In an isolated cottage hidden in the forests of Hi no Kuni, a scarlet haired woman was giving birth.
This lady was Uzumaki Kushina.
Her midwife, Sarutobi Biwako, the wife of the Sandaime Hokage was encouraging her to push as she yelled frustrated curses to her husband, Namikaze Minato. This man is known as the Kiiroi no Senkō, the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha.
Soon after, a baby's cries filled the room.
This infant was Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, later known as Uzumaki Naruto.
Both parents cooed at the child that had stopped crying as abruptly as he began, instead choosing to just open his eyes and eyeing his parents with violet eyes tinged with curiosity. Faint whisker marks marred the small child's soft features and a blond tuft of hair crowned the child's head.
Interrupting this moment was a man with an orange-swirled mask that only showed one eye, this eye blazing with the famed Sharingan of the Uchiha clan. He scooped up the small bundle and stepped away from the parents.
"Step away from the jinchūriki or this child dies!" the said man threatened as he held a kunai to the infant's throat.
"Hey, let's all calm down and-" Minato said shakily as he began to panic.
"Me? Calm down? I believe that you are the one who needs to calm down here!" the orange masked man sneered before scoffing.
The blond looked between his son and his wife desperately, weighing the options but unable to decide.
"Go save our son, Minato-kun. I'll be fine," Kushina whispered in her husband's ear softly in a placating manner.
Minato looked at his wife, wide-eyed as she nodded. This was the only signal he needed to go to their son.
He used Hiraishin to flash to his son, grabbing the child and flashing again to a safe-house where he left his child with a shadow clone. He ordered said clone to protect his son as he flashed to the Hiraishin marker he left on his wife, only to be greeted by a horrific sight.
His wife was laying on the floor in pain as the masked Uchiha extracted the Kyūbi from the seal on Kushina's stomach. As she was still weak from having just given birth, her efforts to stop the man were fruitless.
He dashed forward to stop the process prematurely but was too late.
The mass of red chakra had already morphed into the form of the Kyūbi no Kitsune.
The fox looked around in confusion before growling at the Uchiha. However, before the nine-tailed fox could attack, the man locked eyes with the fox, causing its eyes to morph into the Sharingan as it tried to fight back to no avail. The fox glared at the man one last time before fully succumbing to the Uchiha's control.
During this fiasco, Minato had used this distraction to flash his wife to the safe-house where he left their son before flashing back to where the man was ordering the Kyūbi to attack the village.
Minato could only look on in horror as the fox bounded toward the village, flattening trees in its path.
Minato glared at the orange-masked man with hate-filled eyes as he growled out, "Who are you? What is your goal?"
The man blinked as though contemplating whether or not to answer his questions.
"I'm Uchiha Madara. I wish to destroy Konoha," that man now named Madara stated after thinking for a while.
Minato gaped at Madara.
"Impossible! He died at the Valley of the End years ago! You cannot be him!" Minato rebuffed.
"Too bad. I didn't die at the Valley of the End!" the Uchiha said haughtily.
"You're not Uchiha Madara," Minato said confidently with an edge of finality.
'Seems like the whole "I am Madara" thing isn't going to work, how sad,' the masked man thought to himself.
"Whatever you think, I am Uchiha Madara. Why would you say otherwise?" the orange-masked male asked curiously after repeating the lie that the blond had already caught futilely.
Minato ignored the question and charged at the liar with a Rasengan, barely managing to scrape his clothing before it passed through him harmlessly. 'Kamui!' the man who called himself Madara shouted mentally.
"Kamui?" Minato said, mostly to himself, as he saw the man phase through the attack.
'How did he know?' the man thought in a mild panic as he dodged another Rasengan.
'His chakra is familiar...' Minato mused as he charged another Rasengan.
Minato hid a clone with a Henge, making it seem like a Rasengan, as he dispelled his attack, only for the Uchiha to absorb it with Kamui.
Minato smirked internally despite having schooled his features into a slight frown, charging at Madara with yet another Rasengan. He aimed for his heart at point-blank range, knowing that the man would use Kamui to avoid it.
Minato smirked in victory, watching in satisfaction as the man's visible eye widened in shock when he coughed up blood. The clone had launched a Rasengan at the man's chest at the exact point of time he had made it intangible.
"I have to retreat for now..." the man mumbled to himself as he used Kamui to escape, making Minato growl in frustration.
Only now did Minato glance toward the village, only to see the Kyūbi no Kitsune on a rampage and killing many Konoha shinobi. Jiraiya was also there, trying to hold off the Kyūbi from attacking the village like many others.
"Try to hold it off until Minato arrives!" Jiraiya shouted at the shinobi just as said fourth Hokage flashed to the scene.
"You're here!" Jiraiya exclaimed as he noticed the man's arrival.
"Hokage-sama! Please help us!" wailed a chūnin.
Minato nodded as he did several hand signs, shouting, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
"Gamabunta, please try to hold off the Kyūbi for a few minutes!" Minato requested the gigantic toad summon as he hopped off its head and immediately started doing a multitude of hand signs to flash the Kyūbi to a remote area away from the village.
"Minato, I know that I am strong and can do many things, but telling me to fight a bijū? You overestimate me!" Gamabunta shouted at his summoner as he hefted his huge sword and used it to hold off the fox's tails as they slammed toward him.
"I'm sorry! Please just hold it off for a while longer!" Minato begged as he continued flashing through hand signs.
"Hiraishin no Jutsu!" Minato shouted as he flashed both himself and the massive chakra beast beside the safe-house he left his wife and son in.
Kushina stumbled out of the door to the safe-house when she sensed the chakra of the Kyūbi right outside the safe-house, little Naruto in her arms.
'There's no way to kill a mass of chakra, so I'll have to seal it. However, it is impossible to seal it in an object like the other bijū due to it being the nine-tails. That means I have to seal it in a human. However, an adult will be overwhelmed by the malicious chakra and an infant will not have enough chakra to subdue it. I also cannot bring myself to ask a parent to give up their child to the life of a jinchūriki. That means the only option is to seal it within an Uzumaki. However, Kushina will not be able to withstand having the Kyūbi sealed with her again and the remaining Uzumaki after the slaughter of Uzugakure are scattered. That leaves our son, Naruto.' Minato contemplated before concluding sadly.
"Kushina-chan, I..." Minato started and began to trail off, his voice laced with guilt.
"There's no other choice, is there?" Kushina asked, smiling at her son forlornly.
Minato shook his head with a sigh, both parents beginning to tear up.
"I know that the life of a jinchūriki is hard, but I wish for our son to be treated as a hero. We can at least ask that of Sandaime-sama," Minato said sadly.
"I don't think I'll survive. A Jinchūriki normally dies upon losing their bijū. I'm surprised that I lasted this long," Kushina admitted with a frown as she tightened the chakra chains she had latched onto the Kyūbi when she first left the safe-house with Naruto.
"I'll use the Shiki Fūin. It's the best, most secure seal we know," Minato said with a frown.
Kushina nodded, muttering, "As long as you do not summon the shinigami, I'm fine with that."
This caught Minato off-guard as he did not expect Kushina to have guessed his plan.
"I'm sorry..." Minato said guiltily, starting to do hand seals.
"Oh no, you don't!" Kushina shouted as a chakra chain wrapped around his arms, ceasing his movements.
Kushina used one of the abilities of the Uzumaki lineage to draw seals with her chakra without the use of sealing ink. The Kyūbi no Kitsune had been trying to push himself out of the masked Uchiha's control and had been successful thus far, however, his control slipped, letting the man force him to stab Naruto.
Luckily for the little infant, his parents jumped in the way of the incoming claw.
They saved his life while sacrificing their own.
The two shinobi poured their chakra into the seal, mumbling their last words to the blond infant.
After they finished, Kushina decided to seal their souls into their son alongside the Kyūbi. She decided against telling her husband, partly in the interest of time, and she covered their bodies with seals as she sucked up all of their chakras along with their souls into the altered seal. The young mother would not admit it to herself, but she also feared that her resolve to accompany her son throughout his life regardless of her own afterlife would falter if he opposed her choice. And, though it was selfish, she did not want to let her husband go either.
'Now we can stay with our son and help him along throughout his life,' were her last thoughts before all three were dragged into the seal, leaving behind their hollow, soulless bodies as they crumpled to the ground and for the Kyūbi, nothing at all.
Little did Kushina know that her choices will vastly change their son's fate.
Neither of them noticed that their son was watching them the whole time long. Though the infant did not understand their words or the weight of their actions at the time, he would recall the night and discover the truth in the future.
>•<
The Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, dashed toward the location where the kyūbi was last seen, hoping that he was not too late. Unfortunately, he was too late to save his successor and his wife. However, he noticed their son.
The small blond infant's eyes, opened curiously, were fixated on the grey-haired man. Although the watery violet eyes seemed somewhat sad at the loss of his parents, the baby did not cry. The aged Hokage then noticed a glowing blue seal on the infant's belly, which faded to black before it vanished completely.
'The seal vanished? I didn't think that Minato and Kushina had the time to place a concealing seal to hide the seal... But that makes things slightly easier for me...' Hiruzen thought to himself.
"Minato, I'm sorry that I was too late. I promise that I'll at least take care of yours and Kushina's son," Hiruzen said with conviction despite his voice cracking slightly towards the end while facing Minato's corpse that had a gaping hole in the stomach.
If he noticed the faint smile permanently etched on the features of the scarlet-haired woman's cooling corpse that protectively held her son close until the end, he did not think much of it.
In the seal, Kushina had just explained to Minato what she had done.
Minato, hearing Hiruzen's promise echo within the empty mindscape, murmured, "I'll hold you to that, old man."
>•<
A small blond, barely two years old, sat alone in a dusty attic above the orphanage. He had taught himself, or rather, been taught by the voices in his head, how to speak. The voices in his head had seemed surprised yet very pleased by his smooth mastery over the language, being able to pronounce the words properly very soon after his teeth had fully grown out (it was probably due to the fox that it was so soon).
The child's name is Naruto, as he had been informed by the feminine voice in his head who had introduced herself as his mother. He once had a flashback in the form of a dream about the day he was born, or so said the other voice in his head who had introduced himself as his father. He managed to decipher his parents' words and learned what they have done. He also remembered the old man who promised to take care of him. Admittedly, the old man did indeed take care of him in a sense.
He had made sure that Naruto would be taken care of by the orphanage matron, although she did nothing but curse his existence, calling him a demon brat though leaving porridge outside the attic once a day ever since he learned how to crawl. She made sure he would not starve, for which he was reasonably grateful.
The old man had visited on the tenth of October, telling the small child that it was his birthday and giving him several sets of clothing, bedding as well as some furniture that included a small desk, a chair, a heater and a lamp that connected to the main supply that the orphanage matron did not dare to disconnect in fear of angering the Hokage.
In fact, the old man had just visited the previous day, giving him yet another few sets of clothing and giving him a sink after making sure he had access to the main water supply and a few face cloths. He had also given him a pair of sandals and a few simple books that he promised to visit the child to read to him along with a calendar.
Naruto's parents were now reading him the book as he sat in front of the desk, the lamp switched on and shining on the words on the page. That was how the boy, who began connecting the rounded characters that the voices explained to be called hiragana to their pronunciations, slowly started picking up the art of reading. This was his first-ever interaction with the written language.
Once done with the book that was about a princess cursed to sleep for eternity but saved by her prince charming, he left it on the neat stack of books and proceeded to open another. Naruto read the book aloud in hushed tones, repeating the sentences whenever the voices in his head corrected him.
The small boy yawned, obeying the voices in his head when they told him to go to sleep. He curled up in a ball on the soft futon, covering himself up with the rags that the matron had told him were blankets. He easily slipped into the darkness of the realm of his dreams.
>•<
Naruto was a day away from reaching three and was excited to see the old man who he had affectionately called Jiji, who had kept his promise and visited him once a month, again. And so, he did not really think when the orphanage matron had told him to go into the village to pick something up from her supplier right before sunset.
Said boy was skipping through the village, saddened when he heard the awful comments that were supposed to be just out of earshot as clear as day due to his extremely sensitive hearing and noticed the dirty looks he received.
"It's okay, Sochi. You don't have to listen to them," a feminine voice sounded in his head just as he felt his eyes begin to tear up.
'Hai, kaa-san,' Naruto replied obediently as he tuned the villagers out like he did the other children in the orphanage whenever they whispered bad things about him right outside his door.
Naruto continued to the supplier, who sent him a dirty glare, however still passed him the supplies before his wife came over, sending Naruto a pitying glance. She gave him a loaf of bread and sent the boy away, ignoring the incredulous look her husband gave her.
"Arigatō gōzaimasu," Naruto said politely to the woman before scurrying out of the shop and back to the orphanage.
'Hide the food that the kind lady gave you in the tree that is right outside your window, Sochi. The matron will take it away from you!' the masculine voice of his father said to the boy as he obediently clambered up the tree and left the food in a small hollow he made for himself in the tree trunk right outside his window, where he kept the items he was not supposed to have (such as the medical kit the old Hokage told him to stow in a safe place after one of his visits).
Naruto climbed back down and grabbed the items that he left at the bottom of the tree as he knocked on the door to the orphanage, which he was not allowed to use most of the time as he wasn't allowed out of his attic, much less to join the other children on their outings.
"I'm back, ma'am," Naruto said, knowing that he could not call her "mother" the way she told the other children to address her.
The matron eyed him distrustfully as she snatched the large package out of Naruto's arms, checking the seal to see it was intact and checking to see if Naruto had stolen anything. After all, one could not just put it past the "demon brat".
When she saw that everything was inside, she nodded in satisfaction before saying, "Good."
Naruto was surprised. The woman barely spoke to him, much less praised him. This was the first time he received praise from anyone other than his Jiji and the voices in his head. He allowed himself a small smile as he nodded his head once.
The matron observed the boy, noticing that several villagers were crowded around the orphanage and sneering at the "demon".
She decided to let the villagers have their fun. She passed the boy a five ryō coin, telling him that it was his birthday present and that he could spend it as he wished. She proceeded to slam the door in his face.
The villagers were now crowding around the perimeter of the orphanage, waiting for the boy to leave the safety of the orphanage. Naruto knew that they would jump him the moment he left, however, they would be suspicious if he did not.
Naruto went to the back of the orphanage to his tree and climbed up it and left the coin in the small hollow before going back down.
Naruto gulped, 'I guess that it's time to face the music.'
Naruto walked out of the gates, letting himself get mobbed by the crowd that had gathered to "finish what the fourth started" making his father growl in fury at how the wretched villagers threw his name around like that.
Drunk men threw beer bottles at him that shattered on contact, bruising his skin and slicing his flesh deeply. Some still had alcohol in them that splashed onto his wounds, causing them to burn painfully. A woman wielding a kitchen knife carved the words "demon brat" onto his flesh before shoving the knife in his gut and leaving it there. The supplier that had given him the large box he passed to the matron walked up to him.
The supplier spat, "Look at what you have done, demon brat! You made my wife a demon-lover after you killed my brother three years ago!"
The man proceeded to throw a large bucket of oil on him. Another man holding a torch walked towards him as the mob cheered.
"Naruto! Make a clone and leave it here or something! You're going to die!" the voices in his head screamed, knowing that he had mastered the blood clone (the only jutsu he knew at this point along with the three basic academy ninjutsu) which he had enough blood already spilt to make immediately.
Naruto made the hand sign discreetly, making sure to materialise the clone in a tree where it was well hidden by leaves and branches and did a hand sign-less Kawarimi with the clone and leaving the oil behind where it splashed all over the clone.
As there were no shinobi in the mob and none were ex-shinobi skilled enough to notice what he has done, the man torched the clone, all of them watching in satisfaction as all that was left was a charred unrecognisable lump of carbon. The villagers cheered as they left, throwing another bottle at the blackened lump for good measure, smirking when they saw it crumble.
Naruto in the meantime had managed to remove the kitchen knife and almost all of the glass shards, passing out from blood loss.
Naruto awoke in what he presumed was a sewer from what he was told before. Strangely, there was no sign of any of the injuries he had gotten earlier.
Shrugging the strangeness aside, Naruto walked in a random direction, following the pull in his gut. Naruto soon found himself in a large cavern that was completely silent apart from the sound of dripping water.
"Sochi!" Naruto heard the voice of the man who called himself his father.
"Thank goodness you're alright!" exclaimed the woman who called herself his mother.
"Tou-san? Kaa-san?" Naruto asked in surprise as he swung around to face his parents, they looked exactly like they did on the day he was born.
"We really didn't expect to see you so soon," Minato said softly with his head hanging down.
"Am I dead?" Naruto asked abruptly.
"Of course not! Why would you think that you are?" Kushina asked in surprise.
"Jiji said that you were dead and I assumed that you were ghosts speaking to me," Naruto admitted.
"We are ghosts, in a sense," Minato said thoughtfully.
The two proceeded to explain the sealing process.
"Ah. So no one else will be able to bring you back to life or anything huh?" Naruto asked.
He received a nod.
"Where's the Kyūbi?" Naruto asked.
"Right here. We managed to make up with him, apologising for assuming he was evil, becoming friends with him, playing games with him and so on," Kushina said cheerfully while pointing at bars that he did not notice before with the kanji for "seal" on it.
A pair of glowing blood-red eyes opened from the depths of the cage as the fox yawned, and said in a booming voice, "Hello kit."
"Hello, Kyūbi-san," Naruto said politely.
"Do you have a name? Kyūbi no Kitsune is more of a title than a name," Naruto asked.
He had noted that, unlike Shukaku and Matatabi, the kyūbi's name was not common knowledge.
The Kyūbi blinked in surprise. No one had wished to know his name before. Not Madara, not Hashirama, not Mito, not Kushina and definitely not Minato. Why would this child want to know?
"Because I wish to know you better, Kyūbi-san," Naruto interrupted his thoughts, "I don't think it's nice to be referred to as your title all the time."
"Kurama," the Kyūbi stated softly.
"Hello, Kurama-san. I'm Naruto," Naruto greeted once more.
Kurama found that he liked the way his name rolled off someone else's tongue.
"Naruto... Would you mind if I continue to call you kit?" Kurama asked hesitantly.
"I don't really mind. What does it mean?" Naruto stated before asking.
"It means child in the demon tongue," Kurama explained.
Naruto nodded in understanding.
Outside the cage that Naruto had wandered into during the conversation, Kushina and Minato were kicking themselves for not asking for the Kyūbi's name. They had assumed that it had no name and had never brought it up, having never thought to ask.
"I had just finished healing your wounds, kit. You should go back now. It's almost sunrise," Kurama told Naruto.
"Okay. What is this place and how do I get out?" Naruto asked.
"It's your mindscape, kit. You get out by thinking of the outside world," Kurama explained to the child.
"So I can change the appearance of this place if I wanted?" Naruto asks.
Kurama nodded at him, making him close his eyes in concentration. Naruto imagined the forests of Konoha that he had seen when the villagers dragged him to a secluded area to torture him. He pictured a clearing that had a stream beside and all sorts of forest creatures that probably belonged to the forests of Konoha. He imagined that the bars that had the kanji for seal was a thin metal circlet that had a gem with the kanji for seal engraved on it.
When Naruto opened his eyes, he was surprised at how it had turned out much better than he expected. Squirrels scurried through the trees and several deer roamed the forest. Naruto gained more confidence, imagining a clearing further away from this one that holds a cottage with a television set in the living room, bedrooms and a kitchen.
This time he kept his eyes open, watching in awe as the trees in that area vanished and a cottage quickly built itself over the area.
Kushina noticed but wisely chose to keep silent on how the quaint fairytale-like place resembled the illustrations and descriptions of the children's book that Hiruzen had brought before.
It was cute, though, and she decided that she would have to gush over their son's adorableness to Minato and Kurama later.
"Kaa-san and tou-san can stay in the cottage," Naruto said.
"You might want to know that time passes differently from the outside world. However, you can control the flow of time in here as it is your mindscape," Kurama told Naruto.
"That's nice. I can practice jutsu in here and focus on physical training outside. I can also learn taijutsu styles from kaa-san and tou-san," Naruto said.
"Well, I'll be going now! See you soon, Kurama-kun, kaa-san, tou-san!" Naruto called out before his consciousness faded from his mindscape.
Naruto found himself back on the tree with the kitchen knife beside him. He looked up at the sky, noting that the sun was rising. He was bloody and his clothes were in tatters, however, he was otherwise perfectly fine as his wounds had all closed without leaving so much as a scar.
He wrapped the kitchen knife with a leaf before dashing back to the orphanage, leaving the knife in the hollow before knocking on the door. Naruto was let in with a withering look from the matron.
"Oh, so you are still alive, huh?" she asked, her voice concealing some emotion that the child did not yet understand.
But he did not think it was the disappointment that he was expecting from this usually-unfeeling woman.
Naruto nodded.
She sighed, "Take a shower. The kids aren't awake yet. I do not want them to see the demon covered in blood. They'll have nightmares for months."
"Thank you, ma'am," Naruto said before walking briskly to the showers and washing his clothes, using a domestic jutsu that his kaa-san taught him on the spot to repair his damaged clothing after washing it and drying it with an iron.
Naruto walked back to the attic he called his room and lay down on his futon, falling asleep as soon as he laid his head down.
Naruto woke up soon after to a knock on his door.
"Naruto-kun," the old man greeted.
"Jiji. The villagers attacked me yesterday," Naruto told him, his innocent violet eyes focused on the elderly Hokage.
"What? Why would they do such a thing?" Hiruzen asked.
Naruto shrugged -- he was not sure of it himself.
"Selfish assholes venting on an innocent child," hissed
"Naruto-kun, did you know that you used to have very faint whisker-like birthmarks?" Hiruzen asked him suddenly.
"I didn't know. I never had the chance to look in a mirror before today," Naruto mumbled with a shrug.
"I need to speak with your caretaker..." Hiruzen muttered.
"There's no need, it's fine," Naruto said to placate his grandfather figure.
"You're too kind. Even to those who have not been kind to you," Hiruzen commented.
Naruto tilted his head to the side, shrugging his shoulders, mumbling, "It's not kindness."
Hiruzen only sighed and placed a hand on Naruto's hair, ruffling it slightly. He pulled a sealing scroll from a hidden pocket in his robes.
"Here," Hiruzen said, passing the scroll to Naruto.
Naruto opened it, seeing that it was a sealing scroll, effortlessly unsealing the items inside. This surprised Hiruzen greatly. Naruto had managed to unlock his chakra on his own without guidance and unsealed items from a scroll without any practice. He had expected the child to pout when he saw the sealing matrix and ask his Jiji for help.
Several soft pillows and pillowcases popped out along with a bookshelf already half-filled with books, one row of literature, another about chakra, Konoha's history, taijutsu stances, kenjutsu styles and a few more about ninjutsu and genjutsu.
"Arigatō, Jiji," Naruto said as he placed the pillows on his futon, pushed the low bookcase to a wall and shelved the rest of his books neatly as well.
Hiruzen had noticed that Naruto had rather easily gotten the hang of reading and had bought him a few dictionaries although it was not yet his birthday. He had also noticed that Naruto had an unnaturally skinny frame and was looking rather malnourished.
"Tell me honestly, how much does the matron feed you?" Hiruzen asked Naruto seriously.
"A bowl of mashed potato or porridge and the odd vegetable or fruit a day?" Naruto replied in confusion.
"What?! That's all? How big is the bowl?" Hiruzen just about shouted before calming down and asking an important question.
Naruto nodded his head as he cupped his hands together, showing it to Hiruzen.
"About this much?" Naruto told him.
Hiruzen sighed in frustration as he vanished in a Shunshin. Naruto waited patiently for around a quarter of an hour before the Hokage returned with another storage scroll.
Hiruzen unsealed the items, passing Naruto a chakra-powered stove and setting down a refrigerator which he connected to the main supply. He opened it to show that it was filled with vegetables, fruit, meat and a few cartons of milk. They were already all chopped up and ready to cook.
Hiruzen pulled another storage scroll from a hidden pocket in his robes and unsealed it to reveal pots and pans, a kettle, a spatula, a ladle, plates and bowls along with a set of cutlery which included a soup spoon, fork, spoon and chopsticks.
There were also quite a number of hooks that the Hokage nailed into the wall which he had fixed the cracks in back on one of his previous visits. He placed these new items onto the hooks neatly.
"Arigatō, Jiji," Naruto thanked the man.
"Do you know how to cook?" Hiruzen asked.
Naruto gave him a dumbfounded look. Why would a three-year-old know how to cook? He was barely let out of the attic anyway. When would he have the chance to develop such a skill? Even if it seemed like it to outsiders at times, Naruto was not born equipped with all of the skills that he needs in life. Hiruzen apologised, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. This child so often behaved too maturely -- he would always forget that Naruto was still a kid.
Hiruzen recalled what Naruto had said about villagers attacking him, deciding to make his most trusted ANBU tail the boy whenever he left the orphanage. Hiruzen also decided that it would be for the best if Naruto were to learn how to defend himself from attacks.
Hiruzen decided to have Naruto train with his ANBU as soon as he reached five, where he would leave the orphanage to live in ANBU headquarters. For now, he would receive a set of kunai and shuriken to better protect himself. No matter how worried he was about Naruto's wellbeing, his ANBU could not be trusted with the care of such a young child... Hiruzen supposed he needed to make time in his busy schedule to have a talk with the orphanage matron.
Hiruzen unsealed a kunai pouch and a shuriken pouch from the storage seals placed in his sleeves, handing them to Naruto.
"You are given permission to hurt the civilians if necessary, just no intentional killing or crippling blows," Hiruzen conceded.
"Thank you, Jiji. For everything," Naruto said with a small smile.
"No problem, Naruto-kun. I'll bring you food every month," Hiruzen stated before vanishing in a Shunshin, on his way to inform his best ANBU of his decision.