The Lost Heir

4

Naruto entered the BBQ restaurant with the guard right behind him. Finding a nice table by the window, Naruto pointed at it, and the guard led him over to sit down. He was practically unrecognisable to everyone because he wasn't wearing orange and he was civil and polite. But the one thing everyone knew was, that he was a noble. They picked it up from his appearance, and the ninja next to him looked very much like a bodyguard.

Kakashi joined the other Jonin and their squads. As they sat down, Asuma gave him a small smile and Kurenai squeezed his hand gently. They both knew Kakashi was thinking about Naruto.
"We are just waiting on Guy." Asuma said, and not a second later, team Guy entered. As they sat down, Lee noticed someone was missing.
"Where is Naruto!" He asked. Kakashi looked down and cleared his throat.
"He was attacked by some villager yesterday outside his apartment." Kakashi said sadly. "The extent of his wounds was pretty severe, he had several deep stab wounds where the attacker twisted his weapon while it was inside Naruto's body." Everyone listened in shock.
"I'm not sure if Naruto's even woken up yet, but I think you all deserve to know the truth about him, considering that he is one of us... and the Hokage has allowed us to tell this secret to you..."

Kakashi divulged the rest of the information about Naruto being a jinchuriki to the Genin, and they could only imagine the horrors that Naruto had gone through.
"Naruto's been evicted from his apartment due to the extensive damage dealt to it, and he's been blamed for it." Kakashi said. "I don't even know where he is now." Sasuke cringed and winced when he heard that. He knew he had accidentally almost destroyed Naruto's door when he went to get him.

From a table close by, Naruto listened to the conversation with mixed feelings. He'd started to feel like he could accept them and become friends with them now, that was, until Sakura had screeched out that no one would ever be friends with a demon container. He flinched pretty hard when he heard that.
"Let's go, Ashina." He said to the man next to him. Ashina nodded and stood up, helping Naruto to stand and they both headed to the front to pay for their meal. Ashina was a tall man, wearing a long sleeved red shirt, a grey vest with the Uzumaki symbol on it and had two swords strapped to his back. He was especially proficient in taijutsu and kenjutsu, his weakness being ninjutsu but he was at least decent with genjutsu.

-----

The days turned into weeks, which turned into months of which they had not seen or heard any news about Naruto. Still they continued training, with Lee encouraging anyone he could talk to that his eternal rival would never give up. Naruto on the other hand, had been learning under his Aunt. Lady Mito had taken it upon herself to teach both her daughter, Karin and her nephew, and heir, Prince Naruto, the clan's taijutsu style, and kenjutsu style, with Ashina and Uru demonstrating moves alongside her. Karin had improved her skills, but Naruto's determination and stamina had been a big contributor to his own success, his own skills improving exponentially every day. Thus she decided to start teaching him seals. Lady Mito knew that she was indisputably the Seal Mistress in Konoha. She had taught Kushina everything she knew, who in turn, managed to teach a lot of it to Minato. Lady Mito also knew of Jiraiya's skill, but alas, she had been the one to teach Jiraiya about seals in the first place.
"Seals are perhaps the most unpredictable and most powerful tool for combat." Lady Mito said as Karin and Naruto sat on the grass in their compound. The Uzumaki compound wasn't like other compounds. It was essentially a large mansion, with gardens surrounding the entire area complete with a small pond, river and bridge (because Lady Mito wanted it). There was a small dojo where they practised their moves, but sparring was done on one of the many training grounds.
"You see, to an Uzumaki, seals come naturally. It's so much easier for us to use, create, and decipher seals because it's in our blood. We are the only clan able to understand the complex workings of seals. It's almost like a kekkei genkai, except it's not. The first thing about seals is the way you draw and write each character. It requires almost perfect calligraphy, and the more advanced seals may require significantly more chakra and may be accompanied by weaving hand seals." Lady Mito said, as she demonstrated on a piece of seal paper. Quickly, she grabbed a brush and dipped it into a pot of black ink.
"This ink is special. It's laced with Uzumaki chakra which allows us to make and then use our seals. Of course, because our chakra is more potent for seals, it's of the highest quality of chakra ink one can obtain for seal making." Lady Mito began to draw characters on the seal paper. When she was finished, Naruto and Karin took notice that the ink dried almost instantly on contact with the paper. Lady Mito then made a half tiger hand seal and the seal itself glowed, before the kunai she was holding disappeared and kanji appeared in the middle of the seal.
"This is a simple storage seal." Lady Mito said. There was a sudden commotion and Ashina dropped down behind Lady Mito.
"Lady Mito, there is a letter from the Hokage." He said as he handed her the letter. She opened it and perused it for a few minutes.
"It's the Chunin exams." Lady Mito said. "Because you've been a Leaf Shinobi for basically your entire shinobi career, the Hokage advises you to take the Chunin exams." Lady Mito told Naruto. Naruto nodded.
"He says that all participants are to meet on the Training ground 15 in 15 minutes, where all the participants will be receiving entry forms and documentations from their Jonin sensei. You are to head to Kakashi." Lady Mito said with a small smile at Naruto.