Lay Down Your Burdens

Konoha Market District
Seven Years After the Kyuubi's Defeat (634th Year of the Sage)

Seated at a table in an open-air cafe, situated near the middle of Konohagakure's commercial areas, there sat a completely ordinary man – black hair, brown eyes, mid-thirties, and no outstanding characteristics – calmly sipping his tea and seemingly enjoying a pleasant day.

He was also waiting for something.

'He should be passing by any second now. I don't think this will reveal anything unexpected, but it would be nice to know for sure. I deserve that much.'

Just as he anticipated, the crowd began to stir over the next few seconds, smiling faces giving way to barely-restrained hostility. The cause of this hostility soon became evident: a seven-year-old, blond-haired, blue-eyed boy, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, making his way down the street.

'And here we go,' thought the perfectly ordinary man, directing a cold glare towards the boy that he didn't truly mean. 'Time to poke this with a stick and see what happens.'

"Kyuubi..." he uttered, voicing the word just loud enough for the people closest to him to hear. Sure enough, the word attracted some attention.

"Hey, buddy," the male patron at the nearest table chimed in, "don't say that too loud. You know the law."

'I do now,' mused the man, as he watched the boy turn the next corner and disappear. Outwardly, he scoffed. "Sorry about that. It's just..."

"No need to tell us," the second man's female companion joining the conversation. "So many dead, and the Hokage just lets him run loose like there's no danger at all..."

The ordinary man made a sound of agreement, before returning to his tea. 'So I was right. I was really hoping that it wasn't true. That's gonna be a real pain in the ass to deal with.'

The patrons at the next table had no idea that they had just spilled an S-class secret to the one person they least wanted to tell. But there was no way they could have known. Not a soul in Konoha, other than Naruto himself, was aware that he had mastered the kage bunshin technique. None of the other customers of the cafe realized that the Naruto they had just been glaring at was nothing more than a chakra construct.

They would never know that the nondescript man drinking his tea was none other than a henge'd Naruto.

Office of the Hokage
Two Weeks Earlier

Naruto was an incredibly intelligent child, but it didn't take a genius to see that there was something horribly wrong with the way the people of Konoha were treating him. The whispered comments, the hateful stares, the parents who told their children that they shouldn't play with him - that he was 'bad'...

It couldn't have been his physical appearance. Sure, blue eyes and blond hair were very rare traits in Fire country, but the Yondaime Hokage had the same features, and that hadn't stopped people from speaking of him with reverence.

Naruto had his ideas regarding the rather obvious resemblance, but resolved to ponder that later.

The only truly weird part of his physical appearance were his whisker-shaped birthmarks, but that alone could never explain the rampant hostility. Konoha loved it's bloodline clans, and several of them had features that were far more unusual.

But if appearance didn't explain anything, it seemed even less likely that they hated him for something he did. The village's enmity had been directed at him for as long as he could remember, and he couldn't imagine a baby doing something that would piss off tens of thousands of people.

It wasn't his looks, and it wasn't anything he did, so he seemed to be at an impasse. Asking around hadn't helped; no matter how much the people hated him, they would always clam up and refuse to say why, without exception. Even the handful of people who treated him with decency would refuse to say anything and immediately change the subject.

And he would let them, because he didn't want anyone finding out just how smart he was.

The reason he had decided on that policy was simple. Naruto, despite or perhaps because of his social isolation, was very good at reading people's emotions. And underlying all the hatred directed at him, he could sense something else buried deep.

Fear

They were actually afraid of him! He, who had done nothing to hurt anyone. He, who would be hard pressed to take down a single average genin, despite his talent for the ninja arts. And that fear caused him to fear the people of the village in turn. If they feared him, it meant they saw him as a threat. Konoha was a military outpost at it's core, and soldiers were trained to eliminate threats. For his own safety, he had to somehow be seen as less of a threat. And the only feasible way to do that - considering he was already a small child - was to make himself seem like a moron.

Not too dumb, of course. The Hokage, one of the few people who liked him, might have sought professional help for him if he had seemed like a literal retard, and he wasn't confident that his acting skills would fool an expert. So he was merely dense, and easily distracted when people changed subjects every time he asked unpleasant questions. The act seemed to make people breathe easy, precisely as he had intended.

But that left him with only one lead to follow: the complex seal on his stomach that formed every time he molded chakra.

Naruto was something of a bookworm (written words being less biased against him than people), so it didn't take long for him to figure out that the odd looking tattoo was a seal, even if he couldn't tell what it did. And from some of his previous reading, namely history and mythology, he knew that bijuu could be sealed into people. The Sage of Six Paths, discoverer of chakra and father of ninjutsu, became the very first example when he sealed the Juubi inside of himself before splitting it.

Naruto also knew that his birthday was the same day that the Kyuubi had attacked Konoha and been 'killed' by the Yondaime Hokage. And since the Sage himself hadn't been able to destroy the bijuu, Naruto was reasonably confident that the official story was bullshit. That seemed to leave only one unpleasant possibility, but he didn't want to believe it without proof, and no one was going to just tell him.

It was fortunate, then, that his false stupidity opened doors that would have otherwise remained closed.

He had been visiting the Hokage, asking silly questions about his job and generally playing the innocent, somewhat dim, child, when the old man had been called away on some urgent business. Sarutobi had honestly expected to be done soon, and had permitted Naruto to remain in his office unsupervised so long as he promised not to make a mess. Part of his campaign to seem less threatening was to be honest to a fault (lies of omission notwithstanding), and anyone who gave him half a chance knew that he always kept his word. Since the guards were only posted on the outside of the doors, it was a golden opportunity to do some snooping.

He grinned widely the moment the doors were shut. 'Well that was stupid of them. You shouldn't leave people unsupervised in the Hokage's office, even if it's just a kid. I mean, haven't some people graduated the academy younger than I am now?'

Attached to the Hokage's office was a room containing various 'sensitive' materials. Materials that people weren't supposed to look at without the Hokage's consent. Too bad Naruto had little respect for rules on a good day.

'Now if I was a dirty little secret about the most hated person in the village, where would I be?'

His excitement quickly dampened after a few minutes. Apparently, the village really did store it's dirty laundry somewhere more secure, as there seemed to be no sign of any records regarding secret village activities or the like. The main object of interest seemed to be something called the forbidden scroll, and Naruto wasn't really interested in the sort of suicidal jutsu that would most likely be contained within.

'On the other hand, I really don't want to leave this room empty-handed after all that. Maybe a peek wouldn't hurt.' The child carefully removed it from it's pedestal, careful not to disturb anything else in the room, and proceeded to unroll it.

He was right about the majority of the techniques within, unfortunately. It was amazing how many different ways ninja had come up with to kill themselves along with their enemies. But the very first jutsu on the list, the only one he came back to, was one that showed much more promise.

'Kage bunshin? Sounds annoying – regular bunshin are hard enough to make as it is. Except... high chakra cost and minimal control requirement; one hand seal only. I suck at regular bunshin because I overload them, so this could make a good replacement. High probability of killing self by chakra exhaustion. I'll start with one at a time to be safe, but if I'm right about myself, that won't be a problem. Fully independent clones identical to user? Having extra pairs of hands could be useful. Memories acquired by clones during lifetime return to user...!'

His eyes went wide. Slowly, the grin he'd had at the start of this venture returned.

"This... is pretty fucking awesome, I'll admit. Now I just need to memorize the instructions: kind of a funky-looking hand seal, but there's just one to remember." He carefully made his hands into a cross shape, mimicking the image on the scroll. He also made sure to double-check the description of how his chakra was supposed to flow, but it was all remarkably simple, even compared to the basic academy jutsu he had already learned.

'And now I just need to put this back where I found it, blow this joint, and train my ass off until I have it down.'

He hadn't found the information he'd been looking for. But what he had found were instructions to the ultimate espionage jutsu, and he'd be damned if he didn't use it to puzzle out the truth. With the ability to be in many places at once, he'd infiltrate his own village and confirm what they were hiding from him. After all, a secret that everyone knows isn't much of a secret; he'd just have to come up with a different approach to get it out in the open.

Naruto's Apartment
Present Day

Naruto, having dropped his disguise and dispelled his clone, entered his apartment to think about his situation and plot his next move. Moving on autopilot, he set some water to boil and pulled a cup of ramen from the cabinet.

'Okay, so I know I have the Kyuubi inside me. Why does everyone else know? Whose bright idea was it to tell everyone, "Hey, remember that demon that just attacked? It's sealed inside this baby. His name is Uzumaki Naruto. Please treat him like shit for his entire life." I mean, it's supposedly a big secret that I'm not supposed to know about, but if every adult in the village knows...'

The water started boiling, and he absentmindedly poured it into the cup of ramen. 'I mean, I read that jinchuriki could access the bijuu's power, and that ninja villages sometimes use them as weapons. So why announce to everyone who your secret weapon... is...'

"Son of a bitch!" he expressed out loud. As he waited for his ramen to cook, and his thoughts took a darker turn, his eyebrow started twitching in irritation. He wasn't sure which was causing it.

'It was never supposed to be a secret, was it? The Kyuubi supposedly just appeared out of nowhere, but something that big doesn't just sneak up on a village full of ninja. Maybe there was someone before me, a jinchuriki who was supposed to use the Kyuubi for Konoha, but something happened and that person let it loose in the middle of the village. There was no way in hell they could hide the Kyuubi's attack from foreign ninja, but they couldn't let Konoha's enemies think we were easy pickings.'

His ramen had finally finished cooking, and he eagerly dug in. His twitching ceased as soon as he began indulging in his comfort food.

'A secret that everyone knows isn't much of a secret. If I could figure it out, so could any spies among us. The old man needed Konoha's enemies to know we still had the Kyuubi under control. Either that or he was really incompetent enough to assume everyone would be accepting of me, and I don't think he's incompetent.'

Upset by his newest revelation, he smashed his fist against the table. "Dammit, old man! I want to like you, but you're making it really difficult."

He sighed, and continued eating.

'So what else is he hiding from me? If I'm supposed to be some super weapon, it's hard to believe that no one would know where I came from or who my parents were. Uzumaki is the name of that dead clan that used to be real close allies with Konoha. I doubt I was given that name just because someone thought it would be funny. And let's not forget that the guy responsible for my situation looks an awful lot like me. Fifty ryo says he's my father. Fucking deadbeat sealed a demon in me, then had the nerve to die and leave me alone.'

He sighed again. It seemed to be turning into a habit today. 'Even if it's true, I doubt there's any proof. Can't have the people finding out that the child they love to hate is their hero's son, after all. That might upset them.'

Having finally finished his ramen, he expertly tossed the cup into the nearest trash can.

'Let's start with the easy part, then. I'm an Uzumaki, and there couldn't have been many left. I doubt they would go so far as to erase them from the records; it would have been much easier to hide any relationship by giving me a different name. So if I have a look at the public records... I should find my mother there.'

He glanced out the window at the darkening sky. "But first, I need some sleep. It's getting close to bedtime."

Konoha Public Record Depository
The Next Day

The following day found Naruto pouring over unclassified records, cloaked in a henge. Not that his business here was illegal or anything; he just didn't want anyone thinking he was smart. And there was no telling how the powers-that-be would react if they realized just how many of his secrets he was uncovering. That's why he wasn't really there to begin with; even if someone realized he was delving into sensitive matters, there just wasn't any feasible way to capture and interrogate a kage bunshin.

Naruto had honestly expected much more difficulty with finding his mother. Considering Konohagakure and Uzushiogakure had been close allies, he'd expected to see a lot more Uzumaki refugees scattered throughout the paper trail to make his search more difficult.

It seemed not many had made it to Konoha.

By the time of the Kyuubi's attack, there had only been one living Uzumaki registered as a citizen, someone who had died that same day: one Uzumaki Kushina. And just from looking at her picture, Naruto knew this woman was his mother.

'I've seen that face so many times before, every time I look in the mirror. Give me long, red hair, and we could almost pass as twins. And here I thought I looked like the Yondaime.'

Excited to learn more, he continued reading, only to laugh at what he saw.

'Husband: Classified? Children: Classified? What kind of sloppy attempt at censorship is this? You don't hide them by saying she's got them. Whoever's in charge of information security needs a swift kick in the ass. Pretty convenient for me, though, but did they seriously believe that the orphan named Uzumaki would never think to look here for more Uzumaki? If I had any doubts about who daddy was, they just went bye-bye.'

There were plenty more chunks of blocked out information, though he didn't know enough to be able to infer their meaning. It was to be expected for a high-level ninja, though, and he'd already gotten what he most wanted from the file. Naruto took one last, lingering look at the picture before closing the record-book and standing up to put it back in it's rightful place.

"As much fun as it is to wonder what could have been, they're both dead and gone. I'm alive, I'm surrounded by a village that hates me, and there's no way the old man will just let me walk away from it when I'm supposed to be his super-scary ultimate weapon. So how am I going to deal with this mess I was born into?"

The kage bunshin dispersed in a puff of smoke, relaying his findings to the original. No evidence of Naruto's presence remained.

Naruto's Apartment
Two Days Later

Sitting on his unmade bed, in a vaguely meditative position, Naruto once more found himself considering the enormity of the problem he faced.

"If I stay, I'll be hated. These assholes don't even seem to believe I'm human. I'd probably have to single-handedly save the village in front of hundreds of witnesses before I'd manage to get any respect out of them. But I can't just ditch this place, because I'll be hunted if I leave. If other nations found out about me, they'd hunt me too. So how am I supposed to have a happy life?"

He gazed down at his shirtless torso, and at the seal that showed itself as he molded his chakra.

"It all comes down to you, doesn't it? I'm stuck with you, and that rules my entire life. You're attached to my chakra network, so even if I knew how to unlock a seal like this, it would probably kill me. Can't have weapons deciding they don't want to fight anymore, huh? That would just be silly."

He took a moment to yawn and stretch, before adopting a pensive look.

"I can't believe I'm considering this, but I need your help. I don't even know if there's more to you than a mindless animal. But if there is, give me a sign. You're the only one who might side with me on this. You're the only hope I've got." Naruto had no reason to believe the bijuu could hear his words, so he continued experimenting with his chakra. In waves and pulses, he sent it in the direction of the seal, attempting to make some sort of contact with the eldritch power embedded within.

Nothing. But that didn't make any sense. The seal was more than just for storage. Jinchuriki would be pointless unless there was an intersection of human and bijuu - some way for them to interact. How else could a jinchuriki draw upon the bijuu's strength?

If anything, overwhelming the seal with his own chakra seemed to be diminishing the feeling of power he got from the seal. Desperate and out of options, Naruto did the opposite of everything he had tried before. He pulled his chakra as far away from the seal as he could, and tried to draw out something, anything, from the depleted tenketsu under the seal.

He felt a response, and his vision went dark.

Place – Not Applicable
Time – Not Applicable

'Why am I all wet?'

Blue eyes snapped open suddenly, quickly taking in their surroundings. The lighting in this place was depressingly low, but not so much that he couldn't see. He also noticed that the 'pool' of water he was laying in was only a few centimeters deep. He stood up, intending to dry himself off, only to be surprised when every part of his body not currently immersed immediately lost all trace of moisture.

"What... the... shit? Is this even water? And where the hell am I!?"

The massive hallway he was in seemed to be carved out of a single block of stone. The dim lighting seemed to simultaneously come from everywhere and nowhere. One end of the hall appeared to trail off into an endless void. The other ended abruptly in a gate, the bars of which were too far apart to stop any human.

'Well that's not a good sign. What have I gotten myself into this time?' Despite being intimidated by the thought of whatever the gate was meant to hold back, he didn't relish the idea of walking out into infinity, so he moved closer in hopes of finding out more.

He found it, in the form of a giant claw trying to impale him as he approached.

"Gah! What the hell!?" he yelped as he stumbled backwards on his ass. His query was answered by the appearance of a massive nine-tailed fox-thingy (if foxes had humanoid arms and opposable thumbs). Just the creature he'd been looking for, before finding himself here. "Well... that answers some questions," he said, trying to control his fear with small talk and levity.

"You! The one who imprisons me. If not for these bars, I would consume you and have my freedom."

"Oh thank the gods, you can talk!" he exclaimed with a huge grin, getting back on his feet. Whatever the bijuu had been expecting in response, it certainly wasn't that. Naruto knew he would cherish that look of surprise for the rest of his life, however short that may be. "Nobody seems to know anything about you, or if they do, they aren't telling me. I was worried you'd just be a big ol' ball of chakra and rage."

"Not quite," the bijuu replied, whatever vestigial sense of humor it possessed seeming to be awakened by Naruto's rambling. "But for what purpose would my jailor wish to converse with me? I certainly have nothing to say to you."

Naruto merely pouted at the continued hostility. "Okay, let's get things straight. I'm not the one who put you inside me, and I certainly never had a say in it. And on that note, how are we separated? Where are we?"

"You don't even know that much? Have your masters taught you nothing before you tried to draw on my power?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head, exasperated. "I told you, nobody tells me shit. I had to trick people into confirming that you were inside me. Then I had to guess my way in here, wherever here is."

The Kyuubi seemed almost impressed by that. "How cunning of you. Very well then." Before continuing, it arched it's back and stretched in a way that reminded Naruto of an oversized cat. "All that you see around you is an abstract representation of the seal that binds us together. This is a pocket dimension to facilitate interaction. None of it truly exists in normal space-time; even our current forms are merely false constructs. Where ever you were when you made contact with me, you are still there, and no time will have passed when you awaken."

"Oh, um... okay." Naruto, for all his intelligence, did not have the education in theoretical physics he needed to truly understand the situation. No one did, that knowledge having been lost in the ancient wars that scorched the world. Still, he got the gist of it; this was all fake, and he was still sitting on his bed. "I was kinda expecting that you'd just talk in my head or something, but this works too."

"Indeed," said the demon, just before it's eyes narrowed in cold anger, "but you still haven't told me what you want."

"Oh, right," he answered sheepishly. "I, um... kinda need your help with-"

"Of course you do," the demon interrupted, "that's all your kind ever want."

"Maybe if you'd let me finish," Naruto growled, "I was hoping you'd help me free you."

For the second time in their conversation, the bijuu was caught off guard. Slowly, it lowered it's face to get a better look at the surprising specimen of humanity who had sought it out. "You have my attention."

"Well it's too late to start paying attention now. I've already said everything." An awkward silence filled the air as Naruto cleaned out his right ear with his index finger. "So how do we do that?"

The mighty beast gave a bark that could have been a laugh. "It's a simple enough task. You need only unlock this gate, and I shall be free."

Naruto's gaze was drawn to a slip of paper that seemed to be the only thing holding the gate shut, flimsy as it was. He merely scoffed at the suggestion. "I meant without killing me, you dick! I'm not stupid. If it were that easy, the old man wouldn't have let my life be so miserable. Not if I could just quit and leave whenever I wanted to."

"Well you should have been more specific," the Kyuubi chuckled, as if it hadn't just tried to talk a child into suicide. "Still, I find myself curious. You have my boundless power within you, and you've just figured out how to tap it. Why are you so intent on giving it up? In my experience, humans often desire power above all else."

"Yeah, well... power is just a means to an end. If a type of power only gets in your way, it's less than useless," Naruto replied with a melancholy smile. "Your power can't get me what I want."

"And what do you want?" the demon asked, it's curiosity roused.

"Same thing you do: freedom."

"Then we have an accord, child." The Kyuubi grinned, showing off it's massive teeth in what Naruto assumed was supposed to be a friendly gesture. "I am not capable of altering this prison from within, but I have enough familiarity with the celestial tongue to aid you in your own attempts."

"Wait wait wait... celestial tongue? How's learning a new language supposed to help me release you?"

"It is said to be the language of the gods, with which they created the world we know. The written form of this language is what you would call fuinjutsu: the sealing arts." The demon shrugged. "The other version of the story is that it is man's own invention from before the fall, with which he sought to bend reality to his will. But such myths are from long before even my time. What is important is that you must learn it if you wish to set me free without harming yourself."

'Fuinjutsu was the basis of the Yondaime's hiraishin, and it can subdue even bijuu. Not a bad way to continue my education.' Naruto gave an enthusiastic salute. "Understood, Kyuubi-sensei!"

"Call me Kurama."

Naruto responded with a smile. "I get the feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

Main Street, Near the West Gate
Ten Years After the Kyuubi's Defeat (637th Year of the Sage)

The past three years had been very productive for Naruto, having secretly become Konoha's foremost fuinjutsu master. While he wouldn't exactly say that it was easy, all the facts suggested that it was inevitable. He had been taught by an entity that understood the art on a level beyond any human, inside of a realm where time didn't truly flow. The only fundamental limit to his rate of learning had been the same as when learning from kage bunshin; if his 'construct' body experienced too much in one go, he'd face intense mental strain as a vast amount of information attempted to transfer, and much of it would be lost.

That it had still taken three years to master fuinjutsu to the required level, under those conditions, only emphasized how absurdly difficult their task was. But he was finally ready.

Since his most important training could be done instantly and in complete secrecy, his life had been reasonably uneventful and free of scrutiny. Too bad the Uchiha clan couldn't say the same. In the year 635, the heir and shining star of their clan had turned against them and butchered all but his own brother. The official story was simply that he had snapped and gone on a killing spree without explanation.

Once again, Naruto was convinced that the official story was bullshit.

The Uchiha were a clan of hundreds, comprising the majority of the police force and a significant fraction of the village's total ninja forces. That they would all be within the walls of their compound at the same time by chance, without a single exception, was difficult to believe. That all of them could be slain without anyone outside their walls becoming aware of the commotion, even the roving ANBU patrols, seemed just as unlikely.

It reeked of a setup. Someone had arranged for all of them to be off duty and at home at the same time, and then moved and rescheduled patrols to make sure that no one would stumble upon the massacre until it was done.

Naruto couldn't think of any possibilities other than state-sponsored genocide, with Itachi either being framed or doing it on orders from above. Given that he hadn't protested his innocence to anyone in the two years since, and his brother Sasuke hadn't met with an 'unfortunate accident', Naruto could only assume the latter was true and that Itachi had negotiated his brother's survival.

Kurama had expressed great satisfaction upon hearing of the demise of so many Uchiha; that conversation had led to Naruto learning that the demon had been forced to attack Konoha against it's will. While the greatest of the bijuu had no love for humanity, Kurama had only ever attacked humans without provocation on two occasions, both of which were the result of sharingan compulsion.

While Naruto wasn't the sort to accept it's word at face value, there seemed to be enough evidence to support the claim. The history books already described Uchiha Madara commanding the Kyuubi in battle against the Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama, and Konoha's leaders must have been pretty confident that the Uchiha had been up to no good again if they sanctioned the death of the entire clan. This only renewed Naruto's resolve to free Kurama; not only was the demon as much a victim as anyone (and Naruto didn't condone slavery), but Naruto himself had no desire to be a tool for a government that would wipe out children and noncombatant Uchiha along with the guilty. A secret that everyone knows isn't much of a secret, so there was no way in hell that the Uchiha leadership would have told all of their clan members about any nefarious plots that were afoot. They had died only because Konoha wanted to avoid a scandal.

Now that Naruto could finally unlock the seal, he had positioned himself near the village wall in preparation for releasing the Kyuubi. He'd already drawn the necessary seals on his torso, and a simple activation charge of chakra would finish the job. His location near the most well-traveled gate was no coincidence. It wasn't enough for his goals that he simply free Kurama; other people needed to know about it before Naruto would ever be allowed to go his merry way. He intended to have plenty of witnesses to the end of his jinchuriki career.

Kurama had been a good sport about the idea, having agreed to hop over the wall and leave without a fight. There was an element of pragmatism to that decision, as Konoha had already demonstrated the ability to seal a bijuu if given a chance. Kurama was even willing to go out of it's way to avoid killing anyone, in order to keep Naruto from getting into too much trouble. Not that the boy thought he could do this without some sort of ensuing shitstorm, but he was confident he could ride out that storm so long as nobody died.

Making his way over to a rooftop corner overlooking the street, Naruto decided that it was time to begin his 'retirement' speech.

"Hey, assholes!" he shouted over the din of the crowd. Sure enough, the mood of the crowd shifted, conversation died down, and a whole lot of people were now glaring up at him.

Just as planned.

"Ten years ago, the Yondaime needed my help to stop the Kyuubi! For ten years, I've been keeping it locked away from the rest of the world!"

Glares gave way to shock, worry, and nervous muttering. If anyone hadn't been paying attention before, they were now.

"But despite the importance of what I do, this job sucks! Long hours, no pay or benefits, and everyone treats me like shit!" He charged up chakra into his right hand, and lifted his shirt to expose his torso - and seals - with his left hand. Tensions in the crowd increased. The ninja among them looked like they were about to jump him. Time to wrap it up.

"I quit!" he yelled, and brought his right hand to the seal.

All hell broke loose. Potent red chakra flowed rapidly from the seal, coalescing in the middle of the street. Its power could be felt throughout the village, even by the least chakra-sensitive of the villagers. Civilians were panicking and running for their lives every which way, with some forcing their way out of the village past bewildered gate-guards. Many were frozen in terror, while some of the braver ninja threw weapons and fired elemental jutsu at the building mass of chakra.

It was pure chaos.

The demon rebuilt itself in stages. At first, it was nothing more than a giant, transparent, outline which towered over most of the nearby buildings; the attacks that were being flung at it simply passed through and sailed into the sky. Deep within the outline, a core of raw power formed and began spreading inexorably outward. Only when it contacted the outline did the whole construct begin to solidify. Detailed features of the bijuu began to form, and the attacks directed at it finally managed to hit something, only to have absolutely no effect.

Fifteen seconds after Naruto triggered the release, the Kyuubi was fully restored.

This seemed to cause a spontaneous lull in the battle, as the assorted ninja tried to figure out what to do about their seemingly invincible foe, and the demon simply gazed across the landscape. Then it drew in a massive breath, and everyone except Naruto braced themselves for some kind of attack. It came as a surprise to the people of Konoha when the bijuu spoke to them.

"See you later, shitlords!" it laughed, before it bounded over the village wall and took off running at a speed no human could hope to match. Thanks to the tall forests surrounding Konoha, it was out of sight within seconds.

Naruto merely smiled. 'I feel like I've been a bad influence on him... her... it... whatever. That is my eternal legacy: a bijuu with a foul mouth.' He savored the looks of shock on the rabble in the street, before he suddenly began feeling dizzy. 'Whoa, that still took a lot out of me. I need to go home and take a nap.' With that thought, he began carefully making his way back to his apartment, the panicking citizens of Konoha failing to notice him now that they had much bigger things to worry about.

Naruto's Apartment
One Hour Later

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"...hurrrgh?" came the sleepy boy's eloquent reply. He opened his eyes, and was met with the sight of a man in traditional ANBU operative garb, standing by the foot of his bed.

"The Hokage has ordered an emergency council meeting to discuss... recent events. You have been summoned to testify before them." His no-nonsense tone implied that refusal was not an option.

Naruto glanced over to his alarm-clock, sitting on his nightstand. 'Just over an hour since I got back. Not as much sleep as I'd have liked, but more than I expected to get. Maybe with all the confusion, they assumed I was dead.'

He sat up, hanging his feet over the side of the bed, and began slipping his sandals on. He was still wearing the rest of his clothes, having been too tired to go through the trouble of getting into his pajamas. Once he was done, he started walking.

In the direction of his bathroom.

"Now, Uzumaki!" the irritated ANBU said.

Naruto directed a mild glare towards him. "Hey man, I gotta pee. So unless you want me to whip my dick out in front of the council and piss on their shoes..." he trailed off.

"Fine. Just make it quick." said the ninja, as Naruto closed the bathroom door to take care of business. He would later come to regret taking his eyes off the boy, as that bathroom trip proved to be a vital part of Naruto's escape plan, in the event that things turned against him.

Streets of Konoha
Two Minutes Later

Evidently, the ANBU sent to bring him to the Hokage's tower wasn't just there to make sure he didn't skip out on the meeting. The man was also Naruto's bodyguard.

However bad the glares and whispers had been before, it had nothing on the anger they showed him now. Naruto was certain that some brave soul, or perhaps an entire lynch mob, would have attacked him in the middle of the street if not for the intimidating escort walking beside him. Apparently, no longer being a jinchuriki wasn't enough to reverse public opinion after he had scared the metaphorical crap out of everyone in the village. Some people were just so difficult to please.

One man wasn't content to keep his anger bottled up. "You rotten little shit!" he yelled, waving his fist at Naruto. "The Hokage should have killed you years ago!" Most of the other people nearby made noises of agreement.

On the inside, Naruto couldn't help but be somewhat amused, even as he was angered by the words. 'Bijuu can't die, morons; they're a force of nature. If I'd been killed after the sealing, you still would have had to deal with Kurama's reappearance eventually.' Outwardly, he was much less polite.

"Hey, fuck you buddy!" he shouted back. "You all hated me when I kept a demon locked away, then you hate me more when I stop!? You hypocritical idiots!"

The crowd only got more hostile after Naruto antagonized them, and his ANBU escort was getting nervous. "Uzumaki, I think it's time we speed this trip up." he said, before placing his hand on Naruto's shoulder and using shunshin to convey them safely to the foot of the tower.

Hokage's Tower – Meeting Chamber
One and a Half Hours Later

Naruto was bored. Bored bored bored. He had been told to wait outside the meeting room until called for, but the council apparently wasn't in that much of a rush to see him; the flurry of aides rushing in and out implied that they were more interested in running damage control than in questioning him about the details.

The next time the doors opened, the ANBU who came out told him that the council would finally see him now. With a spring in his step, Naruto walked into the meeting room and sat himself down at the massive circular table like he owned the place. The more easy-going among the clan heads already seated at the table seemed amused at his manners, though most showed disdain.

The Hokage, decked out in his robes and smoking his pipe, addressed him first. "Given recent events, I assume you know the truth about what happened to the Kyuubi ten years ago?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Not telling me about it was pretty mean, you know." Naruto replied.

The old Hokage sighed. "And how is it that you found out?"

This got an amused smirk from the boy. "Are you serious? A secret that everyone knows isn't much of a secret. It was never going to stay buried for long."

Some of the other people at the table looked sheepish, as if the idea that Naruto could figure things out on his own hadn't occurred to them. Others seemed to be sending smug looks at their peers, as if to say, "I told you so."

For the first time since Naruto had arrived, one of the council members spoke up. The Hyuuga leader, judging by the weird eyes. "And why, pray tell, did you feel the need to release the Kyuubi inside our very village?"

"A better question would be 'why not?'" Naruto asked, with a small smirk adorning his face. "Most people didn't seem to like that I was keeping the big bad demon locked up, so I figured I should stop doing that for a change, see if that made things better."

"How?" asked a one-eyed, crippled old man that Naruto didn't recognize as Shimura Danzo. "Breaking the seal is supposed to be fatal. How did you survive?"

Naruto shrugged. "I had help," he explained.

Sarutobi face-palmed in exasperation. "You made a deal with the Kyuubi? You shouldn't have trusted such a creature!"

"I didn't, not fully," Naruto replied, locking his hands behind his head. "But you'd be surprised how friendly demons can be when you offer them everything they want; it was certainly nicer than most humans I've met."

"Nevertheless, you had a duty to the village," the cripple interrupted. "Jinchuriki are vital to maintaining the balance of power between villages. You were chosen to contain the bijuu and wield it's power for Konoha."

'And there it is,' thought Naruto. 'Now we get to the heart of the matter.'

That's strange," he responded out loud. "Nobody informed me about any duty. I certainly never signed up for any duty." He punctuated his words with a glare towards the cripple. "And frankly, that duty sucks no end of cock."

"Nevertheless, that duty is vital to Konoha," Sarutobi replied, looking much frostier than Naruto had ever seen him before. "Given that you can apparently break the seal at will, it would be foolish to force you to take the Kyuubi into yourself again. But I must insist that you tell me where it has gone, so we can reclaim it."

"So you can enslave an intelligent being and force another kid to go through my life? What if I don't want to?" he tested. Naruto wasn't entirely comfortable locking glares with one of the few people to have ever shown him kindness. But the Uchiha massacre, and his own situation, had long since shattered his belief in the old man's innate goodness. This was a lord of ninja, and he was capable of terrible deeds. Speaking of which...

"If you will not give up the information voluntarily, then I will be forced to subject you to interrogation."

Everyone in the room was paying rapt attention, curious as to whether it would come to that.

Naruto snorted in derision. "Congratulations, you just burned your last bridge with me, for nothing." He folded his arms before continuing. "You should understand by now that I'm not a moron. The Kyuubi and I both agreed that it would be better if I didn't know where it went. I have no answers to give you."

The Kyuubi, knowing that the one who controlled it was probably still alive, had decided to shrink its form and go into hiding for a century or two. And considering the chakra beast didn't require such trivialities as 'food' or 'air', it could take advantage of some truly impressive hiding places. It had no intention of being captured or used ever again.

The old cripple slammed his fist into the table. "Konoha's greatest weapon is now frolicking in the wilderness, and we don't have any idea where it could be! This is a disaster."

"I don't see how this is my problem." Naruto replied cheekily. He began tilting his chair back to amuse himself. "Especially considering I'll be leaving soon. People here still don't like me, last I checked. Go figure."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that," Sarutobi cut in.

Naruto was... disappointed, to say the least, in the direction the old man seemed to be taking the conversation. "And why not? I'm not a ninja. I'm not a jinchuriki. I know I'm still a minor, but that's hardly a good reason when I already live alone."

Sarutobi couldn't help but massage his temples to relieve the stress. "I'm afraid your legacy is such that you are still important to Konoha, even without the Kyuubi."

Suffice to say, Naruto didn't like where this was going.

"Oh no, no no no," he exclaimed as he waved his arms around. "I spent years working my ass off to claw my way out from the Kyuubi's shadow, and now you want to put me under his? You screwed me over by not telling anyone before, and then you'll screw me over by releasing that information now?"

Most of the clan heads were visibly confused by this. One rather large man, an Akimichi if Naruto wasn't mistaken, gave voice to these thoughts. "What is he talking about, Hokage-sama?"

Sarutobi decided to reveal Naruto's other big secret, despite the boy trying to mentally will him to shut up. "The Yondaime Hokage didn't pick a child at random. He sealed the Kyuubi into his own newborn son. Not to mention that he truly is the last known living Uzumaki. The name wasn't picked at random." He paused for a few seconds to organize his thoughts. "And given that he seems to have discovered all of these facts despite my attempts at hiding them, and successfully unsealed a bijuu, I imagine he is already a useful prodigy in his own right."

The council room became deathly quiet for a few seconds, before it was broken by Jonin Commander Nara Shikaku saying, "Called it." His friend and peer, Yamanaka Inoichi, groaned at the outburst.

Naruto was displeased. "So that's it, then? I just can't be allowed to have any freedom?"

Sarutobi nodded sadly. He understood that this meeting was probably the end of any remotely-friendly relationship he might have had with the boy.

"And if I try to leave anyway?"

"Then you will be placed under house arrest until such time as you prove more agreeable."

Naruto seemed to ponder that for a few moments, before unexpectedly bursting out into laughter. Some of those present were convinced that he had finally snapped from the pressures of a hard life, but as he slowly calmed down and caught his breath, he decided to answer their unspoken questions.

"Well then, it's a good thing I already left, isn't it?" he said, grinning widely.

The kage bunshin dispersed in a puff of smoke, and the meeting room erupted into chaos.

Merchant Caravan – East of Konoha
Same Time

In the back of one of the wagons of a routine merchant caravan, carefully hidden among the various odds and ends, Uzumaki Naruto was snoozing peacefully. He had managed to successfully stow away among the travelers and slip out of the village's east gate without being detected. Rather than ditch the caravan as soon as he was out, he had decided to catch up on his nap that had been so rudely interrupted by his unwelcome ANBU visitor.

However, the information transfer from his kage bunshin put an end to that plan. As his eyes fluttered open, Naruto considered everything that he had learned. 'The villagers still hate me, and the old man wants to keep me prisoner in that environment. Guess this means I won't be going back anytime soon.'

Had the people of Konoha started to ease up in their anger, and the Hokage not tried to hold him against his will, Naruto would have been content to return to Konoha as soon as he woke up. Unfortunately, his escape plan had proven necessary after all. He wasn't too worried about making his own way in the world, however; fuinjutsu had a wide range of useful applications and not very many practitioners, so he didn't expect any trouble supporting himself with his skills. The only real concern was pursuit, since the Hokage had revealed everything to the council in order to justify keeping a firm grip on him.

'I bet those assholes are kicking themselves for making me wait an hour and a half' he thought, pleased that he had such a solid head-start. 'Even so, it's time I left the road and started moving faster.' He had no intention of getting picked up by a tracker team after having come so far. With renewed determination, he stood up and leaped from the wagon, getting the attention of some of the caravan drivers.

"Sorry about hitching a ride without asking, but if it makes you feel any better, you just helped me escape from an abusive home," he said with an exaggerated bow. "Also, I swear I didn't break or steal anything."

An awkward silence followed as the two parties stared at each other.

"So, um... bye!" he waved as he darted into the tree line, eager to begin his new life.

Mount Myoboku
Same Time

"Hmmm?" questioned a massive, ancient toad resting near a pond.

This got the attention of a much smaller, but only slightly less ancient, toad who was nearby. "What is it, honorable sage?"

The great toad sage looked puzzled for a moment, before he replied. "The future... I can no longer see it."

His smaller companion, Fukasaku, boggled at the thought. "What does that mean?"

The sage sighed, not sure what to make of the situation. "The child of prophecy has escaped the path he was forced onto at birth. Destiny itself lies shattered." He brought a finger to his mouth. "It is quite fascinating. The future is in flux, and will be for some time. I have no idea what will happen now. Nobody does."

He chuckled. "That Naruto boy is really something."

Author's Notes

1. Yes, I used the dreaded council cliché, though at least I didn't make them into rabid, irrational Naruto haters.

In my mental world-building, I like to envision Konoha as being run similarly to a feudal kingdom. The Hokage (king) theoretically has absolute authority, and his word is considered law. However, many of his ninja (men-at-arms) have split loyalties; they bear allegiance to the Hokage, but perhaps even more to their clan leaders (local lords). As such, the Hokage can't really afford to antagonize the clans too much, lest they all plot a revolt like the Uchiha did (or force changes, like the nobility forcing King John to sign the Magna Carta). The Hokage technically has the final say in all decisions, but he keeps the clan leaders informed and listens to what they want. Hence, a council.

2. Naruto is pretty smart in this fic, but he's not perfect. He assumes his jinchuriki status was deliberately leaked, not thinking of the possibility that rumor mills spread the information before the Hokage could clamp down, or that the Hokage might actually have thought Konoha would accept him (as to which of these possibilities is true, I leave that to your imagination). He assumes that the Uchiha massacre was a direct retaliation for the Kyuubi incident, when it really was much more complicated. He never finds out the truth behind that attack (or that his mom was the last jinchuriki), especially now that the seal is broken without him ever meeting his parents. And he's likely to be pursued (though less vigorously than if he were a jinchuriki), when he had hoped to make a clean break.

Even a genius can get things wrong with insufficient data.

3. I don't consider myself an author, as I don't have the patience to write a longer narrative. If anyone wants to take the basic idea - Naruto freeing Kurama to improve his own life, ruining everyone's plans - and run with it, please do. I'd love to read such a story.