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Blah Blah Blah basic text (i.e. description, speech, etc)

'Blah Blah Blah' Thought or some transaction within someone's mind

Blah Blah Blah Kyuubi talking

Blah Blah Blah Kyuubi's thoughts

BLAH BLAH BLAH yelling, or emphasis of some sort

Chapter 1: It Comes To This

Konoha...

The Sandaime groaned, his knees aching as he climbed the stairs of an apartment complex owned by his clan. "I can still wipe the floor with anyone in this village, but stairs on a humid day still cause me more pain than any of them," he sighed, shaking his head as he reached his destination. He really needed to retire... again.

Knock Knock…

No answer.

Knock Knock…

No answer.

The old man sighed as he realized his mistake. 'Of course, he's not going to answer a plain knock,' he mentally scolded himself.

Taptap-Thud

"Naruto," he called ever so softly, knowing the boy would hear him. "Open up, please."

There was no response but rather the hesitant patter of a small pair of feet approaching the door and several mechanical scrapes and clicks. A moment later the door opened just a crack revealing a small spiky blonde head peeking cautiously out at his visitor.

'Well it looks like Hokage-jiji,' the little boy mused, but in his experience that counted for very, VERY, little. Then Sarutobi held up the bag of groceries. Resisting the urge to fling open the door Naruto asked, "What's my favorite kind of ramen?"

"All kinds," came the Sandaime's response. 'Trick question. He's getting quite clever,' he thought approvingly. Though, the very fact that Naruto felt the need to take such precautions... displeased him.

Apparently satisfied Naruto shut the door to release the last of the locks and stepped back to allow his surrogate grandfather into his 'home'.

'How did it come to this?' Sarutobi asked himself as he eyed the many locks on the door. Two more had appeared since his last visit... and one had been replaced. 'How have we failed so completely that a nine-year-old child has to fortify his home in the heart of Konoha?' he wondered, glancing sadly at the window across the room that was ridged with an assortment of seal tags, exploding notes, pepper bombs, alarms, and enough kunai traps to make even Tenro's the blade loving daughter Tenten scream overkill.

Flashback

A young chunnin came into the room. "Hokage-sama!" he said, giving a respectful bow and waiting for his leader's attention.

Sarutobi looked up from the form he had been filling out. "Yes Sota? What is it?"

"There's been another incident with Naruto," Sota reported.

'Again! Why can't these people leave that poor boy alone?' the Sadaime wondered with no small amount of exasperation. "What was it this time?" he asked tiredly, even though the penalty for attacking a ninja of the village was death some were still harassing the poor boy.

"Someone broke into the apartment…well tried to," the young chunnin explained, a small smirk tugging at his lips.

Raising an eyebrow the Sandaime asked, "Tried?"

"It would seem that Naruto was..." he paused for a moment searching for the best term to describe it, "...Prepared." Yes, yes that would do. Seeing that the Hokage still did not fully understand he continued, "The perpetrator," 'more like pincushion,' the young man inwardly chuckled, "is currently in the urgent care center for injuries suffered when he set off several of the traps attached to the window that he was attempting to get through."

End Flashback

He had lost count of the number of times someone had tried to kill the boy. They'd tried everything: poison, stabbings, stonings, beatings, the list went on. By the laws of the village(and common decency) all those that had done something to the boy should have been killed on the spot, and if he had had his way would have, but the problem was if he did too much to protect the boy people would call for his resignation citing that he had been "corrupted" and Naruto would lose what little he could give him. Sometimes he truly loathed politics.

That said, politics didn't stop a few... mysterious disappearances. This was a ninja village after all.

"Nigh," the stifled grunt of pain snapped Sarutobi from his musing. Naruto had an obscene pain threshold, so a grunt that we would normally interpret as "I have a stomach ache" or "I scrapped my knee" for another child translated as "I just got stabbed... repeatedly" for Naruto, anything less and he would just grin and bear it... literally.

"Naruto are you alright?" he asked looking into the boy's grimacing face.

"Just a stomach ache," Naruto answered, massaging his gut. "Probably just hungry," he reasoned, silently adding an 'I hope.' He really didn't need to get sick again.

"You and me both, human," came a deep rough voice. "I am getting bored with these poisons. I've seen sour meat more potent than these plebian attempts at assassination."

"Ahk!" Naruto yelped whipping out a kunai from god knows where. "Who said that!?" he demanded.

"Who said what?" asked Sarutobi while straining his senses to detect an intruder.

"I did," came the voice.

"Damnit where are you?" Naruto whispered to himself trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.

"Behind you."

Whirling around, his kunai up to defend himself Naruto found nothing there, 'What the fuck?'

"BWAAAAAAHHHH HA HA HAAAAA, Y-HA HA HAAAAA YOU ACTUALLY FELL FOR IT! HE HE HEEEEEEE."

Naruto just stood there dumbfounded, 'Oooooooooookay... just what the hell is going on?' As far as he could remember none of the people who had broken into his apartment (house, room, box, whatever he happened to be living in at the time) had acted like this, usually they were yelling some hateful gibberish, not screwing around like this and NO ONE had ever done anything while jiji was around.

"I'll tell you what's going on. I'm saying hello and letting off a little pent up boredom... To be fair you'd do the same if you were stuck in cage for nine years with almost nothing to do."

Now thoroughly confused Naruto turned to the third, the look on his face clearly pleading for an explanation. Unfortunately, seeing as the third had not heard the exchange he knew less then Naruto. Coming to the conclusion that the aged Hokage could not help him, and becoming very frustrated, Naruto reacted the only way he knew how... complete meltdown.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"

"To put it simply the demon imprisoned in your stomach, that's me, is saying hello." Feeling a trace of disbelief floating around Naruto's mind Kyuubi added, "Ask the old man about what happened the day you were born."

Now desperate for some kind of explanation Naruto turned to the third. "What happened the day I was born?"

"What?" the Sandaime replied in confusion. That was random. What brought this up all of a sudden.

"The demon in my st-"

"Kyuubi," he interrupted.

"Kyuubi," he corrected, "said to ask about it." Then realizing what he had just said and putting together a rough picture of what it meant his legs gave out and he fell flat on his butt.

Having realized what must have been going on in the boy's head the old man bent down to sit next to Naruto, pulling the little boy into a comforting embrace."The day you were born, huh? Well, that was nine years ago," he began. "It was a quiet night. Nothing seemed out of place. Then Kyuubi, the greatest of all demons-"

"Damn right."

"-appeared from nowhere and attacked our village. The Yondaime…" he paused as though debating something then coming to a decision he continued, "Unlike what is widely believed Minato was not able to kill the beast-"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING BEAST YOU BALDING SIMIAN!?"

"-and so he was forced to use a powerful kinjutsu to seal it away. In order for the technique to work, he had to seal it in a newborn child, and you were the only one born that day."

"YOU MEAN I'M-"

"A hero," finished the aging Sarutobi. "You are a hero, Naruto. To a very ungrateful people who don't understand how important you are because they are too scared to see it. It should never have been like this..." he ended with a sigh.

"So in other words I-AUGH!?" Naruto cried doubling over holding his stomach as he began to glow red.

"What the hell…oooh shit."

A/N

Edited: 06/25/19

Muh ha ha cliffy. What just happened? Why did it happen? Well you'll just have to read and find out won't you. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter I try to get the next one done soon.

Muse Rant

Hi I'm the muse, ie the: author's inspiration, random fact checker, Naruto encyclopedia, Beta and bunkmate of the author…and for my first rant this goes out to Delta(the author). IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH TO FINISH THE FIRST FREAKING CHAPTER. I mean seriously he started working on this in DECEMBER of 06 and it's now MARCH of 07. Now in the future Delta will update faster (I'll make sure of it) and the chapters will gradually get longer. Now please review this story if you wish (flamers will be hunted down, skinned, and added to my doormat or given to my sadistic little sister as a toy). Now I bid you adieu *walks off in search of chocolate, caffeine, and good music*