Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any other anime for that matter, all rights are reserved to their respective owners.

AN: Now before you comment, I know this idea has been done many times before, but I am going to attempt both a new spin on it and try to make it different from others, if not just a small bit. Therefore, I ask you not to judge the story from others with the same idea, but instead judge it for its own story and tell me both its faults and boons in a review. Thank you and enjoy the story.

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All was quiet in the Hidden Leaf Village, also known as Konoha, as a young boy stealthily slunk through the alleyways of the large village. This boy had a small frame and wore a faded white shirt that had a flame design on both the front and the back as well as a pair of black pants with an orange stripe on both sides of the legs. The boy, though obviously young, made no sound as he crept through the alleyways and if one looked closely, they could see his bright blue eyes snap in every direction every five seconds. Usually, he kept his mask on at all times to prevent the villagers from fearing him even more, but that night was an exception, and he had to use all of his skills in stealth he had amassed over the years.

He had developed these skills both in hiding from the villagers of the village that feared him for reasons that he still did not know but did not overly care for. The only thing that he cared about was what he had to do to earn their trust, and the only thing he could think of was becoming Hokage, the leader of Konoha, but that meant becoming a shinobi first, which was why he was sneaking around. He had first disguised his image slightly as to not allow people to know it was him. This was easy enough with some hair dye and makeup that he had stolen from a merchant while no-one was paying attention. The only thing that could give him away to a civilian were his clothes, however he could not replace those as they were too expensive with the overcharged prices and he could not steal any without being noticed.

He quickly put those thoughts in a corner of his mind as he arrived near his destination that night. He looked from his position in the alleyway towards a large building known simply as The Academy. This building looked just like any other big building from the back, where he was, however the front did not look too grand either. The only memorable things about the place at first glance were that it had big double doors, a swing under a tree, and many windows on the multi-story building. This was intentional in the boy's opinion. Something that looked like every other building was more likely to be overlooked as the place where all future generations of Konoha soldiers were trained.

His plan, once he entered as a student, was to act like a loudmouth brat to pass under the radar of most teachers and students. He would practice his stealth and tap skills more with pranks that got grander and grander as time went on. Of course, that was not the only reason he did pranks. The other reason was that he simply enjoyed them and he silently mused that his fake mask he would wear was probably more like his true self than the mask he was currently wearing. The mask he was wearing at the moment hid all of his emotions, while his other mask simply enhanced them to the fullest, except true anger. His true self had the great emotions of his emotional mask, but held the control and intellect of his emotionless mask. The only people he had shown this self to were the kind people who ran the great ramen stand, Ichiraku's Ramen, and the current hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage of Konoha and Professor of the Leaf.

The boy stopped at the end of the alleyway, laying low in the shadows provided by the walls and moon. He supposed he was fortunate that the Uchiha Clan had been killed off the previous year, if one passed by with their sharingan active, as they had been obligated to do as Konoha's peace keeping force, he would be found in an instant. However, after a year of pranks and hiding from the Anbu, the Hokage's special force that were under his command, he discovered that these shinobi were much better at hiding themselves than finding others. The only problem was when the Anbu decided to send a sensor after him to try and find his huge chakra signature. It was because of this that the boy learned how to hide most of his chakra to make it feel like there was just some jonin walking around. He was still working on making it even better, however it was very slow going.

He barely peeked around the alleyway as his eyes darted in all directions he could see. He had extremely good vision and could even see about 75% as well at night as he could during the day. The boy stifled a curse as he saw an Anbu using an average hiding technique, which used a simple genjutsu cloak to surround himself with blackness. However, a good eye could catch the subtle difference between pure blackness and the shadows of the buildings. The boy frowned as he thought of how to sneak by the Anbu, before deciding on using one of the traps he had set up the previous day for this very scenario.

The boy reached down and grabbed a pebble before tossing it across the small side road onto a small scale that pulled down a ninja string with it, which activated a small catapult like structure a few hundred yards away, that coil of ninja wire had been extremely hard to acquire, which would launch multiple kunai that would slam into a wall, making it seem like a ninja was attacking another shinobi but missed. Sure enough, in a few seconds, the Anbu released his genjutsu and quickly leapt over to where he heard the sound. He would likely be searching for a good while before giving up, but the boy did not like taking chances so he silently ran over to behind the Academy and picked up a large beige cloak that looked very similar to the paint on the wall that was darkened by the night.

The boy then pulled out two grappling claws from a pouch on his waist before slowly climbing up the building to the window which looked into the room that the meeting would be taking place in. Once he finally got up there after two minutes of climbing, he silently checked his watch and noted that it was five minutes before the supposed meeting was supposed to be started. He was still surprised how easy it was to learn things when one had enhanced hearing while eavesdropping on a bar. He immediately stopped thinking about this and turned his ear to the window while dropping a mottled grey cloak in front of him that he had put underneath the white one to keep them from knowing he was there.

"So, let's get the big thing out of the way," the boy heard a deep voice say dismissively as he heard a few footsteps enter the room. "Naruto Uzumaki, the demon brat, cannot enter the academy. Thanks to Mizuki digging up some old records and documents, I have discovered that as headmaster I can refuse any student entrance into the academy if I feel like the charge will be a danger to others. The hokage also cannot do anything about it, as seen when Garoza Yukimare, the first headmaster, refused access to a Kurama who couldn't control her powers, even though the Second Hokage demanded he let the girl enter."

Naruto's heart sunk as he heard the claps coming from the other people in the room. He briefly perked up as he heard the headmaster question a man named Iruka why he didn't seem so enthusiastic, however the hope that someone would stand up for him was quashed when this Iruka simply said it was nothing and started clapping with the rest. Naruto simply could not believe his ears. His journey had ended before it had even begun and it was for something that Naruto did not even know the cause of. If he was not accepted into the Academy then he would never ascend to the position of Hokage. In fact, his best hope was for him to be turned into a weapon to be used for the good of the village by the one-eyed man that had been trying to recruit him for years.

No… Naruto refused to accept any of these options. If Plan A was out, then Naruto would simply have to settle for Plan G. He had formed many plans for his eventual rise to the position of hokage, however he only had three that could be used if he was refused into the academy. Plan D was to 'accept' being a weapon and get so strong that he simply killed everyone in his path. Plan E had about the same idea, but instead of becoming a weapon he would defect from the village and amass power that way. His final plan, Plan G, was to defect from the village and become stronger and stronger until he founded his own hidden village. Once founded, he would make it stronger and stronger until it was the strongest of all the villages. He would not be hokage, but he would have the respect and admiration of an entire village of people, and that is all he wished.

Naruto sighed as he adjusted his hands for a long wait to hold on to the grappling claws. He would have to wait there on the wall for three hours since the Anbu was undoubtedly more alert after returning to his post after the kunai incident. Even the slightest movement would make him noticed and Naruto would have to wait until the thirty-minute change between shifts occurred. He was planning on returning home and packing to leave in those thirty minutes, but something one of the instructors had said had caught his ear. Apparently, the Academy was having its filing room remodeled and the headmaster wanted one of the instructors to move all cabinets filled with scrolls to that very room for the headmaster to review. They were to be separated by jutsu, academics, taijutsu, and shurikenjutsu as well as another scroll for areas that were not usually taught to the students. Naruto had never felt luckier in his life.

This was why, once three hours had passed, Naruto had been more careful in entering the room than he had ever been doing anything else in his life. He stealthily crept over to the five scrolls that were on the only desk in the room and widened his eyes as they were completely covered in seals. He smiled slightly before putting them in pockets in his pants and crawling outside the window again before closing the window. He climbed down the Academy wall before walking nonchalantly to an area where there was a small breach in the giant wall surrounding Konoha. This was about a twenty-minute walk and gave Naruto plenty of time to consider what he would do. He was also mentally preparing himself for leaving the village and felt minorly disappointed in himself when he was not very sad to leave. Sure, he would miss old-man Hiruzen as well as the two from the ramen stand, but overall, he was happy to leave the village.

As for what he would do, to the south of the Land of Fire was a country known as The Land of Forests which, other than a small criminal group that was notorious down there, had no shinobi village. It was also notoriously difficult for civilians to traverse as the thick foliage prevented them to move through it without getting lost. This applied for untrained shinobi as well, however Naruto only planned on hiding, he would hunt for food and stick close to the river for water. Meanwhile, any teams from Konoha would probably get lost finding him or would simply miss him in the large forests as long as he stayed low.

Once there, he would train more and more until he was at least genin level before the next phase of his plan would commence. As a genin, he would begin traveling around the minor nations, finding jobs and stealing equipment and possibly training scrolls from other shinobi passing through the countries. To do that, he would have to enhance his stealth and assassination techniques before even attempting that. A part of him that was still innocent winced at the thought of killing innocent people for his own goals but he ruthlessly squashed that part of him. He should have done so long ago, being a shinobi meant killing for your villages goals, and if he didn't have a village, that meant he would have to kill for himself and no-one else.

Anyway, he would not only be killing innocent genin and other shinobi to further his own skills. He would also be infiltrating clan compounds and ruins as well as other places with valuable information to further his skills. As he thought this he mentally made a list of places that would be useful to him. He had thought of about five places in the Land of Fire alone when he finally made it to the breach in Konoha's wall. It was only a small hole, barely enough for him to fit through, but it sufficed. He went over to a stump near it and rotated it before pushing it over, revealing four sealing scrolls that were filled to the brim with supplies that would last him about a month. These included, multiple kunai and shuriken, a few explosive tags, ramen cups, two refillable water bottles that cleaned the water inside after a few hours, a roll of ninja wire, and various other things that may be useful in the future.

Naruto quickly checked all the supplies over before unsealing a belt that had slots for the scrolls that would keep them there longer than his pockets would. He then went through the hole with a small grin. Luckily for him, the barrier that had used to surround the village would not be working in a small area that the Kyuubi's chakra had corrupted when he went on the rampage in the village. Naruto sighed to himself as he reviewed that information, when he made his own village he would be sure to make it to where all bars had silence seals in the walls…

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An Anbu looked over the wall as he saw the blonde-haired boy creep through the wall and away from the village. It seemed like the dye had finally worn off, though the Anbu member still reluctantly applauded the demon brat's skill in stealth before it did so. He had not even noticed the kid when he had snuck on to the academy building and stolen a few scrolls, only noticing when he saw that there was one less window on the building than there was before. He then silently stalked the boy until he saw him leave the village.

Now, most Anbu would then try to either kill or stop the boy from leaving, however, Rat was not most Anbu. He had been there when the fox attacked the village and he knew that it was best if the child left the village. If he stayed, the villagers would eventually break his mind and the demon would more than likely break out, and if he was killed then the village would lose one of their greatest assets for all eternity. No, it would be a much better choice to allow the child to think he had effectively evaded him and escaped than force him to come back.

He would not be the one to tell the Hokage that the boy was missing either. In fact, he was sure no-one would notice for a few days unless the headmaster who doesn't want the boy to attend the Academy were to bring attention to the child too soon. No, if the headmaster did that, Naruto would be discovered missing within the hour and the Hokage would release a full search team in all directions, going outside of the village when discovered he was not inside it. The boy would be found, questioned, and kept in the village as a holder for the demon until a new container was found or he died with the demon. Rat would not allow the demon brat to be found that easy. He would help the thing a little by not allowing the headmaster or other teachers to alert anyone of his absence. Hopefully he was smart enough to go to a place where no-one would find him.

With that thought, Rat leapt from his place on top of a light-pole. They would find the brat in a few years or so, preferably after the Third Hokage kicked the bucket, and when that happened they would retrieve their asset. In the meantime, he did not see any problem in letting everyone else in the world deal with the demon while Konoha inevitably became stronger without it. Rat sighed as he changed direction to a place right outside the wall of Konoha. Even if all of these things were the best options in his mind, he would still have to let Lord Danzo know about this new development with the brat. It wouldn't do to have to be executed or, even worse than that, weaken the village because of his opinions after all.

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AN: Thank you for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Next chapter will show Hiruzen's reaction to the news that Naruto has gone missing along with Naruto's journey to the Land of Forests to escape the village. Please rate and review as well, it helps me tell what I need to fix and what I did right.