Okay, just to make everything clear, this story was written awhile ago and I ended up taking off this site however I've decided to repost it and many others that I've discontinued or are awaiting a rewrite.

ALL of my active stories are posted on the profile for Fenris187 and none of the fics here will be updated.

Also, I own no IP at all right now and make no money off this free access fanfiction.


Uzumaki Naruto was not happy. He had recently been enrolled into the Konoha shinobi academy and despite his constant effort, all the sweat he shed trying to succeed, he still couldn't harness his chakra.

It was a depressing thought as he threw himself onto his bed, the old mattress creaking noticeably as it struggled to deal with the sudden impact, being rather old and worn, though luckily there were no loose springs to dig into him… yet.

It wasn't because he wasn't sold anything, or people charged extortionate prices when he was involved, that sort of thing didn't happen, no, the reason his mattress was so old and worn was because the orphan fund he received couldn't cover the cost of a new one after all his bills were paid.

Unfortunately for him, since the Kyūbi no kitsune attacked Konoha seven years ago, the orphanage had been filled to capacity with several children being forced to live in small abandoned apartments and take care of themselves, he was one of the unlucky ones.

Naruto let out a small sigh as he looked at his hand, the very hand that made a seal to try and bring out his chakra which would constantly deny its presence to him. He knew he had to have some chakra, cuts don't normally heal in a matter of seconds without it, meaning he had to have chakra… so why couldn't he use it?

It was a question that had been bugging him since he started trying to bring it out, why was it that even after three months his chakra simply refused to let him use it when everyone else managed to unlock it within the first fortnight?

He hated it. His chakra was making him the deadlast of the academy, it was making him the laughing stock for reasons that weren't intentional… and it hurt. It hurt being called 'the idiot loser', 'the deadlast moron' and the ever so popular 'useless idiot'.

Yet again his anger at his current situation made him feel… strange, as if fire was pulsing through his veins, though since it had always been that way for him, he failed to notice that the feeling was out of place for a normal human being.

Gritting his teeth he started taking several deep breaths, just like he had been taught by the old man in the big hat known as the Hokage. It was the only thing people didn't ridicule him for, his anger management problems. He didn't know why but for some reason whenever he lost control and entered a temper tantrum, everyone tended to either flee or look at him in raw terror.

He had never been capable of figuring out why they acted that way towards him, he had seen other children rage at their parents and no one seemed even remotely scared, irritated yes, but not scared.

It made him feel even more alone than he thought should be allowed. From what he could tell the only person in the entire village that didn't keep his distance from the blond was the old man in the fancy hat, though given how he was supposed to be the strongest ninja in the village made that a moot point.

There was a man and his daughter that ran a ramen stand once, however after witnessing his anger they too had taken to keeping him at arm's length, the fear in their eyes obvious to him.

Sometimes he thought that he would be better off just leaving the village, though he was pretty certain the Hokage wouldn't allow that, he had overheard a conversation where he was called 'a weapon' by the old man's advisors.

He was no fool, although he didn't know why they called him a weapon he was certain that there was something special about him that would make moving away near impossible.

So in the end, all he could do was let out a sigh of frustration before sitting up and continuing to try and remove the seemingly unbreakable lock on his chakra. He had made a plan that would let him leave the village but in order to do that he would have to become a ninja, which meant he had to harness his chakra and learn how to use it properly.

He had been told, just like the rest of the class, that chakra feels like flowing water, with a small lake of it located near the stomach where it was created, something he was never capable of finding. Sure he could feel something that felt less like water and more like fire gushing through him with an inferno where his chakra should be, however going by what the teacher had told them all, whatever it was wasn't chakra.

He didn't have a clue what it was, just that it wasn't chakra and it was his chakra he was trying to unlock since he needed that to perform nin and genjutsu, two things that defined being a shinobi… plus he would need to use extremely powerful genjutsu if he ever wanted to escape the village.

Then again, this strange feeling could prove to be an unknown to Konoha, an unknown that if accessed and used could give him enough of an advantage to catch his enemies off guard and increase his chances of surviving after ditching his place of birth… he refused to call it his home, a home was somewhere you felt like you belonged and he knew he didn't belong among these people that feared him for reasons he didn't understand.

With that thought inching its way into his mind, the young blond let curiosity take the steering wheel and with a surprisingly small amount of effort, succeeded in latching onto the power, pulling it to the surface, feeling its warm burn caressing his skin before he opened his eyes.

What greeted them was a light blue aura engulfing his form, tingeing the world a slightly cold looking colour as it covered his eyes, the burning feeling that they were experiencing almost making him feel comfortable instead of pained like he would've expected.

He let out a small sigh as a sense of familiarity hit him, he was certain he had felt like this before, as though his world had been tinged before… that was when it hit him, he felt the same when he was angry, with the only difference being that his world tended to tinge red instead of blue.

It was almost like the energy responded to his emotions, was it possible that it was blue because he was calm? Or was it more his apathy that was making it blue? And did being angry make it red? There were so many questions flowing through his head as he tried to understand exactly what this strange energy was.

The only thing he was certain of was that it was not chakra. He knew from witnessing the teachers and the other students in the class that chakra would occasionally create a small vortex when harnessed but it never simply coated a person like this did with him.

Plus it felt wrong when compared to the description the teachers had given him concerning chakra, that was a dead giveaway.

Letting his curiosity get the better of him, Naruto couldn't help but move his arm, blinking as he saw the strange energy blur noticeably, creating a small arc in the air.

Tilting his head to the side he watched as the strange aura started to change its colouration, slowly turning from a light blue to a colour that he didn't like one bit… pink.

Letting out a sigh at the fact his aura was now a colour he associated with girls, he focused on it once more, pushing it back down into his stomach, feeling a hint of satisfaction as the visible energy vanished from sight and his eyes started seeing things in their natural colouration once again.

Despite everything, the young blond could do little more than smirk as his mind processed one simple fact… he had a power that he had never even heard of, something he could probably use to his advantage should it ever be needed.

All he needed to do was learn the limits of this power and find a way to use the academy jutsu.

XXX XXX XXX (5 years later) XXX XXX XXX

Uzumaki Naruto was considered by many to be an idiot. He may have been quiet but he was also inattentive, easily distracte, sloppy with his taijutsu and had significant difficultly with the academy jutsu.

Of course they didn't know that the reason for that was that he was close to falling asleep from sleep deprivation as opposed to boredom and his scores in the written tests were poor courtesy of his lack of studying as opposed to his intelligence.

The problem was of course, the academy jutsu. He was having to spend so much time learning how to control 'his' chakra because it was constantly overpowering the jutsu, then again he had expected it when he had first come to the agreement in the first place.

It was the only way he could figure out how to use chakra, by borrowing it off the beast sealed in his gut. Sure it had come as a surprise to him to discover there was a bijū sleeping in his stomach but it wasn't like it scared him, it was in a cage after all.

Plus it didn't seem quite as bad as the villagers made it out to be, filled with hate and pride yes… but it wasn't exactly what he would call evil. What he called evil was something malicious that caused harm to others simply for the fun of it, Kyūbi may have caused harm but it was never just for the fun of it, that much he could tell.

Still, the simple fact the fox had agreed to his deal was good for him, in exchange for a small volume of chakra to help him perform the academy jutsu he would release the beast back into the world under one of two conditions, one, he found a way to release it without killing himself in the process, or two, he was about to die anyway.

And Uzumaki Naruto always kept his promises.

Though he was at least smart enough to rarely make a promise in the first place, the only two he had made being that he would attend the shinobi academy and that he would release Kyūbi.

Of course no one outside of him and the kitsune knew of the second one, he was pretty sure he'd get an ass kicking for promising the Kyūbi freedom… no matter how temporary it would end up being. He had no illusions that the fox would either end up being put on a leash or sealed away relatively soon after being released, he was smart enough to realise that, plus he was a firm believer in Sods Law.

Right now though, he was still practicing for the academy graduation exam that would be held… it's hard to know whether it would be best to say tomorrow or today given it was the middle of the night, turning close to three in the morning as he continued to practice the basic three academy jutsu, each one barely passable courtesy of the sheer potency of the chakra used in them.

Of course he would have to be careful to get enough sleep, otherwise he might fail the final exam despite all his hard work. He knew his book smarts weren't up there with the rest of the class, mainly because he rarely read because of his handicap concerning the academy jutsu, however if he was at least 70% awake then he should be capable of acing the taijutsu portion… he would just have to be careful to not use his 'third arm' as he liked to call it.

It was a result of his strange energy, when he flowed it through fabric of any kind it would allow him to manipulate the material with his mind. He still remembered discovering that ability, he had literally fallen out of his bed one morning and gotten tangled in his duvet, his original idea was to burn the thing however that was quickly replaced by it unwrapping him and laying out flat once he had put some of his 'aura' in it. After that he started practicing and had even bought a large black cloak with red trim just for the purpose… it eventually became what he liked to call his 'third arm', with his only regret being that he had to skip out on buying a new mattress for a month longer because of it.

Fortunately though he had managed to get some extra money off the Hokage when he outgrew his clothes and couldn't afford to buy replacements because of his mattress and cloak, he had only managed to get away with the cloak because he didn't have any coats and although it didn't rain regularly, when it did, it rained heavily and his cloak would protect him from the elements while he wouldn't really outgrow it since it was already a bit too big for him anyway.

Even now he is twice the height he was when he got it, it still drags on the ground, leaving even more room to grow, even if the Hokage thought he had been mad to get one THAT much bigger than him. Still, with his ability to move it he never had to worry about tripping up on it like a lot of people would.

The young boy had two more tricks up his sleeve than just his third arm, one being the skill to turn his 'aura' into an inferno… not a little fire like Sasuke's Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu but an inferno that could make water vaporise before it got close enough to put it out. The only real problems were that he didn't really know how to direct the blaze and could do nothing more than coat his body in it, meaning it was no good as anything other than a boost for his taijutsu and even then, he couldn't keep it going for long, discovering that his limit seemed to be about five minutes before he collapsed from exhaustion.

Then his final ability… storage. He didn't have the slightest clue where his stuff went when he put it in his cloak but it vanished until he put his hand in and called it back… it was a particularly useful skill when shoplifting since even if they saw him steal something they couldn't prove it, since no-one could find it on him. Outside of that he was pretty sure his cloak was filled with all sorts of things he had forgotten over the years but he didn't know if they actually took up any room or not so he would just have to live with it.

Going through the hand seals for the basic bunshin one more time, the blond felt a now familiar rush of malicious intent that he immediately directed towards his hands and with a short burst of smoke, where once there was only one Naruto, there was now one Naruto and four illusionary copies of him.

Glancing at the bunshin, he let out a small sigh of relief, if he was this tired right now then he would probably do better after a half decent sleep and given that the bunshin was his worst technique, he should be capable of passing the graduation exam when he got to it, which would make him a ninja, which would get him out of the village on missions and give him ample opportunity to pull off his plan and escape the clutches of the village that made it its job to let him know he wasn't welcome there.

XXX XXX XXX

It was finally time. The day that he would become a ninja and finally get a chance to leave the village was here.

Naruto may not have been the smartest person around, his constant need to practice the basic jutsu meant he could never put any real effort into learning even if he did spend a little bit of time experimenting with his strange power, however what a small number of people realised was that despite his lack of knowledge, the boy almost never made the same mistake twice (excluding overloading the basic jutsu but that wasn't really his fault), indicating that he actually possessed at least a certain level of intelligence behind his apparent stupidity.

Though only three people in the class realised that piece of information, one of the instructors, a young man with a scar on the bridge of his nose named Umino Iruka, the class heartthrob, the only survivor of his extended family's massacre, Uchiha Sasuke and last but certainly not least, a boy he was almost certain was a mute, Aburame Shino.

Everyone else just thought he was an idiot… a scary idiot but an idiot none the less. They had quickly learned that pissing him off was not the smartest move given the fact that he tended to terrify even the instructors when he was angry, though they had to admit that pissing him off was actually quite hard and he probably had the longest fuse in the class outside of Shino… who everyone was pretty certain didn't even have one to light in the first place.

Of course there was something that annoyed him every day he was in class, its name was Hyūga Hinata. He didn't know why she annoyed him but she did. All she did was sit at the back of the class, hide in her jacket and generally act like a nervous wreck and for some reason it just made him want to strangle her. Then again he tended to want to strangle anyone that acted like a nervous wreck so he was pretty sure it was just some sort of mental problem, though Kyūbi had reassured him it was probably just something he had grown to react negatively to during his childhood.

Still if he was put on the same team as her he was certain she would die within the first week courtesy of asphyxiation… or he could store her in his cloak, that would probably work out fine, he could get rid of her when he got angry and she could tell him where his stuff went and what was stuck there. Then again the Jōnin they got placed under would probably cause him all sorts of problems if he did that so he would just have to hope that he wasn't put on the same team as her or that he managed to escape the village before he ended up relieving her of her life.

Right now though he was beginning to put those thoughts out of his head as he thought about the graduation exam. He knew that the first part would be a written portion, he wouldn't have any problems with that because of a plan he came up with that morning, the second was the practical portion which revolved around accuracy and taijutsu exams and then there was the technique portion which revolved around using the academy basic jutsu.

So the only portion he would have any real trouble with would be the technique exam, which he was confident he could gain a barely passable mark in when he came to it.

"Alright class, the written portion will start soon, for the duration of the test you will be disqualified if you speak or are caught cheating, now begin," Iruka said seriously before turning to face the one student that looked like he was immediately starting to cheat, "Naruto! What are you doing?!"

Silence reigned as Naruto simply stared at the instructor while using his cape to hide his paper, a copy of the academy textbook visible to him as he proceeded to write the answers. Of course as soon as the instructor headed over to him with a look of anger on his face, the blond simply hid the text wherever it vanished to when put in his cloak.

"Naruto, drop your cloak now!" the entire class tried their hardest to ignore the situation, if Naruto was stupid enough to cheat then that was his fault as far as they were concerned. Of course when Naruto dropped his cloak he immediately moved his entire body over the test without opening his mouth to speak, after all, if he was going to pretend to be using his cloak to hide his answers then he would have to try and hide them other ways as well.

Iruka was annoyed by his blond students behaviour however he was beginning to understand what the boy was doing... though he would have to check to make sure that the boy wasn't hiding anything more than his answers from the class.

Without so much as asking the blond, the pineapple haired Chūnin started searching the blond for books of any kind, it was a right that academy instructors were given during official exams only, it usually acted as quite a deterrent for most children who would consider cheating.

After several minutes of searching for paper of any kind all the Chūnin could find was the boys wallet and bento, meaning that the boy could not be cheating, especially given that the underside of the cloak was completely blank.

"Alright, get back to the exam, you have fifty minutes left," the man finally said before leaving the blond to his devices, which caused him to immediately put his cloak back up to cover his paper and start cheating again… though he also made sure to make it nowhere near perfect, just good enough to safely pass.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto would not deny he wasn't particularly good at throwing shuriken and kunai… throwing objects that shouldn't normally be thrown was a completely different matter though, he was actually quite accurate with morning stars though despite the fact you didn't really need to be when dealing with a weapon that clobbers your enemy with lots of spikes.

Stepping up to the mark, the blond couldn't really think of anything to help his score so he did all he could and picked up the sharp implements and with several rather careless tosses, managed to score himself a passable score of 62 out of 100 (a maximum of 5 points per strike with 10 kunai and 10 shuriken thrown).

Realising that the next portion of the exam would be the taijutsu section and he would be one of the last in the class to be called, second only to Yamanaka Ino because they tended to call them out in alphabetical order, the young blond decided that there was one thing to do right now… use the time to catch up on a little sleep via a short nap.

He knew what the exam entailed, a simple spar with one of the instructors during which he would have to stay in the ring for as long as possible with the time being recorded and scored with modifiers based around performance, style and physical conditioning. Since he had no style he would have a higher modifier in that area to indicate that he didn't have any specific forms for dealing with his opponents moves and he was instead acting on instinct instead of training.

However that would be negated by his physical conditioning which was one of the best in the class, surprising really considering the fact he didn't spend a lot of time training his body, focusing more on trying to get the academy jutsu down as opposed to his body.

"Uzumaki Naruto," hearing his name the boy opened his eyes, silently cursing that he had ended up thinking too much to get a quick nap in while the rest were being tested.

Quickly walking up to the ring, the boy prepared his cloak for the session, using his arms to move it onto his back where it could easily be confused with a cape. With his cloak out of the way (even if it wasn't really in the way in the first place), he proceeded to enter a rather basic ready stance facing Iruka's silver haired assistant, Mizuki.

"Hajime!" as soon as they call was made, the silver haired Chūnin immediately charged towards the azure eyed child, cocking his fist back ready to strike at the boy, only to hit air when the jinchūriki ducked under the attack, immediately aiming a sweeping kick at the man's legs.

Of course Mizuki wasn't a Chūnin for nothing and easily jumped over what he considered to be a rather futile attempt at knocking him down before he lashed out at the spiky haired youth with a basic kick while in midair.

The results weren't unexpected, when the blond caught the kick only to find his arm being jerked down as soon as the instructors foot touched ground and allowed him to turn it into an axe kick.

Knocked off balance by the unexpected move, Naruto had no choice but to release his grip on the leg and use one hand to push himself off the floor while his other arm to guard himself from the next kick that came at him with intent on knocking him away.

Using the momentum from the kick combined with his own push allowed the spiky haired boy to make it to his feet and quickly gain his balance before once again facing the Chūnin's onslaught.

Iruka couldn't stop himself from smiling at the scene before him, despite his lack of style Naruto was showing some quick reflexes and good instincts as he constantly made use of his own body and his opponents moves to put himself in more advantageous positions. If he was honest he would admit that if it wasn't for Mizuki's stronger body and greater experience, the blond would stand a good chance of winning the taijutsu spar… however as it stood the silver haired Chūnin did have those two advantages and they were enough to give him the upper hand in the match.

Naruto had to focus hard to stop himself from using his cloak to deal with the Chūnin instructor, despite his instincts he was being pushed back further and further, it wouldn't be long before the older man finally managed to push him out of the ring and he was certain he had only been in for about two minutes at the most and he really didn't want to lose a lot of points just because he was forced back by the stronger man.

Once again his imagination struck and he awaited the instructors next punch with a small grin adorning his face. As soon as the correct angle came, the blond grabbed a hold of the limb and with a quick movement, used it as a bar to allow him to slide between the larger mans legs, effectively reversing their positions in the ring and giving the whiskered academy student enough time to land a kick to the back of the Chūnin's knee, knocking him to the ground and allowing the boy to land a knee strike to the side of the silver haired instructors head.

Dazed by the hit to the head, Mizuki could do little more than take the beating the blond immediately started dishing out, his mind reeling under the assault before the blows suddenly stopped as his head finally hit the floor.

The students looked on in shock as they saw something they had never witnessed before. Mizuki's head lay outside the ring, indicating that the blond had actually won the spar, a feat that automatically granted the student full points, which practically guaranteed that they wouldn't be ranked as the deadlast.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Naruto left the ring, his mind going over the fact he had managed to catch the Chūnin off guard with his last little stunt and instead of simply surviving for five minutes like he had aimed at, he had actually succeeded in defeating the instructor, sure the students probably thought his victory was a little brutal given the fact the silver haired instructors blood was sprayed across the dirt from the relentless beating, however he and Iruka knew the damage was mostly cosmetic with the only hit that might have caused real damage being the knee strike.

"Yamanaka Ino, you're next," Iruka finally called after Mizuki shakily stood up and indicated he was capable of continuing by passing a few tests which indicated he didn't receive any brain damage from the blonds knee.

XXX XXX XXX

It was finally time. The do or die test… the academy jutsu where his goal.

"Hey, Kyūbi, are you awake?" the blue eyed youngster asked the fox in his head with a hint of nervousness present as he thought about how he always ended up failing this portion of the exam.

"Yeah, I take it you want a miniscule amount of chakra right?" the bijū asked rhetorically as it channelled a barely noticeable amount of its chakra into him, it would allow him to perform the basic three and no more, anything greater and the blond would've been completely incapable of forming the techniques correctly.

"Thanks partner," came the blonds grateful reply, earning a snort from the beast as it closed its eyes and proceeded to perform its favourite activity, sleeping.

"Uzumaki Naruto," Iruka called from the door to the small room where the students were tested on their jutsu skills. Within the room there was a rectangular table and three chairs, two situated behind the desk while Iruka and Mizuki sat on them and the other was located at the other end of the room.

The blond could feel his heart pounding as he was finally stood there, ready to perform the academy jutsu and finally become a ninja, gaining the opportunity to get out of the village in the process, all he had to do was pull off the jutsu without making too many mistakes.

"Alright, first kawarimi with that chair," Iruka ordered, his official tone dominating his voice as the blond gathered the appropriate amount of chakra and with several precise hand seals, suddenly switched places with the lone chair in the room, earning a small nod off the Chūnin as he wrote something on a clipboard held in his hands.

"Next, henge into me," once again the blond gathered the chakra loaned to him by the bijū in his gut and with several hand seals directing it, transformed into a copy of the pineapple haired ninja, it might not have been perfect, missing some minor details here and there but nothing that would give him away to anyone that wasn't intimately familiar with his appearance.

Once again the Chūnin simply gave a small nod and wrote something on his clipboard before ordering the final task, "Finally, create at least two believable bunshin."

Gathering the last of the chakra given to him by his tenant, Naruto put even more care into his hand seals than he had on the previous two jutsu's. Once he had finished the sequence, he released the chakra, creating a large cloud of smoke which quickly cleared to reveal four believable copies of the spiky haired youth in question.

"Alright, you may leave, return at three o'clock to receive your results," the scarred Chūnin told the boy who immediately gave a small bow before leaving the room in a brisk walk, his mind celebrating successfully pulling off the academy jutsu under exam conditions.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto couldn't stop himself from thinking about how close he was to finally getting the chance to leave the village walls and escape his prison at last, he was certain he barely passed each module except taijutsu which he aced, meaning he would be guaranteed a genin placement and he would finally be able to take missions, which would mean going outside the village, which would give him his chance to escape.

His senses suddenly caught notice of something heading towards him, something he knew would show up sooner or later… Uchiha Sasuke. He was the one person in the class that he had nothing against, the boy only ever showed fear towards him after he lost his temper and not before, he was almost as quiet as the blond and Shino though not quite and he always got as close to the blond as possible during recess.

The reason for that last part was something the blond respected, he was using everyone else's fear of the cloaked blond to give him a reprieve from his fangirls. He didn't know why but it was something the blond didn't hate about people, when they took advantage of something to fulfil their goals, in Sasuke's case that goal was 'escape the fan club'. The one and only time they had ignored his presence in favour of getting closer to Sasuke had ended with several of them evacuating their bowels under the blonds narrowed eyes and killing intent… fangirls annoyed him nearly as much as nervous wrecks, not quite as much but he still wanted to strangle them whenever they got near him.

Silence reigned as the blond noticed several fangirls appear and leave as soon as they saw Sasuke seated with him, he knew this much, once he finally became a ninja he wouldn't have as many annoyances to deal with before he got a chance to enact his escape and finally find somewhere he could call home.