Naruto: The New Sealmaster

The hokage now awaited his next scheduled meeting. He made sure to leave a couple of hours afterwards free since he was almost absolutely positive that Kakashi would be late, but he didn't know by how much.

So now, an hour and a half after schedule, he heard a knock on his door. "Let him in."

To Hiruzen's surprise, Kakashi was not alone. Next to him was a young boy without any hair on his face or on top of his head, with pink fragile looking skin and wearing an open haori. This kid must be the last member of the team Kakashi failed, the one with the burn damage.

Kakashi stepped up to the table and placed three files on it. Hiruzen gave him a nod and asked him to explain.

"Hokage-sama. The first file is about Tetsuo, and how he's being handled." A simple nod made him go on. "The second one is Akiho's failure and subsequent decision to go back to the academy and join class B." A slow nod followed that and Hiruzen looked towards Kakashi's final prospect.

Kakashi sighed. "But I can't in good conscience fail Rokushō Aoshi." Hiruzen blinked in surprise and confusion. He hadn't expected Kakashi to actually let a student pass. He had to interject though, Kakashi can't be allowed to take an apprentice. "But Kakashi-"

He raised his hand. "I know, Hokage-sama. I will not fail him but in those papers is a..special solution." Hiruzen started flipping through Aoshi's file.

"In there, are several signed agreements. Might Guy has agreed to let Aoshi join their training sessions when they're in Konoha. The library has agreed to let him go up into the chunin section. I have agreed to give him assistance when he needs it and I'm available. Finally there's another paper which says that he's a genin on stand by. He will jump into any team which needs another member. The only thing lacking from all these papers is your agreement and signature." He gave the hokage a slight bow, followed up by Aoshi's deep bow.

Hiruzen inspected the papers in front of him. Kakashi of course told him exactly what they said, but he had to double check so everything was in order. This was rather unprecedented, but he could understand Kakashi's thinking. If Aoshi didn't get a jounin to teach him, he should at least be allowed some good scrolls to read. It'll take him a long time to become chunin level when he has no teacher and only access to the genin library.

Hiruzen sighed and brought his pipe to his mouth. It was a good idea. This kid was a different kind of prodigy after all. If his chakra reserves were larger, Hiruzen had no doubt he'd be the top prospect of his generation. But as things stand, he wasn't. He could see two ways for him to go. Either a good special jounin class researcher, or he could somehow break his limits and become what he wished Orochimaru would have become.

Thoughts of his old disciple brought Hiruzen's mood down. He saw a lot of similarities with Orochimaru in this kid actually, but there was one major thing separating them. This thing was what made him trust Aoshi in this moment.

Aoshi has ties to the village. Aoshi wants to keep his ancestral home and rebuild his clan here. Aoshi has a best friend and an aunt he loved. Orochimaru had none of these. He only had a fake friendship, which was why Hiruzen assumed he could leave without regrets.

With those thoughts in mind, he signed Aosho's papers. He looked up to the kid. "Some of the scrolls your father sold are in the chunin section. We don't have many fuinjutsu scrolls after all, so they make up the basis of the chunin portion. My former student Jiraiya has also written quite a few in the chunin section, as has a few interesting Uzumakis. I think you'll find them interesting, but broaden your horizons after a while. A good ninja is multifaceted, remember that."

Aoshi stayed in the bowing position and said "Yes Hokage-sama. I'll remember those words. And thank you for approving!"

Hiruzen let out a chuckle. "No trouble kid. Use it well! And don't stop sparring with your friends just because you have a lot to research. You learn a lot more by applying your knowledge."

With that, their meeting was over and Aoshi left the room to go to the library. Kakashi stayed behind to finish the talk.

"You know..Next year there will be the two we've been talking about. Naruto and Sasuke will be graduating. I would have wanted you to have already went through one team before you handled them.."

Kakashi sighed. "Then you should have given me a decent team before this. This was the first time I wanted to choose someone and I'm not allowed to do so. I know I'll have no choice next year but by gods..at least make the third member someone easy to handle."

Hiruzen took another puff from his pipe. "You know I can't control that. Sasuke will no doubt be the top academy student and if Naruto graduates he'll do so at the bottom of his class due to his previous grades. You will get the top kunoichi of the year along with them and I can't control who that will be."

Kakashi sat down with another sigh. "I suppose you're right. What if Naruto doesn't graduate though?"

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow. "Then I'll give you an anbu mission to teach him what he needs to know to graduate. You'll have a week from the point of not graduating. I can only hold off the team designations that long."

Kakashi nodded and rose from his seat. "I understand. But give me a few less missions this year as well. I think I might be able to teach Aoshi some skills in my off time."

With that, their meeting and planning was over.

***

Aoshi had just been let through by the receptionist. He figured that although he wanted to look at the chunin section, he should probably get his foundation right first. So he asked for help finding what he needed.

He walked over to the nearby worker. She was a rather slender brown haired woman dressed in a rather casual long kimono. She was quite a bit older than him, about the age his mother would have been actually, but that probably made her more reliable. The reason he chose her though, was that she had the kindest face out of the three workers there.

"Excuse me! Could you please help me find some study material?" The woman stopped sorting through the scrolls to look down at him and smiled when she saw that he was just a newly graduated child.

"Of course dear. Anything in particular you'd need or do you want me to find what I think you might need?" Her voice was so calm and soothing. Aoshi told himself to always ask her for help from now on and not the others. He would be coming here a lot, so a friendly face would be nice!

He cleared his throat. "One scroll on improving the yang side of your chakra, one scroll on basic medical information, one scroll on the other nations, one scroll on elemental ninjutsu and finally a scroll on foundational fuinjutsu. Oh, my name is Rokushō Aoshi by the way." He smiled tentatively at her.

With a melodious, light laugh, she nodded. "As I expected, you're the kid Kakashi spoke of. My name is Kohaku Aika. I'm rather impressed with your self-restraint for staying on the genin floor to begin with. Follow me."

His smile grew wider as she seemed to be accepting and helpful. He followed her along while she explained how the scrolls were organised through the library. Once they got to a shelf he needed, she took down two different ones each time and had him choose which one he preferred.

By the end of the tour, the scrolls he asked for were all on a table for him to study them. He bowed deeply in front of the woman. "Thank you Aika-san. I hope you'll help me in the future as well!"

She chuckled into her hand and then gave him a beautiful gentle smile. "Of course. My daughter wouldn't forgive me otherwise." She walked away with a wink.

That's when it clicked for Aoshi. He thought she looked vaguely familiar. She had the same clan name as Akiho! That was probably her mother. Aoshi looked at the tall beautiful woman and blushed a bit thinking that Akiho might look something like that in a couple of years..but suddenly he shook his head violently and slapped his cheeks. "Focus Aoshi! Focus!" He told himself as he sat down to study.

 The following weeks went by fast. Every morning he was trained by Might Guy, sometimes he was brought along for some simple missions around Konoha. He wasn't complaining. He'd take any mission to fill his report card up.

He'd like to come along when they were sent to help take care of the kids at the orphanage. There weren't as many kids there anymore as back when the Kyuubi attack was new, but being a ninja was dangerous work. Families grew smaller after the last few wars so when parents died, many didn't have a cousin or uncle/aunt to send their children to.

Aoshi seemed to have a certain talent for guiding the children..

***

It was the second time he was sent along for this mission. Team Guy had accepted it once without him but quickly realised that an extra member would be nice. Last time he was sent to the kitchens but this time Aoshi went out to play with them and entertain the children. Rock came along.

"Oi, do you have some kind of plan to keep them entertained?" Aoshi looked over to Rock Lee, hoping he had a plan of sorts. His hopes were clearly put in the wrong place as Rock shook his head passionately.

But the thing was, some kids were very entertained by Rock's passionate and happy attitude. He even let them give him commands to make the training more difficult. Hearing the children laugh, Aoshi sat down against a nearby tree and started scribbling on some sealing tags.

After a while, he noticed three of the children sitting near him. One in front, one up in the tree and one behind the tree. All of them were looking at him and what he was writing. Aoshi looked up, and the one in front of him spoke without a care in the world.

"Why don't you have any hair?" The voice which said it was so innocent and sweet, but the question still made Aoshi's eye twitch. The hair he loved so much was gone for now, he'll get it back in a couple of months but until then he better get used to his bald round head.

He gave the kid a forced but gentle smile "There was an accident with a fire ninjutsu. I took the hit for someone."

It was the truth, even if it sounded a lot nicer than it was in reality. He saw how the eyes of the kids grew and they looked at him in wonder. The one behind him was next to ask a question. "What are you doing? Are you drawing? Because that's a terrible drawing. Even Kotsu could do better than that."

A twig came flying towards the kid from above. "Hey! I can draw much better than that, what do you mean 'even Kotsu'!?"

Aoshi chuckled at them and took a proper look at the children around him. All three were actually rather plain looking if you took their basic features. Brown hair, brown eyes, rather lean physiques. The kid in the tree was slightly stockier though, and his face had a rather unordinary square shape. The kid in front of him had a rather long thin face instead, with a large smile but small eyes. The final kid looked very very plain all over. It seems he knew this himself though so he made his hair have the craziest of curls to stand out as much as he could.

They all looked at him first, before they joined in on the laughing. Finally he answered. "This is fuinjutsu, I can seal quite a lot of things."

The children looked at him puzzled. It seems they haven't heard of the beautiful art of Sealing. He decided to show them. He took out a small sealing scroll he brought with him.

"Look here. In this little scroll, I have equipment for one week of camping." They clearly gave him disbelieving eyes but then he unfurled it, showed them the signs on it, and then placed his finger on top.

A second later, the ground around them had a tent, a backpack, a med kit and a couple of necessities. The boys had stars in their eyes as they finally looked back at Aoshi as if he was some kind of mighty hero.