Reborn!

3: Reunited

"Ah, you're the kid that the villagers bully," Anko said in realisation, "the infamous demon brat...."

Naruto nodded his head half-heartedly, "I'm N-Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto cursed before chastising himself in his head for his slip of the tongue. He had gotten used to introducing himself as Namikaze Naruto. He frowned as he observed Anko carefully to see whether the woman noticed his slip-up.

She didn't seem to.

"Hey kid, why ain't 'cha at the orphanage?" Anko asked the boy in her normal tone.

Naruto blinked, trying to remember when it happened in his childhood before the war. Once he remembered the reason, his eyes darkened.

"The damned matriarch of the orphanage kicked me out, saying that I should go and die in a corner..." Naruto said in a sombre tone unbefitting of a child as he thought about the amount of pain that the woman had caused him to be put through both in his past life and this one.

"Not that I'd expect you to believe me," Naruto added hastily afterwards.

Anko had either ignored it or didn't hear the last statement.

"The damned old hag is still there? Why am I not surprised?" Anko murmured to herself.

Naruto was surprised when a look of apparent resolution appeared on Anko face.

"Would you rather join T&I and live in the T&I building, I let you stay in the Forest of Death or a nice apartment in the new flat? I'm sure Hokage-sama can arrange for any of that," Anko asked abruptly.

"If you don't mind, I would rather stay in this forest for the time being," Naruto replied.

"My name's Mitarashi Anko and I'll make sure that Hokage-sama would let me become you guardian!" Anko introduced before declaring her intentions.

"There's no need, Anko-san. I just need a place to stay," Naruto explained.

"Whatever. I'm going to have a talk with Hokage-sama."

Anko started to hop from tree to tree in the opposite direction of where she was initially heading toward.

Naruto sighed at his current predicament and checked his wounds. They had healed flawlessly and did not even leave a single scar. Naruto ran a finger over where he had been injured just the previous night as he thought about what he should do next.

He first decided to contact his two friends that he had yet to meet. Naruto had used an extremely complicated seal that he had used a concealing seal to shrink down into a small yin-yang symbol that he placed on each of his friends.

This seal enabled them to communicate telepathically while also keeping their chakra stores low to prevent the combustion of their bodies. The seal also had the hiraishin markers' signature so that he could instantly teleport to any of their sides should any of them be in trouble. Naruto reminded himself to teach his friends the basics of the hiraishin. The seal also enabled them to share images and memories with each other, making it extremely useful for sharing information.

Naruto decided to contact his friends and let them know of the specifics of the seal he placed on their bodies.

"Hello Sasuke, Sakura. It's me, Naruto. I forgot to inform you of the specifics of this seal as we were in a rush. This seal, apart from the function that I previously informed the two of you of, enables us to communicate telepathically. It is a form of telepathy that not even the Yamanaka can intrude upon. It allows us to talk like this as well as share our thoughts and memories in the form of images. This seal also acts as a lock on our minds, with false memories covering it up, so that even Yamanakas cannot read our minds. It also acts up should we be interrogated, causing our consciousness to be pushed to the back of our minds and not feel the pain of any torture involved while the questions are being answered by the artificial soul of the implanted memories. As such, they cannot claim that you are lying as the memories speak what they believe is the truth. It also enables us to share some of our abilities with one another. I for one am letting you have part of my accelerated healing ability. Lastly, it also acts as a hiraishin marker so that I can teleport to your location. I'll teach you how to use hiraishin later. If you heard me, please reply."