Naruto and Menma sat down on the head of the Yondaime Hokage and looked out over the entire village for a moment before turning around to look at both Asuma and Jiraiya who were standing beside each other with similar looks on their faces, "Hey why are you here Asuma-sensei?"
"You don't want me to be?" The man asked in amusement, getting Menma to fervently shake his head, fearing that he might have offended him, "Calm down Menma. I'm just here to help. Who knows, I might be able to help with something that you find out here."
Menma didn't know what that meant but it didn't matter in the end. He saw Jiraiya take a seat on the ground as well and let off a sigh, "It's kind of ironic that you guys picked this head to sit down on."
Naruto grinned at him, "Well the Yondaime Hokage was the coolest, at least as far as I'm concerned. Whenever I look at his face up here it just, I don't know, clicks with me for some reason, plus he's our father so it would only make sense-"
"Wait a second you guys know!?" Jiraiya questioned shocked.
"Yeah, didn't the old man tell you?"
"No."
"Anyway why'd you agree to do this so easily? And seriously Asuma-sensei why are you here? I thought you'd be more inclined to go find that Kurenai lady after we were done like you do sometimes."
Asuma sat down on the ground as well, only with more weight behind it in an irritable manner, "You guys just love to take shots at that don't you? You saw me with her once."
"-That you know of." Menma replied smugly. He then got serious, "So really, what's this about? Because Jiraiya-sensei you shouldn't know us well enough to be okay with us just asking you any kind of question. I expected some kind of fight or something."
Jiraiya crossed his arms, wondering how he should start this, "Well the thing is Naruto and Menma, I'm here to tell you guys something. It's pretty important, and it has to do with the night of your birth and the Yondaime, which is a reason that I'm the one telling you since he was my student. I'm here to tell you something that you didn't know. It's actually a major secret only a hand full of people in the village know about it."
"About the night of our birth?" Menma asked as he could feel his heart start to beat faster. What was special about that night besides the fact that that's the night they became Jinchuriki and their mother and father were killed enough for there to be another secret surrounding it? "What about our birth? What is it?"
Asuma could see that Jiraiya didn't know how to word things, and for some reason his father Hiruzen wanted the toad sage to be the one to tell this, so all he could do at the time was nudge things along, "Naruto and Menma tell me what you know about the night that the Kyuubi attacked the village." And like a switch was turned, they told them everything that they knew about it, Kushina and Minato dying, the nine tails being sealed in Naruto, the ten tails sealed in Menma, and Menma being sent of to the Tetsu no Kuni. Just like they expected them to know, "Good job, all of those things are absolutely right. But do you guys know how the Kyuubi got out of your mother or how the Ten Tailed Wolf was there in the first place?"
Menma squinted his eyes in thought, not quite remembering what was told about how the Juubi showed up or about how the Kyuubi escaped from being sealed in its host, "I don't know. I've heard that the seal weakens during pregnancy, what does that have to do with anything?" Jiraiya shook his head,
"The beast was extracted kid." Jiraiya said, seeing Menma's eyes widen, "You see why it's important now?"
"How? Was it fuinjutsu?" Naruto asked, excited that the new thing he was studying was the source of such a huge event, "Is it something that I'm going to learn?"
Jiraiya frowned at that, "I hope not Naruto… what we're trying to say is that the Kyuubi was extracted by a masked man who infiltrated the village, summoned the Juubi, and extracted the Kyuubi from your mother."
Menma's eyes widened, "That doesn't make sense wouldn't the Kyuubi and Juubi just attack anyone in sight including him, it's not like he could control them."
"Actually Menma that's just the thing the guy could control them using his sharingan. The masked man claimed to be Madara Uchiha he used the tailed beasts to attack the village. It wasn't until your father drove him out and sealed each beast within you both that he was stopped. The man still lives today and can control any tailed beast."
Naruto looked down at it with a deep frown on his face, "Well if that isn't a kick in the head. And to think, if I'd actually done more research on the night of our birth I probably would have caught that. That kind of sucks." Menma and Naruto took a few deep breaths, trying to process what they had just been told, "I'm having a little trouble wrapping this around my head… um, who all knew about this?"
"Some members on the Council and most Anbu."
"Okay, well that's fun for a bunch of different reasons." Naruto said sarcastically, "Here's another question. Why are we just now finding this out?" He asked, waiting for a damn good excuse.
"Dad thought it would be better if you two didn't know so want to seek vengance immediately after finding out." Asuma tried to explain. It didn't explain why no one told them after they became a ninja, "I was honestly going to tell you guys, but dad told me to wait for Jiraiya-sama here to return from his missions to tell you guys himself. You guys had to find out eventually, there was no way you both could walk around forever without knowing. That's irresponsible for a ton of reasons."
Jiraiya watched Naruto and Menma's stone expression, "How are you guys feeling?"
Naruto was currently running his tongue over his canines as he thought, "So what does this mean? Is Madara going to come after us and take our bijuu again like he did to our mother, we-." He said.
"No!" Both Jiraiya and Asuma said simultaneously.
"Well we don't know if that will happen." Jiraiya said.
"Then what the hell does any of this mean?" Menma yelled back, pointing at his stomach, "People knew about the masked man; that explains why Naruto and I had to be forced to seperate at birth and why our parents are dead. No one ever told us that there were people out there hunting down tailed beasts, why the adults didn't trust us. Tell me what the fucking point was!" Menma yelled as he jumped to his feet, "Why not us? Did they just decide not to tell only for us to be hunted down eventually?"
Asuma let him get his anger out as did Jiraiya. They were still just kids. How else were they supposed to respond to finding these things out? He had questions, questions that Asuma couldn't answer. Why didn't they tell them?
Jiraiya let Naruto and Menma pace around angrily for a few more moments before speaking, "The Sandaime believed that you could hold that seek for vengeance back, and he was right since you've done a fantastic job so far."
Naruto lay down completely on the cool stone that made up the head of the Yondaime Hokage on the Hokage Monument, looking up at the sky. After a while he let out what seemed to be his millionth sigh of the day, "So, what does this mean exactly?"
"Nothing." Asuma said firmly, "This doesn't mean a single thing. Absolutely nothing has changed now that you guys know these things."
Jiraiya cut in at this point, "I'm telling you this now because you're a shinobi and you can either embrace this part of your history that's been there since the beginning, or you can try to ignore it. But something like what happened with the masked man before might happen again one day."
"Man…" Menma said, looking between the two elder ninja there with them, "What a day… I really didn't see this coming at all. I think I need to go home and think about this for a while." He looked over at Asuma, "Do we have to tell Ino and Shikamaru?"
Asuma shook his head, "I told you guys that you finding this out didn't change anything. You guys don't have to tell them if you don't want to, it's your own secret and everyone has something that they keep to themselves. It's your call in the end." Naruto nodded with a small smile and stood up as he walked towards the edge of the cliff, "Are you going to be alright Naruto and Menma?"
"Yeah we'll be fine." Menma replied as he got to the end of the Yondaime's head, "I'm going to head on home Asuma-sensei. I guess I'll see you around too Jiraiya-sensei." With that, Naruto and Menma started walking down the face of the statue, "Man this would have been useful to know right before I graduated."
Once it was clear that they were gone, Asuma turned towards Jiraiya as the two men stood up, "They never even asked those questions they wanted to ask you..." He said in an off-handed manner, "So what are you planning to do now?"
Jiraiya looked at the edge of the cliff where Naruto and Menma had started walking down, "Well I'd like to have a hand in training them. I think there are a few things that I can teach them that I think Minato would have wanted me to let them in on. And they technically are my students if they're reading that book of theirs." He noticed Asuma's frown, "Hey, I'm not going to take your students away from you Asuma, I just think it would be nice for me to teach them some things. I won't if you don't want me to. It's a week until you're supposed to take your kids to Tetsu no Kuni right?"
"Yeah." Asuma said, grabbing a cigarette and placing it in his mouth, "I've got 'em going into the chunin exams. They're damn good, they'll clean up for sure."
Jiraiya made a noise, signifying that he understood, "You know, maybe I'll head on up to see once they reach the final stage if they get that far? It's going to be some great gigantic affair. Every single hidden village is supposed to have a stake in this one. It sounds like it's going to be a total clusterfuck. Entertaining to say the least." He said with a grin.
Asuma returned the grin once he thought about it, "You know that all of that just means one thing. That it's time to show off."
XxX
(With Naruto)
Naruto and Menma taking a walk through one of the forested areas that made up Konoha's namesake. Naruto stared at Menma as he walked along, "The person that is the main reason for our parents being dead and us being Jinchuriki is still living. We've gotten through tougher things than this. This isn't even a setback." He stopped talking as he noticed a rock following them. A square rock with eye-holes in the front.
The entire time he had been walking he had been trying to burn chakra by putting wind chakra into his hands for practice. However he hadn't been thinking of this. With his skills with Nebaiken and with as much time as he had spent using wind chakra to split leaves, building it and holding it had become something of a second nature to him. Smirking to himself, Naruto stopped walking, getting the rock to stop as well.
Naruto performed a theatrical gesture that ended with him slamming the palms of his hands to the tree, both of them linked by the wrists with one hand facing up and the other down, subconsciously sticking it there, "You know, there's one thing I hate… randomly placed rocks." Naruto stopped the flow of chakra to his hand and turned around, but his hand momentarily stuck fast to the tree. Once he turned around and he pulled his hand free, the tree inexplicably imploded in an area the size of his hands, felling it as it had been destroyed clean through.
Naruto was so surprised by this turn of events that he didn't even register the fireworks that came from the rock that had been following him, nor did he pay attention to the kids that came from the rock until one of them spoke, "Wow Boss that was so cool!" Naruto turned to see Konohamaru with two other kids. One was a girl with orange hair tied up in two very large pigtails and a red blush on her face, the other was a boy with brown hair and glasses that had a drip of snot hanging from his nose. All of the children were wearing goggles, all similar in design to Naruto's that he currently had on his head, "See Moegi, Udon? I told you guys he was a super-strong ninja didn't I?"
Naruto blinked and looked at the tree, 'How the hell did I do that? Can I do that again?' That was what he thought. On the outside his self-confidence needed a little pick-me-up and this was as good a reason as any for an ego trip, "Yeah I guess I am huh? How'd you guys like that?"
The girl, Moegi ran up to the fallen tree and looked at the destroyed trunk, "What do you call that move Boss?"
So now the girl was calling him that too? That was just fine with him. And now he needed to come up with a name for it? Well it technically was his jutsu, even if he'd be hard pressed to do it again if he had to right then, "Call it…" He stopped talking to think. He didn't want to be like Iruka and come up with a jutsu only to have it saddled with a shitty name. This needed to be catchy, "Call it Giga Shintou (Giga Impact). It's pretty badass isn't it?" Meh, he could claim it if he wanted to. He knew what happened, now he just needed to recreate it, or better yet get his clones to recreate it.
The boy Udon walked up to him with Konohamaru and sniffed before addressing him, "Wow, that really looked strong."
Naruto laughed and rubbed the area between his nose and mouth with his finger, "Well I have to be strong right? My brother and I are going to the chunin exams next week in Tetsu no Kuni. If I'm going to get promoted I've got to be on my game!" As the kids stood wowed and started to beg him to play ninja with him, wanting to actually play with a real ninja, Naruto smiled to himself as he thought.
XxX
(That Evening – Naruto and Menma's Apartment)
As Naruto walked into his apartment he blinked as he saw the Hokage sitting in his living room, "Hokage-jiji how did you-? Nevermind, you're the Hokage, duh." He said to himself as he walked in and shut the door behind him.
"How are things Naruto-kun, Menma-kun?" The old man asked them as he looked out of the window at the Hokage Monument, of which they had a clear view of from there, "I know that you know of the masked man by now. How do you feel? Do you have anything to ask me?"
Menma shook his head as he held his stomach, "No, I think I've got it. The man who has the ability to control tailed beasts and killed our parents is still out there." He gave the Hokage a wry look, "I'm kind of worried about that jiji."
"I'd imagine you would be Menma." Hiruzen said as he turned around to look at the young genin, a far gone look on his eye, "The ANBU with me when I came across you after the Juubi's sealing inside of you and the Kyuubi's sealing inside of Naruto were quick to spread the word of what happened to others and the news spread like wildfire. All I could do at that point was keep your peers from finding out in the future without your wishing by my decree and send Menma off to Tetsu No Kuni." He turned towards the window again as he continued to speak, "Guys remember this. A person is smart, a person is very intelligent, but people are stupid. If people were allowed to separately make their own opinions on you by themselves then things may have been better, maybe. But when people talk about something that puts them at unease then mob rule takes over and that unease turns to fear or hatred."
Naruto frowned and spoke up, "And they didn't bother trying to see us for who we are, just for what they knew we had inside of us."
Hiruzen nodded, "That's why the few people that gave you a chance and forged relationships with you did so, because they were able to get their own opinions of you away from the populace. And you've handled the treatment of neglect from most of the village magnificently. I'm proud of you every day, never more so than now after you've found the truth."
Naruto walked over to Hiruzen and looked out of the window with him, "Well things are getting better. Iruka-sensei was always there for me like Asuma-sensei is now, Shikamaru and Ino are cool, Tenten helped me a lot when I first started out, Kakashi-sensei is weird but I like him too, Chouji's cool to hang out with, Sasuke-teme I like punching in the face, and Jiraiya-sensei is weird but I think he likes me. Konohamaru and his friends really like me because for some reason they think I'm the greatest, and who am I to crush a kid's hopes and dreams?" Hiruzen chuckled a bit as did Naruto, "I don't know where we are though jiji since you didn't trust us enough to tell us about the masked man sooner. I could have handled it."
"Maybe." Hiruzen replied, "But when you guys were seven and I told you about the Kyuubi and Juubi how do you think you would have handled it if you had found this out then."
Naruto gulped. He knew that he wasn't in the best state of mind that night. If he had found out that night then there might have been a five-star freakout on the horizon. Someone might have gotten really hurt…
Hiruzen could see Naruto thinking about it, "And even if I had told you guys myself, after that night and all that happened, would you guys have taken it nearly as well as you have here today?" A smile came over the elderly man's face, "I've always expected great things out of you two and you guys continue to deliver on that front."
Menma grinned despite the day he had been having, "Old man you haven't seen anything yet. We haven't even gotten close to cutting loose. Just wait until the chunin exams."
"I'm looking forward to it." Hiruzen said, putting a hand on both of their shoulders, "If you guys need anything in the future I want you to feel free to come to me or Asuma. As close as you are you us and Konohamaru at this point you're a full-fledged friend of our clan."
"You've got it Hokage-jiji." Naruto said as he stared at the mountains that had his attention since he had been a child.
XxX
(One Week Later – Team 10 Training Field)
Asuma stood in front of his three seated students as they looked up at him intently, "I'm glad you all decided to show up today and none of you got cold feet." At that, all eyes drifted over to Shikamaru who muttered a quiet 'troublesome', "It's been a crazy five months huh?" Asuma said, thinking back on his time with his team, "And in just a few days we'll see just how you guys stack up in the grand scheme of things."
Ino's eyes shone at the prospect of the challenge lying ahead of them, "I'm ready for it Asuma-sensei. Team 10's the best." She put her hands on her hips and flipped her hair back haughtily, "Naturally you should know that. You did train us after all."
"That I did." Asuma said in amusement.
Naruto stood up next, dusting off the back of his shorts, "Do you think that after the stuff I've been finding out lately I'm going to be anything other than 100% on doing this? Let's get this show on the road already!" He exclaimed.
Shikamaru stood up as well, shoving his hands in pockets of his pants as if he didn't care, "Someone has to make sure those two blondes get through this thing in one piece, and as troublesome as it seems…" He took a hand from his pocket and pointed at himself, "That someone just so happens to be me. Besides, mom would bitch me out for the next six months if I didn't go and do this. So let's get this done." He said, putting his hand out, having it quickly covered by the other three genin on his team, "Are we all set?"
"Absolutely." Menma said.
Naruto grinned widely and nodded, "Let's go kick some international ass."
Asuma smiled and clapped, "Now, now kids… we still have to get to the convoy so we can all head out with the other teams. We don't want to be caught behind and have to travel all the way to Tetsu no Kuni alone."
It was finally time to get underway. For better or for worse the chunin exams were here, ready or not.