619I Don't Own Naruto!
Cradle of the Uchiha Clan – Chapter 4
'Where is all this paperwork coming from?' groaned the Sandaime Hokage inwardly as he looked down at the hundredth file he has had to read so far. The old man was happy that Konoha was getting a steadily increasing amount of missions, but the work was becoming overwhelming; his eyes were starting to water after such long hours of reading.
With a sigh the Hokage decided to take a break and rested fully on his seat. He could feel the added back support on his new chair that he asked his usual carpenter to make a few days ago, and it was much better than the old and battered one before. Looking around, Sarutobi noticed that many things have changed in the Hokage office since the first time he stepped into it over fifty years ago. Not only had the furniture and colors changed, four Hokage had stepped into the office since then. Some had a longer rule than others, but all four of them would forever be known as heroes of Konohagakure no Sato.
'Minato,' thought the Hokage as he looked up at a picture of his predecessor, who looked so young in the frame. 'You would be happy to know that the village had gone back up to full strength in these past years, and your son is becoming one of the most promising young Ninja in his generation.'
The elderly Hokage would often look inside the academy classrooms to check on the progress of many young Ninja, and Naruto would usually catch his eyes. Over the years Sarutobi's worry for the Uzumaki boy had become less and less; the village had accepted him without anyone being suspicious and he found motherly love in Tsubaki. Sarutobi could watch in peace knowing that the boy would grow up as a normal child in the village without being persecuted as a monster. The only thing left for Sarutobi to do was to lead the young generation to greatness, and his duty would finally be done.
The old man had much faith in Naruto not only because he was his father's son, but also because of the grit and talent he had shown. Even with many Shinobi Clan heirs and heiresses in his class, Naruto was still at the top. A boy with no prior training of any sort managed to activate his chakra before anybody else, but that could be because of his strong body from his mother's blood. Nevertheless, Sarutobi would expect great things from the boy, and look forward to what he would accomplish in the future.
"Excuse me, Hokage-sama, but Uchiha Mikoto-sama would like to speak with you," came the voice of the receptionist that broke the Hokage out of his thoughts. "It appears to be quite urgent."
After clearing his throat, the old man replied. "Please ask her in."
The large double doors parted and the familiar face of Uchiha Mikoto appeared in front of the elderly leader. He had known the Uchiha Matriarch since she was a little girl, and he had watched her grow into a powerful Uchiha Jounin and transform into a loving mother of two. Like many others in the village, Mikoto was like Sarutobi's own child.
With a smile on his face, Sarutobi nodded at the woman. "Hello Mikoto, how can I help you today?"
The Uchiha had a perplexed expression on her face as she looked down at the ground. "I need to ask you something, Hokage-sama."
Sarutobi immediately noticed her strange behavior and nodded again. "Please take a seat." Mikoto sighed and pulled out the chair for herself before sitting down. "What do you need to ask me?"
"I know this maybe wrong of me to ask, and it may cause trouble for some people, but I have to ask." Mikoto looked up into the Hokage's eyes and rested her hands on his desk. "Can you please give me full custody of Uzumaki Naruto?"
The Hokage could have had a million guesses and he wouldn't have guessed what Mikoto asked..
"I know it may be a secret, but Kushina named me as hi-"
Mikoto was cut off of her sentence as Sarutobi raised a finger to his lips while carrying an extremely serious expression. The mother of two watched as the Hokage weave a hand-seal that resulted in a slight hum to go through the entire room. From what she knew, Mikoto assumed the Hokage activated a silencing seal in the room.
Sarutobi released the sigh and looked directly at the woman. "I don't know where you got such information, but this is a SS-ranked secret and only a much selected few are privy to such knowledge."
Mikoto felt a little intimidating by the aura the Hokage was emitting, but held her ground. "Naruto-chan looks like mini-clone of Minato and has the same last name as Kushina." The woman frowned as she leaned forward on the desk. "I've known both of them all my life, so I think I am capable of discovering such a secret by myself."
"Have you told anyone else of this?"
"No, but I am not the only one whose figured it out." Mikoto twiddled her thumbs and looked down at her hands. "All of us who knew Minato and Kushina well could tell Naruto is their son with just one look."
Sarutobi sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds. "Uzumaki Naruto is an orphan of Konoha, which is a fact, and he already has a wonderful sister to take care of him, so there is no need for you to involve yourself in this matter."
Mikoto felt her anger grew as she glared a little at the old man. "I was Kushina's best friend; she was practically a sister to me and she named me Naruto-chan's godmother, so if anyone should be taking care of him it should be me!" Sarutobi remained emotionless as he looked at the outraged woman. "I could give him a real family; he would have a mother and a father and two siblings!"
"I understand how you feel, but nonetheless it would be too hard for Naruto now to move into the Uchiha Clan, and even if I allow this, I have no right to change his custody because the legal obligation does not rest with me." Mikoto fell silent and listened carefully. "Jiraiya of the Sannin is legally Naruto's guardian, and he is the only one who has the right to transfer custody over to you."
"But Jiraiya-sama hasn't even been in the village for the past six years!" cried the woman as she stood up. "Naruto-chan needs a guardian who would look out for him and provide him with a full family!"
"He already has a family, Tsubaki-san is taking very good care of him and he is very happy."
"But he is living as an orphan!" Mikoto had tears in her eyes as she sat back down. "He doesn't even know who his parents were and how much they loved him; I don't want him to live with such loneliness!"
"I will personally tell him about his parents when the time is right, and he will inherit all of his parents' assets and name." The Hokage was speaking with an iron voice. "I am commanding you to not interfere with Naruto's life; this is a direct command from the Hokage!"
"Hokage-sama, please!"
"This meeting is over."
"At least let me get close to him!" cried Mikoto loudly. "He is my godson and the son of my best friend and sister; it pains to not be able to take care of him!" The image of a smiling Kushina appeared in her mind. "Kushina would have wanted me to at least look out for her little boy."
Sarutobi's will was iron. "I am sorry if this pains you, but this is the decree I created the day Minato passed away." The Hokage rested his arms on his desk and narrowed his eyes. "This is all for Naruto's own protection, and it had clearly done the job for the past years."
"Come on Sensei, cut Mikoto some slack!" came a sudden voice from the window.
Sarutobi was shocked to hear someone join into the conversation and immediately turned around, "Jiraiya!" cried the Hokage as he looked over to see his student perched on the window pane, breaking a part of his silencing seal. "What are you doing here?!"
Mikoto looked at the white haired man in shock as he stepped into the room, "Jiraiya-sama?"
"I am just here for my weekly report, but when I was coming in I saw your silencing seal in place, so I got curious and decided to listen in." The Sannin turned over to the Uchiha Matriarch and smiled at her. "Hey Mikoto, I haven't seen you in a while; you are as beautiful as ever!"
The woman disregarded the last comment and looked over at the man. "You've been coming back every week?"
"Well of course, I have to do my job for the village and look over my grandson!" Jiraiya had a bright smile on his face as he placed his hands on his hips.
"Grandson?" asked Mikoto.
Jiraiya smiled and sat down on the edge of the Hokage's desk. "Minato was like a son to be, so his son is my grandson." The man smiled at briefly looked over at the Yondaime's picture. "I may not be a full time guardian for Naruto since I have to leave the village almost every day, but I do make sure he is being taken care of." Jiraiya reached into his robe and pulled out a picture before handing it to Mikoto. "Now Tsubaki may not be his actual sister, but she loves him like family."
"He looks…happy", the picture was one with Naruto sitting on a park-bench next to Tsubaki; she had her arms wrapped tightly around the boy and he was smiling very brightly.
"I know how you and Kushina were as close as family and I understand why you would want to take care of Naruto, but he is already in good hands so taking any action will just result badly." Mikoto stayed silent as he handed the photo back to Jiraiya. "But I don't see why you can't get close to Naruto; the boy is still a child and one more mother-figure wouldn't be a bad thing."
Mikoto looked up at the man surprised and hopeful.
"Jiraiya" The Sandaime was looking at his student with a dubious expression.
"Oh come on Sensei, how bad could it be?" Jiraiya smiled and crossed his arms. "It's not like Naruto will move into the Uchiha Clan; this is just so he could have another close mother-figure in his life, and who better to do so than Mikoto!" Sarutobi sighed and closed his eyes. "The kid is already friends with the Uchiha girl, isn't he? Then Mikoto caring for him wouldn't be that suspicious."
The Hokage looked over at Mikoto, who stared back at him; a long moment of silence passed as Sarutobi played various scenarios in his mind, and he finally bowed his head with an exasperated sigh. "Okay Mikoto, you can try to get close to Naruto, but make sure you don't do anything that would suggest anything beyond you caring for him as Sayuri-chan's mother, and make sure you don't tell him anything about Minato or Kushina." The Hokage leaned forward on his desk and stared at the Uchiha. "This is extremely important Mikoto; you mustn't tell anybody about Naruto's parentage, including Fugaku."
Mikoto nodded immediately, having no problems with the conditions. "I understand Hokage-sama; no one will know but me."
The Sandaime sighed again and rubbed his temples. "Do not make me regret this decision, Mikoto."
Mikoto smiled and nodded, "Hai Hokage-sama; thank you!" The woman turned to Jiraiya and bowed a little. "Thank you too, Jiraiya-sama!"
Jiraiya smiled back and waved her off. "Don't worry about it; just take good care of the kid for me."
"Hai!"
It was midday and the library was scarce of people, so the loud rumbling in the bloodline section of the main floor. Inside the middle aisle was a tall pile of books that hid a blond boy with its height, and it was continuously growing taller as the boy threw book after book on top of it. If one were to look at the titles of the books they would find that they were all books about all kinds of Shinobi Kekkei Genkai around the world, but the boy had no use for them.
"Damn!" cursed Naruto as he threw another book at the pile and rested his back against the shelf, "Why can't I find anything?!"
Naruto had been hiding inside the library since early morning, and he had gone through most of the books on Kekkei Genkai. He found many elemental abilities certain Shinobi would have depending on their blood, but Dōjutsu were ultimately rare and the only one on record was the Byakugan. Naruto knew perfectly well how the Byakugan looked like, and it was nothing like his blood red eyes.
'Does this have anything to do with my dream?' Naruto asked himself as he rested his back against a bookshelf. 'That nine tailed fox looked and sounded far too real to be a normal dream.' The boy was still a little shaken up because of the dream; that fox looked like it wanted to eat him, and it was still freaking him out a little. 'Maybe I should tell Tsubaki-nee about this.' thought the boy silently as he rubbed his temples. 'She would freak out, but maybe she would know what to do.' Naruto groaned quietly as he scratched his head. 'This sucks! I don't even know what those eyes do!'
Looking contemplative, the boy cautiously channeled some chakra into the pocket he could still feel behind his eyes, and almost immediately his vision changed. Still feeling a little paranoid about activated the strange power; Naruto hesitantly stood up from the empty library and looked around the area. Everything was pretty much the same, but in certain materials he could see traces of blue energy running through them.
'Is that…chakra?'
There was a very tall oak tree standing proudly right outside the library window, and there was a lot of chakra running through its trunk and branches. Naruto walked closer to the window to examine the phenomenon better, and he was amazed to see detailed patterns on how chakra moves within the wood.
The blond had read about chakra before and did have a rudimentary understanding of how it worked, but never had he seen such a descriptive representation of it. With his eyes he could see the normally invisible flicker of chakra as it moved from one place to another. Naruto placed his hand on the glass to lean closer against the window, but that action caused his eyes to look at his arm.
"Wow." Naruto couldn't help but mutter out loud as he saw a large amount of chakra running from his arm to the rest of his body. The first thing he noticed was that his chakra possessed a different color compared to the tree; the tree's chakra had a pale blue and his chakra was a very dark blue.
Naruto focused his chakra and channeled it to his hands, and with his eyes he saw his hands flooded with flaring blue energy; they were flickering like a flame as he continued to pour his all into that one area. He moved his arms around and allowed his chakra to follow around like a flickering flame; he was like a kid in a candy store.
"This is so cool!" He couldn't help but smile brightly as he waved his hands in front of his face, making his fingers look like flares. The boy bit his lips as he stood back with a contemplative look on his face before a playful grin replaced it.
'Let's go explore the village!'
"Are you sure we made the right choice?" asked the Sandaime as he stood on the roof of the Hokage Tower, looking out at his village as he puffed on his pipe. "As much as Mikoto wants to Naruto, she is still one of the Uchiha Clan leaders." Sarutobi looked at his most loyal student through the corner of his eyes. "What if they find out about Minato's connection to their clan?"
Jiraiya crossed his arms and gave a quiet sigh. "While there is a possibility of them suspecting something, I highly doubt something will actually come out of it." The Sannin closed his eyes and rested his arms on the railing. "Minato's mother was just a civilian Uchiha so no one should even suspect anything, but in case something does come up, we can control it."
A puff of smoke came out of the Hokage's breath as he sighed. "I hope you're right."
"Oh lighten up you old geezer!" Jiraiya chuckled as he patted his teacher's shoulder. "Mikoto just wants to give her godson some love, what's the worst that could happen?" The Sannin smiled as he looked up at the face of his late student on the Hokage Monument. "That boy can always use more than one family member, and Kushina would have wanted her best friend to look after her son for her."
"I am not worried about Mikoto, but if we give too much attention to Naruto we risk letting Danzo know of his true heritage."
Jiraiya nodded and turned more serious. "I made sure to wipe any evidence leading Naruto to his parents and personally killed several of Danzo's men to keep him at bay, but in any case, I'm sure Danzo already has some suspicion about Minato and Kushina's son." Sarutobi puffed on his pipe and nodded grimly. "That old bat has always been a shrewd man, so I'm going to assume that he's going to be going after Naruto despite what our intel suggests."
"I ordered him to disband his Root Program, but I think he still has secret bases inside Konoha, so I really don't know how trustworthy our spies are in this situation."
"It doesn't matter, we have to assume that he's up to no good and the moment he takes action we will jump in and stop him." Jiraiya gripped the railings of the roof as he looked down at the village. "I don't care what happens, but the moment that old bat tries to touch my grandson I am going to attack him full-force."
Sarutobi sighed and shook his head. "Danzo has always tried to walk a path that is good for Konoha, but I have to agree and say that his ways are too dark for my liking, so if you attack him, I will support you fully."
Jiraiya smiled and nodded at the old man. "Thanks, Sarutobi-sensei."
The Hokage smiled back at his student and nodded. "But I do hope that such drastic measures will not be needed; after all, it has been a peaceful decade and I want to see the children of the village grow up without war and destruction."
"Yes, the development of this generation should be quite interesting to see, especially that grandson of mine." Jiraiya chuckled as he smiled in anticipation. "He's already shown some early signs of talent, so maybe we'll have another legend in a few years!"
"Knowing you, you'll be more interested in his performance with girls than his skills as a Ninja."
Jiraiya laughed and started to walk away. "You know me too well Sensei!"
Sarutobi felt his student leave the building and looked back down at the village. "Of course I do, Jiraiya."
Naruto was having the time of his life. He couldn't believe how cool everything looked through his new eyes. Even with a new pair of sunglasses covering his eyes from others around him, Naruto could still see everything perfectly. He found that the clarity of his vision was far greater than before, so much so that he could now read tiny letters of a distant restaurant menu standing 10 meters away from the place.
The best part was how everything with chakra inside them would look like colorful torches as they pranced around. From toddlers to tall old trees, flames of chakra danced around their bodies. The weird thing for Naruto to see was that everyone was walking around completely normal, completely oblivious to how their chakra looked like fire around their bodies.
'Everyone has different colors.' Naruto peered around like a curious tourist, observing the different shade of colors of people's chakra. 'Most of them have light blue chakra, but mine is a much darker blue; I wonder if it's because of my eyes.'
Suddenly, through the corner of his eyes, Naruto caught sight of something coming at him at a very fast pace.
The blond sighed and turned around. "Do you really have to greet me like this?"
Uchiha Sayuri walked up to her rival with a smirk on her face. "What? You catch it every time." The girl was wearing a sky blue blouse and a pair of black Shinobi pants and she had her hands on her hips as she walked up to Naruto. "And what's with the glasses?"
"Oh," Naruto dispersed the chakra behind his eyes and took of his glasses. "They were on sale so I humored myself." The boy had a sheepish smile on his face as he looked at his strange friend. "So what brings you here?"
Sayuri crossed her arms and leaned closer to Naruto. "I should be asking you that! We had a Shurikenjutsu test today and someone decided to skip!" Naruto smacked his head as he remembered Iruka saying something about a test. "While I don't mind having higher grades than my rival, I don't like winning just because you didn't bother to show up."
Naruto chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, I kind of lost track of time this morning."
The Uchiha heiress sighed and shook her head. "Whatever, but you better show up next week; I want to beat you fair and square."
The blond smiled and nodded in response. "Sure."
Sayuri smiled back and nodded, but she suddenly caught the smell of something very familiar. With a bright smile on her face, she quickly turned around and walked closer to the bakery they were standing near. From where she stood she could see some fresh out of the oven tomato bread and her mouth watered at the sight.
"Obasan, give me a couple of tomato bread please." Naruto said as he walked up to the counter of the bakery. The old lady behind the counter smiled at the blond boy and gladly handed him the hot bread in a bag. Naruto smiled at the lady and paid her before turning back to Sayuri. "Here you go Sayuri-san, take it as my apology for skipping the test today."
Sayuri was surprised and she stared at Naruto blankly before blinking. "You bought them for me?" Naruto nodded with a smile. "Why?"
"As I said, it's an apology, and it's normal for friends to buy lunch for other friends."
Sayuri looked shocked again, but this time she composed herself and smiled. "Well I'll gladly accept it, thanks Naruto."
"You're very welcome."
"Well I'm going to go train now; you better do the same if you want to beat me next week!" The Uchiha girl gave Naruto one last smile before she ran off, the bag of tomato bread held tightly in her hand. "I won't go easy on you!"
Naruto chuckled as he waved at the girl. 'Uchiha Sayuri, you are the most interesting person I have ever met in my life.' The boy put his sunglasses back on and activated his eyes; he wanted to continue his cool adventure around the village, but he caught sight of the color of Sayuri's chakra. 'Huh, she has a darker shade of chakra as well.' Naruto smiled as he turned around and walked away. 'Let's see if I can find anyone with a shade of chakra that is exactly like mine!'
The End!
Okay, that was the fourth chapter of Cradle of the Uchiha Clan, and I hope you all liked it! XD
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