The delegation from Kumogakure arrived on a Tuesday.
This was important because Tuesdays were, historically, the worst days for Konoha. The Nine-Tails attack had happened on a Tuesday. The Second Hokage had died on a Tuesday. The cafeteria in the Hokage Tower always served that suspicious fish dish on Tuesdays, and at least three chunin had been hospitalized because of it.
Hiruzen Sarutobi should have known better than to schedule diplomatic meetings on Tuesdays.
The Kumo delegation consisted of five people: the Head Ninja, a man named Takeshi who smiled too much and meant none of it; two bodyguards who looked like they could bench-press buildings; a diplomatic aide who kept taking notes on everything; and a woman with short dark hair who had been introduced as a "cultural liaison" but whose chakra signature screamed "assassin."
They had come, ostensibly, to discuss trade agreements and mutual defense pacts. The reality, which Hiruzen was well aware of, was that they had come to scout for bloodline limits worth stealing and Jinchuuriki worth acquiring.
Kumo had lost their Eight-Tails Jinchuuriki in the mysterious mass death that had occurred the night of the Nine-Tails attack. They were desperate to replace him. And rumors had reached them about a child in Konoha—a child with whisker marks and strange powers, a child who had been born the same night their Jinchuuriki died.
They wanted Naruto Uzumaki.
They just didn't know yet how much they were going to regret that desire.
"The delegation wants to tour the village," Hiruzen's assistant reported. "They've specifically requested to see the orphanage."
Hiruzen set down his pen with a sigh. "Of course they have."
"Should I deny the request?"
"That would only make them more suspicious. No, let them tour. But increase security. I want ANBU on every rooftop, and make sure... make sure he doesn't do anything unusual."
"Sir?"
"The Uzumaki child. Alert the orphanage matron. I want him kept calm and quiet during the delegation's visit."
"Understood, Lord Hokage."
The assistant left, and Hiruzen leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling every one of his many years.
"This is going to go badly," he muttered to himself. "I can feel it."
He had no idea how right he was.
Inside the seal, the bijuu were having a similar premonition.
"Kumo," Gyūki said, his voice heavy with something that might have been grief. "They're from Kumo."
"Your village," Matatabi observed quietly.
"My former village. My former Jinchuuriki's village." The Eight-Tails' tentacles curled inward. "Killer B. He was... he was a good partner. We were going to make music together. Change the world through rap."
"His rap was terrible," Kurama said, but there was no heat in it.
"I know. But it was ours." Gyūki fell silent for a moment. "They're here for the kit, aren't they? Kumo always wants more power. They'll see him and they'll want him."
"They can't have him," Shukaku said, sand swirling aggressively. "The kit is ours. Anyone who tries to take him dies."
"We can't just kill a diplomatic delegation," Kokuō protested.
"Watch me."
"Brothers, sisters," Matatabi interrupted, "let's not plan murders before we know what's actually happening. The delegation might just be here for legitimate diplomatic purposes."
Eight skeptical stares turned toward her.
"Okay, that's unlikely. But still, we should wait and see before we start a war."
"Matatabi is right," Isobu said. "We observe first. If they threaten the kit, then we act. But carefully. Controlled. We don't want a repeat of the Kakashi incident."
"The Kakashi incident was not my fault," Shukaku protested.
"You made a sand wall inside the apartment!"
"To protect the kit!"
"From his own caretaker!"
"The one-eyed human was walking too aggressively!"
"He was bringing juice!"
The argument might have continued indefinitely, but it was interrupted by a sensation that made all nine bijuu freeze.
Someone was approaching the orphanage. Someone with malicious intent.
And it wasn't the Kumo delegation.
Haruki Tanaka was having a bad day.
This was not unusual—every day since Naruto Uzumaki had returned to her orphanage had been a bad day. The child was a walking disaster. Sand appeared wherever he went. Things occasionally caught fire. The other children were terrified of him, and frankly, so was she.
But today was particularly bad because there was a diplomatic delegation visiting, which meant she had to pretend that everything was fine and normal and definitely not haunted by whatever demon possessed the whisker-faced child currently building a sand castle in the corner of the playroom.
"The delegation will be here in an hour," her assistant reported. "The Hokage's office has requested that we keep the Uzumaki child out of sight."
"Gladly," Haruki muttered. "Put him in the back room. And for the love of all that is holy, make sure nothing catches fire."
The assistant nodded and scurried off to relocate Naruto, leaving Haruki to prepare for the inspection.
She didn't notice the caretaker named Mizuki slipping away from his duties.
She didn't notice him retrieving a kunai from his quarters.
She didn't notice the cold hatred in his eyes as he watched the assistant lead Naruto to the back room.
The bijuu, however, noticed everything.
"Threat detected," Son Gokū growled, his massive form tensing.
"I see him," Kurama confirmed. "The male caretaker. The one with the white hair. He's carrying a weapon."
"And heading for the kit," Shukaku added, his sand already stirring in the gourd. "Should I—"
"Wait," Matatabi ordered. "Let him get close. If we act too early, we reveal ourselves. We need him to commit to the attack first."
"And if he hurts the kit before we can stop him?"
"He won't." Kurama's voice was absolute. "I won't let him."
The bijuu watched through Naruto's senses as the toddler was deposited in a small back room, given some toys to play with, and left alone. The assistant closed the door, and footsteps retreated down the hallway.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. Naruto played contentedly, unaware of the danger approaching.
Then the door opened.
Mizuki stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. His face was twisted with hatred—the kind of hatred that came from losing loved ones, from blaming an innocent child for things beyond his control, from letting grief curdle into something poisonous.
"Hello, demon," he said, his voice falsely sweet. "Remember me?"
Naruto looked up at the man, confusion evident on his small face. "Mister?"
"I lost my sister in the attack, you know. She was everything to me. And you—you're the reason she's gone." Mizuki drew the kunai, and the blade gleamed in the dim light. "They say you're just a child. That the beast is sealed inside you. But I know the truth. You are the beast. And beasts need to be put down."
Inside the seal, nine voices spoke as one: "NOW."
The sand exploded.
Mizuki had approximately half a second to register that something was wrong before the world became a hurricane of golden particles.
The sand erupted from the gourd on Naruto's back with the force of a natural disaster, filling the small room in an instant. It swirled around the toddler protectively, forming a barrier that no kunai could penetrate, and then—
It attacked.
Tendrils of sand shot toward Mizuki, wrapping around his limbs, his torso, his throat. He tried to scream, but sand filled his mouth, choking off the sound. The kunai was ripped from his grasp and flung into the corner of the room.
And still the sand came.
It encased him completely, a coffin of golden particles that compressed tighter and tighter with each passing second. Mizuki's eyes bulged as the pressure increased, as bones began to creak and strain, as—
"Shukaku, stop!" Matatabi's voice cut through the bloodlust. "You'll kill him!"
"THAT'S THE POINT!"
"The kit is watching!"
Shukaku hesitated. The sand hesitated. And in that moment of pause, Mizuki made one final, desperate attempt to break free.
He failed.
The sand crushed inward with a sickening crunch, and Mizuki ceased to exist as a recognizable human being.
Blood sprayed across the room, painting the walls and ceiling in arterial crimson. The sand, now stained red, slowly retracted back into the gourd, leaving behind... pieces. Fragments. Things that had once been a man and were now just meat.
Naruto, sitting in the center of this carnage, looked around with wide eyes.
"Oooh," he said. "Red."
Then he giggled.
The silence in the seal was absolute.
"Did he just..." Chōmei's voice was faint. "Did the kit just..."
"Giggle," Saiken confirmed glumly. "At the blood. He giggled at the blood."
"I... I didn't mean to..." Shukaku's usual manic energy had evaporated. "I just wanted to protect him. The sand reacted. I couldn't control—"
"You crushed a man into paste," Kurama said, his voice flat. "In front of an eighteen-month-old child. And he giggled."
"I KNOW WHAT I DID!"
"Do you? Because I'm not sure you grasp the full implications here." Kurama's tails lashed with barely suppressed fury. "The kit just witnessed extreme violence. His first exposure to death, to blood, to the reality of what our power can do. And his reaction was to laugh."
"He's a baby! He doesn't understand—"
"Exactly! He doesn't understand! And now his first impression of death is that it's funny!" Kurama rounded on Shukaku, his massive form looming over the One-Tail. "What happens when he's older? When he remembers this moment? When he associates killing with amusement because that's what we taught him?!"
"I was protecting him!"
"You were indulging yourself! You've always been bloodthirsty, always been unstable, and now you've—"
"BROTHERS!" Matatabi's flames flared bright enough to illuminate the entire mindscape. "Enough! What's done is done. We can't undo it. What we can do is manage the aftermath."
"And how do we do that?" Isobu asked. "The kit is sitting in a room covered in blood, playing with sand that's stained red. Someone is going to find him. Someone is going to see what happened."
"And they'll blame him," Gyūki said heavily. "Not us. Him. The 'demon child' who murdered his caretaker."
"He didn't murder anyone! The sand—"
"The humans don't know about us, Shukaku. As far as they know, Naruto did this. Naruto, who they already fear and hate. This is going to make everything worse."
The weight of this realization settled over the bijuu like a shroud.
"We have to do something," Son Gokū said. "Damage control. Something."
"What can we do? We're sealed inside a toddler."
"We could... influence his emotions? Make him cry? A crying baby found next to a dead body is a victim. A giggling baby is..."
"A monster," Saiken finished.
"I hate this," Kokuō said quietly. "I hate all of this. We're supposed to be protecting him, and instead we're turning him into something people will fear even more."
"We don't have a choice," Kurama said, and for once, his voice held no anger—only resignation. "Do it. Make him cry. Give him a chance."
Matatabi reached out, touching Naruto's emotions as gently as she could. She found the curious contentment he was feeling—the simple pleasure of watching something new and colorful—and carefully, carefully shifted it toward distress.
Naruto's giggles faded. His face crumpled. And then he began to cry.
It wasn't genuine—not entirely—but it was convincing. The terrified wails of a child confronted with something beyond his comprehension.
"Good," Kurama said. "Now we wait."
They didn't have to wait long.
Haruki heard the crying first.
"What now?" she muttered, hurrying toward the back room. "If that child has set something on fire again, I swear I'll—"
She opened the door.
The scream that emerged from her throat was heard throughout the orphanage, and possibly in the next district over.
The Kumo delegation arrived at the orphanage precisely forty-five minutes later, just in time to witness the aftermath.
ANBU were everywhere. Medics were attempting to piece together what remained of Mizuki for identification purposes. The other children had been evacuated to a different building. And in the center of the chaos, a two-year-old boy sat wrapped in a blanket, still crying, while the Hokage himself crouched beside him.
"What happened here?" Takeshi, the Head Ninja, asked, his smile frozen in place.
"An incident," Hiruzen said, his voice carefully neutral. "A caretaker attempted to harm one of our orphans. He was... stopped."
"Stopped?" Takeshi looked at the blood-soaked room visible through the doorway. "That's one way to put it."
"The child has unique abilities. Defensive abilities. They activated in response to a threat."
"The child." Takeshi's eyes found Naruto, and something sharp flickered behind his diplomatic mask. "This would be the Uzumaki boy, I assume. The one we've heard rumors about."
"I don't know what rumors have reached Kumogakure, but I assure you—"
"We heard," the woman with short dark hair interrupted, "that you have a new Jinchuuriki. A child born the same night ours died. A child with whisker marks and unusual powers." She stepped closer to Naruto, ignoring Hiruzen's warning look. "Is this him?"
"The details of our village's security measures are classified."
"Of course they are." The woman crouched down, putting herself at Naruto's eye level. "Hello, little one. My name is Ami. What's yours?"
Naruto, his tears fading as curiosity took over, looked at the strange woman with interest. "Nato."
"Nato. That's a cute name." Ami smiled, and it was the smile of a predator who had found prey. "You did all this, didn't you? Made the bad man go away?"
Inside the seal, the bijuu went on high alert.
"She's probing him," Gyūki said. "Trying to assess his abilities."
"Should we do something?" Chōmei asked.
"Not yet. Let's see where this goes."
Naruto, oblivious to the danger, nodded proudly. "Sand help! Sand protect Nato!"
"Sand?" Ami's eyes widened. "You control sand?"
"Sand friend!" To demonstrate, Naruto reached back and patted his gourd, which pulsed with chakra in response. "See?"
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees as every shinobi present tensed.
"Interesting," Ami murmured. "Sand manipulation. That's not a Konoha technique. That's not a technique at all—that's a Jinchuuriki ability. Specifically, the One-Tail's ability."
"I don't know what you're implying—" Hiruzen began.
"I'm not implying anything, Lord Hokage. I'm observing." Ami stood, her eyes never leaving Naruto. "This child doesn't just contain the Nine-Tails, does he? There's something else. Something more."
"This line of questioning is inappropriate."
"Is it? Because I'm looking at a toddler who just liquefied a grown man with sand—sand that shouldn't be possible for a Nine-Tails Jinchuuriki to control. Either you've discovered some revolutionary new sealing technique, or..." Ami trailed off, realization dawning in her eyes. "Or he has more than one beast."
The silence that followed was deafening.
"That's absurd," Takeshi said, but his voice wavered.
"Is it? Our Eight-Tails disappeared the same night as your attack. The other villages' bijuu—all of them—vanished at the same moment. No bodies were ever found. No beasts ever reappeared." Ami looked at Naruto with new eyes. "What if they didn't disappear? What if they were... collected?"
"This is speculation—"
"It's logic. And if I'm right..." Ami's diplomatic mask had completely fallen away, replaced by naked hunger. "This child contains all nine bijuu. He's not just a Jinchuuriki—he's the Jinchuuriki. The most valuable asset in the entire elemental nations."
"He's also a child under the protection of Konohagakure," Hiruzen said, and his voice carried the weight of a man who had fought in three wars. "And you are guests here. I suggest you remember that."
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Ami smiled—a new smile, one that promised nothing good.
"Of course, Lord Hokage. My apologies for the speculation. The tragedy here has clearly affected my judgment." She stepped back, rejoining her delegation. "Shall we continue the tour? I believe we were going to see your academy next."
Hiruzen didn't believe her acquiescence for a moment, but there was nothing he could do without creating an incident.
"Yes," he said. "Let's continue."
The delegation left, but the damage was done. They knew—or at least suspected—what Naruto was. And Kumo was not known for letting valuable assets slip through their fingers.
Inside the seal, the bijuu assessed the situation.
"They'll try to take him," Kurama said flatly.
"Tonight?" Shukaku asked.
"Probably. They won't want to give us time to increase security. They'll move fast, move quiet, and try to get out of Fire Country before anyone realizes what's happened."
"Then we'll be ready."
"We will. But Shukaku..." Kurama turned to face the One-Tail directly. "This time, try not to turn anyone into paste in front of the kit. We can kill them, but let's be a little more discreet about it."
"No promises."
"I wasn't asking."
Night fell over Konoha like a velvet curtain.
The village settled into uneasy sleep, guards on high alert after the day's events. The Kumo delegation had been housed in a diplomatic compound on the far side of the village, under careful watch by ANBU who didn't trust them as far as they could throw them.
Which, given that they were elite ninja, was actually pretty far. But the point stood.
In the orphanage, Naruto slept in his crib, the sand gourd beside him humming with quiet energy. He had recovered from the afternoon's trauma with the resilience of very young children everywhere—already, the memory was fading, becoming just another strange event in a life full of strange events.
The bijuu, however, were not sleeping.
"Movement," Gyūki reported, his senses extending through the seal. "Three figures approaching the orphanage. Suppressed chakra signatures. Professional."
"The Kumo delegation?"
"The woman—Ami—and the two bodyguards. The others are staying in the compound. Probably to provide alibis."
"Clever," Matatabi admitted. "They're not stupid."
"No. Just greedy." Kurama's form shifted, his tails spreading in anticipation. "Brothers, sisters. You know what to do."
"Wait for them to enter. Let them commit to the extraction. Then eliminate them in a way that looks like self-defense."
"And try not to enjoy it too much," Isobu added, looking pointedly at Shukaku.
"No promises," Shukaku repeated, sand swirling eagerly.
Outside the seal, three shadows slipped over the orphanage wall.
Ami was good at her job.
She had been extracting valuable assets from hostile territories for fifteen years. She had stolen bloodline users from Kiri, intelligence from Iwa, and technology from Suna. She had never failed a mission, never been caught, never left behind evidence.
Tonight would be no different.
"The child's room is on the second floor," she whispered to her companions. "West side. One window. The ANBU are focused on the perimeter—we go straight up, grab the target, and exit before they can respond."
"What about the sand?" one of the bodyguards asked. "The kid turned a man into soup with it."
"The sand is a defensive mechanism. It responds to threats. We don't approach as threats." Ami smiled. "We approach as friends. I spent the afternoon establishing rapport. He trusts me—or at least, he doesn't fear me. That should buy us enough time to sedate him."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then we improvise."
They scaled the wall in seconds, their movements silent and precise. The window to Naruto's room was unlocked—because who expected an attack on a toddler's bedroom?—and Ami slipped inside first.
The room was dark, lit only by moonlight filtering through the curtains. The crib was in the corner, and she could see the small form of the child, sleeping peacefully.
"Easy," she whispered. "Too easy."
She took one step toward the crib.
The temperature dropped forty degrees in an instant.
"What—" Ami's breath fogged in front of her face. "What the—"
The sand came alive.
Not like before, not the wild defensive explosion that had killed Mizuki. This was different. Controlled. Deliberate. The sand rose from the gourd in a solid wave, blocking the door, blocking the window, sealing all three Kumo operatives inside the room with nowhere to go.
Naruto sat up in his crib, and his eyes were glowing.
Not red. Not gold. A shifting kaleidoscope of colors—red, gold, blue, green, purple, each one representing a different presence, a different power.
"Hello," the child said, and his voice was wrong. Layered. Like nine voices speaking at once, using one tiny throat. "You want to take me."
Ami felt real fear for the first time in years.
"We—we just wanted to talk—"
"You wanted to steal me. To use me. To make me a weapon for your village." The colors in Naruto's eyes shifted, settling on a deep crimson. "We've been weapons before. For centuries. We're tired of it."
"Who... who is 'we'?"
The child smiled, and it was not a child's smile.
"We are nine. We are one. We are his." The smile widened. "And you are dead."
The first bodyguard went quickly.
Blue fire erupted from nowhere, consuming him in an instant. He didn't even have time to scream before he was ash, his existence erased with casual efficiency.
"Ami! What do we—" The second bodyguard turned to run, but there was nowhere to run to. The sand had sealed every exit, and now it was closing in, forming shapes, forming—
Hands. Dozens of hands, reaching for him, grabbing him, pulling him into the golden mass.
"HELP! HELP ME!"
The sand swallowed his screams.
Ami, the professional who had never failed a mission, drew a kunai with shaking hands.
"Stay back," she said, her voice trembling. "I'm warning you—"
"Warning me?" The nine-layered voice was amused. "You came to steal a child from his bed. You planned to take him from his home, his village, everyone he knows. And you're warning me?"
"I didn't—I was following orders—"
"So was the man the sand killed this afternoon. He was following his hatred. You're following your greed. There's no difference." Naruto—or the thing speaking through Naruto—tilted his head. "But unlike him, you have something we want."
"What? What do you want? I'll give you anything—"
"Information. Tell me everything Kumo knows about us. About the bijuu. About the disappearances. Tell me the truth, and your death will be quick."
Ami's training screamed at her to resist, to die with dignity, to protect her village's secrets. But her training hadn't prepared her for this. Nothing had prepared her for this.
"I don't—we don't know much. Just rumors. The bijuu vanished, all at once, the same night as your attack. Some people thought they were destroyed. Others thought they went into hiding. But our intelligence suggested—suggested they might have been sealed. Into one vessel."
"And you came to confirm this."
"Yes."
"And to take the vessel."
"...yes."
"Thank you for your honesty." The colors in Naruto's eyes shifted again, settling on a warm gold. "Your death will be quick. As promised."
"Wait—"
The sand claimed her.
Unlike Mizuki, there was no mess. The sand compressed, compressed, compressed until there was nothing left—not blood, not bone, not even dust. Just... gone. Erased. As if Ami had never existed.
The second bodyguard followed moments later, his muffled screams fading into nothing.
And then the room was quiet.
Inside the seal, the bijuu surveyed their work.
"Clean," Matatabi said approvingly. "No evidence."
"No witnesses," Gyūki added. "The ANBU didn't notice anything."
"And the kit?" Saiken asked. "Is he..."
They all turned their attention to Naruto, who was now lying back in his crib, eyes closed, breathing steady. He was asleep—or something like it. The brief possession had exhausted him, but he was unharmed.
"He won't remember this," Kurama said quietly. "We made sure of it. As far as he knows, he had an unpleasant dream and nothing more."
"That's good," Chōmei buzzed. "He shouldn't have to carry these memories."
"He'll carry them eventually. When he's older, when he's ready, we'll tell him everything." Kurama's voice was heavy. "But for now, let him be a child. Let him have whatever innocence he can."
"Agreed," the other bijuu said in unison.
Shukaku, notably, was quiet.
"Something to say, Shukaku?" Son Gokū asked.
"I... no. It's nothing."
"It's not nothing. Speak."
The One-Tail's sand swirled uncomfortably. "This afternoon. When the sand killed the caretaker. The kit giggled."
"We remember."
"And tonight. When we killed the Kumo operatives. He wasn't even awake. We did it. Us. Not him."
"Your point?"
"My point is..." Shukaku struggled to find the words. "We keep saying we're protecting him. But are we? Or are we just... using him? Like everyone else wants to?"
The question hung in the air, uncomfortable and unavoidable.
"We're doing what we have to do," Kurama said finally. "To keep him alive. To keep us alive. It's not pretty. It's not noble. But it's necessary."
"Is it? We could have let the ANBU handle the Kumo operatives. We could have trusted the humans—"
"The humans were too slow. By the time they noticed the intrusion, the kit would have been gone. We saved him."
"We killed three people using his body."
"To save him."
"AND WHAT DOES THAT MAKE US?!" Shukaku's voice echoed through the mindscape. "What does that make HIM? We say he's ours, that we love him, that we're protecting him—but we're also turning him into a weapon! A killer! A monster just like us!"
The outburst stunned everyone into silence.
Shukaku, the insane, cackling One-Tail, was not supposed to be the voice of moral conscience. He was supposed to be the one urging violence, not questioning it.
"Shukaku..." Matatabi began.
"Don't. Don't try to comfort me. Don't try to justify it." Shukaku's sand settled, his energy draining. "I just... I wanted something different. For once. I wanted to protect without destroying. To care without corrupting. And I don't know if that's possible anymore."
"It's possible," Kurama said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. "It's just... hard. Harder than any of us expected."
"So what do we do?"
"We keep trying. We make mistakes—we've already made mistakes—but we learn from them. We do better." Kurama's tails swayed slowly. "The kit is young. There's still time to shape what he becomes. And if we work together, if we're careful, we can give him something none of our previous hosts ever had."
"What's that?"
"A choice. When he's old enough, when he's strong enough, he'll choose who he wants to be. Not us. Not the humans. Him." Kurama looked at his siblings, one by one. "That's what we're really protecting. His ability to choose."
The words settled over the bijuu like a benediction.
"For the kit," Isobu said quietly.
"For the kit," the others echoed.
Even Shukaku, eventually, joined in. "For the kit."
Morning came.
The Kumo delegation was found to be missing three members. A search was conducted. No evidence was ever found.
Hiruzen, receiving the report, looked out his window at the village he had spent his life protecting.
"They tried to take him, didn't they?" he asked the ANBU kneeling behind him.
"That is the most likely conclusion, Lord Hokage."
"And they failed."
"Spectacularly, it would seem."
"Any idea how?"
"None, sir. No witnesses, no evidence, no bodies. It's as if they simply... ceased to exist."
Hiruzen was silent for a long moment.
"Increase security around the orphanage. Triple it. And begin preparations for alternative housing."
"Alternative housing, sir?"
"The orphanage is too vulnerable. Too many civilians, too many potential hostages. We need somewhere more secure. Somewhere we can control access completely." Hiruzen turned away from the window. "And find me everything we have on multi-beast Jinchuuriki. If such a thing has ever existed before."
"Yes, Lord Hokage."
The ANBU vanished, leaving Hiruzen alone with his thoughts.
In the orphanage across the village, a two-year-old boy woke up with no memory of the night's events. He played with his sand. He ate his breakfast. He giggled at a butterfly that flew past the window.
And inside him, nine ancient beings watched over him, argued about him, worried about him.
Loved him.
In their own complicated, dysfunctional way.
Shukaku's cackle echoed through the mindscape, finally breaking the somber mood.
"What's so funny?" Kurama demanded.
"Nothing. Everything. Us." The One-Tail's golden eyes gleamed. "We're the nine tailed beasts. We've destroyed cities, ended civilizations, been the stuff of nightmares for millennia. And now look at us. Arguing about a toddler's emotional development. Feeling guilty about violence. Having a moral crisis over killing three people who absolutely deserved it."
"Your point?"
"My point is that we've changed. The kit changed us. Without even trying, without even knowing, he's made us into something... different." Shukaku's cackle softened into something almost like a laugh. "It's hilarious. And terrifying. And I don't know whether to be proud or horrified."
"Both," Matatabi suggested. "Both is appropriate."
"Yeah." Shukaku's sand swirled contentedly. "Both."
The other bijuu exchanged glances that contained centuries of shared history, shared pain, and now, shared purpose.
They were a family.
A deeply dysfunctional, occasionally murderous, extremely overpowered family.
But a family nonetheless.
And their kit—their precious, ridiculous, impossibly important kit—was going to grow up knowing he was never, ever alone.
Even when he really, really wanted to be.
Author's Note: The Kumo delegation has learned an important lesson about trying to kidnap Jinchuuriki: don't. Unfortunately, they learned it too late. Shukaku is having character development and is deeply uncomfortable about it. Kurama is being supportive and is even more uncomfortable about that. Next chapter: Naruto learns to walk without setting things on fire (mostly), the Hyuga incident happens (with predictable results), and Hinata gets a very unusual guardian angel. Also, someone finally tells Naruto he has roommates in his head, and his reaction is not what anyone expected.
The bijuu would like it known that they are not babysitters. They are ancient, powerful entities of mass destruction who are temporarily serving as babysitters. There's a difference. Apparently.