So many things to be said… but I don't think you'll want to read my ramblings right now, so please check the author's note at the end of the chapter.

After the Rookie Nine, minus Sasuke, who was still out cold due to Naruto's earlier strike, reached the tower they were informed that there were still two days left for teams at the forest of death to try to get the scrolls, so they were granted two days to rest. Naruto quickly excused himself, much to Ino and Sakura's dismay and asked Hayate, who was going to be thee proctor for the next stage, to call the Sandaime and Kakashi Hatake, as he needed to discuss important matters.

About half an hour later, he was escorted to a small, plain room where Kakashi and the Hokage waited for him. Naruto bowed to them both, and sensing the inquiring glances from the higher level shinobi he quickly explained.

"Orochimaru attacked Sasuke." He said, causing the Sandaime to frown and Kakashi's single eye to widen.

"Sasuke is just passed out, but he was branded with a seal…"

"The cursed seal." Hiruzen said firmly

"So you know…" Naruto said getting a nod from Hiruzen.

The blond then took a scroll from his holster and handled it to Hiruzen.

"This scroll contains the intel I have on the cursed seal."

The Hokage wordlessly took the scroll and gave it a quick look over.

"How you got this kind of information?"

"This brings the conversation to another important point. I have a subordinate from Orochimaru wishing to defect to Konoha."

The Sandaime's eyes widened, he then tossed the scroll Naruto gave him to Kakashi.

"Kakashi, I need you to try to contain the seal, speak with Anko for further information and use the scroll Naruto gave us too."

The jonin nodded, vanishing in a Shunshin.

"So, care to explain how you managed to convince a subordinate of Orochimaru to defect?"

Naruto spent the next hour explaining the fight with Kin and her team at the Forest of Death and how she agreed to provide information on Orochimaru should Konoha accepted her into the village.

"I can't guarantee anything before our interrogators speak with her and Inoichi scans her mind, but I will send a team to approach her after the third stage. If she indeed provides us with valuable information I can't see any reason to deny her request."

"Okay I also need to speak with you about a personal request."

"I've found another survivor of the Uzumaki Clan." Naruto said, surprising the Hokage.

"Her name is Karin Uzumaki and I would like to ask you to negotiate her integration to Konoha as she's currently a Kusa kunoichi."

The Sandaime frowned, this wasn't going to be a pleasant negotiation.

"Naruto, I can't just go around negotiating the integration of a kunoichi without any apparent reason, I know you're ecstatic that you've found family but…"

Much to Hiruzen's surprise, he was cut off by Naruto, who raised his voice tone.

"I know, but she's not there by choice."

"Still she's a Kusa kunoichi, we can't just go recruiting our allies personnel like that."

"But she's not there because she wanted damnit." Naruto said, raising his voice tone

"Karin and her mother only were able to get shelter in Kusa id Karin' mother worked at slave like conditions at the hospital, she died from overworking herself, if I don't do something Karin will die too."

"Naruto, I'm sorry but there's nothing Konoha can do…" Much to the aged Hokage's surprise he was once again cut off by Naruto.

"I'm not asking for Konoha's help. I'm asking for your help as Hokage."

Seeing the Hokage quizzical look he shrugged.

"I'm not an expert but I guess I know the basics of diplomatic protocol. I know Konoha can't just grab a kunoichi from Kusa and make theirs. But I'm asking for you to be oblivious of Karin's presence here. I plan on asking Asuma to host her in his apartment, and I'll instruct her to not use the Uzumaki surname."

"You plan sending a woman to live at Asuma's?"

"Yes, there's any problem?"

"A big one: Kurenai."

Naruto's eyes widened as he considered the outcomes of having Karin at the bearded jonin apartment, facing a jealous Kurenai.

"Not my best idea, I admit it."

The Sandaime sighed.

"Send her to my compound, I'll assign one of my personal ANBU to guard her."

Naruto then bowed.

"Thanks Hokage-sama. I also would like to ask for you to not inform anyone of her. When I tell anyone I mean the elder council and the civilian council… no scratch that, don't tell to anyone of the shinobi council too, they don't hate me but I fear they may start pestering into a arranged marriage… and I don't want to kill a clan head." Naruto said firmly, making sure to let the Hokage know that he was being serious in his last statement.

"Will do, send her to my place. However I'm sure we will have to meet again after the end of the exams to plan the next step to keep her in Konoha."

Naruto bowed again.

"Thanks, Hokage-sama."

As Naruto left, the Hokage turned into an apparently empty corner.

"What do you think of him, Jiraiya-kun?"

The once empty corner suddenly took the form of tall male, whose features where still shadowed.

"He's a perfect mix of Minato-kun and Kushina-chan…it's amazing." He said revealing a smile.

The atmosphere at the tower in the following days was rather hostile. The genins from the Rookie Nine, who previously traveled as a caravan of sorts, entered the tower to find another three teams waiting them:

The Sand Siblings: Kankurō, Temari and Gaara.

Team Guy: Neji Hyūga, Tenten Higarashi and Rock Lee.

The final team, composed by Konoha shinobi, was rather mysterious, nobody recalled seeing them during the first and second stages, a remarkable feat, considering the Rookie Nine had two elite genins in Naruto and Sasuke, a genius Shikamaru Nara and the Byakugan heiress Hinata Hyūga. Being able to progress through the exams without raising anyone's suspicions was really a statement to their stealth and organization.

The team members were all dressed in a similar black and grey jacket, with red stripes and black ANBU pants. All the components were male.

The first member seemed to be around the age of 16, he has long, shoulder length orange hair, styled in a ponytail and amber colored eyes.

The second one had extremely pale skin, and straight black hair and eyes. He seemed to be the youngest of the team as he was the shortest.

Finally the third member of the team was by far the weirdest, having a black mask covering almost his entire face, with exception of his mouth and nose.

They all seemed to be focusing on Naruto and Sasuke, who had a suppression seal placed on his neck, above the cursed seal; with exception of the third one, who looked at Shino intently.

Naruto silently noted all the strange behaviors, and decided to try his theory. He once again excused himself from the group he was talking to, namely the Rookie Nine, and once again received some protesting comments from Ino and Sakura, that hoped to spend some time with their newfound love/crush.

Five minutes later Naruto was sitting at the room assigned to him in the tower ready to execute his plan when he heard a knock on the door. When he opened the door he expected to see Ino, Shino, Hinata or Sakura, but to his surprise he saw the figure of Sasuke Uchiha.

"Uchiha-san? How may I help you?" Naruto asked with a tone of surprise

"May I enter?" the last Uchiha replied Naruto's questions with one of his own

Naruto shrugged for a moment, but complied. "Sure."

Sasuke quickly got in and locked the door.

Seeing the strange behavior pattern of the genin, Naruto frowned.

"I came here to apologize." Sasuke said, surprising Naruto.

"A Uchiha apologizing? The end is near." Naruto mentally joked, before once again adopting a more serious stance

"It's about the seal right?" as the prodigy of Team 7 nodded, Naruto gave him a smile. "It's okay, I know about the behavior change, it wasn't like you were self-conscious when you attacked me."

"Besides you were far from landing a hit on me." The blond mentally added.

An uncomfortable silence took place afterwards.

"I should get going." Sasuke said.

As the black haired Uchiha grabbed the door handle, Naruto sighed.

"Sasuke, I'm not your friend, but I'll give an advice from a Konoha Shinobi to another… Don't use the curse seal, the prospect of instant power is extremely appealing, but it's not truthful… If you rely on the seal power you would only be cheating yourself."

The Uchiha then released the handle, turned to Naruto, giving him an almost unnoticeable nod, before finally leaving the room.

"I can't imagine how it feels to have your entire clan wiped out, by your brother nonetheless… Sasuke has been through a lot, I wish I could help him, but this is something he has to do alone…" the genin mused

Team Sai gathered at their shared room, unknown to them, they were being observed by a rat.

"Things have gone well so far. We managed to advance through the first and second stages easily, but our real mission starts now." The paler teen said in a monotone, emotionless tone.

"Both the Uzumaki and the Uchiha kids show a lot of confidence, it's a shame we didn't ran into them at the Forest of Death." The amber eyed added, in an equally emotionless tone.

"We need to eliminate Uzumaki and gather intel onto the Uchiha, so what do we do about the others?" the masked one asked, once again without any hint of emotion in his voice

"There will be a preliminary round, we need our entire team going through, to increase our chances of defeating Uzumaki, so if we face one of the clan heirs we'll defeat them without use of lethal force, Danzō-sama doesn't want any backlash by any of the clan heads , if we face a non-heir or a foreign shinobi, lethal force is permitted." The amber eyed, presumably the leader answered.

"If we face the Uchiha?" the pale asked

"Danzō-sama ordered us to gather info on him, but not eliminating him, our village needs a Uchiha, so if we face him we get a full scout of his abilities, but in the end we'll allow him to go through. " the leader responded, before turning to the masked man.

"Torune, don't let your brother get on your way, we are ROOT, emotions bring us close to fail, and failing is not an option."

Unknown to the group the rat suddenly disappeared in a boom of smoke that went unnoticed.

As the memories of the Kage Bunshin transformed into a rat came back to Naruto, his first reaction was to groan in pain by the amount of information passed by.

As he sat down on his bed, he took a minute to process the info he got.

"Damn war hawk, I should've imagined that he wouldn't give up on recruiting me into ROOT just because I became a genin, the further I rise in the ranks the harder it'll be for him to get leverage to coerce me into joining his mindless army, hence why he's striking so soon. Anyway, I think I can beat any of those three in a fair fight, the thing is that they don't fight fair… so I must keep my head up, and intervene should they try anything funny with one of the non-heirs in the exam."

Suddenly the last part of the dialogue came back to Naruto's mind.

"Torune, don't let your brother get on your way, we are ROOT, emotions bring us close to fail, and failing is not an option."

Naruto then gasped as he came to a conclusion.

"Mask, covering his eyes, spiky black hair… he's Shino's brother."

Shino stood still, making small talk with some of the members of the Rookie Nine, he didn't wanted to be there, after Naruto left, shortly after followed by Sasuke, and then the ROOT Team, the conversations became very irritating.

Ino and Sakura would constantly argue about their love life, although when Hinata asked whom they were talking about the girls would blush and look in another direction, without saying anything.

Team Nine had Lee's youthful antics and the arrogant smirk in the face of one Neji Hyūga. Tenten would be scolding Lee because of his behavior or sometimes trying to get Neji to open up more, she was failing in both attempts.

Shikamaru was lying on the ground, with Chōji by his side, eagerly eating a king sized sack of potato chips, making some annoying noises.

Hinata, sometimes would talk with Sakura or Ino, but also stood quietly.

Kiba would loudly boast by his abilities to anyone interested in hearing about, unfortunately for him nobody paid mind.

Finally the Suna team also stood quietly, but with an intimidating posture, that would send shivers down the spine of Team 8.

He could go back to his team shared room, but he didn't want to intrude at anything Naruto was doing. Working six months with the Uzumaki was a good experience for Shino. Naruto was far superior than him and Hinata, but didn't acted smugly as Sasuke and Neji, two of the other elite genins in the exams acted. Instead he would sometimes make time to help them both with their individual assignments. Shino knew that despite his individualistic/soloist nature, Naruto cared a lot about his team, sometimes opting to face a bigger danger alone than risking his teammates lives. As a shinobi, Shino would already rank him as top five of the Shinobi he saw in action, trailing after Asuma Sarutobi, his father: Shibi Aburame, his fellow clansman: Shikuro Aburame and his brother: Torune Aburame. The blond work ethic was legendary, first one in, last one out, he would always be on peak form, and as a twelve years old genin, he would show skills that would cause some of the jonin to turn green with envy.

Shino was a very observant person, and this didn't apply only to Kiba's sister ample rear. So he knew that when Naruto went "resting" he had another reasoning, maybe he didn't wanted to be dragged at Ino and Sakura's catfight, although it was unlikely; considering the nature of the books the blond would read during his free time, Naruto would actually jump at the prospect of seeing two hot girls fight with a considerable chance of having their clothes torn. So it was something else.

"I wonder if I should ask him about this later…" he mused, only to be interrupted by shifting sensation of weight at one of his jacket's pockets.

He sneakily reached for the pocket, finding a folded piece of paper.

"Come to the Team room, NOW."

The Aburame quickly excused himself from the rest of the group, heading towards the before mentioned room.

As Shino entered the room, he saw Naruto sitting in a meditating position. After some seconds, Naruto opened his eyes.

"Sorry, wanted to make sure there were no eavesdroppers." The blond explained

Naruto then let his mask of cheerfulness and carefreeness drop, adopting a piercing serious gaze.

"Shino, do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Utterly?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We're shinobi, even when we trust people we must do so distrusting."

The blond then grinned

"Sage answer." He then got up, locking eyes with Shino, a difficult task considering the Aburame heir ever present sunglasses.

"I've noticed some strange behavior, sometimes when you're walking through a forest you must always look onto the ground you know? Sometimes you can end up tripping into a root." Naruto said, emphasizing the last word.

It took Shino some good five seconds to get the message.

"So you know…"

"Yes, and I know about your brother too."

"I see…"

"Shino, you're one of my most trusted comrades, hence why I'm proposing this to you: thirty minutes, you'll answer all the questions I have in those thirty minutes whilst I answer all questions you might have. I'm not threatening nor forcing you to accept my terms, so feel free to refuse…"

"I agree." Shino said, cutting him Naruto off.

"What do you know about ROOT?" the blond asked

"They're a special division of Konoha's ANBU, operating under Danzō Shimura, the conduct black ops missions for the village."

"And you believe that?"

"They in fact perform black ops missions, but they don't serve the village, they serve Danzō Shimura." Shino replied causing Naruto to smirk

"My turn." The Aburame said. "How do you know about ROOT and my brother?"

"I noticed their strange actions and their actions towards me and Sasuke, I also suspected because they weren't visible during the first two stages of the exams, meaning they managed to do well in hiding their presence. About your brother… one of the members mentioned a brother to him, since you have the most resemblance physically, I assumed you were the brother they were talking about. My turn once again: how did your brother ended up into the Root, as far as I know Clan Heads have the right to veto the entering of their close relatives into the Root, and I don't think your father seems like the kind of parent to allow a son of him to join the Root."

"He's not my biological brother , he has been adopted since his father passed away, so he didn't had the protection I had. Besides that Danzō foul played him into joining, threatening me and our clan should him refuse." Shino said, with a mixture of sadness and anger at his voice. "Now, why the sudden interest into the ROOT?"

"Those ROOT guys have been trying to make me join their ranks since I was five, luckily I always refused because I didn't trust them. They would also follow me sometimes when I went to training. Lately they seemed awfully quiet, after spying their conversation I learnt that they plan on defeating me, to prevent me from rising to chunin, what would make me even outer than their reach. So, Shino tell me about your brother background and abilities."

"Torune uses the Rinkaichū, an extremely rare variant of the Kikaichū. They're different because whilst Kikaichū drain chakra, Rinkaichū acts as a poisonous virus, attacking the target cells, it's one of the most feared techniques amongst the Aburame clan."

"There's an antidote for the poison?"

"Yes, but only Torune has it."

"In a scale of 1 to 10, how lethal are those Rinkaichū?"

"9."

"Any way to counter them?"

"Don't get caught, their dispersion rate is inferior to the Kikaichū, so it takes physical contact with them to infect you, so you'll need to fight using long range techniques and hope for the best."

Naruto inwardly groaned, he knew that his tolerance to poisonous substances was extremely high as he was submitted to contact with the Kyubi's chakra since he was born, although he knew that if he was caught by those insects he would be in trouble. Another thing that annoyed him was the lack of possibility to employ taijutsu and mid-range, his two favored weapons. Naruto's reflections were them interrupted by Shino's voice.

"My final question: why the ROOT is so keen on getting you as a recruit?"

The blond sighed, already accepting the decision he made early, but still hoping for the best.

"What I'm about to tell you is a S-Ranked secret… we both could be sentenced to death if word of this gets out of this room. Shino, have you ever noticed that I'm not the most liked person in the village."

"Yes, I sometimes see some civilians glaring at you, also some shinobi too."

"There's no way around it, so I'll be blunt: have you ever heard about a jinchūriki?"

"I remember hearing something about this at the academy, I think it has something to do with the tailed beasts, right?"

"Yes, jinchūriki are the human hosts of the tailed beasts."

"You're a jinchūriki." Shino concluded, getting a nod from Naruto

"Jinchūriki have always been poorly regarded as people would often confuse them with the tailed beast themselves. My case is even worse."

"Why?"

Naruto then sighed, making the nine symbol with his hands.

Shino gasped.

"You're the jinchūriki of the Kyubi."

And … it's done. I apologize for the cliffhanger though. Now to explain my long absence from this fic:

Life has been kind of a bitch lately, I've been constantly getting busy with college and some other stuff, hence why I'm having trouble in finding time to write fanfiction, for that I humbly apologize, I know that some people were expecting this update a lot earlier. I believe I stayed a little more than a month without updating this story, but I guarantee you that I'm not dropping this work anytime soon. However I expect some serious shit to happen within the upcoming months, so I can't give you any sort of date for the next release. Thankfully I've figured out most of the story flow by now, so I don't think I'll be facing writer's block anytime soon. Now for a long Q&A.

Q: Why don't give Naruto some mythical being, like youkai or griffon or water dragon as a summon?

A: To be honest I don't know how I would write scenes with those beings, I opted having the Hydra as a secondary summon because it would be something unique (although I must admit that I never read any fanfiction in which Naruto uses a Griffon) and would fit well at the interlude setting.

Q: Will you make chunin promotion reasonable in this story?

A: Yes, I guarantee you that he won't be a genin when the Invasion arc is over.

Q: Will this contain lemons down the line?

A: I plan to, but I don't know about the site policies about lemons, I mean, I've read some pretty hardcore stuff there but I don't know if it only stayed on the site because nobody reported or something. Now, if I am allowed to post lemons I'll surely try to do so, although I can't guarantee you that they will be present as I will only update them if I think it's good enough. Maybe I'll experiment writing some limes before I make my decision to include, or not include lemons in this story.

Q: Kin will be used to revive the Shodaime and the Nidaime Hokage, if not; Orochimaru will only call one of them?

A: Kin won't be used as sacrifice to the Edo Tensei, but Orochimaru will still revive the Senju brothers as he did in canon, only using different sacrifices.

Q: Kin mentioned being friends with a cursed seal user, it's Tayuya? If so she'll try to convince her to defect to the Leaf too?

A: The girl Kin mentioned is in fact Tayuya, and I'm not sure if I'll have her defecting or no, although I'm leaning towards the former instead of the latter.

Q: Would Kushina approve of Karin?

A: Certainly she would be ecstatic in having an Uzumaki as a daughter in law, although I don't think she'll be overjoyed in learning that Naruto will have more than one wife, I always imagined Kushina being a member of the anti-pervert club.

Q: Why don't give Naruto the salamander contract as Jiraiya got the toad contract in canon (by reverse summoning himself at the Mt. Myōboku) ?

A: It's a valid possibility, but I don't plan on doing so. Naruto will already have two summons, and using poison doesn't really fits his fighting style,, this fiction Naruto isn't settling for a regular hit when fighting, he often would deal restraining blows or use his chakra knives to slice some limb off, so there's no need for poison. I'm personally satisfied with Naruto's fighting style so far, so I don't want to possibly spoil it by adding another weapon in his repertoire.

Q: Is Naruto really going to be in ANBU?

A: He plans to, but things will change as the story progresses, but I can guarantee you that he'll take part in some black ops missions as a ANBU.

Q: How much chapters do you plan?

A: I don't know yet, I can see the story up to the end of the first part ranging from 120K to 150K words, but I can't be sure about the number of chapters as I sometimes would tend to releasing shorter chapters (like this one) so people would have something to read in the meantime.

Q: Are you going to have someone from Shino's clan in the Harem?

A: I don't think I will. I admit that having something like Shino's cousin or sister would be nice, but there's no know female members of the clan, and I don't like using OCs, much less giving them a major role in the story.

Q: "Wirst du noch die Mission mit Koyuki Kazahana bringen?"

A: A review from Germany! It makes me extremely happy to know my story is getting some recognition worldwide, I'd love to properly answer your question in German, but since my German is as broken as Brazil's defense during that fatidic day (soccer fans will be knowing) I took the liberty of using google translate : "Will you still bring the mission with Koyuki Kazahana?" It's unlikely, as the interlude, which would be the best stage to introduce her is already stuffed with content. But I may introduce her later.

Q: You told that you didn't want Kin in the harem so I'm assuming this was just a one-sided thing on Kin's side?

A: So far it's one sided. But I like to keep all the options, so there's still chance to add her. Even if I don't add her to the harem, she'll play a much bigger role in this story

Q: I thought you had another Naruto fanfic you said so in the earlier chapters, I was planning to read it but I didn't find one on your profile. What happened to it?

A: Due to my lack of time updating this fanfiction, and some conflicting ideas I've decided to stop working on this story, it's not definite but I don't plan on keeping a story that won't be updated in this site. There are two reasons why I stopped working on it: number one is that I felt like I would be making the two Narutos very similar so I feared ostracizing the growth of one story to benefit another; second reason is that I won't have time to work on another fic, so far I have some important projects in my personal life, and in this site as well, I'm currently working on three stories, this very fic, a Pokémon fanfic (by the way: if you're a Pokémon fan be sure to check Zero to Hero, my Pokémon fanfiction, Chapter 1 is up and I plan on updating Chapter 2 in this weekend, link is in my profile) and third story, outside of those two fandoms that I pan on revealing soon. Rest assured, don't worry the story only had a concept and a prologue, so you won't be missing much.

As an apology for the delayed releases I'll post the fights of the preliminaries, I no particular order:

Neji x Hinata

Sasuke x Yoroi

Kankurō x Misumi

Temari x Tenten

Gaara x Kiba

Sakura x Zaku

Shikamaru x Chōji

Lee x Dosu

Ino x Fū

Shino x Torune (by the way I'm pretty sure I'll have trouble writing this fight so any tips hints or ideas are very welcome)

Naruto x Sai

That's all for today, make sure to leave a review and if you're a Pokémon fan make sure to check Zero to Hero, link is in my profile. Next chapter will have the preliminaries, I'm not sure if I'll release it in a big chapter or a split one, also Naruto's parentage will be revealed shortly after.