready to ye-tell her brother what she wanted, when she noticed that the room was empty. She looked around to see a pile of dishes in the sink, other than the dishes, the room was spotless. She scratched her head in wonder as she walked out of the room, she then went to around the house looking for him but couldn't find him in the house, she found M.J. reading a scroll on the couch and asked, "have you seen Naruto?"
M.J. shook his head, "no, but he's usually in the kitchen around this time, did you check there?" He asked, knowing that his littlest sister would mostly check everywhere else before the obvious place.
"Yes, I checked there first this time, all I found were some dirty dishes," Narumi stated.
M.J. stopped what he was reading and looked at his sister, "dirty dishes? In the sink? You sure?" He asked, Narumi nodded, M.J. put down the scroll he was reading and walked over to the kitchen while Narumi followed. He walked into the room and looked around, the floors were clean, the counter spotless with a shin over the surface, dirty dishes in the sink, this felt weird to him. Usually, when he walked in here he would smell something good cooking, or one his brother's clones would chase him out so the others could focus, but to have it empty like this during the day was... odd. M.J. did remember coming home from a mission once to this same scene, minus the dishes in the sink, and asked where Naruto had gone. His parents said that he was on strike and he would be back to work in a few weeks or so, and he was. M.J. smiled and looked back at Narumi, "don't worry imouto, he'll be back in the kitchen cooking up a storm in no time, 'kay?"
Narumi pouted, it looked like she would have to wait a whole week to get her cake, but what could she do, force him to make her cake? That wouldn't work unless her parents were there to see him refuse to make the cake for her like last time, plus he wasn't in the house so her tactics definitely wouldn't work out. She sighed, "okay," M.J. smiled and her and patted her head before going back to what he was doing. Narumi looked at the cookbook that she had been carrying around, "oh well, at least now I can look at all the cakes and stuff that he could make when he gets back to work," she left and went back to her room.
Kurama walked back to the tent with Hidi and Hinata in tow, when he left he had told the E and his son's to watch over everyone until he came back, E had been very worried for Naruto and Shikamaru after they fainted while they were serving dinner. Kurama told him not to worry because he was going to bring back someone that could help, then he left before E could ask who that help was, since the only once that he knew where there were in the tent. When the redhead came back to the campsite, he saw E waiting for him outside the tent, he walked up to the rikage with a smile, "you didn't have to wait outside for little ol' me," Kurama said in a sweet voice.
"They don't need me inside right now, so I thought I would come out here and read the stars," E said.
"Hm, you read stars too?" Hinata asked stepping forward.
E nodded at her, "that I do, Miss, and who are you?"
"My name is Hinata Kitsune, I'm a seal master and a medic, I'm here to help Naruto with his seal."
"And I'm Hidi Kitsune, I also seal master and a medic, I'm also skilled in reading emotions and body language, they call me the Lie Directer back home."
E nodded, getting her point, he motioned for them to come inside, "how's Naruto's condition since Kurama left?" Asked Hinata as they walked down the hall to Naruto's room.
"No change, he's been in and out of contentiousness for a while now, he doesn't seem to want anything to eat or drink." E stopped in front of Naruto's room, he opened the door to show Naruto laying in bed mumbling to himself with his eyes closed, everyone was in the room, even Shikamaru, but he stood away from the bed. "Shikamaru woke up a little while after you left, said something about swirling colored and strong feelings, wouldn't go any closer to the boy than that."
"Thank you, Rikage-sama, we shall take it from here," Hinata said stepping into the room. She looked around to see everyone, the triplet was sitting close to the bed looking tired, Shukaku and Gaara stood behind them, Haku and Hinata Hyuuga were to Naruto's left, Shikamaru stood a good feet away from Naruto's right, A and Killer B were looking onto the scene with worried eyes as they held up the wall by the door. She walked over to Naruto's bedside, she did some hand signs and her hands started to glow green, she moved her hands over his body starting from his head down to his feet, she did it again to make sure before looking back to Kurama. Kurama comes up next to her with a questioning look, everyone got closer but still kept a good distance from the laying blond. "He's overwhelmed on chakra," said the older Hinata.
"Overwhelmed on chakra? How and who?" Asked A.
"To tell you the truth, it's not a question on who's it is, it a question on how much he's overwhelmed," said the purple Kitsune. "I can't give you a straight answer, but I can say this since he hasn't been around so much kage level chakra in his life, and since this room is overflowing with kage or higher chakra, he's going to need to be flushed."
"What! You can't put nii-san in the toilet, that's gross," said Menma, everyone looked at him for a moment before chuckling.
"No, no, Menma, she's not going to put Naru in the toilet," Shikamaru chuckled much to the child's confusion.
"That's right," said the ex-Hyuuga, "all she's going to do is just take out all of the bad chakras inside Naru that's making him feel sick."
"Oooh, okay then," Menma said with a great big smile.
"Why are you so embarrassing?" Kohaku, the mature one of the triplets, said.
The older Hinata cleared her throat, "anyways, I'm going to draw a seal on him that will filter out the overwhelming chakra out of his system, he'll wake up within the hour. So, i'm going to need everyone to leave while I work, I'll come and get you when he wakes up," everyone nodded and went back to the kitchen since they hadn't eaten yet, while Hidi and Kurama stayed to help.
Kurama turned back to Hinata, "after you flush him, I think you should put the new seal on him if it's ready that is."
Hinata nodded, "yes, I think I should do that as well, however..." she looked back to Naruto," once the seal is activated, he won't be able to do your heavy training for about three days." She turned back to Kurama with a small smirk, "will that be okay by you?"
"Oh yeah, and don't think we don't know how hard you've been working poor Naru during training," Hidi said cracking her knuckles.
Kurama chuckled, "oh uh, what was that, uh excuse me I think I hear someone calling my name," then he quickly left the room before he got beat up by Hidi...again.
Back in Konoha
Sometime after Naruto and the other reached Uzu
Narumi was pacing the length of her room, she had just gotten the news that her parents had enrolled her and Naruto into the Ninja Academy, she was so happy thinking about how she would become a ninja. She also liked the idea of all the different types of cute lunches that her brother could make for her, maybe putting them in a super cute bento box for lunch. A t this thought her mouth watered thinking of the lunches for an hour and a half alone when she shook herself out of her musing, she ran off to the kitchen to find her brother. It had been about two weeks, going on three, since she last went to the kitchen to ask her brother to make cake for her, after a week of waiting (she was surprised that she could wait that long), she had asked her siblings when Naruto would be done with his strike, they told her to wait another week or two for him to come back. After all, he's never gone more than two or three weeks without making anything, so today she thought she would try her luck.
She ran to the kitchen with a great big smiled on her face and burst into the kitchen jumping up and down, talking about going to the academy, talking about the lunches he could make when... she actually noticed that he wasn't responding, she looked around to see that someone had washed the dishes that were in the sink the last time she was there. She walked around the kitchen, which was an open floor plan thing, with a large square counter in the middle, all the surfaces were gray steel that shined like new in the light or the dark, smooth and cool to the touch and very modern (Minato's idea). Naruto loved it, he always said that the counter was perfectly leveled, all the surfaces were easier to clean, and he simply raved about all the storage space, Narumi didn't get it, what was great about a kitchen? She didn't know, she just liked the idea of all the food that would come out of there, the kitchen was big like a chefs kitchen, which Naruto loved greatly, Narumi thought he was just crazy, but now that she was looking around it now...
The kitchen had a pretty good view of the training field outback, the windows let in a lot of light that you wouldn't even need to turn on the light, she thought that the place looked nice. Yet, seeing her brother wasn't in the kitchen with a bunch of clones running around working, the kitchen still looked nice, but also empty, and kind of lonely...like your cut off from the world and you've got your own little space right here. It was also very quiet, too quiet, Narumi backed out of the kitchen opting to go check somewhere else. She thought of another place he could be, she went up to his room and knocked on the door, she waited for a moment, no answer, she knocked again, no answer... she knocked on the door a final time before braking and entering, it was safe to say that she was pissed off at the lack of her brothers manners. She entered the room while doing her mother's famed Medusa genjutsu, she looked around the room and stopped dead in her tracks.
White walls, queen-sized platformed bed, a desk to one side, a bookcase to another side... but where were his toys? Where were his posters, pictures, she checked the closet, where were his clothes? Everything was bare, clean, dusted, it was like a child's room when they finally went away to college. But Naruto wasn't a college student, right? He couldn't have been or she would have known about it, so, where was everything!? Narumi started to panic, she ran out of her room and looked around the house, she looked and looked until she came back to her room, now she was pacing the floor thinking about where her brother could be. Or his friend, she was hadn't seen him in a while, Shikamaru was his name, wasn't it? Yeah, that was it, he was a Nara, and all Nara's lived in the Nara compound, that was it! She would go to said compound and ask for the Nara boy then ask him where brother was, at this point in her thinking, Narumi thought she was a genius like her father, so she left her compound to find the Nara's. The Nara compound wasn't too far from her family's own, it was just a ten minute run for a ninja-like her, she made it the compound in under ten minutes and went up to the door. She knocked on the door and waited for it to be answered, Mrs. Nara came out, she smiled down at Narumi.
"Hello, Mrs. Nara, is Shikamaru around?" Narumi asked sweetly.
Yoshino gave her a funny look, "no, I haven't dear, I thought he was still staying over at your house."
Narumi shook her head, "he was but I thought he came back here, I'm looking for my brother and I was wondering if Shikamaru saw him around."
Yoshino frowned, "no, my son hasn't been back here since he moved in with your family, are you sure he's not with one of your siblings? Or maybe even helping out your parents somewhere?"
"No, I checked all over the house, my mommy's on a mission so are my M.J.-nii and Shio-one-chan," Narumi said starting to sound desperate.
"What about Ryu? didn't he come back from his mission yet, I know I used to see Shikamaru talking to him sometimes," Yoshino asked.
"No, no, no, Ryu's been out of the village since, after my birthday, I don't know when he'll be back!" Narumi started to cry.
Yoshino was having a bad feeling coming up in the pit of her stomach, she had stopped looking for her son when she saw him at the party and wanted to talk to him, but he kept slipping away. She had finally decided to just wait until her son was older to try again, but now, as she heard the desperation in Narumi's voice, maybe it was time she took a look around again for herself. Yoshino knelt in front of the little redhead and looked into her crystal blue eyes, "nay, hay, don't cry, you are a big girl now about to head off to the academy in a few months, ninja's don't cry." Narumi whipped her eyes and looked at the woman, "there you go, now, I'll tell you what, how about we look around the village for Naruto and Shikamaru together, two heads are better than one, what you say?"
Narumi smiled, "alright, we'll do it together."
3 Weeks later in Uzu
Naruto, Shikamaru, Hinata Hyuuga aka Hime (everyone agreed to call her Hime because having two Hinata's was confusing), Haku, and Gaara were being trained by Kurama and Hidi, while Menma, Kohaku, and Neko where learning a little about history from Shukaku, Hinata Kitsune taught everyone fuuinjutsu and kenjutsu whenever they weren't being trained or taught. E, the 3rd rikage, had left Killer B with to watch over the group while he and A went back to Kumo to get started on the paperwork needed to adopt Naruto, Shukaku and the other kids as his own. However, E and Kurama's relationship was still being worked on, although, A and Killer B got the sneaking suspicion that Kuramamy just end up as their 'mom' at some point, until then Kurama would be listed as a special jonin when they get to the village, as well as Shukaku since he looked to be old enough to be at least 15 - 16 years out and the academy is for 7 - 11-year-olds.
When Hinata put the seal onto Naruto to filter out the overwhelming chakra, she discovered that he only became overwhelmed was not by all the kage level chakra, but because he had been having nightmares of what happened on the day he got raped by a villager. The dreams had haunted him ever since that day and he barely slept in the past few months before leaving the village, yet now that he was out of the village, the nightmares seem to be getting worse. Naruto's dreams had gotten so bad that he had forgone sleeping entirely, with an only short burst of sleep no longer than thirty minutes to an hour every so often, this stress worked on his nerves so much that he would take just about any distraction he could get as long as he didn't fall asleep. The only reason why they didn't see the signs, was because Naruto had started wearing make-up to hid the dark circles under his eyes that would have made him look like Gaara's twin. But, thankfully, Hinata was able to fix that little problem, they had talked it over with Naruto and E because he wanted to know and they would be family very soon. Hinata told Naruto that there was a way for him to not have the nightmares anymore, she would either lock the memory of that even away for good, although if he was to ever met the person or was in a similar situation again, the memories would come back. Or she could whip that memory out of his mind forever, but at the same time, since the memory was from Konoha, she would need to whip his memory of his life there as well, meaning he would only remember his life and other events that happened outside of the leaf village. Also meaning that he would forget his mom, dad, sisters, and brothers that still lived within Konoha's walls, Neko, Menma, and Kohaku would still be within his knowledge, but only up until the point of them leaving the village.
Naruto thought long and hard about this, he didn't want to remember how his parents forgot him in the house four nearly half a year, he didn't want to remember them promising to never forget him again, but then end but doing so anyway. He didn't want to remember how happy he was to start cooking for his family and them to praise him for it, only to be chained to the kitchen to continue cooking for them like some servant. He didn't want to remember how the villagers treated him like dirt while his twin got treated like a princess just because she was 'the hero of Konoha', even though they share the same burden. He surely didn't want to remember how they favored 'hero' when she didn't act like it, and he didn't want to remember how his so-called parents would take her side when she was lying... for a brief moment he wondered when that all started. But the thing that wanted to forget the most was the rape, and how his parents didn't seem to check the ally ways for him. Yes, he had seen them looking for him in town that evening while he was being raped right under their noses, he called out to them too, "mom! Help me! Please!" He had cried to Kushina who had stopped right in front of the scene of the crime, but what did she do? What did she do? I'll tell you what she did, she turned away and walked off, she didn't even see him! And THAT was what his nightmares were mostly about, him calling out to his mom or his dad as they passed by him, broken, beaten, bruised, and bloodied, the 4B's that he hated haunted him endlessly every single night, it was sickening.
So without another word, he asked to forget. Everything to do with Konoha. His life there, how he was treated, why he wanted to leave, how he managed to stay there so long a fake smile on for his family to make them think that he was happy. He didn't know why he stayed so long hen he should have left, "I want to forget it, all of it."