Naruto Of The Shadow Clones

chapter 3 Let the madness begin

The Hokage was working in his office, doing the bane of all Hokages, paperwork. (old joke I know) When he heard a knocking at the door, he was glad for the interruption.

"Come in."

In walked Naruto, Iruka, and Mizuki, all with serious faces.

'Oh boy, what did he do this time?' The hokage thought. "All right, what did Naruto here do this time?"

"It's not what he did hokage-sama, it's what he found out." Iruka said, Never once losing that serious face.

'Uh oh' Sarutobi thought, 'this cannot be good.' "Found out?" the old man asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sigh, Old Man, I found about the Kyuubi and who my parents were. The big guy wants to have a word with you inside my Mind Scape I think he called it."

To say that the hokage was shocked was an understatement. He had of course planned on telling Naruto about the fox and his parents for sure, but not for around another decade. He was debating whether or not to have Naruto's seal checked to see if it was breaking, but first decided to see what that damned fox wanted.

"Very well then Naruto. Iruka, Mizuki, as his teachers and the ones he told you about this, I want you to come as well."

"Very well, hokage-sama." Mizuki said, trying to hide his nervousness. After all, they were going to meet with the one creature that was hell bent on destroying the village around eight years ago.

The hokage walked over to Naruto and kneeled down to his eye level and placed his hand on Naruto's head. Iruka and Mizuki placed theirs over their leader's. For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then the four's eyes flickered and closed, signifying that they were now in Naruto's Mindscape.

Naruto's Mindscape

The three adult's found themselves looking around the mindscape in varying states of confusion. They knew that the mindscape was defined by the person's outlook, but it was also usually along more...cheerful places, such as a palace, or a grove of sakura trees. This though, looked like it was a more of a cross between a sewer and a bunker than a place to find inner peace. All three had similar thoughts when they saw this place.

'My god, what could have made Naruto come up with this place?' Iruka thought noticing a set of pipes running along the walls out the doorway.

'Wonder why his mind set it up like this. Looks almost like a bunker to go in when an army is coming for you.' Mizuki thought, then looking at the boy, realized that just might be exactly why it was like this.

The third hokage was the most shocked of the three. 'Naruto is normally extremely happy and so full of energy. Is this really what he feels like most of the time?'

Naruto wasn't that surprised considering he didn't know about how a mind scape normally looks like or how it reflected what was truly going on in his mind. He was more interested in the cage where the giant fox was looking out at the group.

"Ah, so you finally came."

The three adults spun around looked at the fox's feet, and slowly raised their heads to see the fox beginning to grin at all of them. Needless to say, all three were getting extremely nervous, even if on a subconscious level for the hokage. While he had absolute faith in Minato's sealing skills, the fact that the fox had talked to Naruto so soon concerned him. The two teachers were much more nervous considering they were in front of the creature that did it's best to wipe the hidden leaf village of the map.

"Yes, we came. Naruto said that you wished to speak to me." Sarutobi said, wondering just what this was about exactly.

"That is correct. You see, I would like to teach the young kit here a few things."

"Oh, and why might I ask would a hundred foot tall demon fox want to train a small eight year old boy?" The old man asked, getting ready to get them all out of there as fast as he could if things turned sour.

The great demon lord sighed, "Because it is my fault for why those idiots you have sworn to protect are constantly abusing the child. If I had been in more control of my emotions, this never would have happened. Besides, I have grown quite fond of the kit."

Iruka and Mizuki were watching this trying to figure out what the fox meant by emotions and teaching when Sarutobi spoke again.

"What do you mean by more control of emotions? And how do I know you won't use this as a means to escape?"

The fox just laughed and then said "Trust me old man, if I wanted to, I could have escaped anytime I wanted to. Your predecessor was aware of what was going on that night, or at least on a small level. Therefore he made it so that I could interact with the kit a lot easier that most so called tailed beasts with their containers. As for the emotions, well, why don't I give a demonstration first before I explain."

Right after he said that, Kyuubi no Kitsune, Demon lord of the foxes, did two things that would forever shock the four humans. Right off the bat, he started shrinking at a tremendous rate, quickly turning from a hundred foot tall fox into one closer to the height of the hokage's waist. But it didn't stop there, while the fox kept shrinking, it started to turn into a human as well. One that was just as tall as Sarutobi, and looking just as old. (Think the manifestation form of Ichigo's sword in Bleach, only no wrapping over either of the eyes.)

But this wasn't the only thing that shocked the group. Right after he finished changing, red chakra suddenly shot out of his body and started to form a very large cloud towards the back of the cage. After it left the man stepped straight through the bars, causing all three of the men to get in front of Naruto keeping him behind them.

"Don't worry, your hokage definitely knew his seals. He made it so that either my chakra or my human form could go through the seal, but not both at the same time."

The adults didn't know what to think. Not only did the fox just turn into a human, but he just walked straight through the seal without a single problem. Naruto was just as surprised.

"Cool! How come you didn't do that the first time?" He asked.

The fox knelt down getting closer to Naruto's level. "(chuckles) Because there was no reason to, kit."

A moment later, the hokage was finally able to get over his initial shock of how the demon was able to leave the cage like that. "You said you were going to explain about that night?"

The demon nodded and proceeded to explain how Orochimaru had come to his cave and demanded to know how to become immortal, and afterwards how he killed his family. How afterwards he followed him to get revenge, and finally how he ended up getting trapped in Madara Uchiha's genjustu.

It took a while for the hokage to absorb all this and to fully trust the demon lord, but eventually agreed to let the fox train Naruto. The key factor was the fact that the old man could tell that the fox saw the kid as his own, in spirit if not blood. After hammering out all the details, the four left the mind scape with a lot to think about.