Persuasion is often hard, but words are thicker.

"… You think he's alright?"

"He should be…"

Mizuki groaned and opened his eyes. What greeted him was the hazy image of two heads hovering over him and staring directly at him. Blinking a few times and letting the blurriness leave him slowly, he finally recognized one to be the foolish 'friend' of his Iruka and identified the other one as a nurse based on her clothes.

It took all the strength he could muster in his weakened state to avoid letting a scowl enter his face. He could still feel his head ringing around.

'This can only mean I lost to that fucking midget.'

Memories of the spar immediately came back to him. Just when he had thought he could've pushed Ren outside the circle, the brat had come back viciously and punched him with a chakra-infused punch!

Which goddamn academy kid could use such advanced techniques?!

It had taken him a good year or two after graduation to be capable of such feats; and his fucking technique had been even better than his.

That was unacceptable, Mizuki would make sure that was not going to happen again, why did God have to try everything to stop him?

The Kyuubi brat, the kid from a clan which had been erased out of existence and that stupid Uchiha Prodigy!

He'd make sure to slowly get rid them one by one. And he already knew with who to start.

"Naruto…"

Iruka stared at him with a bewildered expression. "You hungry for some ramen all out of sudden or do you mean Naruto as in the troublesome one?"

"Ramen. Some Ramen would be perfect right now Iruka, preferably Miso Ramen." Mizuki's façade slipped as a wide smile appeared on his face. It was a different one, unlike the faux smiles which contained lots of warmness this one screamed to give someone pain.

But Iruka just shrugged it to Mizuki being tired.

xXx

Ren hummed as he worked on re-applying the two lost Weight Seals on himself again. His body felt much lighter and way-less comfortable the way it was right now. It was a sign his body had adapted to the high pressure he put on it every day.

He'd need to find better alternative however; he did not feel like Weight Seals gave him enough pressure as a shinobi. Sure, if released in a span of a blink of an eye they could surprise his enemy but to find such an opening would be very tough.

As an Uzumaki his catalog of seals wasn't limited in the slightest. It was just about if he could put the effort to find the seal he wanted to learn. Maybe having a mentor would've been appreciated, but it's not like he couldn't work around that.

He nearly got a heart attack as the doors to his room were slammed open. He glared at the intruder with a glare which could kill.

"What in Lord Third's name do you want?"

Naruto made his way from the door to sitting on the ground next to Ren and his eyes indicated that he was not in the mood to argue with him. The redhead got the message and softly spoke:

"Has… something happened?"

Naruto's shoulders slumped downwards and his eyes brimmed with worry and various negative emotions. His hands were awkwardly intertwining with each other and he looked more like a nervous and shy schoolgirl about to confess to her crush than a soon-to-be genin.

Wait how did he know what a schoolgirl even was?

"I had a dream last night."

Although the hyperactive knuckle-headed shinobi seemed unsure of how to start, confidence was slowly seeping into his eyes making Ren chuckle inwardly.

"Alright? Judging by your horrendous state a moment ago I'd have sworn you had a nightmare instead."

Naruto rolled his eyes and scratched his chin with a hand before continuing.

"Shut up. Anyway, just like I was saying I had this dream last night where I woke up in a place which resembled a sewer. It was really creepy but I somehow wasn't getting wet at all even though the floor was covered in water… That place made really shiver, it didn't resemble Konoha's sewers in the slightest."

The blond was trying his hardest not to shake at the mere thought of that place.

"I guess that's not the end of it? What, did you also meet a scary and monstrous huge nine-tailed fox by any chance?"

"…"

Ren felt like smacking himself.

'Did I actually guess correctly somehow?!'

"How did you know that?!" Naruto found himself being extremely bewildered at the development of the situation.

"… Wait really?"

Ren had realized what Naruto was talking about. Most likely either he or the Nine-Tails had consciously or unconsciously desired to meet each other and chakra had done the rest. He wasn't exactly sure how the seal Naruto had worked, so those were just baseless theories of his.

"I guess it wasn't wrong of me to come to you about this instead of the old man." Naruto grinned and clasped his hands together.

"Anyway, the furball started talking to me about how the Fourth had sealed him inside of me which I really found weird, like really? Why would the Fourth want to have anything to do with me of all people, an orphan!"

An uncomfortable laugh left his mouth which slowly lost its volume before his face was shadowed by his hair. Naruto stood up from his place and despair had taken over his face. Ren did not like where it was going and put a hand over his friend's shoulder.

"Naruto, I'll be frank and honest with you since you are my best friend. You are a jinchuuriki, a human vessel who holds a Tailed Beast inside of them."

"I do not know what crap the Nine-Tails fed to you last night, but please be careful; although he might not be inherently evil, he is easily controllable through a genjutsu which is a Tailed Beast's ultimate flaw."

His grip on the blond increased as he felt the whiskered boy continue to struggle and shake even harder than before.

"You knew about this all this time and never told me once?! I thought we were friends Ren!" His blue eyes dilated as they became slits for a silver of a second and his whiskers thickened and became wilder.

"This is why the villagers hate me, because I remind them of what took their 'dear' and 'precious' families a decade and some years ago!"

Noticing these signs, Ren swiftly slapped a palm on Naruto and infused chakra onto it allowing a seal to spread over the blond's body.

"This is for your sake Naruto. You need to calm down."

"You Basta-"

His eyes turned back to normal and his whiskers became thinner and lost their wilder look. Naruto felt his consciousness slip away while he let out a final curse word before ultimately falling to the temptations of sleep.

Ren sighed and grabbed Naruto's unconscious body before it could land on the ground. He carried his body to his own room and put him on his own bed.

'Great, one more problem for the great Uzumaki-Senju Ren to solve.'

He now had to think of a way to explain 'Jinchuurikis' to Naruto without sounding like an asshole for keeping it a secret for so long. This wasn't similar to learning a new seal, this was much harder if you asked Ren.

"Well at least with the seal I put on him, he'll be out of action for at least twelve hours."

[Ren…]

Huh.

[R…en.]

Was something calling him?

The only Uzumaki still conscious in this room could not sense any other chakra presence in this room excluding his and Naruto's.

[You stupid spawn of those red primates, enter this monkey's mindscape and talk directly to me.]

Naruto's chakra surged out of his body and then turned crimson, cascading his entire body. The previous changes to his appearance reappeared with even more vigor than before.

'The Nine-Tails?!'

Ren easily recognized the seemingly vile and dark crimson chakra. The books in the library all pointed to such a chakra belonging to the only and one overlord of the Nine Tailed Beasts, the Kyuubi!

"Wai-"

Ren spoke out before the energy surged towards him and overwhelmed all his seals and own chakra barriers as if there was nothing that could stop it. His feet shook before he hit the ground.

xXx

Hiruzen Sarutobi let a frown appear on his face and temporarily forgot about the blond woman sitting behind his desk.

'This chakra can only belong to the Kyuubi… Did Naruto's seal loosen up? No that's impossible, he's practically in the last place where that could happen.'

'I have Cat and Crow keeping an eye on him and Ren-kun, so it shouldn't be a problem any time soon, but more protection wouldn't hurt. Tenzo would do a great job with his Wood Style.'

The wrinkled and old man was alarmed at the sensation he was feeling. In fact he barely resisted the urge dash away from his meeting and go to investigate the location of the source of this chakra.

A moment later and the Kyuubi's influence had disappeared from the village. This left Hiruzen flummoxed, but he was busy with the issue in front of him. His wrinkled face frowned as he started to speak:

"Tsunade, I'll have to let you know that as the most senior Senju remaining it was your responsibility to take care of your younger cousin. You dodged it and I as your teacher managed to let you off the hook based on your contributions and achievements as the greatest medical ninja of our home and as part of the three Legendary Shinobis of Konoha."

The honey-eyed Senju flinched at the reminder but refused to stand below her previous words. She put on a faux blank face and was about to retort, but her teacher was faster.

"I believe more than a decade off-duty is more than plenty enough for a Sannin. Even Jiraiya keeps working hard on his Spy Network which has been faithfully serving Konoha for two decades and more by now. Not to mention that you actually decided to take care of a girl who was completely unrelated to you instead of your own cousin.

I understand the matter of love completely. I was also once in love with a woman, but she had to part with me decades earlier before she should've, but I did not let it get to me. The moment I signed to became a shinobi I already knew that the matters of life should not affect me."

Tsunade was angered by his words and retorted almost instantly.

"Teacher, is serving in one war and single-handedly reviving the medical side of our village not enough 'contribution' for you? I don't want to continue being a Kunoichi, it's as simple as that! No amount of begging and orders are going to make me rethink this decision. I am tired of this life. It's not as complicated as it seems to be!"

"We both know that what you're saying is not the reason why you no longer want to serve the village. Tsunade, the past cannot be changed, overthinking is just going to lead you to a life of sadness and gloominess. You have me and Jiraiya who both want the best for you. Do you think Shizune, your own lover's niece, feels alright with you wasting your life in various casinos like this?"

Hiruzen's tone was soft as he rebuked Tsunade.

"Nade, I need you to take this hat from me. I am an old and dying man. I am an ignorant fool who was incapable of looking underneath the underneath and due to it the village suffered. I, the one who should've led the village to prosperity had not even noticed how deep Danzo has his fangs inside of Konoha!"

"If not for me do it for your cousin, the one you could not even look at a decade ago."

"Please, at least think about it."

"…"