Once Naruto had left his mindscape, he woke up to find himself surrounded by strangers. He carefully crawled to the only adult in the group and tapped on his shoulder to wake him up. Once the stranger was awake, he asked, "Where am I? Who are you, and who are these people here?"

The stranger frowned at him and yawned, sitting up. "Its still late kid, just go back to sleep, I'll explain everything to everyone in the morning." He said, turning back over to sleep.

At his response, Naruto's face brightened. "Yay! A nice mister that isn't calling me a monster! This is awesome! You're the first person to treat me like a kid instead of some monster or animal or something! Thank you so much mister!" he exclaimed, doing his best to hug him from behind.

Shocked at Naruto's words, the man just turned around and gave Naruto this small, heartbroken smile before hugged him back. Inwardly wondering at how horribly Naruto was treated, and how such simple things could bring him such joy, the man just held him closer and laid back down. "Your welcome kid, now lets just go back to sleep okay? I'll explain everything in the morning."

Naruto just nodded slightly and relaxed into the stranger's embrace, relaxing into the first friendly human contact he'd had in a long time and peacefully slipping off to sleep once again.

In the morning, when the man woke up, he carefully disentangled himself from Naruto and started to wake all the children up. Paranoid as a result of years of mistreatment from their respective villages, 6 of the jinjuriki either showed great animosity towards the man or carefully backed themselves into corners arming themselves and preparing to defend themselves in case of an attack, carefully scanning everyone in the room for any sign of a threat. The three that did not react this way were Garra, who trusted his sand to protect him, Naruto, who already like the man for his kindness to him the night before, and Fu, who was simply too young to quite understand what was going on.

Naruto just blinked at the other Jinjuriki before smiling and introducing himself.

"Hi! My name is Uzumaki Naruto! You guys won't be mean like the villagers, will you?" he asked, looking somewhat vulnerable as he looked at the other children.

The other jinjuriki just stared at Naruto and sighed relaxing at Naruto's question since he didn't seem threatening at the least. Gaara stared and shrugged and followed Naruto's example. "Nice to meet you Naruto, I'm Gaara, and no I won't be mean like the villagers, maybe you can be my first friend," Gaara suggested.

Naruto's eyes widened at that. "Really! I've never had a friend before! I'd love to be your friend!" Naruto exclaimed loudly, tackling Gaara with a hug.

Gaara blinked a him, shocked that his sand hadn't stopped Naruto, before smiling and cheering at gaining his first friend.

Fu then walked up to the two and lightly pulled on Naruto's pant-leg and in her slightly jumbled language, said " I want friend too, village mean, you not, right?" Fu asked, eyes bearing into their very souls. (A.N.:Talented 2 year old, isn't she?)

Naruto just grinned at her, unfazed by her searching gaze, sure that he could be a good friend, despite the fact that he had never experienced friendship.

"Of course! I'm sure that we can be great friends!" He shouted excitedly, throwing his fist up in the air, thrilled about making his first two friends.

Naruto then turned to the man who had brought them all there. "Hey mister, you said you would explain why we're all here in the morning, and it's morning now," Naruto said, basically demanding an explanation. Once Naruto had said this, everyone in the room glared at the man. The guy scratched his head and sighed. Alright, first things first. My name is Jiraiya, and I'm the one who took you from all of your villages." he explained, ruffling his spiky white hair he looked at each of them in turn and frowning since most of them were still regarding him with great caution. He just mentally shrugged and continued. " I took you all from your villages because of the way you were treated. I thought that it was really unfair of them to hate you all and treat you so unfairly because of something that you can't control, so I stole you all from your villages and brought you here," he told them. they blinked at his words and looked at everyone in the room, noticing the cuts and bruises on everyone. The bandages that were wrapped around the larger wounds on everyone. "There's a reason all of your villages hated you guys, and I just thought that I could maybe take you guys and raise you all together, away from their hatred." he finished, looking around again to see their reactions.

Naruto stared at him hard and then went up to him and tugged on his pants to get his attention. "Jiraiya, do they hate me because of Kura-kun?" he asked.

Jiraiya just stared at him. "Kura-kun? Who's that?" he questioned, feeling confused.

Naruto stared back, his eyes shining before he exclaimed "Kura-kun is the big fox in my mind! I met him yesterday when you had us knocked out! He's really nice compared to the villagers!"

The others stared at him confused while Jiraiya just stared at him, dumbfounded.

"What!" everyone exclaimed.