This is a reboot/re-imagining of my The Tales of a Gutsy Ninja: The revised addition.
I do not own Naruto or any of it's affiliates. If I did, the orange jumpsuit would be burnt and replaced with something along the lines of Minato's clothes with a bit of the clothing Naruto wears when he fights pain.
because long trench cloaks make everything awesome.
Prologue: The Loaded Scroll
"I never once realized that the reason everyone hated me was because they wanted nothing more than to be rid of that hatred." - Naruto Uzumaki
Naruto scowled as he stomped home in a huff, stupid teacher, another stupid test, wasn't killing that traitor Mizuki-teme enough… hadn't he proven time and again that he was capable of becoming a Shinobi of Konoha. He had outrun, outclassed and outmanoeuvred the numerous ANBU and Jonin in his kill-me orange jumpsuit, that which while horrible was also orange, and more importantly cheap! But no, he had to take another stupid test.
He scowled suddenly, stomping past the Ichiraku Ramen Stand. Wondering how long Mizuki had been sabotaging his education, the fact that he hardly ever won a Taijutsu spar was proof enough to convince Naruto that he had been sabotaged. Other instances, where teacher's would send him out of class at the slightest grievance creating numerous tick marks appear above his head. Naruto didn't even want to think about all the price adjustments because he was a "special case" or the slight fuzzy feeling that took over his brain during tests.
Arriving at his large abandoned condone, he stomped up to the four room apartment that he both owned and maintained. A living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen was all it contained; well, aside from the mess that came with a fourteen year old living alone (A/N: I've bumped up the graduating age to fourteen for a number of reasons, one is simple common sense, another is the fact that theirs roughly a year between now and the Chunin Exams). Naruto hopped inside, discarding his day pack and sitting on his bed, moving his hands through his messy blond hair as he lay down upon it.
His life was no picnic, living out of dumpsters for three years before old man Hokage finally came round to paying some attention to him, something he now used to blackmail the man into giving him anything he wanted. He could still remember how hard it had been finding the few friends in his academy grade, Choji, Shikamaru and Kiba. Although now that his life as an academy student was over, hopefully, and he was faced with the vast world of Shinobi his meagre education and knowledge seemed a danger to himself. Especially with a demon freeloading in his stomach that would likely get him into more trouble with people who wanted to harness its power in the future.
Contemplating what to do, Naruto realised that there was three things that needed his immediate attention. Most imminently was that test tomorrow, a survival test, which would likely be more difficult than any other one he had taken during the academy. And here he was without a complete Academy education.
Well, at least survival he was good at, he internally argued, Tracking, Trapping, Endurance, Infiltration and Camouflage were the few subjects that he actually paid attention to in class. The mural in the ANBU headquarters depicting several women playing strip poker can attest to that.
His second immediate problem was his educational stunt. Naruto frowned, reading had never been something he liked to do, and this next task seemed to contain an unknown period of time doing that. But then again he could never become Hokage without learning what he had missed. Maybe he could send several Clones to the Shinobi Library to pick their way through anything useful.
The thought of his dream brought him to his third immediate concern, did he want to be Hokage anymore. His hero, the Yondaime, and ironically the person who had shoved fuzball into him, was still his hero. Although he was angry at the fact that he chose to shove a demon into him before he kicked the bucket, he could understand the necessity of the act. And why he was chosen. He just had the unfortunate curse as being born the same day as the Kyuubi attacked.
It was the event that had led to all the hatred and contempt in his life, but somehow Naruto couldn't bring himself to hate the Yondaime for sealing the demon in him. But it still put a rather large dint on his eventual plans to take the hat from the old man. His third problem was the hardest to fix, it required a lot of effort to sway the hearts of a fourteen year old hatred.
He sensed that nothing but hardwork and stubborn determination to become the Hokage would dissolve the hatred the villagers, both Shinobi and civilian alike, held for him. Now his poor education and the test tomorrow he could fix, and fix he would.
Utilising his amazing knew skill to create hundreds of identical copies of himself, he created half a dozen Shadow Clones, and swiftly instructing them to henge into different Genin. Henges complete, Naruto sent them off to the Shinobi library, something he was permanently banned. The Leaf hataite's included in their henges would be enough to gain them entrance to the Genin Level section. From there, his clones could easily pinch material for him to read in the coming weeks.
His Clones sent eagerly on their way, Naruto sat back down on his bed, his face screwed up, and his expression thoughtful. The Survival Exercise would likely be similar to previous ones at the Academy. An exercise where the Chunin instructor would have them disappear into the woods for a day, while several Genin volunteers gave chase. Survival exercises meant big inventories, which meant smoke bombs, kunai, shuriken and trip wire and odd things sealed in scrolls to use in traps. But most importantly it meant paper bombs, lots and lots of paper bombs. He practically skipped off to the only Shinobi Ware's shop that would sell him anything.
Rummaging through the store's wears, The Loaded Scroll, Naruto pushed a dozen smoke bombs into his bag, adding it to the shuriken, kunai, trip wire, paper bomb paper and seal scroll paper. His budget would be skewered for the next month, but inducing mass hysteria in his Jonin-sensei was too much of an opportunity to pass up.
It was in this happy mood, that Naruto discovered the second important ability of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Groaning in pain as the six clone burst at the same time, he must have made some kind of noise because a moment later the shopkeeper was calling him.
"Hey, Naruto," he was an old man, with bandages covering half his face, and hawk-like eyes that always missed exactly when he chose to pilfer from the store. But he caught all the other thieves, so Naruto had some idea that the man was pointedly ignoring him, "you okay."
Naruto would never say the man struck him as the kind and cuddly type. His secret ability to enhance four of his five senses allowed him to hear the hidden conversations he had with Shinobi hiding in the shadows. But the man was kind to him, and more importantly the Shinobi he whispered to were the ones that stopped the drunk civilians from attacking him.
Sandaime-jiji's Shinobi only stopped him from dyeing.
"Yeah," Naruto returned, mentally viewing his six clones at the library snatch thirty scrolls from the library, escaping by blowing a round adult sized hole through the second floor wall. Apparently they were displeased to learn that anything over Academy level wasn't allowed out of the library.
"Hey old man, you know the Kaeg Bunshin no Jutsu," the old man nodded, looking at him with interest. "Is it normal for a person to remember what their clones did when they burst into smoke."
"Naruto," and the old man suddenly looked a lot more fiercer, "What. Did. You. Do?"
"Nothing," Naruto yelped, dashing out of the store, now stolen goods in hand.
In the store, Danzou Uzumaki sighed wearily, and on the floor in front of him a member of Root appeared in front of him, "Sir, I have a report on Subject Nine," and Danzou let out an annoyed sigh.
"What has my dear grandson done now Hawk," he asked.
So there's the prologue: as you can see I'm going to make Danzou a good guy. I don't plan on changing his character much, After the whole Saske vs Danzou in the manga, I began to picture Danzou as the old war veteran that gives the village the occasional nudge in the right direction when needed. but I won't reveal to much about his character yet.
I eventually plan to introduce demons, just to give Naruto someone to fight who's actually strong, because I'm sure one of the reason's Kishimoto never abused the Shadow Clone training method is because Naruto would get really powerful really quickly and kill the series. but with Demon's hundreds of years old shadow clones are the perfect thing to give him that edge against their vast knowledge and experience.
Spoiler alert for next chapter.
three words
Kakashi, Book, Burnt
