Chapter 16 -> Part 16

When I woke up, I lay on an old futon. Sakumo sat at my feet, holding his head. Uchiha Kagami crouched beside me.

"Feeling better?" Kagami asked.

"No," I responded. "What happened?"

"Do not feel bad, your sensei collapsed shortly after you. I think the rest of that argument is better left in the past. As soon as you recover, the Hokage wants to meet you."

"About the Raikage?"

"Yes."

"Can it wait until tomorrow?"

"No." Kagami helped me sit up. "I should introduce myself. Uchiha Kagami," he held out a hand. I took it, swaying slightly. "Shortly before you became a Genin, it became my job to prevent Kumo from obtaining an Uzumaki. I made the mistake of assuming Kumo would target you instead of your sister. It was a bad call on my part, I apologize."

"Well, why didn't you do anything once you knew?"

"I did. I placed a Genjutsu on her sensei to prompt him to help so you wouldn't need your memory scrubbed of my existence."

"Clever, did Jiraiya ever figure out the Genjutsu?"

"You would have met me much sooner if he did."

"Well, am I going to get my memory scrubbed of you now?"

Kagami laughed lightly. "Hell no, it's time I come back into the boring, old standard forces, my use in the shadows has expired. Besides, it's been too long since I last got to embarrass my best student." He ruffled Sakumo's hair.

"Only student," Sakumo corrected, sounding nearly as nauseous as when I screwed up the Genjutsu I was supposed to be testing on him.

"Now you're all grown up with your own cute little student who gives you almost as much trouble as you gave me."

"Please don't give him any ideas, sensei."

"Almost as much trouble? I feel like I, um, failed a test of some sort."

"You have to be a damn good genius to give someone as much trouble as Sakumo gave me. Anyways, you looking for a hot date, kid?" Kagami put his arm around my shoulder as if I was his best buddy.

"What?"

"He's nine, Sensei. Is no one free of your insufferable romanticism?"

"You were six when I said you'd marry that girl. What was her name? Ah, I remember, Kaori. Now look who—"

Sakumo elbowed Kagami in the gut.

"Still, I'm always right! Most of the time."

"Leave my student alone."

Kagami fell back laughing insanely as the door opened to reveal the Hokage, his face sour.

"Good to know you're enjoying your newfound freedom, Kagami. Kichiro-kun, are you ready?"

"No," I muttered and inched away from the crazy Uchiha.

"He doesn't bite, Kichiro-kun," the Hokage commented with some amusement.

"Yeah, but someone dosed him with laughing gas and I don't want any."

"Lighten up, kid," Kagami patted me on the back, much rougher than strictly necessary. "The bastard Raikage isn't all that scary. Besides, he'll be all tied up with chakra-binding seals so you won't have to worry about a thing."

"I'm more concerned that I'm being haunted by some kind of ghost."

"I'm not a ghost!"

"History books say you died due to injuries from the same mission that brought about the Nidaime's death."

He snorted. "Looked me up, didn't you?"

"No, I just paid attention to history class."

"You've never taken a single damn history class, kid."

"Looked me up, didn't you?"

"Obviously! Can't have my cute little student picking up a random brat from a different world, he does things like that."

I jerked away, alarmed, but he just winked at me then turned away.

"Hey, Monkey Man, the bastard can stew for a while, let's go celebrate my 'newfound freedom'! My daughter will be there!"

"Kagami—"

"Everyone needs to lighten up here! Come on! Let intel do their deal and this war can be as good as won. Come on! I got who knew to meet us at my place with booze and—"

"Your daughter is nine," Sakumo pointed out.

"Your point? She'll have Kichiro-kun to hang out with and a nice, private training ground to mess around in. Someone needs to make sure we all get home tonight, might as well be the kids."

"I have to—" I tried to get out of this impromptu meeting.

"Your cute little siblings are going to be unconscious for the next twenty-four hours and the rest of your family fell asleep about a half-hour ago and gave your bed to the squirt. You're not going to be able to sleep for a while and my little girl could use a boyfriend."

"How—"

"Shadow clones." Kagami hauled me over his shoulder. "I miss when I could do this to Sakumo—"

"Let me go!" I demanded. If I wanted to, I probably could have fought my way out of his grip, but attacking a Jōnin, who I was certain happened to be quite close to Kage level considering how he seemed to mess with Sakumo with impunity, never ended well without a very surefire way of escape, which I certainly did not have. "I'm no one's boyfriend!"

"Sorry, kid, if little Yasu likes you, I'm not letting you break her heart."

"What the hell, man, let me go!"

"Nope."

I kicked and writhed, I even tried to replace myself with everything in the room, but Kagami seemed to know all my tricks. His shoulder pressed painfully into the bruise on my side but I was too proud to show the pain.

"Seal-less substitution is a nice touch. Sakumo didn't get the hang of that until he was thirteen."

The Hokage chuckled. "Perhaps I do need a few hours to enjoy myself."

"Don't compare me to Sakumo!" I protested at the same time as Kagami led the march out of the room.

"That's what us old guys are here for; to embarrass the younger generation."

"I thought the older generation was just there to get beaten up by the younger," I scowled.

"Give it a few more decades and you might stand more than five seconds against me, kid."

I snarled in annoyance and struggled the entire way through the village. We stopped in front of an old, abandoned building in the section of the village most densely populated by Uchiha. Kagami dropped me on the ground, seeming merely amused by my threats of revenge and inventive curses.

"Kai!" Kagami shouted with far too much enthusiasm. The abandoned, run-down building suddenly appeared to refurbish itself within seconds. "Yasu!" He hollered. "To-chan's secret mission is over!"

A girl cheered loudly from inside the house and raced out the door a moment later. He swung her up off the ground and onto his back as she giggled. "Does that mean I can introduce you to my team?"

"Sure! I'll take you to training tomorrow, how does that sound?"

She cheered as a woman stepped out of the house.

"Ka-chan! Guess what? To-chan's secret mission is over!"

"I heard," she said patiently as Kagami greeted her with a kiss, quickly ushering everyone inside. "Nice of you to finally bring your student around, Sakumo-kun." The woman smiled widely. I had tried to hang back in hopes they forgot about me, but no luck. She held out a hand to me. "I'm Uchiha Rei, it's nice to meet you, Kichiro-kun."

I didn't have anything against Kagami or his family, but I felt like I was being dragged to someone else's family reunion.

"Kagami and Hiruzen are changing in there. Dinner is about to be put on the table, so hurry up."

Sakumo pulled me into the room. The Hokage had hung his official robes on a hook beside the door and was pulling off the armor beneath it. The hat had been left in the Hokage tower.

"Hang up your haori beside the Hokage's things and toss your hitai-ate and vest somewhere with your senbon pouch," Sakumo instructed.

"Why?" I asked.

Sakumo smiled but Kagami answered. "There's no ranks in my house so you're just a kid here, Kichiro-kun."

I was all for not being a shinobi. Sakumo and the Hokage left before I managed to take off my vest. The soreness from fighting Sakumo earlier that day as well as the minor injuries during the invasion afterwards, coupled with the extended use of the Kyuubi's chakra over the past few days left me extremely sore. Kagami finished wrapping his knuckles with strips of black cloth but hesitated before taking a knee in front of me and deftly helped me take off the stiff vest without raising my arms and stretching the already-torn skin from being tossed around.

"You should have said something, kid, and I wouldn't have thrown you around like that."

I shrugged. "I never got a moment to heal it."

"Heal it now."

I hesitated, then lifted my shirt to look at the bruises. Kagami didn't react when he saw the impressive array of red and purple marks around my torso.

"To-chan?" Yasu asked from the doorway. "Ka-chan says dinner's waiting."

"We'll be there in a minute."

"Okay."

A minute later, I had finished healing. Kagami wrapped the palms of my hands with a few strips of white cloth and did the same thing in place of my hitai-ate. He put a hand on my shoulder. "Hopefully you're never in the same position as me, just not existing in the world for over a decade, but I want to tell you that the few people who knew I was alive, that I existed, became very precious to me. Sakumo is one of those people. You probably haven't noticed since he's extremely good at hiding it, but he's prone to just becoming very depressed, often for no reason. I guess I just want you to know you've done a lot more for him over the past two-and-a-half years than he's ever done for you. You probably don't understand—"

"I understand."

"Then thank you. Come on, let's go eat!"

"Hey!" I protested as he tossed me back over his shoulder and carried me out.

"Who's ready to be fed by the best damn cook in the shinobi nations?" He announced as I kicked him in the stomach. It had no effect.

When he set me down, nicely this time, when I turned around, I found Yasu flying at me. I yelped and ducked just in time to get out of the way. The adults laughed as she flung herself at me a second time.

"What the hell? Leave me alone!" I dodged a second time and slid underneath the low table and out the other side. She jumped over the table at me, but the girl's mother caught her around the waist and sat her down. Everyone else took a seat. I weighed my options and decided I wanted to avoid the three Uchiha more than I wanted to express my dislike of the Hokage and sat down with Sakumo on my right and the Hokage at the end of the table on my left.

The meal was simple, traditional, and the awkwardness quickly dissolved. There were a few other people there: Sakumo's wife, the Hokage's wife and team, and the Uchiha clan head and his family.

It was halfway through the meal before I recognized the scowling teenager sitting stiffly across from me. I jerked sharply.

"You alright?" Sakumo asked quietly.

The Hokage watched out of the corner of his eye as he continued the conversation.

"I'm fine," I responded. "I'll be right back." I stood up and went outside.

After a minute, I heard someone follow me out as I sat down on the back porch steps. Tsunade sat down beside me.

"You look awful," she commented bluntly. "What happened in there?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

"Fine, I just thought of something and I didn't want everyone looking at me."

"What did you think of?"

"Right now, I'm thinking of you leaving."

"People are worried about you."

"This doesn't have anything to do with anything."

"Then—"

"Go away." I stared out over the backyard-turned-training-ground, barely able to make out the shapes of the trees just beyond the fence.

"I know it's hard while your sister—"

"It has absolutely nothing to do with what happened today, I promise. I have no intention of going down any dangerous thought trails so just relax and go back to the party, I just need a few minutes to figure something out." Still suspicious, Tsunade left.

I wasn't particularly surprised at Fugaku's appearance, more at how obviously interconnected the strongest people of the shinobi world were. As an obvious orphan, in canon, Minato would have had no connection. From what I could gather, at his inauguration, Minato was the shinobi nations' Carnegie. There was probably a better analogy, but the history I remembered was beginning to fade and I didn't have Google to refresh it. Naruto's fascination with the Yondaime suddenly made a lot more sense, considering the three other Hokages all had their own mighty accomplishments and were consistently overshadowed by the Yondaime, even though his reign barely lasted a year. There was a much bigger picture forming in my head, but that was the gist of it.

"Kichiro-kun!" Kagami called out. "You might want to get in here before Sakumo shreds your reputation!"

I rolled my eyes and obliged.

"He lives!" Kagami cried as I entered. He had obviously started on the drink, as had most of the other adults, while Fugaku was making a valiant attempt to sneak his taste. Unfortunately, even though they were impaired, he was in a room with several of the strongest shinobi in the village and Kagami slapped his hand away without even looking. "What's on your mind that has you running out of the room, kiddo?"

"Do you have a copy of 'The History of the Shinobi Nations' I can borrow for a few minutes? Preferably not the civilian version."

"Sure, but you have The Professor sitting not three feet in front of you, why not ask him? We're all dying for a piece of your mind. That came out wrong. We all want to hear what has your knickers in a twist. Still wrong. We all want to know what you're thinking, yeah, that sounds right."

"Yeah, but he's biased, do you have the book or not?"

"Kid, every self-respecting ninja has at least two copies of that thing." Kagami pointed at an inconspicuous shelf in the corner of the room. "Top shelf, left side. You need someone to get it down for you, shorty?"

"Nah, I'm good."

I jumped up and attached a hand to the ceiling then stuck my feet to the ceiling and walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out the book then flipped to land in a crouch.

"Bring it over here, kid, we're all dying from curiosity."

I barely kept an amused smile off my face and obliged while pulling a pencil and booklet I painstakingly bound for my own convenience out of my pocket. The first half of the booklet was covered with a menagerie of notes and odd sketches of people to avoid even if they weren't in the Bingo Book. The notes were all written in English, making the entire booklet impossible to decipher. Before I could open it, Kagami snatched it out of my hand.

"I've been wanting to get a closer look at this for almost a year!"

"Give it back!" I protested.

"This isn't any code I've seen," Kagami commented, trying to decipher the script. I had to hold back a laugh when I saw him holding it upside-down and backwards.

"So? Give it back! It's mine!"

"Alright." He closed it and held it out to me. Before I could snatch it back, he tossed it to Yasu. The girl giggled and tossed it to Jiraiya.

"Real mature." I rolled my eyes as the booklet went around the table and each person tried to decipher it without luck. While I was distracted, Kagami snatched the textbook out of my hand. "Is it Torment Kichiro Day or something?" I demanded.

The booklet landed beside the Hokage's hand and the room waited with bated breath as he opened it. I took the opportunity the snatch the textbook back from Kagami and marched up to the Hokage and held out my hand expectantly. Almost right away, the Hokage figured out the way my notes were supposed to be read, even though his eyes skimmed it from right to left. Yeah, he wouldn't be able to decipher it like that, not that I expected him to be successful. He would have to be able to understand a different alphabet as well as an entirely different language, which was incredibly unlikely, if not impossible.

"I'm not sure I could figure this one out," the Hokage said, returning the booklet.

I smirked. "No, you can't."

"Do you have a name for it?"

I shrugged. "English."

The group rolled the foreign word around in their heads as I sat down and opened the history book, refocusing on my original task: figuring out just how deeply nepotism and cronyism ran in this world.

It didn't take long for the conversation to turn away from my eccentricities, but I noticed the Hokage, Kagami, and Sakumo watching me out of the corners of their eyes.

I methodically flipped through the textbook, counting and noting down important points.

"Your conclusion?" The Hokage took a knee beside me as I finished up. Startled, I threw my elbow back at his gut, enhanced with chakra. He caught my arm easily. Because he needed a slap upside the head, I followed through with a punch to the face. He caught it and raised an eyebrow at me. The seal on my forehead started to burn and I pulled away, rubbing it, while he shook out his hands. "Tsunade! I thought you said you never taught anyone your chakra punch!"

"I didn't!" She answered from across the room where she was bickering with her teammates.

"She didn't," Sakumo said. "He hit me with one of those punches within five minutes of meeting me, he never even laid eyes on Tsunade-hime."

"Impressive," the Hokage laid a grandfatherly hand on my shoulder. "So, what's all this secrecy about your notes and thoughts about?"

I scowled and stuffed the booklet in my pocket. Before I had a chance to answer, Fugaku marched up in front of me. "Fight me," he demanded.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're not as good as everyone seems to think."

"I don't want to fight."

"Come on, kid, where's your pride? You can't let a challenge like that go!" Kagami said and put an arm around Fugaku's shoulders. The teenager shrugged him off. "Besides, the clan scions challenge each other all the time!"

"I'm not a scion," I snapped back and stood up to put the textbook away.

"Close enough, little cousin," Tsunade shoved my gear into my chest while taking the book away. "I want to see how you stack up against the Uchiha Golden Boy."

"I don't—"

"Fight! Fight!" Yasu chanted excitedly.

"Come on, kid, don't disappoint the lady!" Kagami insisted.

"Yeah, um, I don't bow to the whims of every bloodthirsty child I meet, thank you very much." I shoved my gear back at Tsunade. "I've already fought twice today—"

"That was hours ago, and it was a fight and a heated conversation."

I was already being hustled out to the backyard, my protests ignored.

"Alright, anything below B-rank is fine, obviously, no killing." Kagami led us out. It was dark and the moon provided barely enough light for me to see by, though that would change if Fugaku started launching fireballs at me.

Sakumo pulled me aside. "Fugaku-kun has a bit of an ego, so please actually put some effort into this."

You will not shame yourself and me in a pathetic match like this.

Shut up.

He has the Sharingan.

I know.

It's not strong enough to control me.

I know.

Beat that brat to a pulp.

You're far too invested in this.

I made sure to fumble as I attached my pouch of senbon to my leg. Fugaku snorted and activated his Sharingan. I shrugged on my bloodstained Chuunin vest and fumbled the zipper. Just because I could, I drew on a small amount of the Kyuubi's chakra to help me sense so I didn't have to rely entirely on my eyes, which could be easily blinded. It would also help me fight off Genjutsu.

Fugaku swallowed as he felt the Kyuubi's chakra appear.

I didn't know very many water jutsu if need be, but I knew enough. Fugaku was a Chuunin like me, so I wasn't particularly worried about being outmatched.

He started with a Genjutsu, which I ruined before he could complete. I launched a handful of senbon at him. He just rolled his eyes and knocked them away with several shuriken.

"You're going to have to do better than that."

"Make me."

Fugaku busted out the Ninjutsu and I spent the next part of the fight dodging various fireballs and spikes of earth. Thankfully, Fugaku's repertoire was limited by his age. In less than a minute, the barrage faded. I landed, my hair slightly singed from a close shave. During the onslaught, I attached several senbon and a kunai to each foot to throw if I got the chance. It was one of my favorite tricks; no one ever thought to watch for projectiles from the feet, simply because feet had no opposable thumbs, which was easily remedied by chakra.

I dug my toes into the ground, preparing for his Taijutsu onslaught. He charged. I had wondered where Sakumo had learned the Uchiha Taijutsu style to teach me, but with Kagami as his sensei, it made more sense. Fugaku's attacks were easy to counter, but the strength behind them forced me to use chakra when I couldn't dodge.

"Hold still, you little brat!" Fugaku snarled as I managed to dodge his sudden change in style.

"Um, I like my face how it is, so you have to promise not to mess it up!"

"What does that—" Fugaku recoiled as I switched my style. Until then, I had left my feet planted and defended with my arms. I switched to one of the styles Sakumo had focused the most on, which had me flying through the air and attacking with every part of my body, starting with a sweep to the legs.

I was at a significant disadvantage in size, but with chakra, I could match strength without much problem. In speed, he was slightly faster, but I was smaller and had better control over my body, so his Sharingan didn't give him enough of an advantage.

Fugaku swore as my second stick, from his perspective, appeared out of nowhere, unable to be dodged. He couldn't counter what his eyes couldn't see. While he struggled to avoid the stick, he looked away just long enough for me to launch a senbon from the bottom of each of my feet. One lodged itself in the carpals of his dominant hand and the other missed. I kicked the successful senbon for good measure and he screamed in pain. When I kicked the senbon, he managed a solid kick to my ribs followed by a punch to my solar plexus. We both broke apart.

Most pain, I could numb and continue to function while the Kyuubi healed me. The problem with getting punched in the solar plexus was that it wasn't pain, per say, but when hit with a shinobi-strength punch, my entire body temporarily shut down.

I managed remained standing, hoping the pain from the senbon would occupy Fugaku long enough for me to recover enough to move. I could heal the damage to my organs while fighting.

I glanced at the adults. Tsunade looked worried, rightly so, she was probably the only one who fully understood the damage I just took. She took a step forward to stop the match, but I shook my head sharply and forced myself to stand straight, my hand over my stomach, healing. The rest of the adults were splitting their attention between a conversation and watching the match from the porch. Yasu sat on the steps, fascinated.

It was my turn to bring out Ninjutsu, but without hand seals. Fugaku pulled out the senbon and turned to glare at me, holding his hand. He wouldn't be able to use hand seals and I doubted he knew seal-less jutsu like I relied on. Seal-less jutsu took a long time to learn so most shinobi tended to forgo the speed boost in exchange for learning a larger number of jutsu.

Fugaku ran forward and I blasted him back with a battering ram of wind. I couldn't quite move yet, so Fugaku came at me from my right side. A much deadlier blade of wind forced him to leap out of the way and land on his injured hand with an angry shout of pain. He tried to attack me from behind, but I closed my eyes and blasted him with a jet of water that expelled more chakra than I intended. He continued to run around me, but by that point, I could move freely. He jumped towards me and my hands hit the ground at the same time at his feet. The ground sucked him into the earth up to his waist, a modification of the headhunter jutsu. I leapt over his readjusted strike and grabbed his wrist in the process and twisted his arm behind him until the blade of his kunai touched the base of his skull, just like Kakashi did to Naruto during the bell test.

The small audience went silent.

"I yield," Fugaku growled.

I released him and lifted him out of the ground, then kicked his ankle petulantly.

"What was that for?" He demanded, hopping backwards on one foot.

"That hurt, and it's going to take me forever to heal, you bastard! It was a spar! You're supposed to pull your punches!"

He stuck his injured hand in my face. "I didn't see you holding anything back!"

I reached down with my free hand and pulled a senbon and a kunai from where they were attached to the bottom of my feet. "I would have destroyed the carpals in your hand via kunai instead if messing with your pain receptors via a puny senbon."

"Where the hell did that senbon come from anyways?"

"The store."

Kagami stepped between us with a light before Fugaku could retaliate for my smart-ass comment. "Good fight. Kichiro, are you determined to rack up the blood pressure of everyone assembled?"

"Yes," I grunted and fell to one knee.

"Fine, just so we're clear. Let's get you both to Tsunade."

"I can fix myself," I retorted.

"I'm fine," Fugaku snapped, glaring at me.

"Idiot, you won't ever be able to use your hand without pain again if you don't have a medic look at it sometime in the near future and I'm otherwise occupied." That was a blatant lie, his hand would only ache for a few days whether he received treatment or not.

Fugaku snorted.

I ignored him.

"Kichiro-kun, if you can, please stop using the Kyuubi's chakra, the change in your appearance is quite disconcerting." Kagami said once Fugaku walked away.

Kagami drew a katana so I could see my reflection. I frowned, studying the small transformations. I hadn't been able to get a good look at them before. It was much more controlled than I ever remembered Naruto's early transformations being, but then again, I had the Kyuubi's cooperation. I was barely channeling any of the Kyuubi's chakra, just enough to augment my senses and help with the healing process, but it made my eyes resemble a fox's, even in the way they reflected the light, and sharpened my teeth. My nails were sharper, sturdier, and curved, like a fox's. I was reasonably sure I could fix the severe bruising of my organs without the Kyuubi's help so I slowly released the chakra and watched my eyes fade back to their normal green.

"Thank you," Kagami let out a relieved sigh. I looked up at him and noticed his Sharingan fade.

"Why does everyone think I'm about to lose control? I've already told you the Kyuubi agreed to work with me."

They fear my name, as they should.

"Yes, but the Kyuubi isn't known for its benevolence."

"Yeah, well Kushina isn't known for her patience, but she can still sit down and study when it suits her purposes."

"Fair, but do you trust her leave her birthday present on the table and untampered with for a week?"

I grumbled an unintelligible response. Without warning, Kagami lifted me into his arms and carried me into the house. After a minute, he propped me against one of the walls with a blanket over me. Once settled, I closed my eyes to concentrate on the healing.

Healing myself was tedious and considering the adults had their party in full swing, I decided it wasn't worth moving. If I had pegged Kagami right, I would probably wake up to a prank, but I didn't care.

(-_-)

When I did wake up, it was nearly morning and someone had put a pillow under my head. The house was quiet, which felt strange. A few feet away, Jiraiya had fallen asleep on a futon and Tsunade was collapsed beside him. In an adjacent room, low voices were conversing. I took off my vest, disgusted by the smell of blood.

Silently, I stood up and crept towards the voices. When I reached the door, I paused, listening. Without a break in the conversation, the door opened. I flinched out of the way as the sudden light blinded me.

The Hokage motioned me inside.

"So, what do you think?" Kagami asked me.

"About what?"

"This." He pointed at the table where papers were piled with one on top at which he was pointing. It was one of mine.

"It's my seal."

"Yes, but do you think it can seal the Hachibi?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because it would barely seal a single tail's worth of the Kyuubi's chakra."

"What?" Kagami squawked. "How much chakra are we talking about here?"

"How am I supposed to quantify chakra?"

"Good point. In comparison to the average shinobi, how much chakra are we talking about?"

It would take approximately sixteen individuals, probably more, with the chakra capacity of the Uchiha in front of you to equal the amount of chakra the Hachibi possesses.

"The Kyuubi says it would take about sixteen times the amount of chakra you have to rival the Hachibi."

"Are you sure you can trust that?"

"Go ask the Raikage to confirm it, he's fought the Hachibi, right?"

Kagami swore and punched the table.

"The Shiki Fūjin would seal it up without a problem."

"I can count on my fingers the number of people capable of using that seal and the village can't afford to lose any of them," the Hokage rebuked. "You said you were capable of sealing the Hachibi. Of the seals in your notes, this one was the most likely to succeed. If not this seal, then which one?"

"Seal two-zero-seven."

"Yeah, what does that mean?"

My organization system was in English, so I wasn't surprised they had no idea what I was taking about.

"It's a numbering system," the Hokage concluded.

I scowled. "Yes. What you're looking at there is a modification of the seal Tsunade uses to store chakra in her forehead. It wouldn't be able to hold the Ichibi."

"Where's the one you're talking about?"

I shuffled the papers until I found the proper seal. The organization was certainly not how I left it, but it didn't take me long to find. "This one." I slapped it down on top.

The Hokage leaned over it, studying the seal. I noticed Sakumo sitting on the kitchen counter a few feet away. His knowledge of seals was extremely limited; thus, he didn't participate much in the discussion.

"What do you think?" Kagami asked the Hokage. Apparently, he didn't read seals very well either. For that matter, I was extremely slow at reading and writing seals as well, but I could probably read all but the most complex of seals. Kushina read seals better than she read kanji. Minato read kanji better than both of us, though my comprehension was much better than either of theirs on both counts.

The Hokage pointed at a section of the seal which used one of the secret Uzumaki aspects of sealing. I leaned over it, trying to remember what I intended with that particular section of the matrix.

Very clever, little rat.

Would you stop calling me a rat, please?

When you stop looking like hairless vermin.

You need lessons in politeness. "It's just a stability factor," I concluded, ignoring the Kyuubi's mocking. "The dead space in that section of the seal as well as the dead space in several other sections made the seal unbalanced and if I tried to apply it, it would have unraveled, which would have been bad, obviously."

"You shouldn't have this 'dead space' in seals."

I shrugged. "It works."

"It's dangerous."

"Actually, if you're prone to overloading seals, it makes it safer."

"How did you learn sealing so quickly? It took me nearly a decade to get to the point where I could make my own seals."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't splitting my attention between a hundred projects, it was just this and medic training. Kushina taught me after I managed to memorize the first dozen or so base matrices."

"Even the Uzumaki take more than two years to learn sealing at this level. According to Kushina, it took her nearly four years to get to this point."

I spoke three languages and was literate in two, plus I could read music, albeit slowly. Picking up what equated to a fourth language wasn't difficult. I just shrugged in answer. "I like puzzles. Creating seals is like making my own puzzles, making my own story. It's interesting. It took me a couple hundred tries to reach that point there, but I figured it out in the end. Why does any of this matter?"

"You failed to put an understanding of Fūinjutsu in your personnel file."

"It took me nearly a year of specified study to make that seal, I wouldn't call that an understanding of anything. Stop looking at me like that."

"You're still willing to seal the Hachibi with this?"

"No, but I don't have a choice. The Kyuubi made sealing the Hachibi one of the conditions for continued cooperation."

"You said one of your goals was freeing the Bijū."

I rolled my eyes. "That's going to be quite the process, of which the Kyuubi is mostly going to be in charge, and until everyone can agree to play nicely, they're going to stay in time-out. Unless you want me to head to all the villages and start releasing Bijū. Then I wholeheartedly agree and lets just go smash the other villages with their own supposed weapons, when do I leave?"

"We are sticking with the original plan to bring Kumo to heel and give a warning to the other nations. As soon as we stick the agreement on the Raikage, I want you to update your file. You would never have gone to the front lines if I knew both you and your sister were budding Fūinjutsu prodigies."

"Might as well lump Minato into that category as well."

"At least he was honest about his abilities. You still haven't told anyone who you learned from or from what books you're learning from."

"No, I haven't. I don't intend to. You can't make me. End of story." I was a frustrating little bastard and I liked it.

"I never thought I'd say this, but you could learn a thing or two from him about stubbornness, Hiruzen." Kagami chuckled.

"That's enough."

"Someone's getting touchy, fine."

I rolled my eyes and turned to leave, uninterested.

"Where are you going?" The Hokage grabbed a fistful of the back of my shirt.

"To go see what I can do for Minato and Kushina."

"Tsunade has already seen to them and they're being kept sedated until we can figure out how to help them mentally when they wake up."

"I can—"

"You have a responsibility to this village first."

"They're—"

"They can wait. If need be, I will order you to comply."

I felt anger rising in my chest, cutting off my voice. I jerked myself free. "Then give the damn order, don't threaten it."

I continued walking away. I wasn't sure if the Hokage was bluffing or not, but I was going to call him on it anyways and let him fight with his own morality. I opened the door.

"Uzumaki Kichiro, I order you to remain with me until you have fulfilled your immediate obligation to this village by assisting in facilitating the peace negotiations with Kumogakure."

The order settled on my shoulders with the weight of a block of concrete. For a long minute, I seriously considered trying defy the order. I compromised by turning around and grabbing the seal then leaving anyways. They'd figure out where I was going soon enough.