To truly claim and wield the Nine-Tails' vast chakra as his own, Naruto would eventually need to break the seal the Fourth Hokage had left behind. For now, though, he could only look at that goal from a distance.
He knew absolutely nothing about sealing techniques.
The only tailed beast with any real understanding of seals was Shukaku, and Shukaku was still locked away in Sunagakure. Kurama had been sealed for decades, but there was nothing the fox could do about the seal itself except slowly grind against it with chakra over time.
Sealing arts were an immense, intricate discipline. They involved precision chakra construction, the interpretation and drawing of formulas, and interference with space itself—and sometimes even with concepts that ordinary shinobi could barely comprehend.
Even with complete books and famous teachers, plenty of people never managed to learn them. Trying to fumble through that field alone, without guidance, was no different from chasing a fantasy.
So Naruto set his sights on the Third Hokage.
As the man who had ruled Konoha for years and gathered countless scrolls under his authority, Hiruzen Sarutobi was the most reasonable source of information in the village. If Konoha had preserved any serious material on sealing arts, then somewhere in the Hokage's possession would be the place to find it.
Naruto refused to believe Konoha had never copied or studied the exquisite sealing arts used by Mito Uzumaki and Kushina Uzumaki after they came to the village as Nine-Tails jinchuriki. That knowledge had to exist. The only question was how to get access to it without setting off alarms.
That was the difficult part.
If he directly revealed that he had already mastered Wood Release and tried to use it as a bargaining chip to request instruction in sealing techniques, the entire village would erupt. That kind of revelation would bring investigations, scrutiny, and risk far beyond anything he was willing to tolerate.
After going over it again and again, Naruto came to a simple conclusion: if he wanted something important, then he had to offer something substantial in return—but not something so shocking that it would put him under a magnifying glass.
That was when his thoughts turned toward the Uzumaki clan's innate talents: the Adamantine Sealing Chains and Kagura's Mind's Eye.
If necessary, he could claim that one of those bloodline abilities had awakened by accident—only in its most preliminary form, of course. Then he could use that as a reason to request proper instruction in sealing techniques from the Third Hokage, under the pretext of learning how to control and develop a power inherited from his clan.
It was a sound excuse. More than that, it was the kind of excuse that might even make Hiruzen feel gratified.
Without some kind of cheat system, obtaining essential resources meant revealing a few cards and trading them for opportunities. Naruto understood that clearly. To him, this was simply a necessary, calculated exchange.
But that led to another problem entirely: how was he supposed to imitate the Adamantine Sealing Chains or Kagura's Mind's Eye in the first place?
After a long stretch of thought, Naruto looked inward—toward the enormous fox lurking in the depths of his consciousness.
The Adamantine Sealing Chains were too difficult. He had never been taught how to use them. It had taken him three whole months just to figure out how to produce chakra threads on his own, and those substantial chains looked like something that required absurdly fine control over both form transformation and nature transformation. That wasn't the kind of thing he could fake overnight.
Kagura's Mind's Eye, however, seemed different. There might actually be room to work with that.
At its core, that technique was a large-scale sensory ability of extraordinary precision. It could detect chakra over a wide area—and in some cases, even sense the malice hidden within it.
The moment that thought formed, Naruto's eyes lit up.
Because Kurama already possessed something even better.
The Nine-Tails' perception of malice was so sharp it was practically instinctive. More than once, Naruto had heard the fox comment on the hatred concealed behind indifferent glances from villagers who outwardly said nothing at all. Kurama could feel their ill intent with terrifying clarity.
If he borrowed that ability and disguised it as the initial awakening of Kagura's Mind's Eye...
Then he would have a perfect reason to go to the Third Hokage and ask for systematic instruction in sealing techniques so he could "understand" and "control" the bloodline perception ability he had supposedly awakened. Compared to trying to fake the Adamantine Sealing Chains, this route was vastly more practical.
After a quick discussion with Kurama and a tacit agreement between the two of them, Naruto didn't waste another moment. He headed straight for the Hokage Building.
He understood very clearly that the key to this entire performance lay in one word: sudden.
The instant he "discovered" the abnormality of his ability, he had to panic, lose his composure, and rush to the Third Hokage—the elder he trusted most in the village—for help. That timing would make everything feel real.
If he hesitated, it would look contrived. Only speed could sell the illusion.
A seven- or eight-year-old Nine-Tails jinchuriki had suddenly awakened the Uzumaki clan's sensory talent, a power capable of perceiving good and evil—or, more precisely, detecting the malice around him. If that child immediately ran to the person he relied on most in a state of fear and confusion, would anyone find it strange?
Of course not.
On the contrary, it would likely please the Third Hokage immensely.
Not only would it avoid arousing suspicion, it would also satisfy Hiruzen's instincts as both Hokage and guardian. Naruto would look exactly like what the old man wanted to see: simple, dependent on the village, and willing to place his trust in him first whenever something dangerous or uncontrollable happened.
It was a beautifully timed "accident," one carefully designed to extract the maximum benefit from the smallest possible revelation.
There were usually no guards stationed at the entrance to the Hokage Building.
That wasn't because security was lax. It was a deliberate policy adopted by the Third Hokage in order to maintain the image of a leader close to the people, someone who listened to public opinion and remained approachable.
Any villager or shinobi could, in theory, walk into the building, submit a request, report a problem, or bring forward an issue that couldn't be resolved further down the chain. In practice, though, very few people would actually dare to rush all the way to the top floor and barge into the Hokage's office without notice.
Most matters were dealt with downstairs.
Today, however, was clearly going to be an exception.
Naruto rushed into the Hokage Building like a gust of wind, ignoring the startled looks that turned toward him from every direction. He didn't slow down once as he took the stairs at full speed and headed for the top floor.
He had never been to the Third Hokage's office before, so he had no idea which room belonged to him. More importantly, he still had one final piece of the act to perform: the panic and urgency of a child who had stumbled into something unknown and frightening.
So in that solemn, quiet corridor, his voice rang out—loud, rushed, and full of naked dependence.
"Grandpa! Grandpa! Where are you?!"
The shout served more than one purpose.
It helped him locate the Third Hokage quickly, of course, but it was also a necessary part of the performance. A frightened child wouldn't calmly ask for directions or politely wait outside a door. He would instinctively call for the adult he trusted most in the simplest, loudest way possible.
And Naruto, at that moment, played that role perfectly.