Chapter 6

Blurry world.

"...All gone to hell."

"Not his fault. They…"

He didn't recognize the ceiling. Or the sheets.

Especially the pillow. He didn't have a pillow.

"My Lord!"

A hand grasped his.

"Tenten?" He asked.

The noisy room became quiet.

"Kid… hey." A white haired man said.

Naruto couldn't remember when he had ever seen eyes of such compassion on an adult. Even Jiji didn't look at him that way.

"I never thought you would go out to get Ramen at that time of night." The white haired man said in exasperation. "I don't know who you take after this time. Maybe your father. He's the one crazy enough to name you after a Ramen topping."

"You. You're the letter guy." " Naruto muttered, suddenly certain.

"Those are good instincts. What gave me away?" Jiraiya asked.

"No one else talks about my parents." Naruto muttered. He went on to say the words he had locked inside his heart for more than a year. "…Thank you. For everything."

"Oh. Yes, well, it's all come out now." Jiraiya said with a sigh. "There's no sense hiding it any more. We had a good run."

There was another man, who gave a long suffering sigh.

Jiji.

That is, The third Hokage. Highest ranking ninja in the village.

The big boss.

He took his hokage hat off and ran his weathered hands through the little hair left on his balding head.

"I suppose that I owe you an apology Naruto."

"For what?"

"For all of your life up til now. Any time you were lonely. Any time you were hated. You can lay them at my feet in the end." The old man said with a sigh. "But as Jiraiya said, it's all come out now."

"What happened?" Naruto asked, turning to the one person on whom he could rely to not be vague or mysterious.

"My Lord." Tenten said gently, caressing his shoulder. "First of all, thank you for saving me."

"Mn." Naruto nodded.

"The Hyuuga girl is also unharmed." Tenten continued her report.

"I see."

"The doctors said you wouldn't notice right away. Due to a 'phantom limb effect' or something. My lord, you suffered grave injuries."

"What?" Naruto asked.

."You've lost an arm." Jiraiya said.

"You can blame me for that too, I suppose." Jiji said guiltily.

Naruto looked to where loyal Tenten had his hand grasped in her white knuckled grip. "It's ok." She promised.

Naruto looked to his right, not knowing what he was expecting to see.

The empty sheet stared back at him.

"It…" He said, numbly. "It really does feel like I still have it. That's crazy…"

"My Lord has not lost an arm!" Tenten objected to the two grown men. "He still has me! I shall be his right hand and I am right here!"

Naruto felt as if the earth was going to open up and swallow him whole, and the only thing anchoring him to the earth that remained was the tight grip that Tenten had on his one remaining hand.

The thing was, he didn't know if he could continue on with his dream.

Because hand-seals took both hands.

Naruto had seen fat ninja, skinny ninja, old ninja, young ninja, one legged ninja, and even ninja that only moved via wheelchair.

But never a one armed ninja.

"I will be with you." Tenten said, feverishly. She took his hand in hers and grasped his fore and middle fingers in a familiar way. She had formed the 'Rat' hand-seal together with him. She was saying that she would always be at his side to finish the other half of every hand-seal. "You see? It's not over. You haven't lost anything."

"Tenten." Naruto's eyes watered. "Why are you so kind to me?"

"Because it's my fault." She said back, tears in her own eyes. "I should be the one to protect you, but in defense of my weakness, you, the one I've been halfheartedly, jokingly calling 'My Lord'…"

"I'm sorry to say that it gets worse." Jiraiya said, sadly. "The man you killed was the head ninja of Kumogakure. He had come here to sign a peace treaty with us. How laughable that, before the ink had dried, he turned around and sought to acquire the Byakugan before he left the village."

"Hence why Jiraiya says that it has all come out." The third Hokage finished with a sad drag of his smoke pipe. "Kumo is now demanding your head. To keep the peace."

"You can't!" Tenten said savagely. "Naruto didn't do anything wrong! That guy was a kidnapper!"

"Kumo won't admit to it." The Hokage said steadily. "And we have limited hard evidence. Meanwhile, they have a warm corpse to back up their grievance."

"You can't let them have him!" Tenten hissed.

"The problem," The Hokage said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "is that you're quite right that we can't. We absolutely can't. Because Naruto is our only Jinchūriki. Kumo must have a list of suspects as to whom is holding the Nine Tailed Demon fox. For there are a few quick and dirty ways to win a war, and one of them is to kill or steal the other side's Jinchūriki. Then, deploy one or two of your own jinchūriki, surround them with the most Elite ninja you can find, and have them one-sidedly lob multiple Bijuu Bombs onto the enemy Hidden Village from long range. It is very difficult to defend, and can easily wipe everything you see outside of that window from the face of the earth. The Fourth Hokage had perfected a way to defend against those powerful attacks, but his death is quite famous. We had built the Rashamon Gates as a backup method, but my damn traitor student has long stolen them and fled. So you can imagine that we have done our best to keep Naruto low on that list of suspects. Which is to say, there is one person we literally cannot hand over, and you're holding his hand. Now know this young Tatsumaki Tenten. I would hand over your head to Kumo right now if I thought it would actually result in peace. I would hand over any head up to and including my own, if I really thought that it would not embolden them but actually result in peace. However, when we absolutely refuse to hand over this seemingly inconsequential orphan boy…"

"As you can see." Jiraiya said with open arms. "It really has all come out."

Tenten pursed her lips.

"What's a jinchūriki?" Naruto asked.

"Oh boy." Jiraiya ran a hand through his raggy white hair. "Good news and bad news time. The bad news is, with war on the horizon, you will know very well what a jinchūriki is very soon, as you will have to be our one that will have to take on Kumo's two. The good news is, you don't need both arms to make a Bijuu Bomb."