Chapter 200 - My SI Stash #100 - Samsara by Seeker1629 (Naruto) (2/2)

Chapter 1.2.2

Hiruzen loved to study Konoha anonymously.

It was a simple truth that few were completely honest to the Hokage about their troubles or concerns. A combination of fear and awe removed anyone with that title from the normal people. It made the simplest method of finding troubles, simply asking, an impossibility unless he did it subtly from a distance through proxies. It made unbiased observation impossible as his presence disrupted the area he was in.

Thankfully he had a great many techniques to get over such a hurdle. Invisibility, transformations that even Hyuuga couldn't bypass, the Crystal Orb of Pericognition, Shadow Clones that were transformed, hearing enhancement etc. Any of these techniques would be more than enough to get past the ordinary denizen of his country. He had refined even his transformation to the point that it was impossible to identify.

That was precisely what he was using right now. A simple transformation into an ordinary shopkeeper. Clothing, gait, smell and even the hair was just right to be normal yet unnoticeable. The market place was busy even this late at night. Seal based lights lit the streets and the sounds of thousands of people occupied his ears. He filtered out most of the conversation but his senses allowed him to sense the lack of hostility or worry. His people walked around him, some shoved him out of the way when he moved too slowly, but for the most part, they were relaxed and at ease.

He smiled behind his transformation even as the civilian he was supposed to be ambled forward into the less developed districts of his domain. It had been annoying to force his bodyguards to leave but it was worthwhile.

As the city around him began to grow poorer the transformation he wore began to shift slightly. Clothing gained just a little bit more dust, his form some muscle and his expression grew colder. He stopped hiding the Kunai he stored with the seals on his wrists and hung them from his belt openly, subtly shadow cloning them when no one was watching.

The worn-out housing, the pervasive smell of refuse, relatively poor streets and garbage the polluted it was something he hated to see. Worse still were the people who moved around with fatigue as they returned from jobs that demanded everything and provided little in return. It was a sign of his failure. A clear demonstration of his limits just as the teeming market place had been a sign of the work that Sensei and Lord Hashirama had done.

Yet, there was little he could do to solve these problems at the moment. His former allies had proven to be...difficult. His support base little more than faded remnants of their glory. The clans were as unruly as ever and the dual threats of Kumo and Iwa were unceasing. He simply lacked the money and resources needed to renovate the Second District. Had the Senju survived it would have been their duty to manage the area but with their deaths and the Clan itself losing most of its land thanks to Tsunade's gambling debts there was little wealth to spare. Not when he would need every last fragment for the wars to come.

Hiruzen shook his head in dismay. Memories of the energetic brat he had taught warring with the broken, drunken woman who roamed the country burning her inheritance away and spurning her duties.

It was a measure of the depth of his failures that she was not the student he failed the most.

The Hokage sped up. He moved into an alleyway. Ignored the filth pouring out of the large garbage containers and changed his transformation for the last time and reinforced his body to the maximum. He took the form of a middle-aged ninja and rapidly ran up the walls and took to the rooftop pathways.

He moved faster than most could see. His body ached but it was a good ache. It made him feel alive instead of tempting him into a coffin. The cold, sharp wind washed his worries away. He laughed openly at the incredulous glance a young lady gave him as he blazed past her home fast enough that she saw little more than a blur.

A minute later, too soon, he was back home. He dialled back his reinforcement slightly and winced as the cost of his moment of freedom came back to haunt him. He jumped off the roof and landed near his estate. His transformation had faded.

It took a moment for his barriers to test him and another for the ANBU guards on his family and Naruto to ensure that he was not a threat. A flare of his chakra with his palm underneath the handle of the large gate had it open. A final test.

He nodded at the plainclothes ANBU guards who were manning the gates and walked in. They did not bow and instead stayed careful and aware, only acknowledging him with a salute. He smiled at them. They were new to ANBU but had stayed disciplined when it would have been natural to kneel or bow.

A glance at the moon told him all he needed to know. He was late, again, but he had expected it. It was why he had used some of his time to study Konoha. Takara was always tired. Konohamaru tended to ensure that and Naruto was quite punctual when it came to sleep timings. He would be up early in the morning but with midnight being merely an hour away he could only expect them to be asleep.

Thus, it was a surprise to see Takara waiting in the dining room with her son sleeping in her lap.

”Father,” she said and then flicked her head towards the plates covered on the table she was kneeling next to. ”Please have a meal. I doubt you've eaten enough.”

Hiruzen felt a flood of apprehension. It was not like her to bother. She had long since given up on bothering to look after him.

”Thank you,” he said. Not mentioning the plain dinner he had taken back in his office a couple of hours prior. A quick prayer to the Sage and he started to eat his simple meal of fried fresh fish and rice.

The taste was nostalgic and he realized why his daughter was awake. Hiruzen closed his eyes and cursed his foolish self. Biwako would have laughed at him and then proceeded to make his life hell for forgetting their anniversary.

He gazed at Takara feeling a bitter surge of emotion as he saw Biwako in her calm, cold expression. ”Thank you,” he repeated, though for different reasons. Takara accepted it with a gracious nod but he could tell that this was just another barrier between them.

”I'll put him to sleep.” She said, ”Naruto is training outside, he was waiting for you. Please tell him to go rest after speaking to him.”

He hesitated and she left before he could respond.

He sighed. Hiruzen didn't even have the energy to curse the familiar silence that filled the room. He glanced at his meal and quickly choked it down, unwilling to squander it, the taste had been exquisite but he barely felt it now.

Hiruzen left the plate to his servants and moved to the training grounds where he could feel Naruto's powerful chakra, with his Yamananka derived sensory technique, flickering in a familiar pattern of rising to a peak, maintain and fall that belonged to him while meditating or creating seals. At this range, he could feel the slight tinge of the Kyuubi's acidic chakra that marked Naruto at the edge of his senses.

He was greeted with the sight of a training ground that was mostly neat...with the noticeable exception of a large part that seemed to have been scooped up by a giant kunai.

He suppressed his sigh and glanced at the blonde who was sitting on the ground. Naruto looked at him with a sheepish expression. Naruto had been experimenting with storage seals again.

Hiruzen would never want the child to stop improving his talents but his unconventional and frequently ridiculous uses of Seals, something that often had unexpected results, was not something he liked. The ANBU would likely keep both Naruto and his family safe and the training grounds in his backyard was surrounded by powerful barrier seals but he had the feeling that it would not be enough.

The Kyuubi chakra powered explosive seal had been proof of that.

”What happened?” he asked, voice dry.

Naruto smiled. ”A storage seal with an alteration to the demarcation area with high-end Chakra investment.” He said, ”It's situational but it should allow for non-living things to be consumed into the seal in large areas...for as long as one can invest a ton of chakra.”

Hiruzen considered that. It was possible but…”I imagine that it is very, very easy to disrupt.”

His smile vanished. ”You're right,” he admitted begrudgingly, ”I'll try to see if I can stabilize that but it's pretty unlikely with the current level of affinity I have for space-time based phenomenon.”

The Hokage smiled at the formal, defensive tone. It was rather adorable to see the child take his criticism so seriously when no other five year old could have done anything like this. Minato and Kushina would be proud. It was one of the few childish behaviours he got to see from Naruto. Yet, even as he considered the seal in greater detail he could see Naruto carefully shunting his emotions away. Bringing himself back into complete control.

It was things like this more than his sheer skill at the Sealing Arts that convinced Hiruzen that Naruto was a genius. He was clumsy when it came to social manipulations but he was learning faster than any normal child could have done. Still, he was glad that the boy had let go of his self-control, even if it was only for a moment, his years in the orphanage had not allowed Naruto to freely express himself.

”Do you want to test out any other seals?” he asked. Certain of the answer that he would receive.

Naruto smiled and nodded. He pulled out three rolls of paper, low quality, with a fair amount of chakra infused within them. Then he closed his eyes, his expression a picture of concentration, three threads emerged from his right hand and attached themselves to the papers. Naruto opened his eyes and flicked his hand outwards. The papers took an unnatural path through the air, the strings rather than gravity directing their flight, and landed a couple of meters from them.

”Watch this,” he said, eyes closed again, his face once more a mask of concentration. Hiruzen noted that the papers were the same to his chakra senses. And then blinked rapidly after turning his head instinctively. He suppressed his immediate reaction to flare his chakra and attack.

The papers had produced an intense light for less than a tenth of a second. He had reacted more or less instantly but the three papers had worked together to move and point themselves right at his eyes. It was probably why the chakra strings were used. Naruto had to coordinate and move them and he hadn't figured out how to do that with a seal.

Naruto waited patiently for HIruzen's eyes to recover. ”Decent,” he said honestly. ”But it needs to be triggered with greater ease.”

The blonde nodded with a disconcertingly cold expression. ”Understood.” he said, then tilted his head, ”Was the effect decent?”

Hiruzen nodded. ”Yes,” he said, still seeing spots flashing in his eyes. Reinforcement on his eyes had made the effects worse. ”It will be quite useful in a lot of contexts but you do know that such Blinders are commonly made. You could have used a preexisting one as a baseline.”

”I know,” he said with a shrug, relaxing slightly, ”but the main objective was to see if I could make one on my own with limited resources and it was an easy seal to alter and test with limited harm if I made a mistake.”

Hiruzen chuckled. ”It's good to see that you're taking safety seriously,” he said, glad to see the maturity he had come to expect from Naruto. His adopted grandson was normally quite cautious but when it came to testing the ideas he had he was rather reckless and impatient. ”But you should go to bed.”

Naruto nodded. He didn't meet Hiruzen's eyes. ”Sorry.” he said, tone morose, ”But I just had to test this out and I didn't want to ruin my room...I'll clean the training field and get some rest.”

Hiruzen nodded and Naruto began to use his chakra strings to clean up the terrain. The Hokage would use some Earth Elemental techniques to fix the damage to the ground. He considered the near six-year-old and Danzo's words. The academy was starting its second semester of the year soon. It was not too late to have him join.

Hiruzen would be the first to crush Danzo should his friend propose excessive training for Naruto but he couldn't deny some simple facts. Naruto was a Jinchuuriki and a genius. He was physically better than most, skilled and emotionally m_a_t_u_r_e. The academy would not be a struggle for him. Indeed, Hiruzen suspected that barring the Genjutsu and some other aspects which required strict control he would not struggle at all but then the academy was meant to do more than just provide skills needed to graduate. It was a system where the children who were Konoha's future made lifelong friends and if there was one thing that Naruto lacked it was peers.

A friend, rivals, competition and or even just a small group to play with would do wonders for Naruto. As it stood Naruto shunned almost everyone. He ignored the villagers. Disregarded them utterly and was cautious around Takara and Hiruzen despite it being nearly a year and a half since his adoption.

It wasn't a surprise. Naruto was a genius. He would not have taken long to realize that the orphanage and the village as a whole were subtly hostile but the effects it was having on him could problematic in the long run. It was a cruel thought but Naruto was a Jinchuuriki. His loyalty was not something Konoha could afford to risk.

He ignored the furious part of him that reminded him that this wouldn't even be a concern if the average person of his domain wasn't willing to scapegoat Naruto for being a prison. Kushina would have butchered the fools. He had no doubt she was tempted to kill them all from the pure world.

”Naruto,” he called out. The Jinchuuriki paused in his attempts to clean the area and looked at him. Hiruzen waved him closer and spoke when he arrived. ”What do you think about the academy?”

It took an instant for his charge to figure out what Hiruzen was thinking. ”I have six months left before I can join.” he pointed out.

”Exceptions can be made for skilled candidates,” he said, thinking of the large list of exceptions the clans had made sure to include when the academy had first been proposed. It would be nice to make use of them for once.

”Skilled?” he muttered and paused for a long moment before deciding to speak. ”Is this because of the Nine-Tails?” Naruto's eyes went towards his belly where underneath his black shirt the Seal that imprisoned the Nine-Tails manifested. Hiruzen could see a small part of it sneak around Naruto's neck like an ink serpent.

”No.,” he said firmly, lying and speaking the truth, he was suggesting it because of Naruto's status though for indirect reasons, ”It is because you possess the skills and maturity needed to thrive in the academy.”

Naruto looked sceptical but nodded. ”Wouldn't it be more useful to have me trained separately so that I can learn to use the Nine-Tails chakra?” he said. ”I doubt that the academy can teach me that.”

It took Hiruzen a moment to understand why Naruto was asking such a question and another to realize why he looked so worried. Until now, Naruto's entire life had been decided by the Nine-tails in one way or another. Hiruzen should have expected the boy to suspect that same for this.

”It can teach you other, more important things,” he said firmly, ”You can truly learn of the will of fire, the basics of the Shinobi arts in more detail and best of all you will have friends and rivals who can help you learn better.”

Naruto said nothing. He didn't meet Hiruzen's eyes. The Hokage placed a hand of Naruto's shoulder.

”Give it a chance,” he said. ”It will go well.” Hiruzen would ensure it. The teachers would be getting a message from him to make sure of that. He wasn't willing to leave it on faith after the mess at the orphanage.

Naruto was sceptical but he was polite enough to nod. ”Understood.” he said, then hesitated, ”Can you teach me some things before the academy starts? I'm not from a Clan or anything. I don't want to fall behind the others there.”

Hiruzen laughed at the thought but entertained the notion. ”What would you like to learn?”

Naruto smiled, ”Some more sealing!” he said. ”Oh! And some cool elemental ninjutsu.”

”Tomorrow,” he promised, trying to decide what to cancel from his itinerary, leading Naruto back to their home, glad to see the concern vanish from his demeanour.