Chapter 36

Blue leaves fell onto trees. Green skies were filled with yellow clouds. Do not forget the purple oceans, that were filled with blue pillars. A figure walked through the grey grass, which had a lush feeling. Naruto asked himself, "Is the afterlife? It's certainly a strange place.

Naruto walked over to a river that led into the purple ocean, no wait, it was from the ocean, and there was a waterfall...a water-up? Naruto shook his head hard, and said to himself, "The designers of the afterlife cared little for the physics of the real world.

Then Naruto woke up. This time, in a white room that Naruto recognized as the hospital. Naruto started frantically looking around, and then attempted to dispel a illusion. "I'm alive," he asked himself.

"Yea, I decided to pass on eating you. There would be no one interesting to talk to if you were dead, except maybe that Crow guy, though I am doubting of his interest to talk to me with you dead. Not to mention you would probably give me indigestion."

Naruto was surprised at the voice of the nine-tails, of Kurama, in his head and quickly entered his mindscape, and then asked, "Why?"

"We do not know why the sky is blue. So don't ask me," Kurama replied.

Naruto was confused for a moment, before clarifying, "Why did you let me live? Why did you stay here, when the seal is broken?"

"I already told you why I let you live, and I told you why I stayed. Eating you would give me a stomach ache, and leaving would lead to no one interesting to talk to. Is that not enough? Also, I think you're still a little fuzzy from me leaving," Kurama replied.

Naruto dropped down, and then started chuckling. Kurama raised an eyebrow at the action, and then Naruto said, "You're softer than you make yourself out to be, aren't you?"

"I never recall giving in depth descriptions of my fur, though my sister always did describe it as soft," Kurama replied lightly. The words made Naruto laugh.

Naruto then asked smiling, "What are siblings like, other than the bare description you gave, such as a crazy idiot for the one-tail."

"They are all, especially Shukaku, the one-tail as you call him, are more inclined to kill people than I am. Shukaku has a particular grudge against you humans, the was the result of him being the weakest of us. Humans in the past always have and still do attempt to use as weapons, and label us as mindless masses of chakra. You would know."

At Naruto's expectant stare, Kurama rolled his eyes and said, "Shukaku also somehow is a master of the sealing arts. I'll probably never know why. Matatabi is the second nicest to humans. She has an obsession with pyrotechnics, and his constantly engulfed in flame as I once said. Isobu is lazy and simply doesn't care about humans, not to mention he's shy. They have never really been able to do anything much to him. He once lost an eye in a fight with Kokuo and Saiken. Son Goku also loves explosions, and is the most arrogant. Kokuo hates humans, but doesn't want to deal with them. He is also the most headstrong, in more ways than one. Saiken is the friendliest, the once things go bad, he will stop at nothing to destroy. Chomei is the most hyperactive of all of us, and it gets quite annoying. Finally, Gyuki is the most serious of all, and tries to be the leader. He fails at that."

"They must be pretty cool people. Though two pyromaniacs in the family must be tough," Naruto replied.

"You have no idea. They always thought it was a good idea to test out their abilities on me, since I'm the best healer. They didn't consider the fact that it is harder to heal one's own injuries.

"I always wondered what it would be like to have siblings," Naruto muttered to himself, "To have parents."

"The answer to the second contemplation can and has already been answered by you. Look to Crow, or rather Kenshi, look to Cat, or rather Yugao. At least from my perspective, they are the closest you have to parents. Though I only had a father," the nine-tails replied.

"What was your father like," Naruto asked.

"He was a great man," was Kurama's simple reply.

After several moments, Naruto asked, "So the seal is broken?" Kurama nodded. "They'll find out soon, if they don't know already. That's going to raise some difficult questions. Though I trust you, no else will."

"Except perhaps Crow," Kurama replied. After thinking about it for several moments, Naruto nodded. "And two others."

At this, Naruto raised his brows and asked who. Kurama simply smirked. Naruto suddenly felt two presences behind him. Naruto quickly turned, and was stunned by the sight. There standing before him, were his parents. "Hello Naruto," they said smiling.

Naruto broke free from his shock, and then quietly asked, "Is this real?"

Minato Namikaze smiled a little more, and replied, "Yes Naruto, we're real."

At the words, Naruto suddenly rushed his parents and embraced him. "Why," he cried, "Why did you have to die? How are you still here? Why did you have to go?"

His parents returned his embrace. Minato solemnly responded, "I'm sorry Naruto, that we couldn't raise you ourselves. That we passed. We're here because I sealed some of a chakra within the seal. I'm sorry that I had to seal the nine-tails in you."

Naruto weakly chuckled, before replying, "It's alright, any Shadow would have done the same, to protect the village. You couldn't ask anyone else to do what you weren't willing to do."

"Thank-you for forgiving me. Naruto. How old are you now?"

"Thirteen, Dad, I'm thirteen," Naruto replied.

Kushina then happily replied, "Thirteen, you've grown so well," Then with a serious expression, asked "You've been eating your vegetable, right."

Naruto looked suddenly alarm at the change of expression and quickly nodded. After a few moments, the trio let go of their embrace and then sat down. Minato then spoke up, "How has life been, not to difficult I hope."

Life for a time was hell. Before living in ANBU. But I don't want you to feel guilty. I don't want what will be our only meeting to go to waste.

Naruto smiled and replied, "Life has been good. Nothing major to mention. I've been raised mainly by an ANBU named Kenshi Kagemori."

"Kenshi eh, he was my teammate for a long term chunin team, ya know," Kushina stated excitedly.

Minato then said, "I didn't know him as well, he was an ANBU captain when I was shadow."

Kushina then asked, "Is he still an ass that has a knack for social destruction."

Naruto slowly nodded before saying, "Apparently on a recent mission, he started four revolutions in the same area in the span of three months."

Kushina chuckled before saying, "It doesn't surprise me. He could make friends enemies and enemies friends. He was like that. How about you, do you have many friends?"

Naruto replied, "I didn't make too many friends, but they're all good friends. My best friend is a girl, Ashi Inuzuka. She's helped me a lot."

"Is little Naruto interested in someone," Naruto's mother said excitedly.

Naruto chuckled uneasily before replying, "Not quite mom, not quite."

The group of three continued to reminisce of happy times for a little while , before Minato said sadly, "Our time is almost up, before adopting a more serious face and said, "Naruto, the reason we died was because of a masked man. I don't believe that anyone else ever found out the real reason for the nine-tails escaped.

Before him stood the Fire Shadow pro-tempore, Shikaku Nara; the Ninja Council; and the Advisory Council. Hare didn't give off the slightest twitch. Naruto however, on the inside was extremely nervous. He hadn't thought of an good explanation for his sudden mastery so to say of the nine-tails chakra.

At least dad was able to rebuild the seal. That's one less questions to answer.

So, Naruto decided to give the most ridiculous answer that was plausible. "The Will of Fire Guided me," he replied. "With it, my will was able to dominate the nine-tails, and control all of its power. I'm not sure I could do it again at this time, as the Leaf isn't in the danger that it was."

The whole room looked at him skeptically. Hare didn't flinch.

Did they buy that?

Danzo Shimura spoke, "Your saying that because you felt so motivated, you were able to overpower the will of the nine-tails. Something that no previous contained was fully capable of doing, and you do it you previously could not go beyond controlling for tails, and also to our current knowledge that the seal wasn't capable of releasing that much chakra."

"I also have trouble explaining it. All I know is that my will to protect the Leaf was so great, that I overpowered the nine-tails own will to destroy the Leaf. As for the seal, I'm no seal master, so please don't expect me to understand that side of it," Hare replied.

After several more minutes of questioning, the group finally accepted Hare's answer, and dismissed him. As he was exiting, Kurama commented, "Your ability to lie to your leaders with such a straight a face impresses me. Not necessarily in a good way, that being said."

After leaving visual range, Naruto shrugged.

Hare in his walking came upon a window overlooking the village. While not nearly as nice as the one is the Fire Shadows room, it still is impressive nonetheless. The village was still standing strong. The forest outside the village wasn't faring as well.

The poor trees. Tenzo's gonna be pissed when he gets back from his mission. At least he can fix all the trees. The Leaf will move on. That still leaves the question of Shadow. There are no particular stand-outs for the position.

Hare soon arrived to ANBU HQ, only to find he had an escort mission. "I'm helping Jiraiya find Tsunade," Hare asked incredulously.

"Yes," Dog replied. "She is one of the three major candidates for Shadow. She sadly is also the only S-class of the three. Right now, the village only has three S-class ninjas. Only two of them are extremely loyal. She is not the one of those two."

Hare nodded knowingly. "I can understand Jiraiya himself not accepting the position. He is our lead spymaster and hasn't trained an apprentice to take the reigns. Our other S-class is Danzo, and he actually stands a chance for the position. I would hate to imagine of what ANBU would become with him in office."

Dog answered, "It would go back to pre-Fourth Shadow changes. The pay still sucking, with less benefits than we have now."

"So I'm guessing the other candidate is either Kakashi or Shikaku," Hare finished.

"Actaully, I dislike Danzo so much I didn't include him on the list. I was talking about S-class ninjas earlier. My list is currently Shikaku, Kakashi, with Tsunade at the bottom."

"What's the Commander's list," Hare asked, refering to Shikaku Nara.

"The same as mine, minus my name," Dog answered, "Only the advisory council has her high up on the list, and only because Jiraiya turned the post down. Danzo knows he's not currently in a good position for the title, and is holding off. He pissed all the higher ups since he didn't fully commit his Root ANBU to the defense of Leaf. No one who knows that would accept him."

"Well, that's a relief at the very least. Still, Leaf has a distinct lack of strong people. Let's hope that changes in the future," Hare then said. When Hare said that, Dog then stared at him incredulously through his mask. Hare then slightly uncomfortably asked, "What?"

"Hare, you were the third S-class ninja I was referring to. You have full mastery of the nine-tails power. If that isn't S-class, I don't know what is."

Oh that. I don't think I should tell him about that.

Though he didn't hear Naruto's thoughts, the nine-tails deduced them anyways, "Ya know, your father did leave you with the key to the seal. So really, you can unlock it at will, and I can go in. It also won't have the violent backlash that come with totally ripping the seal out, and then can be fixed like nothing happened. Just remember, I won't do it for stuff like destroying a village or something like that. I prefer more precision in who I kill."

Naruto only nodded. To which speaker was a mystery.

"Anyways Hare, I'm sorry to say, but your being pulled off the roster," Dog then said, with the slightest tone of emotion.

"What, why," Hare asked.

"You drew too much attention yourself. Rock village knows who you are, Iron countries higher ups know, Sound knows, and the Leaf knows. Not to mention that Sand knows Hare is the jinchuriki. Too many people know. As you know, when an identity is compromised, especially to a large degree, we have to pull you out. Just remember, you'll always be one us. Just that circumstances shot your position to hell."

That's right. A lot of people at this point know who I am.

"It was a honor serving you sir," Naruto then said slowly, pulling off his mask.

Crow then came out of nowhere and said, "Don't get all sentimental on us. Your still welcome to visit as much as you want. Your still welcome here. Your mission, as Dog put it, didn't come through ANBU. It was that you specifically were requested. It was just that it came through our channels since your still here."

Naruto then smiled, and said, "Well, at least I won't have to run you food all the time anymore. And feeding Sora is your job now."

Crow tiled his head, and contemplated for several moments before saying, "Maybe for the first, but as for the second, I'll just assign it to you through the mission office. That way, I can force you to visit us poor souls."

Naruto simply chuckled in response.

Naruto walked into the Shadow tower, and entered the office of Shikaku Nara. "You summoned me sir?"

Shikaku slowly looked up from his work, and said, "Yes. Due to recent events, you were pulled from ANBU as your cover was blown. It seems like it happened long ago, just that the previous Shadow and several ANBU didn't want you to go. I looked over your files, and decided that chunin was too low for your skills. You're hereby promoted to Special Jonin."

"Is that all?"

The man then tiredly yawned, and said, "Sadly, no. You're going to be apart my escort to Iron country. Rock is forming an alliance, which if it wasn't troublesome enough, you're the one to blame." Naruto's eyebrows rose at the accusation, and the Nara continued, "You scared Arido Kazudo himself with your mastery of the nine-tails chakra at such a young age. Their making an alliance because they don't want to risk the nine-tails being unleashed on them."

"Oh," was Naruto's simple reply.

Shikaku continued, "So, I figured I'd bring with me what scares them most right now. Welcome to politics."

"I feel so welcome. Is that all," Hare asked. At the man's simple nod, Naruto said, "Call me when you need, Shadow sir."

It is now over. I may or may not make sequel in the future. Fun fact, I was seriously considering ending after Naruto pulls the seal, and not giving an epilogue to leave you guys wondering what happens next, and letting it forever plague your minds.

Sorry for the chapter taking so long to post, its the end, and life happens. Sadly though, I didn't make it to the sixty-thousand word threshold.

Yes, Shikaku is the Fire Shadow now.

It was fun, make sure to review how the story was! This was my first work, and plan to write more. As I said, their may be a sequel in the future.