Heeeeeeeeey, you guys. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're all thinking- he's still alive!

Barely!

In any case, there's a lot going on, I'm afraid, and not all of it is good.

At this point in time, I'm not looking to make more Fanfiction(Yes, sadly, this might be the end of more updates for a very, very long time.), as, don't get me wrong, I love doing it, but there's a major difference between a teenager with nothing better to do writing weird stories online, and an adult who has things to do, and things he's TRYING to do writing weird stories online. I love writing and all, but it doesn't pay off.

Well, unless you get into the erotica part of writing where you take commissions and write really naughty things for strange people who may-or-may-not live in a basement somewhere with tons of lotion packed in a corner that really isn't needed.

And I just so happen to be one of those people now!

Yes, I have gone to the dark side, and started writing porn(Pron in case FF doesn't want me saying porn for some strange reason.), and no, I will not be putting any of it on this site. If this was a couple years ago I might have, but I've been seeing and hearing some things about lemons and just, well, sex policies in general on here and don't want to deal with all that.

Instead, if you want to read any of my naughty bits, I have them posted on HF(Hentai Foundry) under the username 'Uxukie'(Throwback? Yes. Yes it is.), and I am even still taking commissions for stories over there currently. Or if you just want to say 'Fuck it' to the middle man, send an email my way to Musetsumeiuxukie (FF doesn't like the at symbol, so just imagine that its here, even if it isn't. And imagine yourself up a nice chocolate cake- you deserve it.) gmail . com(Without the spaces, obviously.) and set up something that way, too.

It doesn't have to just be nasty scenes, either. I do anything, really, so if you wanted some kind of one-shot where, say, Ruby contemplates the logistics of cookies going into her mouth, or some shit like that, then you are most welcome to tell and make me write it(Before I get a bunch of questions and hate from this, yes, I am willing to take payment to continue any story I have already started on here, or even begin a new one, and no, I am not forcing people to give me money to continue writing these stories, as I will most likely eventually come back to all of them sometime in the future, but not any time soon, because as is, I am going to be writing 10-15 stories monthly, and that's gonna really start to whittle down my enthusiasm to spend more spare time to writing even MORE, so paying for for more things to be done and what-not is the faster way to get chapters out, but it is entirely unnecessary, so please can all hate and send it to my P.O box at NUNYADAMBUZNEZ.).

And I know, a lot of you were probably hoping for another chapter for my KH+XC2 story, or my Pokemon story, or(And these are the real weirdos-) my Bleach+FT story, but I've been in a real RWBY mood lately, and that translates to this story directly. And I'm probably gonna get more questions for this, so I'll say it now: No, I do not know which story I will update next, if I even have the time to do so, so please no spammy spam.

There's also a lot of italics, and Kurama talking in this chapter, and it kind of ate up so much of the space that I changed the ending to this from what it originally was gonna be, as I had intended for one more scene, and quite a different take to the Naruto part of this, but it just didn't make the cut I'm afraid. But it'll probably come back for the next chapter, so don't sweat it.

And I do believe that is all I had time for, and I'm really god damn tired right now, so I probably forgot something, buuuuuuuut, that's future me's problem, so he'll have to take care of it.

One last time, kiddies; praise, be, onto, your, SENPAI.

The clicking of heels was the only sound that echoed through the aptly named 'Beacon Vault' as the headmaster and deputy headmistress of the school traveled down the corridor that lead up to the current Fall maiden. "Is there any specific reason we are making our usual weekly round to the vault early, Professor Ozpin?" Glynda voiced her confusion to an oddly sharp eyed Ozpin as they continued their rather sedate pace down the hall.

"Not particularly. Just this ominous premonition that I have." He waved a hand as if that would dissipate all the alarm and concern the woman with him was now feeling. "Don't think too much on it. I'm sure it's just me being overly paranoid with everything going on lately. Especially with the Queen making her moves and all these unaccounted for pieces on the field currently." Glynda tried her best to reign in the emotions playing out in her that led to a near heart attack as she glanced over to her boss. "You mean with Mr. Arc, or rather, Uzumaki, and the fact an entire nation, the same nation that has been making noise across the world with their otherwise unworldly feats for the last decade or so, seems entirely too interested in a boy of just seventeen years for it to be normal, even if they claimed him as one of their own they 'tragically' lost so long ago?"

Her compatriot nodded his head as his once dour expression made way for one of scrutiny.

"Things don't add up. There has to be something special about him for them to suddenly take an active interest in a person who up until now didn't even exist on Remnant, which leaves only one other plausible explanation. And considering where that same nation had come from as well and that they are saying he belongs to their, ahem, 'clan', that explanation seems to be less theory and more an actual reality as the pieces of the puzzle fit more into place. But if they really want him like they say they do, who am I to stop a family from reuniting with a long lost relative; a rather reticent one, at that, that would do more harm than good here compared to a place where he belongs? And if that same family were grateful enough to help us in case we needed them in the future, hypothetically of course, then who am I to argue?"

To an outsider, it might just seem like the headmaster was trying to be a good citizen by joining a long lost family member that was having troubles fitting in at Beacon with their estranged relatives, and was just hoping that he would get some kind of favor from them in the near future, Glynda has been around enough to know exactly what he was saying, and she was more than a little shocked at what he was implying.

"You're giving them to him not only on the off chance that he might be here to spy on us, or worse, but also to extort them for an alliance in the coming war? Professor Ozpin, he's been tested and he is definitely of blood relation to the Arc's! You can't just-" Whatever else she was going to go into a tangent about was ripped from her throat as they approached an empty pod connected to the Atlas machine, along with another empty pod next to it.

"Amber! Someone took Amber!" She rushed past Ozpin, who, for the first time since she had met the man, looked on the verge of going off on a rampage- a very much anger induced rampage- to reach the pod that had been storing the Fall maiden to examine it further. "But how?! We would have known if someone was down here!"

The headmaster just sent an icy glare over his shoulder in response. "Maybe our new acquaintance can be of assistance, hm?" His blonde companion stiffened in an instant and turned around with her riding crop at the ready to face the stranger with the gray haired professor.

He wasn't much to look at, when they first studied him. Mostly because there wasn't much to look at, other than his height which seemed to be average for a grown male, as he covered his body in a black trench coat dotted with red icons that vaguely resemble clouds, so the only thing below his head that they could see was the strange sandals that left his toes open to the world, but left the rest of his foot and the leg leading up to his cloak covered in what appeared to be white socks. He went even further to cover his identity, with his head being covered by a spiraling orange mask with only one eye hole, and some type of cloth covering even the sides and back of his head, leaving nothing but his shortly cut black head of hair visible for all to see.

They could practically feel the man blinking as he raised a gloved hand out of the sleeve of his coat and point a finger at himself. "Who, me?" He puffed his chest out and put both his hands on his hips in some facade of a heroic pose. "Don't worry, Tobi's a good boy!" He didn't get any time to elaborate or say more before one of the pillars surrounding them all glowed an ominous purple and ripped itself out of position to smash right on the location of the intruder.

"We rather needed him alive to question, Glynda." Ozpin dryly quipped as the blonde witch scoffed with no small amount of derision. "Did you not hear him? He sounded like a grunt who knows nothing and was left with the arduous task of staying behind to tell us the bad news; which we can already clearly see with our own eyes!"

"Mou!" Neither could hide the flinch that escaped them as the person who should have been six feet under, either metaphorically or literally, the pillar suddenly shot out of the ground like it was nothing more than water, much closer to them then he had been before, shaking his head as if trying to get something out of his ears. "That wasn't very nice! You're not a very nice witch, are you, witchy-lady? You almost gave Tobi a headache with how hard you hit him!"

The headmaster wasn't sure whether or not it was out of some instinct or because he really wanted that high-pitched voice to shut-up and ease the massive migraine that had been coming up on him all day, but either way he lashed out faster than most huntsman could follow, much less dodge, with his cane and watched in a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and a small bit of apprehension as his weapon went right through the man standing in front of him like he was made from air, leaving him largely unharmed.

"Geez, Tobi was nice enough to wait for you to come down here and explain, and this is the thanks he gets?!" They couldn't see his face, but as he crossed his arms they were both sure he was pouting like a petulant child. "Tobi doesn't get paid enough for this… Wait, Tobi doesn't get paid at all!" They watched in stunned disbelief as he started hitting himself over the head, trying to punish himself. "Bad Tobi, bad! This will teach you to not pay Tobi enough!" He either ignored or didn't notice as the blonde raised her riding crop again in an attempt to attack, but he had to have noticed as the pillar behind him snapped loudly in twain, and both pieces rushed him on either side and collided against each other, with him in the middle.

"That won't have done anything to him, Glynda." The female professor clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Probably not. But we know too little about this power of his to not try. We'll either make leeway or learn more about him, so it's a win-win." But just as Ozpin said, the man casually walked out from in between the broken column as if he were taking a leisurely stroll over escaping what should have been his prison of death.

"Tobi is getting the feeling that you don't like him." More for the sake of finishing up this mess than sparing the man from his partners slowly growing wrath, Ozpin ended any pleasantries between them. "Who are you, what are you doing here, how are you here, and where is the young woman who was in the pod?"

Tobi seemed to think about the questions as he raised a hand to rub at the chin of his mask.

"Well, Tobi is Tobi, and Tobi's a good boy! Tobi is also here because he wanted to know what was down here, and Tobi is really, really good at getting into places he shouldn't- almost as good as him being a good boy, even! But Tobi isn't really sure where the person you're talking about is; there was no one but Tobi when he got here." The two professor's absorbed all of that before they narrowed their eyes.

"Do you really expect us to believe that you have no clue where the young woman is?" Bristling in anger once more, she would have made another attempt at attacking him had Ozpin not pushed her weapon down with a wary shake of his head.

For his part, the masked man could only shrug as he absently reached up to rub the back of his head. "Believe it or not, Tobi is just down here, being a good boy." And then all of a sudden, the air around the playful stranger changed to one that set off every alarm in the heads of the only other people in the room with him. They each prepared for an attack of some kind, but it seemed for naught as the only thing happening was the once easygoing stance the man held was replaced by one of calculated scrutiny. "Just like I'll leave it to you both to figure out if I actually believe that the girl was trapped down here away from civilization by you for a reason other than 'Because we could'."

While Glynda flinched away at the accusation, Ozpin stepped up to the plate to defend themselves. "This is all just a misunderstanding- we meant no harm to her. In fact, we were trying to keep her safe before an untimely incident left her in a coma we didn't think she would wake up from." The man still seemed unimpressed, so he continued. "You see, she is important- not only to us, but the world. We need to keep her here so that the more, ah, unsavory of the bunch can't get a hold of her and be used for their nefarious purposes."

They didn't see it, but he raised an eyebrow in disbelief as the unsaid 'you are a part of that bunch' ringed through his head, and he couldn't help himself. "Truly? Are you so pig-headed to have your own head shoved in the clouds, that you can't see that with how you described it, you are the 'unsavory' people? For all I know, you want to use her as leverage in some kind of war!" Ozpin was a master at hiding his expressions, so he knew he hid his shock as he realized that the man's theory was, technically, true, even if it wasn't for the same purposes as the man seemed to think, but he was also a master at reading expressions, so he knew without a fact that they were in deep with whoever this was as Glynda's eyes widened as she let out a surprised gasp.

For a moment, it almost seemed like the presence around the man rew somber, and resigned. Almost as if he was hoping that he wasn't correct in his assumptions, but was disappointed to find that he was. But just as quickly as it showed up, it vanished, and was replaced by an indignant fury. "I see…" There was silence for a moment, as if everything stilled in time, before the man's voice ringed across the vast room once more. "Seeing as how I answered a few of your questions, perhaps you'd be in the mood for answering one of mine?"

Silence reigned once more, and for a fleeting second the intruder thought he would be denied even this small request, but the only other male in the vicinity finally closed his eyes as he spoke, looking as if he had aged decades in that small time frame. "What is it you want to know?"

Neither of the two Beacon faculty were sure, but from the hole in the man's mask, they could have sworn they saw a brief flash of red, but it was gone as soon as it appeared, making them believe it a trick of light in the dim room.

"Why is she so important to your world, that others would go out of their way to ensure she is either on their side, or six feet under?" The man paused for a second to look around and chuckle, finding the irony of the statement slightly amusing, before continuing. "No one has that kind of sway without having standing, wealth, or power about them, and considering where she was when I and my associates found her, it stands to reason it's not any of the former, so what does she hold that you and so many others want?"

The headmaster took in the question and the surrounding information for a moment, eyes still closed, before the lids slid half opened, conveying nothing to the masked man other than indifference and, if he looked enough, a tinge of boredom in his gaze. "Astute observation. I can see now that you aren't some lackey that was left behind, but rather a mastermind that wanted us to think so. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you even fabricated this lie about you having 'associates' with how well you can deceive even me."

The man gave away nothing as he clicked his tongue in annoyance at the misdirection. "And here I was hoping for an actual answer. This is what I get for expecting so much from a group that is likely to be no more inherently good than some simple-minded brigands." He raised his hands in exasperation as he shook his head almost provoking. The blonde bristled in unbridled rage at the jab, and looked ready to attempt homicide once more, but the man beat her to the punch. "If I'm not going to get anything useful out of this conversation, then I need not bother letting you bask in my presence, either."

Suddenly, his form started to ripples and deform, almost as if he were being absorbed into the air itself. "Remember this, headmaster and deputy headmistress of Beacon Academy: I am not very civil to those I dislike, and especially to those who hide so many secrets, even though they are 'allegedly' in the right, and you are not exempt from those rules. Mark my words, if I find that you were in anyway responsible for anything wrong in this world, you will find out just how quick 'Tobi' can go from a good boy, to a very bad one." With that said, his body finally collapsed in on itself and just like that, he was gone with no trace.

Ozpin wasted no time as he hastily sped towards the elevator with his cohort in tow. "Glynda, I want the entire school on lock-down, and I want all staff and upper-years scouting the area for this man. He might have a sort of teleportation semblance, or more likely, is from those lands, so I don't think he will be here anymore, but better safe than sorry. I'm going to scour the footage from our camera's and see if I can find how he got here, or better yet, see if I can find where he took Amber." Looking back to see Glynda's nod of affirmation, he hastened his pace to the elevator and hoped against hope that this man wasn't some agent of hers.

"Remind me again why we're here, wasting time when we could be doing something productive like, I don't know, training?" Naruto huffed in annoyance, his short attention span making itself known as he fidgeted outside a store somewhere near the edge of the commercial district in Vale, right next to the port. "Because we need to relax once and a while and don't want to blow a gasket from over-taxing ourselves?" Yang blew a stray bang away from her face and gave the blonde Jinchuriki a look that was a mix between exasperation and amusement.

He really wanted to voice out that they hadn't so much as touched their weapons to train in days now, but even a socially dense idiot like himself knew that would be rude beyond measure.

Weeks had already turned into a month for his stay at Beacon, and he was even less impressed with the state of the schooling system then he had been before he had first attended. Forget being able to teach him anything, they wouldn't even be capable of teaching most Chunin back in the nations!

What time they should have been using to teach their students techniques on how to subdue other Huntsmen with ill-intentions and ways to defeat the various kinds of Grim that inhabited their lands, along with strengthening their bodies to prepare them for the future was instead spent on things like mathematics, science, and history(Seriously, the nations expected their twelve-year olds to know all the things they would need to survive in the world that was, for most parts, at peace, while they wanted their teenagers to spend four years learning nonsensical drabble while there was a threat that would and COULD make them extinct literally right outside their doors. (Probably to prevent poor saps like all those missing nin from popping up like woodwork over here from the stress of it all.) Eh, okay, point, but still.).

And then the parts that WERE practical, were being made practically useless; the villains wouldn't go ahead and coddle the damn children like these professors were wont to do. No bad guy was going to let them sit there and fumble for their scroll to see if their Aura was in the red, and were even less likely to actually stop when the poor bastard told them that they couldn't continue anymore because they were out. Plus, for some strange reason, every Huntsman or Huntress seemed infatuated with flashy equipment and a romanticism revolving around them becoming the hero of the world, or something.

Now, Naruto, what with his own flashy techniques and dreams of making a peace that would last for a longer time then just 'temporary' wasn't really one to talk, but he had, in all honesty, been younger than these students with dreams of grandeur, and hadn't been raised in an environment that was nearly as forgiving as just about every student at Beacon had, so he didn't know any better to think otherwise that, yes, he could make that sort of peace, and was raised in such hardships that he really, REALLY wanted no one else to go through what he had to, so he had his reasons.

But even still, Naruto didn't believe he would ever go on to save the world(Granted, he did, but never once in his entire career until it happened did he think it would actually become a reality.) from itself, and he was always one for actions over words, so unless he actually did so, he wouldn't boast and claim anything that he hadn't already done, unlike all these Huntsmen and Huntress' that said they would eliminate the menace of the Grim forever, but had yet to actually see a Grim in their entire lives.

Of course there would be exceptions; those strong enough to be able to actually do what needed to be done, or those that actually knew about the real world, but they were too few and far between for Naruto's liking.

His friends were such exceptions. They all had potential to be bigger than themselves, but, like most, the thing holding them back was, ironically, themselves.

He trained extensively, even before he found himself with too many powers to know what to do with, and now that he DID have what seemed to be an unlimited arsenal with him, he probably trained a lot more than what was healthy for him, and would likely be the death of anyone else if their names weren't 'Sasuke Uchiha'. But he knew that; he admitted it freely, and he wasn't expecting the same kind of almost religious fervor with which he tackled his training from his friends and 'peers', but even with that in mind, he was sorely disappointed.

Naruto considered it lucky to get any of them to train four days of the week, and even further lucky than that to get them to do it any longer than two-to-three hours. Pyrrha, and surprisingly Ruby(He attested that to her just wanting to spend more time with the first real friend she made here.), were more willing to better themselves, but he wasn't born yesterday, and could tell that while they wanted to keep up with him, they were getting closer and closer to running on nothing but fumes each day and hated doing nothing with their free time but training, so he stopped letting them kill themselves trying to keep up with him, and he could tell they were grateful at the sudden change of heart.

But something seemed to be shared here, and that was that everyone in this land lacked an enthusiasm, a drive to get stronger, and it irked the blonde more than he wanted it to because it wasn't his life to live, but at the same time, it was other lives lost if they didn't learn to take this seriously.

He was starting to see why the people on this side of the world weren't really on par with the other if this was the extent of their zeal to becoming stronger.

"I… Suppose." He agreed awkwardly as Weiss and Ruby left the store, each carrying multiple bags that were likely filled with clothes of varying sizes. "This one's yours, Yang." Ruby handed her a bag, and the blonde bombshell eagerly grabbed it and checked the purchases inside. "Hey, shorty-" "Only by one inch, you behemoth!" "-Why don't you wind down by letting me pose for you in some of the things in this bag?" Yang closed one eye while poking a finger into her cheek, sticking her tongue out as well while she leaned over to give the only male in the vicinity a good look at her 'assets'.

Naruto stared blankly at the blonde before lowering his gaze to the valley before him and back up. "I've seen bigger." He turned around, and thus didn't see the girl freeze in place out of shock, as no one had told her that before(Either because it wasn't true or because they didn't have the balls was up for debate.), but he did see the slightly relieved look that crossed Ruby's face, and wondered what that was about.

"Ha!" Weiss let out an all too undignified snort as she handed another bag to the silent, black haired teammate of theirs at his rebuttal. "What's wrong, Yang? Never been on the receiving end, before?" Ruby had to stifle her giggles, while Blake couldn't stop the small, amused smile from blossoming on her face while Weiss was enjoying this way too much. Yang got her wits back together enough to growl, and was about to make a no doubt biting retort, but was stopped short as a commanding voice sounded from behind the entire group.

"Naruto Uzumaki?"

Naruto looked at a pair of what seemed to be red-haired twins in curiosity, as he hadn't felt them approach the group(Then again, he had been rather busy enjoying the view a few moments ago- what? Just because he'd seen bigger didn't mean he didn't like what he saw…), and now that he examined them, he was sure they were from the nations as no one here dressed like that, plus they knew his previous surname, and that wasn't really all that common knowledge here on Remnant.

That and the two were like walking chakra batteries, and he was slightly befuddled at how he had somehow missed them before.

"I go by Naruto Arc now, but yes, this is him. Can I help you?" Naruto frowned as the looks on the twins faces soured, wondering what he had done to cause them to do that, but could only speculate. "You don't truly believe that, do you?" The blonde's face scrunched up in confusion at the words, and was unable to voice it as his friends behind him joined the conversation. "Believe what, that it's his name? Are you here to tell him his whole life has been a lie and that he's secretly the son of some super villain that lives in an undersea lair deep in the ocean?" Yang snorted as she stepped up beside her fellow blonde and crossed her arms.

And to her great displeasure, was ignored as the two continued to stare holes into the confused male beside her.

"You bear the great name of the Uzumaki, don't let whatever lies these people have been spewing to you tell you otherwise!" Now his confusion had grown exponentially as he glanced between the two twins before him and then at the ladies by his side, who were as knowledgeable as he was about this it seemed.

"Um, look, I know you came from my, ah, previous home, but you should know by now that who you thought were my parents weren't actually my parents. Even got a paternity test done and everything." That didn't seem to appease them; if anything, they looked further incensed. The male twin gave him a disjointed look before he leaned towards his sister and started whispering in her ear. Even with Naruto's abnormally increased senses he couldn't quite hear what they were talking about, though he got bits and pieces of it, and from what he gathered, they thought he was delusional and misguided.

That didn't give them any points in his book.

"Right. Anyway, you still haven't told me why you're looking for me. Care to explain?" They stopped their shared conversation and straightened up at being questioned, and saluted in a way that held their hands in front of their hearts, which brought attention to one small detail Naruto hadn't taken notice of when he first evaluated them.

'What the- are these two from Konoha, then? I would have been told about their arrival from Baa-Chan if that was the case, so are behind her back to get something out of me, or make me return?'

Whatever he was bracing himself for, it did not include what happened next.

"Naruto Uzumaki, we are delegates of the Uzumaki clan, of which you are in lineage of, and are even descended from the royal bloodline of the Uzukage, which, in light of recent events, the land of Uzushio wishes for you to return to her, and be trained to eventually take up the position of our Daimyō in a few years time, until the day that our current Uzukage resigns from her office. Once she does, she will take up the less physical job of being the Daimyō, and you will become our lands new kage to bring us into an era of prosperity and flourishment."

He had been prepared for a few very specific things, but them all but asking him to become their king, on top of the information that they were actually Uzumaki made him speechless for the first time in a long while. He was the only one, it seemed, however, as the girls by his side were more energetic and loquacious. Ruby was the first to break the silence as she gasped in shock and turned to stare at him in awe.

"You're royalty?" If that didn't snap him out of his daze, then Weiss' derisive snort did the trick. "As if someone like him could be royalty. Though-" She stopped quickly to examine his form before her examination lead her to his face, where she scrutinized it greatly. "Even if he's uncouth, and has a horrible taste in fashion, he does have certain features that one would usually conceptualize with those from a higher standing class, such as his leaner build, the lustrous hair, trimmed eyebrows, narrow jawline connected to an otherwise soft face, almost delicate lips and nose, with seemingly bottomless eyes that had a sort of hidden knowledge inside of them that isn't easily found."

Yang busted out of her own funk to give the white haired girl a queer look. "Did you… check him out?" While a flustered and aghast Weiss was declaring in no uncertain terms explained that she would never do such an unthinkable act, least of all on him, Blake was flickering her wide eyed gaze between him and the duo in front of them. "Uzumaki? I should have known the second you told us!" She shook her head violently. "But you looked nothing at all like the ones I knew and saw. They all had red hair, and pale skin, so I just shrugged it off as coincidence, but…"

Naruto shot her a piercing stare. "You know about the Uzumaki?"

Blake locked eyes with him, and seeing that he wouldn't allow for any misdirection or refusal to answer, she slowly nodded her head. "It's not entirely common knowledge on the other continents, but it isn't exactly hard to come across the information if you look enough into it. The Uzumaki suddenly appeared on Menagerie decades, maybe even over a century, ago, claiming they had just been attacked by many different nations and were in need of assistance, and there's was the closest they could find. Naturally, the Faunus population were skeptical to help out a bunch of humans, especially considering this was before the Faunus Rights Revolution, but the people were probably just as, if not more, desperate then these 'Uzumaki', so, because they really needed the extra help, they agreed to give a portion of their land over to them, in exchange that they help them, as well."

"And help we did." They both glanced over at the male as he continued the tale. "As you most likely already know, we were besieged by the combined forces of Iwa, Kiri, and Kumo, who were so afraid of our prowess that they felt the need to wipe us out of existence, and would have succeeded, had the Nidaime Uzukage not stalled the army with his incredible sealing techniques, Suiton jutsu, and his incredible Kongō Fūsa that is passed from from the royal bloodline. While he sacrificed himself, the remaining clan members left the land in search of sanctuary, and found ourselves neighbors to the gracious Faunus on Menagerie." Naruto looked back to Blake with a raised brow, and she nodded once again.

"They are still there to this day, yes. In fact, they are held in high regard due in part to their fair treatment of our race, even before the Revolution, and helped innumerably once the time came to fight for our rights. The Revolution was all but guaranteed a win to our side once they joined in, and I shudder to think how many more would have had to bled for our cause had they not took part in it." Her body shook for a second or two before she got it back under control. "They've been nothing but generous to us, and it is almost a fact that no matter where you go, the Faunus will know about the Uzumaki, and will think highly of them. In fact, their efforts to bring equal rights to our race is still ongoing, and they bring awareness to the cause along with the White Fang."

She took a breath and continued explaining.

"Honestly, if they hadn't been so understanding to our plight, and desensitized the rampant hate we all felt over the last few decades, I have no doubt that the White Fang would have started using more… excessive means to get their point across. As it stands, their Uzukage is probably more of a leading figure than my own father, who is the Chieftain of the entire land. So to say that Uzumaki royalty is a 'big deal' to Faunus is like saying that Yang has a slight anger issue, Weiss has a tendency to be prissy, and Ruby sometimes gets a craving for a cookie."

Naruto frowned at all of this while he glanced at the other women to his side, who had calmed down and listened, enrapt with the new information before turning his stare once again to the now stoic pair in front of him.

'Kurama?' 'Hmmmm. I haven't felt a lick of dishonesty in the last few minutes, so these two are either delusional as hell to think themselves and their kin as Uzumaki, or-' 'They are actual Uzumaki. Damn it! Why does this always happen to ME?! But this also just brings up more questions- why do they think I'm an Uzumaki? Surely they had to come by Konoha first before they found me here, and they would have told them that I'm not an actual Uzumaki. And on top of that, how DID they find me here? No one, not even my friends, know that I decided to come here after I found my parents- they still think I'm with them.' Then a thought brought up a dredge of dread inside of him. 'Did they go their house and force them to tell me where I was?' 'Calm down, brat. They don't seem like bad people- just misinformed. Plus, with someone like YOU, even the most novice of chakra sensors would find you like a lighthouse in a foggy night. Especially when you're the only one within miles that even HAS Chakra, so I don't doubt that a clan that is renown for their sensory abilities would be able to find you with their special chak…' Naruto was concerned when the bijū suddenly stopped talking and went quiet.

'Kurama?' 'Ah, I just remembered something. Something that, might, possibly, be important to know…' 'Well? Don't leave me in suspense, furball, tell me!' '... You see, I've been in three different hosts, right? And they were all Uzumaki, yeah? So, I easily forget that each host I get stuck in isn't as… Knowledgeable as my previous ones, you know?' 'Kurama, just spit it out already.' 'I… Kinda, sort of, forgot to tell you that the Uzumaki have this weird, adoption thing, that they can do with their chakra, that makes the kid, for all intents-and-purposes, a tried-and-true Uzumaki brat.' '... What?'

Naruto didn't need to be inside his head to know that the giant fox was currently scratching his head. Whether it was from the sudden realization or sheepishness that he only just had that sudden realization was lost on the blonde.

'Well, you see, the Uzumaki was a clan- and like any other clan out there, they didn't like the thought of breeding outside of their pedigree, and to a clan as 'great' as they made themselves out to be, that limited the available gene pool to themselves. You know, like the stupid Uchiha and those self-righteous Hyuuga. Anyway, they wanted to keep their blood and, more importantly, their chakra pure, but they didn't want to be some kind of inbred filth that would make mothers sisters and aunts cousins and what-not and so-forth. So, they devised this rather devious plot to somehow transfer over their special traits- you know, the bloodline and so forth- to other people so that they didn't have to keep breeding the same people that had the same genes already.' 'And it actually WORKED?!'

The giant beast scoffed in his head. 'Please. As if mortals like them could just play god like that. No, they worked on it, but they failed to come up with something as good as they had hoped for. Not to say the experiment didn't pan out, as they did somehow manage to get the part where their 'super chakra', for a lack of a better term, was copied by another human being, but it obviously had its drawbacks. For one thing, they couldn't do it to grown humans like they had hoped, and it had to be done on children whose chakra network hadn't started to properly form yet, and another was that even if the bloodline traits passed down to the kid, it didn't do the same for the blood, so the kid would only be an Uzumaki by chakra instead of both.'

The bijū shrugged. 'Not that it mattered much to them- they aren't as uptight about blood and all that like so many other clans. All they cared about was that they could still be considered 'Uzumaki' and had their special traits, and they could now also find men and women around the world that had, lets say, 'won the genepool lottery' and mate with them, creating better and better specimen as time went on so that their clan wouldn't just be inbred trash that could barely count to five. This also had the unforeseen consequence, however, of 'diluting' their chakra as well. Not by much, though. It wasn't even noticed until generations down the line, where one of the kids that had been chosen couldn't properly use their then feared Kongō Fūsa. They could still USE the chains, mind you, they just weren't as powerful, nor did they work as intended. They were like the ones that one redhead that followed that blasted Uchiha around constantly had been able to make- incomplete, and nowhere near the true strength that the original chains had.'

'And naturally, that raised a few alarms, right?' 'You guessed it. It's like I said before, their overuse of that process diluted their chakra to the point where it had started to affect everything. A lot of their members weren't living as long as some of the others, their feats in Fūinjutsu were astonishing, but it became apparent soon that other members were accomplishing said feats easier than everyone else and making bigger leeways in the research of the art, and eventually it got to the point where not even all of the members could use their feared chains that were capable of stopping even a tailed beast- the weaker versions of them couldn't even have stopped Shukaku unless they had multiple members working in tandem to halt him.' 'Okay, from what I'm gathering, these few that still could use these chains, and had longer lifespans than the others, and were better at Fūinjutsu, were what they are calling 'royalty' now?'

Kurama clicked his tongue. 'Right in one. They became rather startled when one of their members couldn't use the chains, but waved it off as some incredibly bad luck on his part. But as more years passed, even more couldn't use the chains anymore, and that, along with their clan dying off at even younger ages and their propensity for Fūinjutsu decreasing, made them look more into their folly, and it was found that, surprise surprise, their chakra wasn't as pure as they once thought. That lead into a search to see just how many were affected, and more than 80% had the diluted chakra. And it appeared that the only members that WEREN'T affected by it, and still had the complete chakra of an Uzumaki, was the Uzukage and his family. You know, kids, siblings, aunts, uncles, parents, some were even cousins. I don't know what they were going to do about it all, and even if I cared to think on it at the time, Mito had grown frail and old, and Kushina was just a child who knew nothing of the clans inner conflicts, and their village was ransacked anyway by the hidden villages, so I can only assume things now.' 'Okay, so that happened. How does this explain why they think that I'm part of this royalty, or whatever? I'm an Arc, with no Uzumaki blood whatsoever- we checked. And even if Kaa-San- err, Kushina, had 'adopted' me or whatever, I'd just be part of the diluted line, and not be in the running for their next KAGE!'

'Oh yes, I didn't explain this yet. You see, Mito and Kushina were part of this 'royal' line or whatever they called it back then, but they didn't know that. This whole fiasco didn't escalate until almost the exact time their village got wiped out, so by the time they figured out Kushina was one of the only pure ones left out there, it was too late to get her back. And, from what little I saw in Mito's notes as she wrote, apparently, the main line- the royal one, obviously- knew that using this 'adoption' method was impractical, so they stuck almost entirely to having other pure Uzumaki lovers, and that was the only thing that kept them from getting such a hit like everyone else had been getting. But Mito was nothing, if not a true Uzumaki, and she wanted to test just how much this 'adoption' had hindered her people. So it was with some surprise, she found, that when her first child was born, and she noticed that it was, obviously, diluted, she did the 'adoption' process, and was stunned to see that instead of doing nothing like she had thought it would, it had given the child PURE Uzumaki chakra.' 'So what? Maybe the chakra doesn't erode until later in life, or because unlike the other Uzumaki who had done it dozens of times, it didn't have that great an effect?'

'She never learned if she could do that to any other Uzumaki baby, or if the dilution had to be at a certain level for it to have the same effect like it did on her first born, but she did learn, after she had her second child, that it only works once. Because she did it again on her third, then her fourth, and so-on and so-forth, but it had no effect like it did on the first baby. It grew and it still showed all the signs of having the undiluted chakra of the Uzumaki, but it seemed that as a trade-off, it didn't gain the blasted Senju's treasured bloodline; none of her children did, actually, as she tried this on all of them, but only one of them reaped the benefits while the others were forced to deal with the aftermath. This probably was the main cause for the damn kekkei genkai's eventual extinction, but it couldn't happen sooner, I say. Ah, but where was I? Oh yes- she harbored many theories as to why this was, and she was going to share them with her eldest in the hopes that they would carry on her research once they had children, but it never came to be as they died somewhere on a mission before they could settle down, so she wasn't ever able to figure out the puzzle, I'm afraid. HOWEVER- there was one speculation that seems to fit this specific event. If Mito's one hunch was correct, and pure-blooded Uzumaki can gift one child with pure chakra before the chakra starts to become corrupted with any other child they will choose to bare- outside of mating with another pureblood Uzumaki to birth pure Uzumaki offspring, of course- and Kushina DID do this 'adoption' whatever to you, that would make you royalty. The only successor to the throne of Uzushio, apparently, if they're hunting you down and imploring you to return to the nation is anything to go by.'

'...'

Kurama shrugged in Naruto's mindscape when the blonde was too stunned to respond to him. 'Or at least the strongest/best candidate for the position, at any rate. Those Uzumaki were always known for never doing things half-assed.' Naruto wasn't sure how long he stared into space as he listened to Kurama's explanations and musing, and he didn't particularly care if he made everyone around him wait hours for his response to all of this, because, even for him, this was just too much at once. He knew he couldn't just stand here in the middle of the street all day, however(Despite how tempting even that sounded right about now…), so he turned back to the two people he was almost positive were siblings and slowly shook his head.

"Wow… This is, a rather large amount of new information to take in. Never thought myself as some kind of royalty, before; not even back in the leaf!" The blonde didn't miss the sudden scowls the pair had dawn their faces, but decided it didn't matter all too much at the moment anyway and brushed it off. "But, still- I already moved from a place I doubt I will ever stop seeing as a home but a few months ago to here, and I'm only just getting used to this place, you know?" He scratched the back of his head in sheepishness as he tried to vocalize his thoughts without coming across as too harsh. "Plus, I just don't think I'm cut-out to be a kage. If I was, I'd have been made Hokage the second I, uh, saved our home."

He hated having to tiptoe across the topic, but he'd rather not make it public here just exactly that he'd not only participated in a war, but was the hero of said war that had fought a veritable god(Even with help, that's an accomplishment and a half.) and WON, thus saving more than just his home, but no one outside the nations needed to know that.

"Bah!" His thoughts were cut short as the male let out a noise that made it obvious he was not very pleased at the moment, and could only watch in bewilderment as he angrily spat on the ground. "Konoha knows nothing! They should have been worshipping the very ground you stand on from the moment you were born, but look at them! Only after saving their pathetic lives did they even acknowledge that you exist!" It was Naruto's turn to scowl now as the female made her own derisive comment as she scoffed. "What do you expect, Hadoma? This is Konoha and an Uzumaki we're talking about, here. They wouldn't understand courtesy and empathy if it hit them in the face!"

"Oi!" The blonde grit his teeth as his anger rose to a fever pitch. "You're insulting the place I grew up in, you pricks! That's more than what your damn nation did for me, in case you hadn't noticed!" Both scoffed this time as they gave him a look of pity. "One good deed does not absolve them of the entirety of their sins, brother. Especially when that one deed was done to the poorest extent that could be managed." The male shook his head and Naruto had just about enough of them. "Shut up, just, shut up! Don't talk of things you don't know anything about!" The two shared a confused look, before the male- Hadoma, apparently- looked directly into his eyes, and stared into them for a few seconds, after which he let out a loud gasp and turned his shocked expression to his sister, who looked indifferent, if not slightly angered if the way she clenched her fists at her sides was to go by.

"Guren, he really doesn't know." The female gave a short, rather unlady-like snort before sending him a glance that easily translated to 'yeah, no shit'. "This is Konoha we're talking about, brother. Of course they would not talk about their own misdeeds to the populace. It's a one-way ticket to revolting against their Hokage and the council." The female- Guren- let out a loud exhale with closed eyes, before opening them and meeting his less than cheerful gaze. "We will agree not to talk about the sins Konoha has committed over the years to many people, and many nations, Naruto. But we WILL speak about one specific nation, and its people, that Konoha has so wrongfully left out to pasture to wallow away and deteriorate until it was nothing more than anecdotes on a page."

Naruto, by all means, wasn't stupid. Now, had this been said to him years ago, possibly even a year ago, then he wouldn't have understood what they were getting at. But the Naruto before them was no fool.

"Just what the hell do you think they did to you, huh?!" Guren closed her eyes and sighed sadly. "Not just to us, but you as well, Naruto. Don't you find it odd that on every vest in Konoha, there is the Uzumaki clan symbol? Either on the back, or the shoulder, or even on the chest, near the heart?" It was kind of hard to not notice when one of the main themes to his old outfits had been that very same motif, but the more he thought about it, the less he found that he actually took the time to stop and think about exactly WHY they had that same motif, as well. Not wanting to give them the pleasure of being correct, even on an assumption, after how much they pissed him off, he came up with a random reason to try and justify it.

"The Shodai's wife was an Uzumaki, wasn't she? They probably put the damn thing on the outfits out of respect for her!" The male continued to stand back while the female carried on this topic of conversation, and she just sent him a sad stare in return. "That's a weak excuse, and even you know it, Naruto." Eye twitching as he grit his teeth, he spouted out another reason without even thinking about it. "All the Jinchuriki have been Uzumaki- maybe they decided to dish out a little respect to them and showed it on their uniforms?!" The red haired girl just shook her head slowly with her eyes closed. "Only one was a container when they decided to add it, and they had no idea that every Jinchuriki after the first or even second was going to be primarily Uzumaki."

"What, what, what?! Just get on with whatever the hell you're gonna say to me already!" Naruto hadn't noticed he was panting in his fit of rage until he felt a hand grip his left arm gently. Snapping his head so fast to the side that he was nearly certain he'd get whiplash, he saw Ruby looking up at him with a worried frown and concern shining in her eyes. He closed his eyes and concentrated on calming down as an almost inaudible sigh left his lips.

"Uzushio and Konoha were allied, at one point." Naruto's eyes slowly opened and he stoically glared at the explaining Uzumaki female. "Before the second war, and before our island went under siege by those thrice damned nations. There was even a contract between us saying we would gift the village with another host for the Kyuubi once the previous person became too ill, old, or otherwise unable to hold the beast as the Jinchuriki." Any trace of either a smile or frown disappeared from the redheads face as her lips thinned into an inscrutable line. "And strange, how once we send over a new Uzumaki to take the place of the Shodai's wife, that we find ourselves about to come under attack. And even stranger, that when we send for aid from our then long-time allies, we receive not even word back from them, in our time of dire need."

Silence reigned for a few moments, but to Naruto it felt like an eternity.

An eternity for him to stew in his apoplectic rage.

"... Are you insinuating that Konoha abandoned one of its allies?" The two that seemed to be trying to convince him that Konoha was the most vile place in the world just shared a look before they both stared defiantly into his eyes. "From the perspective of our people, it was too convenient a timing for it to be anything else. We did not get so much as a rejection from our pleas for help, and in an alliance, communication is key. Therefore, one of two things happened- our message did not get sent through; which, considering that the clans summons carried the missive, is terribly unlikely, or-"

They both grimaced in disgust.

"They ignored our cry for assistance, and betrayed our entire village and clan." When they saw that he was about to protest, perhaps even violently, they quickly continued. "You must concede that Konoha prides itself for being the 'kindest' of all the hidden villages, and everyone knows that the kindest are always the ones with the most secrets." Naruto winced at the rather accurate description of himself, even if none of the people knew about it. "'The road to hell is paved with good intentions', and the opposite is true, as well. You yourself are not blind to what Konoha is capable of- take your own childhood for example. Or the Hyūga with their Kago no Tori no Juin. Not to mention the likes of Danzo, who stole our Fūinjutsu to enslave and silence the population as he saw fit to build his army of NE, IN FRONT OF the Hokage's nose; even after said Hokage deliberately said to put a stop to the organization. And these are just some of the MANY cases that Konoha has going against it. There are undoubtedly more- both that we don't, and DO know for fact."

Naruto's anger slowly diminished as each case was brought up, until all he was left with was an exhausted weariness. Completely ignoring the baffled and calculating looks his friends were making beside him after hearing about something being wrong with his childhood, he questioned the two further. "How do you even know of these things? Some of this information shouldn't be readily available to other villages; even to its current allies. The only way for you to know this much is to…" As the Uzumaki pair saw realization cross their counterparts eyes, and anger slowly start to filter back into them, they decided they had already done enough damage for one day.

"We can tell that we have long since been an unwanted presence to you and yours, Naruto. So we will leave you with this information to brew over. And please think over our request, as well. Uzushio is starting to build back up, and we would be remiss if we didn't include you into it, as well." With another double bow, the two turned on their heels and made to leave the area, but Guren stopped suddenly, and threw back another piece of advice for the fuming blonde. "And if you truly want to a sample of just what Konoha is capable of, and will commit for their self-defining acts of 'justice', ask the last Uchiha just what the village did for their clan."

And with that last confusing bit of instruction, they were off as if they hadn't just planted seeds of doubt within the blonde Jinchuriki over his home village's integrity.

"Last Uchiha… What does Sasuke have to do with any of this? And do they mean to tell me they did something to him while I was away? Grah! This is all too vague to be real, but it can't just be coincidence either, can it?" Grunting in frustration, the only teen male left in the vicinity turned just as abruptly on his heel and started skulking off down the road opposite that the red haired Uzumaki's had.

"Uh, Naruto? Where you going? I thought we were all gonna-" "Change of plans, Ruby." Naruto managed to grumble out to her through his jumbled thoughts. "I need to do some research…" And so he continued on, all plans for the day wiped clear so that he could ponder on just what those two had been talking about, and hoping against all hope that both them and himself were mistaken.