So. Huh. Been a while. Right. Have a chapter. Peace.

0 = WutL = 0

Doors cracked open and then shut. Stalking feet echoed like drums: one pair followed lazily behind another in the empty corridors of the Jonin Taikuji, until the building loomed behind their backs, empty for another year or so.

"I need a drink. You need more," Anko declared. "Tag along."

Obito followed her on the roofs, leaving behind a trail of cracked tiles.

The afternoon hurried to an early conclusion by the time the two of them secured a private booth at the Jagged Blade, and the first bottle of sake waited between them.

Let it never be said Anko was one to let alcohol sit idle. And if the speed at which Obito downed his first two cups was any indication at all, maybe she did have a teaching bone or two in her body.

At least he had the good sense to put up a privacy Genjutsu before his mouth started running.

"I can't believe he sealed the Fox into his own son," he growled, glaring into his cup as of the alcohol would spontaneously ignite. Which, what with him being a fellow Katon natural, wasn't that remote a chance. Anko pulled the bottle closer to her. "And I thought I'd seen the worst of him in Wave…"

"Righty. Shut up."

To her dismay, the nickname didn't sway him towards more personal banter, or silent drinking. "Anko, for fuck's sake! Where you in there with me or what?"

"Yeah, I think I was. I kind of remember all those S stamps on the folders." Anko glared at him over the rim of her cup before chugging back the sake. It went down smoother than any medication ever did. And they said she sucked at the Iryo-nin business, ah! "All the more reason to shut your trap, Righty, and drink."

And drink he did, but he talked as well. Way too much. 'For someone so thin, he should be shitfaced already.'

Of course, the Uchiha wasn't even slurring yet. Just her luck. "He was two days old. Two! That's not something any father should do."

Anko shrugged at the empty, idealistic raving, leaning back in her seat. That the mighty and virtuous Hokage would sleep around before tying the knot with a Senju Princess was something she honestly didn't expect, and on another occasion would have found no end of amusement in, S-Rank secret or not.

Being stuck smack in the middle of a potential Clan feud between some of the biggest bitches in town over a child with some real mean shit sealed into his belly, however, didn't really meet her definition of fun. Only the half where some Clannies gutted each other did.

"Maybe. But I don't think he lied when he said Naruto was the only candidate. Senju Nawaki's whole family was killed the night of the attack, bar Tsunade-sama, 'course. And he was the previous container anyway. No other half Senju, half Uzumaki in town that I know of."

"Naruto's not a container," Obito spat.

"Tone it down, will ya? I'm just saying things as they are. And unlike that other boy, the fake container, at least he grew up with his mom, not among bald monks, ANBU, and with an even bigger target on his back. I'd say he got off pretty well." She tilted back her cup and rolled her eyes. "Recriminating never changed a damn thing. It ain't gonna unseal the Kyuubi from the boy now, will it?"

Half a bottle of sake later and a good dent into the second one, the morose silence was broken again.

"Y'know," Anko offered, propping her elbows on the table and pushing her chest up. A comfortable heat had settled in the pit of her stomach, and she smacked her lips in appreciation. And the Uchiha wasn't that bad looking, missing arm notwithstanding. "You shouldn't accept. The tradition is stupid, you're too involved, and you're missing an arm to boot."

Obito glared back, cup stopping halfway to his mouth. He didn't even glance down at the bounty on display, the boring prude. To top it all off, his obnoxious chatty drunkenness was now at the gloomy, broody stage. It was so Uchiha, Anko wanted to roll her eyes. And so she did.

"And you will?" He sneered. "You don't even want the job. You'll just turn them into deviants and psychos, and then Kushina's going to hang you outside to dry."

Anko cackled. "Better deviant than crippled. You're just gonna die, and then everyone will bitch at me." She pulled a face and downed another cup. "And medics bitching at me are always a Bad Thing."

"You've grown a big head, spending too much time around people gagged and bound." Obito slapped his empty cup on the table and rose to unsteady feet. Anko smirked a challenge up at him as he tossed a handful of ryo to cover his own share.

"Tomorrow at six then. Training Ground 15," she shot at him, licking her lips at the prospect of a challenge. "To shake off some of that Academy rust you've got on you."

Obito's eyes flashed red in the smoky lights of the Jagged Blade, sealing the deal.

0 * WutL * 0

The third and last night of the Genin Exams draped the forced tranquility of military curfew over Konoha, emptying the streets of any and all civilians.

The Military Police watched the walls, patrolled the rope bridges and the streets. Outside the Barriers, ANBU patrols ranged in the forests like they hadn't in years. Eyes darted to the skies without pause, almost expecting more fire to break the bleak dome that settled on Konoha in the afternoon.

To Ibiki Morino, it was nothing more than a charade, a show of strength to mask the crippling ignorance he and his had been tasked to remedy by dawn.

Once the Yamanaka Mind-Walker was carried away screaming and restrained to prevent more self-mutilation, the interrogator studied the bound girl whose thoughts he'd tried to read, with disastrous results. Just an Academy student, not even a Genin, and she was covered in suppression seals on the other side of a cell door in one of the black-ops facilities restricted to S-Rank prisoners, refurnished in a hurry the night before.

As the echo of the Yamanaka's screams faded, Ibiki contemplated his near complete lack of answers, then stopped. In that direction lay only frustration.

The kunai's weight almost didn't register in his hand, but to strike would mean to admit defeat. Ibiki hadn't failed a task since the Kiri Cryptography Squad debacle in the Third War. He had no intention of starting now.

The cell door clicked shut behind him. With a push of chakra, the seals ensuring Kurama Yakumo's silence faded. The girl whimpered blindly, but she didn't try to break from the machinery restraining her. She didn't try, not even once. Her words validated his idea on why.

"Kill it! Help me, please!"

"I can't. I don't think anyone can."

"Then kill us both!" she begged. Her voice broke into sniffles a moment later. "Please. I beg you. Make it stop."

"I won't." He settled down and leant forward on the back of the single chair in the room. "Now let me speak to it."

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Across town and several floors above ground, Sakura listened to her parents shout it off behind the closed door of her bedroom. For a moment, only a moment, she wished she had scored just a little bit less in the final test. But the perfectionist in her, that stubborn and proud voice in her head, quashed the doubt. She wouldn't regret a thing: not when it had to concede to the Clan girls in most disciplines for years.

She had studied hard, hours upon hours for over years, until her eyes teared up, staining the pages, and the headaches became a constant fixture, as reliable as sunup and sundown. She took every extra subject she could cram into her schedule and scoured every library her parents' Genin clearance allowed her entrance. Kushina-san and Naruto even gifted her some advanced tomes she clearly shouldn't know of – much less possess - for her last birthdays, anonymous storage scrolls slipped into prankish presents.

And so it was that Sakura aced a test that wasn't meant to be aced, just passed with flying colours. The teachers had taken her to the side, suspecting that she'd cheated, but Kushina-san had taken the incriminating books away, foreseeing the eventuality, and she'd destroyed all copies and notes.

Thus why the offers from half the Divisions - Cryptograhy, R&D, T&I, the names blurred together - in the Shinobi Corps lay scattered on her desk. Scattered and ignored, because they were not from the other half of the Corps, the one she intended to join. The ones her mother cried was going to see her little girl dead in a ditch before she turned fifteen.

Sakura rubbed her reddened eyes and listened until the voices grew hoarse and her ears rang with the same arguments, echoing in circles. Then she picked up the brand new headband by its garish red cloth, tied it around her hair and pushed the door open, head high and completely unapologetic.

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Obito walked out of Konoha General Hospital, where he'd limped into not even a hour before, cradling a collection of bruises, snake bite marks and more than a few loose teeth. More than walk, he jogged, keeping his chakra signature as close to non-existant as he could manage.

Rin was on shift, and she wouldn't like if she learned he got hammered the morning he'd take partial charge of his first team of Genin. Not one bit.

He vowed to light a bunch of incense sticks to the nearest altar first chance he got when he finally cleared the hospital's premise without being spotted or sensed. The vow extended to stepping up his training again as well: Ibiki's pet or not, it wouldn't do to have Mitarashi Anko clear his clock again next time they sparred. He had a reputation to defend, especially with the runt.

He opted to avoid the tree bridges and instead took to the rooftops, paying extra attention not to leave a trail of cracked tiles behind him this time. Customs had already withdrawn the reparation costs from his stipend, likely clued in by Anko. Efficient bastards, those desk Genins. It'd not do to lose more, not with his revenues about to take an all-time low already from lack of high-paying B and A-Ranks.

Obito sighed. Being sensei never made for rich shinobi, or so the saying went.

His feet carried him away from the central districts and from the Academy, where the Award Ceremony for his class would start in less than an hour. Naruto had probably already squirreled into the building to enact the Uzumaki family tradition of pranking the shit out of the committee. The runt probably thought he'd seen the last of him. It was cute of him, in a way.

The small smile on Obito's face morphed into a grimace at the thought of who was waiting for him there. For the third time that morning, he considered turning on his heel and rush to the Academy, to be by the side of a boy he regarded almost as his own son. Orders were orders, however. And these, in a different way than Naruto's plight, were personal too.

Inside his head, the voice that had been smothered by sake the night before raged, but Obito didn't sway from his path. He hated himself for it, but Naruto wasn't his son. It wouldn't be fair to intrude, even if he really, really wanted to, at least for Naruto's sake. He would be there for him after, he told himself as he shunshined from rooftop to rooftop.

Reasoning it out only left a sour taste in his mouth.

The Market District was bustling with activity and smells. Shops were already open or in the process of starting the day. The criers would be soon hard at work. The result, even this early, was a colorful landscape of enticing products, hanging drapes and cutthroat competition to shame many a ANBU killteam. Early clients meandered in front of shop windows or among stalls and carts that offered a hundred and one delicacies. Their fragrance wafted up to awake Obito's empty stomach from its slumber.

The Uchiha veered away, jumping from one platform to another as his mouth watered, then surrendered and bought a takeaway oyakodon bowl from a roving cart. He swallowed the last of the rice and chicken as he reached the smithies road, to the sound of beating hammers and the rich cloud of smelting fires.

The Shiranui Arsenal was a rather smallish shop for such a grandiose name, but even this early in the morning, several shinobis perused its stalls to replenish their stock. Obito took a moment to admire the general quality of the workmanship in exposure, weighing a tanto in a simple but utilitarian sheathe. Indeed, shinobi knew what shinobi liked best. From what Rin told him once, the Shiranui were as often smiths as they donned Konoha's headband. Often times, they did a little bit of both.

A man in his fifties with a rather nasty burn scar crawling up his neck manned the counter. Obito identified him as Genma's father, Shiranui Ujiharu, more by the striking resemblance between the two than the file he'd been shown by the Hokage the previous day.

He bartered on the prices with an easy firm but hand, taking the honored shinobi tradition in stride. More often than not, it ended with both parties chuckling. He was good, no two doubts about it. Most shinobi haggled like fishwives by the end of their first years as Genin, and Obito recognized several Chunins and Jonin waiting in line.

Each transaction that evolved into haggling translated into time wasted, however. Time Obito would rather spend elsewhere, truth be told, but the content of his pocket was too important and personal, in a way, for that. He eyed the grandfather clock on the wall several times as he waited in line. Each time, his eyes then fell on the low door leading into the shop's back courtyard and working area, if his ears didn't betray him.

"Ah, Obito-san," Ujiharu greeted him openly. Obito was taken aback by the familiarity, then recognized the sad note in the man's smile. Right. Tenten had been one of his students too, once. 'Anko must have hit me harder than I realized.' "It's a pleasure to have you here. What can I do for you?"

Obito's only hand fished a headband from his pocket and placed it on the counter, Konoha's symbol looking up unapologetically. "I have an offer for your daughter. From the Hokage."

Tenten's face was tanned and caked with soot, her arms toned with wry muscle. The calluses on her hands could easily be from months wielding hammer and prongs or ninja tools. Maybe both: Obito didn't miss how a good chunk of the courtyard was relegated to target practice. It looked freshly used.

"Obito-sensei." She bowed, then sighed. "Sorry to be blunt, but why are you here? Isn't today graduation day?"

'So she does keep up with the news.' "I could ask the same of you, you know." He flashed her a disarming grin. When Slavedriver Obito smiled, pain and suffering would always follow for his students. She shifted in surprise when he didn't bark a punishment at her, almost as if she'd forgotten they were in her home and not at the Academy. "Your place is on the field, Tenten."

He'd put her out of her comfort zone, but her parry dripped bitterness, moping, and self-hate. "My chakra coils are too damaged for that. I didn't have that much chakra to begin with, anyway." She shrugged, looking away. "I'm useless as a shinobi."

"Bullshit. Look at me, girl." He waved the stump of his shoulder at her, but he killed any hint of levity from his voice. "That self-deprecation crap doesn't work with me. Try again when you've lost a limb."

"Is this a competition, sensei?"

"Everything is a competition among shinobi. I figured the Academy taught you that." He shrugged, earning an infuriated look. 'There it is.' "So you were dealt a bad hand. You're the only one making a big deal out of it."

Tenten's hand balled into fists, but she didn't look away. She slapped her palms together instead. Obito's Sharingan flared for a moment, highlighting her gathering chakra in a flickering blue haze that thickened around her body. Her face became drawn with pain and effort. Her limbs started to tremble. Sweat poured down her brown, leaving trail marks in the caked soot. Then, as the chakra was about to leave her coils in a basic purifying exercise, the flow went haywire and the it slammed back into her body.

Tenten didn't even cry in pain. She just deflated with a defeated whimper, like a puppet with its strings cut. Obito steadied her, stopping her from crumpling into a heap. It took a long minute of panting, during which Obito had to endure the burning glare of Tenten's eldest brother Kaisen from the forge, before Tenten found the strength to talk coherently.

"I can't even… control it. Every time I try to mold chakra, it ends like this. I'm a deadweight."

"You could have the worst of the damage healed and learn to work with the disability."

Tenten shook her head. "I am… was just a Genin. My insurance doesn't cover that kind of operation and my family, we cannot afford it."

"Then ask for a loan and repay it with mission revenues, a little bit at a time!" He snapped, sharper than he meant too. Tenten winced. "It'll be hard, yes. You'll have to make sacrifices and bleed yourself dry. That's a Tuesday in our line of work."

Tenten looked up at him, disbelieving. He dropped the headband – the same one she'd returned when leaving the Corps - in her lap. He saw the spark of recognition in her eyes. "I'm here on the Hokage's behalf. That'll be good enough a guarantee for any bank for a while. We need every competent Genin in the Corps, and I want you on my team. Yes, my team. Crazy, right? The ball is in your field now. Do you want to be a shinobi, or you'd rather waste away in that forge until you only have regrets? Think well before you answer."

Her answer rang familiar. Near word by word what he told himself every morning in the mirror.

As it turned out, Obito would see Rin today. Too bad Nonou Yakushi would be there as well, to arrange for the future cycles of Tenten's regenerative therapy. As it was, the girl was little better than ballast, but really, that had always been the truth for most Genins, save a few notable and annoying exceptions.

0 * WutL * 0

When that morning kaasan told him to be extra careful, because apparently, the scare she'd given the Academy teachers when she graduated was enough to warrant extra security measures on every graduation ceremony ever since, Naruto didn't expect to be caught with his fingers in the cookie jar by the Hokage himself.

And yet, here he was, Uzumaki Naruto, twelve-year-old Genin-to-be-in-an-hour-or-so, kneeling as he hid the last bunch of the Kage-bushin kunai that, together with the seals applied to the rest of the school, would turn the halls into Ghost Town 2.0 (Naruto and kaasan had agreed to never speak of the first attempt again. Like, ever.)

And there he was. The Yondaime. The Yellow Flash. Iwa's brown-pants nightmare. Twirling one of Naruto's kunai as he crouched not a foot away, an interested look on his face as he studied him.

Naruto stopped. He stared at his hands, then at the Hokage's face. The Hokage arched an eyebrow. Naruto swallowed, then tried to grin.

"Hi, Naruto-kun," the Hokage said, then stopped, as if searching for the right words. "A tricky design you have here. All yours?"

Naruto's pride surged, despite the slight pressure he felt. He nodded. Then remembered he had a tongue, and only after that that the blonde man before him was the supreme military leader of his Village.

"Yeah. All mine. Hokage-sama." He had to stop his hand from smacking him over the head of its own volition.

The Hokage hummed thoughtfully, but it sounded odd to Naruto. A few seconds of silence lengthened into an awkward moment.

Then the Hokage sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. His smile turned strained, but he spoke gently.

"Say, Naruto-kun. Before you go to the ceremony, you and I must discuss some things."

Naruto swallowed again, looking at the last link of his master plan, now laid bare before the Hokage.

Begrudgingly, he swallowed his pride. "I can take this down and put everything back before anyone notices, Hokage-sama."

The Hokage waved a hand, his smiled turning more genuine. "Oh, never mind this. Konoha needs to keep its traditions alive." And with that, he pocketed Naruto's kunai into his haori. "Come now, that class right here will be perfect."

Unlike the auditoriums on the ground floor and below, designed to host a couple hundreds of students at a time, the advanced courses like Sealing, Calculus, Bloodlines & Genetics – Naruto shuddered at the thought of the tome on the topic Sakura-chan showed him once as a threat – or even unspeakable taboos like Kunoichi Training were held in smaller classes on the upper floors where he was now, arrayed more similar to a civilian school's.

The Hokage pushed open the sliding door of the nearest one and waved Naruto forward. The redhead complied, bowing his head, then froze on the threshold.

"Hey, Naruto-kun," kaasan waved. She sat at the teacher's desk, kitted in full gear, pouches filled to the brim with storage scrolls. A few chairs had been arranged around the desk. It took Naruto a moment to realize all windows were shut, but darkness waiting beyond the glass was too encroaching and uniform to be natural.

'A form of privacy seal?'

"It's just a small precaution. Come now, best not keep the Hokage waiting."

Naruto nodded jerkily, his thoughts swimming. What was kaasan doing here? What the Hokage? Why hadn't she told him anything only an hour before? Had she known, or was it a surprise for her too?

He slowly took a seat beside her. Kaasan's hand found his shoulder and squeezed. It was brief, but her hand didn't retreat. He could feel her warmth through his uniform. It relaxed him, somewhat.

The Hokage appropriated the teacher's seat. Now that Naruto peered at him more closely - it was the Hokage! - he looked very tired.

"So," the strongest shinobi to walk the Elemental Countries started, then smiled that strange smile," congratulations on your graduation, Naruto-kun! Here, I wanted to give to you myself, face to face."

The Hokage rummaged into his haori, then Naruto's eyes widened as he produced a folded headband, the cloth a blue so dark, it was almost black. The cloth was old too, frayed a bit around the metal to show the protective weave beneath.

"Matches your jacket too." The Hokage chuckled. "Take it. It's yours. You've earned it."

Naruto touched the headband, almost hesitant, then snatched it away, splaying the two ends across his palms, feeling the thick texture made rough by time on his bare skin.

"You can't put it on until the ceremony's over, though. Just another tradition to respect."

Naruto nodded. Then kaasan spoke for the first time.

"Naruto, don't be a bumpkin."

The younger redhead almost jumped from his seat. "Ah, right. Sorry, I'm – Never mind, heh." He almost scratched the back of his head, then controlled the mutinous limb halfway there. He bowed his head, instead. Kaasan rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Hokage-sama." Then, after a moment, "Is that all?"

"Naruto…"

The Hokage's smile cracked, then vanished, leaving behind the face of a tired leader. At least, how Naruto imagined a tired leader would look.

"No, it's not all, I'm afraid." The Hokage rubbed his face and exchanged a silent look with kaasan. She didn't blink or speak, but from the way they held each other's gaze, Naruto could tell it was almost as if they were speaking out loud. The Hokage's last name was Namikaze, but the blonde hair in the history books always reminded him of Ino and the Yamanaka. Maybe he knew their secret jutsu for mind reading and speaking?

He wouldn't learn it that day. Kaasan squeezed his shoulder, longer this time, but then the Hokage was speaking again.

"Tell me, Naruto-kun. What do you know of the Kyuubi's Attack on October 10th?"

Naruto was taken aback by the random question, out of the blue like that. Still, this was his Hokage, weirdo that he may have turned out to be. Naruto called up Iruka-sensei's lessons on Konoha's recent history, and the flat voice the teacher used to describe the events. As the worst disaster since the end of the Third War, Iruka-sensei had been quite pedantic on the topic, but those lessons lacked his usual passion and investment.

"Only what Iruka-sensei taught us, Hokage-sama. An enemy party infiltrated Konoha, kidnapped the previous Jinchuriki, Nawaki Senju, and… killed his wife and children." Images of Momoko-chan flashed unbidden before his eyes, but Naruto had learned long ago to keep his memories in check. He still clenched a fist under the desk, knuckled popping quietly. "They then proceeded to break the seal, extract the Biju and unleash it on the Village, killing many among the shinobi and civilians both. In the end, it was by the concerted effort of yourself, Sandaime-same, Jiraiya-kyo – Jiraiya and Tsunade of the Sannin, and the Uzumaki and Senju Clans that the beast was subjugated and sealed in an orphan boy. All the attackers were killed during the battle."

Naruto paused for breath, inwardly berating himself for almost slipping, but the Hokage only nodded in acknowledgment. Kaasan was very still, but she offered him a small, encouraging smile when he looked her way.

"Very good. So, the boy, the Jinchuuriki. What do you know of him?"

Naruto thought hard, then shrugged.

"Not much. Iruka-sensei said his name is Sora, but that he doesn't live in the Village. The Fire Monks brought him up, and he never became a shinobi. He should be about my age, right?"

"Indeed, only a few months older," the Hokage replied evenly. He looked over Naruto's shoulder at kaasan, and something hardened in his blue eyes.

"Naruto-kun, what I'm about to tell you goes beyond the S-rank secret. This means that you cannot speak of it to anyone outside this room, and only when either of us is absolutely sure, one-hundred-percent, that the area is safe. Do you understand me? Anyone you'd speak of this without my approval, I'll be forced to kill. For Konoha's safety and yours."

Naruto stared, caught completely flat-footed once more by the Hokage's sudden switch in tone and demeanor. He glanced at kaasan, and his worry only grew in spades. She was trying to keep the smile on her face, to comfort and reassure him, but it was slipping, until she just let it fall. Her eyes grew rheumy for a moment, but the sheen was blinked away so quickly and replaced by determination, Naruto was half-sure he'd imagined it.

"It's alright, Naruto-kun."

Naruto nodded, almost by reflex. And then the Hokage started to talk.

"Kiji Sora is not the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, Naruto-kun. After the Biju was sealed that night, much of its residual yokai was gathered by the Sannin Tsunade, then sealed into him to provide Konoha's enemies with a plausible cover story, and divert attention from the real host."

Naruto blinked, flabbergasted. If he was honest, he felt like much of what was being said just flew over his head. Why tell him this? Why was the Hokage, of all people, telling him, barely an Academy-graduate, possibly the greatest secret of the Village? Why wasn't kaasan saying anything?"

His tongue was trying to tie itself into knots, as were his vocal cords. "O-ok, yes. No, wait. Sorry, Hokage-sama, but why are you telling me this? I mean, I'm just a Genin."

Kaasan chuckled, but it sounded forced. "Don't get cocky, Naruto-kun. You haven't tied on your headband yet."

The Hokage sighed wearily. "No, you're not just a Genin." He stopped then, and Naruto realized kaasan was glaring daggers, kunai and all sorts of pointy ninja tool at him. At the Hokage. The hand glued to his shoulder tensed, as if she was ready to spring into combat. "Not like that, Kushina. But he has to be aware."

"He's Naruto. My son! Not some kind of –"

"I never said that, you crazy woman!" If Angry-Kaasan was reason enough to bolt out of the room, the Hokage shooting to his feet, eyes alive like lightning, made Naruto regret he didn't know the Hide-like-a-Mole Technique. "Don't make this harder than it already is!"

Kaasan opened her mouth to answer, then she refrained, biting down on the inside of her cheek. It had been years, since one particularly awkward visit by a drunk Jiraiya-kyofu and Tsunade-baba, since Naruto saw his kaasan do that.

Naruto had to stop himself from squirming in his chair. Genins didn't squirm. Genins were soldiers for their Village. He remained still, instead, eyes just above the Hokage' shoulder as the leader composed himself and sat again, hands clasped before him.

"There are reasons why Kiji Sora or another orphan wasn't chosen to be the Jinchuuriki," the Hokage said, somber again. "You see, Naruto-kun, unlike the other Biju, the Kyuubi's presence and power are too much for a normal person to host. Even powerful Shinobi would be hard-pressed to contain it for longer than a month, and that's accounting for the best Uzumaki seals and constant monitoring." The Hokage pointed a self-deprecating finger at himself. "I would last a few months, at best. Maybe a year."

"Then it takes a special kind of host? Why not an object, like a pot?" Naruto asked, trying to orient himself in the strange, dark waters he'd been dropped into.

"It'd last even less, and that's not accounting that a pot is much more fragile than a shinobi. After Konoha was founded, Shodai-sama tried it, several times. The Kyuubi is called the Calamity That Walks for a reason, however. None of the solutions proved effective in the long term. Finally, Shodai-sama sealed the Biju into himself, and passed the Hokage hat to the Nidaime, his brother."

"So Shodai-sama was it? The right host?"

"Not exactly." Naruto's head whipped around. Kaasan's expression was strange, but she reached out and ruffled his hair nonetheless. Naruto, despite the state-crucial secrets behind disclosed to him by the Hokage himself, and precisely for that reason, made a face, embarrassed. "The Shodai was extremely powerful. The most powerful shinobi in history, right. And yet, for all his might, for all his prowess in the Mokuton, even he couldn't contain the Kyuubi forever. He managed to last for years, through the end of the First War and well into the Second. Then Uzu was attacked, and our Clan came to Konoha."

Naruto remembered well that part of history. "We owe them everything," kaasan used to say when he narrated him bed stories on the Shodai and the Nidaime.

"By then, you must understand the Shodai was at his limit, Naruto-kun. Fortunately, the best Sealers in the world had just become Konoha citizens, so your great-grandma Mito and the best minds of both Villages doubled down to design new seals and find a solution."

"To explain the chakra theory behind how genetics modify a shinobi coils and how that translates to chakra natures would take too long, and it is beyond the point," the Hokage cut in quickly. Naruto's head whipped around again. Great-grandma Mito's mention was a surprise, but it probably shouldn't have been. Still, with all the head-turning he was doing, he was starting to feel like a ping-pong ball. His thoughts weren't much more stable. "It's enough to say that when Shodai-sama died, Mito-sama volunteered as the next jailor… and as a test-subject for the new Seal designs. Mito-sama was a tremendously powerful shinobi herself, and the new Seal was as youkai-proof and stable as any of the Uzumaki masterworks."

Naruto swallowed, dread forming a little ball in his stomach as he imagined grandma Mito struggle with something unimaginably evil as the Kyuubi no Kitsune ought to be.

"… But it wasn't enough?"

The Hokage tilted his head to the side. "It was a close thing. In fact, the ideal solution was finally found only a few years later, but it took far longer to implement it. Both the Uzumaki and the Senju lines had proven highly resistant to both the youkai's corrosive power, and the Kyuubi's influence, so –"

"- Tsunade-baba!" Naruto almost jumped out of his chair, kept there only by kaasan's stiffening grip. "Her mom was grandma Hama's older sister, right?!"

Kaasan cackled. "Tsunade-hime is going to spank your ass crimson and black if she ever learns you called her that in front of the Hokage." All blood fled Naruto's face, eager to abandon the doomed body, but then the Hokage chuckled too, and he was at a loss for words again. "But that's right. Tsunade-hime's mom was an Uzumaki, and her father a Senju, the Shodai's second-born."

"And that's how we get to Nawaki," the Hokage concluded, "the first Jinchuuriki born from both lines."

Naruto frowned at that, scratching his cheek. His eyes wandered as his mind circled the issue, but the blackness swallowing the windows made his skin crawl. He focused on the Hokage instead.

"Something bothers you, Naruto-kun?" The Hokage asked, leaning forward.

"Yeah. Sorry. I mean, yes, Hokage-sama. If the perfect host is someone born from an Uzumaki and a Senju, why wasn't Tsunade-b-hime the Jinchuuriki? Nawaki was a lot younger than her, right?"

"Not by that much. Also, the Seal is prone to weaken during childbirth, and Sandaime-sama at the time didn't want to hamstring his student." Naruto made a disgusted face. Kaasan actually snorted, for some reason. The Hokage gave her a look that set the hair on Naruto's neck on edge.

"Anyway," he continued, voice controlled. "Nawaki's son was meant to take his place, when the time came. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. The Attacker knew what he was doing when he killed the entire family, and indeed, if not for a… lucky coincidence... that night there wouldn't have been a proper host for the Kyuubi, and Konoha no longer has the Shodai's power to suppress the Biju time and again without consequences."

"A coincidence?"

Kaasan shook her head, her red ponytail lashing through the air like a whip. "You can call it that, I suppose. In a very rude, very callous way." The Hokage quickly lifted both palms in a pacifying sign, but kaasan was already crouching in front of Naruto, at eye level with him. Her hands cocooned around his, and she rubbed the back of his hands with her thumb.

"I never told you about your father, Naruto-kun."

The Hokage exhaled, but Naruto was too worried about that small ball of dread in his stomach uncoiling and expanding to notice.

"… You said you'd tell me when I was old enough." 'When I was ready.'

"Yeah, I said that. You're about to become a Genin now, Naruto-kun. That means that, for the law, you're an adult, with all rights and responsibilities an adult has."

"Does that –"

"No, you cannot go drinking with Jiraiya-kyofu when he comes visiting. And especially not with Tsunade-hime. Not until you make Chunin."

Kaasan laughed at Naruto's pout, but both were short-lived and too stressed. Kaasan didn't speak for a few moments, moments that expectation, worry, and fear made seem like an eternity to Naruto's mind. There was a sheen to her eyes. This time, when she blinked, it didn't go away.

"Your father… he wasn't a Senju, at least not in name, but he had their blood. More importantly, he had that… quirk, you can call it, it's complicated… ok, he had the same genetic mutation that's part of what makes some Senju able to control the Mokuton. That, and the Uzumaki's constitution are the two pieces necessary for the host of the Kyuubi."

Naruto hadn't attended a single lesson of the Genetics class. That was the kind of advanced stuff Sakura loved to cram her schedule full with. Her kind of thing. Naruto's were his Seals. But he'd helped her repeat sometimes, just like she helped him when he needed to put order into the jungle of notions, correlations, causes and consequences he was studying and trying to assimilate. Just like he helped her with her Seals, it was inevitable he'd pick up a few notions from her, here and there.

The last piece of the puzzle fell into place and it was like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his brain, then tossed the pieces into a blender and had the blades spin until the mechanism broke for good.

Naruto's breath hitched painfully. His chest heaved. He tried to voice his thoughts, but he didn't really know them. Everything between his ears was a dull, droning buzz. Yet, it seemed he'd strung a few words together, because kaasan was nodding. Her cheeks were glistening too. Tears.

He never liked it when kaasan cried.

He didn't realize he was standing until kaasan engulfed him into a bear hug, the crushing kind she often gave him after they moved into the Flower District. After Momoko-chan died, when the nukenins in black tried to kidnap him because –

"It wasn't your fault, Naruto-kun. It was never your fault."

Oh. The Hokage was standing beside him. He hadn't felt his hand on his shoulder until now. It was bigger than kaasan's. Not nearly as warm, but it was steady, almost heady touch. Kaasan had stopped talking, but she was still holding onto him – or maybe holding him up? Naruto couldn't quite feel his legs. Anyway, it was hard to crane his head to look at the man, the Hokage, properly in the face.

"Momoko didn't die because of you," he said, voice brimming with a confidence that carried past the havoc in Naruto's head, bringing a light of clarity, and so many questions. How could he say that? What did he know? Hadn't the nukenins tried to kidnap him because he – because he was - "Nobody died because of you. You are not the Kyuubi. You're its jailor, and every day you protect every person in this Village from a nightmare than words cannot even begin to describe."

Kaasan was nodding against his shoulder, then she was looking him straight in the eyes. She was still crying, but she was smiling through them. It was a true smile, too, one of those beautiful ones that lit up her entire face.

"You are a hero, Naruto-kun. And you are Naruto, not the Kyuubi, not the Seal that contains it. Never think for a moment that's not the truth." She kissed his forehead, then his cheeks, just under his eyes. Only then did Naruto realize he was crying too. "You're my son, and I will always love you."

The Hokage squeezed his shoulder. They stood there for a long moment, the three of them, alone and immobile in the empty classroom. Then the Hokage's hand left his shoulder, the tips of his fingers lingering for only a moment against his uniform. Naruto found himself missing that hand's presence, the contact, even the little warmth it carried.

"Thank you," the man whispered in a voice that Naruto didn't quite recognize. Then the moment passed, and it was the Hokage who spoke again.

"I'll be outside when you're ready, if you have other questions. Take your time. Both of you."

And in the pause between two heartbeats, the Hokage was gone.

0 = WutL = 0

AN: My thanks to anyone who read, favorited, followed, reviewed and added this story to their community. Sorry for the long delay, the muse was on other shores. She's kind of a whore, goes where she's shown the most love. Don't forget toreview, only more so if you've got critical feedback, doubts, opinions, ideas, and whatnot.

Until next time,

Alexeij