15

Chapter 14: Say Hello To Mr. 9

The trip to Kuminari no Kuni was highly uneventful. Naruto ended up getting on even better terms with his older comrades, who seemed to genuinely like the boy's company. Up to this point however, Naruto had been having a minor stroke of luck, as he hadn't had to interact with the Konoha elder that they were escorting. The man usually relayed anything he had to say to the team through Genma, who was the leader of the mission anyway.

Naruto had taken the Kage Bunshin training to heart. He was told that the method wouldn't allow him to increase his physical attributes, so he put that on hold for the time being, it wasn't like he could train on that while he was on a mission anyway. Instead, when he woke up in the morning he would create a few dozen clones and send them off to the most remote location that they could find to train in waves. While one dozen clones would train, the rest would sit and watch until the first wave dispelled themselves. After the influx of information the next wave would train, and so on and so forth until nightfall. This allowed him to get down three more of his lost ninjutsu during the week long trip to Kumogakure no Sato, much to his delight. It seemed that the trip wouldn't be a waste of time, at least during the traveling period.

Naruto didn't expect much of a chance for combat here, but Kumogakure was the second most militarized of the five major hidden villages right behind Iwagakure for a reason. He wasn't sure how peaceful things would be and he wasn't looking forward to seeing whether or not his team could run all the way to the border and stay in one piece, and he didn't want to rely on Kumo wanting to avoid a war, Konoha was still weak from the invasion and no amount of bravado by still taking the same influx of missions could mask that against a shrewd strategist. If Kumo wanted to provoke anything, Naruto's team might have to simply bite their tongues and take it at this point in time.

As they reached the top of the mountain the carriage came to a stop at the main gate of the village. Instead of two guards there were two complete squads keeping watch, showing exactly how many ninja Kumo had to spare if they could use that many just to watch one entrance.

As Genma moved forward to get them all inside, Naruto elbowed Izumo and Kotetsu, "You guys getting gate envy here? Getting a familiar feeling?"

Izumo shrugged Naruto off of them, "Very funny kid. There's nothing wrong with watching the gate. Someone has to do it."

Naruto nodded, "Yeah I know. I hope I never end up drawing that job, gate watching is the D-rank mission of chunin-level ninja."

Kotetsu sighed, "You're telling me… I'd rather do border patrol than watch that gate one more time. I die inside a little every time I sit in that fucking booth. I think that thing sucks chakra or something."

Izumo rolled his eyes, "Stop complaining… You're on a real mission now so shut up. And look alive you guys, here comes Genma."

Right on cue, Genma came over and jumped back onto the carriage, "All right. We're going straight to the hotel they've booked for all of us and then we'll get our marching orders from Elder Mitokado when we get settled in."

The three chunin under his command nodded and set their usual position around the carriage as they made their way through town. Kotetsu and Izumo were no strangers to Kumo, having been there during the chunin exams, but seeing that Naruto wasn't even looking around to get his bearing of the village. What they didn't know was that Danzo had all of his ninja memorize the general layout of all of the major shinobi villages, since none of them ever deviated from the basic plan that had been in place for certain villages since the Second Great Shinobi War, where Danzo got all of his information on the village layouts.

Kotetsu tried to make conversation with the younger boy, "So Naruto, you've never been this far north before have you? How you dealing with the climate change?"

Naruto had been that far north before… but he didn't need them to know what had happened the last time he was there. The less people that knew about that the better… seriously.

Naruto kept a vigilant eye out as they walked the streets, they weren't 'safe' until he was told to ease off by his commanding officer, "The climate isn't bad at all. It's not freezing cold out here, it's spring so it's pretty good up here to me."

Izumo gave a short glance over at Naruto, "Naruto it's fifty degrees right now and you're wearing a sleeveless muscle shirt, you don't even have your vest on you. You're telling me you can't feel anything? At all?"

Naruto shook his head, "Nope. And I do have the vest on me, it just isn't on right now. And it's not that cold up here, man up, you're older than me and you're borderline bitching about a foreign climate."

Izumo mock glared at Naruto which went largely ignored by the blonde chunin as they made their way to the hotel. As per the course Elder Mitokado got a VIP suite and the other four were to share rooms. Izumo and Kotetsu, being the most familiar with one another, took one room, while Genma and Naruto took another.

As they all got themselves settled in the rooms Naruto finished first, as he didn't have anything to check or unpack, "So Genma, what are we doing first?"

Genma turned to Naruto and rolled the senbon in his mouth, "Well we were told by Elder Mitokado to accompany him to his first meeting with the Raikage." He saw Naruto stand up to prepare to leave, "By us I mean Me, Kotetsu, and Izumo."

Naruto's jaw dropped before he set his face in a stone-like form, "And I'm not going because…?"

Genma sighed, he didn't hate Naruto he actually liked the kid, a lot. He was good, he had heard from others what the boy had done to Orochimaru's bodyguards when they came to extract Sasuke Uchiha and he had to say that even he would have been hard pressed to do as much, he actually fought them beforehand and lost. However this was an order from the person that was the point of the mission. Homura Mitokado didn't want Naruto there, and Genma's hands were kind of tied in this instance, "It's a command from our boss Naruto… It's not me, trust me."

Naruto shook his head, "What do I have to do for old goats like that to get it through their heads that I'm not a demon? If I was, if I was really a demon or some kind of monster, then I would have started killing them by now. Kami knows I'm strong enough… You've seen the forest of bone right?"

Genma nodded, "Don't talk like that kid… I can understand, but still. There are some things that you shouldn't say, especially to the higher ranked person handing out the orders to you on this mission. Just calm down, get some rest. If we need you we'll get you, just think of this as some rest after the trip up here."

Naruto ran his fingers through his hair, "Alright fine… You're right I guess. I shouldn't have said that, I would never do anything like that to Konoha no matter what." 'I've already done too much for that place to let one old man get to me.'

Genma stood up and prepared to get Homura so that they could escort him to the meeting, "Okay kid, do you have any questions before I leave?"

Naruto nodded, "Do you use the same senbon for as long as you can, like until you kill somebody with it, or do you just swap them out at regular intervals?"

Genma sweat-dropped and made for the door, "I'll see you later Naruto, stay out of trouble."

Naruto scoffed and flopped on his bed, "Who do you think I am? What kind of trouble can I get into away from the meeting?" He noticed Genma hadn't shut the door and was standing in the doorway giving him a deadpan look. Naruto glared and pointed at him, "Nevermind. Don't answer that."

A chuckle came from Genma, "Take it easy kid. Don't do anything stupid while we're gone."

Naruto yawned and waved him off as his tokubetsu jounin commander shut the door. Naruto rolled over and looked out the window, "It's still the afternoon. There's no way in hell I'm staying in here until they all get back. The old bastard said I can't go to the meeting, he never said that I couldn't leave the hotel."

Naruto grabbed the key Genma left for him on the nightstand and slipped out the door to head to the street.

XxX

Naruto yawned as he walked through the streets of Kumogakure. He didn't get too many odd looks just because he was a foreigner. He chalked that up to the fact that there were a lot of blonde people in Kumo, as opposed to in Konoha where only the Yamanaka Clan and Tsunade had blonde hair.

While he found it to be a decent waste of time to partake in looking around, Naruto wasn't too happy at the moment, 'I can't even train here. It's not like they'll let a foreign shinobi like me just use their training areas or anything. What am I supposed to do while I'm here then?'

He eventually ended up wandering over to a training field anyway, although it was by accident. While wandering about on the outskirts of the village he found an open area bored out from the side of the mountain at least a mile wide. Inside he saw two ninja engaging in a spar and realized where he was. As he turned to leave a cool sounding voice came to his ears, "This place is off-limits to civilians."

Naruto turned around slowly with a frown on his face, "Well if I see any civilians I'll be sure to let you know then."

The girl noticed the hitae-ate attached to his belt "Hmm, so we have a Konoha ninja spying on us do we?"

Naruto sighed, 'Goddamn it… This is just what I was trying to avoid…' Naruto placed his hands up in a placating fashion as he came face-to-face with the blonde girl a few years older than him. Her hair stopped roughly around shoulder length and like him she had blue eyes. She had a low cut short skirt outfit with mesh armor underneath it, a short sword horizontally held on her lower back, and what appeared to be a modified Kumo flak jacket that simply wrapped around her stomach, and Naruto could see why it was like that, because her chest size was huge, 'Damn, she's only a bit older than me and-… Don't stare dumbass! You're already in deep shit as it is!'

Naruto, with much effort on his part, lifted his eyes to meet hers, "Listen, I found this place by accident. I didn't even know it was a training field until I heard fighting sounds coming from directly behind you. I'll just turn around now and head back towards town okay? I don't need any kind of B.S. right now…"

"Samui." The blonde woman stated when she felt Naruto reaching for her name, "You have me at a disadvantage right now. You know my name and yet I don't know yours."

The two blondes kept passive eyes on one another, Naruto out of masking anything that might set a situation off, and Samui because that was just how she was. Deciding that diplomacy was the quickest course to getting out of dodge, Naruto decided to satiate her with the information she requested. It's not like anyone knew him or anything, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I'm just here on a mission and was granted some down time. I was wandering about okay? No need to cause a ruckus. And tell your team that if they want to sneak up on me they need to do a better job of it."

Naruto jerked his head in the direction of upraised craters, prompting two people to emerge from the area. One of them was a dark skinned boy, also a few years older than Naruto, with spiky white hair, black eyes, grey pants, and a grey hoodie with the white Kumo flak jacket over it. Naruto could see a long katana on his back, signifying that he was at the very least a competent swordsman.

Next to him was dark skinned girl with amber eyes and long red hair. She had her hitae-ate in a bandanna, a grey short sleeved long dress, the Kumo flak jacket, and a katana on her back.

These were the two that he had seen sparring before he turned to leave. Apparently they went around to try and cut him off from leaving so easily. Naruto resisted the urge to slap his hand to his forehead, "Can I go now? I kind of have to get back to my hotel before my team leader has to come out looking for me."

The male of the team gave him an appraising look, "Maybe he's going to report back on Kumo's secrets and just stumbled on us while he was making his escape?"

Naruto almost face-fell at that, 'Great… Now I've got a guy that overanalyzes everything. This is what I needed right now… yeah right.' Naruto could see the situation could unravel at any moment and just wanted to leave, 'Why did I leave the hotel room? Even when I'm not trying to start stuff, things like this happen. It's like I'm a magnet or something.'

The red-haired female noted the ninjato on his back, "You have a sword. Maybe you were spying on our kenjutsu to take back to Konoha."

Naruto's voice held a slight growl, "You have a katana and I have a ninjato, it's shorter, your style would be useless to me. Let me go already damn it…" He turned his glance to Samui who was still looking at him with an unreadable expression, "I've tried to be civil about this, like I said I just want to leave. But if you don't all back off of me I'll move you myself."

She bared her teeth at the boy, "You think you can take on three chunin? By yourself? I'd love to see you try."

Naruto coiled his muscles, "You're not going to let me go so easily are you? *sigh* This is a waste of everyone's time! I have somewhere to be, I was just killing time, I'm on a mission!"

The calm boy nearby nodded in agreement, "Yes, to spy on the inner workings of Kumogakure."

Naruto had to slap his hand to his face this time, "Alright, I don't care anymore, international incident or not. Either get the fuck out of my way and let me go back to my hotel, or I'm going to kick all of your asses… and then go back to my hotel."

The dark-skinned girl was about to draw her sword when the Kumo blonde walked closer to Naruto and stayed her from attacking with a movement of her hand, "Karui, Omoi, calm down." She looked the foreigner up and down, "You have a very short fuse do you know that?"

Naruto gave her a dry look, "I'm getting the third-degree from people I don't know, telling me that I'm doing something that I'm not. And they won't leave me alone, of course I have a temper, you're all pissing me off." He shrugged, "I do actually want to train, but there's no way a foreign ninja here on a diplomatic mission is going to be able to get permission to use the training fields for no good reason. I guess I subconsciously carried myself here, I was just wandering around."

Omoi pulled a sucker out of seemingly nowhere and put it in his mouth, "What kind of diplomatic mission would a Konoha ninja be carrying out here?"

Naruto shrugged, "How should I know? I'm just the muscle, the rest of my team are with the guy we're protecting."

This brought the lifting of a dainty eyebrow from Samui, "So you're a ninja sent here on a diplomatic mission from Konoha that just so happened to be let go from the rest of your group. That sounds somewhat familiar doesn't it?"

Naruto let off a sweat-drop. It did sound familiar, because that was basically what Kumo tried to pull on Konoha years ago when they came to negotiate a treaty. One of the diplomats attempted to obtain the Byakugan for their village by kidnapping Hinata in the middle of the night. It was the story that Neji told during the chunin exams, and it almost resorted in another war when Konoha was still weak from the Kyuubi attack that had taken place three years prior.

'Do they really think this is some kind of revenge espionage kick?' Naruto really just wanted to knock them all out and go about his business, but that would probably make things worse before it made them better, "What do I have to do to make you all leave me alone? Seriously, I'm going to get in trouble if I stay here for too long without checking in."

Omoi scratched his head and looked at his two female teammates, "Maybe we should let the kid go. I mean look at him, he doesn't seem dangerous at all, that scar is a nice touch, but he doesn't look like he can cause any kind of ruckus by himself, even if he was lying."

Naruto resisted the urge to roll his eyes, 'Gaara's smaller than me and nobody says that shit about him. Everybody's on pins and needles around him… why am I so short?'

Karui walked around Naruto, taking in his appearance, "Just because he can't be anything more than a genin doesn't mean anything. Look at him and his gear, you don't just carry a sword around unless you're pretty good at using it, it doesn't work like that. I can see some outlines of scars on his body through his shirt too, he's dangerous alright."

Samui spoke up, "Maybe we should take him in just in case." The two others shrugged in agreement and Samui nodded as to confirm their plan of action.

Naruto sucked his teeth, this was not what he needed to happen. One day in a foreign village that Konoha wasn't on the best terms with and he already found himself in what could be a mess. It wasn't his fault damn it! He didn't do anything!

"What are you all doing?"

All eyes turned towards the summit of the slope to see another blonde, this time significantly older than Naruto, he would estimate at least seven years his senior in this case. Karui's eyes widened as she saw who it was, "Yugito! We just found this Konoha ninja snooping around. We didn't know what he was doing here."

Naruto scoffed, "I told you already damn it. I was wandering around and ended up here by accident, I'm not repeating myself again. What am I, a damn tape recorder?"

The woman known as Yugito looked down on the Konoha ninja that the three other Kumo chunin had 'captured', "Take him to the Raikage."

'FUCK!' Fighting was now the stupidest thing he could do. He was wary back when it was three chunin on just him, now they were joined by someone that could actually give them orders, undoubtedly making them stronger than the others. Before he might have been able to simply kick their asses and maybe disappear until it was time to leave, he really doubted that Homura would ever ask him along on guard duty anyway, but any kind of fight he engaged in here would be coming down on his head.

Being sensible was the only option he could take. There was no room for crazy bullshit ideas to escape that only worked in movies, "Fine whatever. If this will clear everything up then I'll go."

Yugito nodded, "Good choice. You couldn't have gotten away." She looked to the other Kumo ninja, "Tie him up."

Naruto had his hands bound behind his back by Omoi. This was too much for him, but again, fighting would have ended really badly for him even if he did end up winning. As the boy trailed some of the rope he tied Naruto's hands with out in front and began to walk and attempt to drag Naruto he felt that there was too much slack in the rope. When he turned around he saw the rope down on the ground and Naruto rubbing his wrists.

Yugito narrowed her eyes as the younger Kumo nin all got into ready stances. Naruto looked at them all coldly, "What? It's not my fault he can't tie a knot that I can't break. I've taken your bullshit without kicking your asses, I'm going with you to see your Raikage so he can prove why I'm here, and I'm taking it all in stride, but if you think that you're tying me up and parading me through town like a trophy then you can all go fuck yourselves, verstantlich?"

Karui took offense to Naruto's tone, "You're not in Konoha. You can't just do as you like here you know?"

Naruto crossed his arms across his chest, "You're damn right I'm not in Konoha, if I was in Konoha I would have just beaten your asses the second I knew you weren't going to leave me alone and left you here. I didn't know tying up random foreigners was big in Kumo… but anyway, you can take me in right now as I am, hell I'll probably head over myself to complain about you seeing as how I can't do anything myself or else I'll start a war."

Sick of standing around talking to a brick wall, also known as Kumo ninja, Naruto maneuvered his way through the chunin around him and stalked up the slope to the top of the mountain. As he reached the top he spared a glance at the oldest Kumo kunoichi, Yugito.

Not really able to understand, he felt some kind of familiarity with her, "Huh… So that's what happened to Nibi."

Naruto blinked in confusion as he was now being escorted to the Raikage Tower by the Kumo contingent. This was the first thing that Kyuubi had said to him today, and of course it had to be confusing, 'Kyuubi, what are you talking about? Nibi?'

Naruto felt the effects of a phantom slap on the back of his head, "Kit don't you remember when Danzo briefed you on the other jinchuuriki back when you were in Root?"

Naruto's eyes widened in understanding, 'Oh, yeah… I forgot.'

(Flashback – 6 Years Ago – Naruto age: 7)

Naruto had finished Danzo's training regiment one year ago and had been running through the paces of what Danzo had demanded of him in addition to a few missions close to Konoho that had him staying in Hi no Kuni. Currently however, Danzo was planning on sending Naruto to Kuminari no Kuni, and if the shit hit the fan while he was there he needed to know exactly what it was he would be up against.

Seated in Danzo's office he was looking over the table at the man that trained him, "So Danzo-jiji, what do I need to know before I leave?"

Danzo flinched at the 'Danzo-jiji' that had come from the young operative. Even after roughly three years of conditioning he couldn't break that little facet of Naruto that was so expressive… however contrary to Danzo's not-so-old beliefs it didn't make him any less effective. He handed Naruto a folder that when opened revealed pictures of two people. The first was a blonde teenage girl that was significantly older than Naruto. The second was a heavily muscled dark skinned man with sunglasses and pale blonde slicked back hair.

Naruto shrugged in his chair as he resisted the inexplicable urge that all children had to swing their feet when they were dangling off of the ground like his currently were, "I don't get it. Who are they? Am I supposed to kill them Danzo-jiji." Naruto wouldn't have been surprised if Danzo was sending him on another assassination mission. The man seemed to love testing Naruto's skills in that department, his last three missions had been to kill a certain person.

Danzo would have chuckled if he wasn't trying to keep such a stoic façade, "Oh Kami no. I've invested too much time into you to let you go off and get torn to shreds by them. You're not ready for them Naruto. Not yet at least, just give it some time and you'll be more than a match for either one of them. But right now consider them your biggest threats. The place I'm sending you to for your next mission won't hesitate to dispatch one of them to kill you if they are alerted to your presence."

Naruto blocked a yawn. Danzo-jiji's briefings were so boooring! "Yeah… Danzo-jiji, just tell me where I'm going and what I'm doing and I'll be back in the compound in a week."

Danzo slammed his useable hand on the table, leaving an imprint, "Damn it boy listen to me!" Naruto cringed, even though it didn't happen much, when Danzo got angry it meant that there was good reason for it.

Naruto lowered his head, "Sorry Danzo-sama. I'll be silent now."

Danzo looked at Naruto blankly and nodded before continuing to make his point, "I'm not doubting your skill Naruto. I'm positive that if I had you fight a student in Sarutobi's academy today you could wipe the floor with every single one of them effortlessly, same for all of his genin as well. However these people are beyond your level because not only are they the true elites of Kumogakure, they share your burden."

Naruto's eyes widened, "They're jichuuriki too?"

Danzo nodded, "Jinchuuriki Naruto-kun, not ji-, jin-. And yes they are. The girl is Yugito Nii, fourteen years old, jounin, and container of the Nibi no Nekomata, the two tailed monster cat. The man is Kirabi, also known as Killer Bee of the Yotsuki clan. This one is the most dangerous of the two, his brother became the Raikage after the Hyuuga Incident a few years ago and he is known as the Guardian of Kumo."

Naruto took a glance at the pictures, "So you know who Kumo's jinchuuriki are? Do they know who I am?"

Danzo shook his head, "You my boy are a pretty wel kept secret. Because no one can openly talk about the fact that you house the Kyuubi in public that has made it so that the information could not slip to any visitors with a penchant for eavesdropping, add onto that the fact that you rarely go out in public and it's like you barely even exist to the world. You only appear enough for people to not question where you are too often, but I digress. Both are far more experienced than you and are capable of using vastly more of their tenants' chakra than you are currently capable of handling with your pre-pubescent body, even though you train to utilize it effectively…"

Naruto looked down at that. One of Danzo's conditions for training him was that he had to demonstrate sufficient use of the Kyuubi's chakra. While he could form a chakra shroud he still didn't have any skills that he could use alongside it other than highly improved speed, strength, and reflexes.

"Naruto-kun." Naruto looked up to see Danzo shaking his head, "I was never expecting you to show complete mastery over it at such a young age. Still, I expect results in the future. However, in the meantime, if you run across either of these two on your mission I want you to abort immediately. This mission is not worth losing one of my prized investments, understood?"

Naruto nodded, "Okay Danzo-jiji. I'll stay away from these guys."

(End Flashback)

'So this is that Yugito person… I wonder if I could beat her now if we ever fought.' Naruto looked her over. She looked very strong and confident in her ability. He wondered if she sensed that he was a jinchuuriki like herself the way he had just a moment ago. Naruto panned his eyes over to her. Now that he was close he could tell that her eyes were somewhat reminiscent of a cat. She caught him looking at her, forcing him to avert his gaze ahead as the tower came into sight.

Naruto, guided by his 'guards' strode into the ground floor of the tower. As they entered Naruto smirked as he saw Izumo and Kotetsu seated on a couch by the stairs leading up. He whistled over in their direction to get their attention. At seeing the blonde corralled by the group of Kumo nin the men hopped to their feet ready to defend their little buddy, "Naruto what happened?"

Naruto shook his head, "This is one paranoid place. I found a training field by accident and got accused of spying, and it's not like I can kick their asses or I'll be the one in trouble."

Kotetsu was ready to start something over the young blonde chunin, he got enough bullshit back in Konoha, he didn't need it here too, "Did they do anything to hurt you?"

Naruto shook his head, "They were about to tie me up. But if they had pushed the issue with that then all bets would have been off and we would have been fighting." He looked around, "Where's Genma?"

Izumo pointed up, "Genma's with Elder Mitokado. He's speaking with the Raikage's advisors right now."

Samui pushed Naruto forward, "So the Raikage is free. Good, we can settle this now."

Naruto slapped the girl's hands off of him, "Hands off. I'd say that this settles what I'm doing here. I mean, this is my team after all. But if you want to continue to make obsessive asses out of yourselves then by all means, let's go."

With that they all went up the stairs and stopped in front of a secretary's desk. After a short word with the woman there they all entered the office of the most powerful man in the country. A massive man seated behind the desk in his traditional kage robes looked up from whatever was on his desk, "Yugito… Samui, Omoi, Karui. What are you all doing here surrounding this Konoha ninja."

Karui pushed Naruto forward, causing him to glare back at the girl, 'You're so lucky that this guy would kill me before I could even get a shot off edgewise or I would backhand you right here, right now.'

Omoi shook his head at Karui's upfront abuse of the kid. Samui sighed at her teammate's brash action, "Raikage-sama, we found this Konoha ninja overlooking one of our training sessions. Being that we are trained by Kirabi-sensei we figured he may be trying to steal some of Kumo's hidden techniques so we elected to escort him here."

Naruto snorted, "If by escort you mean give me an ultimatum to either fight all of you and get my ass thrown in prison for sure, or be dragged through town like a goddamned prisoner of war, then yes you 'escorted' me here."

The Raikage shot his eyes to Naruto. Despite the physically imposing size of the man, Naruto still wouldn't give him any tells that he was actually intimidated. I mean what's the worst thing that could happen? They kill him?

The Raikage rubbed his white mustache, "I am the Yondaime Raikage of Kumogakure. My name is A boy. What is your name?"

Naruto looked at the man in the eye, "Naruto Uzumaki, chunin of Konohagakure no Sato, ninja registration number 012607."

A raised his hand to stop him from talking, "Enough Uzumaki-san. What are you doing in my village? Are you conducting espionage under the guise of a diplomatic mission?"

Naruto sighed, "No Raikage-sama. I was bored so I walked around the village and came across a training field. I tried to leave immediately, but by the time I realized where I was your ninja had seen me and accused me of spying."

A gave him a stern look, "And were you?"

Naruto flicked his ninjato on his back, "I couldn't use your style anyway. Honestly, I just… *sigh* got lost on the road of life…"

XxX

(Meanwhile in Konohagakure)

Kakashi turned his attention from the Memorial Stone to look up at the sky. Kakashi uncharacteristically pumped his fist in the air in victory, "Yes… I've finally got one of them."

XxX

(Back in Kumogakure)

Naruto felt a shiver go down his spine, 'I just made someone very happy just now…' Going off in his own world for just a moment he was asking himself what he could have done to warrant such a feeling.

Eventually the Kumo ninja noticed his lack of attentiveness at the current preceedings. Karui walked up and poked the boy on the shoulder, "Hey, listen to Raikage-sama. I don't know how things are done in Konoha, but here we listen to what our kage has to say." This did nothing to spur Naruto from his line of thought.

"Hello Kumogakure!"

A slapped his hand to his forehead, "The man has no sense of timing I swear…"

The doors to the office were blasted open as an exact copy of the photo Naruto had been briefed on in his adolescence burst through the doors. He walked past everyone in the office and right up to the Raikage's desk, "Yo big bro! Hachibi-sama is back from his latest mission!"

A's eyebrow twitched as he watched his little brother, who had a massive grin on his face, "Kirabi… I'm happy to hear that, but could you have waited until I was done before you came in?"

The man in question scoffed, "Waiting out in the hall is for chumps, you're saying I'm less important than one of these lumps?" He turned around and saw his team standing and looking on with sweat-drops on their heads, "Hey students of mine! Is my big bro giving you your daily shine?"

Yugito sighed and walked forward, "They came across a suspicious Konoha ninja and brought him here. He's standing right next to you."

Naruto had moved directly out of the path of the desk the second he heard the door bust open and simply watched from the side, 'This guy is worse than I was when I was sealed…'

Kirabi turned his attention to the young boy next to him, making Naruto somewhat uncomfortable because the man was towering over him looking directly down. After a moment Kirabi stuck his fist out, "How ya doin' Mr. 9?"

Naruto blinked in place before slowly sticking out his own fist and tapping it against Kirabi's. Samui pointed at Naruto after hearing what Kirabi called him, "Kirabi-sensei, his name is Naruto Uzumaki, not Mr. 9."

Yugito shook her head, "He wasn't referring to just a simple name, he was referring to the tailed beast that he has within him."

Naruto sighed and shook his head, "Thanks for that… because I really needed everyone in the room to have another reason to be suspicious of me." Noticing that all eyes in the room were on him he grunted in affirmation, "Fine, alright. Since I'm stuck here, Yugito knew already, and Hachibi guy over here busted me out anyway I guess I'll tell you."

Kirabi stomped his foot childishly on the ground as Naruto thought about the best way to go about speaking. Somehow his thought process was uninterrupted by the large man's ranting about how it was 'Hachibi-sama' and not 'Hachibi guy' as Naruto had put it. Eventually he figured the best way to explain himself to the room of people and tuned in to Kirabi's rant that he figured was directed at him when he noticed that he was looking at him, and that everyone else looked like they wanted to strangle the Hachibi jinchuuriki for not shutting up.

Naruto however, had not been listening to a single word that had been said and was forced to say the only thing he could in this situation, "I'm sorry, did you say something?" Another shiver went down his spine, 'I'm making someone's day right now.'

The silence permeating the room after that was unnerving, "What?" The stares from everyone around him was starting to piss him off, "What the hell is wrong with you all? Did I say something wrong?"

Omoi pointed lamely at the blonde boy, "Y-You ignored him…"

Karui followed up, "No one ever does that… ever."

Getting tired of the odd looks he was getting and seeing his opportunity to leave staring him right in the face, he began to slink towards the exit, "Okay, well if anyone still wants to speak to me in a less hostile environment I will be staying at the hotel that the Konoha dignitary is in. Goodbye."

XxX

By the time he made it back to his hotel room it was nightfall and Naruto was not looking forward to getting his butt chewed out by Genma once he caught wind of what had gone down today. As he entered the room he saw Genma laying back on his bed seemingly relaxing, "Have a good time out there?"

Naruto glared half-heartedly as he sat on his own bed, "Whatever Izumo and Kotetsu told you I would just like to say that it was one-hundred percent not my fault."

Genma chuckled, "Now do you get what I meant when I told you to stay out of trouble? You're like a magnet for stuff like this kid. I've read your file, the stuff you did in one year as a ninja most people don't get close to touching until their third year at least. Just the sheer amount of troublesome situations you get yourself into could have been stretched out to two years when compared to someone else. It's no wonder you're strong, if you were weak you'd have died after the first incident."

Naruto lay his head back on a pillow, "I almost got into a fight with three Kumo ninja today that accused me of spying. Me! If I wanted to spy on them they never would have known about it." He turned serious, "They know about me and the Kyuubi."

Genma's senbon fell from his mouth, "Are you sure? How could they find out about it?"

Naruto looked up at the ceiling blankly as he spoke, "I met both of Kumo's jinchuuriki today. Both of them could sense that I was one too and they called me on it in front of the Raikage…"

Genma bit his lip, "That's not good… They might use that in negotiations tomorrow…"

Naruto gave him an odd look, "Who cares if they spread it around that I'm Konoha's jinchuuriki? Yes it's a shame that the secret finally got out, but hey… thirteen years is a long time to keep a secret like that from the majority of the world. Tell Old Man Homura not to worry about it too much, tell him to act like it doesn't bother Konoha that the secret is out. Honestly it doesn't bother me."

Genma gave the boy an odd look, "So you don't really care that your entire generation will learn that you house the Kyuubi? Not even if they turn away from you or hate you for it?"

Naruto gave a bored look to him, "I've already alluded to two people at least, that I have the Kyuubi in me, the second the news comes out things will be clearer to a whole lot of people. Hell I may just ask Tsunade-baachan to just flat out tell everyone in the whole village, I mean, what do I have to lose? No one my age can kill me if they do take the news wrong and it couldn't make the adults feel any differently about me could it? They already knew, and however they treated me beforehand wouldn't change if the news was open for everyone to know."

Genma shook his head, "You're a ballsy kid, kid."

Naruto smirked, "So I'm told."

XxX

(The Next Day)

Naruto was sitting on the roof of the hotel meditating. Since he was once again prevented from accompanying Homura to the meeting like the rest of his team and he couldn't actively train, he took it upon himself to meditate and get more in touch with what he liked to call, much to the Kyuubi's chagrin, his furry side.

Inside his head he found himself in the familiar bedroom of his apartment and went searching for his giant demon of destruction. Looking outside he saw the massive fox sunning itself of all things. Shaking his head he made his way down and cleared his throat to get the Kyuubi's attention. The demon cracked open one eye to look at its jailor, "Are you serious? I gave you free reign to create stuff to hunt, do whatever you want with my mindscape's citizens, wreck any of the buildings in here that you want, basically to blow up anything and everything you want, and you're sleeping?"

Kyuubi yawned as it lifted its massive head to look at Naruto properly, "Mortal, as fun as it was destroying your mindscape Konoha over and over again the fact that it rebuilds itself kind of takes some of the luster out of the carnage. I mean, as great as it is to slaughter wave after wave of defenders, seeing the entire place rebuild two hours after you've eradicated the place of any and all signs of life kind of irks you after a while."

Naruto sweat-dropped, "Uh huh… Okay, the reason I came. How do you think I stack up against the Kumo jinchuuriki?"

Kyuubi didn't think on it, "The female would be a tough match for you, but you could defeat her without activating the Kitsune Trigger. She doesn't have enough control over Nibi to keep her mindstate stable during the fight, it would be far more difficult than your fight against Shukaku, but you would still win. The Hachibi container on the other hand, would destroy you, no question. He has full access to his biju's chakra and perfect control over it. Even if you activated the Kitsune Trigger or went to your limit of my chakra that you could use he would go straight to eight tails and tear you apart, do not fight him… ever… no matter what."

Naruto grumbled, "I still can't win… I've got to be the worst jinchuuriki in the elemental nations. I might as well be a regular person for all the good that using your chakra does me. This guy has full control and all I can handle right now is three tails worth without going insane with bloodlust." Naruto had tried pushing himself to his absolute limit a few days before leaving on this mission. He cleared it with Tsunade first and went deep inside the Forest of Death in case things got too tense. Good thing he did too, because he flipped out at four tails and went on a rampage, slaughtering any animal stupid enough to try and take down the boy.

He didn't remember how he settled down, but he did smell the presence of one of Tsunade's Anbu after he woke up.

Kyuubi sighed and snorted, blowing Naruto back a few feet, "You are far from a weak container kit. The other jinchuuriki have natural advantages over you due to the amount of time they have had with their demons. You are thirteen years old, have been training to utilize my chakra since you were five, and were forced to stop at the age of eight for over four years. To get full mastery over three tails of my chakra in technically four years of training is a feat that I don't think any other jinchuuriki can claim to make since they began training around the same age if not older than when you began."

Naruto nodded to the nine-tailed demon, "So anything you need while I'm here? Anything you want me to tweak about my mindscape?"

Kyuubi batted its tails lazily, "Other than saying that I want you to release your memories so I can watch your old missions, no not really. Get out of here kit."

Rolling his eyes, Naruto grumbled that it was his mind, bringing a fanged grin to the fox's face before the blonde faded from his mind.

XxX

Naruto suddenly reached out and grabbed a hand that was reaching for his face, "Don't do that please." He opened his eyes to find the team from yesterday looking at him with the red-haired girl's hand in his grasp, "What are you guys doing here? Is meditation against the law for visitors now too?"

Karui ripped her hand from his grasp, "Why did Kirabi-sensei tell us to come and find this guy and talk to him? He doesn't seem special at all."

Omoi walked up and looked at Naruto who was still seated on the roof, "Didn't you hear yesterday? Kirabi-sensei and Yugito said that he has a demon in him like they do. I'm really glad he didn't try to fight us yesterday or we might be in the hospital right now."

Naruto wanted to get up and walk away, he saw nothing good coming out of this, when Samui, the blonde girl around his age spoke, "We would like to spar with you Uzumaki-san."

Naruto let a small smile cross his face, "Oh hoh, so you remember my name from yesterday do you?" Naruto looked at the three Kumo ninja, "Fine, I'll fight you. We need to go somewhere where I won't get in trouble for any collateral damage though."

They all nodded and led Naruto off away from the village. As they exited the gates and noticed how no one moved to stop them, while in Konoha he would have needed permission to leave, but these people could leave whenever they wanted. After heading over and around the numerous mountain ranges surrounding the village, Naruto brought this up, "Hey why can you guys just leave whenever you want. If it was me then I would have hunter-ninja on my ass before I reached the next town." 'Of course that may partly be because I'm a jinchuuriki.'

Omoi answered for him, "We're trained by Kirabi-sensei. He doesn't live in the village and when we were genin he got sick of having to come and get us every day for training so he got us permission to leave of our own will, mostly so we could come to him instead of him coming to us."

Naruto nodded, "So where are we going anyway? We have to be at least fifteen miles out by now."

"We're almost there. We're heading to where Kirabi-sensei lives and trains. Unraikyo (Valley of Clouds and Lightning)." Omoi pointed down as they reached the summit of another mountain. It was a relatively large place, with a series of tall peaks coming out of a large body of water.

All four ninja slipped down the slope to the water below and stood on the surface as Naruto took note of the environment, "This is a really nice place… Your sensei lives here? I really like the looks of this place."

Nearby, Naruto saw what looked like a mountain peak that was cleaved to make some flatland for training. After they all reached the platform, Naruto shook his shoulders out and looked at the three who were looking at him intently, "So how are we doing this? Is it one on one or are you all coming at me at the same time?"

The team looked between each other at him. Samui gave him a strange look, "Do you really believe you can take us all at the same time?"

Naruto gave her a deadpan look and slipped into a taijutsu stance, "No, I just said that because I'm a masochist and getting my ass beat is how I get my jollies. Of course I think I can or I wouldn't have said it. And because you took so long I'm not giving you the option, come at me, all of you. Give me your best shot."