Rise of The Phoenix Sage

CHAPTER 29: The Beast Within - Part 2

(Outside The Eight Trigrams Seal... Senju Residence...)

It had been a year since the Senju Clan fought for the respect of Sakumo Hatake. Since then the tower located exactly at the center of Training Ground 44 had been named 'Hatake Tower' and a large statue of Sakumo Hatake had been erected in the stadium within the tower where Chunin exam finals always take place. The name Sakumo Hatake – The White Fang of The Leaf Village had been proudly etched on to the Leaf's memorial stone and Sakumo Hatake's final resting place had been given a proper grave stone, so that the people who may come to pay their respects to him can find his final resting place easily. Also, since then all the shinobi who have lost their lives in this one year, have been given a final resting place near him.

Senju Clan received huge respect from shinobi population, but the entire Civilian Council started hating them for making them lose the edge they had on the Hokage and the Shinobi Council. Even if they don't outright say any hateful words to them, they still held hatred towards Senju family inside of them. The surprising thing is that the Civilian Population seemed to be not effected even after word had spread out that the Hokage will no longer listen to the demands of Civilian Council. Most civilian population already didn't like Naruto at all because of the incident that happened 9 years ago, but they never said anything hateful to Naruto as they know who his father is. It just seemed that this new development with Civilian Council has neither increased nor decreased the hate in civilian population, but it remained the same as before. Naruto, his mother and sister were curious to know why there was no outrage in civilian population after the Civilian Council had lost most of its power with in the village, but they never found the reason.

Today is Naruto's 9th birthday and his mother and sister were preparing for the small celebration which will take place in the evening. Naruto has already invited his friends in class and asked them to come along with their parents too. Tsunade had also invited the family of Tazuna a few days back, but she did not get any reply from them. She thought may be they were just busy. While his mother and sister were waiting for him to wake up, the blond was still asleep.

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(A Few Minutes Later...)

The blond boy slowly woke up to the sound of water dripping. "*Yawn* Well... Today is the day..." muttered Naruto referring to his 9th birthday with a yawn while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

But as soon as his vision focused he was confused as to why he was in a darkly lit underground complex, with two pipes running along the ceiling and various hallways. The floor was flooded with a shallow layer of water, which is only one-inch in depth. One of the two pipes on the ceiling was red in color and it was the largest of the two. The other pipe on ceiling was blue in color and it was almost one third the size of the red one.

"Uhhh... Where am I?" Naruto asked no one in particular. He was still dressed in his pajamas that he wore to sleep.

Soon the blond boy heard some noise that sounded like it was the breath of someone or something. So, he followed the sound through the complex and soon he was greeted with the sight of a huge cage with double doors. The cage doors have eight huge metal bars that went through the darkness above and it looked like they don't have an end. Both doors of the cage were closed shut with a sheet of parchment in the middle securing them. The parchment had the kanji for 'SEAL' written on it.

Naruto can't see what was there on the other side of the cage as there is too much darkness on the that side of the cage. But soon the darkness was obliterated by the glow casted upon by two large red eyes with vertically slit pupils. Then the eyes seemingly started raising above the ground, like whoever was on the other side of the cage is standing up.

"Finally, I get to meet my Jailor after all this time..." whoever was on the other side of the cage said and spit the word 'Jailor' like it was some sort of a poison.

Naruto got curious to find out who it was and approached a safe distance from the seal and saw what was on the other side of the cage. Standing there towering over the blond boy by a large margin was The Mighty Nine Tails, a tailed beast that is said to have caused Tsunamis and Earth quakes with just a small flick of one of its tails.

"Nine Tails...?" Naruto asked just to make sure.

"So, you know me...?" asked Nine Tails not really expecting an answer.

"Yes...! You're the friend that my father and mother left behind for me..." Naruto said feeling excited to meet the Nine Tails.

Whatever the Nine Tails was expecting, that response from the boy was not in any of his expectations. But still he didn't let it show outside and questioned, "You do know that I killed your parents, don't you...?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed a bit, but he replied anyway, "Yes, I know... And I also know that your actual intention was to kill me, but they got in your way..."

Nine Tails just raised his massive eye brow and asked, "That may be the truth... But still... I killed your parents and I intended to kill you too... So why do you want to consider someone who killed your parents, as a friend...?"

"My mom taught me that hanging on to hatred and rage will ruin everything I have. She taught me to move forward and to accept who I am and who you are..." Naruto said referring to himself and the Nine Tails, then he continued again, "Also, anyone who was put in a situation where they will be forced into imprisonment for the crimes that they haven't really committed would most likely try to do the same thing that you did."

The Nine Tails seemed a little surprised about this kid's odd personality and asked, "How can you be so sure that I haven't committed the crimes that I am being imprisoned for...?"

Naruto spread his hands wide and bowed a little like he was introducing himself, "I am a sensory type..." He then stood back up and faced The Nine Tails again and continued, "I can sense if someone is saying the truth or not and I can also sense what they are feeling. From the very first moment I saw you, I felt only anger from you... Innocents who were wronged feel anger, where as someone who did something wrong and is imprisoned for life will feel hatred and rage... So, you feeling only anger is a good sign that you truly believe that you're an innocent... A person can fool many others, but no matter what they can never fool themselves and they can't hide who they really are from themselves..." He paused and looked straight into eyes of The Nine Tails and asked, "Am I wrong...?"

The Nine Tails was taken back by that accurate explanation from someone so young, but then he shook his head slightly and remembered that he intended to tear this child apart when he met him and said, "So... You consider me your friend...?"

"Yes..." Naruto replied.