Naruto: Chronicles «COMPLETED»

9

Chapter9: Brothers

Land of Fire: Western Border

The eighteen year old Sarutobi Konohamaru, grandson of the Sandaime Hokage and the fourth Jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Tanuki was considered by many to be a genius. By the age of twelve the young man had mastered several high-level Ninjutsu and despite being a Genin at the time, he was arguably far stronger than others his age. Now at age eighteen he had reached the rank of Jonin and had been reassigned back to his spot on Team Kakashi. Nine years ago, his first sensei and brother figure, Uzumaki Naruto had been killed in action taking the legendary Kyuubi no Yoko with him in death. Initially he'd been both angry and scared, blaming those that were now his teammates for his Ni-san's death but he'd moved on since then and forgiven them after find out all of the details of that day.

Since the Ichibi attack eight years ago and its subsequent sealing within his body by his grandfather to protect Konoha, he'd been training constantly in order to gain better control of its power. However it was a slow process since the seal that had been used to imprison the sand demon was the Shiki Fujin, the strongest Fūinjutsu in the known world. The seal allowed some of the Ichibi's chakra to leak into his chakra core, greatly increasing his chakra reserves at an alarming rate however that was all it did.

Unlike the current Kazekage, Sabaku no Gaara who used to be the Ichibi Jinchuuriki before him; his seal was actually far more powerful and restrictive to the demon within than the one Gaara used to have. Gaara's seal was almost non-existent, allowing the Ichibi—Shukaku—to exert a rather disturbing amount of torture on his Jinchuuriki. This resulted in nightmares, whispers of killing and even going as far as to take direct control of Gaara's body whenever he fell asleep. On the positive side it also granted him the ability to control sand to a degree only rivalled by Senju Tobirama's control over water. He also gained an automatic defence in the form of a sand barrier controlled by Shukaku that would constantly be thrown up whenever his Jinchuuriki—and by proxy himself—was attacked.

Konohamaru's seal on the other hand restricted Shukaku from doing any of those things; the young Sarutobi had been glad that he wouldn't have to stay awake forever and constantly have the sand demon talking in his head all the time however he did find it annoying that he wouldn't be able to control sand like Gaara was capable of. It would certainly be useful especially considering Gaara was regarded as the strongest Kazekage of them all because of his talent.

In regards to Konoha, the village he was named after, the civilians hated him and the ninja hated the Ichibi within him. He had their respect as a shinobi and as the grandson of the Sandaime Hokage he was acknowledged by the villagers however his relations with those outside of his team were strained. Only his teammates, the Godaime Hokage, Tenzo and the strange Hyuga girl, Hanabi who kept following him around when not on missions ever treated him like a normal person. Thankfully Jiraiya-sama had taken to training him, even going so far as to allow him to sign the toad summoning contract. He knew the toads were one of the three most powerful summons in existence because they could do some strange jutsu that he hadn't heard of before and it made them ridiculously strong.

He couldn't wait to learn that...

"Is it just me or is it hot out here?" Sakura asked.

"Of course it's not you," Konohamaru replied without thinking. "We're almost to the desert so of course it's going to get hotter."

Sadly the only words the pinkette caught were 'not you' and 'get hotter' so naturally she took it the wrong way. The punch came out of nowhere; smacking the teenage Sarutobi across the jaw sending him crashing into a nearby tree. Though her chakra control was perfect and her reserves were larger than they were years ago; she just couldn't duplicate the legendary physical strength of Senju Tsunade. In another life that single punch would have damn near killed Konohamaru however that was not the case here since she'd been reassigned from her previous posting on Team Kurenai.