Chapter 2: Words Can Get Muddled

It took everyone a few seconds to recover from Naruto's proclamation and flat statement. A smiling Konoka was the one to breach the silence with her cry, "Se-chan, we need your help with the rest of the class that we left at the inn." A slightly panicked look reached her eyes, as the group quite clearly set a mood for Naruto to tell that it included no outsiders. He waved them off as left, as yet another group underestimated his hearing capability. "Our paper clones at the inn have gone wild! We need your help Se-chan," was the girl's plea.

Naruto stiffened in response. 'Paper clones? Konan? No, she isn't likely to be alive anymore.' His paranoia dying, he left to head back to the room, as he was feeling oddly tired. He just associated it with being in a suspended state, and just thought happily that sleep may cure what ailed him. And hopefully refilled his supply.

Back in the clearing, Evangeline's robot companion Chachamaru spoke up, "Master, I have detected a slight energy spike that may be associated with the unknown energy blast from the last night. If I may conjecture, I believe that it has a ninety-percent chance of correlating to that man that we found." Eva's eyebrow cocked up slightly.

"I see. I think we can say that that man is probably the most interesting event of the trip. Someone who could take out that Demon God, however weak it was so easily. Sadly he is an idiot," Evangeline sighed, "Though I guess that shouldn't be to surprising anymore. Nagi was the same way, along with most of his group."

"Here is some tea, Master," Chachamaru stated as she held out a hand with a cup in it.

Evangeline sipped the tea before sighing again, this time in content, "As good as always, Chachamaru. Well, we better get going, we'll be going to the idiot's house here in Kyoto, and we better not leave the brat's side for to long."

"Hitomi-chan, can you get Eishun-sama to come here? Pretty please," Reiko pleaded, her eyes watering and attempting her puppy-dog look. In the background was a hive of librarians running around. Hitomi had an exasperated look that was placed by an amused one.

"What did you need me for, Reiko," Eishun said from behind her, startling her enough to jump up. Hitomi couldn't hold in a laugh as Reiko's face looked like someone strangled her for a second.

"Eishun-sama," Reiko whined, before brightening up considerably, "I found some information about what he might be. A Ninja!" She had a shining look on her face.

"Reiko. . ." Hitomi muttered, shaking her head at the display.

"More information, please, Reiko," Eishun spoke, causing a pout to hit Reiko's face.

"But, I don't know much else. We barely have any information on his time period at all. We managed to find some information from an old book in ancient Japanese that spoke about the legends of Hi no Kuni, and the founding of the Konohagakure, greatest of the Ninja Villages. The Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama, apparently married someone named Uzumaki Mito. And what is our new resident's surname? Uzumaki," Reiko finished excitedly.

"I see, Reiko, continue the search. Hitomi, if Naruto-san is ready for more questions, please ask him about anything he knows. I'll need to ask for Mahora's help with this," Eishun spoke, "Now, I just need to find where the key to Nagi's house last was." Eishun walked off once more.

"Eishun-sama seems to be getting into an odd habit," Reiko whimsically stated, "Well, anyway, Hitomi-chan, come back after talking to Naruto."

"I think it is because his precious Konoka-hime is around," Hitomi replied, "And I will. See you in a while Reiko."

"So he's awake? Good," Hitomi thanked a passing member of the Association. She walked down the long hall to Naruto's door.

"Hey, Hitomi," came a blond's voice at the sound and sight of the door opening. Hitomi looked at Naruto a little wide-eyed.

"How did you know it was me? You didn't see me, did you," Hitomi asked. Naruto's face was graced by confusion.

"No, I heard you outside," Naruto replied with a shrug. "Damn, how could Shikamaru sleep all day, I want to sleep but I can't!" Naruto huffed up before sighing. Hitomi just sat there with a bit of a glazed expression on her face, or she would have found that funny.

'It took me a half-minute to walk this far from there. I don't know anyone who could have picked that up easily if they were just a normal human being. Maybe Reiko was right?' Hitomi's thought process led. "Naruto-san, we hoped you would be feeling well enough to tell us about yourself. Reiko managed to find out something about Konohagakure, and that it was in the far distant past. In fact, she found an old legend that told of the founding of the ninja village of Konohagakure, and how the first Hokage's wife was one Uzumaki Mito," Hitomi asked, and then noticed Naruto's frozen face. "What's wrong, Naruto-san?"

"I had family that far back? I thought I was the only Uzumaki, a name they gave to an orphan," Naruto stated glumly, before bursting back up with a giant grin, "Take that! Hahaha, I told them I could have been Hokage, my family even had ties to them, I told you all! That is what you get for not believing in Uzumaki Naruto-ttebayo!" Naruto then grimaced and quieted, "But I guess I can't be Hokage anymore, without a Konoha to lead."

"Sorry to inform you of that this way Naruto. But is it safe to say you are an ancient Ninja then," Hitomi questioned glumly.

"You better believe it. I was one of the best-ttebayo! I was going to beat Baa-chan and get the hat and the respect of my village after beating Akatsuki," Naruto yelled. His face nodding happily.

"Baa-chan, Naruto-san?"

"Oh, yeah, the Fifth Hokage, Senju Tsunade. I was going to beat her since I couldn't beat the Third before he died, no thanks to Orochimaru, the Snake Bastard. Not only did he take Sasuke, he killed Jiji," Naruto frowned.

"Can you show me any of your techniques, Naruto-san," Hitomi tried to sidetrack the conversation a bit, keeping any information gleamed to report to Eishun and Reiko.

"Sure, sure, I'm not feeling one-hundred percent right now, but one won't hurt," Naruto smiled, happy to have someone want to see his awesome jutsu and put his hands in an odd hand-seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" A single Naruto was formed. "A single solid clone body for you."

"How are you doing, Boss," Naruto's clone body asked.

"Great, she wanted to see our awesome techniques!"

"Right! So how are you doing?"

"Wha-," Hitomi blinked, "Why are you talking to your clone?

"Ehh? My clone can do things autonomously. He's separate from me, right," Naruto asked his clone.

"Right Boss. So... are you single, Hitomi-chan," Naruto's clone turned to Hitomi before getting a fist to the head. Hitomi blushed heavily.

"Sorry about that idiot Hitomi-chan. See what I mean about us being different," Naruto waved in front of her, before testing her forehead, "You feel hot Hitomi-chan. Do you need to lay down?"

"No, no its fine. So do your clones normally do that," Hitomi asked.

"Act on their own? Just outside of combat or training usually," Naruto replied. 'I meant flirt with girls.'

"So anything else you can tell me about your village? Why was it called the 'Village Hidden in the Leaves'?"

"Huh, yeah. Well our village was surrounded by trees. The First Hokage had an ability called Mokuton, so we were told he grew them! Sadly no one else had that ability. That would have been awesome! But didn't you have a book that told you that," Naruto asked.

"Well, yes, but we were confirming that the information was accurate, it wouldn't have been surprising if they exaggerated some aspects. We don't have any information on Konoha beyond that, like what clan's made up the village, the over all structure, that sort of thing. If you could give us any information on things like that, and information on your ninjutsu, that would be great." Hitomi's smile had disarmed Naruto of any opinion to the contrary on giving her that sort of information. And besides, it wasn't like she was an enemy out to destroy Konoha, considering how impossible that was.

"Well, Konoha had this giant wall surrounding it. To help prevent any enemy ninja from entering to easily. The walls where sealed or something to prevent anyone from climbing it with chakra on the outside. And we had these giant wooden gates, and just entering the village you could see the Hokage monument. It had all the Hokages on it. I painted it once in broad daylight, it was so awesome! I can't believe no one caught me until I was almost done. Sheesh, you would think that would have been obvious. And I was thirteen and hadn't been taught how to climb with chakra yet. Hauling the ropes were a pain! And the paint!" Naruto caught the look of bemusement on Hitomi's face, and took a breath. "Anyway, just in front of that was the Hokage's tower, where the headquarters for mission requests were. We also had our messenger birds nest located a short distance away. That was near the Ninja Academy. I think close-by was the Clan districts, but I never went that way when I was younger to them. I think the Hyuuga district was closest, and they were a group of people with a kekkai genkai called the Byakugan? Yeah the Byakugan. I remember because Hinata and Neji had it, and they had this Main and Branch Family thing. Which was stupid."

"Well, that and Hinata was a weird, dark, and shy girl, but she was awesome anyway and I kinda like people like that. Anyway, the Byakugan had this awesome ability to see everything around them, and I think they could see through some things. I dunno, never paid that much attention to it. They could use this taijutsu called the Juken to stop people from using chakra by using chakra to block Tenketsu. It hurts like hell though." Naruto noticed the glare Hitomi sent at him for using 'profane language in front of a lady', which was weird because he wondered how people were capable of sending glares with such complicated messages. "But, yeah, next to them was the Uchiha clan district, I think. Well, there was a district in the middle, but I didn't know who it belonged to. Maybe the Senju? They were pretty important, held the police force and all that, until Itachi massacred his own clan except for Sasuke-teme. They had a special kekkei genkai called the Sharingan, which the bastards could use to copy jutsu. And see better, and react faster, and cast genjutsu from it. And had an upgrade that allowed Itachi to use something he called Amaterasu, which spread black fire everywhere he looked at that burned for a long time."

"Oh, and the Kurama clan had this kekkai genkai that allowed them to make genjutsu real, which was awesome. Except they could develop this Id monster thing that caused them to go berserk and almost wiped out their clan. Yakumo was pretty nice besides the whole monster living in her head. It wasn't her fault anyway. Then there was the Sarutobi's whose clan I think revolved around Monkey summons, but I was never to sure."

"There were the Inuzuka's, who were really cool and had these markings on there cheeks like tattoos, and were a clan that bonded with nin-dogs. Kiba was a pretty nice guy to prank with, and his partner Akamaru was awesome too. But he always got into fights with . . . Shino . . . about whether dogs or insects made a better partner, but I don't think Shino really got into those fights. He always wore shades and was so hard to figure out what was going on in his head. He was a member of the Aburame clan, who housed kikaichu in their bodies, which is kinda creepy but cool as well. I think every Aburame was as blank as Shino, so it might have been a clan thing."

"Oh, yeah, and Ino was a member of the Yamanaka's, who could do this weird clan mind jutsu were they entered your body and could command it and stuff. They also ran a flower shop. They had some nice plants I got from them. There was also Chouji from the Akamichi's, and they were big boned people who ate a lot. But he was a cool guy, and I think the clan also made the food pills and rations we used. They had jutsu which expanded their size, and all that. Then there was Shikamaru, Chouji's best friend. He was insanely intelligent. I heard he never lost in Shouji to his jounin teacher Asuma. He came from a shadow using clan called the Nara who. . ." Naruto trailed off at the look on Hitomi's face.

"The Nara," she asked blinking slowly.

"Yeah, the Nara. His family owned like a plot of land that had a bunch of deer on it. I think they used the horns to make some sort of medicine for the Akamichi clan's stuff," Naruto confirmed.

"We have a Nara forest near here famous for its deer," Hitomi said levely.

"Huh, look at that, Shikamaru managed to have his family continue long enough to live for them to be remembered. Lazy bastard. But this was near Ame. Maybe I was closer to Konoha than I thought."

"Or they moved on," Hitomi replied.

"Yeah, sure. Maybe they left for better pastures for the deer, and all that. I wish Ero-sennin gave me a map to help figure this all out," Naruto trailed off in thought.

"Ero-sennin?"

"Yeah, Ero-sennin, otherwise known as Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin. The perv always ditched my training to 'research' his next book at the hot springs. He tried to force me to use my henge to turn into a girl so he could train me. I don't know where he went to when I was captured though," Naruto sighed, "He even said that me being with him would 'protect' me from their attempts."

"Why was he called a member of the three ninja of legend?"

"Oh, yeah. Him and his teammates, which were Tsunade and Orochimaru fought against a guy called Hanzo and lost to him. He was super strong or something, and out of recognition of their abilities at such a young age, he called them that. I think," Naruto bounced, "He also called himself the Toad Sage, though I never found out why. Other than being able to summon the toads. I signed the contract too! If I felt like I was at full power, I'd summon one for you, but I don't even know if the toads still live. . ."

"Ahh, sorry about reminding you of that. I need to go and talk to Reiko who is heading the search for any," Hitomi halted in mid-sentence as Reiko ran and grabbed her.

"Hitomi-chan! We found that Konohagakure's approximate location is by Mahora. Oh, hi there Naruto! I've already told Eishun-sama! So, so, any neat tricks from Ancient Ninja Man? Anything at all? Ah, Konoe-sama is talking to Eishun-sama about things as well," Reiko spoke like a hyperactive squrriel. Her face perilously close to Hitomi's own for her taste. And not close enough for someone like Jiraiya's liking.

"Calm down Reiko, we'll talk in a bit, I need to get to Eishun-sama anyway, and this way Konoe-sama can hear the information as well," Hitomi stated evenly, grabbing a hold of both of Reiko's shoulders. "Anyway, Naruto-san, we need to go. Get some rest, your body isn't fully recovered yet."

"But I don't feel that slee*yawn*py. Ehh, maybe I do, all right, I'll take a nap," Naruto muttered.

"And that is the culmination of everything we've found so far, Eishun-sama, Konoe-sama," Hitomi ended.

"Hohoho, indeed, Hitomi-chan. You look more like your beautiful mother every time I see you. Hmm, well, I believe it would be best then to do what I thought of earlier, and send him to Mahora," Konoe Konoemon finished, his hands a blur as he continued stamping. "No offense to the East, but you did just recently suffer an attack and need to consolidate yourselves, and we do have quite a few people at Mahora to contain him if the need arises. Not that we expect that to be a problem, but. . ."

"I understand. Besides, after Reiko's little incident earlier, he'll want to go to Mahora anyway. We'll need to find if anymore of our people wish to pull off a stunt like kidnapping my daughter for power anyway," Eishun said levelly, "Isn't that right, father-in-law?"

"Hohoho, you are right, well, I'll enjoy my sleep later tonight," Konoemon replied, "I hope you are doing well, Reiko-chan. Don't punish her to harshly now, I'd hate to see her cry. Have a good night." Konoemon vanished with the cutting off of the projection, still stamping.

"I'll leave it up to you Hitomi to tell Naruto-san he is going to go tonight to Mahora. It'll be up to you to get him some clothing as well while I take my daughter, Negi-kun, and friends to see Nagi's house now," Eishun spoke as he left with a smile on his face.

"Hear that Hitomi-chan, we get to go shopping," Reiko spoke in a happy voice.

"You mean I'll be going shopping for clothes for Naruto-san," Hitomi pointed out.

"But I'll be going with you anyway, besides, I grabbed someone to fill in for me on the research angle. Not that they need it, those bookworms love searching for things."

"All right Reiko, I get it."

"Good. Now lets go grab him and get the show on the road!"

"Show on the road, Reiko? I think he looks like he was in more than one," Hitomi said, shaking her head at Naruto's zoned out face. Naruto was carrying multiple bags, and had by this time finally gotten rid of the borrowed cloth he was last in. Naruto simply wore a pair of blue jeans, a decent black athletic shoe, and a black shirt with orange tiger stripes he somehow found. And gotten for free. The store attendant simply had no clue they even had that in stock. The tiny shudder she had when he brought it up made it plain she didn't want to discuss it.

"And he'd look like a Kubiki actor if we went your way, and a Clown if we went his. Who wants to wear orange everywhere? I was lucky to make sure he'd wear the jump suit we found not in public every time. You remember he tried to buy the entire stock! We got him to go with five of those outfits, FIVE! You know how odd that is, Hitomi-chan," Reiko sighed in mock exasperation.

"Yes, I do, but he looked more comfortable in those clown clothes then he does in his jeans. You wore him down, Reiko, he is still grumbling about how he dislikes the range of movement it affords him." Hitomi could only hope Reiko got the idea, "And the jump suit didn't look that bad. It would be odd of him to wear it everywhere, but no more so than someone who always wears a suit, or someone who wears a gi with ripped off sleeves."

"Fine, I get your point, but he still needed more casual and formal wear. I still don't know how he found every orange piece of clothing. A rusty orange kimono and a black suit with an orange undershirt. I went to the one section of a store that I was certain had nothing orange possibly in there, and he comes out to me with an orange tissue box. The box wasn't orange, no, the tissues were!"

"Well, that, and we need to send off almost all his clothes to get that spiral design of his sewn on. And it can only be in white or red. Orange as well, but that I don't think that would work out at all. It has to be on the back of the jump suit though. And the kimono. The suit has to have it on his right breast pocket. Every upper outerwear, really," Hitomi replied in a daze at all the additions that would be made. Frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that Eishun-Sama had personally gifted them money to use, they would have been in debt. Of course, most people didn't need to buy literally every personal piece of clothing all at one time, either.

Nor was most of that clothing orange. Of course, Reiko was a person whose everyday wear was a suit and a tie, so it wasn't like she could fault him. Much. And considering Hitomi wore what equated to the most casual kimono possible? Well, there beauty wasn't the only thing turning heads. Frankly, him wearing orange was the least of it. He did look like a Yankee after all. Blonde hair isn't exactly common here. Not that Reiko thought anything was odd with her wearing a suit at all, or her own hair color.

It did make you wonder how Mahora got away with having people with hair every color of the rainbow. Which was still a subject they needed to break through to him, now that Reiko thought about it. "Naruto, you there?"

"Huh, what now," Naruto broke confused out of his daze.

"Ahh, we forgot to mention this, but we need you ready to move out today, because you are going to Mahora. They have a bigger library then we do. And a teensy bit more esoteric about your possible area," Reiko began.

"Not to mention a much bigger place full of people around your age. In fact, we have made arrangements to go with a group of students returning to Mahora Academy just three years younger than you. And they will escort you to the Headmaster's office there. He happens to be Eishun's father-in-law, so hopefully arrangements will be easy on that side as well," Hitomi finished.

"Nani? Oh, that place near where Konoha maybe stood. Awesome," Naruto smiled. His hands twitching to go to his head. "Maybe I'll find out some more stuff there." 'Including why I can't seem to contact fuzzbutt.'

"Alrighty, let's finish shopping then, and get something to eat," Reiko laughed, "Any suggestions?"

A quick glance around him showed Hitomi wasn't in the mood to respond, and decided to give his own input. In the form of shouting,"Ramen," of course.

"Ramen it is, it seems Reiko," Hitomi chuckled at the enthusiasm.

One wallet exhausting meal latter, and over thirty bowls. And two astonished women at his side.

"Ahh, the best food ever. Great Ramen. Not up to Ramen Ichiraku, but I doubt most will be," Naruto chuckled, patting his belly as he went over to pick his bags up. "So where are we going?"

"Ah, we need to get to the train station for your trip, so we can leave you with the people going to take you to Mahora," Hitomi replied after leaving her stupor.

"So, have you ever thought about going into an eating contest," came the voice of the ever reliable Reiko, before being elbowed by Hitomi. "Fine, we'll go to the train station."

"Alright, Mahora here I come!"

"Eishun-sama, Eishun-sama, urgent and important news," came a voice from one of the librarians.

"I've only just returned, what is it," Eishun smiled good naturedly.

"Sir, we've found something from the site, and we've just confirmed and compiled reports," the male voice piped up. "The site has been scanned, and we have an old stone tablet recovered, as well as confirmation that two shrines existed on the spot of where the Demon God was sealed."

"Yes, go on," Eishun stated, his face hardened and serious.

"Well, with the energy readings matching that of this Naruto, and the attack reported to have struck the Demon God, we believe this news to be dire, and have managed to barely translate the words on the tablet. It reads as follows:

This here is a sealed tomb and a shrine.

For in its embrace lays our God.

Felled by a Demon of great power.

Who remains locked inside the tomb.

Woe be those who unleash the might of him.

For even death denies him his final resting place.

Signed Konan, Angel of Ame.

We don't know what it means exactly, but this Naruto might well be the Demon spoken of."

"Let us hope not, for all our sakes," Eishun said with finality, before slumping in a chair.

AN: Sorry this took so long. Three problems occurred. One, my muse is a fickle mistress. If any of you decided to read my adult lemony story elsewhere you know of this. If you haven't, know you know. Two, this chapter had basically nothing to do with the cast I hope to actually write about, which makes my muse go sleepy time. Three? Things have happened and I've helped my parents move, so fun times abound.

In other news about this story, I'm thinking about adding one of three Naruto females. This one will be a member of the Naruto Harem, of course. The three possible are, Samui, Anko, and Tsunade. I have reasons for why any of the three will work. Though they are in order from easiest to incorporate, to least. I'll only have one in though.

There will be one Major Naruto villain who comes up. And it won't be Tobi (though he will appear in a different role entirely). You'll likely guesss who it is though.

If this hasn't been noted before, Negi and Kotaro (who may or may not have more than one girl) will be able to have harem members. You can even give me people to add to them if you wish. And as many of you noted, I do have a harem poll up for Naruto. Some members not on the list are either because I am; a) not going to have them in with Naruto or are already planned for someone else, b) planned to be with Naruto, or c) just plain forgot to add them to the list. Which already has a huge amount on it.

And raw votes don't determine who will be with Naruto, as story factors and I have heavy leanings as well on the votes.

Also, I may be coming out with a Naruto story sometime. Don't think it'll have higher priority then this though. If I do come out with it, it would be a Naruto/FemHaku story. With maybe a third person in the mix, but it won't be someone to common (I'm thinking making it a harem with Koyuki and Samui just so I can copyright the relationship, Cold Harem, but then I have to include every 'cold' girl then. . .). It will definitely be an interesting ride in the relationship train if I do add another girl. Not that it wouldn't be without one.

Edit: Just so everyone knows, Naruto is not a Demon. Please remember the chapter title. Bijuu=/=demon.